nced English before the Anglo-Saxons arrived in England. The Germanic tribes who later settled on the isles were in contact with small parts of the Roman civilization. Some of the words borrowed by the Germanic groups were: Mint: Minet, Street: strata viaWhen the first English tribes came to settle in England they made contact with the people that had been part of the Roman Empire which probably spoke a form of Latin. Some of their words past in to the language of the new conquerors. (Lecture notes, M. Disney)In the sixth century St. Benedict reintroduced Christianity. As the religion spread English added a large number of Latin words to itself to express new ideas connected with the religion. However, this lead to the loss of grammatical gender of the language and therefore mixed the vocabulary. (Internet 1)In the eighth century the Danes made continual raids upon the English coasts which they later settled. They were then defeated by King Alfred the Great. A hundred years later another Danish King invaded England and managed to get his son, Canute, was put upon the English throne. These Danish invasions, however destructive they were, had quite a tremendous influence upon the English language. The English borrowed words such as skin, ill, get and leg. (Lecture notes, M. Disney)In 1066, William the conqueror of Normandy invaded and conquered England. After that French became the tongue of the ruling classes in England and was commonly spoken by most of the English man. The French language is actually almost directly derived from Latin. From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century there was a lot of French literature translated to English. Which resulted in a large number of French words incorporating in to English. Some examples are:Words connected with the household - master, servant and dinner.(Lecture notes, M. Disney)After the battle of Hastings, and the ascendancy of an Anglo-Norman throne, the English language went through dramat...
