History of English

English is a West Germanic language that originated from

Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th Timeline of the English language
centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now
northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The – ↑Future
Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century 2000 —
Growth of cinema,
and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain. Their – popular music, the
language originated as a group of Ingvaeonic languages which ← Internet, and other
1900 — Late Modern English
were spoken by the settlers in England and southern and eastern English dominant media
–
Scotland in the early Middle Ages, displacing the Celtic
1800 —
languages, and, possibly, British Latin, that had previously been
dominant. Old English reflected the varied origins of the Anglo- –
Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain. The Late 1700 —
West Saxon dialect eventually became dominant. A significant – 1600: the British empire
Early Modern English
subsequent influence upon the shaping of Old English came from 1600 — ← helps spread English
contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the –
around the world
Scandinavian Vikings who conquered and colonized parts of
1500 —
Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries, which led to much lexical
–
borrowing and grammatical simplification. The Anglian dialects c. 1400–1700: Great
1400 — ← vowel shift
had a greater influence on Middle English.
–
After the Norman conquest in 1066, Old English was replaced, 1300 —
for a time, by Anglo-Norman, also known as Anglo-Norman – Middle English
French, as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as
1200 —
marking the end of the Old English or Anglo-Saxon era, as during
–
this period the English language was heavily influenced by 1066: Norman Conquest;
Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle 1100 —
replacement of Germanic
–
← elite with Norman French
English. The conquering Normans spoke a Romance langue d'oïl
speakers
called Old Norman, which in Britain developed into Anglo- 1000 —
Norman. Many Norman and French loanwords entered the local – c. 800–950: Viking
language in this period, especially in vocabulary related to the 900 — invasions; assimilation of
church, the court system and the government. As Normans are ← words from Old Norse
– and simplification of Old
descendants of Vikings who invaded France, Norman French was
800 — English grammar
influenced by Old Norse, and many Norse loanwords in English
– Old English
came directly from French. Middle English was spoken to the late
15th century. The system of orthography that was established 700 —
during the Middle English period is largely still in use today. –
Later changes in pronunciation, combined with the adoption of 600 —
various foreign spellings, mean that the spelling of modern –
English words appears highly irregular. c. 450: Settlement of
500 —
Anglo-Saxon tribes in
– ← England speaking
Early Modern English – the language used by William
400 — ↓Ingvaeonic Germanic dialects
Shakespeare – is dated from around 1500. It incorporated many
Renaissance-era loans from Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as
borrowings from other European languages, including French, German and Dutch. Significant pronunciation changes in this period
included the Great Vowel Shift, which affected the qualities of most long vowels. Modern English proper, similar in most respects to
that spoken today, was in place by the late 17th century.

English as we know it today was exported to other parts of the world through British colonisation, and is now the dominant language
in Britain and Ireland, the United States and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many smaller former colonies, as well as being
widely spoken in India, parts of Africa, and elsewhere. Partially due to influence of the United States and its globalized efforts of
commerce and technology, English took on the status of a global lingua franca in the second half of the 20th century. This is especially
true in Europe, where English has largely taken over the former roles of French and, much earlier, Latin as a common language used to
conduct business and diplomacy, share scientific and technological information, and otherwise communicate across national
boundaries. The efforts of English-speaking Christian missionaries have resulted in English becoming a second language for many
other groups.[1][2]

Global variation among different English dialects and accents remains significant today.

Proto-English
English has its roots in the languages of the Germanic peoples of northern Europe.
During the Roman Empire, most of the Germanic-inhabited area, Germania,
remained independent from Rome, although some southwestern parts were within
the empire. Some Germanics served in the Roman military, and troops from
Germanic tribes such as the Tungri, Batavi, Menapii and Frisii served in Britain
(Britannia) under Roman command. Germanic settlement and power expanded
during the Migration Period, which saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire. A
Germanic settlement of Britain took place from the 5th to the 7th century,
following the end of Roman rule on the island.[4]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that around the year 449 Vortigern, king of the
Britons, invited the "Angle kin", Angles allegedly led by the Germanic brothers
Hengist and Horsa, to help repel invading Picts, in return for lands in the southeast
of Britain. This led to waves of settlers who eventually established seven
kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. The Chronicle was not a contemporaneous
work, however, and cannot be regarded as an accurate record of such early Proto-English (early Anglo-Saxon) and the West
events.[5] Bede, who wrote his Ecclesiastical History in AD 731, writes of invasion Germanic languages c. 476 AD.[3]
by Angles, Saxons and Jutes, although the precise nature of the invasion and
settlement and the contributions made by these particular groups are the subject of
much dispute among historians.[6]

The languages spoken by the Germanic peoples who initially settled in Britain were part of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic
language family. They consisted of dialects from the Ingvaeonic grouping, spoken mainly around the North Sea coast, in regions that
lie within modern Denmark, north-west Germany and the Netherlands. Due to specific similarities between early English and Old
Frisian, an Anglo-Frisian grouping is also identified, although it does not necessarily represent a node in the family tree.[7]

These dialects had most of the typical West Germanic features, including a significant amount of grammatical inflection. Vocabulary
came largely from the core Germanic stock, although due to the Germanic peoples' extensive contacts with the Roman world, the
settlers' languages already included a number of loanwords from Latin.[8] For instance, the predecessor of Modern English wine had
been borrowed into early Germanic from the Latin vinum.

Old English
The Germanic settlers in the British Isles initially spoke a number of different dialects, which developed into a language that came to
be called Anglo-Saxon. It displaced the indigenous Brittonic Celtic, and the Latin of the former Roman rulers, in parts of the areas of
Britain that later formed the Kingdom of England. Celtic languages remained in most of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, and many
compound Celtic-Germanic place names survive, hinting at early language mixing.[9] Old English continued to exhibit local variation,
the remnants of which continue to be found in dialects of Modern English.[10] The four main dialects were Mercian, Northumbrian,
Kentish and West Saxon. West Saxon formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period. The dominant forms of
Middle and Modern English developed mainly from Mercian.

Old English was first written using a runic script called the futhorc. This was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet introduced by
Irish missionaries in the 8th century. Most literary output was in either the Early West Saxon of Alfred the Great's time, or the Late
West Saxon, regarded as the "classical" form of Old English, of the Winchester school, inspired by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester,
and followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham, "the Grammarian". The most famous surviving work from the Old
English period is the epic poem Beowulf, composed by an unknown poet.

The introduction of Christianity from around the year 600 encouraged the addition of over 400 Latin loan words into Old English, such
as the predecessors of the modern priest, paper, and school, and a smaller number of Greek loan words.[11] The speech of eastern and
northern parts of England was also subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th
century (see below).
Most native English speakers today find Old English unintelligible, even though about half of
the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots.[12] The grammar of
Old English was much more inflected than modern English, combined with freer word order,
and was grammatically quite similar in some respects to modern German. The language had
demonstrative pronouns, equivalent to this and that, but did not have the definite article the.
The Old English period is considered to have evolved into the Middle English period some time
after the Norman conquest of 1066, when the language came to be influenced significantly by
the new ruling class's language, Old Norman.[13][14]

Scandinavian influence
Vikings from modern-day Norway and Denmark began to raid parts of Britain from the late 8th
century onward. In 865, a major invasion was launched by what the Anglo-Saxons called the
Great Heathen Army, which eventually brought large parts of northern and eastern England, the
Danelaw, under Scandinavian control. Most of these areas were retaken by the English under
Edward the Elder in the early 10th century, although York and Northumbria were not
permanently regained until the death of Eric Bloodaxe in 954. Scandinavian raids resumed in
the late 10th century during the reign of Æthelred the Unready. Sweyn Forkbeard was briefly
declared king of England in 1013, followed by the longer reign of his son Cnut from 1016 to The first page of the Beowulf
1035, and Cnut's sons Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut, until 1042. manuscript

The Scandinavians, or Norsemen, spoke dialects of a North Germanic language known as

Old Norse. The Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians thus spoke related languages from
different branches (West and North) of the Germanic family. Many of their lexical roots
were the same or similar, although their grammatical systems were more divergent. It is
likely that significant numbers of Norse speakers settled in the Danelaw during the period
of Scandinavian control. Many place-names in those areas are of Scandinavian
provenance, those ending in -by, for example. It is believed that the settlers often
established new communities in places that had not previously been developed by the
Anglo-Saxons. The extensive contact between Old English and Old Norse speakers, The approximate extent of Old Norse and
including the possibility of intermarriage that resulted from the acceptance of Christianity related languages in the early 10th
century:
by the Danes in 878,[15] undoubtedly influenced the varieties of those languages spoken in
Old West Norse dialect
the areas of contact.
Old East Norse dialect
Old Gutnish dialect
During the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the first half of the 11th century, a kind
Old English
of diglossia may have come about, with the West Saxon literary language existing
Crimean Gothic
alongside the Norse-influenced Midland dialect of English, which could have served as a
Other Germanic languages with
koine or spoken lingua franca. When Danish rule ended, and particularly after the Norman
which Old Norse still retained some
Conquest, the status of the minority Norse language presumably declined relative to that of
mutual intelligibility
English, and its remaining speakers assimilated to English in a process involving language
shift and language death. The widespread bilingualism that must have existed during the
process possibly contributed to the rate of borrowings from Norse into English.[16]

Only about 100 or 150 Norse words, mainly connected with government and administration, are found in Old English writing. The
borrowing of words of this type was stimulated by Scandinavian rule in the Danelaw and during the later reign of Cnut. Most
surviving Old English texts are based on the West Saxon standard that developed outside the Danelaw. It is not clear to what extent
Norse influenced the forms of the language spoken in eastern and northern England at that time. Later texts from the Middle English
era, now based on an eastern Midland rather than a Wessex standard, reflect the significant impact that Norse had on the language. In
all, English borrowed about 2,000 words from Old Norse, several hundred surviving in Modern English.[16]

Norse borrowings include many very common words, such as anger, bag, both, hit, law, leg, same, skill, sky, take, window, and even
the pronoun they. Norse influence is also believed to have reinforced the adoption of the plural copular verb form are rather, than
alternative Old English forms like sind. It is considered to have stimulated and accelerated the morphological simplification found in
Middle English, such as the loss of grammatical gender and explicitly marked case, except in pronouns.[17] That is possibly confirmed
by observations that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the north, and latest in the southwest. The spread of phrasal
verbs in English is another grammatical development to which Norse may have contributed, although here a possible Celtic influence
is also noted.[16]
Some scholars have claimed that Old English died out entirely and was replaced by Norse towards the end of the Old English period
and as part of the transition to Middle English, by virtue of the Middle English syntax being much more akin to Norse than Old
English.[18] Other scholars reject this claim.[19]

Middle English
Middle English is the form of English spoken roughly from the time of the Norman Conquest in
1066 until the end of the 15th century.

For centuries after the Conquest, the Norman kings and high-ranking nobles in England and to
some extent elsewhere in the British Isles spoke Anglo-Norman, a variety of Old Norman,
originating from a northern langue d'oïl dialect. Merchants and lower-ranked nobles were often
bilingual in Anglo-Norman and English, whilst English continued to be the language of the
common people. Middle English was influenced by both Anglo-Norman, and later Anglo-
French. See characteristics of the Anglo-Norman language.

Until the 14th century, Anglo-Norman and then French were the language of the courts and
government. Even after the decline of Norman, standard French retained the status of a formal
or prestige language. About 10,000 French and Norman loan words entered Middle English,
particularly terms associated with government, church, law, the military, fashion, and food.[20]
See English language word origins and List of English words of French origin. The opening prologue of "The Wife
of Bath's Tale" from the Canterbury
Although English is a Germanic language, it has a deep connection to Romance languages. The Tales
roots of this connection trace back to the Conquest of England by the Normans in 1066. The
Normans spoke a dialect of Old French, and the comingling of Norman French and Old English
resulted in Middle English, a language that reflects aspects of both Germanic and Romance
languages and evolved into the English we speak today, where nearly 60% of the words are
loanworded from Latin & romance languages like French.

The strong influence of Old Norse on English becomes apparent during this period. The impact of
the native British Celtic languages that English continued to displace is generally held to be very
small, although a few scholars have attributed some grammatical forms, such as periphrastic "do",
to Celtic influence.[21][22] These theories have been criticized by a number of other
linguists.[23][24][25] Some scholars have also put forward hypotheses that Middle English was a
kind of creole language resulting from contact between Old English and either Old Norse or
Anglo-Norman. The percentage of modern
English words derived from each
language group:
English literature began to reappear after 1200, when a changing political climate and the decline
Anglo-Norman French, then
in Anglo-Norman made it more respectable. The Provisions of Oxford, released in 1258, was the
French: ~29%
first English government document to be published in the English language after the Norman Latin, including words used only
Conquest. In 1362, Edward III became the first king to address Parliament in English. The in scientific, medical or legal
Pleading in English Act 1362 made English the only language in which court proceedings could be contexts: ~29%
held, though the official record remained in Latin.[26] By the end of the century, the royal court had Germanic: ~26%
switched to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in limited circles somewhat longer, but it had Others: ~16%
ceased to be a living language. Official documents began to be produced regularly in English
during the 15th century. Geoffrey Chaucer, who lived in the late 14th century, is the most famous
writer from the Middle English period, and The Canterbury Tales is his best-known work.

The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, in vocabulary, in pronunciation, and in grammar. While
Old English is a heavily inflected language (synthetic), the use of grammatical endings diminished in Middle English (analytic).
Grammar distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were levelled to -e. The older plural noun marker -en, retained in
a few cases such as children and oxen, largely gave way to -s. Grammatical gender was discarded. Definite article þe appears around
1200, later spelled as the, first appearing in East and North England as a substitute for Old English se and seo, nominative forms of
"that."[27]
English spelling was also influenced by Norman in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being spelled th, rather than with the Old
English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth), which did not exist in Norman. These letters remain in the modern Icelandic and Faroese
alphabets, having been borrowed from Old English via Old West Norse.

Early Modern English

English underwent extensive sound changes during the 15th century, while its spelling conventions remained largely constant. Modern
English is often dated from the Great Vowel Shift, which took place mainly during the 15th century. The language was further
transformed by the spread of a standardized London-based dialect in government and administration and by the standardizing effect of
printing, which also tended to regularize capitalization. As a result, the language acquired self-conscious terms such as "accent" and
"dialect".[28] As most early presses came from continental Europe, a few native English letters such as þ and ð died out. For some time
þe (modern "the") was written as ye. By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 16th – early 17th century),[29] the language had become
clearly recognizable as Modern English. In 1604, the first English dictionary was published, A Table Alphabeticall.

Increased literacy and travel facilitated the adoption of many foreign words, especially borrowings from Latin and Greek, often terms
for abstract concepts not available in English.[30] In the 17th century, Latin words were often used with their original inflections, but
these eventually disappeared. As there are many words from different languages and English spelling is variable, the risk of
mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, most notably in the West Country. During
the period, loan words were borrowed from Italian, German, and Yiddish. British acceptance of and resistance to Americanisms began
during this period.[31]

Modern English
The first authoritative and full-featured English dictionary, the Dictionary of the English
Language, was published by Samuel Johnson in 1755. To a high degree, the dictionary
standardized both English spelling and word usage. Meanwhile, grammar texts by Lowth,
Murray, Priestly, and others attempted to prescribe standard usage even further.

Early Modern English and Late Modern English, also called Present-Day English (PDE), differ
essentially in vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from the
Industrial Revolution and technologies that created a need for new words, as well as
international development of the language. The British Empire at its height covered one quarter
of the Earth's land surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many
countries. British English and North American English, the two major varieties of the language,
are together spoken by 400 million people. The total number of English speakers worldwide
may exceed one billion.[32] There have been attempts to predict future English evolution,
though they have been met with skepticism.[33]

Phonological changes
The title page from the second
edition of the first Dictionary of the
Introduction English Language, 1755

Over the last 1,200 years or so, English has undergone extensive changes in its vowel system,
but many fewer changes to its consonants.

In the Old English period, a number of umlaut processes affected vowels in complex ways. Unstressed vowels were gradually eroded,
eventually leading to a loss of grammatical case and grammatical gender in the Early Middle English period. The most important
umlaut process was *i-mutation, c. 500 CE, which led to pervasive alternations of all sorts, many of which survive in the modern
language: e.g. in noun paradigms (foot vs. feet, mouse vs. mice, brother vs. brethren); in verb paradigms (sold vs. sell); nominal
derivatives from adjectives ("strong" vs. "strength", broad vs. breadth, foul vs. filth) and from other nouns (fox vs. "vixen"); verbal
derivatives ("food" vs. "to feed"); and comparative adjectives ("old" vs. "elder"). Consonants were more stable, although velar
consonants were significantly modified by palatalization, which produced alternations such as speak vs. speech, drink vs. drench, wake
vs. watch, bake vs. batch.

The Middle English period saw further vowel changes. Most significant was the Great Vowel Shift, c. 1500 CE, which transformed the
pronunciation of all long vowels. This occurred after the spelling system was fixed, and accounts for the drastic differences in
pronunciation between "short" mat, met, bit, cot vs. "long" mate, mete/meet, bite, coat. Other changes that left echoes in the modern
language were homorganic lengthening before ld, mb, nd, which accounts for the long vowels in child, mind, climb, etc.; pre-cluster
shortening, which resulted in the vowel alternations in child vs. children, keep vs. kept, meet vs. met; and trisyllabic laxing, which is
responsible for alternations such as grateful vs. gratitude, divine vs. divinity, sole vs. solitary.

Among the more significant recent changes to the language have been the development of rhotic and non-rhotic accents (i.e. "r-
dropping") and the trap-bath split in many dialects of British English.

Vowel changes
The following table shows the principal developments in the stressed vowels, from Old English through Modern English. C indicates
any consonant:

Old English Middle English Early Modern English

Modern English Modern spelling Examples
(c. 900 AD) (c. 1400 AD) (c. 1600 AD)

oʊ
ɑː ɔː oː oa, oCe oak, boat, whole, stone
əʊ (UK)

æː, æːɑ ɛː eː ea heal, beat, cheap

iː
eː, eːo eː iː ee, -e feed, deep, me, be

iː, yː iː əi or ɛi aɪ iCe ride, time, mice

oː oː uː uː oo, -o moon, food, do

uː uː əu or ɔu aʊ ou mouse, out, loud

a æ æ a man, sat, wax

ɑ, æ, æɑ
aː ɛː eɪ aCe name, bake, raven

e ɛ ɛ e help, tell, seven

e, eo
ɛː eː iː ea, eCe speak, meat, mete

i, y ɪ ɪ ɪ i written, sit, kiss

ɒ
o ɔ o god, top, beyond
ɑ (US)
o
oʊ
ɔː oː oa, oCe foal, nose, over
əʊ (UK)

ɤ ʌ buck, up, love, wonder

u ʊ u, o
ʊ ʊ full, bull

The following chart shows the primary developments of English vowels in the last 600 years, in more detail, since Late Middle
English of Chaucer's time. The Great Vowel Shift can be seen in the dramatic developments from c. 1400 to 1600.
Neither of the above tables covers the history of Middle English diphthongs, the changes before /r/, or various special cases and
exceptions. For details, see phonological history of English as well as the articles on Old English phonology and Middle English
phonology.

Examples
The vowel changes over time can be seen in the following example words, showing the changes in their form over the last 2,000 years:

one two three four five six seven mother heart hear

Proto-Germanic, c. AD 1 ainaz θriːz feðwoːr moːðeːr hertoːː hauzijanã

twai fimf sehs seβun
West Germanic, c. AD 400 ain θriju fewwur moːdar herta haurijan

heːran,
Late Old English, c. AD 900 aːn twaː θreo feowor fiːf siks sĕŏvon moːdor hĕŏrte
hyːran

(hēran,
(Late Old English spelling) (ān) (twā) (þrēo) (fēowor) (fīf) (six) (seofon) (mōdor) (heorte)
hȳran)

Late Middle English, c. 1350 ɔːn twoː θreː fowər fiːvə siks sevən moːðər hertə hɛːrə(n)

(Late Middle English

(oon) (two) (three) (fower) (five) (six) (seven) (mother) (herte) (heere(n))
spelling)

Early Modern English, oːn >! twuː >

foːr fəiv siks mʊðər hert heːr
c. 1600 wʊn tuː θriː sevən
Modern English, c. 2000 wʌn tuː fɔː(r) faiv sɪks mʌðə(r) hɑrt/hɑːt hiːr/hiə

one two three four five six seven mother heart hear

Grammatical changes
The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to Latin, Greek, modern German and Icelandic. Old English
distinguished among the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases, and for strongly declined adjectives and some pronouns
also a separate instrumental case (which otherwise and later completely coincided with the dative). The dual number was distinguished
from the singular and plural.[34] Declension was greatly simplified during the Middle English period, when the accusative and dative
cases of the pronouns merged into a single oblique case, that also replaced the genitive case after prepositions. Nouns in Modern
English no longer decline for case, except for the genitive.

Evolution of English pronouns

Pronouns such as whom and him, contrasted with who and he, are a conflation of the old accusative and dative cases, as well as of the
genitive case after prepositions, while her also includes the genitive case. This conflated form is called the oblique case or the object
(objective) case, because it is used for objects of verbs (direct, indirect, or oblique) as well as for objects of prepositions. See object
pronoun. The information formerly conveyed by distinct case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order. In Old
English as well as modern German and Icelandic as further examples, these cases had distinct forms.

Although some grammarians continue to use the traditional terms "accusative" and "dative", these are functions rather than
morphological cases in Modern English. That is, the form whom may play accusative or dative roles, as well as instrumental or
prepositional roles, but it is a single morphological form, contrasting with nominative who and genitive whose. Many grammarians use
the labels "subjective", "objective", and "possessive" for nominative, oblique, and genitive pronouns.

Modern English nouns exhibit only one inflection of the reference form: the possessive case, which some linguists argue is not a case
at all, but a clitic. See the entry for genitive case for more information.

Interrogative pronouns

Case Old English Middle English Modern English

Nominative hwā who who

Accusative hwone, hwæne

Masculine, whom whom, who1
feminine Dative hwām, hwǣm
(person)
Instrumental

Genitive hwæs whos whose

Nominative hwæt what

Accusative hwæt what
what, whom
Neuter Dative hwām, hwǣm
(thing)
Instrumental hwȳ, hwon why why2

Genitive hwæs whos whose3

1
– In some dialects "who" is used where formal English only allows "whom", though variation among dialects must be taken into account.

2
– An explanation may be found in the last paragraph of this section of Instrumental case.

3
– Usually replaced by of what (postpositioned).

First person personal pronouns

Case Old English Middle English Modern English

Nominative iċ I, ich, ik I

Accusative mē, meċ

Singular me me
Dative mē

Genitive mīn min, mi my, mine

Nominative wē we we1

Accusative ūs, ūsiċ

Plural us us
Dative ūs

Genitive ūser, ūre ure, our our, ours

1
– Old English also had a separate dual, wit ("we two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.

Second person personal pronouns

Old and Middle English singular to the Modern English archaic informal
Case Old English Middle English Modern English

Nominative þū þu, thou thou (you)

Accusative þē, þeċ

Singular þé, thee thee (you)
Dative þē

Genitive þīn þi, þīn, þīne, thy; thin, thine thy, thine (your, yours)

Nominative ġē ye, ȝe, you

Accusative ēow, ēowiċ you1

Plural you, ya
Dative ēow

Genitive ēower your your, yours

1 – Note that the ye/you distinction still existed, at least optionally, in Early Modern English: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" from
the King James Bible.

Here the letter þ (interchangeable with ð in manuscripts) corresponds to th. For ȝ, see Yogh.

Formal and informal forms of the second person singular and plural
Old English Middle English Modern English

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

Case Formal Informal Formal Informal Formal Informal Formal Informal Formal Informal Formal Informal

Nominative þū ġē1 thou ye

Accusative þē, þeċ ēow, ēowiċ you you

thee you
you
Dative þē ēow
your, thy,
Genitive þīn ēower your, yours your, yours
yours thine

1 – (Old English also had a separate dual, ġit ("ye two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.)

Third person personal pronouns

Case Old English Middle English Modern English

Nominative hē he he

Accusative hine
Masculine singular him him
Dative him
Genitive his his his

Nominative hēo heo, sche, ho, he, ȝho she

Accusative hīe
Feminine singular hire, hure, her, heore her
Dative
hire
Genitive hir, hire, heore, her, here her, hers

Nominative hit, it it, they

hit
Accusative
Neuter singular hit, it, him it, them
Dative him
Genitive his his its, their

Nominative he, hi, ho, hie, þai, þei they

hīe
Accusative
Plural1 hem, ham, heom, þaim, þem, þam them
Dative him

Genitive hira here, heore, hore, þair, þar their, theirs

1 – The origin of the modern forms is generally thought to have been a borrowing from Old Norse forms þæir, þæim, þæira. The two different roots co-existed

for some time, although currently the only common remnant is the shortened form 'em. Cf. also the demonstrative pronouns.

Examples

Beowulf
Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in alliterative verse. It is dated from the 8th to the early
11th centuries. These are the first 11 lines:

Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena in geārdagum,

þēodcyninga þrym gefrūnon,
hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena þrēatum,
monegum mǣgþum, meodosetla oftēah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ǣrest wearð
fēasceaft funden, hē þæs frōfre gebād,
wēox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þāh,
oðþæt him ǣghwylc þāra ymbsittendra The dialects of Old English c. 800
ofer hronrāde hȳran scolde, CE
gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs gōd cyning!

Which, as translated by Francis Barton Gummere, reads:

Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings

of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!

Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan

This is the beginning of The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, a prose text in Old English dated to the late 9th century. The full text
can be found at Wikisource.

Original: A translation:
Ōhthere sǣde his hlāforde, Ælfrēde cyninge, ðæt hē ealra Ohthere said to his lord, King Alfred, that he of all
Norðmonna norþmest būde. Hē cwæð þæt hē būde on þǣm Norsemen lived north-most. He quoth that he lived in the
lande norþweardum wiþ þā Westsǣ. Hē sǣde þēah þæt þæt land northward along the West Sea. He said though that
land sīe swīþe lang norþ þonan; ac hit is eal wēste, būton on the land was very long from there, but it is all wasteland,
fēawum stōwum styccemǣlum wīciað Finnas, on huntoðe on except that in a few places here and there Finns [i.e. Sami]
wintra, ond on sumera on fiscaþe be þǣre sǣ. Hē sǣde þæt encamp, hunting in winter and in summer fishing by the
hē æt sumum cirre wolde fandian hū longe þæt land sea. He said that at some time he wanted to find out how
norþryhte lǣge, oþþe hwæðer ǣnig mon be norðan þǣm long the land lay northward or whether any man lived north
wēstenne būde. Þā fōr hē norþryhte be þǣm lande: lēt him of the wasteland. Then he traveled north by the land. All the
ealne weg þæt wēste land on ðæt stēorbord, ond þā wīdsǣ way he kept the waste land on his starboard and the wide
on ðæt bæcbord þrīe dagas. Þā wæs hē swā feor norþ swā sea on his port three days. Then he was as far north as
þā hwælhuntan firrest faraþ. Þā fōr hē þā giet norþryhte swā whale hunters furthest travel. Then he traveled still north as
feor swā hē meahte on þǣm ōþrum þrīm dagum gesiglau. far as he might sail in another three days. Then the land
Þā bēag þæt land, þǣr ēastryhte, oþþe sēo sǣ in on ðæt bowed east (or the sea into the land — he did not know
lond, hē nysse hwæðer, būton hē wisse ðæt hē ðǣr bād which). But he knew that he waited there for west winds
westanwindes ond hwōn norþan, ond siglde ðā ēast be lande (and somewhat north), and sailed east by the land so as he
swā swā hē meahte on fēower dagum gesiglan. Þā sceolde might sail in four days. Then he had to wait for due-north
hē ðǣr bīdan ryhtnorþanwindes, for ðǣm þæt land bēag þǣr winds, because the land bowed south (or the sea into the
sūþryhte, oþþe sēo sǣ in on ðæt land, hē nysse hwæþer. Þā land — he did not know which). Then he sailed from there
siglde hē þonan sūðryhte be lande swā swā hē meahte on fīf south by the land so as he might sail in five days. Then a
dagum gesiglan. Ðā læg þǣr ān micel ēa ūp on þæt land. Ðā large river lay there up into the land. Then they turned up
cirdon hīe ūp in on ðā ēa for þǣm hīe ne dorston forþ bī into the river, because they dared not sail forth past the
þǣre ēa siglan for unfriþe; for þǣm ðæt land wæs eall gebūn river for hostility, because the land was all settled on the
on ōþre healfe þǣre ēas. Ne mētte hē ǣr nān gebūn land, other side of the river. He had not encountered earlier any
siþþan hē from his āgnum hām fōr; ac him wæs ealne weg settled land since he travelled from his own home, but all
wēste land on þæt stēorbord, būtan fiscerum ond fugelerum the way waste land was on his starboard (except fishers,
ond huntum, ond þæt wǣron eall Finnas; ond him wæs fowlers and hunters, who were all Finns). And the wide sea
āwīdsǣ on þæt bæcbord. Þā Boermas heafdon sīþe wel was always on his port. The Bjarmians have cultivated their
gebūd hira land: ac hīe ne dorston þǣr on cuman. Ac þāra land very well, but they did not dare go in there. But the
Terfinna land wæs eal wēste, būton ðǣr huntan gewīcodon, Terfinn's land was all waste except where hunters
oþþe fisceras, oþþe fugeleras. encamped, or fishers or fowlers.[35]

Ayenbite of Inwyt
From Ayenbite of Inwyt ("the prick of conscience"), a translation of a French confessional prose
work into the Kentish dialect of Middle English, completed in 1340:[36]

Nou ich wille þet ye ywite hou hit is ywent

þet þis boc is ywrite mid Engliss of Kent.
Þis boc is ymad vor lewede men
Vor vader and vor moder and vor oþer ken
ham vor to berȝe vram alle manyere zen
þet ine hare inwytte ne bleve no voul wen.
'Huo ase god' in his name yzed,
Þet þis boc made god him yeve þet bread,
Of angles of hevene, and þerto his red,
The dialects of Middle English
And ondervonge his zaule huanne þet he is dyad. Amen. c. 1300

The Canterbury Tales

The beginning of The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories in poetry and prose written in the London dialect of Middle English by
Geoffrey Chaucer, at the end of the 14th century:[37]

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open yë
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
 Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Paradise Lost
The beginning of Paradise Lost, an epic poem in unrhymed iambic pentameter written in Early Modern English by John Milton, first
published in 1667:

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.

Oliver Twist
A selection from the novel Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens in Modern English and published in 1838:

The evening arrived: the boys took their places; the master in his cook's uniform stationed himself at the copper; his
pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out, and a long grace was said over the short
commons. The gruel disappeared, the boys whispered each other and winked at Oliver, while his next neighbours nudged
him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery. He rose from the table, and advancing,
basin and spoon in hand, to the master, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity—

"Please, sir, I want some more."

The master was a fat, healthy man, but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for
some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder, and the boys with
fear.

"What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice.

"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more."

The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle, pinioned him in his arms, and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

See also

Language portal

Influence of French on English

Phonological history of English
Comparison of American and British English
English phonology
English studies
Inkhorn debate
 Languages in the United Kingdom
Middle English declension
History of the Scots language
Changes to Old English vocabulary
Englishisation
Lists:

List of dialects of the English language

List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents
Lists of English words of international origin

Notes
1. Snow, Donald (27 April 2001). English Teaching as Christian Mision: An Applied Theology. Herald Press.
ISBN 9780836191585.
2. Burke, Susan E (1998). ESL: Creating a quality English as a second language program: A guide for churches. Grand
Rapids, Michigan: CRC Publications. ISBN 9781562123437.
3. Euler, Wolfram 2022. Das Westgermanische – von der Herausbildung im 3. Jahrhundert bis zur Aufgliederung im 7.
Jahrhundert – Analyse und Rekonstruktion [West Germanic – from the Formation in the 3rd Century to the Breakup in
the 7th Century – Analysis and Reconstruction]. Berlin, Inspiration Unlimited, p. 1 (cover)
4. Oppenheimer, Stephen, 2006. The Origins of the British London, Robinson, pp. 364–374.
5. Dark, Ken, 2000. Britain and the End of the Roman Empire. Brimscombe, Gloucestershire, Tempus, pp. 43–47.
6. Oppenheimer, Stephen, 2006. The Origins of the British London, Robinson, pp. 364–374.
7. Stiles, Patrick. "Remarks on the 'Anglo-Frisian' Thesis (1995)" (https://www.academia.edu/37163852). {{cite
journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
8. Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. The History of the English Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall. pp. 79–81.
9. Crystal, David. 2004. The Stories of English. London: Penguin. pp. 24–26.
10. Shore, Thomas William (1906), Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race – A Study of the Settlement of England and the Tribal
Origin of the Old English People (1st ed.), London, pp. 3, 393
11. Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. The History of the English Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall. pp. 91–92.
12. "Geordie dialect" (https://web.archive.org/web/20190722181114/http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/g
eordie/). Bl.uk. 2007-03-12. Archived from the original (https://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/)
on 2019-07-22. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
13. "4.1 The change from Old English to Middle English" (http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb8/misc/lfb/html/text/4-1frame.html).
Uni-kassel.de. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
14. The Oxford history of English lexicography, Volume 1 By Anthony Paul Cowie
15. Fennell, B (2001). A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
16. Hogg, Richard M. (ed.). (1992). The Cambridge History of the English Language (Vol. 1): the Beginnings to 1066.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 320ff.
17. Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. The History of the English Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall. pp. 92–105.
18. Faarlund, Jan Terje, and Joseph E. Emonds. "English as North Germanic". Language Dynamics and Change 6.1
(2016): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00601002
19. Bech, Kristin; Walkden, George (May 15, 2016). "English is (still) a West Germanic language" (https://doi.org/10.101
7%2FS0332586515000219). Nordic Journal of Linguistics. 39 (1): 65–100. doi:10.1017/S0332586515000219 (https://d
oi.org/10.1017%2FS0332586515000219). S2CID 146920677 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:146920677).
20. Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. The History of the English Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall. pp. 158–178.
21. Filppula, Markku, Juhani Klemola and Heli Pitkänen (eds.). 2002. The Celtic Roots of English. Joensuu: University of
Joensuu, Faculty of Humanities.
22. David L. White On the Areal Pattern of 'Brittonicity' in English and Its Implications in Hildegard L. C. Tristram (ed.).
2006. The Celtic Englishes IV – The Interface Between English and the Celtic Languages. Potsdam: University of
Potsdam
23. Coates, Richard (2010), Reviewed Work: English and Celtic in Contact
24. Robert McColl Millar, "English in the 'transition period': the sources of contact-induced change," in Contact: The
Interaction of Closely-Related Linguistic Varieties and the History of English, Edinburgh University Press (2016)
25. John Insley, "Britons and Anglo-Saxons," in Kulturelle Integration und Personnenamen in Mittelalter, De Gruyter (2018)
26. La langue française et la mondialisation, Yves Montenay, Les Belles lettres, Paris, 2005
27. Millward, C. M. (1989). A Biography of the English Language. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 147.
28. Crystal, David. 2004. The Stories of English. London: Penguin. pp. 341–343.
29. See Fausto Cercignani, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.
30. Franklin, James (1983). "Mental furniture from the philosophers" (http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/mental.pdf)
(PDF). Et Cetera. 40: 177–191. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
31. Algeo, John. 2010. The Origins and Development of the English Language. Boston, MA: Wadsworth. pp. 140–141.
32. Algeo, John. 2010. The Origins and Development of the English Language. Boston, MA: Wadsworth. pp. 182–187.
33. Jansen, Sandra (March 2018). "Predicting the future of English: Considerations when engaging with the public" (http
s://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S026607841700027X/type/journal_article). English Today. 34 (1): 52–
55. doi:10.1017/S026607841700027X (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS026607841700027X). ISSN 0266-0784 (https://se
arch.worldcat.org/issn/0266-0784).
34. Peter S. Baker (2003). "Pronouns" (https://web.archive.org/web/20150911000749/http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/reso
urces/IOE/inflpron.html). The Electronic Introduction to Old English. Oxford: Blackwell. Archived from the original (htt
p://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/inflpron.html) on September 11, 2015.
35. Original translation for this article: In this close translation readers should be able to see the correlation with the
original.
36. Translation: Now I want that you understand how it has come [i.e., happened]
that this book is written with [the] English of Kent.
This book is made for unlearned men
for father, and for mother, and for other kin
them for to protect [i.e., in order to protect them] from all manner of sin
[so] that in their conscience [there] not remain no foul wen [i.e., blemish].
"Who [is] like God?" [the author's name is "Michael", which in Hebrew means "Who is like God?"] in His name said
that this book made God give him that bread
of angels of heaven and in addition His council
and receive his soul when he has died. Amen.
37. Spelling based on The Riverside Chaucer, third edition, Larry D. Benson, gen. ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1987.

References
Cercignani, Fausto, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.
Mallory, J. P (2005). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27616-1
Ringe, Donald R. and Taylor, Ann (2014). The Development of Old English – A Linguistic History of English, vol. II,
632p. ISBN 978-0199207848. Oxford.
Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0-85991-513-1

Further reading
Bill Bryson (1990). The Mother Tongue – English And How It Got That Way. William Morrow Paperbacks. ISBN 978-
0380715435.
David Crystal (2013). The Story of English in 100 Words. Picador. ISBN 978-1250024206.
David Crystal (2015). Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist's Guide to Britain. Oxford University
Press. ISBN 978-0198729136.
John McWhorter (2017). Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally). Picador.
ISBN 978-1250143785.
Hejná, Míša & Walkden, George. 2022. A history of English. (Textbooks in Language Sciences 9). Berlin: Language
Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6560337 . A history of English (https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/346). Open
Access.

External links
The History of English Podcast (http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/episodes/)
The Spread of English Language (https://youtube.com/watch?v=0wp1B1i4UxU) (video)
Penn Corpora of Historical English (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/histcorpora)
Scandinavian loans in Old and Middle English, and their legacy in the dialects of England and modern standard
English (http://germanic-studies.org/Scandinavian-loanwords-in-Old-and-Middle-English-and-their-legacy-in-the-dialect
s-of-England-and-modern-standard-English.htm)

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