1. INTRODUCTION
There are many books and many websites describing the journey of the English
language from its ancient origins to today’s dynamic and powerful communication tool
(you can find some of them on my Sources and Links page). Some follow it in minute
and excruciating technical detail, some are brief one-page summaries, and you may be
wondering: do we really need another?
Well, perhaps not, but I wanted to create one anyway for my own enjoyment and
edification. And this one is neither too long and intimidating nor is it too skimpy and
“lite”, but, as Goldilocks might have said, just right. Not too much in the way of
“fricatives” and “palatizations” and “labialized velars” (this does not pretend to be a work
of serious philology), but plenty of rollicking historical detail, action and intrigue.
Whatever your thoughts on the matter, English, with all its vagaries and annoying
inconsistencies, remains the single most important and influential language in today’s
world. Throughout history, it has repeatedly found itself in the right place at the right
time: English-speaking Britain was the leading colonial nation in the 17th and 18th
Century, as well as the leader of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 18th Century;
in the late 19th and 20th Century, English-speaking America was the leading economic
power, and was also at the forefront of the electronic and digital revolution of the late
20th Century.
But, it has also proved itself the most flexible and resilient of languages, remarkable for
its ability to adopt and absorb vocabulary from other cultures. It has survived incursions
by invading armies, outfaced potential extinction on more than one occasion, and
navigated the changing cultural zeitgeist, growing ever stronger in the process. Its
continued vitality is evidenced by the number and diversity of its worldwide variations
today.
The main part of this website, the History, can be read as a kind of story, in chapters,
following the development of the English language from its Indo-European origins,
throughOld English and Middle English to Early Modern English and Late Modern
English, before a brief look at English Today. But there is also section on Language
Issues (including How New Words are Created, Language and Geography and English
as a Global Language), aTimeline of important dates in the development of English,
a Glossary of some of the technical and historical terms used, and a list of Sources and
Links.
I would like to acknowledge at this point my debt to the various websites, books and
television series which I have raided, adapted and combined unapologetically, many of
which are listed in the Sources and Links page. This is a personal project not a
scholarly work, and I have not provided unimpeachable references to original sources
for every point I make, although I have given specific references and credits for all
images used. Please feel free tocontact me if you have any issues about the content or
attributions (or lack thereof) or to point out any absolute howlers I may have made.

2. Incidentally, in case you were wondering, the spelling throughout this website is largely the Canadian English of my adopted country
Canada (which itself is a hybrid of British and American spelling), although the words introduced - most of which arrived before
Canada was Canada - are generally in British English. Contemporary English spelling is a whole new subject requiring a whole new
website, but for starters you can look at another website of mine on Canadian, British and American Spelling.
SUMMARY
The main influences on the development of the English
language

3. IMAGE
Simplified timeline of developments in the English language
(from Dan Short's History of the English Language)

4. HISTORY
The history of the English language is a complex tapestry of gradual developments and
short, sharp shocks, of isolation and mutual influences, of borrowings and
obsolescences. I am unlikely to do it justice in this short exposition, but it may at least
suffice to give an overview of the main developments. There are many sources of
further information which can be consulted by those requiring more (or less) detail,
some of which are listed on the Sources and Links page.
The main phases can be conveniently (if a little simplistically) divided into:
• Before English (Prehistory - c. 500AD) (including Indo-European, Spread of Indo-
European Languages, Germanic, The Celts, The Romans)
• Old English (c. 500 - c. 1100) (including Invasions of Germanic Tribes, The Coming of
Christianity and Literacy, The Anglo-Saxon or Old English Language, The Vikings, Old
English after the Vikings)
• Middle English (c. 1100 - c. 1500) (including Norman Conquest, French (Anglo-Norman)
Influence, Middle English After the Normans, Resurgence of English, Chaucer and the
Birth of English Literature)
• Early Modern English (c. 1500 - c. 1800) (including Great Vowel Shift, The English
Renaissance, Printing Press and Standardization, The Bible, Dictionaries and
Grammars, Golden Age of English Literature, William Shakespeare, International Trade)
• Late Modern English (c. 1800 - Present) (including The Industrial and Scientific
Revolution,Colonialism and the British Empire, The New World, American Dialect, Black
English, Britain’s Other Colonies, Language Reform, Later Developments, 20th Century)
• English Today (including Who Speaks English?, English as a Lingua Franca, Reverse
Loanwords, Modern English Vocabulary, Modern English Spelling)
The dates attributed to the various phases are somewhat arbitrary, but they do provide some
convenient markers and give a general idea of the timescales involved. However, different
studies do use different demarcations. For example, Early Modern English is sometimes

5. considered to begin as early as 1400, and Modern English by 1550 (i.e. pre-
Shakespeare), but I have used 1500 and 1800 as a more convenient split.
By Creating from Scratch
Many of the new words added to the ever-growing lexicon
of the English language are just created from scratch, and
often have little or no etymological pedigree. A good
example is the word dog, etymologically unrelated to any
other known word, which, in the late Middle Ages,
suddenly and mysteriously displaced the Old English
wordhound (or hund) which had served for centuries.
Some of the commonest words in the language arrived in
a similarly inexplicable way
(e.g. jaw, askance, tantrum, conundrum, bad, big, donkey
, kick, slum, log, dodge,fuss, prod, hunch, freak, bludgeon, slang, puzzle, surf, pour, slo
uch, bash, etc).
Words
like gadget, blimp, raunchy, scam, nifty, zit, clobber, boffin, gimmick, jazz and googol ha
ve all appeared in the last century or two with no apparent etymology, and are more
recent examples of this kind of novel creation of words. Additionally, some words that
have existed for centuries in regional dialects or as rarely used terms, suddenly enter
into popular use for little or no apparent reason (e.g. scrounge and seep, both old but
obscure English words, suddenly came into general use in the early 20th Century).
Sometimes, if infrequently, a "nonce word" (created "for the nonce", and not expected to
be re-used or generalized) does become incorporated into the language. One example
is James Joyce's invention quark, which was later adopted by the physicist Murray Gell-
Mann to name a new class of sub-atomic particle, and another isblurb, which dates
back to 1907.
By Adoption or Borrowing
IMAGE
Some common words have no
apparent etymological roots

6. Loanwords, or borrowings, are words which are adopted
into a native language from a different source language.
Such borrowings have shaped the English language
almost from its beginnings, as words were adopted from
the classical languages as well as from successive wave
of invasions (e.g. Vikings, Normans). Even by the 16th
Century, long before the British Empire extended its
capacious reach around the world, English had already
adopted words from an estimated 50 other languages,
and the vast majority of English words today are actually
foreign borrowings of one sort or another.
Sometimes these adoptions have come by a circuitous route (e.g. the
word orange originated with the
Sanskritnaranj or naranga or narangaphalam or naragga, which became the
Arabic naranjah and the Spanishnaranja, entered English as a naranj, changed to a
narange, then to an arange and finally an orange; the wordgarbage came to English
originally from Latin, but only arrived via Old Italian, an Italian dialect and then Norman
French). Sometimes the tortuous route and degrees of filtering through other languages
can modify words so much that their original derivations are all but indiscernible (e.g.
both coy and quiet come from the Latin word quietus;sordid and swarthy both come
from the Latin sordere; entirety and integrity both derive from the
Latin integritas;salary and sausage both originate with the Latin
word sal; grammar and glamour are both descended from the same Greek
word gramma; and gentle, gentile, genteel and jaunty all come from the Latin gentilis;
etc).
Since the expansion of global trade, and particularly since British colonialism opened up
rich new sources (see the page on Late Modern English), a huge number of words have
been adopted into English from a great diversity of different languages. In a reverse
process, many English words have also been adopted by other countries (see the
section on Reverse Loanwords inEnglish Today).
By Adding Prefixes and Suffixes
IMAGE
Some word borrowings from
other languages follow a
circuitous route

7. The ability to add affixes, whether prefixes
(e.g. com-, con-, de-, ex-, inter-, pre-, pro-, re-, sub-, un-,
etc) and suffixes (e.g. -al, -ence, -er, -ment, -ness, -ship, -
tion, -ate, -ed, -ize, -able, -ful, -ous, -ive, -ly, -y, etc)
makes English extremely flexible. This process, referred
to as agglutination, is a simple way to completely alter or
subtly revise the meanings of existing words, to create
other parts of speech out of words (e.g. verbs from nouns,
adverbs form adjectives, etc), or to create completely new
words from new roots. There are very few rules in the
addition of affixes in English, and Anglo-Saxon affixes can
be attached to Latin or Greek roots, or vice versa. An
extreme example is the word incomprehensibility, which is
based on the simple root -hen- (original from Indo-
European root word ghend- meaning to grasp or seize) with no less than 5
affixes: in- (not), com- (with), pre- (before), -ible(capable) and -ity (being).
However, the sheer variety and number of possible affixes in English can lead to some
confusion. For instance, there is no single standard method for something as basic as
making a noun into an adjective (-able, -al, -ous and-y are just some of the possibilities).
There are at least nine different negation prefixes
(a-, anti-, dis-, il-, im-, in-, ir-, non- and un-), and it is almost impossible for a non-native
speaker to predict which is to be used with which root word. To make matters worse,
some apparently negative forms do not even negate the meanings of their roots
(e.g. flammable and inflammable, habitable and inhabitable, ravel and unravel).
Some affix additions are surprisingly recent. Officialdom and boredom joined the ancient
word kingdom as recently as the 20th Century, and apolitical as the negation
of political did not appear until 1952. Adding affixes remains the simplest and perhaps
the commonest method of creating new words.
By Truncation or Clipping
IMAGE
Prefixes and suffixes can change
a root word into many new words

8. Some words arise simply as shortened forms of longer
words
(exam, gym, lab, bus, vet, fridge, bra, pram, phoneand bu
rger are some obvious and well-used examples). Perhaps
less obvious is the derivation of words like mob(from the
Latin phrase mobile vulgus, meaning a fickle
crowd), goodbye (a shortening of God-be-with-you)
andhello (a shortened form of the Old English for “whole
be thou”).
Leaving aside the common English practice of contracting multiple words like do
not, you are, there will and that would into the single
words don’t, you’re, there’ll and that’d, there are many other examples where multiple
words or phrases have been contracted into single words (e.g. daisy was once a flower
called day’s eye; shepherd wassheep herd; lord was originally loaf-
ward; fortnight was fourteen-night; etc).
Acronyms are another example of this technique. While most acronyms
(e.g. USA, IMF, OPEC, etc) remain as just a series of initial letters, some have been
formed into words (e.g. laser from light amplification by stimulatedemmission
of radiation, radar from radio detection and ranging); quasar from quasi-stellar radio
source; scubafrom self-contained underwater breathing apparatus; etc).
Fusing or Compounding Existing Words Back t
IMAGE
Some words are shortened or
"clipped" forms of longer words

9. Like many languages, English allows the formation of
compound words by fusing together shorter words
(e.g.airport, seashore, fireplace, footwear, wristwatch, lan
dmark, flowerpot, etc), although it is not taken to the
extremes of German or Dutch where extremely long and
unwieldy word chains are commonplace. The
concatenation of words in English may even allow for
different meanings depending on the order of combination
(e.g. houseboat/boathouse, basketwork/workbasket, case
book/bookcase, etc).
The root words may be run together with no separation (as in the examples above), or
they may be hyphenated (e.g. self-discipline, part-time, mother-in-law) or even left as
separate words (e.g. fire hydrant, commander in chief), although the rules for such
constructions are unclear at best.
During the English Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, compounding classical
elements of Greek and Latin (e.g. photograph, telephone, etc) was a very common
method of English word formation, and the process continues even today. A large part
of the scientific and technical lexicon of English consists of such classical compounds.
Sometimes words or phonemes are blended rather than combined whole, forming a
"portmanteau word" with two meanings packed into one word, or with a meaning
intermediate between the two constituent words (e.g. brunch, which
blends breakfast and lunch; motel, which blends motor and hotel; electrocute, which
blends electric andexecute; smog, which blends smoke and fog; guesstimate, which
blends guess and estimate; telethon, which
blends telephone and marathon; chocoholic, which blends chocolate and alcoholic; etc).
Lewis Carroll was perhaps the first to deliberately use this technique for literary effect,
when he introduced new words like slithy, frumious, galumph, etc, in his poetry in the
19th Century.
By Changing the Meaning of Existing Words
IMAGE
Two words many be combined or
blended to form a new word

10. The drift of word meanings over time often arises, often
but not always due to catachresis (the misuse, either
deliberate or accidental, of words). By some estimates,
over half of all words adopted into English from Latin have
changed their meaning in some way over time, often
drastically. For example, smart originally meant sharp,
cutting or painful; handsome merely meant easily-handled
(and was generally derogatory); bully originally meant
darling or sweetheart; sad meant full, satiated or satisfied;
and insult meant to boast, brag or triumph in an insolent
way. A more modern example is the changing meaning
of gay from merry to homosexual (and, in some circles in
more recent years, to stupid or bad).
Some words have changed their meanings many times. Nice originally meant stupid or
foolish; then, for a time, it came to mean lascivious or wanton; it then went through a
whole host of alternative meanings (including extravagant, elegant, strange, slothful,
unmanly, luxurious, modest, slight, precise, thin, shy, discriminating and dainty), before
settling down into its modern meaning of pleasant and agreeable in the late 18th
Century. Conversely, silly originally meant blessed or happy, and then passed through
intermediate meanings of pious, innocent, harmless, pitiable, feeble and feeble-minded,
before finally ending up as foolish or stupid. Buxomoriginally meant obedient to God in
Middle English, but it passed through phases of meaning humble and submissive,
obliging and courteous, ready and willing, bright and lively, and healthy and vigorous,
before settling on its current very specific meaning relating to a plump and well-
endowed woman.
Some words have become much more specific than their original meanings. For
instance, starve originally just mean to die, but is now much more specific; a forest was
originally any land used for hunting, regardless of whether it was covered in
trees; deer once referred to any animal, not just the specific animal we now associate
with the word; girl was once a young person of either sex; and meat originally covered
all kinds of food (as in the phrase “meat and drink”).
Some words came to mean almost the complete opposite of their original meanings. For
instance, counterfeit used to mean a legitimate copy; braveonce implied
cowardice; crafty was originally a term of praise; cute used to mean bow-
legged; enthusiasm and zeal were both once disparaging words;manufacture originally
meant to make by hand; awful meant deserving of awe; egregious originally connoted
eminent or admirable; artificial was a positive description meaning full of skilful artifice;
etc.
A related category is where an existing word comes to be used with another
grammatical function, often a different part of speech, a process known as functional
shift. Examples include: the creation of the nouns a commute, a bore and a swim from
the original verbs to commute, to bore and to swim; the creation of the verbs to
IMAGE
Words may change their meaning
over time, sometimes drastically

11. bottle, to catalogue and to text from the original nouns bottle, catalogue and text; the
creation of the verbs to dirty, to emptyand to dry from the original
adjectives dirty, empty and dry, etc. Modern language purists often condemn such
developments, although they have occurred throughout the history of English, and in
some cases may even reclaim the original sense of a word (e.g. impact was originally
introduced as a verb, then established itself predominantly as a noun, and has only
recently begun to be used a verb once more).
By Errors Back to Top
IMAGE
New words may arise due to
mishearings, misrenderings or
other errors
According to the “Oxford English Dictionary”, there are at least 350 words in English dictionaries (most of them thankfully quite
obscure) that owe their existence purely to typographical errors or other misrenderings.
There are many more words, often in quite common use, that have arisen over time due to mishearings (e.g.shamefaced from the
original shamefast, penthouse from pentice, sweetheart from sweetard, buttonhole frombutton-hold, etc).
Mrs. Mapalprop, a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play "The Rivals", was famous for her "malapropisms"
like illiterate, reprehend, etc, but these never gained common currency. Likewise, it seems unlikely that "Bushisms" (named for US
President Bush's unfortunate tendency to mangle the language) likemisunderestimate, or Sarah Palin's refudiate will ever become
part of the everyday language, although there are many who would argue that they deserve to.
Many misused words (as opposed to newly-coined words) have, for better or worse, become so widely used in their new context that
they may be considered to be generally accepted, particularly in the USA, although many strict grammarians insist on their
distinctness (e.g. alternate to mean alternative, momentarily to mean presently, disinterested to mean uninterested,i.e. to
mean e.g., flaunt to mean flout, historic to mean historical, imply to mean infer, etc).
By Back-Formation

12. Some words are “back-formed”, where a new word is
formed by removing an actual, or often just a supposed or
incorrectly identified, affix. A good example of back-
formation is the old word pease, which was mistakenly
assumed to be a plural, and thus led to the creation of a
new “singular” word, pea. Similarly, asset was back-
formed from the singular noun assets (originally from the
Anglo-Norman asetz).
More often, though, a new word for a different part of speech is derived form an older
form
(e.g. laze from lazy, begfrom beggar, greed from greedy, rove from rover, burgle from b
urglar, edit from editor, difficult from difficulty,resurrect from resurrection, insert from ins
ertion, project from projection, grovel from groveling, sidle from sidelingor sidelong, etc).
By Imitation of Sounds Back to Top
IMAGE
Words may be coined to imitate
sounds, such as animal sounds
Words may be formed by the deliberate imitation of sounds they describe (onomatopoeia). Often this kind of onomatopoeic formation
is surprisingly ancient, and Old English literature is usually described as highly onomatopoeic, alliterative and percussive. Sometimes,
the imitation may have originally occurred in a source language, and only later borrowed into English, and by its very nature sound
imitation tends to result in similar cognates in several languages. Some philologists have suggested that the first human languages
developed as imitations of natural sounds (so-called "bow-wow theories"), and imitative abilities certainly seem to have played some
role in the evolution of language.
Examples include boo, bow-wow, tweet, boom, tinkle, rattle, buzz, click, hiss, bang, plop, cuckoo, quack, beep, etc, but there are
many many more. Some words, like squirm for example, are not strictly onomatopoeic but are nevertheless imitative to some extent
(e.g like a worm)
IMAGE
Some new words are back-
formed due to mis-identified
affixes

13. By Transfer of Proper Nouns
A surprising number of words have been created by the
transfer of the proper names of people, places and things
into words which then become part of the generalized
vocabulary of the language, also known as eponyms.
Examples include maverick (after the American cattleman,
Samuel Augustus Maverick); saxophone (after the Belgian
musical-instrument maker, Adolphe Sax); quisling (after
the pro-Nazi Norwegian leader, Vidkun
Quisling);sandwich (after the fourth Earl of
Sandwich); silhouette (after the French finance minister,
Etienne de Silhouette);kafkaesque (after the Czech
novelist, Franz Kafka); quixotic (after the romantic,
impractical hero of a Cervantes novel); boycott (after Charles Boycott, the shunned Irish
land agent for an absentee landlord); etc. Other common eponyms
include biro, bloomers, boffin, chauvinism, diesel, galvanize, guillotine, leotard, lesbian,
lynch,marathon, mesmerize, odyssey, sadism, shrapnel, spartan, teddy, wellington, etc.
Many terms for political, philosophical or religious doctrines are based on the names of
their founders or chief exponents
(e.g. Marxism, Aristotelianism, Platonic, stoic, Christianity, etc). Similarly, many
scientific terms and units of measurement are named after their inventors
(e.g. ampere, angstrom, joule, watt, etc). Increasingly, in the 20th Century, specific
brand names have become generalized descriptions
(e.g. hoover, kleenex, xerox, aspirin,google, etc).
Sometimes, portmanteau words (see Fusing and Compounding Words above) may be
produced by joining together proper nouns with common nouns, such as in the case
of gerrymandering, a word combining the politically-contrived re-districting practices of
Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerrywith the salamander-shaped outline one of the
districts he created.
IMAGE
Many words are named after
people or places