History of English History of English English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon settlers from what is now northwest Germany, west Denmark and the Netherlands, displacing the Celtic languages that previously predominated. The Old English of the Anglo-Saxon era developed into Middle English, which was spoken from the Norman Conquest era to the late 15th century. A significant influence on the shaping of Middle English came from contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavians who conquered and colonized parts of Britain during the
Anglo-Norman literature in England, but none of the French plays acted in England in the 12th and 13th centuries has been preserved. "Adam", which is generally considered to be an Anglo-Norman mystery of the 12th century, was probably written in France at the beginning of the 13th century ("Romania" xxxii. 637), and the so-called Anglo-Norman "Resurrection" belongs also to continental French. It is necessary to state that the earliest English moralities seem to have been imitations of the French ones. Attribution Anglo-Norman literature Anglo-Norman literature is literature composed in the Anglo-Norman language developed during the period 1066–1204 when the Duchy of Normandy