The origins of what we now call English can be found in the Germanic languages which started coming to Britain - mainly to what is now England - around the 5th century after the Romans left. Before that, the languages were various Celtic ones, which can still be found today in Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall.

In the 5th century Britain was invaded by several groups of Germanic people including Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who mainly came from what is now Germany and Denmark. Their languages spread and gradually pushed the old Celtic languages further to the north and west. Then around the 8th century the Vikings came from further north in Europe - their Norse languages were similar to the Anglo-Saxon tongues, but there were differences which all helped to create the language we now call Old English. This survived basically until 1066, when the Normans brought their version of French and changed the language again (this became known as Middle English.)

These films give a lot of information about the history of English.