English is a language that is widely used all over the world and has developed through history. It has changed from its basic origins, when it was referred to as "Old English" in the very earliest form of the language to what is now "contemporary," or "modern" English. In this essay, we will be looking at the transformations in English language. The most obvious kind of evidence available for looking at the internal history of Old English is the internal evidence provided by written texts, for instance an extract from a story told by the Anglo-Saxons about the poet Caedmon. At first glance, the Caedmon text may look certainly strange to a modern English speaker. This is because many Old English words are no longer used in modern English. For example words like Drithen ("Lord"'), swefn ("dream") and gebeorscipe ("feast"). Nonetheless, with small spelling differences and sometimes minor meaning changes, some of these words are still used in Modern English. Examples of words close to their modern forms are: aras ("arose"), fæste ("fast") and ælmihtig, ("Almighty"). An example of a word with minor meaning change is "tide" which links to the sea. However, in Old English context, ˜tide' meant time or an occasion. Hence, change and continuity of vocabulary from Old English to Modern English can be observed. We have looked at some aspects of the vocabulary and the spelling of the Caedmon text. Now we are going to look at the sounds represented by those spellings. Modern English retains almost all Anglo-Saxon consonant sounds, however a number of differences in pronunciation exist. Here is a demonstration using the letter "h." We can assume that the word "he," in the Caedmon text sounded much like the modern sound /h/ as in hat. In Old English, h occurs initially before other consonants such as hwÃt ('what') and hroef ('roof') or at the end of words such as purh ('in'). However in Modern English, h is often used in a combination with