Historical and contemporary English, first and second acquisition
History Two thousand years ago the British Isles were inhabited by Celts.Their Celtic langugages still survive in parts of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany in France.From 43BC to 410AD Celts were conquered by the Romans, who spoke Latin.Between the fourth and seventh centuries were coming German speaking Anglo-Saxons, who formed the basis of modern English.Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, this language was modified by Viking invaders from Norway and Denmark.They spoke Old Norse which is parent of modern Danish.In 1066 England was conquered by the French-speaking Normans and the French became the language of government.For the next three hundred years three languages co-existed.The aristocracy spoke French, the ordinary people spoke English and Latin was used in church.Today English vocabulary is approximately half germanic(from the Saxons and Vikings)and half Romance(from French and Latin).There are however considerable borrowings from other languages.Old English, like modern German was a highly inflected language.It means that most words changed their endings or forms to show number(singular, plural), gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), case(subject, object), tense(past, present, future)and so on.
