Comparative linguists have spent much time determining the genetic relations of the world’s languages and one

of their major discoveries over the past few centuries is that almost all living European languages – with the
exception of Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and Basque (of which the first three belong to the Finno-Ugric
language family).

The cradle of the Indo-Europeans may never be known but an ongoing scholarly debate about the original
homeland of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), may someday shed light on the ancestors of all Indo-European
languages as well as the people who spoken it. There are two schools of thought:

 Some scholars (e.g., Marija Gimbutas) propose that PIE originated in the steppes north of

the Blackand Caspian Seas (the Kurgan hypothesis). Kurgan is the Russian word of Turkic origin for a type of
burial mound over a burial chamber. The Kurgan hypothesis combines archaeology with linguistics to trace the
diffusion of kurgans from the steppes into southeastern Europe, providing support for the existence ot a
Kurgan culture that reflected an early presence of Indo-European people in the steppes and southeastern
Europe from the 5th to the 3rd millenium BC.

 Other scholars (e.g., Gamkrelidze and Ivanov) suggest that PIE originated around 7,000 BC in Anatolia, a
stretch of land that lies between the Blackand Mediterranean seas. It lies across the Aegean Sea to the east of
Greece and is thus usually known by its Greek name Anatolia (Asia Minor). Today, Anatolia is the Asian part of
modern Turkey.

It would not have been possible to establish the existence of the Indo-European language family if scholars had
not compared the systematically recurring resemblances among European languages and Sanskrit, the oldest
language of the Indian subcontinent that left many written documents. The common origin of European languages
and Sanskrit was first proposed by Sir William Jones(1746-1794). In 1786, Sir William Jones discovered that
Sanskrit contained many cognates to Greek and Latin. He proposed that a Proto-Indo-European language had
existed many years before. Although there is no concrete proof to support this one language had existed, it is
believed that many languages spoken in Europe and Western Asia are all derived from a common language.
Systematic comparisons between these languages by Franz Bopp supported this theory and laid the foundation
for postulating that all Indo-European languages descended from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European
(PIE), thought to have been spoken before 3,000 B.C. It then split into different branches which, in turn, split into
different languages in the subsequent millennia. Thus the similarities between all these geographically diverse
languages first became the subject of extended serious study around 1820 as a result of the work of the German
Professor Franz Bopp, although the existence of such a language family had previously been posited by other
scholars. These discoveries were to a significant extent based on comparisons of three ancient languages:
Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, none of which are now spoken in daily life, but which are still read and
understood because of the large corpus of texts of great cultural significance written in these languages.

Since PIE left no written records, historical linguists construct family trees, an idea pioneered by August
Schleicher, on the basis of the comparative method. The comparative method takes shared features among
languages and uses procedures to establish their common ancestry. It is not the only method available but is one
that has been most widely used.

Given the existence of an Indo-European language family with common linguistic roots, it is often argued that
there was at one point a single Indo-European language from which all the others developed. This is known as
Proto-Indo-European and although there is no direct textual evidence for it – it is assumed that the people
speaking it were not literate – many words can be reconstructed by looking at similarities in the vocabulary of its
descendents. Researchers believe that Proto-Indo-European would have been spoken rather more than 4,000
years ago, but there is no conclusive proof as to where or by whom it was spoken. Many present day researchers
have argued that the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European lived in Eastern Europe or central Asia, some of
whom later migrated in several waves both westwards into Europe and southeast towards the Indian
subcontinent, leading to the development of different dialects and eventually languages. In any case, Hittite, a
descendent of Proto-Indo-European, had already become extinct around 1,000 B.C.E.

There are many striking similarities in the grammar of many Indo-European languages. The grammatical
concepts of case (nominative, accusative etc.), tense (present, perfect, future etc.) and mood (indicative,
subjunctive etc.) are common concepts in almost all European languages, whereas language families in other
parts of the world often have a completely different grammatical framework. An even more convincing argument
for the common origin of almost all European languages is provided by similarities in their vocabulary. There are
three main reasons which can be given for similarities between words used by different languages: chance or
non-linguistic reasons such as the imitation of a natural sound like a bird’s call, mutual influence or borrowings
(known as loan words) and a genetic relation between the languages. It is true that the geographical and cultural
proximity of many European languages to each other has resulted in many words and concepts from one
language and culture being adopted by another. However many of the words in Indo-European languages
displaying such similarities are so basic that it is difficult to believe that they could have at one point existed
without these words and then borrowed them. The similarities between pronouns, words from daily household life
and the first twelve numbers, suggests that these languages are indeed all descended from a single initial
language, even if they were each later subjected to different influences.

Indo-European languages are classified into 11 major groups, 2 of which are extinct, comprising 449 languages
(Ethnologue). Indo-European family includes most of the European languages spoken today. It includes several
major branches: Latin and the modern Romance languages (French etc.);the Germanic languages (English,
German, Swedish etc.); the Indo-Iranian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit etc.); the Slavic languages (Russian,
Polish, Czech etc.); the Baltic languages of Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish Gaelic
etc.); Greek. The early history of the Germanic languages is based on reconstruction of a Proto-Germanic
language that evolved into German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and the Scandinavian languages.

English is classified genetically as a Low West Germanic language of the Indo-European family of languages.
The early history of the Germanic languages is based on reconstruction of a Proto-Germanic language that
evolved into German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and the Scandinavian languages.
 Speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lived in Southwest Russia around 4,000 to 5,000 BCE. They had words
for animals such as bear or wolf (as evidenced in the similarity of the words for these animals in the modern I-E
languages.) They also had domesticated animals, and used horse-drawn wheeled carts. They drank alcohol
made from grain, and not wine, indicating they did not live in a warm climate. They belonged to a patriarchal
society where the lineage was determined through males only (because of a lack of words referring to the
female's side of the family.) They also made use of a decimal counting system by 10's, and formed words by
compounding. This PIE language was also highly inflectional as words had many endings corresponding to
cases.

The spread of the language can be attributed to two theories. The I-E people either wanted to conquer their
neighbors or look for better farming land. Either way, the language spread to many areas with the advancement
of the people. This rapid and vast spread of the I-E people is attributed to their use of horses for transportation.

The influence of the original Indo-European language can be seen today, even though no written record of it
exists. The word for father, for example, is vater in German, pater in Latin, and pitr in Sanskrit. These words are
all cognates, similar words in different languages that share the same root.

The Indo-European languages fall into two general branches. At some time in the distant past, the original Indo-
European speakers migrated westward and eastward from a location north of the Middle East. We can trace
those migrations by looking at vocabulary in each language, and gradually seeing the sound changes that took
place over time as the tribes drifted further apart. The Indo-European tribes that migrated westward tended to
pronounce words with hard /k/ sounds--a velar stop. On the other hand, those that migrated eastward pronounced
similar words with /s/ or /sh/ sounds--a fricative sound. Likewise, the westward travelers tended to have certain
vowel sounds transform into /e/ sounds while the eastward travelers tended to switch to /a/ sounds over time, and
the labio-velar stops in westward traveling tribes tended to turn into velar sounds. Philologists have named the
two branches Centum and Satem. Centum is the ancient word for "one hundred" in Latin, a language in the
western branch of Indo-European. Satem is the ancient word for "one hundred" in Avestan, a language in the
eastern branch of Indo-European. The two words illustrate the major changes in a single word as the Indo-
European tribes drifted in two different general directions.

Of these branches of the Indo-European family, two are, as far as the study of the development of English is
concerned, of paramount importance, the Germanic and the Romance (called that because the Romance
languages derive from Latin, the language of ancient Rome). English is a member of the Germanic group of
languages. It is believed that this group began as a common language in the Elbe river region about 3,000 years
ago. By the second century BC, this Common Germanic language had split into three distinct sub-groups:

 East Germanic was spoken by peoples who migrated back to southeastern Europe. No East
Germanic language is spoken today, and the only written East Germanic language that survives is Gothic.
 North Germanic evolved into the modern Scandinavian languages of Swedish, Danish,
Norwegian, and Icelandic (but not Finnish, which is related to Hungarian and Estonian and is not an Indo-
European language).

 West Germanic is the ancestor of modern German, Dutch, Flemish, Frisian, and English.

Old English (449 - 1066 CE)

The Old English language (also called Anglo-Saxon) dates back to 449 CE. The Celts had been living in England
when the Romans invaded. Although they invaded twice, they did not conquer the Celts until 43 CE and Latin
never overtook the Celtic language. The Romans finally left England in 410 CE as the Roman Empire was
collapsing, leaving the Celts defenseless. Then the Germanic tribes from the present-day area of Denmark
arrived. The four main tribes were the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians. These tribes set up seven kingdoms
called the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy that included: Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, and East
Anglia. Four dialects were spoken in these kingdoms: West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian. The
Celts moved north to Scotland, west to Ireland and south to France, leaving the main area of Britain.

In 731 CE, Bede wrote the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" in Latin. It detailed the sophisticated
society of the Germanic tribes. They had destroyed the Roman civilization in England and built their own, while
dominance shifted among the kingdoms beginning with Kent and Northumbria. They aligned with the Celtic clergy
and converted to Christianity. Laws and contracts were written down for a sense of permanence and control. The
Tribal Hidage, a list of subjects who owed tribute to the king, was written during the Mercian period of power.

Alfred the Great was the king of Wessex from 871-899 while Wessex was the dominant kingdom. During his
reign, he united the kingdoms together and commissioned the Anglo-Saxon chronicles, a historical record of
important events in England that continued 200 years after his death. Alfred also settled a truce with the Vikings
who repeatedly invaded the area. The Treaty of Wedmore was signed in 878 CE and this "Danelaw" gave the
northeast half of England to the Danes for settlement. However, because the languages were so similar, the
Danes quickly assimilated and intermarried into the English society.

Although the Danes brought their own writing system with them, called the Futhorc, it was not used in England. It
is commonly referred to as Runes. The Insular Hand was the name of the writing system used in England, and it
contained many symbols that are no longer found in Modern English: the aesc, thorn, edh, yogh and wynn, as
well the macron for distinguishing long vowels.

West Germanic invaders from Jutland and southern Denmark: the Angles (whose name is the source of the
words England and English), Saxons, and Jutes, began to settle in the British Isles in the fifth and sixth centuries
AD. They spoke a mutually intelligible language, similar to modern Frisian - the language of the northeastern
region of the Netherlands - that is called Old English. Four major dialects of Old English emerged, Northumbrian
in the north of England, Mercian in the Midlands, West Saxon in the south and west, and Kentish in the
Southeast.

These invaders pushed the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants out of what is now England into Scotland, Wales,
Cornwall, and Ireland, leaving behind a few Celtic words. These Celtic languages survive today in the Gaelic
languages of Scotland and Ireland and in Welsh. Cornish, unfortunately, is, in linguistic terms, now a dead
language. (The last native Cornish speaker died in 1777) Also influencing English at this time were the Vikings.
Norse invasions and settlement, beginning around 850, brought many North Germanic words into the language,
particularly in the north of England. Some examples are dream, which had meant 'joy' until the Vikings imparted
its current meaning on it from the Scandinavian cognate draumr, and skirt, which continues to live alongside its
native English cognate shirt.

The majority of words in modern English come from foreign, not Old English roots. In fact, only about one sixth of
the known Old English words have descendants surviving today. But this is deceptive; Old English is much more
important than these statistics would indicate. About half of the most commonly used words in modern English
have Old English roots. Words like be, water, andstrong, for example, derive from Old English roots.

Old English, whose best known surviving example is the poem Beowulf, lasted until about 1100.

Characteristics of the Old English language

The Germanic tribes were exposed to Latin before they invaded England, so the languages they spoke did have
some Latin influence. After converting to Christianity, Latin had more influence, as evidenced in words pertaining
to the church.Celtic did not have a large impact on English, as only a few place names are of Celtic origin, but
Danish (Old Scandinavian) did contribute many vocabulary words.

Nouns could be of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter; but these were assigned arbitrarily. Numbers
could be either singular or plural, and there were four cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. In all,
there were seven groups of declensions for nouns.

The infinitive of verbs ended in -an. In the present tense, all verbs had markers for number and person. The
weak past tense added -de, while the strong past tense usually involved a vowel change. Old English also had
many more strong verbs than modern English.

Adjectives could be weak or strong. If preceded by a determiner, the weak ending was added to the adjective. If
no determiner preceded the adjective, then the strong endings were used. They also agreed in gender, case and
number with the nouns they described. The comparative was formed by adding -ra to the adjective, while the
superlative had many endings: -ost, -ist, -est, and -m. Eventually the -ost and -m endings combined to form the
word "most" which is still used before adjectives in the superlative today.

Adverbs were formed by adding -e to the adjective, or -lic, the latter which still remains in modern English as -like.
The syntax of Old English was much more flexible than modern English becase of the declensions of the nouns.
The case endings told the function of the word in the sentence, so word order was not very important. But as the
stress began to move to the first syllable of words, the endings were not pronounced as clearly and began to
diminish from the language. So in modern English, word order is very important because we no longer have
declensions to show case distinctions. Instead we use prepositions. The general word order was subject - verb -
object, but it did vary in a few instances:

1. When an object is a pronoun, it often precedes the verb.

2. When a sentence begins with an adverb, the subject often follows the verb.

3. The verb often comes at the end of a subordinate clause.

Pronunciation was characterized by a predictable stress pattern on the first syllable. The length of the vowels was
phonemic as there were 7 long and 7 short vowels. There were also two front rounded vowels that are no longer
used in modern English, [i:] and [ɪ:]. The i-mutation occurred if there was a front vowel in the ending, then the root
vowel became fronted. For example, fot becomes fot+i = fet (This helps to explain why feet is the plural of foot.)

Pronunciation of consonants:

Pronunciation of consonants:

v between voiced vowels

f
f elsewhere
č next to a front vowel
c
k elsewhere
j next to a front vowel
g ɣ  between other vowels
g elsewhere
h at beginning of word
h
x, ç elsewhere
z between voiced vowels
s
s elsewhere
ð between voiced vowels
ð
θ elsewhere
r trilled  
sc š  
cg ǰ

 The Norman Conquest and Middle English (1100-1500)

William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered England and the Anglo-Saxons in 1066
AD. The new overlords spoke a dialect of Old French known as Anglo-Norman. The Normans were also of
Germanic stock ("Norman" comes from "Norseman") and Anglo-Norman was a French dialect that had
considerable Germanic influences in addition to the basic Latin roots.

Prior to the Norman Conquest, Latin had been only a minor influence on the English language, mainly through
vestiges of the Roman occupation and from the conversion of Britain to Christianity in the seventh century
(ecclesiastical terms such as priest,vicar, and mass came into the language this way), but now there was a
wholesale infusion of Romance (Anglo-Norman) words.

The influence of the Normans can be illustrated by looking at two words, beef and cow. Beef, commonly eaten by
the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, while the Anglo-Saxon commoners, who tended the cattle,
retained the Germanic cow. Many legal terms, such as indict, jury , and verdict have Anglo-Norman roots
because the Normans ran the courts. This split, where words commonly used by the aristocracy have Romantic
roots and words frequently used by the Anglo-Saxon commoners have Germanic roots, can be seen in many
instances.

Sometimes French words replaced Old English words; crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam. Other times,

French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French gentle and the
Germanic man formed gentleman. Other times, two different words with roughly the same meaning survive into
modern English. Thus we have the Germanic doom and the Frenchjudgment, or wish and desire.

It is useful to compare various versions of a familiar text to see the differences between Old, Middle, and Modern
English. Take for instance this Old English (c. 1000) sample:

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum  

si þin nama gehalgod tobecume þin rice gewurþe þin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum 
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg 
and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum 
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice.

Rendered in Middle English (Wyclif, 1384), the same text is recognizable to the modern eye:

Oure fadir þat art in heuenes halwid be þi name;  

þi reume or kyngdom come to be. Be þi wille don in herþe as it is doun in heuene. 
yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred. 
And foryeue to us oure dettis þat is oure synnys as we foryeuen to oure dettouris þat is to men þat han synned in
us. 
And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl.

Finally, in Early Modern English (King James Version, 1611) the same text is completely intelligible:
Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name.  
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen. 
Giue us this day our daily bread. 
And forgiue us our debts as we forgiue our debters. 
And lead us not into temptation, but deliuer us from euill. Amen.

For a lengthier comparison of the three stages in the development of English click here!

In 1204 AD, King John lost the province of Normandy to the King of France. This began a process where the
Norman nobles of England became increasingly estranged from their French cousins. England became the chief
concern of the nobility, rather than their estates in France, and consequently the nobility adopted a modified
English as their native tongue. About 150 years later, the Black Death (1349-50) killed about one third of the
English population. And as a result of this the labouring and merchant classes grew in economic and social
importance, and along with them English increased in importance compared to Anglo-Norman.

This mixture of the two languages came to be known as Middle English. The most famous example of Middle
English is Chaucer'sCanterbury Tales. Unlike Old English, Middle English can be read, albeit with difficulty, by
modern English-speaking people.

By 1362, the linguistic division between the nobility and the commoners was largely over. In that year, the Statute
of Pleading was adopted, which made English the language of the courts and it began to be used in Parliament.

The Middle English period came to a close around 1500 AD with the rise of Modern English.

The period of Middle English begins with the Norman invasion of 1066 CE. King Edward the Confessor had died
without heirs, and William, Duke of Normandy, believed that he would become the next king. However, upon
learning that Harold was crowned king, William invaded England, killed Harold and crowned himself king during
the famous Battle of Hastings. Yet William spoke only French. As a result, the upper class in England began to
speak French while the lower classes spoke English.

But by 1250 CE, French began to lose its prestige. King John had lost Normandy to the French in 1204 CE, and
after him, King Edward I spoke only English. At this time, many foreigners entered England which made the
nobility feel more "English" and so encouraged more use of the English language. The upper class tried to learn
English, but they did still use French words sometimes, which was considered somewhat snobbish. French still
maintained its prestige elsewhere, and the upper class did not want to lose it completely. Nevertheless, the
Hundred Year's War (1337-1453 CE) intensified hatred of all things French. The Black Death also played a role in
increasing English use with the emergence of the middle class. Several of the workers had been killed by the
plague, which increased the status of the peasants, who only spoke English. By 1362 CE, the Statute of Pleading
(although written in French) declared English as the official spoken language of the courts. By 1385 CE, English
was the language of instruction in schools. 1350 to 1400 CE is known as the Period of Great Individual Writers
(most famously, Chaucer), but their works included an apology for writing in English.

Although the popularity of French was decreasing, several words (around 10,000) were borrowed into English
between 1250 and 1500 CE (though most of these words were Parisian rather than Norman French). Many of the
words were related to government (sovereign, empire), law (judge, jury, justice, attorney, felony, larceny), social
life (fashion, embroidery, cuisine, appetite) and learning (poet, logic, physician). Furthermore, the legal system
retained parts of French word order (the adjective following the noun) in such terms as fee simple, attorney
general and accounts payable.

Characteristics of Middle English

The writing system changed dramatically in Middle English:

 þ and ð were replaced by th (and sometimes y, as in ye meaning the)

 c before i or e became ch
 sc became sh
 an internal h was added after g
 hw became wh
 cw became qu
 the new symbols v and u were added; v was used word initially, and u was used everywhere else
 k was used much more often (cyning became king)
 new values were given to old symbols too; g before i or e was pronounced ǰ; ʒ became j, and c
before i and e became s in some cases
 a historical h (usually not pronounced) was added to some words (it was assumed that these
words had once begun with an h): honor, heir, honest, herb, habit
 sometimes words were written with o but pronounced as [ʊ] but later were pronounced [ʌ]: son,
come, ton, some, from, money, honey, front, won, one, wonder, of

Because of the stress shift to the beginning of the word, Middle English lost the case suffixes at the ends of
nouns. Phonological erosion also occurred because of this, and some consonants dropped off while some
vowels became əand dropped off too. The generalized plural marker became -s, but it still competed with -n.

Verb infinitives dropped the -an ending, and used "to" before the verb to signify the infinitival form. The third
person singular and plural was marked with -(e)th; but the singular also competed with -(e)s from the Northern
dialect. More strong (irregular) verbs became weak (regular) as well.

Adjectives lost agreement with the noun, but the weak ending -e still remained. The comparative form became
-er and the superlative became -est. Vowels tended to be long in the adjective form, but short in the comparative
form (late - latter). The demonstratives these and those were added during this period. And the adverb ending
-lič became -ly; however, some "flat" adverbs did not add the -ly: fast, late, hard.

The dual number disappeared in the pronouns, and the dative and accusative became the object forms of the
pronouns. The third person plural pronouns replaced the old pronouns with th- words (they, them, their)
borrowed from Scandinavian. She started being used for the feminine singular subject pronoun and you (plural
form) was used in the singular as a status marker for the formal.

Syntax was stricter and more prepositions were used. New compound tenses were used, such as the perfect
tenses, and there was more use of the progressive and passive voice. The use of double negation also
increased as did impersonal constructions. The use of the verbs will and shall for the future tense were first used
too. Formerly, will meant want and shall meant obliged to.

Pronunciation changes:

 Loss of initial h in a cluster (hleapan - to leap; hnutu - hut)

 [w] lost between consonant and back vowel (w is silent in two, sword, answer)
 [č] lost in unstressed syllable (ič - I)
 [v] lost in middle of words (heofod - head; hæfde - had)
 Loss of final -n in possessive pronouns (min fæder - mi fæder) and the addition of -n to some
words beginning with a vowel (a napron - an apron, a nuncle - an uncle)
 Voiced fricatives became phonemic with their voiceless counterparts
 [ž] phoneme was borrowed from French as the voiced counterpart for [š]
 Front rounded vowels merged with their unrounded counterparts
 Vowel length became predictable (lost phonemic status); an open syllable with no consonant
following it contained a long vowel, while a closed syllable with at least one consonant following it
contained a short vowel

In addition, there were dialectal differences in the north and south. The north used -(e)s for the plural marker as
well as for the third person singular; and the third person plural pronouns began with th- (borrowed from
Scandinavian). The south used -(e)n for the plural, -(e)th for the third person singular, and h- for the third person
plural pronouns. The north used [a] and [k] while the south used [o] and [č] for certain words. Eventually, the
northern dialect would become the standard for modern English regarding the grammatical endings, but the
southern pronunciation of [o] and [č] would also remain.

 Early Modern English (1500-1800)

The next wave of innovation in English came with the Renaissance. The revival of classical scholarship brought
many classical Latin and Greek words into the Language. These borrowings were deliberate and many
bemoaned the adoption of these "inkhorn" terms, but many survive to this day. Shakespeare's character
Holofernes in Loves Labor Lost is a satire of an overenthusiastic schoolmaster who is too fond of Latinisms.

Many students having difficulty understanding Shakespeare would be surprised to learn that he wrote in modern
English. But, as can be seen in the earlier example of the Lord's Prayer, Elizabethan English has much more in
common with our language today than it does with the language of Chaucer. Many familiar words and phrases
were coined or first recorded by Shakespeare, some 2,000 words and countless idioms are his. Newcomers to
Shakespeare are often shocked at the number of cliches contained in his plays, until they realize that he coined
them and they became cliches afterwards. "One fell swoop," "vanish into thin air," and "flesh and blood" are all
Shakespeare's. Words he bequeathed to the language include "critical," "leapfrog," "majestic," "dwindle," and
"pedant." 

Two other major factors influenced the language and served to separate Middle and Modern English. The first
was the Great Vowel Shift. This was a change in pronunciation that began around 1400. While modern English
speakers can read Chaucer with some difficulty, Chaucer's pronunciation would have been completely
unintelligible to the modern ear. Shakespeare, on the other hand, would be accented, but understandable. Vowel
sounds began to be made further to the front of the mouth and the letter "e" at the end of words became silent.
Chaucer's Lyf (pronounced "leef") became the modern life. In Middle English name was pronounced "nam-
a," five was pronounced "feef," and down was pronounced "doon." In linguistic terms, the shift was rather sudden,
the major changes occurring within a century. The shift is still not over, however, vowel sounds are still shortening
although the change has become considerably more gradual.

The last major factor in the development of Modern English was the advent of the printing press. William Caxton
brought the printing press to England in 1476. Books became cheaper and as a result, literacy became more
common. Publishing for the masses became a profitable enterprise, and works in English, as opposed to Latin,
became more common. Finally, the printing press brought standardization to English. The dialect of London,
where most publishing houses were located, became the standard. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the
first English dictionary was published in 1604.

Characteristics of Early Modern English

Adjectives lost all endings except for in the comparative and superlative forms. The neuter pronoun it was first
used as well as who as a relative pronoun. The class distinctions between formal and informal you were
decreasing, so that today there is no difference between them. More strong verbs became weak and the third
person singular form became -(e)s instead of -(e)th. There was a more limited use of the progressive and
auxiliary verbs than there is now, however. Negatives followed the verb and multiple negatives were still used.

The Great Vowel Shift (1400-1600) changed the pronunciation of all the vowels. The tongue was placed higher in
the mouth, and all the verbs moved up. Vowels that were already high ([i] and [u]) added the dipthongs [aj] and
[aw] to the vowels of English.
Several consonants were no longer pronounced, but the spelling system was in place before the consonant loss,
so they are still written in English today. The consonants lost include:

 Voiceless velar fricative lost in night; pronounced as f in laugh

 [b] in final -mb cluster (dumb, comb)
 [l] between a or o and consonant (half, walk, talk, folk)
 [r] sometimes before s (Worcestershire)
 initial clusters beginning with k and g (knee, knight, gnat)
 [g] in -ing endings (more commonly pronounced [ɪn])

Finally, assibilation occurred when the alveolars [s], [d], [t], and [z] preceded the palatal glide [j], producing the
palatal consonants: [š], [ǰ], [č], [ž]

Early Grammarians (18th Century)

A proposal for an Academy of the English Language was first brought forth by Jonathan Swift in 1712, but the
Parliament voted against it. Nevertheless, several grammarians wrote dictionaries and grammar books in a
prescriptive manner - telling people what to do or not to do with the language. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of
the English Language was published in 1755 and Robert Lowth's Introduction to English Grammar appeared in
1762. Early grammarians felt that language should be logical, therefore, the double negative was considered
incorrect (two negatives equal one positive) and should not be used. They also didn't like shortened or redundant
words, borrowing words from other languages (except Latin and Greek), split infinitives, or prepositions at the end
of the sentence.

A more scientifically minded attitude took hold by the 19th century when the Oxford English Dictionary was
proposed in 1859. It was to be a factual account of every word in the English language since 1000 including its
main form, pronunciation, spelling variations, part of speech, etymology, meanings in chronological order and
illustrative quotations. The project was begun in 1879 under its first editor, James AH Murray. The first edition
was published in 1928, with supplements in 1933 and 1972-6. The second edition was published in 1989 and it
recognized American and Australian English, as the International Phonetic Alphabet for pronunciation.

Beginnings of Modern English or Late-Modern English (1800-Present)

In England, several changes to English had occurred since 1700. These include a loss of the post-vocalic r (so
that the r is only pronounced before a vowel and not after); an increase in the use of the progressive tenses; and
a rise in class consciousness about speech (Received Pronunciation.) Since 1900, a very large amount of
vocabulary words has been added to English in a relatively short period. The majority of these words are related
to science and technology, and use Greek and Latin roots.
The principal distinction between early- and late-modern English is vocabulary. Pronunciation, grammar, and
spelling are largely the same, but Late-Modern English has many more words. These words are the result of two
historical factors. The first is the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the technological society. This necessitated
new words for things and ideas that had not previously existed. The second was the British Empire. At its height,
Britain ruled one quarter of the earth's surface, and English adopted many foreign words and made them its own.

The industrial and scientific revolutions created a need for neologisms to describe the new creations and
discoveries. For this, English relied heavily on Latin and Greek. Words like oxygen, protein, nuclear,
and vaccine did not exist in the classical languages, but they were created from Latin and Greek roots. Such
neologisms were not exclusively created from classical roots though, English roots were used for such terms
as horsepower, airplane, and typewriter.

This burst of neologisms continues today, perhaps most visible in the field of electronics and
computers. Byte, cyber-, bios, hard-drive, and microchip are good examples.

Also, the rise of the British Empire and the growth of global trade served not only to introduce English to the
world, but to introduce words into English. Hindi, and the other languages of the Indian subcontinent, provided
many words, such as pundit, shampoo, pajamas, and juggernaut. Virtually every language on Earth has
contributed to the development of English, from Finnish (sauna) and Japanese (tycoon) to the vast contributions
of French and Latin.

The British Empire was a maritime empire, and the influence of nautical terms on the English language has been
great. Phrases like three sheets to the wind have their origins onboard ships.

Finally, the military influence on the language during the latter half of twentieth century was significant. Before the
Great War, military service for English-speaking persons was rare; both Britain and the United States maintained
small, volunteer militaries. Military slang existed, but with the exception of nautical terms, rarely influenced
standard English. During the mid-20th century, however, a large number of British and American men served in
the military. And consequently military slang entered the language like never before. Blockbuster, nose dive,
camouflage, radar, roadblock, spearhead, and landing strip are all military terms that made their way into
standard English.
 

American English and other varieties

Also significant beginning around 1600 AD was the English colonization of North America and the subsequent
creation of American English. Some pronunciations and usages "froze" when they reached the American shore.
In certain respects, some varieties of American English are closer to the English of Shakespeare than modern
Standard English ('English English' or as it is often incorrectly termed 'British English') is. Some "Americanisms"
are actually originally English English expressions that were preserved in the colonies while lost at home
(e.g., fall as a synonym for autumn, trash for rubbish, and loan as a verb instead of lend).

The American dialect also served as the route of introduction for many native American words into the English
language. Most often, these were place names like Mississippi, Roanoke, and Iowa. Indian-sounding names
like Idaho were sometimes created that had no native-American roots. But, names for other things besides places
were also common. Raccoon, tomato, canoe, barbecue, savanna, and hickory have native American roots,
although in many cases the original Indian words were mangled almost beyond recognition.

Spanish has also been great influence on American English. Mustang, canyon, ranch,
stampede, and vigilante are all examples of Spanish words that made their way into English through the
settlement of the American West.

A lesser number of words have entered American English from French and West African languages.

Likewise dialects of English have developed in many of the former colonies of the British Empire. There are
distinct forms of the English language spoken in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and many other parts
of the world.

 Global English

English has now inarguably achieved global status. Whenever we turn on the news to find out what's happening
in East Asia, or the Balkans, or Africa, or South America, or practically anywhere, local people are being
interviewed and telling us about it in English. To illustrate the point when Pope John Paul II arrived in the Middle
East recently to retrace Christ's footsteps and addressed Christians, Muslims and Jews, the pontiff spoke not
Latin, not Arabic, not Italian, not Hebrew, not his native Polish. He spoke in English.

Indeed, if one looks at some of the facts about the amazing reach of  the English language many would be
surprised. English is used in over 90 countries as an official or semi-official language. English is the working
language of the Asian trade group ASEAN. It is the de facto working language of 98 percent of international
research physicists and research chemists. It is the official language of the European Central Bank, even though
the bank is in Frankfurt and neither Britain nor any other predominantly English-speaking country is a member of
the European Monetary Union. It is the language in which Indian parents and black parents in South Africa
overwhelmingly wish their children to be educated. It is believed that over one billion people worldwide are
currently learning English.

One of the more remarkable aspects of the spread of English around the world has been the extent to which
Europeans are adopting it as their internal lingua franca. English is spreading from northern Europe to the south
and is now firmly entrenched as a second language in countries such as Sweden, Norway, Netherlands and
Denmark. Although not an official language in any of these countries if one visits any of them it would seem that
almost everyone there can communicate with ease in English. Indeed, if one switches on a television in Holland
one would find as many channels in English (albeit subtitled), as there are in Dutch.

As part of the European Year of Languages,  a special survey of European attitudes towards and their use of
languages has just published. The report confirms that at the beginning of 2001 English is the most widely known
foreign or second language, with 43% of Europeans claiming they speak it in addition to their mother tongue.
Sweden now heads the league table of English speakers, with over 89% of the population saying they can speak
the language well or very well. However, in contrast, only 36% of Spanish and Portuguese nationals speak
English.  What's more, English is the language rated as most useful to know, with over 77% of Europeans who do
not speak English as their first language, rating it as useful. French rated 38%, German 23% and Spanish 6%

 English has without a doubt become the global language.

Germanic Languages

There have been numerous attempts to reconstruct the vowels and consonants of PIE, all of which encountered
serious problems due to the uneven nature of the written records and to the huge differences in the age of the
records. As a result, the reconstruction of PIE phonology continues to be a matter of scholarly debate and
speculation. Among the most notable reconstructions are those by August Schleicher, Karl Brugmann, Winfred
Lehmann, Oswald Szemerènyi, and Jacob Grimm.

The subgroup of Germanic languages contains many differences that set them apart from the other I-E
languages.

1. Grimm's Law (or the First Sound Shift) Jacob Grimm , the author of fairy tales was also one of the great
linguists of the 19th century. He found evidence for the unity of all the modern Germanic languages in the
phenomenon known as the First Germanic Sound Shift (also known as Grimm’s law ), which set the Germanic
branch apart from the other branches of the Indo-European family. It helps to explain the consonant changes
from P-I-E to Germanic. According to Grimm’s law, the shift occurred when /p, t, k/ in the classical Indo-
European languages (Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit) became /f, t, h/ in Germanic languages.
For example, in Latin pater > English father, 
Latin cornu > English horn.

 a. Aspirated voiced stops became Unaspirated voiced stops (Bʰ, dʰ, gʰ became b, d, g)
 b. Voiced stops became Voiceless stops (B, d, g became p, t, k)
 c. Voiceless stops became Voiceless fricatives (P, t, k became f, θ, x (h))

Verner's Law explains other exceptions that Grimm's law does not include.
2. Two Tense Verbal System: There is a past tense marker (-ed) and a present tense marker (-s) on the verb
(without using auxiliary verbs.)

3. Weak Past Tense: Used a dental or alveolar suffix to express the past (such as -ed in English, -te in German,
or -de in Swedish.)

4. Weak and Strong Adjectives: Each adjective had a different form whether it was preceded by a determiner or
no determiner.

5. Fixed Stress: The stress of words was fixed on the first syllable.

6. Vowel Changes (Proto Germanic)

Short o to short a (Latin: hortus, English: garden)

Long a to long o (Latin: mater, OE: modor)

7. Common Vocabulary: Words developed that hadn't been used before, such as nautical terms (sea). Others
include rain, earth, loaf, wife, meat and fowl.

Centum-Satem division
The Centum-Satem division explains the evolution of PIE labiovelar, velars, and palatovelar consonants.

 Labiovelar consonants include [kw, gw, xw, ngw] which are pronounced like [k, g, x, ng] but with rounded lips.
 Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the
back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). They include [k, g, x, ng].
 Palatovelar consonants are articulated with the back part of the tongue against the hard palate. They include
[k', g', x', ng']. For example, [k'] is pronounced as the k in keen.

The terms centum-satem come from the words for ‘one hundred’ in representative languages of each group.
Please note that not all languages fall neatly into these categories.

 Satem languages include Baltic, Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian languages. For

example, Sanskrit satam, Lithuanian simtas, Russiansto.
Click here  to see the complete satem language tree.
 Centum languages include Romance, Celtic, Germanic, and Greek. For
example, Latincentum, Irish cead, English hundred, Greek.

Stress
It is believed that PIE had a pitch accent system. All words had only one accented syllable which received a high
pitch. Stress could fall on any syllable of a word.

Grammar 
Unevenness of existing records and huge gaps in the chronology among Indo-European languages make the
reconstruction of PIE grammar a difficult task. Discoveries of Hittite, Tocharian and Mycenaean Greek in the 20th
century have made changes in the data base on which the reconstruction of PIE is based that in turn have
modified existing views of PIE. .

Many of the older well-documented languages, such as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, have rich morphologies with
clearly marked gender and number, as well as elaborately marked case systems for nouns, pronouns, and
adjectives. Verbs in these languages also have elaborately marked systems of tense, aspect, mood, and voice, in
addition to person, number, and gender. Reconstructed PIE is based on the assumption that it contained all the
features found in attested languages. If a given language lacks a particular feature, it is assumed that the feature
was lost or that it had merged with other features.

Modern Indo-European languages reflect the rich morphology of PIE to various degrees. For instance, Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin, Baltic, Slavic, Celtic, Armenian have extremely rich morphologies. On the other hand, Germanic,
Romance, Albanian, and Tocharian do not possess quite as many finely differentiated morphological features.

Nouns, pronouns and adjectives

 Case
Sanskrit had the most cases (8), followed by Old Church Slavonic, Lithuanian, and Old Armenian
(7), Latin (6), Greek, Old Irish, Albanian (5), Germanic (4).
 Gender
The three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) have survived in a number of Indo-European
languages.
 Number
The three numbers (singular, dual, plural) survived in Sanskrit, Greek, and Old Irish. Vestiges of
the dual number can be found in many other Indo-European languages.
 Adjective-Noun agreement
Adjective-noun agreement has survived in many Indo-European languages.

Verbs
Reconstructed PIE verbs had different sets of endings tense/aspect, voice and mood in addition to person and
number. :

 Tense and aspect

It is thought that the PIE verb system was aspect-based, although traditionally, aspect has been
confused with tense. Although tense was not formally marked in PIE, most Indo-European
languages define their verbal systems in terms of tense, rather than aspect. .
 Voice
PIE had two voices: active (e.g., The child broke the glass) and medio-passive which combined
reflexive and passive voices (e.g., The child washed himself and The child was washed by his
 mother). In addition to the active voice, various Indo-European languages use the middle or the
passive voices.
 Mood
It is hypothesized the PIE had four moods: indicative, optative, subjunctive, and imperative. Most
of these moods exist in all Indo-European languages.
 Person and number
PIE verbs were marked for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular, dual, plural).

Word order
Less is know about the syntax of PIE than about its morphology. What is known about PIE word order, therefore,
is a subject of conjecture and debate. It is thought likely that word order in PIE sentences was Subject-Object-
Verb. This word order is found in Latin, Hittite, Vedic Sanskrit, Tocharian, and to some extent in Greek.

Vocabulary
The comparative method enables linguists to reconstruct a basic PIE vocabulary referring to many common
elements of their culture. This basic vocabulary is not uniformly attested across all Indo-European languages
which suggests that some words may have developed later or were borrowed from other languages. Among
words that are reliably reconstructed are words for day, night, the seasons, celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars),
precipitation (rain, snow), animals (sheep, horse, pig, bear, dog, wolf, eagle), kinship terms (father, mother,
brother, sister, son, daughter), tools (axe, yoke, arrow).