Interestingly, the Angles arrived from Englaland, and the language that they spoke was known as Englisc, and it is from this word that the words English and England have been derived. (What is English? A short history of the origins and development of the English language) All Indo-European languages, it is often stated, have a tendency to inflect words rather than add endings to them, and this would be done by changing their root vowels, a system referred to as 'gradation', and this system exists even today in Modern English. However, the tendency to inflect words by shifting the stress from one syllable to the next is evident only as traces in both Old and Modern English. (Begon; Baker, 2003, p. 8) .

             It must be noted that conventionally, the history of English is divided into three separate and distinct periods: Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. The earliest period begins with the migration of certain Germanic tribes from the continent to Britain in the fifth century, as mentioned earlier, and these influences continued until the end of the eleventh century or even later, and by this time, Latin, Old Norse and the Anglo-Norman French which became prominent after the Norman Conquest in 1066 had all started to show their influences on the existing English language of the time, especially on the inflectional system and the grammar of Old English. These in fact had begun to break down completely, and this is exemplified in this verse from Aelfric's 'Homily on St. Gregory the Great', "Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon.".

             It must be observed that a few of these words do have their similar Modern English equivalent to this day, like for example, he, and him, of, for, and on.