English

English is based mostly on a version of Saxon which was a Germanic language related to German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, for example. Over the years, England has been invaded by various people and some words and elements have been added to the language. The main influence on the language came with the arrival of the Normans from northern France in 1066. They spoke an early version of French and most of the upper classes would have spoken Norman French, while the lower classes still spoke a version of Anglo-Saxon. One of the effects of this was to give us different words for animals and their meat. The lower classes (who looked after the animals) called them by their English names - Cow, Sheep, Pig, for example - but the upper classes, who ate the meat from the animals used the French names, so we have Beef, Mutton and Pork respectively from those animals. By about 1400, the upper classes, at least, were speaking a language which was quite similar to English today. A modern English speaker can read and understand Chaucer's poems, though with some difficulty, mostly because the spellings have changed. In another 200 years, the language and spellings were almost the same as they are today and Shakespeare (writing in the 1600's) is much easier to read and understand, in fact, his plays are still performed and enjoyed today with little or no changes to the language.

Wish I knew lol something I would love to learn about. I would like to know how all languages came about.

@factorial, what else can I say?