Theory of origin of languages

Abstract

This paper aimed at exploring the theory of the origin of languages. The history of the English language begins with the birth of the English language on the island of Britain about 1,500 years ago. English is a West Germanic language derived from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to the island of Britain by Germanic immigrants from parts of the northwest of what is now the Netherlands and Germany. Initially, Old English was a group of dialects reflecting the origins of the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England. One of these dialects, West Saxon eventually came to dominate. Then the original Old English was influenced by two waves of invasion. The first wave of invasion was the invasion of speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the German language family. They conquered and inhabited parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. Then this second wave of invasion was the Normans in the 11th century who spoke a dialect of French. These two invasions resulted in English being "mixed up" to some degree (although it was never a literal mixed language).