EDITOR’S NOTE: Informer editor Andrew Perzo is on vacation and will return Jan. 1. Today’s column features a question and answer that first appeared in 2006.

When did the English language get started?

Languages don’t just start. They evolve over time, acquiring, modifying and shedding words as speakers of different dialects — i.e., versions of the same tongue — intermingle and come into contact with speakers of other languages.

English, a Germanic language, arose sometime after the fifth century, when several groups of Northern European peoples settled on the eastern and southern sides of Britain, driving the native Celtic peoples westward.

Members of these groups — called the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes — spoke a variety of dialects, among themselves and likely among members of the other groups, linguistics professor David Crystal writes in “The Stories of English.”

“It is not possible to say how intelligible the Angles, Saxons and Jutes found each other,” he writes.

“Probably their dialects would have been mutually comprehensible, for the most part, though with islands of difficulty due to distinctive local pronunciations and vocabulary.”

The language at this stage in its development — we call it Old English — bore little resemblance to modern English in pronunciation and spelling. Old English used several letters not found in the Latin alphabet, most notably “eth” and “thorn.”

The eth resembled a “d” with a curved stem marked by a crossbar. Thorn looked like a “p” with a stem that rises above the letter as well as below.

The first corresponded with the “th” sound in the word “this”; the second was the equivalent of the “th” in “thin.”

The following is a list of Old English words — all without any typographically tricky characters — and their modern versions, as listed on a University of Calgary website:

andswaru — answer

biddan — to ask

biscop — bishop

kyning — king

nim — take

ramm — ram

bude — lived

longe — long

buton — except

betwenan — between

axian — to ask

betweox — betwixt

fandian — to test

eft — again

fyr — fire

weofod — altar

brohton — brought

gnornian — mourn

fisc — fish

bricg — bridge

secg — man

boc — book

weorc — work

• Online: www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401.

The Informer answers questions from readers each Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. It is researched and written by Andrew Perzo, an American Press staff writer. To ask a question, call 494-4098, press 5 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com.