A Short History of English

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 * This is a short history of the English language.
 * This is a short history of the English language.

Old English
The oldest known form of English is Old English (Beowulf English) (500-1100 A.D), the language which most of England used before William the Conqueror conquered England. It has many more Germanic traits than Modern English. It arrived in England with the arrival of the Angles and the Saxons (hence another common name for Old English being Anglo-Saxon).

Middle English
Middle English (Chaucer's English)(1100-1500 A.D) happened partly due to much french influence over Old English, making it a greatly watered-down form of English which can, for the greater part, be understood by Modern English speakers. The Statute of Pleading (1362 A.D) helped break down the language differences between the upper and lower society. The living Scots Language is a form of Middle English, although it is often considered to be a different language.

Early Modern English
Early Modern English (Shakespeare English/King James' Bible English) (1500-1650 A.D) was not very different to Modern English, the main differences being that it retained a difference between second person plural pronoun (ye for subject and you for object) and second person singular pronoun (thou for subject, thee for object, thy for possessive adjective, and thine for possessive pronoun), the second person singular verb taking an -st ending in simple present and simple past strong verbs except in a few irregular verbs (like so: thou makest instead of you make, thou lovest instead of you love, and thou thinkest instead of you think), and third person singular (he, she, and it) verb taking an -eth ending instead of an -s ending (like so: maketh instead of makes, loveth instead of loves, and thinketh instead of think).

Modern English
Modern English (1650-present) is what we speak today. It is a heavily diluted form of English, having roughly a quarter of its words from the actual English Language, and the rest mostly from Latin and French. It has especially been strongly influenced by Latin recently due to new names for new scientific discoveries and inventions mostly being made by combining Latin words.
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