jan 1, 792 - Viking raids begin
Description:
Anglo-Saxon spelled words phonetically; however, the Viking raids lead to the Great Vowel Shift and the spelling was confused.
The Vikings introduced new words to Britain, as well as changing the English word structure. Nouns in Old English used to utilise prefixes and suffixes to describe various cases (such as mood, tense, time etc.), objects in a sentance could have a genitive (express possession), a dative (express movement) or an accusative (making a word an object).
Viking settlement changed English from a synthetic language to an analytic language - meaning, English broke off its cases from the nouns and turned them into individual words (such as 'a, to, the, for, with' etc.).
This change occurred thanks to practicality. In essence, Old Norse and Old English were similar as the were both Germanic; however, the English prefixes and suffixes were complex and made communication between the two difficult. In order to speak, the English had to simplify when they spoke to the Norseman, dropping or breaking up noun additives.
Because people wrote as they spoke, these simplification changed the spelling and structure of Old English and written words were cemented.
Added to timeline:
Old English
A timeline dating from the beginning of the use of Old Engli...
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