República Bolivariana de Venezuela

Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador

Instituto Pedagógico “Rafael Alberto Escobar Lara” de Maracay
English Department.
Inglés como lengua extranjera
Sección 001

Professor: Jeferson Bello. Author: Raquel Padrón.

V-28.219.796.

“Explore the journey of the English language from the Anglo-Saxon till today”
(Critical comment)

Language is a city to the building of which

every human being brought a stone.
(Ralph Emerson, Letters and Social Aims, 1903)

People live, die and everything change through years, that is why
language also have to change. We understand that language is a necessity of humans
due to people need communication among themselves. However, what have
happened with one of the most important languages of all time through years? How
have English changed?

Firstly, the actually started of English language was in the Old English Period
(450-1100 AD), when three German tribes invaded Britain. It seems like many
critical episodes began with, at least, a little violence. At that time the Britain´s
inhabitants spoke a Celtic language. The invading German tribes spoke alike
languages; which Britain develop in what we called “Old English” (this language is
nothing related with today´s English).

At that time, Christian missioners went to Britain, and the Vikings also went
to. This was the first organized attempt to make the people of Britain Christians, but
it was not the first attempt to invade England. Christian missioners brought their
religion and Latin words while the Vikings brought new words as well, however,
with a lot of aggression.

Then, William the Conqueror certainly conquered Britain in 1066 AD, and he
brought a kind of French with him. Another invasion that probably left a lot of dead
people, but brought new changes for English language. As a result of this conquest,
the upper classes spoke French and the lower classes spoke English. Nevertheless, did
the English people had to be proud of their French if precisely French was the
language of the Normans, who had destroyed many English towns and villages? The
answer seems like no, they did not have to. Thus, the continuing bad feeling between
England and France resulted in the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Although the
William´s conquest made a new way of speak.

One of the best writers in the whole history took place in the world, he was
William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Shakespeare guided even today´s English. English
had about two thousand new words and expressions because of him. Without
Shakespeare we would not say that love is blind and it´s early days referring that it is
too soon to know what will happen. Of course, there were more writers like the poets
Spenser and Sidney, but Shakespeare was better and nobody knows about these other
two anyway.

King James the First ordered a translation of the Bible into English in 1604.
This Bible finally appeared in 1611 and everyone called it the King James Bible,
although he did not translate anything instead fifty-four translators did it.
Nevertheless, this Bible was read in everywhere in England. As a result, the Bible
brought many expressions, for example, the straight and narrow (an honest way of
living), the apple in somebody´s eye (a person who is loved very much), and so on. In
brief, though the atheist people do not like it, a Bible was so important in English
language.
 However, not all is religion, science is also important. That is a good new for
the atheist people. Encyclopedia Britannica stated “Britain was full of physicists.
There was Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and even some people not called Robert, like
Isaac Newton”. They carried new terms, so they need new words. Besides, the
acceptance of English as a language of learning was not complete until the end of the
seventeenth century. For example, in 1687 Isaac Newton chose Latin when he wrote
his Principia, but fifteen years later he wrote Opticks in English. As noted above,
science was significant as well.

Dictionaries took part in England. Before, there were only Latin-English

dictionaries, but they had to learn their own language, so the first English-English
materialized in 1604. However, the Samuel Johnson´s English dictionary was more
popular. Samuel and six other people (which we do not know their names) wrote the
dictionary in 9 years. Therefore, this dictionary appeared in 1755 and explained more
than 42.000 words. On the whole, dictionaries came out and put stability in English
Language.

Internet has changed our lives in so many ways. Thus, it has affected English
language as well. New meanings have been given to old words; for example, link
(1951), chat (1985), surf (1992), and so on. In addition, many users shorten a lot of
words, using just single letters or even numbers, also use groups of letters for some
expressions. For example: lol means laughing out loud, bbl means be back later, etc.
People usually use this kind of language when they send messages by phone or when
they are chatting by Internet. For example: thx 4 ur msg. How r u? (Thanks for your
message. How are you?) im fine. c u @ work (I´m fine. See you at work). We do not
know if their ancestors would be happy with this (Shakespeare for instance), but this
is one of the big changes that have brought Internet.

All languages are transforming by people due to the fact that people are
shifting as well. A bunch of events occur that brings variations, on the one hand in a
peaceful way, but in the other hand in a violent one. This is the reality of human
beings, not all is good and not all remains, however, as Saramago wrote in his book
Blindness: “Luckily, and as human history so many times has shown, there is no bad
thing that does not bring with a good thing” (p.159). We cannot know if Saramago
was right or not, but English language will continue changing so do people.
 Bibliography

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https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/middle-english#
Consultation: 31/01/21.
Encyclopedia Britannica. (2021) Explore the journey of the English language from
the Anglo-Saxon till today. Article. Available on-line:

https://www.britannica.com/video/186434/history-language-English
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Emerson, R. (1903). Letters and Social Aims. Massachusetts, The United States.
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https://www.englishclub.com/history-of-english/
Consultation: 31/01/21.
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english-modern-english
Consultation: 31/01/21.
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https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_middle.html
Consultation: 31/01/21.
Saramago, J. (1995). Blindness. Azinhaga, Portugal.