Language and Society

Language and Society <span>The History of English</span> It all started during the fifth century, when the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes arrived and occupied Britain that started the history of English. The three of these Germanic tribes crossed the North Sea in order to reach Britain. Germanic invaders entered Britain on the East and South coasts in the fifth century. Map retrieved fromhttp://www.englishclub.com/english-language-history.htm.
The earliest people who lived in Britain were the Celts and they spoke Celtic language back then. According to The Free Online Dictionary by Farlex, Celtic language is a branch of the Indo-European languages that was spread widely over Europe in the pre-Christian era.
Based on the website of The English Language History, there are a few major branches in the Indo-European family. They are Latin and the modern Romance languages (French); the Germanic languages (English, German, Swedish); the Indo-Iranian languages (Hindu, Urdu, Sanskrit); the Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech); the Baltic languages of Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish Gaelic) and Greek. Retrieved from http://linguatics.com/indoeuropean_languages.htm.
Today, the influence of the Indo-European language towards English can still be seen. Take the word ‘father’ as an example, in German, it is vater; in Latin, it is pater; in Sanskrit, it is pitr. These words, although in different languages, have the same origin – Indo-European language. Authors can see some common features from them. Based on ‘The Study of Language’ by George Yule, a cognate of a word in one language is a word in another language that has a similar form and, is or was, used with a similar meaning. Therefore, it can be said that the examples given above may have the same ancestor in the branch of Indo-European. English language has undergone changes through time. The historical changes of English are divided