Living Words - Projects - Changing Language

Celts	The earliest inhabitants of these islands from whom we have any language. The very few words left in English tend to refer to natural features or place names: eg 'tor' meaning 'high rock'.
Romans	55 BC - c.400 AD. Latin played little part in the beginnings of English except in place names but was reintroduced through the church.
Angles, Saxons & Jutes	In the Dark Ages after the Romans, many new settlers came bringing their Germanic languages.
Vikings	These raiders and settlers brought more new words (789 - the first Danish invasion of Britain. Viking raids and settlements continued periodically over more than two centuries.)

Old English developed from the languages that raiders and invaders brought. Latin came back to these shores through the church during this period.

c. 700	The Lindisfarne Gospels were written in Latin, but in 950 a Northumbrian priest called Aldred added an Old English translation, written between each line of Latin text.
C8th	Beowulf - the epic story told in Old English alliterative verse - became part of an oral tradition around this time.
1000	The date of the Beowulf manuscript on display in the British Library.
1016	The Danes ruled England
1066	The Norman invasion. Over the following three centuries the French and Old English languages blended eventually to form Middle English, with a variety of different dialects developing across the country.
Late C14th	John Wyclif's translations of the Bible into English gave the language greater power and prestige.
c.1342 - 1400	Geoffrey Chaucer: a prolific writer in Middle English, he used the dialect of the South-East Midlands area which included London, giving this dialect added importance.
c. 1469	Sir Thomas Malory: 'Le Morte Darthur'. The Arthurian legend with Sir Lancelot as the hero, derived from the French.
1476	William Caxton set up his printing press in Westminster, and printed Chaucer's influential 'Canterbury Tales'. He also printed Malory's 'Le Morte Darthur'.

From the C14th to the C16th, the Renaissance generated much interest in the classics and vocabulary derived from Latin and Greek proliferated. New words were needed for the ideas and learning of the age. Many came from Latin via French.

1525	William Tyndale produced new translations of parts of the Bible using Greek and Hebrew sources.
1564-1616	William Shakespeare.
1607	The first permanent English-speaking settlers reached America.
1611	The King James or Authorised Version of the Bible was an important influence on the language right into the C20th.
C17th	Early newspapers began to circulate.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, colonists carried the English language across the world. The use of English spread, but the language also changed as local words were added. (See 'Borrowed words' for some of those that were brought back to the UK).
Other influences on the development of the language include:

1755	Samuel Johnson: 'A Dictionary of the English Language'.
C18th	The public was first able to use libraries, but had to pay.
Early C19th	The height of the Romantic poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley...
1837-40	The telegraph was invented and a postal service with pre-paid stamps began.
1812-70	Charles Dickens.
1875	The telephone was invented.

	Now decide where the following pieces of literature fit into the framework of events above:

'The Rape of the Lock'. Alexander Pope.
'Paradise Lost'. John Milton.
'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'. Thomas Hardy.
'Jane Eyre'. Charlotte Brontë.
'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. Anonymous.
'Pride and Prejudice'. Jane Austen.

Print out the timeline or reproduce it in your own format,

adding other pre-1900 authors you are studying
continuing into the C20th with other inventions that have influenced the development and spread of English
adding C20th authors.

Other authors mentioned on the site include: James Joyce: 'Ulysses' (1922), George Orwell: '1984' (1949), Ted Hughes: 'Thistles' (1967).