TIME LINE FROM BEFORE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO ENGLISH I

TIMELINE


BEFORE ENGLISH

Here is a list of important dates in the development of the English language. The selection of events is my own, and the dates are approximate in some cases, but it gives at least some idea of the time-scales involved, and puts the developments into some sort of perspective.

c.6000 BC	Britain cut off from continental Europe by English Channel		Before English
c.5000 BC	Proto-Indo-Europeans living in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
c.1000 BC	Germanic Indo-European tribes living in parts of modern-day Germany
c.500 BC	Celts inhabit much of Europe, and beginning to colonize the British Isles
55 BC	First Roman raids on Britain under Julius Caesar
43 AD	Roman occupation of Britain under Emperor Claudius (beginning of Roman rule of Britain)
410-436	Roman withdrawal from Britain
c.450	Anglo-Saxon settlement (Angles, Frisians, Saxons, Jutes) of Britain begins		Old English
450-480	Earliest Old English inscriptions
597	St. Augustine arrives in Britain (beginning of Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons)
c.600	Anglo-Saxon language covers most of modern-day England
c.660	�C�dmon's Hymn� composed in Old English
731	The Venerable Bede writes �The Ecclesiastical History of the English People� (in Latin)
792	Viking raids of Britain begin