The document provides a brief history of the English language from Old English to Modern English. It describes three main stages: Old English from the 7th to 11th century which had many inflections; Middle English from 1150-1500 which saw a transition and loss of inflections; and Modern English from 1500 to present which is closer to Middle than Old English but with differences in spelling and pronunciation. It also notes some differences between British and American English vocabulary and spelling.

1. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE

2. • Great Britain is a country which comprises four main
regions:
England
whose
capital city
is London
North
Great Wales
Ireland
Britain (Cardiff)
(Belfast)
Scotland
(Edinburg)

3. During its evolution up to our days, English has gone
trough three stages known as :
Modern
Middle
English
English
Old English
or
Anglosaxon
Let’s study them very briefly.

4. • OLD ENGLISH “THE BABY”
This period extends from seventh to the eleventh
century. The main characteristics of Old English or
Anglosaxon is that the nouns had many inflections. This
time the invaders were the Normans, who were
French-speaking-people.
French Anglosaxon
version version
• marvelous
• wonderful
• Mirror
• Looking-glass
• Profound
• Deep
• Lunatic
• Crazy
• magician
• wizard

5. • MIDDLE ENGLISH “THE ADOLESCENT”
Its extends from the year 1150. This is a period of
transition, marked by a significant transformation of the
language: All inflections disappeared and were replaced by:
WITH
BY
TO
GEOFFREY CHAUCER. He was the first person who
dared to write a piece of literature in English.
Chaucer wrote a series of poems with the title of “The
Canterbury Tales”, For that reason he is called “the
father of English poetry”.

6. • OLD ENGLISH “THE ADULT”
It extends from the year 1500 up to the present days.
The English of today is a little different from Middle
English and absolutely different from Old English.
Remember our simile, comparing the evolution of the
language with the growing of a person: The adults looks
more or less like the adolescent, but completely
different from the baby.
One important characteristic of Modern English is the
dissimilarity between form of the words and their
pronunciation of the words from their graphic
appearance.

7. • The English language is spoken as a native tongue in
the fallowing countries:
FIRST SECOND
LANGUAGE LANGUAGE
Nigeria,
Great
Zambia,
Britain, Ireland,
India, the
Australia, New
United
Zeeland, the
Kingdom and
United States
colonies of
and Canada.
the USA.

8. • At present, there are two mains varieties of
the language in the world: British English and
American English. There are certain
differences between the two in the accent,
the levels of pronunciation, spelling and
vocabulary. Let’s see some examples:

9. IN VOCABULARY
• American English British English
• Sidewalk Pavement
• Elevator Lift
• Faucet Tap
• Refrigerator Fridge
IN SPELLING
• Theater Theatre
• Center Centre
• To practice To practise
• Jail Gaol

10. • To summarize, the making of English is the
story of three invasions (Roman, German and
Norman) and a cultural revolution. This
language was brought to Britain by the
German tribes (The Angles and the Saxons) it
was influenced by Latin, transformed by the
French-speaking-people (Normans) and
enriched by the lexical contributions of many
modern languages.
• By M.A. Francisco Moreno