The foundation stones for the English language were laid during invasions beginning as early as the 3rd century and extending across the next 500 years, by Jute, Angle, Saxon and Frisian warlords from Germanic north-western Europe.
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Anglo-Saxons (2)
They invaded, settled in, and ruled much of Britain, bringing their own language known as Englisc.
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Anglo-Saxons (3)
From the culmination of these invasions, around the 8th century, the first significant surviving written English texts have been found, and the language can be charted from this point.
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Vikings
After this, a further wave of invasion, this time from the more northerly Vikings of Scandinavia, added to the English language in its infancy.
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Inflections
One of the most distinctive features of Old English was the existence of an inflection system, using suffixes to mark the different function of words.
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Old English Syntax
Grammatically, this often made use of a SOV (subject-object-verb) structure, which had been largely altered to the more common SVO structure by the time of Modern English.
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Grammatical Structure
Much of the grammatical structure of English was laid down during the Old English period, with many pronouns, determiners, and other closed class words remaining largely unaltered right through to their modern usage.
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
They invaded, settled in, and ruled much of Britain, bringing their own language known as Englisc.
Back
Anglo-Saxons (2)
Card 3
Front
From the culmination of these invasions, around the 8th century, the first significant surviving written English texts have been found, and the language can be charted from this point.
Back
Card 4
Front
After this, a further wave of invasion, this time from the more northerly Vikings of Scandinavia, added to the English language in its infancy.
Back
Card 5
Front
One of the most distinctive features of Old English was the existence of an inflection system, using suffixes to mark the different function of words.
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