Wessex or the West Saxon kingdom that a written language first flourished. The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics divides the history of English into three periods: Old English, Anglo-Saxon from 700 to 1100 AD, Middle English from 1100 to 1500 AD, and Modern English or New English from 1500 to the present (Bright, 1992).Old English (OE) was a highly inflected language. There were suffixes on nouns, verbs, adjectives, and demonstratives. It had an elaborate system of personal interrogative and relative pronouns. The four dialects during the Old English period were Kentish in the southeast, West Saxon in the south and southwest, Mercian in the Midlands, and North Umbrian above the Humber River. West Saxon was the written standard during the reign of Alfred the Great from 871 to 899 AD. Old English morphology included noun forms of singulars and plurals, with five cases, and three genders. Old English personal pronouns have been retained, and have transferred into New English, more of their morphological variations than any other form class.With the arrival of the Christian religion at the end of the 6th century, some Latin words were added. About 2,000 Danish words and phrases were also added to Old English. At that time, the combining of native elements in prefixing, suffixing, and compounding was the most characteristic way of expanding the word stock. (Bright, 1998)Britain was invaded again during the Viking age of about 750 to 1050. This invasion was mostly by Danes who then settled in central and southern England. Throughout Britain, most of the people spoke Old English and few words from the Celtic influence remained. Middle English began with the 1066 Norman Conquest. French-speaking Normans carried out government and educational duties. The Norman invasion caused a bilingual environment with the middle class speaking both French and English. It brought approximately 10,000 Norman French words into Middle English. The Norm...
