Origins of English Language

If you were an alien and could only learn one language before your visit to Earth, which
language would you choose? English is the most pervasive language on the planet and is spoken by 914 million people in the world. English language, and indeed most European languages, is a part of West Germanic branch of Indo-European Family. The history of the language has traditionally been divided into three main periods which are Old English, Middle English and Modern English. The earliest period begins with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during 5th century. These tribes, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes which are called Anglo-Saxons, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. Anglo-Saxons set up seven kingdoms called the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy that included: Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, and East Anglia. Four dialects were mixed and spoken in these kingdoms: West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian. This group of dialects forms what linguists refer to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. One group migrated to the Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak the Celtic Language of Breton today. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin. Their language was called Englisc from which the word, English derives. During the 7th and 8th Centuries, Northumbria's culture and language dominated Britain. The Viking also called Danes and Norsemen invasions of the 9th Century brought this domination to an end (along with the destruction of Mercia). Only Wessex remained as an independent kingdom. By the 10th Century, the West Saxon dialect became the official language of Britain. From this period Old English was written in an alphabet called Runic, derived from the Scandinavian languages. The Vikings, being Scandinavian, spoke a language (Old Norse) which, in origin at least, was just as Germanic as Old English. The Latin alphabet was brought over from Ireland by Christian missionaries. This has remained the writing system of English. At this time, the vocabulary of Old English consisted of an AngloSaxon base with borrowed words from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norse) and Latin. Latin gave English words like street, kitchen, kettle, cup, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, martyr, and candle. The Vikings added many Norse words: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die, they, their, them. In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered England with his armies and became king. Yet William spoke only French, which became the language of the Royal Court, the ruling and business classes. As a result, the upper class inEngland began to speak French while the lower classes spoke English. By about 1200, England and France had split. English changed a lot, because it was mostly being spoken instead of written for about 300 years. The use of Old English came back, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. Most of the words embedded in the English vocabulary are words of power, such as crown, castle, court, parliament, army, mansion, gown, beauty, banquet, art, poet, romance, duke, servant, peasant, traitor and governor. French also affected spelling so that the cw sound came to be written as qu like cween became queen. Because the English lower class cooked for the Norman upper class, the words for most domestic animals are English (ox, cow,

calf, sheep, swine, deer) while the words for the meats derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison). Between 1400-1600 English underwent a couple of sound changes. One change was the elimination of a vowel sound in certain unstressed positions at the end of the words. The other change is what is called the Great Vowel Shift, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. These two changes produced the basic differences between Middle English and Modern English. But there are several other developments that effected the language. One was the invention of printing. It was introduced to England by William Caxton in 1475. The Bible, books and some valuable manuscripts were printed. The books became cheaper and more people learned to read, write and advanced in communication. Printing also brought standardization to English. The period of Early Modern English was also a period of English Renaissance, which means the development of the people. Due to the contact that the British had with many people from around the world, many words have entered the language either directly or indirectly. New ideas and words were created at an increasing rate. English language had grown as a result of borrowing words from French ,Latin, Greek. By the time of Shakespeare's writings, the language had become clearly recognizable as Modern English. Since 1900, a very large amount of vocabulary words has been added to English in a relatively short period. The majority of these words are related to science and technology, and use Greek and Latin roots. English continues to change and develop, with hundreds of new words arriving every year. But even with all the borrowings from many other languages the heart of the English language remains the Anglo-Saxon of Old English. Only about 5000 or so words from the earliest period have remained unchanged but they include the basic building blocks of the language. Grafted onto this basic stock was a wealth of contributions to produce, what many people believe, is the richest of the world's languages.