S26-09 The History of the English Language NEW
Class | Registration opens 3/8/2026 9:00 AM EST
Invasions. War. Politics. Intrigue. Culture. Romance. The History of the English Language, that wonderful tongue we speak every day, will not require you to memorize events in British history—it will illustrate how those events shaped our language. Example? The current Oxford English Dictionary contains around 469,470 words, and English has one of the largest lexicons of all modern languages. How did that happen? Well, centuries ago, Roman, Germanic and French invasions brought in their own words. More on that in the class…
From those early invasions that transformed our language all the way through our modern slang, phrasal verbs and idioms, we’ll talk about everything that has shaped English—and how we as speakers have continually changed it—throughout the centuries.
Jerilyn Burgess
Jerilyn Friedmann Burgess is a proud BW graduate, 1993. Her English professors had a passion for literature and linguistics, inspiring her to make a living in everything English.
A published writer who has written for national magazines and newspapers, Ms. Burgess is also working on a novel. She's taught ESL to hundreds of people from throughout the world--everyone from poor refugees to advanced-level expats working for major American companies.
This is Ms. Burgess's first teaching job with ILR, and she hopes her students gain a new appreciation for our common language.