Something to ponder-why do we call them buildings when they are already built?

[wnylib]

10. I'm not understanding your post.

The English language was developing before the 1500s. It goes back to the invasions of the Angles and Saxons in the 5th to 7th centuries. It began as a mix of Germanic tribes with differing dialects merging into a cultural identity and common language forms.

Today it's called Old English and few people today can understand it without some training in it. But there are a few words that modern people can recognize, although very few.

Old English evolved into Middle English which was spoken around the time of Chaucer in the 1300s. Large parts of his Canterbury Tales can be understood by modern people, though it helps to have footnotes to clarify objects and occupations that no longer exist.

Modern English was evolving in the 1500s and became more standardized by the popularity of Shakespeare's works, but since we do not speak Elizabethan English today, the language has continued to evolve.

Grammatical uses have been evolving since the time of Old English right up to today. Some modern grammatical customs or usages go back earlier than the start of "modern" English in the 1500s.

English is part of the Indo-European language family that most European languages (but not all) belong to. The practice of using participles as adjectives and nouns exists in some other IE languages, too, e.g. Spanish.

I don't think anyone decided at a specific time to start using participles to expand the use and meaning of verbs. It just became convenient somewhere along the way of the continually evolving language until it was so commonplace that it became standard usage.

(Language development and linguistic families are hobbies of mine.)