27 Mar 2017

Expert feature: The history of English

From Afternoons, 2:30 pm on 27 March 2017

English is a West Germanic language that came to BRitain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Germanic invaders and settlers from what is now northwest Germany, west Denmark and the Netherlands.

It has had many other influences since that time, and our expert today is Mark Amsler - an Associate Professor Comparative Literature at the School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics at the University of Auckland. He talks through the history of English and how it came to be the language so many of us speak today.

Beowulf Manuscript 11th century

Beowulf Manuscript 11th century Photo: Wiki Commons