The Early History of English
Modern English has gone through multiple iterations through the course of history in order to become the language that we know today, originally English is thought to have come from the hypothesised language Proto-Indo European.
This grandfather language later split into six subsidiaries: Italic, Germanic, Celtic, Hellenic, Anatolian (extinct), and Tocharian (extinct). Italic featured languages like Latin, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. Celtic featured languages like Scottish and Irish Gaelic, Breton, Welsh and Cornish (extinct). Hellenic featured the languages: Modern and Ancient Greek (extinct) Anatolian featured the language Hittite (extinct) Tocharian featured the language Tocharian (extinct) Germanic featured languages like Icelandic, Frisian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and English. Modern English falls into the West Germanic branch which includes Yiddish, Frisian, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans and Modern Low German, Modern English is in the same branch as Frisian and Modern Low German which is why they are English closest languages. A great way to understand the different languages is to listen very closely to the German and Dutch languages, which are our closest neighbours in language. An English speaking person should be able to understand the key points of a Dutch or German persons conversations. |