English language in Europe following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Anglo-Norman language was the language of administration and few Kings of England spoke English. A large number of French words were assimilated into Old English, which lost most of its inflections, the result being Middle English. Around the year 1500, the Great Vowel Shift marked the transformation of Middle English into Modern English. The most famous surviving work from Old English is "Beowulf", and from Middle English is Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales". The rise of Modern English began around the fifteenth century, with Early Modern English reaching its literary pinnacle at the
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant "Anglo-Saxon" referred to the language of indigenous inhabitants of England before 1066, especially in contrast to Norman French influence after that. Since the 19th century it has been in common use in the English-speaking world, but not in Britain itself (in this context), to refer to Protestants of principally English descent. The "W" and "P" were added in the 1950s to form a humorous epithet with an undertone of "waspishness" (which means a person who is easily irritated and quick to take offense). The first published mention of the term "WASP" was provided by political scientist Andrew Hacker in 1957,