The English language is of Old Germanic origin, with many influences from other languages including French, Latin and Old Norse. It is a part of the Indo-European language family. It is the main language of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States of America, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. As well as being used and spoken across the globe by over a billion people.
Read on in this teaching wiki, to learn more about ‘what is the English language’ including its history, importance, language features and how it's learnt. With helpful links to resources that you can use to teach your English lessons.
The history of the English language:
To understand ‘what is the English language’ in more depth, it helps to look at its formation through history.
The English language is quite old, its original foundations being dated back to 450CE in Anglo-Saxon Britain. This version of English is very different to the language we speak today, and you would probably find it quite hard to understand. This early version of English is known as Old English and was largely influenced by Old Germanic.
The next stage main period of English is known as Middle English. This is the version of the language used for roughly 300 years, around 1150 to 1450CE. The changes from Old English to Middle English notably occurred due to the influence of the French language after the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066 CE. One of the most famous works of literature from this time is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Before, the sort of English that we speak today was Early Modern English from 1500 to 1700 CE. One of the notable changes in English at this time was the Great Vowel Shift which affected the stress of long vowel syllables. Changing the pronunciation of many words. This was also when English began to gain prestige and become more standardised. The printing press was invented, which meant English writing could be produced on a large scale, creating a standard of English originating from London and the East Midlands. The importance of the English language grew as it started to be used for official documents, popular literature and new versions of the Bible. To understand what this version of English was like look to the works of Shakespeare as his plays were written in this period.
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