Old English period (500-1100 AD)

Of these branches of the Indo-European family, two are, for our purposes of studying the development of English, of paramount importance, the Germanic and the Romance (called that because the Romance languages derive from Latin, the language of ancient Rome, not because of any bodice-ripping literary genre). English is in the Germanic group of languages.

Introduction 3
1. Old English period (500-1100 AD) 4
2. The Norman Conquest and Middle English (1100-1500) 5
3. Early Modern English (1500-1800) 6
4. Late-Modern English (1800-Present) 7
5. American English 8
6. A Chronology of the English Language 8
Conclusions 11
Bibliography 12