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A Brief History of the English Language

The English language has undergone a remarkable transformation throughout its history, evolving from the Germanic dialects of tribes who settled in Britain around the 5th century. This earliest form of the language is known as Old English. To a modern speaker, its texts, such as the epic poem Beowulf, are largely incomprehensible without specialized study. Its vocabulary was predominantly Germanic, though it had borrowed some words from the Latin of the Roman Empire and the local Celtic languages.

A pivotal event in the history of English was the Norman Conquest of 1066. This invasion brought a French-speaking ruling class to England, and for the next few hundred years, French was the language of the court, law, and administration. This initiated the transition to Middle English. During this period, thousands of French words were assimilated into English, profoundly enriching its vocabulary in areas like government, food, and fashion. The language's grammar also simplified, losing many of the complex inflections of Old English.

The era of Modern English began around 1500 and continues to the present. Its start was marked by the Great Vowel Shift, a series of systemic changes in pronunciation that affected long vowels. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century was also crucial, as it helped to standardize spelling and grammar, making the language more uniform. Beginning in the 17th century, the expansion of the British Empire and, later, the global influence of the United States, spread English across the world, where it continued to absorb words from countless other languages.