Course Description

In this class, while tracing the history of the English language, we would like to consider what kind of language it is and what processes led to the current English language.
English has become the current lingua franca through gradual changes in the Germanic language used by the Germanic peoples, and before these peoples invaded the island of Britain in the 5th century, there had been migrations and invasions by other peoples. In this course, we will first overview the history of Britain before the Germanic peoples entered the island in the 5th century, and then trace the history of English afterwards for about 1,600 years until the language became the English we know today.