History of the English Language

The English language has been influenced by history.  Its main layers include Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek, but English has a French influence as well.  

The Anglo-Saxon layer of English is courtesy of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes’ invasion of England.  The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were farmers and fishermen who were fierce warriors.  They gave us simple, common, everyday words, such as mother, girl, and house.  The Dolch word list is composed of Anglo-Saxon words.

English contains a large number of words from Latin.  Because the Roman empire was so vast, Latin has influenced many languages worldwide.  Latin bases such as “struct” give us words like construction and instructor.  Latin bases don’t stand alone; they need a prefix and/or suffix, but the base provides the most meaning.  

The influence of the Greek language is also evident in English.  Phone, graph, microscope, and rhinoceros are all words we’ve incorporated from Greek.  Greek words also include highly technical terms, particularly in the fields of medicine, science, and math.

For more on the history of the English language, check out the following video: