A Brief History of the English Language

43 C.E.

The Roman emperor, claudius, invades Britania. Romans bring with them indoor plumbing, wine, central heating, and road building. Celtic was the dominant language. Latin was the secondary language, by the aristocracy for legal matters.

410 C.E.

Due to trouble with the Visagoths in Spain, roman legions were pulled out of britain. the last legions had left by 410 c.e. Many roman soldiers were already settled and, as a result of intermarriage with the native celts, stayed behind as community leaders. these people extablished a Romano-Celtic culture that coexisted with native celtic culture.

449 C.E.

Without the protection of the roman legions, britain was left open to attacks, particularly from the northern territories. vortigern, a british leader, made a deal with the Jutes, an eastern germanic tribe, to rid britain of invaders. As a result, eastern germanic leaders realized the vounerability of britain and began to invade. The four most powerful and prominent invaders were the angles, saxons, jutes, and frisians.over time, the germanic invaders made celts and romano-celts second class citizens. german became the prominent language of law, politics, etc. and began to blend with the celtic language.

597 C.E.

st. Augustine arrived in kent and brought with hin the christian religion. christianity had been introduced to britain before, but never with such fervor.  in less than 75 years after Augustine's arrival, christianity had spread through out most of britain.  Latin returned to the island as the official language of the church and of the learned aristocracy.

878-886 C.E.

Several years before the treaty of the Danelaw, Guthrum, the leader of the invading danish forces, destroyed and overtook three of the four kingdoms that had been previously established in britain. Alfred, king of wessex, defeated guthrum at the battle of edington, after which boundaries of settlement were agreed upon by both parties. Alfred then settled in london. for the first time, the entirity of southern england was under the rule of one king. linguistically, the occupation of northern england by the danes created a blending of danish with english. The result was a new culture and the division of northern and southern dialects.

1066 C.E.

Edward the Confessor died childless. William of normandy, though a distant relation to edward, believed himself to be the heir to the british throne and claimed that edward verbally agreed to william as his successor. Harold, son of the earl of wessex and descended from the brother of king alfred the great, also laid claim to the throne and was soon crowned king. William took an army to england and defeated the british forces at the battle of hastings, killing king harold in the process. William the conqueror became king and placed normans in aristocartic positions. frensh became the language of the upper class. french words and pronunciation began to trickle down through out the classes. The educated french eventually changed the spelling of words to suit their pronunciations.

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