Kristó László. Introduction to the History of the English Language

First Edition - 108 Pages.Language change and historical linguistics.
Early Modern English Grammar.
Pronunciation: Early Modern English and after.
The Indo-European family and Proto-Indo-European.
Germanic: Old English and its closest relatives.
Middle English and after.
The aim of the present textbook is to introduce BA students of English to the basics of the history of English. It starts with a presentation of Early Modern English, which is followed by a discussion of the most important changes that have taken place since then. The reason for this is that students at a BA level, unless wishing to study the early history of English, will most probably not read Middle English – let alone Old English – texts in the original, but they will come across Early Modern English texts (for example, ones by Shakespeare). Therefore, I find it useful to put more emphasis on this period than the earlier ones.