The English language has been used for thousands of years, and today is the preferred language of many countries. But the language itself was not always held in such high regard. During the medieval era, the language went through a period of severe neglect, and in the fourteenth century, English was seen as the language of peasants. French and Latin were the languages used by the elite, the educated, and the clergy, whereas English was the barbarous language of plowmen. There are many historic people and points in history that contributed to the rise of the English language, but it was during the Elizabethan Age that any hesitancy about the merits of the English dialect diminished. What was once considered a barbarous tongue, the English vernacular has struggled through hundreds of years to become the language preferred by the majority of the literate world.

The conquest of England...