The british isles

The English Language

  • Period: 401 to 500

    British Isles were invaded

    The british Isles were invaded by Angles, Saxons and Jutes from Germany, Jutland and Denmark.
    Invasions made linguistically a big cut in the language, actually it nearly obliterated the original languages. This is how English, as we know it today, began.
  • Period: Jan 1, 701 to Jan 1, 800

    New letters

    The old runic alphabet was replaced by roman letters.
  • Period: Jan 1, 787 to Jan 1, 1066

    Danish Vikings and Christian missionaries

    Danish Vikings raided and later settled as farmers in Britain. Their language, Norse, influenced the language alongside Latin which came with the Christian missionaries and scholars.
    The new words that became a part of the English language was words like: Altar, demon, egg and history. Of course there were a lor more words that just these four.
  • Period: Jan 1, 801 to Jan 1, 1000

    Danelaw

    The vikings established the Danelaw making the influence of the language Norse longlasting.
  • Period: Jan 1, 1066 to Jan 1, 1470

    Norman invasion

    The Normans invaded Britain. This had a huge impact on the english language. For an example at the beginning of their invasion 90% of the words came from Old English. However, when their invasion ended the percentage had shrunk to only 75%. This meant that a lot of new loan words had entered the English language.
  • Jan 1, 1384

    1384

    1384
    Translation of the BIble resulted in several thousand Latin words entered the language.
  • Period: Jan 1, 1476 to

    The world gets bigger

    Unknown parts of the world were explored, scientific discoveries were made and Greek and Roman literatures had their reanissance. This meant the English language missed terms for new things and a lot of loan words entered the language.
  • King James Bible

    King James Bible
    King James Bible introduced a lot of words and indiomatic phrases into the English language that have stayed ever since.