英文版：English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic invaders and/or settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Netherlands.?
Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually became predominant.
英语是一种西日耳曼语，起源于盎格鲁-弗里斯方言，由日耳曼入侵者和/或定居者从现在的德国西北部和荷兰的不同地区带到英国。最初，古英语是一组不同的方言，反映了英国盎格鲁-撒克逊王国的不同起源。其中一种方言，晚期的西撒克逊，最终成为主要方言。
英语翻译技巧：
第一、省略翻译法
这与最开始提到的增译法相反，就是要求你把不符合汉语，或者英语的表达的方式、思维的习惯或者语言的习惯的部分删去，以免使所翻译出的句子沉杂累赘。
第二、合并法
合并翻译法就是把多个短句子或者简单句合并到一起，形成一个复合句或者说复杂句，多出现在汉译英的题目里出现，比如最后会翻译成定语从句、状语从句、宾语从句等等。
各国的英语发展史（主要是以英语为官方语言的国家）
A Brief History of the English Language (英语语言简史)
Old English, until 1066
Immigrants from Denmark and NW Germany arrived in Britain in the 5th and 6th Centuries A.D., speaking in related dialects belonging to the Germanic and Teutonic branches of the Indo-European language family. Today, English is most closely related to Flemish, Dutch, and German, and is somewhat related to Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. Icelandic, unchanged for 1,000 years, is very close to Old English. Viking invasions, begun in the 8th Century, gave English a Norwegian and Danish influence which lasted until the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Old English
The Angles came from an angle-shaped land area in contemporary Germany. Their name "Angli" from the Latin and monly-spoken, pre-5th Century German mutated into the Old English "Engle". Later, "Engle" changed to "Angel-cyn" meaning "Angle-race" by A.D. 1000, changing to "Engla-land". Some Old English which have survived intact include: feet, geese, teeth, men, women, lice, and mice. The modern word "like" can be a noun, adjective, verb, and preposition. In Old English, though, the word was different for each type: gelica as a noun, geic as an adjective, lician as a verb, and gelice as a preposition.
Middle English, from 1066 until the 15th Century
The Norman Invasion and Conquest of Britain in 1066 and the resulting French Court of William the Conqueror gave the Norwegian-Dutch influenced English a Norman-Parisian-French effect. From 1066 until about 1400, Latin, French, and English were spoken. English almost disappeared entirely into obscurity during this period by the French and Latin dominated court and government. However, in 1362, the Parliament opened with English as the language of choice, and the language was saved from extinction. Present-day English is approximately 50% Germanic (English and Scandinavian) and 50% Romance (French and Latin).
Middle English
Many new added to Middle English during this period came from Norman French, Parisian French, and Scandinavian. Norman French imported into Middle English include: catch, wage, warden, reward, and warrant. Parisian French gave Middle English: chase, guarantee, regard, guardian, and gage. Scandinavian gave to Middle English the important word of law. English nobility had titles which were derived from both Middle English and French. French provided: prince, duke, peer, marquis, viscount, and baron. Middle English independently developed king, queen, lord, lady, and earl. Governmental administrative divisions from French include county, city, village, justice, palace, mansion, and residence. Middle English include town, home, house, and hall.
Early Modern English, from the 15th Century to the 17th Century
During this period, English became more anized and began to resemble the modern version of English. Although the word order and sentence construction was still slightly different, Early Modern English was at least recognizable to the Early Modern English speaker. For example, the Old English "To us pleases sailing" became "We like sailing." Classical elements, from Greek and Latin, profoundly influenced work creation and origin. From Greek, Early Modern English received grammar, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Also, the "tele-" prefix meaning "far" later used to develop telephone and television was taken.
Modern English, from the 17th Century to Modern Times
Modern English developed through the efforts of literary and political writings, where literacy was uniformly found. Modern English was heavily influenced by classical usage, the emergence of the university-educated class, Shakespeare, the mon language found in the East Midlands section of present-day England, and an anized effort to document and standardize English. Current inflections have remained almost unchanged for 400 years, but sounds of vowels and consonants have changed greatly. As a result, spelling has also changed considerably. For example, from Early English to Modern English, lyf became life, deel became deal, hoom became home, mone became moon, and hous became house.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Modern English
Modern English is posed of several languages, with grammar rules, spelling, and word usage both plimenting and peting for clarity. The disadvantages of Modern English include: an alphabet which is unable to adequately represent all needed sounds without using repeated or bined letters, a limit of 23 letters of the 26 in the alphabet which can effectively express twice the number of sounds actually needed, and a system of spelling which is not based upon pronunciation but foreign language word origin and countless changes throughout history. The advantages of Modern English include: single consonants which are clearly understood and usually represent the same sounds in the same positions, the lack of accent marks found in other languages which permits quicker writing, and the present spelling displays European language origins and connections which allows European language speakers to bee immediately aware of thousands of .
Modern English
British English, known as Standard English or Oxford English, underwent changes as the colonization of North American and the creation of the United States occurred. British English changed into American English , such as centre to center, metre to meter, theatre to theater, favour to favor, honour to honor, labour to labor, neighbour to neighbor, cheque to check, connexion to connection, gaol to jail, the storey of a house to story, and tyre for tire. Since 1900, with consistent spelling but different meanings from British English to American English include: to let for to rent, dual carriageway for divided highway, lift for elevator, amber for yellow, to ring for to telephone, zebra crossing for pedestrian crossing, and pavement for sidewalk.
American English, from the 18th Century until Modern Times
Until the 18th Century, British and American English were remarkably similar with almost no variance. Immigration to America by other English peoples changed the language by 1700. Noah Webster, author of the first authoritative American English dictionary, created many changes. The "-re" endings became "-er" and the "-our" endings became "-or". Spelling by pronunciation and personal choice from Webster were influences.
Cough, Sought, Thorough, Thought, and Through
Why do these "ough" have the same central spelling but are so different? This is a characteristic of English, which imported similarly spelled or defined from different languages over the past 1,000 years.
Cough
From the Middle High German kuchen meaning to breathe heavily, to the French-Old English cohhian, to the Middle English coughen is derived the current word cough.
Sought
From the Greek hegeisthai meaning to lead, to the Latin sagire meaning to perceive keenly, to the Old High German suohhen meaning to seek, to the French-Old English secan, to the Middle English sekken, is derived the past tense sought of the present tense of the verb to seek.
Thorough
From the French-Old English thurh and thuruh to the Middle English thorow is derived the current word thorough.
Thought
From the Old English thencan, which is related to the French-Old English word hoht, which remained the same in Middle English, is derived the current word thought.
Through
From the Sanskrit word tarati, meaning he crossed over, came the Latin word, trans meaning across or beyond. Beginning with Old High German durh, to the French-Old English thurh, to the Middle English thurh, thruh, or through, is derived the current word through.(
语作为世界上最通用的语言，你可知道它的起源？英语又是如何发展到今天的统治地位的呢？英语在潮流的发展中曾经受到过什么影响，又经历过多少次重大的语言和词汇的变化呢？请收看BBC精彩纪录片：英语发展史“the adventure of English”。
大约在五世纪左右，日耳曼族入侵英格兰岛，主要有盎格鲁、撒克逊、朱特这三个族群。他们的方言发展成古英语。现今一些常用的字汇是从这些Anglo-Saxon的字汇而来，然而英语也受其他语言的影响。
在日耳曼族尚未入侵不列巅时，岛上住的有凯尔特人。在公元前55年的夏天，古罗马凯撒大帝征服了高卢地区的凯尔特人。为了避免不列巅的凯尔特人报复，凯撒想要一举攻下不列巅，然而并未成功。隔年夏天，又再一次入侵不列巅，在不列巅东南角建立了一个据点。至此大约一百年，罗马人未再侵犯不列巅。
在公元43年，革老丢想要得到整个不列巅群岛的统治权，便派了四万人的军队，费时三年，征服了英格兰。此时大约统治了三百年。
410年，罗马帝国受外族入侵，无力维持其他领地的势力，於是撤退，凯尔特人得不到罗马人的保护，受北方蛮族Picts&Scots骚扰，於是凯尔特领袖便请求朱特族人的保护，并割一块在Kents东北角的isle of Thanet给朱特族。朱特族知道了凯尔特人很好欺负，反而侵略凯尔特人，占领Kents的东南角。其他的日耳曼族群也跟着入侵英格兰，持续一百年。
基督教将拉丁文与希腊文的字汇带入英语。
古英语又受到了说Old Norse的斯堪地那维亚入侵者影响。古英语内部的发展朝着简化词形变化的方向在走，而Old Norse更加速了这个过程，特别是北方的方言。
在诺曼征服后，可以算是古英语时期的结束。这个影响是前所未有的，开启英语的另一个时代。
古英语至中古英语
诺曼征服对英语有显着的冲击，改变了英语单字的拼法，更引入了许多新的诺曼字汇。若没有诺曼征服，英语将会有更多的词形变化、更多的日耳曼字汇、更多的复合字、较少从其他语言吸收的字汇、不会有法文字汇。
在1066年，诺曼地公爵征服者威廉与Harold抢夺英国国王的王位，征服者威廉在黑斯廷斯战役赢了，成为英国国王。将法国品味带入英国皇室，英国皇室的成员也越来越多的法国人，都不会讲英文，而只会法文。此时，在统治阶级所使用的语言是法文，而一般平民使用的是英文。然而，一般百姓要取得更佳的工作机会的话，就必须会法文。要区别说英文与说法文的人，并不是用族群来区分，而是社会地位。
英语一直是一般大众所使用的语言，但一开始受诺曼统治时，在法庭及皇室中并不使用英语。在《盎格鲁撒克逊编年史》中可见，在公元1154年前，大多数的文学作品是使用法文或拉丁文。
在1204年，英王失去了诺曼底的统治权，英国皇室的成员必须在英国与法国之间选边站，再加上英国讲的法文是Anglo-French以及百年战争的影响，英国人越来越不喜欢讲法文。
在此时，英文的文法与单字都有变化。英文文法从综合语逐渐变为分析语，而单字则增加了许多法文及拉丁文的单字。文法方面，由於发音的改变以及词形变化的类比，导致无法用词形变化来判断字的关系，因而只能用字的顺序来表示文法关系。在文法方面，虽说统治阶级讲的是法文，但法文并未影响到英文的文法。此阶段法文的影响只是因为统治阶级讲的是法文，对英文漠不关心，使英文文法的改变不致有太大的阻力。单字方面，在1250年前，法文带来的是贵族与宗教的单字。1250年后，由於英国皇室对英文的认同提高，带来了日常生活的单字。拉丁文则是随着法文单字，也带到英文中。
中古英语与近代英语
在文艺复兴时期，英语进化成中古英语，中古英语对於近代英语的使用者来说要理解是有点难度。在十五世纪，由於元音大改变，英语更进一步进化成所谓的近代英语。
英语一直在吸收外来字汇，直至现今亦是如此，特别是拉丁语、希腊语。由於如此，现今英语可以说是世界上最多字汇的语言。由於许多单字是来自不同的语言，所以读音错误的情形十分的高。
在1755年山缪尔．约翰逊出版了第一部重要的英语字典。
