THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
It is a set of words, finite sequence of letters or symbols, taken from an alphabet, over which the language is defined. Grammar provides the word formation and usage rules for a formal language.

THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

1.8 million years ago: Homo erectus: development of primitive symbolic communication. 100,000 years ago: Homo sapiens: development of proper language.

INDO EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

FIVE EVENTS THAT SHAPED THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH (Taken from Philip Durkin, Principal Etymologist, Oxford English Dictionary)

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

FIVE EVENTS THAT SHAPED THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Taken from Philip Durkin, Principal Etymologist of the Oxford English Dictionary

The Anglo-Saxon Settlement. The Scandinavian Settlements. 1066 and After. Standardization. Colonization and Globalization.

1. THE ANGLO-SAXON SETTLEMENT

We can speak of English as a separate entity starting with the AngloSaxons settlement in Britain. The Celts (Britons) were residents in Britain when the Romans arrived introducing Latin as a language.

THE ANGLO-SAXON SETTLEMENT

Romans were called to defend continental territories in 410 A.D. Celts were left unprotected. Little is known from this period with certainty due to the lack of written records.

During the 5th and 6th centuries, Anglo-Saxons were invited by Vortigern to come in Britain to fight the Picts and they decided to settle there. Celts moved up to the mountains.

BARBARIANS COMING TO BRITAIN

Very few words from the Celtic tongue became part of Old English, most of them refer to names of places. Two cultures emerged during the anglo-saxon period: the Christian culture (Saint Agustine in 597) and heroic culture, of leaders who defended their lands against invaders.

OLD ENGLISH: BEOWULF

The topics of the first literature were: war, religion, personal sadness and happiness. The first writers were monks in the monasteries. The main heroic text is called Beowulf, the name of the hero of the long anonymous poem. Set around the 6th. century, but written until the 8th. century.

THE GERMANIC KINGDOMS AND THE EAST ROMAN EMPIRE IN 486 A.D.

2. THE SCANDINAVIAN SETTLEMENTS

In the year 793, the Vikings (Norsemen) were next to attack Britain. They were fought by Saxon king of Wessex Alfred, but he had to let them stay and keep part of the territory which became known as Danelaw.

NORTH GERMANIC INFLUENCES OLD ENGLISH

In the 11th. century England was ruled by a Danish king, Canute. North Germanic speech had a great influence over Old English during that period. Both languages, coming from same origin, were very similar. There is written proof of these similarities at the time of the Norman conquest.

3. 1066 AND AFTER

Harold became king of England on the 6th. of January, 1066. On October 14th, 1066, William the Conqueror defeated and killed King Harold during the Battle of Hastings, becoming the new king in December of 1066. Bayeux Tapestry video. Scene by scene description.

ENGLISH HAD LOTS OF CHANGES AS A RESULT

After the Norman Conquest, English went through many changes: The rich inflectional system of Old English was replaced by the same system English has today, which makes very little use of distinctive word endings. Vocabulary changed enormously with borrowings from French and Latin in addition to the Scandinavian loanwords, which slowly started to appear in written form. Middle English acquired the habit of accepting foreign words as own. Trilingualism in English, French and Latin was common in business and professions, crossing from one language to the other without any problem.

ENGLAND AFTER 1066

MIDDLE ENGLISH THE CANTERBURY TALES

In Middle English literature, the hero was replaced by the man of romance, love poetry began to come in from the south of France. King Arthur became a symbol of English history. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales between 1387-1400.

4. STANDARDIZATION

After 1500 King Henry VIII brought church and state together He made himself head of the Church Kings were then considered the human beings closest to God. Queen Elizabeth, Henrys daughter, became symbol of the Golden Age- a period of stability from 1558 1603. London became the capital of the world, and English in the hands of writers like William Shakespeare, became todays modern language.

STANDARDIZATION.

The written and spoken language of London continued to evolve and gradually having greater influence in the country. It was only when the broadly London standard began to dominate, through printing, that the other regional varieties of the language began to be seen as different in kind. A series of changes occurred in English pronunciation As a result the so-called pure vowel sounds were lost to English. The phonetic pairings of most long and short vowel sounds were also lost, which gave rise to many of the oddities of English pronunciation.

5. COLONIZATION AND GLOBALIZATION

Since Medieval times English was spread through British isles but starting the 17th. Century its influence began to be felt throughout the world. Britains external relations activities led to significant change in the language. Words were absorbed from other countries such as Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

COLONIZATION AND GLOBALIZATION

More recently still, English has become a lingua franca, a global language, regularly used and understood by many nations for whom English is not their first language. Samuel Beckett wrote in 1955 Waiting for Godot where the characters have to fill their time the best that they can, and the tragicomedy, the themes are time, waiting and the repeating of day-to-day actions.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF ENGLISH

BORROWED WORDS
Norse anger nay fro raise ill bask skill skin dike skirt scatter skip English wrath no from rear sick bathe craft hide ditch shirt shatter shift ire wrath / anger demand chamber desire power ask room wish might close reply odour annual shut answer smell yearly French English

OTHER BORROWED WORDS

ORANGE Sanskrit - naranj CHOCOLATE Nahuatl choco = bitter, atl = water. ALGEBRA Arabic al-jabr CHECKMATE Farsic (Iran & Afghanistan)SHAH-K-MATE = the king is dead

MEANING CHANGES
The word silly meant blessed or happy in the 11th century going through pious, innocent, harmless, pitiable, feeble, feeble minded before finally ending up as foolish or stupid. Pretty began as crafty then changed via clever, skilfully made, fine to beautiful. Buxom began with the meaning obedient and changed via compliant, lively, plump to large breasted. The word nice meant stupid and foolish in the late 13th Century. It went through a number of changes including wanton, extravagant, elegant, strange, modest, thin, and shy. By the middle of the 18th Century it had gained its current meaning of pleasant and agreeable. Words are changing meaning now: consider how the words bad and gay have changed in recent years.

FAMILY NAMES AND THEIR MEANINGS

Name rc er Bis p is meat Meaning an arr p's man rker ser

B tc er Carpenter Fletc er Fuller Miller S ep er Smit

eel repairer arr maker

cl t cleaner grain grin er er er f s eep metal rker