Tree English Periods

It is customary to divide the history of the English language into three periods: Old English, Middle English and Modern English. Old English runs from the earliest records - i.e., seventh century to about 1100; Middle English from 1100 to 1450 or 1500; Modern English from 1500 to the present day. Sometimes Modern English is further divided into Early Modern, 1500-1700, and Late Modern 1700 to the present.

When England came into history, it was divided into several more or less autonomous kingdoms, some of which at times exercised a certain amount of control over the others. In the sixth century the most advanced kingdom, Northumbrian, developed a respectable civilization, the finest in Europe. It was in this period that the best of the Old English literature was written, including the epic poem Beowulf. In the eighth century, Northumbrian power declined, and the center of influence moved southward to Mercia, the kingdom of the Midlands.

A century later the center shifted again, and Wessex, the country of the West Saxons, became the leading power. The most famous king of the West Saxons was Alfred the Great, whose military accomplishment was his successful opposition to the Viking invasions. In the ninth and tenth centuries, the Norsemen emerged in their ships from homelands in Denmark and the Scandinavian Peninsula linguistic result of all this was a considerable injection of Norse into the English language. Norse was at this time not so different from English as Norwegian or Danish is now Probably speakers of English could understand, more or less the language of the newcomers who had moved into eastern England.

At any rate, there was considerable interchange and word borrowing. Examples of Norse words in the English language are sky, give, law, egg, outlaw, leg, ugly, sly, crawl, scowl, take, thrust. There are hundreds more. We have even borrowed some pronouns from Norse – they their, and them. These words were borrowed first by the eastern and northern dialects and then in the course of hundreds of years made their way into English generally.

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