The English language did indeed exist 600 years ago, placing its linguistic evolution squarely in the late medieval period around the early 1400s. During this specific era, the language spoken and written across England was known as Middle English. This historical stage of English evolved significantly following the Norman Conquest of 1066, which introduced an immense vocabulary of Anglo-Norman and Old French words that blended with the existing Germanic roots of Old English. Prominent literary figures such as Geoffrey Chaucer wrote masterworks like The Canterbury Tales in Middle English during the late fourteenth century, just a few generations prior. While a modern English speaker would find reading unedited manuscripts from 600 years ago challenging due to sweeping shifts in spelling, vocabulary, and pronunciation during the subsequent Great Vowel Shift, it was a fully developed, highly expressive language used in law, commerce, and poetry.