Origins and History of the English Language

Celtic languages are spoken in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. These are not considered English.
Irish English and Scottish English are varieties of English that are influenced by Celtic languages.
Celts were displaced or mixed with people in Britain, and their languages were pushed west.

The Roman Empire ruled much of Europe until 476 AD.
Latin was spoken in parts of Britain and the European continent due to the political power of the Roman Empire.
English borrowed words from Latin, such as ''wall'', ''kitchen'', ''wine'', ''mile'', and ''street''.
Latin influence continued through the medieval and Renaissance times via the Catholic Church and intellectual developments.

Speakers of Germanic dialects served in the Roman army.
Trade contacts existed.
Slavery facilitated interaction between Celtic, Germanic speakers, and Roman culture.

Germanic tribes, including the Frisians, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, occupied the British Isles.
The word ''English'' derives from the Angles tribe (Englaland).
The English language officially began when Germanic tribes reached the British Isles in 449 AD.
Germanic dialects were spoken in a small part of England.

English has adopted many words from other languages.
Approximately half of the vocabulary of English comes from French and Latin.
Example of doublespeak: replacing direct terms with euphemisms.
Frequent words like ''the'', ''a'', ''did'', ''it'', ''of'', and plural/singular markers are native.
French and Latin loanwords often add formality to the language.

The most unusual English consonant is 'th', which represents two different sounds.

English words can have complex syllable structures with consonant clusters, such as ''strikes'' and ''splits''.
Japanese uses strategies to adapt loanwords from English by breaking up consonant clusters.
- For example, strike will sound like ''suturaike'' in Japanese, with the cluster broken up.

Languages mark functions differently, using endings on verbs/nouns or word order and grammatical words.
Some languages, like Chinese, rely heavily on word order and grammatical words.

External change: Change motivated by political, geographical, and social factors.
Internal change: Linguistically motivated change, not directly triggered by an outside event.
Language contact, speaker innovations, political issues, and social identity influence language change.

English has had little opposition to incorporating new words, unlike French.
External factors, such as loanwords, can change grammar or the sound system.
- For example: The influx of French and other loan words led to the incorporation of \v and $z$ into the English sound system.
Internal changes can become markers of identity.
- For example: The frequent use of ''like'' by certain age groups.

55 BCE: Julius Caesar came to Britain.
43 CE: Emperor Claudius subdued England; words borrowed were similar to those borrowed by other languages that came into contact with Roman civilization.
- For example: wine, street
Celtic remained spoken, providing geographical names.
- For example: Kent, Avon, Dover, Loch
450: Germanic tribes settled in Britain, pushing Celtic languages to the periphery.
- For example: Wales.
6th Century: Conversion to Christianity introduced Latin words.
- For example: abbot, altar, hymn.
Between the 8th and 10th centuries, Scandinavians raided Britain, significantly influencing English grammar and vocabulary.
- For example: egg, keel, leg, ill, odd, bask, call, crave, screech, and thrive.
Scandinavian words are often seen as 'everyday words' due to their similarity to English words.

1066: William of Normandy defeated Harold at the Battle of Hastings.
French became the language of nobility, introducing new vocabulary.
- For example: political and cultural terms: government, authority, and judge.
1066-Renaissance love for Greek and Latin terms.
Post-1700: Spread of English to the colonies created new words and varieties.
19th century to the present: Technological changes resulted in new word creation.

Old English (OE): 450-1150
Middle English (ME): 1150-1500
Early Modern (E Mod): 1500-1700
Modern (Mod E): 1700-now
Old English gradually developed into Middle English around 1150.
By 1500, most grammatical changes had occurred, and the Great Vowel Shift was underway.
In 1700, the Great Vowel Shift was nearly complete, spelling became standardized, and English spread globally.