1.Old English (oe):
1.1 Early oe (5th c.– 7th c.)
1.2
Anglo-Saxon (7th
c.– 11th
c.)
2. Middle English (ME):
2.1 Early ME (11th c.– 14th c.)
2.2 Classical ME (14th c. – 15th c.)
3. New English (NE):
3.1 Early NE (15th c. - mid.17th c.)
3.2 The age of normalization and correctness (mid.17th c. - 18th c.)
3.3 Late NE (Modern English) (the end of the 18th c.- till nowadays)
English language development started with the West Germanic (WG) Invasion by the ngles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Frisians in the 5th century (449 A.D.).
Old English
OE was a typical OG language, with a purely Germanic vocabulary, and few foreign borrowings. As far as grammar is concerned, OE was an inflected or “synthetic” language with a well-developed system of morphological categories.
Middle English Period starts with the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Early Middle English
1066, the year of the Norman Conquest
Official language in England was French for 300 years
Feudal system and foreign influences caused the greatest dialectal divergence
Classical Middle English
The time of the restoration of English to the position of the state and literary language and the time of literary flourishing. The main dialect used in writing and literature was the mixed dialect of London, which arose in the 14th c.
New English period starts with the introduction of printing in 1475 by William Caxton.
A time of progress in culture, education and literature.
The formation of the national English language.
A time of sweeping changes at all levels.
The period of variety and free choice in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
6. OLD ENGLISH: The Roman period
55 BC Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar.
AD 43 Roman invasion and occupation. Beginning of Roman rule of Britain.
436 Roman withdrawal from Britain complete.
Julius Caesar invaded southern Britain in 55 and 54 BC and wrote in De Bello Gallico that the population of southern Britannia was extremely large and shared much in common with the Belgae of the Low Countries. Coin evidence and the work of later Roman historians have provided the names of some of the rulers of the disparate tribes and their machinations in what was Britannia. Until the Roman Conquest of Britain, Britain's British population was relatively stable, and by the time of Julius Caesar's first invasion, the British population of what was western old Britain was speaking a Celtic language generally thought to be the forerunner of the modern Brythonic languages. After Julius Caesar abandoned Britain, it fell back into the hands of the Britons and the Belgae.
After 401 AD the last Roman legions were called back to defend Rome from Vandals; the connection between Rome and the Islands was disrupted. In 406 AD, the Roman colonisation was over. In 410 AD, this fact was proved by Emperor Honorius' message which confirmed that Rome would not be able to further protect Britain.
Thus, the decline of the Roman Empire had a great impact on the fate of Britain, which again split into separate kingdoms.
7. Celtic period
In the period of late bronze and early iron (800-700 BC) the migration of Celts from the Continent to the British Isles started in 75 BC. According to the language the islandic Celts belong to two branches: British Celts lived in Great Britain, and Gaelic lived in Ireland, from where, in the middle of the 5th century, they moved to the West Scottish Islands and adjoining part of Scotland and gradually conquered the Picts. The British Celts did not break their contacts with the continental ones after they had moved to Britain.
Traditionally, and following the Anglo-Saxon preference prevalent in the nineteenth century, many maintain that the influence of Brythonic Celtic on English has been small, citing the small number of Celtic loanwords taken into the language. The number of Celtic loanwords is of a lower order than either Latin or Scandinavian. However, a more recent and still minority view is that distinctive Celtic traits can be discerned in syntax from the post-Old English period, such as the regular progressive construction and analytic word order in opposition to the Germanic languages. Why these traits appear to be restricted to syntax and do not include vocabulary is not clear. However many common English words with early attestation in Britain, such as 'dog', 'bird', 'pig', have no apparent cognate in the West Germanic languages, leading some to speculate that their origin lies in the extinct Brythonic dialects of the 'contact' period. Due to the remoteness of the period, etymological attribution in modern dictionaries is generally given simply as 'Old English'.
8. Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Friesians inhabiting the territory between the Elbe and the Rhine on the Jutland peninsula, started to conquer the lands of Britain and settle there. The first landing of Saxons dates back to 449 AD. But the resistance of the Brits was so persistent that the process of Anglo-Saxon conquest dragged on and had been completed only by the beginning of the 7th century. Moreover, not only Ireland but Scotland as well as the western part of Wales preserved their Celtic nature.
According to Bede, Jutes settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight, East Saxons, on the territory of modern Wessex, and South Saxons, —in Sussex. In the process of settling Britain's territory by the Anglo-Saxons (the general name of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Friesians), there emerged 7 kingdoms: in the North; Northumbria, in the centre of the country, Mercia, with East Anglia and Essex to the east of it; Sussex was to the south of Essex and bordered with Kent in the east and Wessex in the west. Therefore, the period between the 7th and 9th centuries in the history of England is called heptarchy.
The first stage of Germanic colonization had been completed approximately by the end of the 7th cent. The economic relations between the towns on the island did not differ much from those on the continent. Anglo-Saxons and Brits came into close contacts. The cultural influence of Romans on Anglo-Saxons was more significant than that of Celts, since Roman culture and Latin had been partially preserved in Britain.
The conversion of Anglo-Saxons into Christianity lasted for over a century - since 597 till the end of the 8th century. The missionaries came from Rome, they were sent by Pope Gregory I the Great, whose messenger, abbot Augustin, landed in Kent in 597 AD. From Canterbury, where Augustin became an archbishop in the year of 601, the Roman missionaries started for Essex, East Anglia and then York in 625,. The last to be baptized were the South Saxons. The heathen rites were attractive because they were associated with views and regulations of a communal system. That was why the process of Christianization was not a quick one.
Due to Christianization, England was exposed to European culture. Anglo-Saxons got acquainted with many new notions and realias and first of all with parchment. The information about the OE language dates back to the period of Christianization - old runic manuscripts belong to this period. The most educated people of that time lived and created in monasteries; the schools prospered. As the estates of the nobility were growing the feudals were looking for a reunion. Since the end of the 8th century the aspiration for state unity had grew more urgent as there appeared a dangerous enemy—the Normans, or Danes, as they were called in England.