ENGLISH CHAPTER 1 (language history, change and variation)

 The main phases in the history of English;

 Concepts of change and variation: how and why;
 Attitudes to language: standard and non-standard varieties;
 Causes oft he spread of English in the world;
 Present-day English: from English to „Englishes“;
 English as a global language: advantages and disadvantages and future prediction.
What English family belongs to?  Indo-European Languages

The story of English started in a small island called England.

United Kingdom originally is a combination of different Kingdoms that Great Britain the main land
used to be separated in:  England
 England (Londra)  Scotland
 Scotland (north) One main land  Wales
 Wales (west)
 North Ireland is part of UK
South Ireland, the Republic of Ireland is not part of UK but it’s an independent country that’s why after Brexit is
continues to stay in EU. The main reason of the division between UK and Republic of Ireland is Religion.

TIMELINE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE The History of English language (HEL) is divided into 4
main period:
1. Old English (OE) 700-1150 (Anglo-Saxon period)
2. Middle English (ME) 1150-1500 (Norman period)
3. Modern English (ModEngl) 1500-1900 divided
into early Modern English (1500-1700) and Modern
English (1700-1900). GB and North Ireland united
under the British crow. New territories explored and
stable colonies established in America, Asia and Africa.
4. Present day English (PDE) 20th century until today.

Hadrian’s Wall (122 AD) was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Was built during Hadrian emperor and it was the first of two fortifications
build across GB.
BEFORE ENGLISH (2000 BC - 700 AC) there were other languages:
 Celtic group of ppl that lived in Europe since 2000 BC and appeared in Britain from 100 BC before the Roman and
Anglo-Saxon invasions. These were the ppl that used to populated major part of the continent. They were speaking Celtic
language. Today we still have very few Celtics words that still exist. Those are in particular names of cities and Towns
(Avon=river; London as well is a Celtic word). As language itself, it almost died because of the influence and domination
of English language but lately there is more awareness of preservation of the language. (will be moved to the north and
the south.
 Latin  55-54 BC (1st century) Julius Caesar and the Romans invaded the British Isles (Romans left in the 5th century). Once
they invaded, they started to impose the Roman life style (they build the Roman bath f.ex) and the Latin as language
which became the language of public and private recordings (written and spoken). The Roman heritage can still be
detected in some urban terminology such as Antiquaantique; insulaisland; The Romans were pushed out by the
Anglo-Saxon.
 Anglo-Saxon They won against the Romans. The invasion from Anglo-Saxons is going to introduce the old English.
Here starts the history of English language when in the mid- 5th century some West-Germanic tribes (Anglo-Saxon and
Jutes) arrived in England and settled in the south and east of the island. Many Celts were destroyed, and many others
were forced to move to west (Wales) and to the north (Scotland). They were using RUNIC ALPHABET (based on symbols).
 West-Saxonian was considered the first standard written language because this reign was the most important
military, religious and cultural centre in Europe.
Two important historical episodes effected the history of English:
 The invasion of Scandinavian
 The conquest from Norman in 1066

1. Old English (OE) 700-1150 (language that comes from the Anglo-Saxon dialect.)
Introduction of Old English language:
 Christianisation of Britain (6th century) this event mostly contributed to the shape of OE language. The main
consequence was the re-introduction of the Latin alphabet (was already with the invasion of Romans) in writing form
Especially for religion purposes and slowly they started to abandon the Runic alphabet. From the 9 th to 11th century
manuscripts were translated from Latin to Old English. Was very difficult to swap from Latin to English language especially
because there were a lot of resistances from the churches and religion people. Those considered that English was just the
everyday language. In Religion contest they didn’t want to use English language. Writing was not common. In that period
only reach ppl or ppl from the church were the only people who could write.
 The invasion of Scandinavian (from 8th century) the first Scandinavian settlers were Vikings located in the North-
eastern part of England. The intention of Vikings when they arrived to North-Est of England, was not to settle in there but
to remove the richness of Jutes, Angles and Saxons (Anglo-Saxon). Little by little they changed the tactics and they started
to destroy all the Anglo-Saxons kingdoms. They expanded all through the island until King Alfred the Great, the head of
West Saxon reign, defeated (ha sconfitto) them in the 9 th century (887 AD) and pushed them out of his Kingdom. He also
re-conquer part of the Scandinavian possession saving his kingdom and also the West-Saxon language dialect which is
considered the first standard written language and/or the language associated to with political, military and cultural
power. King Alfred encouraged the use of English for writing.

Main languages characteristics/features of OE it was highly inflected or synthetic language.

 Latin language is introduced to replace the Runic alphabet this was a symbolical language used only for short
conversation.
 Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are distinguished by case, number and gender;
 Two types of verbs: strong and weak they correspond to irregular and regular verbs in PDE;
 Word order was prevalent SVO but VSO or OVS was also used. So it was free;
 Lexis was mainly Germanic but included a small percentage word on Celtics (names of Places e.g London), Latin
especially the once related to religion and education (e.g scol from schola) and Scandinavian origin (simple life-words
e.g cake, dream). The main language effect of Scandinavian invasion on the OE vocabulary, was the ranges of
technical terms for ships, warfare and regarding legal institutions.

2. Middle English (ME) 1150-1500 (Norman period)

Major historical events in the whole Middle English period:
1066 The conquest from Norman. A new ruling class coming from France, went into power. Normans will try to impose
French as language.
1204 the Normans lost their power and they came back to English language.
1215 an important document appears. This is the Magna Charta Libertatum. Is a founding document in the British
politics, laws, constitution. Document that is used as a references today as constitution. This document tries to reduce
the power of the king to give more power to the Parliament and to the aristocratic.
14th C the most authoritative example of written literary English: the Canterbury Tales (2nd founding document)
1476 introduction of the printing press in England by William Caxton.

We can distinguish three main stages for ME:

 Transitional stage (1066-1150) The Norman Conquest of 1066 is considered the starting point of the Middle English
period. This event had profound effects on the society and language that effected the whole country because Norman
were French speakers. This produced an re-organization of political power and progressive marginalization of the rich
Anglo-Saxon cultural and literary tradition. During this period three languages were spoken: French (used for
Government, law and administration and was the language of power; Latin was the language of the church and education
(due to the Christianization) and English that was still the language of the majority of the population. The Normans
integrated English society thought marriage. Little by little, those who got integrated in the society with the marriage,
started to use English also in family so there was a gradual shift to English. (French vocabulary
 Early ME (1150-1350) period during which English replaced French as the language of the law and culture especially
after the Normans lost their power in favour of English kings in 1204.
 Late ME (1350- late 15th) period that saw many social-cultural changes in particularly urbanisation and the introduction
of the printing press by William Caxton (1476). In 1362, English was the official language of the Parliament.

Main linguistic features of Middle English:

 Reduction of the case system in particular in nouns and adjectives;
 Development of the feature with shall/will and the present progressive;
 Introduction of the pronoun “she/shoe”;
 The fixing of the word order SVO as in the PDE;
 French (Marry marier) and Latin (inferior) influence on vocabulary.

3. Modern English (ModEngl) 1500-1900. During this period, Britain became an united and powerful country and laid
the foundation (ha gettato le basi) of its colonial world power.
Is commonly divided in:
 Early Modern English 1500-1700. In the mid-16 th century England separated completely from the Catholic power
and from the Church of Rome. Even though, in arts and literature, French, Italian and classical Latin cultures, were still
a strong influence.
-During the reign of Elisabeth I (1559-1603) started the power of Britain in the seas because the Queen encouraged
the first naval explorations, financed naval warfare and supported the creation of the first colonies in the New World.
-The works of William Shakespeare influenced the entire English language.
- King James called King James Bible, was the one who gave the order to translate the Bible from Latin to English
(1611). In this way also common ppl who were not acculturated and didn’t know Latin, could accede to the Bible.
- period that is considered the stage when started a new ‘consciousness’ about how important was to have a fix
English vocabulary and fix English grammar. So started to be important to standardize the language. William Caxton
was the first to officially declare the importance of a standard language. This was possible thanks to the first
dictionary that were printed. The standardization was completed by the 19 th century.
 (Late) Modern English 1700-1900. By the 18th century:
-Britain possessed colonies worldwide;
- English trading companies (società commmerciali inglesi) were established in India and South America;
- Britain had a major role in the Atlantic slave trade (tratta degli schiavi).
In these countries, English became gradually the language of those domains were Latin and French were previously
used (government, law, literature, education, religion….)
-The first English newspapers were born and English was used even as the medium of intellectual communication.
-Industrial revolution important because with this started the creation of special terminology due to the
technological improvement.
-ModEng sees the establishment of the Received Pronunciation (RP) thanks to the completion of the Great Vowel
Shift. The word order became almost completely fixed.
-multiple negation was used (ex. I cannot do it not more).
-uses the order word following the SVO system.

4. Present day English (PDE) 20th century until today.

This period is a complex concept. It’s the period of war and USA got the major power.
Features:
There is a standard variety (there is no variation regarding the word order, so it stays in SVO) which come from a long
process of linguistic selection, codification through grammars and dictionaries and development of a standard accent.
The stratified history of English means that a great number of past languages have contributed to the creation of
present-day English.
English is better understood as Umbrella term includes number of different, but related varieties of English.
Languages that share a common core of grammar and vocabulary. The only differences are in pronunciation and some
aspects of lexis. The two main varieties are British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) but there are many more
varieties.
 LANGUAGE CHANGE
Is a natural phenomenon. Language, as all social aspect of human life, is subject to constant process. Languages change
everytime and they adapt to the history and culture of the places where that language is used. This change can happen:
 Suddenly with the introduction of new words;
 Or slowly for example with different pronunciation from generation to generation.

STANDARD VS NON-STANDARD VARIETIES

STANDARD Is considered the language per excellence in terms of social prestige and is the language that is used for
different functions and domains of use;
NON-STANDARD VARIETIES have been regarded as “irregularly patterned” and “unsystematic” with respect to
standard.

- The West-Saxon dialect in the Old English period (the first standard written language in the 9 th-11th century.
- London English used by Caxton in the 15 th century (he started to print and write lot of texts and ppl got used to that
and that’s how the writing system became standardized.
- English used by educated speakers and mass media all over the world in the 21th century.

Sociolinguistic (the study of the relation between the language and the society) helps to understand of how languages
behaviour and language variability are influenced by social factors or social variables such as social class, social network,
sex/gender, ethnicity, age, the context in which the interaction takes place.

There are two approaches to historical language change:

 Comparative linguistics which is based on the concept of “proto-language” which means from which family the
language comes from. (English is a Germanic language which originated from Indo-Europian);
 The history of language which is the study of the changes of the single language over the countries. The causes of
the change can be external (by extralinguistic or social factors such as technology innovation such as the industrial
revolution during mod.Engl that introduced new words) or internal (analogy).

 Before WW2 American ppl used to pronounce words in the exactly same way of British ppl (for example they were not
pronouncing the “r” in teacher). After the 2WW USA became the superpower and, because of more awareness, they
wanted to distinguish themselves also with the language. So instead of dropping the “r” they started to use it. This was
linked to the fact of being part of a higher classes who was educated classes.

WILLIAM LABOV, pioneer of sociolinguistic, started to make some studies about the pronunciation of American English. He
categorized the ppl into three main classes
- Higher classes (above 8)
- Middle classes (6-8)
- Lower classes (0-5) “r pronounced less than the other classes”.

and he started to see how those different classes were pronouncing the R regarding the CASUAL SPEECH and it came out
the Lower classes pronounced the R less as the other classes. In a 2 nd experiment he told those ppl that pronouncing the R
was some kind of prestigious way to pronounce the language rather than not pronouncing that refer to ppl who were part
of lower classes. At this point all the ppl from all classes, started to increase the use of the R.

(CAREFUL SPEECH/READING STYLE) When he asked to read, those results increased more and more. The ones belonging to
the middle classes even started to use the R more to those ones who belonged to the higher class. This is a Phenomenon
that in Sociolinguistic is called HYPERCORRECTION is more typical of socially insecure speakers such as middles classes
and woman.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CAUSES OF CHANGE OF LANGUAGE

Internal those factors that infect the language internally ant this could be the regularisation (e.g the levelling of the OE
inflectional case system or the analogical spread of regular forms).
External which refers to the extralinguistic or social factors (invasions, technological, immigration)
Differences between:
1. Phonological change mutation within the sound system of a language. We distinguee two form of mutation:
- Sporadic change that refers to changes which affect the sound of a limited number of words. Es: the loss of “r” in OE
spraec (PDE speak) or the aspiration of PDE voiceless plosives (p,t,k) in word such as pool, tool and cool.
 - Regular change that implies the re-organization of the phonological inventory of a language. Rule that applies to all
sounds. Es. In 1600 (Early modEngl) there was a split in two different sound in “n” as sin and “ɳ” as sing.
The most important form of regular change of the English language is THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT(GVS) started in the
15th C (ME period) and ended in the 17 th C (it lasted for over 200 years). The GVS is a form of “unconditioned”
phonological change. This shift involved all of English’s long vowels (deal) and diphthongs (eia)

We also have conditioned phonological change that refers to a phonological change which is conditioned by a specific
phonetic enviroment. They effect very specific sounds:
Voiced vs Voiceless splits ”f” vs “v”. In OE those were used to represent two different allophones. In the Early ME there
was a split into separetly phonemes. The sounds that couse vibration are colled Voices sounds. The once that don’t cause
any vibration, are calles voiceless splits.
Loss of velar and patal Velar sounds are pronunciated by the throat. Palat sounds are made from the upper side of the
throat and the

2. Morpho-syntactic change during the history of English language, there have been so many changes in morpho-
phonematic and syntactic system:
Morphological is referred of what happens at the level of the word and regarding the inflections, so how can it change
through the years (ex. Levelling of the OE case system nouns, adjective used to have cases. But now only one case
survived which is the genitive case. And also the singular and plural forms survived)
Syntactic is referred to the word order and grammaticalization development from lexical to grammatical forms of
from a less grammatical to a more grammatical status (ex. OE wilan (want) main verb PDE will (modal verb)).

Mechanisms of morpho-syntactic changes:

 Analogy process of modelling a language form, in relation to an already existing form of the language. Ex. The
extension of the plural inflection -s which was used in “stan (PDE stone) (OE pl stanas) to most nouns including the
ones who had a different plural inflection.
 Hypercorrection speakers’ awareness of the social value of the different language varieties within their speech
community. Ex. “between you and I” where I is used instead of me in the object case. (If we have to use as subject, we
use I “you and I are going to have troubles”; if we have to use as object then we would say “the chair is between
you and me”).
 Backformation the process of creating a new language form, by delating a specific letter or sound in a specific word,
instead of adding. Ex. The adjective “obsessive” that with the phenomenon of the backformation, creates the verb “to
obsess”.

3. Semantic change refers to any mutation in the meaning of every lexical word which is influenced by external factors
such as scientific innovation, influence of foreign languages and socio-cultural change. There are different kinds of
semantic change. Two types involve a change of meaning:
 Widening more meanings of a particular item in more than one context (ex. holiday that before was holy-day and
had a religious significance and now is used for any day we don’t work);
 Narrowing which indicates the opposite process of widening and it’s the process according to which words begin to
develop with a more specific meaning than the one they started with (es mio “deer” originally meant animal
(related to a German word “Tier”, but it became restricted and now means a specific kind of animal—CERVO)
and two other types affect connotation:
 Pejoration (degradation) when a word with a positive meaning, develops in a negative one. This effect is linked
to speakers’ attitude and prejudice (ex. “wench” that meant in OE “girl”, and the new meaning is wanton
woman).
 Amelioration (elevation) which means making better, an improvement of the meaning (ex. “minister” that in
Mod-Engl has a positive meaning and means a civil servant with higher rank and comes from OE “minister” that
means a servant).
THE ENGLISHES PARADIGM
(importante) At the beginning of 20th century (from 900) Britain and UK used to be the super power (British empire) with
many colonies around the world in Africa, Asia, south and north America.
1980 the focus shifted from what are the norms and standard of British English as we know is, to how users of English
language use English or how English is used in different contests (different countries and different contests).

Distinzione basata su:

 Geographical location (American English, African English…)
 Linguistic and ethnic association (Chinese English, Indian English)
 Activities such as commerce, education, culture and technology (legal English, standard English, Policespeak)
 Combination of location and activity (American legal English, British medical English)
 Fusion of English with other languages (Frenglish, Spanglish)

DIASPORA OF ENGLISH (3 PHASES)  The Spread of English globally has happened along three mainstages:
1st Phase Refers to the expansion of English within the British Isles named Scotland, Wales and afterwards Ireland. The
process started in the 5 th century with the arrival of the first Germanic tribes and contributed in the ME with the
establishment of English-speaking colonies in Ireland and the conquest of Wales in 13 th century.

2nd Phase is associated with the discovery of new territories and the establishment of the British colonies in the USA,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. When those territories were occupied, a new English develop as Pidgin
English (combination of English with other languages) and Credes English (the form of Pidgin that a child would learn as
mother tongue) which were used at that time as Lingua Franca for communication in trading exchanges (scambi
commerciali) and between African slaves and their British masters (maestri britannici). These colonies got independent
after 2WW. Some of those ex colonies, continued to keep English as their language (in India for examples there are many
languages but for administration they use English language as reunification between all the other languages). Other
colonies acted in a different way.

3rd Phase concerns the diffusion of English as L2 (second language) such as Africa and Asia and it mainly refers to the
19th and 20th century American Imperialism including globalization.

The spread of English has resulted in the formation of new varieties of Englishes.

The use of English in the world has been represented in three concentric circles:

INNER CIRCLE traditional native speaker

OUTER CIRCLE second language speakers of English

EXPANDING CIRCLE speakers of English in foreign

language context.

ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE

3 mayor aspect of English as a global language can be identified:
1. The establishment of new English-speaking communities in new geographical and socio-cultural contexts;
2. The contact and mutual influence between English and other non-genetically related languages;
3. The formation of non-native varieties of English or global Englishers.

THE VARIETY OF ENGLISH

Regional, Social Englishes, Post colonial Englishes, immigrant Englishes, Pidgin and Creoles Englishes, Shift-Englishes and
English as Lingua Franca.

Global Englishes can be considered in two different ways:

 - Polylectical continuum. Different degrees of standard
- Bilingualism in countries where English is used as 2 nd Language. In these cases English is used for education
(instrumental), for administration and bureaucracy (regulative), in a verbal communication between two
incomprehensible languages (interpersonal) or as the language of different literary genres (imaginative).

WORLD ENGLISHES (also called postcolonial Englishes)

They developed through 5 different chronologically order stages:
 Foundation the spread of English in non-English speaking countries worldwide;
 Exonormative use the imposition of the varieties of English spoken by local native speakers;
 Nativization which represents the mixing and hybridization of both local/native communities and English native
speakers;
 Endonormative stabilization the birth of an indigenous variety which is accepted by the majority of the members
of the speech community.
 Differentiation awareness of the sociolinguistic value of the new variety of English.

NATIVIZATION AND ACCULTURATION

The nativization and acculturation of Nigerian English:

 Borrowing is the process by which a word from one language, is adopted in another language.
 Nativizationprocess though which a language readjusts at the phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical
levels due to the influence of a local languages and socio-cultural factors. Some standard words which adapt with a
new meaning to the local context;
 The adoption and change of the original meaning of words (machine- a motor cycle; station- place where one works;
big/senior boy- a rich and influential man

THE LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF WORLD ENLISHES

They are the results of language nativization and acculturation which are reflected in morpho-syntactic variation in global
Englishes:

 The deletion of noun plural marker (I know people who speak with those accent);
 The substitution of singular me with plural us (he says, give us a fiver for it, Ted, and you can have it);
 The absence of copular be in the present tense (the house (is) very nice).

ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA (ELF)

Any language within any century, in which that language is used as the language of communication between people and
community who don’t necessarily speak that language (for example “Latin” have been used as lingua franca because was
the language of powerful as it was the language of Christianity). ELF is when a specific language dominates the others
because is the language spoken by powerful ppl or community. Language that is used for communication.

The structures and functions of ELF:

1. The replacement of the consonant fricative phonemes (t-d) (thin becomes tin)
2. The dropping of the third person tense (if a woman have a very ugly appearance)

English in the mix

We need to focus on the multilingual nature of English and try to understand how it co-exists and co-occurs with other
languages and semiotic resources.
We need to shift our attention from its structural, grammatical forms towards how language resources (non-standard
varieties, styles registers, circulate and relocate worldwide).

The focal point is not on the English language itself, ot in isolation; as has been recalled, wherever English occurs, either in
face to face or digital interactions, it is often in the mix (code switching).

DOMANDE DEL PRIMO CAPITOLO: (una domanda di capitolo 1; 2 del secondo capitolo; 2 del 3 capitolo; 1 domanda del 4
capitolo)

1. RIORDINARE GLI EVENTI IN ORDINE CRONOLOGICO

B
 a. The GVS takes place
b. The Celts rule the British Isles
c. The Saxons settle in Britain
d. The three-circle model of PDE is devised
e. The Norsemen invade the British Isles
f. The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England begins
g. The first dictionary of the English language is compiled
h. Many colonies are no longer under British rule
i. King Alfred defeated the Viking settlers
j. First version of the Bible written in English

A- The Celts rule the British Isles

B- The Saxons settle in Britain
C- The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England begins
D- King Alfred defeated the Vikings settlers
E- The Norsemen invaded the British Isles
F- The GVS take place (1400)
G- First version of the Bible written in English (1611).
H- The first dictionary of English language is compiled (1755)
I- Many colonies are no longer under British rule (1783)
J- The three-cicle model of PDE is devised

2. The Germanic roots of the English language: outline some historical facts and linguistic features of the language/s
used in the British Isles in the Old English period.

3. Explain the different status and functions of English in countries where it is used as an ESL or an EFL, with particular
regard to education.
ESL English as second language. Used for students who are studying English, in an English speaking country. ESL
students learn English as a Second Language in a foreign country, where English is the predominant language. This means
that in a ESL class, most probably students have different linguacultural backgrounds.
EFL English as foreign language. Students learn English in their own country. So for example in a EFL class, students
would share the same native language.

4. Provide a definition of Standard English and identify the historical periods in which the need for standardization of the
language was felt more urgently and why.
Standard English is considered the language per excellence in terms of social prestige and it’s the language that is used
for different functions; The process of standardization started already during the Middle English but It was interrupted by
the invasion of Norman that effected the whole country as they were speaking French and tried to impose their language
that became the language for Government, administration, and power. The need for standardization of the language,
however, was felt more urgently during the modern English period, when Britain England separated completely from
catholic power and from the Church of Rome, and King James gave the order to translate the Bible from Latin to English
in the way that also not acculturated people could accede to it. That’s why people start to be more conscious about how
important was to have a standardize language. This was completed by the 19 th century and was also possible thanks to
the first dictionary that were printed thanks to the invention of the printing press introduced by William Caxton

5. Are New Englishs the result of deviations from the standard norms or the result of linguistic creativity? Discuss.

6. During the Modern English period the need to standardize the language was particularly urgent. Explain why London
English was considered to be the best model.
7. “The speech community of present-day English is a multicultural place.” Discuss.
This sentence means that the Present-day English is the result of all the previous historical events. In fact many have been
the languages through the years that have been spoken in the territory because for example of the invasions by
populations that populated the territory imposing their style of life but especially their languages. All of those languages
have contributed to the shape of the present-day English and that’s why many Latin, Germanic (Anglo-Saxon), French,
Greek words are still present.

Also, English is today spoken in different countries. In some it is spoken as the foreign language and we would call it EFL,
in some other it is used as second language and we would call it ESL. In countries where English is the foreign language,
there are varieties of English that differ sometimes for pronunciation and some aspects of lexis. The two main varieties
are British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) but there are many more varieties as the Australian English

STORIA DELLA LINGUA INGLESE

English belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, specifically Germanic languages (together with for
example German, Swedish etc.) The beginnings date back to the 5th century, when tribes of Angles, Saxons and
Jutes invaded Britain and started to settle there. Before the Anglo-Saxons, Britain was occupied by other tribes,
e.g. The Beaker People, the Celts and the Romans. These nations, however, did not influence today´s English very
much. The language of the Celts left only a few words, such as Thomas, Thames etc. With latin of the Romans it
was another matter. There are many words from latin in English today, but they came into English later.

The first English, called Old English, was the language of the Anglo-Saxons, who spoke a kind of Germanic
language. It was in its nature a synthetic language (see synthetic and analytic languages). It changed little for a
few hundred years. The only considerable influence was the Scandinavian language of the Vikings who raided
Britain from the 8th to the 11th century. Their language, however, was also one of Germanic origin.

The great change occured at the end of 11th century. In 1066, the Normans, led by William the Conqueror,
invaded Britain and defeated the Anglo-Saxon King Harold in the Battle of Hastings. They spoke French and
together with the language, they brought their culture, political system etc. with them and introduced them in
Britain. Thus a germanic and an italic language mixed and formed so called Middle English. For a today´s reader,
it is much more understandable than Old English. English slowly dropped its inflection and was becoming more
an analytic language.

At the end of 15th century, Rennaissance found its way to Britain as well as the bookprint. This brought many
new changes into the culture and the language. Books were much more accessible to common people. English
also borrowed (see Borrowing and Lending) many words from other languages, such as French, Italian, Spanish,
Latin and Greek. From this century we speak of so called Modern English, although it was still a lot different from
the English that is used today.