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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
From
Germanic settlers’ hybrid
to unbeatable
international
communication giant— the
evolution of English is little short of miraculous.
Language information: English is currently the most important language in the world.
The origin of
English is
highly complex. It began as a mixture of Anglish, Old Saxon, Old Jutish, Old
Frisian and possibly other Old Germanic varieties imported from the Continental
Lowlands, as well as numerous Medieval Latin loans. The resulting Old English
(or Anglo-Saxon) language came to supplant most Celtic language varieties of
Britain. Viking and Norman invasions resulted in layers of Scandinavian and
Norman French influences. English morphology underwent radical simplification,
and this caused the syntax to lose much of its earlier flexibility.
Dialectical diversity
is considerable, the most densely occurring diversity being
in the British Isles and Ireland, followed closely by the North American East
Coast, especially New England and Canada’s Maritime Provinces. Having changed
little since the fourteenth century, today’s English orthography is one of the
most historical systems and takes much time and effort to master.
As
a result of colonialism, English spread to many parts of the world and there
came
to
be adopted as a secondary or even primary language. This has resulted in the
creation of numerous additional English varieties and English-based contact
languages.
As a language featured
prominently in education and communication worldwide and serving as a lingua
franca in many former colonies, English has influenced
numerous other languages more or less strongly. In India and in the Philippines,
for example, people commonly switch back and forth between indigenous languages
and English, oftentimes even in mid-sentence.
Genealogy: Indo-European > Germanic > Western > Anglo-Scots > English
Historical Lowlands language contacts: Dutch, Flemish, Low Saxon, Scots
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