The History of English
English is now the most common language in the world.It is the first language in the UK, Ireland,the USA,Canada,New Zealand and Australia.It is also the most popular second language,which means English is probably spoken by over one billion people around the world.But how did we arrive at the English we speak today?
The history of the English language begins in the fifth century with the invasion of Britain by three tribes from Germany-the Angles,Jutes and Saxons.The original language of Britain was an older European language called Celtic.Over time,most of the Celtic speakers were forced into the north and west of the British Isles.The invaders spoke a language called Anglo-Saxon and many of the most common words in English come from this.The Anglo-Saxon word “hus” became “house'”, “scip” became “ship”, “ci" became “cow” and “cild" became “child'".
In the eighth and ninth centuries,there were other invasions by the Vikings from Scandinavia.These brought words like “knifr'”, or “knife”, “egg”, or “egg” and “kaka”, or “cake” into the English language.
The last invasion of Britain was in 1066 when a French duke William of Normandy landed at Hastings in the south of England.After the invasion of 1066,a large number of French words became part of the English language.For example,“fruit'", “table”, “crocodile” and "invasion".In fact,more than a third of English words come from French and it has been estimated that English-speaking people who have never learnt French already know 15,000 French words.
Today,English is also a mixture of words that come from Germany,Scandinavia and many other places,too.
Outside of the United Kingdom,the use of English is growing.It is the official language of the European Union,and is used all over the world for air traffic control.Also,English is used more than any other language on the Internet,ahead of Chinese.
Translation to be continued~