ABSTRACT
This chapter:
explores some basic points about the origins of human language;
asks how so many languages came about and looks at how some of them are related to each other;
reviews the main principles of language change – internal and external change, including creolization;
examines the Germanic tribes in Roman times and the influence of Latin, the language of the Romans, on the language spoken by those Germanic tribes which carried what was to become the English language to Britain.
