English language than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England and was a period in which the language was influenced by French. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, Modern English spread
Anglo-Norman language has been spelled as "s'uvisera" and "s'advisera", and "Reyne" as "Raine". Among important writers of the Anglo-Norman cultural commonwealth is Marie de France. Much of the earliest recorded French is in fact Anglo-Norman French. In Northern France, almost nothing was at that time being recorded in the vernacular because Latin was the language of the Church and consequently of education and historiography, and was thus used for the purpose of records. Latin also remained in use in medieval England by the Church, the royal government and much local administration, as it had been before 1066, in parallel with Middle English.