When did contractions develop in the English language?

Answer 1

Well, honey, contractions started popping up in Middle English around the 16th century. People got lazy and decided to smush words together to save time and effort. So, next time you say "can't" instead of "cannot," thank those lazy English speakers from centuries ago.

Answer 2

Written contractions are fairly recent. They are attempts to record in spelling the way people actually pronounce certain word combinations when speaking easily and informally. These "contracted" pronunciations, however, are very old, going all the way back to the earliest period of English.