ENGLISH LANGUAGE 25 family of languages called Indo-Euro- pean. The English language is closely related to dialects still spoken on the N. shores and lowlands of Germany. The original inhabitants of England were Celts, and but few words of their lan- guage survive. The language introduced by the Teu- tonic invaders was an inflected language, and free from admixture of foreign ele- ments. But the English of the present day, which is a direct development of the Anglo-Saxon, has lost its inflections, and has adopted words freely from other tongues. First it adopted many words from the Roman missionaries, by whom the island was converted to Christianity in A. D. 596. Secondly, a large number were adopted from the Northmen (the Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes). These words are numerous in old Northern English literature, and in Northern pro- vincial dialects. A few still survive. But the event which exercised the greatest influence on the English language was the Norman invasion in 1066. After this, French became the language of the court, of the nobility, the clergy, and of literature, and continued to be so for nearly 300 years. In 1349 Latin ceased to be taught in schools through the me- dium of French, and in 1362, the plead- ings in the law courts were directed by act of Parliament to be for the future conducted in English. But the English of the end of the 14th century had be- come, through the influence of the Nor- man-French, analytic; that is to say, prepositions and auxiliaries were used instead of inflections to express the vari- ous modifications of the idea to be con- veyed. The English language may be divided into five periods : 1. First Period A. D. 450-1100. 2. Second Period A. D. 1100-1250. 3. Third Period A. D. 1250-1350. 4. Fourth Period A. D. 1350-1460. 5. Fifth Period A. D. 1460-the present day. In the first period (called also Anglo- Saxon or Old English), the language was inflectional; in the second it began to show a tendency to become analytic, the tendency increasing till in the fourth period inflections had virtually disap- peared. Befoi-e the Norman conquests there were two dialects in English, a Southern and a Northern, the former of which was the literary language. After the Conquest dialects became much more marked, so that we can distinguish three great varieties, the Northern, the Mid- land, and the Southern, distinguished ft-om each other by various grammatical differences. The Midland dialect was ENGLISH LITERATTJRE that most widely spread, and it ultimate- ly became the standard language, a re- sult principally due to the influence of Chaucer, and in a less degree of Wyclif, Gower, and others. ENGLISH LITERATURE, the mass of expression in written prose and poetry, of the mind of the English-speak- ing peoples, through the medium of the English language. Before any English literature, in the strict sense of the term, existed, four literatures had arisen in England — the Celtic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo- Norman. The first included the name of Merlin. The Latin literature prior tc the Conquest presented the names of Bede, Alcuin, and Asser. With the com.- ing of the Normans the native language practically ceased for a time to be used in literature, Latin being employed in law, history, and philosophy, French in the lighter forms of literature. The Norman trouvere displaced the Saxon scop, or gleeman, introducing the fabliau and the romance. By the fabliau the literature was not greatly influenced till the time of Chaucer; but the romance attained an early and striking develop- ment in the Arthurian cycle, founded on the legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin "History of the Britons" (1147), by Geoffrey Gaimar, Maistre Wace, Wal- ter Map, and other writers of the 12th century. The Latin literature included important contributions to the Scholastic philosophy by Alexander Hales (died 1245), Duns Scotus (died 1308), the philosophic works of Roger Bacon (1214-1292), the Golias poems of Wal- ter Map, and a long list of chronicles or histories, either in prose or verse, by Eadmer (died 1124), William of Malm.es- bury (died 1143), Geoffrey of Monmouth (died 1154), Henry of Huntingdon (died after 1154), Joseph of Exeter (died 1195), Roger of Wendover (died 1237), Ro^er de Hoveden (12th and 13th cen- turies), Joscelin de Brakclonde (12th and 13th centuries), and Matthew Paris (died 1259). Apart from a few brief fragments, the first English writers after the Conquest are the "Brut" of Layamon (about 1200), and the "Ormulum," a collection of metrical homilies attributed to Orm or Ormin, an Augustine monk. Next in importance come the rhyming chroniclers Robert of Gloucester (time of Henry III.. Edward I.) and Robert of Brunne or Mannyng (died 1340). To this pre- Chaucerian period belong also several English translations of French ro- mances. Between the beginning and middle of the 14th century a rapid ex- pansion of the literature took place,
