Language/English/Culture/English-and-Other-Languages

Everyone hates English. The spelling, the pronunciation, the grammar, the rules, all of the exceptions to those rules, and so on. It is a language everyone loves to hate. It seems absolutely nothing in the language actually suits the language. And that, is absolutely correct. English, while classified as a Germanic language, has a long, interesting history, throughout which it has borrowed pretty much everything from other language. It initially comes from the Germanic region, modern day North Germany and Denmark, from when the Saxons came to the Isle of Great Britain. This is known as Old English, and is almost completely unintelligible to modern day English speakers. Old English was also influenced by Viking invaders and settlers. And now, l'invasion! William the Conqueror of Normandy invaded England in 1066, bringing with him a large amount of Old French vocabulary, creating what we now call Middle English. Also, these French synonyms are usually viewed as higher-class or more sophisticated, even today in non-Britannic English speaking countries, since these words were used by the occupying Norman nobility. However, some of these synonyms are exclusively used in certain situations, for example, if you go into a restaurant or store and try to ask for cow instead of beef, they will look at you like you have a third eye. Next, Early Modern English began in the late 15th century, and was characterized by the Great Vowel Shift and even more borrowing of Latin and Greek words. This was also the era of the printing press, which helped to standardize English spelling. Early Modern English is the kind of English utilized in the King James Bible and the various works of Shakespeare. This kind of English, or at least some parts of it, is still in use today, and is known as Legal English. However, pretty much no one but lawyers are going to understand it unless they have practiced reading it. Modern English came into play a couple of centuries after Early Modern English, and it was introduced to much of the world through the colonization efforts of the British Empire. While English did a lot of changing on its own, it also borrowed and adopted a multitude of foreign words, stems, roots, etc., to which most conventional spelling and pronunciation rules do not apply, and even at its beginning it inherited grammatical systems that have largely disappeared, leaving only vestigial remnants that, to this day, never cease to frustrate non-native, and native English learners and speakers.