English language and sometimes also vocabulary, grammar and spelling—English-speakers from around the world are able to communicate with one another with relative ease. English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages on the British Isles, and into the Frisian languages and Low German/Low Saxon on the continent. The Frisian languages, together with which the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages, are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon
Anglo-Norman literature of Henry IV that English became the native tongue of the kings of England. The language had undergone certain changes which distinguished it from the Old Norman spoken in Normandy, as can be seen from graphical characteristics, from which certain rules of pronunciation are to be inferred. An Anglo-Norman variety of French continued to exist into the early 15th century, though it was in decline at least from the 1360s, when it was deemed insufficiently well known to be used for pleading in court. Great prestige continued to be enjoyed by the French language, however; in the late 14th century,