The English language originated and has evolved through a combination of external influences and internal changes over thousands of years. It began as a Germanic dialect spoken in Britain and has been influenced by Latin, Celtic, Scandinavian, French and other languages through language contact between speakers. English can be divided into Old English, which used numerous grammatical endings, and Modern English, which relies more on grammatical words like prepositions. Both external events like invasions and internal phonetic changes have contributed to the development of English into a global language spoken today.