Initially, English was called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. Normally Anglo-Saxon is used to characterize cultural history after the Renaissance period and its linguistic changes, and Old English is rooted on studies which focus upon the continuing development of the language. When we look at English texts, it becomes obvious that besides the differences we find between Old and nowadays English, there are also many similarities. Most of the differences are based on the use of phonetic symbols unknown in the Latin alphabet. Replacing such characters with letters will turn Anglo-Saxon less frightening. The vocabulary is much closer to present day English if you figure out which prefixes or suffixes have disappeared or find out the words that are not used any more. Since English has a good amount of compound words, you can also break up the words to understand them. The grammar is much more complex to define. Its complexity is due to the fact that Old English was mainly composed with inflections, an importance given at the end of the word. This is the main difficulty for those who want to learn Old English, note that there are more irregular verbs than today.
Celtic was the nature of all English language. Even though the Romans submitted the Celtic there is still no way to understand how much Latin was spoken. Invasions of the Anglo-Saxons vanished with the Celtic, leaving a small number of words in the English language. It is more common to hear these words in Cornwall, Devon, Wales, and Scotland.
After the “dark age” the first manuscripts were written by Roman missionaries. The first texts were translations of Latin words. We can notice with these manuscripts that there were several kinds of spellings. The stronger dialect was Mercian because of its powerful influence in the Middle Ages. Most of Modern English comes from this dialect. The use of Latin by the Anglo-Saxons also had its contribution for English development, just as Scandinavian names because of the Danish settlements.
Letters from the runic alphabet were the first ones to describe Old English and these symbols had a metaphysical meaning. We can find many artefacts with these runic inscriptions. They were mostly used to write secrets like clues to solve up riddles. Many texts were written developing into a whole new way to express the language. As time goes by, it is notable that variations start to appear in Old English. Manuscripts started to disappear so copies were made. With the Peterborough Chronicle we can verifiy changes in the language. The language begins to sound more like present time English. New words come to use and grammar begins to suffer alteration. There are new meanings and sense to words. Symbols that were used to express a sound are quite similar to the modern alphabet, having most of the times the same use. Middle English can be tricky sometimes. Words that have a certain meaning today didn’t necessarily have the same significance before.
Between the 12th and 15th century English started to mutate. On one hand, France had a very strong influence in England, on the other hand, social and politic happenings turned English into the mother tongue of the population. The language has been very well established, no other language could overtake it. Middle English literature started to grow as doors opened for new lexis.
Some Old English and French borrowings were totally lost. Other words grew into Middle English vocabulary, just like Latin had contributed before. This gives the English language the status of a "parallel word system". Irregular structures of Old English began to disappear in substitute to more regular structures. This caused alterations in the spelling and pronunciation as well.
Middle English is marked with a big interest in poetry and prose by intelectuals. It gives us the idea of the language style during this era. By the end of the 15th century the language starts to transforme again, especially how it sounds. The “Great Vowel Shift” gives us a whole new picture of English phonetics. There was refreshment on the way sounds were pronounced. After this linguistic revolution the language continued to change but keeping its basic form.
Just as common, the language varies geografically. The East Midlands’ dialect was the one with more impact in Modern English because of its big amount of population. Among these specific variations in the language we can clearly estable a distinction in what is “standard” and what is “regional”, just as what is correct and what is incorrect.
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