The History of the English Language

accent adjectives adverbs already analogy became become belong borrowed words Celtic century Chaucer common compounds conquest consonant shift dative declension dental dialects diphthong early Modern English element ending England English words especially example feminine final foreign words French words gender genitive gradation Greek guage High German i-mutation important Indo-European inflectional inflectional forms influence labial later Latin lish literary language literature lost Low German Mercian Middle English Middle English period Midland mutation native words neuter Norman Norse nouns occur Old English Old French older original palatal perfect participle plural prefix preserved preterit and participle regular remained root Sanskrit Shakespeare short vowels similar singular sometimes sound speech spirants spoken standard stems stress strong verbs suffix syllable tendency Teutonic languages tongue unstressed Verner's law vocabulary vocalized voiced voiceless vowel weak forms weak verbs West Saxon