This page is under
construction!
The English language, like
all languages, traces its ultimate ancestry to a time predating
the written
word. Since history relies heavily on written documents as
records of the past, it follows logically that the roots
of
language must be prehistoric. This fact makes it much more
difficult to pin down the development of English's earliest
linguistic ancestors. However, thanks to some stunning
work
by philologists and linguists, we can actually trace the
history of languages in Europe far into the remote past--possibly
as far back as 5,000 BCE. This background will lead to
the
growth of what we call "Anglo-Saxon English" in
the fifth-century CE, which in turn will become Middle English
after the Norman Invasion of 1066, and then give us Modern
English in the Renaissance. For the purpose of simplicity,
I will divide our discussion into several parts:
I will also be adding a series of links
to historical timelines for each century with a particular
focus on literary events. The first sections I will post will
deal with the medieval period, and from there I will gradually
expand forward and backward chronologically.