Evolution of English pronouns

"Who" and "whom", "he" and "him", "she" and "her", etc. are remnants of both the old nominative versus accusative and also of nominative versus dative. In other words, "her" (for example) serves as both the dative and accusative version of the nominative pronoun "she". In Old English as well as modern German and Icelandic as further examples, these cases had distinct pronouns.
This collapse of the separate case pronouns into the same word is one of the reasons grammarians consider the dative and accusative cases to be extinct in English — neither is an ideal term for the role played by "whom". Instead, the term objective is often used; that is, "whom" is a generic objective pronoun which can describe either a direct or an indirect object. The nominative case, "who", is called simply the subjective. The information formerly conveyed by having distinct case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order.
Modern English morphologically distinguishes only one case, the possessive case — which some linguists argue is not a case at all, but a clitic (see the entry for genitive case for more information). With only a few pronominal exceptions, the objective and subjective always have the same form.

Interrogative pronouns

	Case	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Masculine/Feminine (Person)	Nominative	hwā	who	who
	Accusative	hwone / hwæne	whom	who / whom1
	Dative	hwām / hwǣm
	Instrumental
	Genitive	hwæs	whos	whose
Neuter (Thing)	Nominative	hwæt	what	what
	Accusative	hwæt	what / whom
	Dative	hwām / hwǣm
	Instrumental	hwȳ / hwon	why	why
	Genitive	hwæs	whos	whose2

¹ - In some dialects who is used where Formal English only allows whom, though variation among dialects must be taken into account.
² - Usually replaced by of what (postpositioned).

First person personal pronouns

	Case	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Singular	Nominative	iċ	I / ich / ik	I
	Accusative	mē / meċ	me	me
	Dative	mē
	Genitive	mīn	min / mi	my, mine
Plural	Nominative	wē	we	we
	Accusative	ūs / ūsiċ	us	us
	Dative	ūs
	Genitive	ūser / ūre	ure / our	our, ours

(Old English also had a separate dual, wit ("we two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.)

Second person personal pronouns

Old and Middle English singular to the Modern English archaic informal

	Case	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Singular	Nominative	þū	þu / thou	thou (you)
	Accusative	þē / þeċ	þé / thee	thee (you)
	Dative	þē
	Genitive	þīn	þi / þīn / þīne / thy /thin / thine	thy, thine (your)
Plural	Nominative	ġē	ye / ȝe / you	you
	Accusative	ēow / ēowiċ	you, ya
	Dative	ēow
	Genitive	ēower	your	your, yours

Note that the ye/you distinction still existed, at least optionally, in Early Modern English: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" from the King James Bible.
Here the letter þ (interchangeable with ð in manuscripts) corresponds to th.

Formal and informal forms of the second person singular and plural

Old English

Middle English

Modern English

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

Case

Formal

Informal

Formal

Informal

Formal

Informal

Formal

Informal

Formal

Informal

Formal

Informal

Nominative

þū

ġē

you

thou

you

ye

you

Accusative

þē / þeċ

ēow / ēowiċ

thee

you

Dative

þē

ēow

Genitive

þīn

ēower

your, yours

thy, thine

your, yours

your, yours

(Old English also had a separate dual, ȝit ("ye two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.)

Third person personal pronouns

	Case	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Masculine Singular	Nominative	hē	he	he
	Accusative	hine	him	him
	Dative	him
	Genitive	his	his	his
Feminine Singular	Nominative	hēo	heo / sche / ho / he / ȝho	she
	Accusative	hīe	hire / hure / her / heore	her
	Dative	hire
	Genitive	hire	hir / hire / heore / her / here	her, hers
Neuter Singular	Nominative	hit	hit / it	it
	Accusative	hit	hit / it / him
	Dative	him
	Genitive	his	his / its	its
Plural	Nominative	hīe	he / hi / ho / hie / þai / þei	they
	Accusative	hīe	hem / ham / heom / þaim / þem / þam	them
	Dative	him
	Genitive	hira	here / heore / hore / þair / þar	their, theirs

(The origin of the modern forms is generally thought to have been a borrowing from Old Norse forms þæir, þæim, þæira.
The two different roots co-existed for some time, although currently the only common remnant is the shortened form 'em.
Cf. also the demonstrative pronouns.)

History of English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic invaders from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to dominate.
English changed enormously in the Middle Ages. Written Old English of 1000 AD is similar in vocabulary and grammar to other old Germanic languages such as Old High German and Old Norse, and completely unintelligible to modern speakers, while the modern language is already largely recognizable in written Middle English of 1400 AD. This was caused by two further waves of invasion: the first by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic language family, who conquered and colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the second by the French Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman. A large proportion of the modern English vocabulary comes directly from Old French.
Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English. However, this had not reached southwest England by the 9th century AD, where Old English was developed into a full-fledged literary language. This was completely disrupted by the Norman invasion in 1066, and when literary English rose anew in the 13th century, it was based on the speech of London, much closer to the center of Scandinavian settlement. Technical and cultural vocabulary was largely derived from Old French, with heavy influence from Norman French in the courts and government. With the coming of the Renaissance, as with most other developing European languages such as German and Dutch, Latin and Ancient Greek supplanted French as the main source of new words. Thus, English developed into very much a "borrowing" language with an enormously disparate vocabulary.

Grammatical changes:

If you are not bilingual yet... you can start now!

According to research by the British Council, English has official or special status in at least seventy-five countries with a total population of over two billion. English is spoken as a native language by around 375 million and as a second language by around 375 million speakers in the world. Speakers of English as a second language will soon outnumber those who speak it as a first language. Around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language. One out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence. Demand from the other three-quarters is increasing."

 

English is far more world wide in its distribution than all other spoken languages.  It is an official language in 52 countries as well as many small colonies and territories.  In addition, 1/4 to 1/3 of the people in the world understand and speak English to some degree.  It has become the most useful language to learn for international travel and is now the de facto language of diplomacy.  In 2001, the 189 member countries in the United Nations were asked what language they wish to use for communication with embassies from other countries.  More than 120 chose English, 40 selected French, and 20 wanted to use Spanish.  Those who wanted English to be the common language included all of the former Soviet republics, Viet Nam, and most of the Arab world.  English is also the dominant language in electronic communication, particularly on the Internet. 

Today learning English language is very important, not to say really essential. These days, English language teaching classes are slowly  introduced on day nursery, where children can learn English by playing. Through the use of very easy songs, they will mainly learn colours and animals. The precocious teaching of English language pursuits the final goal to make children grow up and get a multicultural education. As we were saying and as everybody can notice, today our country is made up of different cultures, there are a lot of children coming from different countries, many different cultures, many languages, many customs and traditions. The learning of a foreign language, especially English, through a deep relationship between language and culture, contribute to enrich children’s cognitive background, making them expand their mental and cultural horizons. But in Spain a lot of people still can’t speak English. Spain always ranks in the last places among other European countries regarding citizens’ foreign languages knowledge. But being able to speak correctly two foreign languages is certainly very useful. First of all English, that since many years has been considered the most important language at international level. Now it should be spoken as well as Spanish language.

To do so, it is very useful that children learn a foreign language since nursery school, when their mind is still free from a lot of notions and ready to store up new information. Since the age of two and half years, (but some researchers say also before this age), a child is able to learn very well even more than one foreign language and as adult he will speak all of them in the same way, as they all were their mother tongue. This is the main advantage to make learn a foreign language (and we are talking especially about English) since child. It is certain that children will surely make less effort than an adult to learn English language (or another foreign language, maybe even more than one). An useful advice is to speak English also at home and English outside home. This way a child can learn both languages at the same level. Since today it seems that bilingualism also has a positive effect on our brain. A research from the York University of Toronto in Canada, has even shown that people, who daily speak fluently two foreign languages, have a strong chance to delay of several years the arise of some kind of dementia such as the Alzheimer’s disease. But also if you are not bilingual yet, you can start now.

The importance of Spanish language today

Spanish Language

The Spanish language is the most widely spoken Romance language, both in terms of number of speakers and the number of countries in which it is the dominant language.
There are more than 400 million Spanish speakers worldwide. Pronunciation and usage of the spoken Spanish language naturally vary among countries, but regional differences are not so great as to make the language unintelligible to speakers from different areas. Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a single spoken "Spanish". There are different Spanish dialects because of the evolution of the Spanish language in different regions. The Spanish language spoken in Spain is called "Castellano", because it originated in Castilla, Spain.

The Importance of Spanish Today

The Spanish-speaking population is one of the fasting growing segments in the world, especially in the United States. The Spanish-speaking segment constitutes a huge community that shares products, services, and culture, offering businesses and institutions a truly unique growth opportunity. Here are some important facts regarding the Spanish language:

• Spanish, the official language in twenty-one countries, is the third most widely-spoken language in the world, after English and Mandarin.
• More than 400 million people speak Spanish worldwide.
• Experts predict that by the year 2050, there will be 530 million Spanish speakers, of which 100 million will be living in the United States.

Hence, as you can imagine, the demand for having documents and communications in Spanish is growing at exponential rates. This is especially true in the United States where the Hispanic population has recently become the largest minority in the country.


The history of the Spanish language in Spain and the origin of the dialects of Spain begin with the linguistic evolution of Vulgar Latin.
The history of the Spanish language in America starts with the colonization of America at the end of the fifteenth century. At this point, the Spanish language was already firmly consolidated in the Iberian peninsula.
Besides being spoken in Spain, it is the official language of: all of the South American republics except Brazil and French Guyana; the six republics of Central America and Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
Additionally, the Spanish language is spoken in the Balearic and Canary islands, in parts of Morocco and the west coast of Africa, and also in Equatorial Guinea. In the United States, it is widely spoken in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, New York City and southern Florida.