How did modern English develop from Old English?

Answer 1

It went from Old English to Middle English to today's English. Old English came from proto-Germanic (the long-dead language that gave rise to today's Germanic languages). Proto-Germanic came from proto-Indo-European, which is the ancestor of most of the languages spoken in Europe, India, and some nearby areas. Before proto-Indo-European, presumably people kind of grunted and pointed at stuff.

Answer 2

English was in its origin a language something like German when it was brought by conquerors and settlers from northern Germany and southern Denmark in the 5th century A.D. When written down it looks something like this:

Com þa to Heorote, ðær Hringdene

geond þæt sæld swæfun. þa ðær sona wearð

edhwyrft eorlum, siþðan inne fealh

Grendles modor. Wæs se gryre læssa

efne swa micle swa bið mægþa cræft,

wiggryre wifes, be wæpnedmen,

þonne heoru bunden, hamere geþuren,

sweord swate fah swin ofer helme

ecgum dyhttig andweard scireð.

That's part of Beowulf, the famous Old English poem, ca. 800.

When the Norman French invaded England in 1066, French became the language of literate people and English went underground. When it re-emerged, it had become simplified in its grammar and had absorbed a bunch of French vocabulary from the Normans. It looked something like this:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye

(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

That's Chaucer, the famous Middle English poet, ca. 1380. You'll notice that it is much easier to read than Old English. Although it is not difficult to read, it would be very difficult to understand because none of the words were pronounced anything like what they are pronounced now. Between Chaucer's day and about 1550 there was a huge change in pronounciation of the words of the language (although not so much of the spelling, which was by thn more or less standardized, which is why Middle English words look familiar to us). This was when Middle English changed to Modern English.

For example, the word at the end of the second line of Chaucer's Prologue is "roote" which we can recognize as our modern "root". However Chaucer would have said it "row-oat-teh" which we would have trouble recognizing as "root".

Answer 3

Different tribes changed Old English words, and eventually, it evolved into the English we have today.