English In The World
The English language has existed for a little over
one and a half thousand years.
Which, in the grand scheme of things is just
a blip in the history of human language.
And an even smaller blip in the history of humankind.
The language is called English
because of its associations with England.
Which sounds straightforward enough,
although it's actually a bit more complicated than this.
English had its roots here in the north of Europe.
Although of course, it wasn't called English then.
There were a number of germanic tribes.
The Angles, Saxons, and the Jutes,
who crossed the channel;
It wasn't called the English channel until the 18th century.
And found out across the island of Great Britain
which at the time was inhabited by Britons who spoke Celtic languages,
the ancestors of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, and Cornish
before the Anglo-Saxons arrived
the Romans had also colonised large parts of the island
along with people from various parts of the Roman Empire.
Later the Vikings came
and then the Normans.
All speaking their own languages
and also mixing their languages with English.
It wasn't until the 14th century that English
became properly established as the language of England
and was used for the first time in parliament and in the law.
The first king of England to speak English as his native language
was Henry IV.
Henry came to the throne in 1399
almost a thousand years after the Anglo-Saxons arrived
but once English was established,
it also began to spread or more accurately it began to be spread.
The most important driver for this was colonialism
in lots of countries, English pushed out the local language,
and indigenous forms of English developed
In other countries, English existed alongside the local languages
and new forms developed.
In the 20th century, it continued to spread
through the entertainment industry, politics, the media, and technology,
so that today it's a truly global language.
Throughout its history, it's always changing
and we'll continue to do so
far into the future.
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