Old English Key Dates

second invasion under Claudius sees beginning of Roman rule in Britain

- Romanization of England, England = Rome's westernmost outpost
- establishment of cities, villas, highways, public baths and theatres
- official language: Latin, speakers continued to speak in their celtic dialects

date traditionally assigned to the departure of Roman armies after Sacking of Rome

- Romanized Britons were vulnerable to invasions because they had been dependent on being defended by the Romans - soon they will be visited by the Saxons

date traditionally assigned to the arrival of the Saxons in England (adventus saxonum)

Germanic speaking people from the continent invaded Britain. This is when the "English" came to England. The Celts called them Saxons even though on the continent they were called the Angles - and their common language was English. The Angles eventually gave their name to the entire country

Pope Gregory the Great sends St. Augustine to evangelize Kent (SE England)

After Romans, and with them, Christianity left, the dominant religion amongst the Anglo-Saxons was Germanic pagianism.
pope sent mission, conversion was relatively swift. But: still traces of Germanic paganism in the language: e.g. Easter named after the Germanic goddess Eastre

Synot of Whitby: The english church aligns with Rome

Christianization is a landmark in the history of the English language because it brought England and the English speakers into the only living intellectual community of Europe, that of the Latin church.

England adopted the Latin alphabet and was soon being written down extensively.
New loanwords from Latin began to appear in English

Year in which viking raids commence

Vikings were pagan and saw no harm in robbing monasteries, burning books and killing, enslaving or dispering monks

vikings spent their first winter in England

King alfred the Great defeats Vikings at Battle of Edington (971-899)

achievement of some revival of intellectual life

King alfred fortified towns and built the first English navy. Alfred had imporant Latin texts translated into English, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Establishment of Danelaw

The danish leader was forced to accept Christianity and to retreat to the Danelaw, a section of NE England that the English agreed to recognize as Danish territory in return for a cessation of the incursions into other parts of the island

second wave of Viking attacks begins

Norman invasion lead by William the Conqueror

start of Medieval England

The English language that is spoken today is the direct result of 1066 and the Norman Conquest.

Norman French became the language of the English court

Soon, through intermarriage, English men learnt French. 
Some 10'000 French words were taken into English laguage during the Middle English period and about 75% of them are still in use

Accession of Henry II draws England into a vast international kingdom, within which it will lay a key role. England drawn perhaps further than ever before into the orbit of the continent

King John (1199-1216) loses Normandy to King Philip II of France, spelling the end of the channel kingdom

with the loss of Normandy came a predictable decline of interest in Fance and French among those Anglo-Norman landowners who had opted to stay in England. The French they spoke was ridiculed by speakers of the rising standard French. 

Rise in use and prestige of English: Increased communication among English speakers of the various regions: smoothing out of most striking dialectal differences which lead to the beginnings of a new standard English

First cases of bubonic plague and the ensuing worker shortages

because workers were getting rare, they were getting paid more and their work became more valuable. The respect they gained from the higher classes increased the prestige of English, which was the only language of the lower classes.

Death of Chaucer

Chaucer: expanded the wordstock of English

English defeat at the Battle of Castillon marks the end of the Hundred Years War

The French eventually defeated the English and England lost all her Continental holdings except the port of Calais. Once England was without French possessions, the English no longer had important practical reasons to learn and use French

William Caxton establishes printing press at Westminster

Wiliam Caxton establishes printing press at Westminster

greatly inceased literacy of the 15th century meant: more and more people were exposed to the rising standard dialect

Publication of the manière de langage

Written in an extremely simple language, French brought to the people

Act of Supremacy establishes Henry VIII as head of Church of England

independence of the ecclesia anglicana - marks beginning of the english reformation

book of common prayer

many phrases from its services have passed into everyday English, eigher as deliberate quotations or as unconscious borrowings

e.g. till death us do apart from the marriage liturgy

King James bible published

the most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now the most influential langguage

has contributed 260 idioms to english, more than any other single source.

First english colony established at St. Kitts

first english colony in the carribean

John Hart's Ortography

advocated for increase of number of letters in the alphabet

first truly phonological scheme in the history of early english spelling

william bullokar publishes the first grammar of english, his bref grammar

goal: demonstrating that english was quite as rule bound as Latin

Joseph Aicken publishes his grammar for children

more accessible to people, simple illustrations

brought it to the people

First alphabetically arranged E-E dictionary, Robert Lawdry's table alphabeticall

wasn't really useful because words chosen were arbitrary, obscure. was little more than a list of synonyms