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The History of English
Beginning From the Early Celts

Aristotle called the basic unit of language - by which he meant both the spoken and written language - "gramma." This is the origin of our word "grammar." Every language has its grammar rules.

The English language and its literature has deep Celtic roots.

Of all the world's languages (2,700 or more). English is said to have the richest vocabulary. The Oxford Dictionary lists about 500,000 words, while French has fewer than 100,000. About 350,000,000 or more people have English as their native tongue (1/10 of the world's population), and 3/4 of the world's mail and e-mail is in English.

English was brought to Britain by the Germanic tribes: the Angles, Saxon, and the Jutes. Anglii is a Germanic family of languages. Frisii (Frisians) lived among the marshy islands of coastal Holland, called Frisia or Freisland, and spoke a language much like Anglo-Saxon English:

As you can see, the Frisian and English language was very similar. English, German, Dutch, and Danish are all close to English.

The language of the Celts influenced England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales:

These are more like Old English.

Shakespeare filled the world with words:

These are just a few of the words he coined. Shakespeare's vocabulary was said to be influenced by his Warwickshire roots. Words like: ballor or cudgel; geck or a fool.

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