History of english

Recognized as the most influential and important language in today’s world, English wasn’t
born as we know it today. Its origin comes from the group of Germanic languages, which also
belong to the Indo-European languages. And just as other languages, English has gone
through many changes throughout its history.
The first period of English history is actually the one before the English. This refers to the
earliest inhabitants of Britan, the Celts, also known as Britons, and a group of romanized Celts
who spoke a form of Latin. We can still find some Celtic words, mainly in the name of rivers
and towns (e.g., Thames, Severn, Dover, London, Lincoln, Leeds).
The Old period of English is distinguished by the invasion of three germanic tribes, the jutes,
the angles and the saxons. These tribes spoke four different dialects, but it was the marcian
dialect, the one that established as the basis for the modern English.
During this period English received some words from latin, brought by the missionaries who
came to convert England to Christianity. Most of these new words were terms of religion (e.g.,
Minster, alms, altar, martir, bishop, font).
On the other side, the Middle age of English is highlighted by the input of french language
brought by the Norman monarchy, that established its language as the official language of the
kingdom, relegating the English to the low social classes. The new vocabulary acquired from
the Norman settlers was mostly related to building, cooking and new legal ideas (e.g., beef,
pork, boil, fry, sausage, mutton, court, judge, advocate, evidence, justice, jury).
The end of this period was marked by the reestablishment of the English monarchy and the
increase of the prestige of English as the language of the working class. Besides this, there
were two historical incidents that had an impact in the development of english; the introduction
of the printing press, the rupture of the links of English monarchy with the roman Catholic
Church, and the beginning of colonization.
The early modern English period, sometimes referred as Shakespearian English due to the big
input the writer gave to English language, had place during the Renaissance time. The revival
of the classic scholarship during this period, brought new greek (often via latin) and latin long
words into the language. Scientifics needed new words for the new discoveries and inventions,
and they were borrowed from these languages (e.g., from latin; acid, gravity, electricity,
pendulum,
genius, species, militia, radius, specimen,criterion, squalor, apparatus, focus, tedium, lens, antenna,
paralysis,nausea
The properly called Modern english period had a beginning in the english Literature boom that
had place during the reign of queen Elizabeth, and the influence of english monarchy and
culture in the territories of the new world.

With these new territorial conquests and the acquirement of political importance of them,
English language started to became one of the most widely used language of the world, and
the language of the globalization era thanks to its unique ability to absorb and evolve.
It is important for translators to know about the history of English and how the language was
influenced by other languages, because this helps you to understand the root of the words, to
know better the context in where they were born and used, why the language has the rules it
has, to have a more extended vocabulary, to understand the cultural context of Anglo-Saxons,
and this will be useful to make a better translation.