English Language History
The Prehistory of English
410 — The Goths (speakers of a now extinct East Germanic language) sack Rome. The first Germanic tribes arrive in Britain.
Early 5th century — With the collapse of the empire, Romans withdraw from Britain. Britons are attacked by the Picts and by Scots from Ireland. Angles, Saxons, and other German settlers arrive in Britain to assist the Britons and claim territory.
43 — The Romans invade Britain, beginning 400 years of control over much of the island.
5th-6th centuries — Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects settle most of Britain. Celts retreat to distant areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales.
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The Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period (500 - 1100)
Mid 9th century — Danes raid England, occupy Northumbria, and establish a kingdom at York. Danish begins to influence English.
700 — Approximate date of the earliest manuscript records of Old 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. He uses the English language to foster a sense of national identity. England is divided into a kingdom ruled by the Anglo-Saxons (under Alfred) and another ruled by the Scandinavians.
7th century — Rise of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex; the Saxon kingdoms of Essex and Middlesex; the Angle kingdoms of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria. St. Augustine and Irish missionaries convert Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, introducing new religious words borrowed from Latin and Greek. Latin speakers begin referring to the country as Anglia and later as Englaland.
10th century — English and Danes mix fairly peacefully, and many Scandinavian (or Old Norse) loanwords enter the language, including such common words as sister, wish, skin, and die.
Late 6th century — Ethelbert, the King of Kent, is baptized. He is the first English king to convert to Christianity.
1000 — Approximate date of the only surviving manuscript of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, composed by an anonymous poet between the 8th century and the early 11th century.
The conquest of the Celtic population in Britain by speakers of West Germanic dialects (primarily Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) eventually determined many of the essential characteristics of the English language. Over time the dialects of the various invaders merged, giving rise to what we now call "Old English."
1066 — The Norman Invasion: King Harold is killed at the Battle of Hastings, and William of Normandy is crowned King of England. Over succeeding decades, Norman French becomes the language of the courts and of the upper classes; English remains the language of the majority. Latin is used in churches and schools. For the next century, English, for all practical purposes, is no longer a written language.
The Middle English Period (1100 - 1500)
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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. English becomes the official language of the law courts and replaces Latin as the medium of instruction at most schools. John Wycliffe's English translation of the Latin Bible is published. The Great Vowel Shift begins, marking the loss of the so-called "pure" vowel sounds (which are still found in many continental languages) and the loss of the phonetic pairings of most long and short vowel sounds.
1362 — The Statute of Pleading makes English the official language in England. Parliament is opened with its first speech delivered in English.
Late 13th century — Under Edward I, royal authority is consolidated in England and Wales. English becomes the dominant language of all classes.
1258 — King Henry III is forced to accept the Provisions of Oxford, which establish a Privy Council to oversee the administration of the government. These documents, though annulled a few years later, are generally regarded as England's first written constitution.
Late 15th century — William Caxton brings to Westminster (from the Rhineland) the first printing press and publishes Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Literacy rates increase significantly, and printers begin to standardize English spelling. The monk Galfridus Grammaticus (also known as Geoffrey the Grammarian) publishes Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae, the first English-to-Latin wordbook.
1209 — The University of Cambridge is formed by scholars from Oxford.
1204 — King John loses control of the Duchy of Normandy and other French lands; England is now the only home of the Norman French/English.
1171 — Henry II declares himself overlord of Ireland, introducing Norman French and English to the country. About this time the University of Oxford is founded.
1150 — Approximate date of the earliest surviving texts in Middle English.
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.
The Modern English Period (1500 to the Present)
Late Modern English (1800 to the present)
Early Modern Period (1500-1800)
Mid 19th century — A standard variety of American English develops. English is established in Australia, South Africa, India, and other British colonial outposts.
1852 — The first edition of Roget's Thesaurus is published.
1879 — James A.H. Murray begins editing the Philological Society's New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (later renamed the Oxford English Dictionary).
1828 — Noah Webster publishes his American Dictionary of the English Language. Richard Whateley publishes Elements of Rhetoric.
1803 — The Act of Union incorporates Ireland into Britain, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1810 — William Hazlitt publishes A New and Improved Grammar of the English Language.
Early 16th century — The first English settlements are made in North America. William Tyndale's English translation of the Bible is published. Many Greek and Latin borrowings enter English.
1553 — Thomas Wilson publishes The Art of Rhetorique, one of the first works on logic and rhetoric in English.
During the period of Modern English, British exploration, colonization, and overseas trade hastened the acquisition of loanwords from countless other languages and fostered the development of new varieties of English (World English), each with its own nuances of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Since the middle of the 20th century, the expansion of North American business and media around the world has led to the emergence of Global English as a lingua franca.
1611 — The Authorized Version of the English Bible (the "King James" Bible) is published, greatly influencing the development of the written language.
1586 — The first grammar of English — William Bullokar's Pamphlet for Grammar — is published.
1662 — The Royal Society of London appoints a committee to consider ways of "improving" English as a language of science.
1588 — Elizabeth I begins her 45-year reign as queen of England. The British defeat the Spanish Armada, boosting national pride and enhancing the legend of Queen Elizabeth.
1667 — John Milton publishes his epic poem Paradise Lost.
1590-1611 — William Shakespeare writes his Sonnets and the majority of his plays.
1712 — Anglo-Irish satirist and cleric Jonathan Swift proposes the creation of an English Academy to regulate English usage and "ascertain" the language.
1603 — Queen Elizabeth dies and James I (James VI of Scotland) accedes to the throne.
1719 — Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe, considered by some to be the first modern English novel.
1604 — Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, the first English dictionary, is published.
1697 — In his Essay Upon Projects, Daniel Defoe calls for the creation of an Academy of 36 "gentlemen" to dictate English usage.
1715 — Elisabeth Elstob publishes the first grammar of Old English.
1760-1795 — This period marks the rise of the English grammarians (Joseph Priestly, Robert Lowth, James Buchanan, John Ash, Thomas Sheridan, George Campbell, William Ward, and Lindley Murray), whose rule books, primarily based on prescriptive notions of grammar, become increasingly popular.
1776 — The Declaration of Independence is signed, and the American War of Independence begins, leading to the creation of the United States of America, the first country outside the British Isles with English as its principal language.
1721 — Nathaniel Bailey publishes his Universal Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, a pioneer study in English lexicography: the first to feature current usage, etymology, syllabification, clarifying quotations, illustrations, and indications of pronunciation.
1884/1885 — Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn introduces a colloquial prose style that significantly influences the writing of fiction in the U.S.
1939 — World War II begins.
1945 — World War II ends. The Allied victory contributes to the growth of English as a lingua franca.
1957 — Noam Chomsky publishes Syntactic Structures, a key document in the study of generative and transformational grammar.
1969 — Canada officially becomes bilingual (French and English). The first major English dictionary to use corpus linguistics — The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language — is published.
1989 — The second edition of The Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1995 — David Crystal publishes The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.
2009 — The two-volume Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is published by Oxford University Press.
