Editing English language (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of English}}

=== Proto-Germanic to Old English ===
{{Main|Old English}}

[[File:Beowulf Cotton MS Vitellius A XV f. 132r.jpg|thumb|The opening to the Old English epic poem ''[[Beowulf]]'', [[manuscript|handwritten]] in [[Half-uncial|half-uncial script]]:<br/>{{lang|ang|Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon...}}<br/>"Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."]]

The earliest form of English is called [[Old English]] or [[Anglo-Saxon]] (c. year 550–1066). Old English developed from a set of [[West Germanic]] dialects, often grouped as [[Anglo-Frisian]] or [[North Sea Germanic]], and originally spoken along the coasts of [[Frisia]], [[Lower Saxony]] and southern [[Jutland]] by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the [[Angles]], [[Saxons]], and [[Jutes]].<ref>Baugh, Albert (1951). A History of the English Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 60–83, 110–130</ref><ref name=OriginOfAngloSaxon>{{Citation | first = Thomas William | last = Shore | author-link = Thomas William Shore | title = [[commons:File:Shore T. W. - Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.pdf|Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race – A Study of the Settlement of England and the Tribal Origin of the Old English People]] | place = London | edition = 1st | year = 1906 | pages = 3, 393}}</ref> From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons [[Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain|settled Britain]] as [[End of Roman rule in Britain|the Roman economy and administration collapsed]]. By the 7th century, the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons [[Celtic language-death in England|became dominant in Britain]], replacing the languages of [[Roman Britain]] (43–409): [[Common Brittonic]], a [[Celtic languages|Celtic language]], and [[Latin]], brought to Britain by the [[Roman occupation of Britain|Roman occupation]].{{sfn|Collingwood|Myres|1936}}{{sfn|Graddol|Leith|Swann et al.|2007}}{{sfn|Blench|Spriggs|1999}} ''England'' and ''English'' (originally {{lang|ang|Ænglaland}} and {{lang|ang|Ænglisc}}) are named after the Angles.{{sfn|Bosworth|Toller|1921}}

Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ([[Mercian dialect|Mercian]] and [[Northumbrian dialect|Northumbrian]]) and the Saxon dialects, [[Kentish dialect (Old English)|Kentish]] and [[West Saxon dialect|West Saxon]].{{sfn|Campbell|1959|p=4}} Through the educational reforms of [[Alfred the Great|King Alfred]] in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of [[Wessex]], the West Saxon dialect became the [[standard language|standard written variety]].{{sfn|Toon|1992|loc=Chapter: Old English Dialects}} The [[epic poetry|epic poem]] ''[[Beowulf]]'' is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, ''[[Cædmon's Hymn]]'', is written in Northumbrian.{{sfn|Donoghue|2008}} Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the [[Scots language]] developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the early period of Old English were written using a [[Anglo-Saxon runes|runic script]].{{sfn|Gneuss |2013|p=23}} By the 6th century, a [[Old English Latin alphabet|Latin alphabet]] was adopted, written with [[half-uncial]] [[letterform]]s. It included the runic letters ''[[wynn]]'' {{angbr|{{lang|ang|ƿ}}}} and ''[[Thorn (letter)|thorn]]'' {{angbr|{{lang|ang|þ}}}}, and the modified Latin letters ''[[eth]]'' {{angbr|{{lang|ang|ð}}}}, and ''[[Æ|ash]]'' {{angbr|{{lang|ang|æ}}}}.{{sfn|Gneuss |2013|p=23}}{{sfn|Denison|Hogg|2006|pp=30–31}}

Old English is essentially a distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern [[German language|German]], and its closest relative is [[Old Frisian]]. [[Old English grammar|Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs]] had many more [[Inflectional morphology|inflectional endings and forms]], and word order was [[Pragmatic word order|much freer]] than in Modern English. Modern English has [[grammatical case|case forms]] in pronouns (''he'', ''him'', ''his'') and has a few verb inflections (''speak'', ''speaks'', ''speaking'', ''spoke'', ''spoken''), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more [[grammatical person|person]] and [[grammatical number|number]] endings.{{sfn|Hogg|1992|loc=Chapter 3. Phonology and Morphology}}{{sfn|Smith|2009}}{{sfn|Trask|Trask|2010}}

The translation of [[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ([[nominative case|nominative]] plural, [[accusative case|accusative]] plural, [[genitive case|genitive]] singular) and a verb ending ([[present tense|present]] plural):
* {{lang|ang|Foxas habbað holu and heofonan fuglas nest}}
* Fox-as habb-að hol-u and heofon-an fugl-as nest-∅
* fox-{{sc|NOM.PL}} have-{{sc|PRS.PL}} hole-{{sc|ACC.PL}} and heaven-{{sc|GEN.SG}} bird-{{sc|NOM.PL}} nest-{{sc|ACC.PL}}
* "Foxes have holes and the birds of heaven nests"{{sfn|Lass|2006|pp=46–47}}

=== Middle English ===
{{Main|Middle English|Influence of French on English}}

{{Quote box |width=300px |align=right |quoted=true |
|salign=right
|quote={{lang|enm|Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting.}}<br/><br/>Although, from the beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing.
|source= [[John of Trevisa]], ca. 1385{{sfn|Hogg|2006|pp=360–361}}
}}

From the 8th to the 12th century, Old English gradually transformed through [[language contact]] into [[Middle English]]. Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the [[Norman conquest of England|conquest of England]] by [[William the Conqueror]] in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1200 to 1450.

First, the waves of Norse colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with [[Old Norse]], a [[North Germanic]] language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in the [[Danelaw]] area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in [[Scots language|Scots]] and [[Northern England English|Northern English]]. However the centre of norsified English seems to have been in [[the Midlands]] around [[Kingdom of Lindsey|Lindsey]], and after 920 CE when Lindsey was reincorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, Norse features spread from there into English varieties that had not been in direct contact with Norse speakers. An element of Norse influence that persists in all English varieties today is the group of pronouns beginning with ''th-'' (''they, them, their'') which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with {{lang|ang|h-}} ({{lang|ang|hie, him, hera}}).{{sfn|Thomason|Kaufman|1988|pp=284–290}}

With the [[Norman conquest of England]] in 1066, the now norsified Old English language was subject to contact with [[Old French]], in particular with the [[Old Norman]] dialect. The [[Norman language]] in England eventually developed into [[Anglo-Norman language|Anglo-Norman]].<ref name="Ian Short 2007. p. 193"/> Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking Anglo-Saxon (English), the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of [[loanwords]] related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains.{{sfn|Svartvik|Leech|2006|p=39}} Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating [[Possession (linguistics)|possession]]. The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms,{{sfn|Lass|1992|pp=103–123}} and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible.{{sfn|Fischer|van der Wurff|2006|pages=111–13}} In the [[Wycliffe Bible]] of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: {{lang|enm|Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis}}<ref>{{cite web | last = Wycliffe | first = John | url = http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wycliffe/wycbible-all.pdf | publisher = Wesley NNU | title = Bible | access-date = 9 April 2015 | archive-date = 2 February 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170202202047/http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wycliffe/wycbible-all.pdf | url-status = live }}</ref> Here the plural suffix {{lang|enm|-n}} on the verb ''have'' is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'', and [[Thomas Malory|Malory's]] ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]''. In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Horobin |first1=Simon |title=Chaucer's Middle English |url=https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu/refmideng/ |website=The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales |publisher=Louisiana State University |access-date=24 November 2019 |quote=The only appearances of their and them in Chaucer's works are in the Reeve's Tale, where they form part of the Northern dialect spoken by the two Cambridge students, Aleyn and John, demonstrating that at this time they were still perceived to be Northernisms |archive-date=3 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191203092713/https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu/refmideng/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Early Modern English ===
{{Main|Early Modern English}}

[[File:Great Vowel Shift2a.svg|right|upright=1.36|thumb|Graphic representation of the [[Great Vowel Shift]], showing how the pronunciation of the long vowels gradually shifted, with the high vowels i: and u: breaking into diphthongs and the lower vowels each shifting their pronunciation up one level]]

The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the [[Great Vowel Shift]] (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation.

The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a [[chain shift]], meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. [[Mid vowel|Mid]] and [[open vowel]]s were [[raising (phonology)|raised]], and [[close vowel]]s were [[vowel breaking|broken]] into [[diphthong]]s. For example, the word ''bite'' was originally pronounced as the word ''beet'' is today, and the second vowel in the word ''about'' was pronounced as the word ''boot'' is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages.{{sfn|Lass|2000}}{{sfn|Görlach|1991|pp=66–70}}

English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of [[Henry V of England|Henry V]]. Around 1430, the [[Court of Chancery]] in [[Westminster]] began using English in its [[writ|official documents]], and a new standard form of Middle English, known as [[Chancery Standard]], developed from the dialects of London and the [[East Midlands English|East Midlands]]. In 1476, [[William Caxton]] introduced the [[printing press]] to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English.{{sfn|Nevalainen|Tieken-Boon van Ostade|2006|pages=274–79}} Literature from the Early Modern period includes the works of [[William Shakespeare]] and the [[King James Version|translation of the Bible]] commissioned by [[James VI and I|King James I]]. Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the [[consonant cluster]]s {{IPA|/kn ɡn sw/}} in ''knight'', ''gnat'', and ''sword'' were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent the distinct characteristics of Early Modern English.{{sfn|Cercignani|1981}}

In the 1611 [[King James Version]] of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests."{{sfn|Lass|2006|pp=46–47}} This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of ''of'' instead of the non-possessive genitive), and the introduction of loanwords from French (''ayre'') and word replacements (''bird'' originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE ''fugol'').{{sfn|Lass|2006|pp=46–47}}

=== Spread of Modern English ===

By the late 18th century, the [[British Empire]] had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication.{{sfn|How English evolved into a global language|2010}}{{sfn|The Routes of English}} England continued to form new colonies, and these later developed their own norms for speech and writing. English was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Australasia, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent nations that had multiple [[indigenous language]]s opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others.{{sfn|Romaine|2006|p=586}}{{sfn|Mufwene|2006|p=614}}{{sfn|Northrup|2013|pp=81–86}} In the 20th century the growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a [[superpower]] following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the [[BBC]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Baker|first=Colin|title=Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YgtSqB9oqDIC|date=1998|page=311|publisher=Multilingual Matters|isbn=978-1-85359-362-8|access-date=27 August 2017|archive-date=20 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120055603/https://books.google.com/books?id=YgtSqB9oqDIC|url-status=live}}</ref> and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster.{{sfn|Graddol|2006}}{{sfn|Crystal|2003a}} In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been.{{sfn|McCrum|MacNeil|Cran|2003|pp=9–10}}

As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755 [[Samuel Johnson]] published his ''[[A Dictionary of the English Language]]'', which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, [[Noah Webster]] published the ''[[Webster's Dictionary|American Dictionary of the English language]]'' to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of the prestige varieties among the middle classes.{{sfn|Romaine|1999|pp=1–56}}

In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as ''he'' and ''him'', ''she'' and ''her'', ''who'' and ''whom''), and SVO word order is mostly fixed.{{sfn|Romaine|1999|pp=1–56}} Some changes, such as the use of [[do-support]], have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory.{{sfn|Romaine|1999|p=2|ps=: "Other changes such as the spread and regularisation of do support began in the thirteenth century and were more or less complete in the nineteenth. Although do coexisted with the simple verb forms in negative statements from the early ninth century, obligatoriness was not complete until the nineteenth. The increasing use of do periphrasis coincides with the fixing of SVO word order. Not surprisingly, do is first widely used in interrogatives, where the word order is disrupted, and then later spread to negatives."}} Now, do-support with the verb ''have'' is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in ''-ing'', appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as ''had been being built'' are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. ''dreamed'' instead of ''dreamt''), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. ''more polite'' instead of ''politer''). British English is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the US as a world power.{{sfn|Leech|Hundt|Mair|Smith|2009|pp=18–19}}{{sfn|Mair|Leech|2006}}{{sfn|Mair|2006}}