The history of English is conventionally divided into three periods usually called:

 

 

1. Old English (or Anglo-Saxon)

 

• The earliest period begins with the migration of certain Germanic tribes from the continent to Britain in the fifth century A.D., though no records of their language survive from before the seventh century, and it continues until the end of the eleventh century or a bit later.

 

• By that time Latin, Old Norse (the language of the Viking invaders), and especially the Anglo-Norman French of the

dominant class after the Norman Conquest in 1066 had begun to have a substantial impact on the lexicon, and the

well-developed inflectional system that typifies the grammar of Old English had begun to break down.

 

• Example taken from Aelfric's "Homily on St. Gregory the Great" which concerns the famous story of how that pope

came to send missionaries to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity after seeing Anglo-Saxon boys for sale as slaves

in Rome:

 

 

Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð

he, "Rihtlice hi sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla

A few of these words will be recognized as identical in spelling with their modern equivalents—he, of, him, for,

and, on—and the resemblance of a few others to familiar words may be guessed—nama to name, comon to come,

wære to were, wæs to was—but only those who have made a special study of Old English will be able to read the

passage with understanding.

 

 

The sense of it is as follows: Again he [St. Gregory] asked what might be the name of

the people from which they came. It was answered to him that they were named Angles. Then he said, "Rightly are

they called Angles because they have the beauty of angels, and it is fitting that such as they should be angels'

companions in heaven."

        

 

Some of the words in the original have survived in altered form, including axode (asked), hu (how), rihtlice (rightly),

engla (angels), habbað (have), swilcum (such), heofonum (heaven), and beon (be).

 

 

Others, however, have vanished from our lexicon, mostly without a trace, including several that were quite common

words in Old English: eft "again," ðeode "people, nation," cwæð "said, spoke," gehatene "called, named," wlite

"appearance, beauty," and geferan "companions." Recognition of some words is naturally hindered by the presence of two

special characters, þ, called "thorn," and ð, called "edh," which served in Old English to represent the sounds now

spelled with th.

 

 

Other points worth noting include the fact that the pronoun system did not yet, in the late tenth century, include the third

person plural forms beginning with th-: hi appears where we would use they.

 

 

Several aspects of word order will also strike the reader as oddly unlike ours.

 

 

Subject and verb are inverted after an adverb—þa cwæð he "Then said he"—a phenomenon not unknown in Modern

English but now restricted to a few adverbs such as never and requiring the presence of an auxiliary verb like do or have.

 

 

In subordinate clauses the main verb must be last, and so an object or a preposition may precede it in a way no longer

natural: þe hi of comon "which they from came," for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað "because they angels' beauty have."

 

 

Perhaps the most distinctive difference between Old and Modern English reflected in Aelfric's sentences is the

elaborate system of inflections, of which we now have only remnants. Nouns, adjectives, and even the definite article are

inflected for gender, case, and number: ðære ðeode "(of) the people" is feminine, genitive, and singular, Angle "Angles" is

masculine, accusative, and plural, and swilcum "such" is masculine, dative, and plural.

 

 

The system of inflections for verbs was also more elaborate than ours: for example, habbað "have" ends with the -að

suffix characteristic of plural present indicative verbs. In addition, there were two imperative forms, four subjunctive

forms (two for the present tense and two for the preterit, or past, tense), and several others which we no longer have. Even

where Modern English retains a particular category of inflection, the form has often changed. Old English present

participles ended in -ende not -ing, and past participles bore a prefix ge- (as geandwyrd "answered" above).

 

 

 

1. Middle English

 

 

 

• The period of Middle English extends roughly from the  twelfth century through the fifteenth.

The influence of French (and Latin, often by way of French) upon the lexicon continued throughout this period, the loss of

some inflections and the reduction of others (often to a final unstressed vowel spelled -e) accelerated, and many changes

took place within the phonological and grammatical systems of the language. A typical prose passage, especially one from

the later part of the period, will not have such a foreign look to us as Aelfric's prose has; but it will not be mistaken for

contemporary writing either.

 

 

 

The spelling is often peculiar by modern standards and even inconsistent within these few sentences (contré and

contree, o [griffoun] and a [gret hors], þanne and þan, for example).

 

 

We may notice a few words and phrases that have meanings no longer common such as byttere "salty," o this

half "on this side of the world," and at the poynt "to hand," and the effect of the centuries-long dominance of French

on the vocabulary is evident in many familiar words which could not have occurred in Aelfric's writing even if his

subject had allowed them, words like contree, ryueres, plentee, egle, and lyoun.

 

In general word order is now very close to that of our time, though we notice constructions like hath the body

more gret and three sithes more þan is the water of the see.

 

We also notice that present tense verbs still receive a plural inflection as in beren, dwellen, han, and ben and that

while nominative þei has replaced Aelfric's hi in the third person plural, the form for objects is still hem.

 

 

 

 

1. Modern English

 

 

 

• The period of Modern English extends from the sixteenth century to our own day.

 

 

• The early part of this period saw the completion of a revolution in the phonology of English that had begun in late

Middle English and that effectively redistributed the occurrence of the vowel phonemes to something

approximating their present pattern. (Mandeville's English would have sounded even less familiar to us than it looks.)

 

 

• Other important early developments include the stabilizing effect on spelling of the printing press and the beginning of

the direct influence of Latin and, to a lesser extent, Greek on the lexicon.

 

 

• Later, as English came into contact with other cultures around the world and distinctive dialects of English developed in the many areas which Britain had colonized, numerous other languages made small but interesting contributions to our

word-stock.

 

 

 

 

The historical aspect of English really encompasses more than the three stages of development just under consideration. English has what might be called a prehistory as well.

 

 

As we have seen, our language did not simply spring into existence; it was brought from the Continent by Germanic tribes who had no form of writing and hence left no records.

 

 

Philologists know that they must have spoken a dialect of a language that can be called West Germanic and that other dialects of this unknown language must have included the ancestors of such languages as German, Dutch, Low

German, and Frisian.

 

 

They know this because of certain systematic similarities which these languages share with each other but do not share with, say, Danish.

 

 

However, they have had somehow to reconstruct what that language was like in its lexicon, phonology, grammar, and semantics as best they can through sophisticated techniques of comparison developed chiefly during the last

century.

 

 

Similarly, because ancient and modern languages like Old Norse and Gothicor Icelandic and Norwegian have points in common with Old English and Old High German or Dutch and English that they do not share with French or Russian, it is clear that there was an earlier unrecorded language that can be called simply Germanic and that must be reconstructed in the same way. Still earlier, Germanic was just a dialect (the ancestors of Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit were three other such dialects) of a language conventionally designated Indo-European, and thus English is just one relatively young member of an ancient family of languages whose descendants cover a fair portion of the globe.

 

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/history.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The level of formality you write with should be determined by the expectations of your audience and your purpose:

 

 

• Informal English is normally used in most face-to-face encounters or when communication is with somebody the speaker or writer knows

well.

• Formal English is normally used for communication when relations are more unfamiliar.

 

 

 

NO CONTRACTIONS E.g. I do not think there is any excuse for the treatment I received.	CONTRACTIONS e.g. There`s something else I`ve got to tell you.
FORMAL SET PHRASES E.g. I look forward to hearing from you.	INFORMAL SET PHRASES E.g. Thanks for your letter.
FORMAL GREETINGS IN LETTERS e.g. Dear Sir/Madam,	INFORMAL GREETINGS IN LETTERS e.g. Dear Sam,
INVERSIONS E.g. Seldom have I had a worse meal.
COMPLETE SENTENCES E.g. In my view, we should consider redoing the shop window display.	INCOMPLETE SENTENCES E.g. Great news about your brother.
FORMAL VOCABULARY, USUALLY NOT USING PHRASAL VERBS e.g. “tolerate” instead of “put up with”	INFORMAL VOCABULARY, INCLUDING PHRASAL VERBS e.g. “go on” instead of “continue”
INDIRECT QUESTIONS E.g. I wonder if you could inform me about the cost of the course.	DIRECT QUESTIONS E.g. How was your holiday last month?
MORE USE OF THE PASSIVE VOICE E.g. The majority of local sports centres were opened in the last ten years.	MORE USE OF THE ACTIVE VOICE E.g. They`ve built a new cinema near our house.
FORMAL CONNECTING WORDS AND PHRASES E.g. In addition to this, many people feel that the police are underfunded.	INFORMAL CONNECTING WORDS AND PHRASES e.g. Well, I think that`s all I wanted to say.
MORE COMPLEX SENTENCE STRUCTURE E.g. Knowing what a good reputation the restaurant has, I was disappointed with the service.	SIMPLER  SENTENCE STRUCTURE E.g. I`ll be late for the party. It`s because of my French exam.
PUNCTUATION USING SEMI-COLONS E.g. The library offers no facilities for borrowing videos; this is because of the high cost involved.	PUNCTUATION USING EXCLAMATION MARKS E.g. If you`d been at the wedding, you`d have loved the food!
	GRAMMATICAL ELLIPSIS. E.G.: Sounds good (That sounds good); Spoken to Jim today (I’ve spoken to Jim today)
	Purposefully vague language. This includes very frequent nouns such as “thing” and “stuff” which serve to approximate and to make statements less assertive.