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Several centuries BC - arriving of Celts (no exact date)

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Several centuries BC - arriving of Celts (no exact date)

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It is believed that the Celts arrived at the shores of Britain at approximately 1,000BC and lived there during the Iron Age, the Roman Age and the post Roman era. Their legacy continues today where examples of the language, culture and traditions continue to exist.

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1. Arrival of Celtic Tribes in Britain (circa 500 BCE): Celtic tribes, such as the Brythons, settled in Britain, bringing their languages and culture.

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Julius Caesar's attempts to invade Britain.

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The Goths (speakers of a now extinct East Germanic language) sack Rome. The first Germanic tribes arrive in Britain.

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The Roman Legions were withdrawn from Britain, leaving chaos. The Picts raided from the North and Scots from Ireland, while the Jutes and the Saxons attacked from the Eastern coasts.

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Germanic tribes invaded Britain in 600 year. Those were Saxons, Angles and Jutes and that's why this period is also called Anglo-Saxon English.

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The great bulk of especially Christian terms entered into the English language only after the Christianizing of Britain.

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The introduction of Christianity in 597 AD brought about immense changes to England in social and religious matters. It also had far-reaching effects on the English language. It did not only introduce a rich source of Greek and Latin words but also opened up a new Visa for the formation of words from native Sources. Indeed, old English was remarkably influenced and enriched by the conversion of England into Christianity. As observed by H. Bradley, about 400 Latin words were incorporated in English after the conversion and before the Norman conquest (1066 AD) although many of them were not all commonly used and only a few of them had actually survived in modern English.

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The origins of the Heptarchy can be traced back to the arrival of Germanic tribes in Britain. Heptarchy was not a homogenous entity but rather a collection of diverse kingdoms, each with its own unique characteristics. The kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia were predominantly Angle-dominated, while Wessex, Sussex, and Essex were primarily inhabited by Saxons. Kent, on the other hand, was influenced by Jutish settlers.

The distinct ethnolinguistic backgrounds of these kingdoms contributed to variations in language, customs, and traditions. The dialects spoken in these regions gradually evolved into Old English, a precursor to the English language spoken today.

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The Norman Conquest began in 1066 and that period is marked as one which is connected with development of French language in Britain. In that time the language of the palace, education, religion and politics was French, and English language was taken as a language of servants.

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William of Normandy defeated the English under King Harold II. Norman arystocracy replaced English arystocracy. English became the language of the lower classes.

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The Battle of Hastings changed the entire course of not just English, but European history. The Battle was fought for the crown of England between William, Duke of Normandy and Harold Godwineson.King Harold II of England was defeated. By the end of the bloody, all-day battle, Harold was dead and his forces were destroyed. Harold was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, and the battle changed the course of history and established the French-speaking Normans as the new rulers of England.

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Henry II declares himself overlord of Ireland, introducing Norman French and English to the country. About this time the University of Oxford is founded.

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The year 1204 marks the turning point when King John nicknamed John Lackland lost his English possessions in France leading to a gradual decline of French as an official language in England. By the 13th and 14th centuries even the children of the English nobility no longer learn French as their native language. English had become the new medium of instruction.

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Magna Carta (1215): The signing of the Magna Carta by King John established principles of English law and governance, influencing the development of Middle English legal terminology.

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The Hundred Years' War was a series of armed conflicts fought between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages.

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1/3 of people in England died of The Black Death. The prestige of English as a language of the working class increased during that period.

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Middle English text example "The Canterbury Tales": While the exact dates are still debated, some scholars believe 1387 could be the year Chaucer began work on his masterpiece, "The Canterbury Tales," his unfinished collection of interconnected stories told by a group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury Cathedral.

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Intermittent armed conflict between England and France over territorial rights and the issue of succession to the French throne. It began when Edward III invaded Flanders in 1337 in order to assert his claim to the French crown.

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The Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars fought in England during the 15th century, had a profound impact on English literature and culture. The wars, fought between the houses of Lancaster and York for control of the English throne, were a time of great political and social upheaval. This tumultuous period provided rich material for writers, particularly playwrights, who used the wars as a backdrop for their works. The Wars of the Roses also influenced the development of the English language. The period saw the emergence of a distinctively English form of expression, as writers began to use the vernacular language of the common people in their works, rather than the Latin or French that had previously been the norm.

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It took about 300 years for English to develop from a regional language to a global one and that happened mainly because of the The Great Vowel Shift.Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed. Some consonant sounds also changed, particularly those that became silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is sometimes used to include these consonantal changes. These changes made English understandable to the modern ear.

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William Caxton is credited with standardising the English language through printing by homogenising regional dialects and largely adopting the London dialect.

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William Caxton showing specimens of his printing to King Edward IV and the Queen

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This new machine made books much cheaper to produce and to buy and therefore levels of literacy climbed much higher among the English people. This also helped begin the greater standardisation of spelling and grammar. By the 15th century, the English language had changed considerably, partly due to the introduction of the printing press, which had stabilised spelling and grammar.

Because more were books being produced, there was a need to write words in the same way, so a standard spelling had to be agreed upon.

Readers of this time, after the development of the printing press, would have found Old English to be almost incomprehensible, just as most modern readers find Chaucer’s language impossible to understand today.

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The type of English spoken and written by Shakespeare was called Early Modern English. Because of Shakespeare's fame and influence at the time, it also came to be known as Shakespearean English. Early Modern English was used from the 1500s to the 1700s.

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Shakespeare contributed to the standardization of the English language in the 17th and 18th centuries. As his work gained importance, correctly spelling words became more common. He created compound words, adverbs, and adjectives from verbs. Shakespeare added suffixes and prefixes to many words.

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King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church is one of the most far-reaching events in English history. During the Reformation, the King replaced the Pope as the Head of the Church in England, causing a bitter divide between Catholics and Protestants. But why did Henry make such a drastic split?

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1509 He was just 17 years old at the time ascended to the throne following the death of his father.

Marriage to Catherine of Aragon: Henry VIII had married Catherine of Aragon in 1509, though she had previously been married to his older brother, Arthur. This marriage would later become a central issue in Henry's reign.

Break with the Catholic Church: In the 1530s, Henry's desire to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which had not produced a male heir, led to a break with the Catholic Church and the establishment of the Church of England, with Henry as its Supreme Head.

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In 1558, Elizabeth I came to the throne. Her reign restored a sort of order to the realm after the turbulent reigns of Edward VI and Mary I. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which re-established the Church of England. Much of Elizabeth's success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans and Catholics; historian Robert Bucholz paraphrasing historian Conrad Russell, suggested that the genius of the Church of England was that it "thinks Protestant but looks Catholic."She managed to offend neither to a large extent, although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed.

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The first grammar of English—William Bullokar's Pamphlet for Grammar—is published.

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During the Great Vowel Shift, long vowel sounds shifted upwards, meaning they changed position in the mouth and were pronounced higher up. The Great Vowel Shift marked the transition from Middle English to Early Modern English. It took place from around the 1400s to the 1700s.

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The end of the reign of Elizabeth I. Literature had boomed through the works of Spencer, Marlow and Shakespeare and Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh had laid the foundation for expanding the English influences in the New World.

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A Table Alphabeticall is the abbreviated title of the first monolingual dictionary in the English language, created by Robert Cawdrey and first published in London in 1604.

Although the work is important in being the first collection of its kind, it is not a large work. At only 120 pages, it listed a total of 2,543 words accompanied by very brief (often single-word) definitions.

The dictionary's claimed purpose was "for the benefit and help of unskillful persons". Within a few decades, many other English dictionaries followed.

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During the English Renaissance, from around 1500–1650, some 10,000 to 12,000 words entered the English lexicon, including the word lexicon. Some examples include aberration, allusion, anachronism, democratic, dexterity, enthusiasm, imaginary, juvenile, pernicious, sophisticated.

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The Reformation (16th century): The Protestant Reformation, initiated by Martin Luther in 1517, had profound effects on England. King Henry VIII's break with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s led to the establishment of the Church of England. This religious upheaval resulted in changes to religious practices and the translation of the Bible into English, influencing language usage and standardization.

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The Authorized Version of the English Bible (the "King James" Bible) is published, greatly influencing the development of the written language.

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Weekly News, the first English newspaper, is published in London.

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Kachru constructed a model of the different uses of English around the world. This model is comprised of three concentric circles, which he labelled: the inner circle, the outer circle and the expanding circle.

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“World Englishes” proposed by Kachru in the mid-1980s that allocates the presence of English into three concentric circles: The Inner Circle(native English speakers), the Outer Circle(English not native but holds importance), and the Expanding Circle(English does not hold importance and is learned as a foreign language).

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Approximately 20% of the world's population speaks English, with around 400 million people speaking it natively and an additional 1.5 billion who speak it as their second or foreign language.

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Beowulf, an epic poem, is one of the most famous literary works from this era

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Beowulf, an epic poem, is one of the most famous literary works from this era

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The Great Vowel Shift significantly altered the pronunciation of English words

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Diagram of the changes in English vowels during the Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed. Some consonant sounds also changed, particularly those that became silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is sometimes used to include these consonantal changes.

The standardization of English spelling began in the 15th and 16th centuries; the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often deviate considerably from how they represent pronunciations. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860-1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term.

The causes of the Great Vowel Shift are unknown and have been a source of intense scholarly debate; as yet, there is no firm consensus. The greatest changes occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries, and their origins are at least partly phonetic.

Population migration: This is the most accepted theory; some scholars have argued that the rapid migration of peoples to the southeast of England from the east and central Midlands of England following the Black Death produced a clash of dialects that made Londoners distinguish their speech from the immigrants who came from other English cities by changing their vowel system.

French loan words: Others argue that the influx of French loanwords was a major factor in the shift.

Middle-class hypercorrection: Yet others assert that because of the increasing prestige of French pronunciations among the middle classes (perhaps related to the English aristocracy's switching from French to English around this time), a process of hypercorrection may have started a shift that unintentionally resulted in vowel pronunciations that are inaccurate imitations of French pronunciations.

War with France: An opposing theory states that the wars with France and general anti-French sentiments caused hypercorrection deliberately to make English sound less like French.

The main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English in the year 1400 and Modern English ( Received Pronunciation) is in the value of the long vowels.

Long vowels in Middle English had " continental" values, much like those in Italian and Standard German; in standard Modern English, they have entirely different pronunciations. The differing pronunciations of English vowel letters do not stem from the Great Shift as such but rather because English spelling did not adapt to the changes.

German had undergone vowel changes quite similar to the Great Shift slightly earlier. Still, the spelling was changed accordingly (e.g., Middle High German bīzen → modern German beißen "to bite").

This timeline uses representative words to show the main vowel changes between late Middle English in the year 1400 and Received Pronunciation in the mid-20th century. The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the lower half of the table, between 1400 and 1600-1700.

The changes after 1700 are not considered part of the Great Vowel Shift. Pronunciation is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet:

Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, /iːeːɛːaːɔːoːuː/. The vowels occurred in, for example, the words bite, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot, and out, respectively.

The words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from those in Modern English.

In addition, Middle English had:

After around 1300, the long vowels of Middle English began changing in pronunciation as follows:

These changes occurred over several centuries and can be divided into two phases. The first phase affected the close vowels /iːuː/ and the close-mid vowels /eːoː/: /eːoː/ were raised to /iːuː/, and /iːuː/ became the diphthongs /eiou/ or /əiəu/. The second phase affected the open vowel /aː/ and the open-mid vowels /ɛːɔː/: /aːɛːɔː/ were raised, in most cases changing to /eːiːoː/.

The Great Vowel Shift changed vowels without merger, so Middle English before the vowel shift had the same number of vowel phonemes as Early Modern English after the vowel shift.

After the Great Vowel Shift, some vowel phonemes began merging. Immediately after the Great Vowel Shift, the vowels of meet and meat were different, but they are merged in Modern English, and both words are pronounced as /miːt/.

However, during the 16th and the 17th centuries, there were many different mergers, and some mergers can be seen in individual Modern English words like great, which is pronounced with the vowel /eɪ/ as in mate rather than the vowel /iː/ as in meat.

This is a simplified picture of the changes that happened between late Middle English (late ME), Early Modern English (EModE), and today's English (ModE). Pronunciations in 1400, 1500, 1600, and 1900 are shown. To hear recordings of the sounds, click the phonetic symbols.

The first phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English close-mid vowels /eːoː/, as in beet and boot, and the close vowels /iːuː/, as in bite and out. The close-mid vowels /eːoː/ became close /iːuː/, and the close vowels /iːuː/ became diphthongs. The first phase was completed in 1500, meaning that by that time, words like beet and boot had lost their Middle English pronunciation and were pronounced with the same vowels as in Modern English. The words bite and out were pronounced with diphthongs, but not the same diphthongs as in Modern English.

Scholars agree that the Middle English close vowels /iːuː/ became diphthongs around 1500, but disagree about what diphthongs they changed to. According to Lass, the words bite and out after diphthongisation were pronounced as /beit/ and /out/, similar to American English bait /beɪt/ and oat /oʊt/. Later, the diphthongs /eiou/ shifted to /ɛiɔu/, then /əiəu/, and finally to Modern English /aɪaʊ/. This sequence of events is supported by the testimony of orthoepists before Hodges in 1644.

However, many scholars such as Dobson (1968), Kökeritz (1953), and Cercignani (1981) argue for theoretical reasons that, contrary to what 16th-century witnesses report, the vowels /iːuː/ were immediately centralised and lowered to /əiəu/.

Evidence from Northern English and Scots ( see below) suggests that the close-mid vowels /eːoː/ were the first to shift. As the Middle English vowels /eːoː/ were raised towards /iːuː/, they forced the original Middle English /iːuː/ out of place and caused them to become diphthongs /eiou/. This type of sound change, in which one vowel's pronunciation shifts so that it is pronounced like a second vowel, and the second vowel is forced to change its pronunciation, is called a push chain.

However, according to professor Jürgen Handke, for some time, there was a phonetic split between words with the vowel /iː/ and the diphthong /əi/, in words where the Middle English /iː/ shifted to the Modern English /aɪ/. For an example, high was pronounced with the vowel /iː/, and like and my were pronounced with the diphthong /əi/. Therefore, for logical reasons, the close vowels /iːuː/ could have diphthongised before the close-mid vowels /eːoː/ raised. Otherwise, high would probably rhyme with thee rather than my. This type of chain is called a drag chain.

The second phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English open vowel /aː/, as in mate, and the Middle English open-mid vowels /ɛːɔː/, as in meat and boat. Around 1550, Middle English /aː/ was raised to /æː/. Then, after 1600, the new /æː/ was raised to /ɛː/, with the Middle English open-mid vowels /ɛːɔː/ raised to close-mid /eːoː/.

During the first and the second phases of the Great Vowel Shift, long vowels were shifted without merging with other vowels, but after the second phase, several vowels merged. The later changes also involved the Middle English diphthong /ɛj/, as in day, which often (but not always, see the pane-pain merger) monophthongised to /ɛː/, and merged with Middle English /aː/ as in mate or /ɛː/ as in meat.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, several different pronunciation variants existed among different parts of the population for words like meet, meat, mate, and day. Different pairs or trios of words were merged in pronunciation in each pronunciation variant. Four different pronunciation variants are shown in the table below. The fourth pronunciation variant gave rise to Modern English pronunciation. In Modern English, meet and meat are merged in pronunciation and both have the vowel /iː/, and mate and day are merged with the diphthong /eɪ/, which developed from the 16th-century long vowel /eː/.

Modern English typically has the : both meet and meat are pronounced with the vowel /iː/. Words like great and steak, however, have merged with mate and are pronounced with the vowel /eɪ/, which developed from the /eː/ shown in the table above. Before historic /r/ some of these vowels merged with /ə/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/

The Great Vowel Shift affected other dialects and the standard English of southern England but in different ways. In Northern England, the shift did not operate on the long back vowels because they had undergone an earlier shift. Similarly, the dialect in Scotland had a different vowel system before the Great Vowel Shift, as /oː/ had shifted to /øː/ in Early Scots. In the Scots equivalent of the Great Vowel Shift, the long vowels /iː/, /eː/ and /aː/ shifted to /ei/, /iː/ and /eː/ by the Middle Scots period and /uː/ remained unaffected.

The first step in the Great Vowel Shift in Northern and Southern English is shown in the table below. The Northern English developments of Middle English /iː,eː/ and /oː,uː/ were different from Southern English. In particular, the Northern English vowels /iː/ in bite, /eː/ in feet, and /oː/ in boot shifted, while the vowel /uː/ in house did not. These developments below fall under the label "older" to refer to Scots and a more conservative and increasingly rural Northern sound, while "younger" refers to a more mainstream Northern sound largely emerging just since the twentieth century.

The vowel systems of Northern and Southern Middle English immediately before the Great Vowel Shift were different in one way. In Northern Middle English, the back close-mid vowel /oː/ in boot had already shifted to front /øː/ (a sound change known as fronting), like the long in German "hear". Thus, Southern English had a back close-mid vowel /oː/, but Northern English did not:

In Northern and Southern English, the first step of the Great Vowel Shift raised the close-mid vowels to become close. Northern Middle English had two close-mid vowels - /eː/ in feet and /øː/ in boot - which were raised to /iː/ and /yː/. Later on, Northern English /yː/ changed to /iː/ in many dialects (though not in all, see Phonological history of Scots § Vowel 7), so that boot has the same vowel as feet. Southern Middle English had two close-mid vowels - /eː/ in feet and /oː/ in boot - which were raised to /iː/ and /uː/.

In Southern English, the close vowels /iː/ in bite and /uː/ in house shifted to become diphthongs, but in Northern English, /iː/ in bite shifted but /uː/ in house did not.

If the vowel systems at the time of the Great Vowel Shift caused the difference between the Northern and Southern vowel shifts, /uː/ did not shift because there was no back mid vowel /oː/ in Northern English. In Southern English, shifting of /oː/ to /uː/ could have caused diphthongisation of original /uː/, but because Northern English had no back close-mid vowel /oː/ to shift, the back close vowel /uː/ did not diphthongise.

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The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed.

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Samuel Johnson's "A Dictionary of the English Language"

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Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects settle most of Britain. Celts retreat to distant areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales.

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Approximate date of the earliest manuscript records of Old English.

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The Hundred Years War between England and France leads to the loss of almost all of England's French possessions. The Black Death kills roughly one-third of England's population

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William Shakespeare writes his Sonnets and the majority of his plays

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Under the year 787 three shiploads of Northmen landed upon the coast of Britain and invaded the country. These invaders were Scandinavian tribes: The Danes, the Swedes. They inhabited the north of Europe (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden). They started their invasion taking possession over the East of Britain and the Danish invasion resulted in the occupation of a great part of the territory by Scandinavian settlers. In the year 878 the English King Alfred the Great, by the Treaty of Wedmore was obliged to recognize Danish rule over a territory covering two-thirds of modern England; all Northumbria, all East Anglia and one half of Central England made up District called the Danelaw.

The effect of the Danish Conquest was a contribution of many Scan¬dinavian words to the English vocabulary.

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William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony, wrote his journal. It will become Of Plymouth Plantation, one of the earliest texts written in the American Colonies.

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In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered England. The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today.

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First Germanic tribes arrive in England from the lowlands on the other side of the North Sea. Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic.

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By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language distinct from the continental Germanic languages

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By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language distinct from the continental Germanic languages

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Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and ultimately become indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter the language; English even borrows pronouns like they, them, their.

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In 1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the first printed book in England. Beginning of the long process of standardization of spelling.

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In 1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the first printed book in England. Beginning of the long process of standardization of spelling.

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The Great Vowel Shift gradually takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek borrowings and neologisms

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The sciences develop: Astronomy, Physics, Natural History (which later splits into Geology and Biology), Medicine, beginnings of Chemistry. The fashion for borrowing Latin and Greek words, and coining new words with Latin and Greek morphemes, rages unabated. Elaborate syntax matches elaborate vocabulary (e.g. writings of Samuel Johnson).

The rise of English purists, e.g. Jonathan Swift, who decried the 'degeneration' of English and sought to 'purify' it and fix it forever in unchanging form.