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The History of English

English is unusual. It is the only major European language with no gender, almost no case, and a vocabulary borrowed from a half-dozen unrelated sources....

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English is unusual. It is the only major European language with no gender, almost no case, and a vocabulary borrowed from a half-dozen unrelated sources. Its spelling is famously irregular. Its speakers, two-thirds of them now, learned it as a second language. Key sections include: The History of English.; Opening Why English is strange.; Chapter I The four Englishes.; Chapter II Anglo-Saxon arrival.; Chapter III Old English: the alien stage.; Chapter IV The Vikings: simplification.; Chapter V Norman Conquest.; Chapter VI Middle English.; Chapter VII The Great Vowel Shift.; Chapter VIII Caxton and standardisation..

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Slide outline
  1. 01The History of English.
  2. 02Opening Why English is strange.
  3. 03Chapter I The four Englishes.
  4. 04Chapter II Anglo-Saxon arrival.
  5. 05Chapter III Old English: the alien stage.
  6. 06Chapter IV The Vikings: simplification.
  7. 07Chapter V Norman Conquest.
  8. 08Chapter VI Middle English.
  9. 09Chapter VII The Great Vowel Shift.
  10. 10Chapter VIII Caxton and standardisation.
  11. 11Chapter IX The Renaissance loan-explosion.
  12. 12Chapter X Shakespeare's English.
  13. 13Chapter XI The King James Bible.
  14. 14Chapter XII Samuel Johnson and the dictionary.
  15. 15Chapter XIII American English diverges.
  16. 16Chapter XIV The Empire and the spread.
  17. 17Chapter XV The 20th century: lingua franca.
  18. 18Chapter XVI The "World Englishes."
  19. 19Chapter XVII Native dialect maps.
  20. 20Chapter XVIII The spelling problem.
  21. 21Chapter XIX The grammar that survives.
  22. 22Chapter XX Slang and the moving register.
  23. 23Chapter XXI Where the language goes.
  24. 24Chapter XXII The shelf.
  25. 25Chapter XXIII Watch and read.
  26. 26Chapter XXIV Six etymologies.
  27. 27Chapter XXV Cognates and the family tree.
  28. 28Chapter XXVI Why English is the way it is.
  29. 29Chapter XXVII The Lord's Prayer in five Englishes.
  30. 30The end of the deck.
Page data
Canonical
https://shipslides.com/d/languages-english-history
Category
Languages
Size
11.2 MB
Updated
2026-05-15
LLM text
https://shipslides.com/d/languages-english-history/llms.txt
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