Where We Left Off
The History of the English Language
Course 1 · Chapter 1 · Where We Left Off
This course tells the story of English from about 1150 to today. It is the third in a series: Britain Before English covers the island before the English arrived, and The Story of Old English covers the first seven centuries of the language. This chapter gives a short recap so you can start here, and then looks at how historians cut the story into periods, which is less tidy than the textbook labels suggest.
A short recap of Old English
For the full story, see The Story of Old English. In brief, according to Wikipedia's History of English and Old English articles:
- The start: the language is dated from the Germanic settlement of Britain in the 5th to 7th centuries (the History of English article cites about 450). The settlers spoke West Germanic dialects of the North Sea group, and early English shares features with Old Frisian, so an "Anglo-Frisian" grouping is sometimes used.
- Length: roughly the 5th to 12th centuries. The Old English article gives Albert Baugh's dates of 450 to 1150, and splits the period into prehistoric (about 450 to 650), early (about 650 to 900) and late (about 900 to 1150).
- Dialects: Kentish, Mercian, Northumbrian and West Saxon, with Late West Saxon as the classical literary standard.
- Grammar: heavily inflected, with case, gender and a dual number, and freer word order. It had demonstratives but no definite article "the" (the History of English article).
- Contact: Latin words came with Christianity around 600, and Old Norse from the Scandinavian settlement from the 9th century. The Old English article argues that Old Norse likely had a greater impact on English than any other language, and credits it with helping erode inflectional endings.
- Vocabulary: the article says about 85% of Old English words are no longer used, but the ones that survive form the basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. It gives no percentage of Modern English from Old English.
The four periods
The conventional division is into four periods. The articles agree on the shape and differ on the dates, so I give each source's own wording:
| Period | Dates (per the articles) | What marks it |
|---|---|---|
| Old English | 5th century to after 1066 (History of English); 450 to 1150 (Old English, after Baugh) | Full inflections, Germanic vocabulary, Norse and Latin loans |
| Middle English | From about 1066 to the end of the 15th century (History of English); 1150 to the late 15th century, with about 1470 as the end (Middle English) | Heavy French and Anglo-Norman vocabulary; loss of most inflections; no written standard at first |
| Early Modern English | "Around 1500" (History of English); from the 1540s, lasting until about 1650 (Middle English) | Great Vowel Shift, printing, Renaissance loans from Latin and Greek |
| Modern English | "In place by the late 17th century" (a claim the History of English page tags "citation needed"); Late Modern from Johnson's 1755 dictionary | Largely the language spoken today, with vocabulary expanded by the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire |
The History of English page does not say outright that the divisions are conventions, but its hedged wording ("some time after", "often dated from") points the same way. The Middle English article adds a split inside the period: Early Middle English from 1150 to 1350, with Late Middle English covering the 14th and 15th centuries, including Chaucer. It gives no explicit start date for the late part.
Why use periods at all?
A reader of Old English and a reader of Chaucer need different tools, and the boundary events are real: the Norman Conquest changed who held power, and printing arrived in England with Caxton in the 1470s (the Middle English article). The labels let a historian say "this feature is typical of that stretch". The cost is that a date such as 1066 can make the change look sudden. The rest of the course follows the story through the periods, and each chapter says what its sources give as dates and where they differ.
The road ahead
| Chapter | Title | Question it asks |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | French Arrives | What did the Norman Conquest do to English? |
| 3 | Middle English | How did the language change after the Conquest? |
| 4 | London Takes the Lead | Why did one dialect become the model? |
| 5 | The Printing Press | What did printing do to spelling? |
| 6 | The Great Vowel Shift | What changed in the sounds? |
| 7 | Shakespeare and the Bible | How did Renaissance English grow? |
| 8 | Dictionaries and Rules | Where do "correct English" rules come from? |
| 9 | English Goes Abroad | How did English spread and diverge? |
| 10 | English Today | What is happening to English now? |
Words to know
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Inflection | An ending that shows a word's grammatical role, such as case or number |
| Anglo-Norman | The variety of French spoken in England after the Conquest |
| Vernacular | The everyday spoken language of a people |
| Periodisation | Dividing history into named periods |
| Loanword | A word borrowed from another language |
| Standard | A variety of a language treated as the model for writing |
✏️ Try It Yourself
Think of the answer first, then click to check.
1. Name the four periods in order.
Show answer
Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, Modern English.
2. Which event is the usual start of Middle English?
Show answer
The Norman Conquest of 1066, though the articles say the change came some time after it.
3. Give the two dates the articles use for the end of Old English.
Show answer
After 1066 (History of English) and 1150 (Old English, after Baugh).
4. Name two features of Old English grammar that Middle English lost or changed.
Show answer
For example most case endings, grammatical gender and the dual pronouns, as the Middle English article lists them.
5. Which language does the Old English article say likely had the greatest impact on English?
Show answer
Old Norse.
6. What does the article say about the Old English words that survive?
Show answer
About 85% of Old English words are no longer used, but the survivors form the basic elements of Modern English vocabulary.
7. When did printing arrive in England, and with whom?
Show answer
In the 1470s, with Caxton (per the Middle English article).
8. Why are period dates only markers, not events?
Show answer
The language changed gradually; the articles give different dates for the same boundary and use hedged wording such as "some time after" and "often dated from".