The Germanic Invasion

• Before the fifth century, the residents of what is now England spoke a Celtic language. That all changed when three groups of people from the north coast of Europe--the Angles, Saxons and Jutes--crossed the sea to invade and settle England. The Celtic language and most of its speakers were displaced or marginalized, and the invaders' Germanic language took over. A smattering of Celtic words survived, but the dominant language became Anglo-Saxon, the precursor to Old English.
  
  

The Viking Invasion

• The ninth century brought a new round of invasions, this time from Scandinavia. Since their language, Old Norse, was also Germanic, it married with Anglo-Saxon quite easily, and after time they merged into one language, which is called Old English. Norse contributed a large number of words to the English lexicon, particularly words with the "sk" sound, such as "skin," "sky," "skull" and "scatter."
  
  

The Norman Invasion

• In the eleventh century, the Normans brought French to the isle of England, and the English language would never be the same. The dialect of French spoken by the new invaders was called Anglo-Norman or Norman French, and it was of Latin rather than Germanic origin. This, and the fact that the Normans looked down upon the conquered Anglo-Saxons, kept their two languages largely separated. After a few centuries, however, as the Normans and Anglo-Saxons intermingled, so did their languages, and by the 14th century Middle English replaced Norman French as the official language of the courts and politics. The amount of Norman influence on English grammar and vocabulary cannot be overstated. Many English suffixes came from French--"-tion," "-ment" and "-able." By the end of the Middle English period, over half of all English words were of Norman French origin. During the 16th century, Anglo-Saxon and Norman French became a single language, and this is the beginning of Modern English.
  
  

The Great Vowel Shift

• No one knows exactly why, but over several hundred years beginning around the 15th century, the pronunciation of spoken English changed considerably. This shift affected how people pronounced long vowels. For example, in Middle English the word "sight" would have rhymed with "meet," "house" with "loose" and so on. The Great Vowel Shift ushered the language into the pronunciations used today, but unfortunately, the spelling of words did not change, which is one reason why English is such a notoriously difficult language to learn. Around this time, consonants also underwent some changes in pronunciation with no accompanying changes in spelling, which is evident in words like "knight" and "through," which would have been pronounced more phonetically in Middle English.
  
  

English Colonialism

• Perhaps the biggest reason for English's worldwide popularity was England's empirical ambition. As the British set sail to take over remote places such as Australia, India and the Americas, their language sailed with them and settled wherever they took root. This also worked in the other direction--new words were introduced to English speakers and made their way more-or-less permanently into the English lexicon. "Shampoo" is Hindi; "tattoo" is Tahitian; "pecan" is Algonquin.