The English language of today reflects many centuries of development. The political and
social events that have in the course of English history so profoundly affected the English
people in their national life have generally had a recognizable effect on their language.
The Roman Christianizing of Britain in 597 brought England into contact with Latin
civilization and made significant additions to our vocabulary. The Scandinavian
invasions resulted in a considerable mixture of the two peoples and their languages. The
Norman Conquest made English for two centuries the language mainly of the lower
classes while the nobles and those associated with them used French on almost all
occasions. And when English once more regained supremacy as the language of all
elements of the population, it was an English greatly changed in both form and
vocabulary from what it had been in 1066. In a similar way the Hundred Years’ War, the
rise of an important middle class, the Renaissance, the development of England as a
maritime power, the expansion of the British Empire, and the growth of commerce and
industry, of science and literature, have, each in their way, contributed to the
development of the language. References in scholarly and popular works to “Indian
English,” “Caribbean English,” “West African English,” and other regional varieties
point to the fact that the political and cultural history of the English language is not
simply the history of the British Isles and of North America but a truly international
history of quite divergent societies, which have caused the language to change and
become enriched as it responds to their own special needs.