Chapter 1: Lost for Words; a brief meditation on the peculiar challenges posed by thinking and talking about language, both in terms of grammatical analysis and wider comparative or historical linguistic studies. Chapter 2: Caught in the Web of Words: The Company We Keep; a concise overview of the odd place of English in the family of Indo-European languages that will consider; the concept of 'Indo-European' and how it revolutionised the study of languages since the eighteenth century. where English sits in the family tree of European languages and its anomalous status as a fundamentally Germanic language substantially hybridised by its many contacts with other language groups over the centuries. Chapter 3: Your Roots are Showing; a brief account of the Germanic tribes later known as the Anglo-Saxon and their colonisation of the Roman province of Britannia that will consider; small number of loan-words of Celtic origin in MnE, suggesting little cultural mingling between the Britons and the invaders evidence of surviving Germanic vocabulary in MnE: importance and significance of core vocabulary a very brief account of some of the distinctive features of OE phonology, vocabulary and grammar Chapter 4: Angels and Angels: The Conversation of the Anglo-Saxons and the Latin Factor. Abrief account of Gregory the Great's dispatch of a mission under St Augustine of Canterbury in 597 to convert the Anglo-Saxons, its success, and its major consequences, including; the introduction of monastic culture and the scriptorium the impact of the new technology of written text (w/ informing parallels to the present-day (IT revolution) beginnings of English prose-composition in chronicle and homily, but also the composition of vernacular religious poetry following native tradition and style selective borrowing of Latin loan-words in distinctive contexts Chapter 5. No Horned Helmets, Please: We're Real Vikings. A brief account of the Scandinavian adventurers who began to conduct incursions into Anglo-Saxon England from the late 700's and their language, closely related to Old English, which will consider; the relatively equal social status enjoyed by both languages (very different from the large differences of power, authority, and prestige that distinguished Old English from Latin and, later, Norman French) the impact of Old Norse on Old English in place-names and certain pronouns other vocabulary (e.g. doublets such as skirt/shirt and skip/ship) Chapter 6. All Change, Please: Enter the Normans. After a concise account of the Norman conquest of Anglo-Saxon England, this text will offer a brief account of its immediate social and political repercussions, with special emphasis on what impact these had on the abruptly demoted English language. Topics include; the changed social landscape, with an imported Norman aristocracy wielding most power acceleration of changes already taking place How MnE vocabulary can reflect the tense relations between the mucky Saxon peasant and the haughty Norman baron - the impact of social register on semantics.