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Period: 450 to 450
Anglo Saxons and Jutes
Germanic tribes of Anglo Saxon and Jutes. They pushed the Celtic tribes to Wales and Scotland. Anglos had an inflected language meaning lots of grammatical endings such as '-ing'. Had runic alphabet which included runes such as Thorn, Wynn, Ash. Many monosyllabic words come from Anglos for example 'me', 'have' -
Period: 450 to 450
Anglo Saxon and Jutes
They also divided England into four Kingdoms Northumberland, Mercia, West Anglia and Wessex -
Period: 516 to 516
Words still heard in the English Language today (Dutch)
Freeze, Blue, Mist, Three -
Period: 597 to 597
Christianity in England
The missionaries arrived from Rome bringing the Latin language to England. They wrote in the Roman alphabet but borrowed Anglo-Saxon 'runes' such as thorn as the Latin language did not feature this phonetic sound -
Period: Dec 24, 700 to Dec 25, 1000
Epic Beowulf Poem
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Period: Dec 24, 793 to Dec 25, 793
Vikings came to England
The Vikings spoke Norse which brought threat to the English language such as Lindisfarne Monastry where the Vikings burnt many Anglo Saxon Chronicles and began to seize land from Anglo Saxons -
Period: Dec 24, 800 to Dec 25, 800
Danelaw
Viking expansion of the county of Dane -
Period: Dec 24, 878 to Dec 25, 878
Battle of Edington
King Alfred defeats Guthrum leader of the Norse army. This results in the splitting of the country between Danelow and Anglo Saxons -
Period: Dec 24, 878 to Dec 25, 878
Danelow
Norse Territory. But Northumberland, Mercia, Wessex remain English. However trade often intermingled the English and the Norse aswell of including Norse graphemes. -
Period: Dec 24, 878 to Dec 25, 878
Danelaw Shires
Danelaw created 14 shires such as York, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, Hertford. Some places the Vikings named in Yorkshire was Whitby and Slathwaite -
Period: Dec 24, 1000 to Dec 25, 1000
Normans
The Normans brought a new threat to the English Language as they brought Old French as their language -
Period: Dec 24, 1016 to Dec 25, 1035
Unification of the English Kingdom
King Cnut ruled the whole of England which led to further intermingling of the country and the language -
Period: Dec 24, 1050 to Dec 25, 1050
Anglo Saxon Kingdoms
Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wessex, Northumberland, East Angleo -
Oct 18, 1066
Battle of Hastings
10,000 new words brought to England when King Harold was defeated by William the Conqueror. Anglo Saxon landowners pushed to the North ie Scotland and the Normans spoke French. Elevated polysyllabic lexis was brought and consisted of a semantic field of food, power and wealth. French brought voiced fricatives such as /z/ /s/ but had no effect on English grammar. Word clusters such as qu, gh, ch, oo were also borrowed from the French. -
Period: Sep 28, 1150 to Sep 29, 1500
Middle English
Through French influence the Old English language transformed into Middle English. This was during the Medival Period until 1500 -
Period: Sep 28, 1346 to Sep 29, 1353
The Black Death
Estimated around 75 to 200 million people died due to the Black Death. However, this caused for a rise in English speaking as many of the clergy died who spoke Latin due to close proximity with other clergy members. -
Sep 28, 1380
First Bible Translation
John Wycliffe translated the Latin Bible in Oxford where the standard accent is from, however he used Latin Syntax which didn't marry up to the English speech. The Church opposed to Wycliffe's work as they believed that would not attend Church to come and listen to the stories of the Bible being told. Wycliffe believed the Church was lazy and their literacy wasn't good. Wycliffe was done for heresy but died before execution so they dug up his bones and burned them. -
Sep 28, 1388
The Canterbury Tales
Created by William Chaucer in Middle English. Featured many dialects from around England which gives aid to linguistics because we are able to see the difference in dialect and accent written down which is the only viable access of the time. There are 24 stories in total all about different people from around the country such as the Knight a story of love, rivalry and chivalry. Two men fall in love with the same young girl. -
Period: Sep 28, 1400 to
The Great Vowel Shift
Allowed for an accent change where the monothongs sound moved to close position which pushed the close sounds to central and became diphthongs. An example would be <ai> in 'pain' -
Period: Sep 28, 1422 to Sep 29, 1509
The Paston Letters
Collection of letters and documents consisting of members of the Paston family. Helpful to linguists because it shows the change in English language in the same family over a century (almost) -
Sep 28, 1476
Printing Press
Caxton brought the Printing Press over from Europe. This helped the push to standardising the English Language. Caxton also brought Dutch scholars with him which ran the printing press. This would have brought the influence of Dutch spelling,language into English. Allowed for 20,000 books to be printed over the next 150 years one of these was the influential Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. The Chancery of Westminster made some effort to aid standardisation due to his work being writing legal docs. -
Sep 28, 1485
War of the Roses
Between Yorkshire and Lancashire, Lancashire won. 1485 saw the Battle of Bosworth where Richard III was murdered and Henry Tudor won. Thus entering Tudor period -
Period: Oct 20, 1491 to Oct 21, 1547
The Establishment of the Church of England
When Henry VIII wanted a divorce from Catherine of Aragon he began his own Church as the Catholic clergy wouldn't allow him too. This allowed for the promotion of the English language to spread within religious devotion. An example of this spread was pamphlets of the Church being written in English and preachers were now communicating to it's followers in English. -
Sep 28, 1492
Discovery of America
Christopher Columbus found America. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for America on the Mayflower. This allowed for the English Language to be taken over to America making the language global. -
Period: Sep 28, 1500 to
Early Modern English
Inclusion of Great Vowel Shift, Renaissance, Standardisation, Fixed spelling and grammar, First Dictionary -
Period: Nov 1, 1500 to
The Renaissance
It was the start of a new scientific age including great literature writing sc as Shakespeare and Sidney. The Great Vowel Shift brought the standardising of spelling making the language and spelling less similar. Many prescriptivists at the time, such as Cheke, believed that the English language should not be polluted by other languages. By the 1800s 50% of the population had some form of literacy due events like the printingpress being introduced and a higher interest in scholarly. -
Oct 18, 1554
Phillip Sindey
Elizabeth I knights and gentlemen poets turned the English language into literature. One particular person was Sidney who was Elizabeth's ambassador and an English poet, scholar who coined the famous phrase 'thy need is greater than mine'. He also brought 2225 new words to the English language. Some of his phrases include scummy, miniature, milk white horses, better half, conversation -
Oct 14, 1562
Second Translation of The Bible
Tyndale unlike Wycliffe translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew and made it more accessible by using English syntax. The purpose of this Bible was for 'Every boy who driveth the plough' be able to read the Bible. Tyndale was sent to jail for this creation in 1535 and was executed the following year. Tyndale only translated the New Testament and created many idioms still used today such as 'let there be light'. -
Sep 30, 1563
Dying of Thorn
A rune which represented the <th> sound in English. The Gothic-style transformed thorn into <y> which thorn looked identical too. Foxes Book of Martyrs found it's death from 1563 -
Sep 28, 1564
William Shakespeare
Birth in Stratford, London where he was taught at Stratford school but did not attend university. -
Period: Oct 14, 1564 to
William Shakespeare's Influence
Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in his lifetime. This impacted the English Language because it brought society together to demand more language and more entertainment. Shakespeare introduced 2000 new words and 33,000 quotes into our vocabulary. Many phrases which are still used such as 'vanish into thin air' and 'in minds eye' were coined by Shakespeare. Shakespeare had a West country/ Irish accent. -
Sep 28, 1574
End of Feudalism
Elizabeth I ended it after peasant revolt due to the way they were treated by the land owners in 1381. -
Sep 28, 1582
Richard Mulcaster
School teacher who produced a list of 7000 words and how to spell them, this was the beginning of standardisation -
The Spanish Armada
Philip II of Spain launches a great fleet of ships, known as the Spanish Armada, to overthrow Elizabeth and restore Catholicism to England as the Church of England had allowed religion to become a language of English rather than only Latin. When Elizabeth I died in 1603 her closet relative was King James I as Elizabeth never married or had children. -
Period: to
Pronoun shift
Archaic forms of 2nd person singular pronouns 'thou' 'thee' 'thy' and 'thine' began to be replaced by 'you' -
Period: to
King James I
Became King of England. Millenary Petition 1603 requested a new English translation of the Bible -
First Dictionary
Cawdry produced first dictionary Table Alphabeticall which consisted of 2543 words. Only included the elevated lexis of Latin/French/Greek so the English could recognise the upper state. By 1600 only half of the population could read so the dictionary was made for those who couldn't understand the lexis in scriptures. -
King James Bible
Created by James I, made 257 (according to David Crystal) idioms popular known to this day such as 'How the mighty have fallen'. Went back to Latin to translate however James I used 80% of Tyndale's Bible to translate off. -
William Shakespeare
Death, buried at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford -
Restoration of Charles II
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. -
First Comprehensive Dictionary
Samuel Johnson published first comprehensive dictionary, a collection of words and there spelling -
Independence Day
America gained independence from British colony but continued to speak English. In 19th century a Senate was held to vote for English to be their first language against German. -
Period: to
Late Modern English
Many more words added to English, Industrial Revolution, new technological advances -
First American English Dictionary
Made by Noah Webster, lead to spellings such as 'color' -
Emancipation Proclamation
Black slaves emancipated in America by President Lincoln as a result of the North winning the Civil War in America against the South. -
Forster Act
Children under the age of 10 had to attend compulsory education in public schools. This meant more children was aware of correct grammar and basic education of lexis and spelling. -
BBC Began
This led to a rapid increase of RP pronunciation -
Oxford English Dictionary
First published in London -
Period: to
World War 2
Contributed to dialect levelling (assimilation, mixture or eradication of some dialects)