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English
Is Dominant but Any Other Language Can Be, too
English
is a global language. For this reason, one might be forgiven for thinking that
the English language has been around since the creation of the world. But, as I
like to encourage students studying the origin and development of the language,
one might find it useful to think of the origin vis-a-vis the current state of
the English language as a story, that “once upon a time, there was no English
language.”
English
is only about 1,600 years old. You might think that is a long time, but there
are many languages older than that, and they never made it to the global stage.
The origin took shape during the period around the 5th Century AD when three
marauding tribes — the Anglos, Jutes and Saxons — left mainland Europe, crossed
the North Sea and entered England, conquering and displacing the Celtics and
their language. Over time, the dialects of these three tribes evolved into what
is now referred to as Old Eng1ish, a version that English speakers today would
hardly recognise.