The History of the English Language

By oliviadewall
  • Period: 450 to 1100

    Old English

    bedward-bed
    billingsgate-curse words
    brabble- argue loudly about matters of no importance
    crapulous- condition of feeling ill as a result of too much eating/drinking
    fudgel- the act of giving the impression you are working, when really you are doing nothing
  • Period: 450 to 480

    Earliest Old English inscriptions

    There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts (notably the inscriptions on the Franks Casket) date to the early 8th century. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 8th century.
  • 597

    St. Augustine arrives in Britain

    St. Augustine arrives in Britain
    This was the beginning of Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons.
  • Period: 700 to 1000

    Suspected Date of Beowulf's Writing

    Beowulf: the superhero of the poem. His tribe is the Geats, and his lord is Hygelac. He comes to help Hrothgar kill Grendel, because Beowulf is a monster-slayer of supernatural strength.
  • 731

    The Venerable Bede

    The Venerable Bede
    Writes “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.”
  • 911

    Charles II of France

    Grants Normandy to the Viking chief Hrolf the Ganger.
  • 1066

    Norman Invasion

    Norman Invasion
    The Norman conquest of England was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French soldiers led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqueror
  • Period: 1100 to 1500

    Middle English

    aventure- chance
    morewe- morrow, morning
    nyce- foolish
    quod- said
    tweye- two
  • 1167

    Universities Established

    Universities Established
    Oxford and Cambridge
  • 1180

    Ormulum

    Ormulum
    Text of the monk Orm completed.
  • 1399

    Henry IV

    Becomes first English-speaking monarch since before the Conquest.
  • 1450

    The Invention of the Printing Press

    The Invention of the Printing Press
    Johannes Gutenberg is usually cited as the inventor of the printing press. Indeed, the German goldsmith's 15th-century contribution to the technology was revolutionary — enabling the mass production of books and the rapid dissemination of knowledge throughout Europe
  • 1476

    Publication of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

    Publication of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's work.
  • 1492

    The Discovery of North America

    The Discovery of North America
    By "finding" the New World, Columbus started its European colonization. This eventually ended up allowing the US to be created. ... The existence of the US was made possible by the "discovery" of America and that is, therefore, one of the ways in which Columbus's discovery changed history
  • Period: 1500 to

    Early Modern English

    Early Modern English or Early New English is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English, in the late 15th century, to the transition to Modern English, in the mid-to-late 17th century.
  • 1526

    William Tyndale

    Prints his English translation of the New Testament of “The Bible”

  • Publication of Shakespeare's First Folio

    Publication of Shakespeare's First Folio
    Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, published in 1623, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio. It is considered one of the most influential books ever published in the English language.

  • The Daily Courant

    Publication of the first daily English-language newspaper, “The Daily Courant”, in London.
  • Period: to

    The American Revolution

    The American Revolution was a colonial revolt which occurred between 1765 and 1783. The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War with the assistance of France, winning independence from Great Britain and establishing the United States of America.
  • Period: to

    Late Modern English

    Late Modern English accumulated many more words as a result of two main historical factors: the Industrial Revolution, which necessitated new words for things and ideas that had not previously existed; and the rise of the British Empire, during which time English adopted many foreign words and made them its own.

  • Oxford English Dictionary

    First edition of the “Oxford English Dictionary” is published.