ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the history of the English language in its first thousand years of existence-from its original appearance in England in the fifth century ad, following the Anglo-Saxon invasions, to the introduction of printing in the fifteenth century. It describes what is known about the English language in its early stages of development. The chapter looks at how evidence can be drawn upon to tell particular narratives about the history of English. An important issue in any historical description concerns the evidence that is available to the historian and how that evidence is interpreted. The history of any language includes both a linguistic history (the nature of the grammar and vocabulary at different points in time) and an account of who spoke the language, where and when. The former kind of history is often called the internal history, and the latter the external history.
