To me, the most important weakness of the Articles of Confederation was: because.

The federal government under the Articles, was too weak to enforce their laws and therefore had no power. The Continental Congress had borrowed money to fight the Revolutionary War and could not repay their debts.

The three steps before modern english were indo-european, germanic, and old english. as peoples moved around the eurasian continent, their languages changed. throughout the ages, the languages became more specialized. as english has many germanic influences, it is easy to see how this was one of the forebears. also, old english was one of the main ancestors of the modern language, spoken in the 5th through about the 13th centuries.

Where is the question?