Just beautiful Rena, the little boy (top right) resembles my 3-year-old son very closely. The origin of English it is very complex. Kalypso is largely correct although Latin (with Greek) was one of the international languages of diplomacy and learning long before the Normans. Latin was introduced to Britain firstly by the Romans in but maintained there by the early Church from the 2nd/3rd century on (despite the conquests of the Pagan Saxons) as the language of writing and learning. A Brief History: On the eve of the Roman Conquest of Britain (AD 43) the country was essentially Celtic speaking although the movements of Belgic peoples (Germano/Celtic)into Britain a little over a century before had possibly introduced some very early forms of Old German words. The Celtic spoken in Britain by its indigenous peoples varied considerably and its derivatives are divided by modern scholars into "p" and "q" Celtic. These survive in the differences between Irish/Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. During the 4th and 5th Centuries Saxon and Irish raiders attacked and harried Roman Britain. The Empire began to collapse and the Saxons, Jutes and Angles eventually gained a strong footing in the east and went on to conquer much of modern England, leaving Wales and Scotland in the hands of Celtic speaking peoples. The Saxons, Jutes and Angles came from the North of Germany, Holland and Denmark and the Old Germanic languages they spoke were very similar to the Germano/Scandinavian languages of the peoples that were to become the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes some few hundred years later. From the last decade of the 8th Century on the Viking attacks, settlements and conquests introduced versions of Old Norse, which had diversified from the Old Germanic languages of the Saxons etc. and was at this time beginning to itself diversify into Norwegian, Danish and Swedish (Although Saxon speakers would probably have been able to understand some of the Old Norse). The Vikings (under Rollo) also conquered Normandy in France in the late 9th and early 10th centuries and there they eventually adopted French but continued to use many of their own words (reflected in many modern placenames in Normandy). In 1066 AD William Duke of Normandy invaded and conquered the Saxon kingdoms of England and Norman French was introduced. The Scotts, Irish and the Welsh continued to speak Celtic languages with numerous traceable Latin and Norse borrowings. The fusion of elements from all the above languages (with varying degrees of relative importance) is the basis for the emergence of English as a language. It took a few more centuries to evolve into something that closely resembles Modern English i.e. the English of the Tudor period or Shakespearean English. And the language continues to change. That's the bare bones of it, most specialists and academics agree to the above, but add more detail and the rows begin. I hope I have not bored you all. STORM