The story of English is one of the most interesting stories of history. So, today I’m going to tell you a little bit of history of the English language. It’s kinda long, so let’s read it in 3 parts!
So far English has 3 major stages: 現在英語は3つの主な段階に分けられるよ
・ Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon):古英語(アングロサクソンとも呼ばれる)
・ Middle English:中英語
・ Modern English:近代英語
OLD ENGLISH
This was the language spoken by the Angles and Saxons. It was a dialect of a West Germanic language that first appears in writing in the 700’s. It looks like a completely different language. Its grammar, vocabulary and spelling looks a lot like German or Dutch. The grammar was very logical, but much more complicated than Modern English.
The vocabulary of Old English was 95% native English words. There were some special letters in the alphabet that we don’t use anymore today (you can see 2 of them above). Words that we use every day like “I,” “you,” “the,” “a,” numbers and many adjectives came from Old English.
Although it doesn’t look or sound like today’s English, you can see a clear connection. Native speakers cannot read or understand Old English without a lot of study. It’s truly a foreign language!