Stonehenge PowerPoint template

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Important People in the History of the English
Language
By Rachel
Chase Power point template courtesy of
www.presentationmagazine.com
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People and Language

• By definition, language is creative and ever
  changing
• People and language are so interconnected because
  it is the creativity and intelligence of human
  minds that makes language and language change so
  beautiful

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JaphethNoahs Son

• Japheth, one of Noahs sons, was the father of
  the Indo-European languages of which English is a
  part.
• Indo-Eurpean Germanic West
  
• Germanic English

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Jesus Christ

• The rise of the Christian Church had a profound
  influence on the English Language.
• Christianity was brought to the Anglo Saxons and
  it made them a more docile people, susceptible to
  the Norseman when they attacked the British Isles
• Christianity invited Latin words and roots into
  the English Language through the Catholic Church
  because church words were Latin-based and Mass
  was often conducted completely in Latin

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Picture from http//www.layoutsparks.com/myspace-l
ayouts/faith_0
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Herman

• 9 AD
• A soldier in the Roman Army, went back to his
  home town in Germany. His tribes were angry at
  Roman control. He got upset so he and 300 others
  ambushed 3,000 Roman soldiers (3 Roman legions)
  in the forest. The emperor was so angry that he
  decided not to bother them on that side of the
  Rhine.
• Because of Herman we do not speak Latin ?

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King Alfred

• The Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred, was very interested
  in intellectual life. His reign was a rebirth of
  learning. Important Latin texts were translated
  into English. Alfred arranged for the
  compilation of other texts, founded schools, and
  instituted the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a log of
  important events that was kept continuously in
  some areas of England until well after the Norman
  Conquest.

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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

• The island Britain (1) is 800 miles long, and
  200 miles broad. And there are in the island five
  nations English, Welsh (or British) (2),
  Scottish, Pictish, and Latin. The first
  inhabitants were the Britons, who came from
  Armenia (3), and first peopled Britain southward.
  Then happened it, that the Picts came south from
  Scythia, with long ships, not many and, landing
  first in the northern part of Ireland, they told
  the Scots that they must dwell there . . . .
• Picture from http//www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/a
  dversaries/bios/alfred.html

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Constantine

• Constantines father, Constantine, was positioned
  as a Roman soldier in England. He crowned his
  son Holy Roman Emperor in England!
• In addition to that, the Roman influence in
  general was great in shaping the English Language
  because of the Roman conquests in England and
  their Latin language as it came in contact with
  the English language.

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Roman Emperor Constantine (280 - 337
AD) Picture from http//users.moscow.com/khakimi
an/christianity.html
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Tactius

• Roman Historian
• 56 A.D. to 117 A.D.
• Among his histories is the earliest record of the
  Germanic people, Germania.
• The Germans, I am apt to believe, derive their
  original from no other people and are nowise
  mixed with different nations arriving amongst
  them since anciently those who went in search of
  new buildings, travelled not by land, but were
  carried in fleets and into that mighty ocean so
  boundless, and, as I may call it, so repugnant
  and forbidding, ships from our world rarely
  enter.From Germania

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William the Conqueror

• The Norman invasion is arguably the single most
  cataclysmic event in English history. It was the
  lastbut the most thoroughgoinginvasion of
  England by foreigners. (A Biography of the
  English Language, C.M. Millward)
• Duke of Normandy, descendant of Rollo the Dane
  (Viking).
• Replaced Englishmen with Frenchmen in all the
  high offices in both state and church

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William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy

• http//www.american-pictures.com/genealogy/we.are.
  all.cousins.htm

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Adela

• Patron of the poets
• Daughter of William the Conqueror
• Feud of her 3 brothers over England and Normandy

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The Philologists

• Verner Verners Law
• Used to explain the inconsistencies of Grimms
  law
• William Jones
• Rask
• Bopp
• Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm Grimms law
• Typical direction sound changes in language

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Gutenburg

• Johannes Gutenburg
• Born from somewhere between1394 and 1400 died
  in 1468
• Gutenberg Press
• moveable hand-set block letters held within a
  wooden form and the form was then pressed against
  a sheet of paper.
• Gutenberg Bible
• Johannes Gutenberg is also accredited with
  printing the world's first book using movable
  type, the 42-line (the number of lines per page)
  Gutenburg Bible.
• This drastically influenced spelling and,
  therefore, pronunciation

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Orm

• Widespread interest in spelling reform for
  English was not to develop until 16th c.
  However, one English writer devised his own
  spelling system at the beginning of the 13th
  century
• Ormthe name is Scandinavian, meaning
  Serpentwas an Augustinian canon from the East
  Midlands who set for himself the task of
  instructing ordinary people in Church doctrine
  through a collection of homilies which consisted
  of a translation of a passage from the Gospels,
  followed by an explanation and application of
  this passage.

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James Watt

• A Scottish inventor who and engineer whose
  improvements to the steam engine were fundamental
  to the changes brought by the Industrial
  Revolution (made the modern steam engine
  practical).
• The Industrial Revolution was one of the major
  changes to English. Led to technical vocabulary
  based on Latin and Greek roots and intensive
  urbanization.

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The Spelling Reformers

• John Cheke
• Sir Thomas Smith
• William Bullokar
• Richard Malcaster

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Dictionary Writers

• Roger Williams
• Caxton
• Robert Cawdry
• Nathaniel Baily
• Francis Marsh
• Samuel Johnson
• Noah Webster
• http//www.merriam-webster.com/info/spelling-refor
  m.htm

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Grammar Prescriptivists

• 17th Century
• Robert Lowth
• Wallis
• Murray
• Based on the methods of Thrax, the Greek
  prescriptivist

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Writers

• Shakespeare
• Milton
• Chaucer
• These are just a few examples of the many authors
  who have added to the lexicon, adjusted semantic
  meanings, and made other such changes to the
  English Language

Picture from http//copland.udel.edu/stu-org/tuto
r/
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British English Irish English Scottish
English Picture from http//www.homeatfirst.com
/Brit-Eire.htm
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American English
http//varsityscoringtables.com/UnitedStatesMap/Un
itedStatesMap.html
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• The next important people in the history of the
  English Language are unknownwe are living the
  story now. And so

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The story continues...
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• THE END

• The Presentation brought to you by Rachel Chase
  for ELANG 324 the History of the English
  Language.

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Sources

• Picture from http//www.layoutsparks.com/myspace-l
  ayouts/faith_0
• Picture from http//www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/a
  dversaries/bios/alfred.html
• Picture from http//users.moscow.com/khakimian/ch
  ristianity.html
• http//www.american-pictures.com/genealogy/we.are.
  all.cousins.htm
• Picture from http//copland.udel.edu/stu-org/tuto
  r/
• Picture from http//www.homeatfirst.com/Brit-Eire
  .htm
• http//varsityscoringtables.com/UnitedStatesMap/Un
  itedStatesMap.html