The History of English Podcast

The term ‘Great Vowel Shift’ was coined in the early 1900s by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen to describe a systemati... Read more

The emergence of the first Indo-Europeans and the early migrations of these steppe herders is examined.  The specific ad... Read more

The rose is one of the most beloved flowers in western Europe, and it has a long association with English royalty.  In t... Read more

Kevin Stroud updates listeners regarding the podcast and the website for the podcast.   Kevin also answers some question... Read more

Mycenaean Greek writing disappears during the Greek Dark Age, but the Greeks encounter the Phoenicians and adopt their a... Read more

In this episode, we explore the events leading to the death of William the Conqueror. And we’ll look at the reign of his... Read more

Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the first English writers to compose dialogue in regional dialects to reflect the way charac... Read more

Many people are familiar with the King James Bible, but over two centuries earlier, an Oxford theologian named John Wycl... Read more

In the midst of the English literary revival of the late 1300s, the household chefs of Richard II compiled the first coo... Read more

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the most popular English poems of the Middle Ages. In this episode, we explore... Read more

The Classical Greek period is explored with an emphasis on Modern English words which originated during this period of G... Read more

The Normandy of William the Conqueror was a product of the feudal age of Western Europe. In this episode, we explore the... Read more

Many scholars consider the Norman Conquest of England to be the most important event in the history of the English langu... Read more

We look at the arrival of Celtic speaking people in Europe, and the invasion of Celtic Gaul by the Romans. Celtic is rep... Read more

The modern French language evolved from a Latin dialect spoken in Gaul during the period of the late Roman Empire. That ... Read more

In this episode, we look at the events of 1066 – one of the most important dates in the history of English. Of course, t... Read more

The first Indo-Europeans settle into Italy, but they encounter an existing civilization known as the Etruscans.  The Etr... Read more

For more than a century following the Norman Conquest, English writing fell out of favor. During that hiatus, French wor... Read more

In this episode, we explore some of the suffixes that were in common use in the early 1200s at the time the Ancrene Wiss... Read more

During the reign of Henry II, the speech of England was dominated by three languages – English, French and Latin. In thi... Read more