English in the world: A very brief history of a global language

English In The World The English language has existed for a little over one and a half thousand years. Which, in the grand scheme of things is just a blip in the history of human language. And an even smaller blip in  the history of humankind.

The language is called English because of its associations with England. Which sounds straightforward enough, although it's actually a bit  more complicated than this. English had its roots here in the north of Europe.

Although of course, it wasn't called English then. There were a number of germanic tribes. The Angles, Saxons, and the Jutes, who crossed the channel; It wasn't called the English  channel until the 18th century.

And found out across the island of Great Britain which at the time was inhabited  by Britons who spoke Celtic languages, the ancestors of Welsh,  Scottish Gaelic, and Cornish before the Anglo-Saxons arrived the Romans had also colonised  large parts of the island along with people from various  parts of the Roman Empire. Later the Vikings came and then the Normans. All speaking their own languages and also mixing their languages with English.

It wasn't until the 14th century that English became properly established  as the language of England and was used for the first time  in parliament and in the law. The first king of England to speak  English as his native language was Henry IV. Henry came to the throne in 1399 almost a thousand years after  the Anglo-Saxons arrived but once English was established, it also began to spread or more  accurately it began to be spread.

The most important driver for this was colonialism in lots of countries, English pushed  out the local language, and indigenous forms of English developed In other countries, English existed  alongside the local languages and new forms developed. In the 20th century, it continued to spread through the entertainment industry,  politics, the media, and technology, so that today it's a truly global language. Throughout its history, it's always changing and we'll continue to do so far into the future.

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