If you haven’t noticed, the English language is pretty weird. That’s to be expected when the language is roughly 1,500 years old, has borrowed lots of grammatical rules from other languages, and has been through lots and lots of cultural diffusion. This is a brief summary of those 1,500 years and what happened to English during them." -- Isaiah Kahn, 6th grade
The English language originated in Britain in 500 CE, when multiple Germanic tribes mixed and created Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxon were the group that ruled Britain for roughly 500 years, from around 410 to 1066 CE. The language they spoke, called Anglo-Saxon but more commonly referred to as Old English, is similar to English today. While it most likely isn’t legible to the modern English speaker, you will likely still be able to spot at least one or two words that are unchanged in today’s vocabulary.
The Vikings also came around 600 CE, and their language (called Old Norse) mixed with Anglo-Saxon. Then, in 1066, the Normans conquered Britain and adopted Anglo-Saxon. The Normans, while not being Vikings, were essentially distant relatives, the root of their name being Norsemen. They made a few changes to the Anglo-Saxon (such as adding about 10,000 words), though it still is unrecognizable as the English language we know today.
From 1100 to 1500 is known as the Middle English Period. During this period, the upper class spoke a version of French, while the lower class remained speaking English. Some prefixes were also added to English, and “hw” changed to “wh” which (pun?) created words like “what” and “when.” English also became more simplified around this time, losing most of its inflections and gendered nouns.
The Vikings also came around 600 CE, and their language (called Old Norse) mixed with Anglo-Saxon. Then, in 1066, the Normans conquered Britain and adopted Anglo-Saxon. The Normans, while not being Vikings, were essentially distant relatives, the root of their name being Norsemen. They made a few changes to the Anglo-Saxon (such as adding about 10,000 words), though it still is unrecognizable as the English language we know today.
From 1100 to 1500 is known as the Middle English Period. During this period, the upper class spoke a version of French, while the lower class remained speaking English. Some prefixes were also added to English, and “hw” changed to “wh” which (pun?) created words like “what” and “when.” English also became more simplified around this time, losing most of its inflections and gendered nouns.
Upper-class French words (that have survived) tend to be what we now think of as more sophisticated than the Old English version of them. For example, “pee” is Old English but “urine” is French. There are also other things like this, such as the name for the animal (i.e cow) is Old English, but the name for the food (i.e beef) is French, or at least the version of French the Normans were using (called Norman French).
Then came Early Modern English, from around the early 1500 to the late 1700s. This was the era of Shakespear and the English Renaissance.
This era of English is relatively decipherable to the modern English speaker, what we might think of as extremely, extremely formal and proper with a few words we don’t know, and a few unabbreviated versions of words we didn’t know were abbreviated in the first place. That, and lots of slightly different spellings of words we’re pretty sure we know.
Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. During this time, he wrote 37 plays and created around 1,700 new words, such as dishearten, dwindle, critic, apostrophe, lackluster, majestic, obscene, aerial, lonely, and many other common words that are in the English language. It should be noted that he didn’t just shove a meaning into whatever he could create with his remaining bananagram tiles, but instead he would usually add prefixes or suffixes to words, combining words, or making nouns such as “elbow” into verbs (such as: I elbowed my friend in the gut).
The Great Vowel Shift also took place during this time. The Great Vowel Shift was when long vowel sounds got shortened. Vowel sounds that were already short remained mostly unchanged.
Next is the period we are in now, Late Modern English. This period is from around 1800 to the present. This is largely due to the rise of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution. This is the language we speak. This is also when English became one of the most common languages and “the official language of the world.
Finally, there’s the internet. The internet, being relatively new, hasn’t changed much about spoken language yet (aside from the few kids who use acronyms like LOL and IKR in normal conversation, but I don’t think that represents the general public), save for some words like “troll,” which used to refer an ugly creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf. There are also some words like “selfie,” which didn’t exist before the internet.
Language is rapidly changing. In a hundred years, this article will probably be out of date and include words that are rarely used anymore, and it will probably be written on a medium nobody uses anymore because of new technology that makes writing easier. And maybe in another thousand or so years, the language this is written in will be unreadable to the then-modern English speaker.
Thanks for reading!