The Entire History of English in 22 Minutes

When we speak Eng­lish, we might say we’re speak­ing the lan­guage of Samuel John­son, the man who wrote its first dic­tio­nary. Or we could say we’re speak­ing the lan­guage of Shake­speare, who coined more Eng­lish terms than any oth­er indi­vid­ual in his­to­ry. It would make just as much sense to describe our­selves as speak­ing the lan­guage of the King James Bible, the mass print­ing of which did so much to stan­dard­ize Eng­lish, steam­rolling flat many of the count­less local vari­a­tions that exist­ed in the ear­ly sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry. But as many an Eng­lish­man (and more than a few Amer­i­cans) would be loath to admit, when we speak Eng­lish, we are, much of the time, actu­al­ly speak­ing French.

“In 1066, the Nor­mans turn up and seize the Eng­lish throne from the Anglo-Sax­ons says YouTu­ber Rob­words in the new video above, describ­ing the sin­gle most impor­tant event in the entire his­to­ry of the Eng­lish lan­guage, which he recounts in just 22 min­utes. “William the Con­queror becomes king, and Nor­man French becomes the lan­guage of Eng­land’s élite.”

Under its new ruler, the coun­try’s earls, thanes, and athelings would be called barons, dukes, and princes. “The now-sub­dued Anglo-Sax­ons need­ed to learn French words if they want­ed to get by, so Eng­lish absorbs a whole host of French terms asso­ci­at­ed with pow­er, jus­tice, art, gov­ern­ment, law, and cul­ture — such as pow­er, jus­tice, art, gov­ern­ment, law, and cul­ture,” to name just a few.

This thor­ough­go­ing Frenchi­fi­ca­tion gave rise to what we now call Mid­dle Eng­lish, as dis­tinct from the Old Eng­lish spo­ken before. As not­ed by Rob­Words, about 85 per­cent of Old Eng­lish vocab­u­lary is no longer in use today, yet we’re still “using Old Eng­lish in every sen­tence that we utter,” not least when we break out such irreg­u­lar-seem­ing plu­rals as mice, oxen, and wolves. Tues­day, Wednes­day, Thurs­day, and Fri­day make ref­er­ence to “the Anglo-Sax­ons’ pre-Chris­t­ian gods.” And even in the fast-chang­ing, slang-rid­den, inter­net-influ­enced, and — for bet­ter or for worse — high­ly “glob­al­ized” Eng­lish we speak today, we can still hear dim echoes of the ancient ances­tor lin­guists call Pro­to-Indo-Euro­pean. Per­haps that’s why, despite being so wide­ly spo­ken, Eng­lish is still so tricky to learn: when we speak it, we’re speak­ing not just a lan­guage, but many lan­guages all at once.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The His­to­ry of the Eng­lish Lan­guage in Ten Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Trac­ing Eng­lish Back to Its Old­est Known Ances­tor: An Intro­duc­tion to Pro­to-Indo-Euro­pean

Where Did the Eng­lish Lan­guage Come From?: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion

The Tree of Lan­guages Illus­trat­ed in a Big, Beau­ti­ful Info­graph­ic

The Alpha­bet Explained: The Ori­gin of Every Let­ter

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.