How old is England?

Answer 1

England became a unified state in AD 927. However, the area now called England has been settled by people of various cultures for about 35,000 years. It takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries.

Answer 2

The language:

• Modern English: About 300 years old (or less for really modern/colloquial English)
• Early Modern English: About 450 years old (Shakespeare spoke an early form of this)
• Middle English: About 600 or 700 years old (Chaucer spoke and wrote in a dialect of Middle English)
• Old English/Anglo-Saxon: 800 or so years old (spoken by Anglo-Saxons)
• Proto-English: 900+ years old (spoken by Germanic tribes in Southern Scandinavia who had yet to invade England)

Answer 3

Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.

With some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern English, or more specifically, are referred to as using Early Modern English or Elizabethan English. English was adopted in regions around the world, such as North America, India, Africa, Australia and New Zealand through colonisation by the British Empire.

Modern English has a large number of dialects spoken in diverse countries throughout the world. This includes American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian English, Caribbean English, Hiberno-English, Indo-Pakistani English, Nigerian English, New Zealand English, Philippine English, Singaporean English, and South African English.

According to the Ethnologue, there are over 1 billion speakers of English as a first or second language as of 1999. English is spoken in a vast number of territories including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore and Southern Africa. Its large number of speakers, plus its worldwide presence, have made English a common language for use in such diverse applications as controlling aircraft, developing software, conducting international diplomacy, and business relations.

Answer 4

Joe English is 62 years old (birthdate: February 7, 1949).

Answer 5

600 years, from mid 5th century to mid 12th century.