English

English is a West Germanic language of the "Ingvaeonic" subgroup, spoken in the British Isles since the arrival of continental Germanic groups (the "Anglo-Saxons") during the fifth century AD, and currently far more widespread, due to more recent migrations of English speakers to eg. North America, Australia and New Zealand, and due to the use of English as a lingua franca or an official language in many countries.

Several periods of English are conventionally distinguished:

  1. Primitive Old English (PrimOE) c.450-700: between the settlement and the first attestations of the language; only known through reconstruction
  2. Old English (OE) c.700-1100: sometimes termed "Anglo-Saxon"; a period ending with the merger of unstressed vowels in final syllables (leading to a substantial reduction in reliance on inflectional morphology) and the Norman Conquest (leading to the demise of West Saxon as a literary standard, and a large influx of French vocabulary)
  3. Middle English (ME) c.1100-1500: a period terminated by the onset of the Great Vowel Shift and the advent of printing (assisting the development of a new literary standard variety based on the dialect of the East Midlands); sometimes further subdivided into Early Middle English (EME) c.1100-1300 and Late Middle English (LME) c.1300-1500
  4. Modern English (ModE) c.1500-present day; sometimes further subdivided into Early Modern English (EModE) c.1500-1700 and Later Modern English (LModE) c.1700-present day
During PrimOE, the following main phonological changes took place: During the attested period of OE there were a number of small changes. A couple of the more notable ones are: Grammatically, the 7 strong verb classes survived into Old English, having undergone the regular vowel changes outlined above: 

eg.
Class Present          Past             Participle
I     i: (< Gmc i:)    a: (< Gmc ai)    i (< Gmc zero+i)
 eg.  ri:dan           ra:d             riden (ModE ride, rode, ridden)
II    e:o (< Gmc eu)   e:a (< Gmc au)   o (< Gmc u)
 eg.  fre:osan         fre:as           frosen (ModE freeze, froze, frozen)
III   e/i/eo+l/r/m/n   a/ea+l/r/m/n     u/o+l/r/m/n
      (<Gmc e+l/r/m/n) (<Gmc a+l/r/m/n) (<Gmc u+l/r/m/n)
 eg.  meltan           mealt            molten (cf. ModE melt, adj. molten)
      drincan          dranc            druncen (ModE drink, drank, drunk)
etc.
A substantial number of Latin words were borrowed into Old English, and underwent the same sound changes as inherited words eg. cy:se < ca:seus "cheese", strae:t < stra:ta "street", maegester < magister "master", biscop < episcopus "bishop".

A Piece from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

991. He:r waes Gypeswi:c gehergod, and aefter tha:m swi:the rathe waes Brihtno:th ealdorman ofslaegen aet Mae:ldu:ne. And on tha:m ge:are man gerae:dde thaet man geald ae:rest gafol Deniscan mannum for tha:m mycclan bro:gan the hi: worhtan be tha:m sae:riman. Thaet waes ae:rest x thu:send punda. Thaene rae:d gerae:dde Si:ri:c arcebisceop.
"In this year (991) Ipswich was harried, and very swiftly after that the nobleman Byrhtnoth was slain at Maldon. And in that year it was first advised that tribute should be given to Danish men because of the great terror which they wrought by the sea-rims. That was first ten thousand pounds. Archbishop Siric advised that counsel."

Towards the end of the OE period, and moving into ME, a number of further phonological changes took place:

Many ON and Old French loanwords entered the language early in the Middle English period eg. ME thay < ON their "they", ME sese < OFr cesser "to cease". Norman scribal habits had a substantial influence on the spelling system, and borrowings also contributed to the phonemicisation of /v/ in opposition to /f/ eg. OFr vertu > virtue. The various vowel shifts since OE meant that whereas OE had had a basically six-vowel system (/i e ae a o u/, plus /y oe/ briefly, with a corresponding long vowel system), ME now had a seven-vowel system for the long vowels (/i: e: E: a: 9: o: u:/) and a five-vowel system for the short vowels (/i e a o u/).

An excerpt from The Owl and the Nightingale (c.1200)

3et thu me seist of other thinge, / And telst that ich ne can no3t singe, / Ac al mi rorde is woning / And to ihire grislich thing. / That nis no3t soth; ich singe efne / Mid fulle dreme and lude stefne. / Thu wenist that ech song bo grislich / That thine pipinge nis ilich.
"Furthermore, you speak to me about another thing, and reckon that I cannot sing, but that all my utterance is lamentation, and a dreadful thing to hear. That is not true; indeed I sing with a full sound and a loud voice. You think that every song is dreadful which is not like your piping."

Towards the end of the ME period, and during the EModE period, the most important phonological changes were those constituting the Great Vowel Shift. Initially, /a:/ was raised and fronted to /E:/, original /E:/ was raised to /e:/, original /e:/ rose to /i:/, and original /i:/ was diphthongised (via /6I/) to /aI/; at the back of the mouth, /9:/ rose to /o:/, original /o:/ rose to /u:/, and original /u:/ was diphthongised (via /6U/) to /aU/. Thus, all the long vowels rose by one position, and the topmost vowels became diphthongs. Later, /E:/ was diphthongised to /eI/, and /o:/ to /6U/, while /e:/ merged with /i:/. Eg. OE macian > ME mak(en) /ma:k6n/ > ModE make /meIk/; OE mete > ME met(e) /mE:t6/ > ModE meat /mi:t/; OE gre:ne > ModE green /gri:n/; OE ti:d > ModE tide /taId/; OE ba:t > ME /b9:t/ > ModE boat /b6Ut/; OE fo:da > ModE food /fu:d/; OE hu:s > ModE house /haUs/.

Other recent sound changes (in Southern British English) include:

From the ME period on, there have been substantial numbers of Latin loans entering the language, however the basic vocabulary and morphology remains predominantly Germanic.

References