History of the English Language

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History of the English Language

• Unwelcome invasions

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In the beginning

• The islands of England and Ireland were populated
  by little tribes of people with funny hats.
  Celts, Welsh, Iceni, Picts, and other Iron Age
  inhabitants led a fairly peaceful agrarian life.
  Then came the Romans circa 40 B.C.E. under Julius
  Caesar.

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Latin influence

• With the Romans came many innovations to the
  isles. Roads were constructed, cement became
  widespread, and urban areas were better organized
  in and around London. Alas, the Romans also
  brought their language, and the conquering
  language typically takes over.

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54 C.E.
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Womens Rights

• Subjugation under foreign rulers did not fit the
  English well, and around 60 C.E. Queen Boudicca,
  after being captured and raped by the Romans once
  before, led a revolt while the legions were off
  fighting the Welsh in the far west. She and her
  followers leveled many settlements of retired
  Roman soldiers, but eventually she was recaptured
  and killed.

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Oops!

• While things were fine and dandy in Rome, the
  provinces were being assaulted by Germanic and
  Asiatic invaders from the East, most famously by
  Atilla the Hun. In order to protect the capital,
  the Roman legions withdrew from the provinces,
  leaving England to fend for itself.

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Sanctity

• Latin endured, though. How did it?
• Romans gave us Latin root words, local government
  organization, and a more pronounced form of
  slavery.

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Free of Tyranny

• Now that England was free of fighting invaders,
  the good people could get back to fighting each
  other. This left the countryside open to
  invasion, and many others had eyes on the fertile
  soils of England.

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Old English

• 449 to 1050 A.D.
• Written records date only from near 700 A.D.
• Fricative consonants become voiced when they are
  between voiced sounds
• wulfas wolves
• knafa knave

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Guys with funny hats

• The Vikings, Scandinavians from Sweden, Norway,
  and Denmark, ransacked mostly monasteries and
  convents from the late 400s until near 800 C.E.
  From the Vikings it is possible that the English
  stole the shield wall military concept (think
  Red Rover).

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Meisters

• Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians followed in
  the wake of the Viking invaders, but they came to
  stay. While some Vikings had established
  settlements along the major rivers, the Germanic
  tribes drove completely through the island and
  across the Irish Sea.

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Subjugation, part II

• The English were conquered, again. The Angles
  had been the dominant group, and the islands were
  now named Angleland. The Saxons, from northern
  Germany and France, were the second largest
  group, and they got a cut as well. Things were
  not looking up for the English.

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Organization

• Though not as renown for organization as the
  Romans were, the Anglo-Saxons did attempt to
  formalize the legal system as well as enact a
  system of servitude and tributes, commonly know
  as fiefdom. In a fiefdom system, a lord grants a
  vassal land in exchange for loyalty and military
  service.

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Six Kingdoms

• Brittany (Franks/Angles) BritainSaxons Kent
• South Saxons SussexWest Saxons Wessex East
  Saxons Essex, Mercia

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Slaves to the Word

• The Anglo-Saxons, like the Romans, did not force
  their languages onto the English, but not knowing
  them made it very difficult to conduct business
  or defend oneself in court! Luckily, most of the
  native population were slaves again and had time
  to learn the various nuances of Old French and
  German.

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Literature

• Epics, like The Odyssey and The Iliad, were major
  forms of literature still at this point. Beowulf
  was composed near this time.

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Middle English

• 1050 to 1450 A.D.
• More texts are available
• Long vowels were shortened when they were
  followed by two or more consonants
• wizdom (long i) wisdom
• kepte (long e, schwa) kept (no schwa)
• Short vowels became long when they occurred in
  open syllables
• mete meet/meat

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• Some final vowels became schwa and eventually
  were dropped
• helpan helpe help
• krabba krabbe crab
• Word-final m and n were lost frequently
• singan singe sing
• Some h sounds were lost
• hring ring
• hlaf lf loaf
• Hwaete waete wheat

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Where did it go?

• If the ruling class is made up of people who
  speak and read French and German, where do you
  think their languages will crop up?
• Laws, anything showing government rule
• Deeds, anything showing ownership

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Where did English go?

• Latin still resided in the Church, French and
  German comprised the legal codes, and English was
  everywhere else in the markets, at the social
  events, and along the fields.

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1066 C.E.

• What happens in 1066 C.E. near the village of
  Hastings?
• William, a Norman French lord, takes a trip
  across the Channel and defeats the English King
  Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Harold had
  spent the previous few days roughly two hundred
  miles away battling some Vikings.

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Normans

• The Normans were relative newcomers to the
  European scene, descendants from pagan Viking
  adventurers who had settled in the Seine Valley
  in 911 C.E. The invasion was successful
  primarily because William had a weapon Harold did
  not heavily armed calvary.

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William the Conqueror
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It is good to be consistent

• The English, now conquered again, have good
  fortune with William. Soon after his assumption
  of power, William sends emissaries across the
  islands to document absolutely everything.
• Why does he do this?
• Why is it fortunate for the English?

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Domesday

• The Domesday Book (begun 1085 C.E.) is a vault of
  English language, a snapshot of nouns,
  adjectives, and verbs from Old English. It also
  showed William how much he had gained by
  conquering England and how much he could tax his
  vassals.

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Some laws from William

• First that above all things he wishes one God to
  be revered throughout his whole realm, one faith
  in Christ to be kept ever inviolate, and peace
  and security to be preserved between English and
  Normans.
• And let every Frenchman who, in the time of king
  Edward, my kinsman, was a sharer in the customs
  of the English, pay what they call "scot and
  lot", according to the laws of the English. This
  decree was ordained in the city of Gloucester.

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Laws on property

• We forbid also that any live cattle shall be
  bought or sold for money except within cities,
  and this shall be done before three faithful
  witnesses nor even anything old without surety
  and warrant. But if anyone shall do otherwise,
  let him pay once, and afterwards a second time
  for a fine.
• This also I command and will, that all shall have
  and hold the law of the king Edward in respect of
  their lands and all their possessions, with the
  addition of those decrees I have ordained for the
  welfare of the English people.

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Bills of Rights?

• I prohibit the sale of any man by another outside
  the country on pain of a fine to be paid in full
  to me.
• I also forbid that anyone shall be slain or
  hanged for any fault, but let his eyes be put out
  and let him be castrated. And this command shall
  not be violated under pain of a fine in full to
  me.

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Modern English

• The greatest change came from the Great Vowel
  Shift, between 1400 and 1600 A.D.

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Where did it come from?
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How do we know?

• Languages exchange words and parts of words.
  These are referred to as phonemes, little parcels
  of sound which carry meaning. Consider the case
  of suffixes, prefixes, and a-fixes. What does
  destined mean?
• What does predestined mean?
• What does theory mean?
• What does theorist mean?

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What is the assumption?

• In order to have translatable languages, the
  assumption that the groups will understand the
  same concepts must be true.
• What are the concepts?
• Is the assumption true?

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Chameleon

• The power of English is in its nature to change
  with the circumstances. When the Romans came,
  Latin words, structures, and concepts entered the
  language. When the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons
  conquered the islands, French and German words,
  structures, and concepts entered the language.

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Prediction

• What will happen to the language in 500 years?
  Will anybody speak English? Who will? What are
  the current influences on our language? How is
  it being invaded again? By whom or what?

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Places to go

• What resources can you consult to discover the
  history of English?
• Texts (which ones?)
• People (which ones?)