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Brief History of the English language

Article · February 2018

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Maad M. Mijwil
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Maad M. Mijwel
Brief History of the English
language
Maad M. Mijwel
maadalnaimiy@yahoo.com
February 2018
__________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________
Introduction
The English language was born thanks to the Germanic
invaders who came to the British Isles from what is now
the northwest of Germany and the Netherlands, (badly
called Holland) which is a mere province of this European
kingdom), in addition to those of southern Denmark. At first,
this language was composed of a set of dialects, among
which the Western Saxon stood out. To him it was necessary
to add other many and deep influences, coming, above all,
from Scandinavian conquerors (in the north and east of
England, where they constituted a Danelagh or Danelaw
because their laws prevailed over the Anglo-Saxons). To these
migrations must be added the Germanic and especially the
Normans who came to Britain between the eighth and eleventh
centuries. Hence, it can be assured that the current English is,
in fact, a conglomerate of influences from Scandinavia and
continental Europe. In particular, from France. All these
migrations provacaron the extinction of the old Celtic
languages and the Latin that was spoken in some cities.
maadalnaimiy@yahoo.com _____________________________________
February 2018
it is true that English, in its oldest phases, incorporated words
from the original Celtic dialects of Britain, which still remain
in places like Scotland and Wales; as well as Latin, the official
language of the Roman Empire, which had Britannia as one of
its provinces. It should not be forgotten that Romanization had
a great influence in the province of Britain, but
it is also necessary to go back more than 3,500 years to
know when all these expressions were incorporated into
English. Of the ancient native Celtic languages only Welsh
remains, as the Cornish language (Cornish) disappeared in the
twentieth century.
The French influence
The Normans, originally from France, came to England in the
eleventh century. By then, they had already abandoned their
native language in favor of the French language (franc) that
was spoken only in the northern part of France, since Occitan
and other dialects were spoken in the center and south, which
still survive today but after the French Revolution have
suffered enormous assimilative pressure. The Normans were
accompanied by Breton and French citizens. The conquest
took place thanks to Duke Guillermo II, who imposed its
troops in the battlefield to those of Haroldo II of England. The
Norman house ruled England for more than 3
centuries. During that time, despite being kings who did not
worry too much about living on the island, both they and the
citizens from the continent spoke a variant of the French
known as Old Norman. The people who had their roots in
England were still speaking the old English-Anglo-Saxon,
how could it be otherwise.
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 Maad M. Mijwel
But it is no less true that the influence was there: having to pay
tribute to the gentlemen in French, the Englishman was about
to disappear or, at least, be relegated as the language of the
lower classes. Little by little, more and more Norman words
and expressions would be introduced in the British
imaginary. This linguistic pressure was based on the control
by the Norman class of administration, commerce and culture.
As an anecdote, it should be noted that current English
speakers consider expressions derived from French much more
formal than those derived from Germanic dialects. This can be
seen in multiple constructions, ranging from welcoming a
person to the name given to certain farm animals, such as pigs
and cows. For example, the duals that exist in English to
designate the pig: "pig" but "pork" (which is the meat already
sacrificed that was served to Mr. Norman). The sheep of the
flock are "sheep", Anglo-Saxon word (Schaf in German) and
young lambs "lamb" (Lamm in German) but the meat that the
lord eats is "mutton" of the French " mouton " (nothing like
the German Hammelfleisch). The same goes for the very
English "beef" or "bœuf "French, which is the meat that is
eaten (" Rindfleisch "in German) and has nothing to do with
the live animal" ox "or" Ochse "in German. Likewise, the
French gave rise to duals related to trade such as "commence"
and "start", "continue" and "go on", "encounter" and "meet",
"purchase" and "buy", etc.
Norman was also clearly noted in ancient British
literature. Usually it is written in Latin. In fact, there are
numerous words from the Romance language by antonomasia
that were incorporated into the considered ancient
English. The same thing happened with the Germanic dialects,
something that should be considered normal, since English has
clear roots in this area of Europe. In fact, there are many
words and grammatical constructions that can be made with
words from both Romance and Germanic.
it is estimated that around 45% of the vocabulary of the
English language comes from French, if we include
compounds in which at least a part has its origin in that
language ("ice cream ", for example). Other estimates point to
29% by tearing down the words directly incorporated from
Latin (25%) and which in many cases are only used in legal
and legal texts, etc. For all this we could consider English as a
hybrid Germanic language that largely maintains its Germanic
syntactic structure, typical in the creation of compounds,
although they are not written together as in German or
Scandinavian languages, but with a huge Latin influence
(direct or indirect) in their vocabulary.
Colonialism and the language
The need to expand borders experienced by the United
Kingdom from the sixteenth century made the English
language spread throughout the globe. The clearest example
can be seen in the creation of the Commonwealth, of which 53
States are part. This community of nations maintains
English as the only official language. Some countries in
which English is spoken, although not officially, are Bahamas,
Jamaica (English is the de facto language, but the official
language is Jamaican Patois) and Trinidad and Tobago, among
many others. On the other hand, places as exotic as
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Bangladesh, the Philippines, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia,
Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Tanzania use it officially with the aim
of unifying the country, without renouncing their native
languages.
In any case, there are many more nations in which it is
spoken. From North America to Oceania, through Africa and
Asia. It is true that it is not official in many of these places, but
the colonial past has made people of many nationalities and
countries living irremediably in English. It should be noted
that it is one of the official languages of the United Nations,
as well as being a vehicle in the European Union and the
International Olympic Committee. Despite this, it should be
noted that English is not the most spoken language on the
planet. Mandarin Chinese has that honor, with almost 1,100
million speakers. English occupies the 2nd place, with 942
million. Spanish is placed 3rd, a bit far from the first 2, with
520 million people. However, these figures do not count as
much for native speakers as for those who have acquired the
English language as a second language. In this case, Spanish
would be the second world language by number of speakers. If
we count those who study the language, English would be the
first language with some 2,000 million native people or able to
communicate in that language with some skill, almost a third
of the world's population.
A peculiar conjugation of verbs
Regarding the conjugation of verbs in English, it must be
said that it has undergone an evolution very similar to that
experienced in languages such as German and others
derived from Romance languages, such as French and
Spanish. Specifically, different forms have been created to
allude to the past, present and future, as well as other
conjugations known as periphrasis (also seen in those that
come from Latin), which denote that an action is going to be
carried out or is being carried out.
Despite everything, there are differences. For example,
English, as a Germanic language, has been forgotten in the
subjunctive mood, related to phrases that show a lack of
certainty or constructions of hypotheses. This has not
happened in the Romance and other Germanic languages, such
as German. In English, the subjunctive has been weakened and
condemned to the background.
In all other cases, it must be said that English complies with
the traditional rules included in any language. For example,
there is the difference between singular and plural, something
that was incorporated in more modern stages, since it was
something that did not happen in Old English. In certain
cases, it does not make gender differences (like the formulas
"we" and "you"). This does not happen in the Romance
languages, in which the pronouns have a variant for each
gender and number ("we" and "we" and "you" and "you").
To conclude, it must be said that the Norman invasion made
the words of Anglo-Saxon origin almost disappear. In the
fourteenth century there were barely 4,500 words of Old
English in front of the more than 10,000 from France. In spite
of everything, the Anglo-Saxon words survived, being key
in the day to day of the speakers.
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