History of English

English, as you have already read, is not a pure language. I don't think there really are any pure languages in the world. But English is definitely not a pure language. English, in fact, has borrowed from over 350 languages in its history. So it's a variety of many languages. Some people say it's like a dog, a mongrel dog, a dog that has been made up of many different dogs. The English language is like that. By looking at the history of the English language we learn about the history of the English people. The two things are closely connected. So, in fact, today we are not only learning about language but we are learning about history. The fact that English has borrowed words from over 350 languages has been viewed differently throughout history. So for example in Shakespeare's time people were very angry about words which were not, they thought, original English words - words which came from other languages, they didn't like them.