Tuesday, January 23, 2018

English

Celtic Britons were pushed North from central Europe, arriving on the island in the Iron Ages. Romans first attempted a conquest in the first century and left in 410 AD. Anglo-Saxon settlers then arrived in Great Britain in the 5th Century. During the 9th century, all invading German tribes were referred to as Englisc. In the 11th century the Normans conquered England which saw the start of Middle English with mass adoption of vocabulary from Norman French. The 15th century (c. 1440) printing press was the life-blood of invention. Writers like Chaucer took the wheel, and the King James Bible (completed in 1611) started to spread. The languages spread by colonialism were incredibly young, and newly standardised. 'Nations' only became a thing as sovereignty shifted from a person to 'The People' after the French and American Revolutions. As the British Empire unwound over the 20th century, there is no one national authority that sets the standards for the language. That seems appropriate for something that has so many sources of influences. English is a love child of Europe.



No comments: