-
450
Anglo Saxon
The English language begins with the frase "Up yours, Caesar", when the Romans leave Britain, a lot of Germanic tribes like the Anglos and the Saxons start following them, as they left behind the latin using daily frases. They named four days of the week in honor of their gods, later came the christians an Vikings who also contributed with alot of words. -
1066
The Norman Conquest
William the Conquer invades England, bringing new concepts like the French language. French was used for all official business bringing words like judge and jury. Latin was still used in church but the common language was english. English absorbes a lot of words from the Normans. -
Period: 1502 to
American English
when the Britains came to America, they needed words for all the new plants, animals, etc. So they used the words from the native Americans. America created new words for capitalism, and adapted words from all over the world. -
Period: 1564 to
Wiliam Shakespeare
2000 handy words and showy words where invented by Shakespeare, like bible and puppy dog (handy words), besmirch and dauntless (showy words). He showed the world that English is a rich and unique language. -
King James Bible
He translated the Bible into books, this brought a whole glossary of morality and metaphors that shaped the way english is spoken today. -
The English of Science
Britain was full of physicists, The Royal Society was formed, at first they worked in latin, then they realize that they all spoke english and they could transform our understanding of the universe much quicker by speaking their own language. Science was advancing much quicker so they had to invent words like acid, gravity, electricity, pendulum, cardiac, tonsil, among others. -
Period: to
The Age of Dictionary
The lexicographers wanted to put and end to this anarchy. Everyone was spelling the words slightly different. Dr. Johnson took 9 years to write a dictionary contained 42,000,773 entries. Now you could understand exactly what people where saying and have a standard spelling. Words continued being invented and in 1857 started a new book that became the Oxford English Dictionary, it took another 70 years to finish (1928). -
Period: to
English and Empire
Britain decided to take the english on tour, asking for land, wealth, natural resources, total obedience of the crown and a few local words in return. They brought the world cannibal from the caribbean, from Africa words like voodoo and zombie. Between Napoleon and WWI the British Empire gobbled up around 10,000,000 square miles and 400,000,000 million people. Leaving new varieties of english to develop all over the world. -
Period: to
Internet English
In 1972 the first email was sent, soon the internet arrived and new words where invented and abbreviations where used. -
Global English
Right now about 1.5 billion people speak english. Right now the language has very little to do with England.
