Old English

Old English is a historical stage of English which began being distinguished from continental Germanic languages when Germanic-speaking settlers moved to Britain after the withdraw of the Roman legions in the middle of the 5th century AD. The end of the Old English period is placed in 1066, when French-speaking Normans under William the Conqueror began to take over most of the institutions which had previously produced Old English texts. A century of rapid social and linguistic change took place before Middle English texts started to emerge at the end of the 13th century.