# The History of English

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Category: Languages
Slides: 30
Updated: 2026-05-15T22:18:25.399Z
Tags: languages, english, history

## Summary

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..

## Slide Outline

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

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