The History of English Podcast

In this episode, we explore two important developments in North America. First, we examine the legendary story of the Pilgrims' arrival in New England in 1620 and the establishment of the Plymouth Colony. Secondly,

In the second part of our look at the sound of English in the early 1600s, we continue to explore the letters of the alphabet and the sounds that each letter represents. We explore the letters K through Z and examine how the sounds represented by those...

Over the course of the 1500s, English spelling started to become standardized, but the pronunciation of the language continued to change. By the early 1600s, English scholars noticed that spellings no longer reflected the way words were pronounced,

In the early 1600s, cotton fabrics made in India were in high demand throughout Asia and Africa. When the English and Dutch arrived in India and Japan, they realized how popular the fabric was, and they soon began to ship it back to northern Europe.

In the early 1600s, English began to spread around the world as speakers searched for new trading partners and new places to settle. Through that process, English become an international language, but as English speakers encountered people and language...