Mid 9th century —Danes raid England, occupy Northumbria, and establish a kingdom at York. Danish begins to influence English. Late 9th century —King Alfred of Wessex (Alfred the Great) leads the Anglo-Saxons to victory over the Vikings, translates Latin works into English and establishes the writing of prose in English.
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The Middle English period saw the breakdown of the inflectional system of Old English and the expansion of vocabulary with many borrowings from French and Latin. 1150 —Approximate date of the earliest surviving texts in Middle English.
Over the next 500 years, there were many more factors in the development of English. Colonization, the invention of the printing press, the Renaissance, exploration, the Industrial Revolution, and the American Revolution all either allowed English to spread or brought influences from other languages.
English becomes the dominant language of all classes. Mid to late 14th century —The Hundred Years War between England and France leads to the loss of almost all of England's French possessions. The Black Death kills roughly one-third of England's population. Geoffrey Chaucer composes The Canterbury Tales in Middle English.
Michael Wood outlined 10 ways in which these northern European migrants changed the course of British history Anglo-Saxon settlers first started colonising parts of Britain in the fifth century AD and, over the following 500 years or so, would establish themselves as the foremost power in the British Isles.
During the next few hundred years, the English language continued to evolve and grow. Colonization and the invention of the printing press were huge influences on the spread of English. At the same time, other languages continued to have an influence. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Renaissance, which was a revival of classical culture, brought the Latin language back to the forefront. In addition, exploration, the Industrial Revolution, and the American Revolution brought even more languages face to face with English. The largest effect of these events was more and more loanwords entering the English language.
The major impact of this historical event was the number of loanwords, which are borrowed words, incorporated into the English tongue.
Because of these tribes, the ancestors of Englishmen are classified as Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon people pushed the Britons back towards present-day Ireland and Scotland. This invasion continued through the fifth century, and by the sixth century all the structure left by the Romans was in shambles. The Germanic tribes had such an influence on the region that English is known as a Germanic language.
You might be wondering, 'If the Latin languages had such an impact, then why is English classified as a Germanic language?' The answer is that the main influence on English actually came from the Germanic tribes who settled in central Europe. These languages include German, Dutch, Austrian, and Swedish.
By the mid 1300s, the Normans and Englishmen had merged to the point where there was little real difference. At this time, the Black Death started to appear, and by its end , two-thirds of Europe's population perished. However, during this time of turmoil, the English language became more important, as it was the only language of the lower classes. Also around this time, the Hundred Years' War began, which pitted England against France. These two events allowed the English language to again take over as the official language of the region.
We'll focus today on English, which is a part of the Germanic language family. England has been inhabited back to the dawn of man. Little is known of the language of the very first people, but eventually the Celts grew to be popular in the area between 400 and 200 BCE.
Germanic invasions brought in an age of destruction and dark times. The invasion began around 449 CE after the Romans had left the territory. The Briton people had been dependent on the Romans for so long that they were not able to defend themselves from invading forces. The tribes that invaded were the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
It was here too that Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the defining text of the English people – a history of Britain as it looked in AD 731, with its English, Irish, Welsh, Pictish and Latin speakers.
In Cambridge, there’s a sixth-century illuminated book, the Augustine Gospels, which – so tradition has it – the pilgrim brought with him. Its paintings of the Bible story are a glorious evocation of the Mediterranean roots of English Christianity. 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Anglo-Saxons.
Founded in AD 685, Jarrow was the sister house to Wearmouth (674) – and, for an extraordinary 50 years, the double monastery transformed European civilisation. It transmitted key texts in religion, culture, history and science from the lost libraries of Italy. It even popularised the AD dating system now in use worldwide. It was here too that Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the defining text of the English people – a history of Britain as it looked in AD 731, with its English, Irish, Welsh, Pictish and Latin speakers.
It’s a story revealed in the Textus Roffensis (also known as the Rochester Codex), England’s greatest law book and, for me, an even more important text than Magna Carta. The Codex contains the earliest written English – in Kentish laws from c600 – and later codes include records of meetings in which Alfred’s grandson Æthelstan consults with his council over crime and punishment, law and order.
Theodore and Hadrian worked tirelessly, organising the church across England, training priests, and imparting knowledge of Greek and Latin civilisation. “This was the happiest time for the English people,” wrote the eighth-century English historian Bede.
Domesday Book is so important because it gives us a statistical portrait of the England bequeathed us by the Anglo-Saxons, with its structures of local government, its shires and hundreds, towns and villages (13,418 of them!). But at the heart of the book are the people themselves. So let’s end with the story of a Domesday farming family, from Cockerington in the Lincolnshire Wolds, who were descended from the old class of Anglo-Danish freemen. A century after Hastings, their great-granddaughter Christiana married a Norman, marking the process by which the conquered and the conquerors made peace.
One of the best places to savour the glories of early English poetry, surprisingly, is in southern Scotland. On the coastal plain beyond the Solway Firth is Ruthwell, which was once in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Today, Ruthwell is home to a majestic 20ft stone cross that stands inside the local church.
Tensions for power mounted between the French and English and resulted in the The Hundred Years War. This eventually led to English becoming the language of power.
This has a huge effect on the course of English as Christianity dominates the religious influence within Europe, making the language far more accessible to the general people, furthering outreaching its grasp as the dominant language across the globe.
The Royal Society (an invisible college) is formed during the period of Enlightenment to promote the new philosophy of promoting knowledge of the natural world through observation and experiment, which we now call science. The era forces philosophers to create new words to name the discoveries they found in their experiments and proved to have a huge impact on the language of science which we still use today.
The Romans leave Britain and Germanic tribes (e.g- the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons) claim more than half of the defenseless country.
William Shakespeare, an English poet and playwright, contributes 38 plays to the English society and enrichens the language with regards to culture. Even after his death, the evolution and prosperity of the English language can be attributed to Shakespeare’s 2000 and some words that he created to enhance his works.
History is important: every day, we are reminded of the power of the past to shape our lives and the society we live in, be it a family, nation, culture, religion, or some other historically constituted community. The way we understand history shapes our present and how we view the world and affects how we understand reality and our own futures.
On many continents, colonialism caused changes in culture, language, society, and economics; it also caused the deaths of millions as European nations brutalized the natives, mostly through private enterprises with the blessings of their monarchs for their “civilizing” missions. Anti-colonialist movements picked up steam after the two world wars, and many of these countries would gain their independence. But the colonial period didn’t officially end until Portugal transferred Macau to China in 1999.
Not only did it shape the entire modern world as we know it and pave the way for capitalism to conquer feudalism, it set the stage for revolutionary uprisings and changes in all parts of the globe. The period of radical social and political upheaval during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that followed had a lasting impact not just on France or Europe, but the entire planet. It will always be remembered as the event that ended feudalism and whose shockwaves led to a total transformation of social structures in every country.
Education was no longer limited to a select few. Books were not just for the rich and affluent; as their price dropped, they could be sold to the lower classes as well. Political pamphlets could be printed up by the thousands and influence social movements like never before. Gutenberg’s printing press changed the world and the everyday life of human beings.
The most distinctive features of Renaissance culture were its anti-feudal, secular, humanistic character and worldview. It was an awakening to the world and the beginning of the modern era.
The printing press is perhaps the most important invention of the last 2,000 years. German printer Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press introduced movable type printing to Europe, revolutionizing literacy and acting as a catalyst for the spread of knowledge throughout the world.
The Renaissance triggered the rebirth of civilization after the Black Death, pushing ignorance aside and giving birth to the development of mathematics and astronomy. Books were printed for the first time, giving the common man the ability to read at will (previously the domain of priests and monks). Science, art, and literature advanced to new heights. World maps were drawn up and new civilizations discovered, as we finally rejected the idea that the earth was the center of the universe.