TOP THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ENGLISH LANGUAGE| Introduction | Origin | Transformation |
English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca . It is named after the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, England . Both names derive from Anglia , a peninsula on the Baltic Sea . English is most closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon , while its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages , particularly Old Norse (a North Germanic language ), as well as Latin and French . English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic ( Ingvaeonic ) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are collectively called Old English . Middle ...