HISTORY THAT CHANGED THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

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HISTORY THAT CHANGED THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
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Celtic Warrior
Celtic Tribes
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400 - 500 A.D.

• Romans in Briton from 43 BC to 410 A.D.
• Roman troops withdraw from England 410 A.D.
• Celts inhabit the Island
• Invite Saxons, Angles, Jutes to help rebuild
  Frisians in the Netherlands

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• 500 A.D. King Arthur Battle of Mount Badon
• Halted invasion of the Saxons for 50 years
• Could have been part Roman - Calvary
• 550 A.D. Celts became no more than slaves
• Old English takes root

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Battle of Britain - WWII

• We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on
  the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields
  and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills
  We shall never surrender 1940.
• (Only surrender is a not old English. That, in
  itself, might be significant)

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550 600s A.D.

• Saxons tried again in 550 and won most of England
• 597 St. Augustine of Canterbury brought Christian
  religion by order of Pope Gregory
• Brought literacy to English
• Anglo Saxons wrote in Runes before literacy
• No paper, Runes easier to write in rocks or stones

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• Venerable Bede
• Wrote the first history of the English-speaking
  people in Latin 731
• Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 793
• Vikings land on Briton
• Norwegians/Danes
• Alfred the Great believed in the English language
  and began to have literature written in that
  language.

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• Old English used word endings to establish
  meaning
• Began to fall away and be replaced by word order
• Prepositions came in-made the language less
• Germanic and more English
• Alfred began to inspire Christian writings using
• Latin and English
• United England with its own language

Alfred the Great
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700 900s A.D.

• Alfred the Great subdued the Danes saved the
  English language from extinction
• 878 treaty Danelaw
• Alfred realized he could not hold the peace, so
  he drew a line and told the Danes to stay on the
  other side of it.

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Viking/Dane words spilled over the Danelaw due to
legal trade between the two nations.
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1066 Norman Conquest

• From Northern France
• Normandy
• Language mix Germanic and French
• Conquered England
• Nobles and craftsmens language

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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 1066-1087
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After the Norman Conquest

• Castles built
• Feudal system enforced
• Trade and Government conducted in French
• French ruled supreme
• Would not see another English speaking King for
  300 years

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym
gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft
Scyld Scefing  sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum,
 meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas.   Syððan
ærest wearð feasceaft funden,   he þæs frofre
gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc         þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade         hyran scolde, gomban
gyldan.         þæt wæs god cyning!
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• 1154 William X of Acquitaine and
  Eleanor, his wife, ruled (French)
• Eleanor began the Age of Chivalry and Arts
• English alive only in the streets
• Eleanor introduced Knighthood
• Tales of King Arthur flourished
• All was written in Latin or French

Lion in Winter
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English Nobility

• Phillip II in France forced Norman Lords to
  choose, England or France
• English had absorbed the Norman French and
  Parisian French thought of the Normans as
  foreigners.
• Bitterness between Paris and London nobles
• 1295 Edward I used English to rally the people.

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1330s Bubonic Plague broke out. In winter the
disease seemed to disappear, but only because
fleas--which were now helping to carry it from
person to person--are dormant then. Each spring,
the plague attacked again, killing new victims.
After five years 25 million people were
dead--one-third of Europe's people. Most of the
clergy died, releasing the grip of Latin on
writing.
With the almost total decimation of the peasant
labor force, the survivors were able to negotiate
with land owners and were able to lease land,
improving their income and social standing.
Peasants and their language began to be
recognized due to the fact that they were the new
tradesmen. England took 200 years to recover.
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Geoffrey Chaucer 1300s
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote         
        When April with its sweet-smelling
showers2         The droghte of March hath
perced to the roote,                 Has pierced
the drought of March to the root,3         And
bathed every veyne in swich licour             
   And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such
liquid4         Of which vertu engendred is the
flour                 By which power the flower
is created5         Whan Zephirus eek with his
sweete breeth                 When the West Wind
also with its sweet breath,6         Inspired
hath in every holt and heeth                 In
every wood and field has breathed life into 7  
      The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne   
             The tender new leaves, and the young
sun8         Hath in the Ram his half cours
yronne,                 Has run half its course
in Aries,9         And smale foweles maken
melodye,                 And small fowls make
melody,10         That slepen al the nyght with
open ye                 Those that sleep all the
night with open eyes
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Henry IV was crowned in 1399, and English became
the royal language again. 1300s Wycliffe Bible.
Followers of Wycliffe copied the Wycliffe Bible
and distributed it all over England. 1415
Wycliffe (after his death) declared a heretic for
putting the scriptures in the common language of
English.
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Archbishop of Canterbury - 1412 That wretched
and pestilent fellow, son of the Serpent, herald
and child of Antichrist, John Wycliffe, filled up
the measure of his malice by divining the
expedient of a new translation of Scripture in
the mother tongue. Latin stayed in the church.
English lost, but the common people were now able
to read the Bible and the Reformation began.
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Henry V, after the victory at Achincourt in 1415,
recapturing Norman ancestral lands, wrote to the
people in England about the victory, totally in
English. English became the official language of
governmental bureaucracy. "This Henry was a
king, of life without spot, a prince whom all men
loved, and of none disdained, e captain against
whom fortune never frowned, nor mischance once
spurned, whose people him so severe a justicer
both loved and obeyed (and so humane withal) that
he left no offence unpunished, nor friendship
unrewarded a terror to rebels, and suppressor of
sedition, his virtues notable, his qualities most
praiseworthy."
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Shakespeares English

• 1564-1616
• Prolific in the English language
• Coined hundreds of new words
• Shakespeare Glossary on the Internet
• English was much more flexible. Over 800,000
  words
• Variety and rich with synonyms

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History of the English Language
500 A.D.
597 A.D.
550 A.D.
410 A.D.
King Arthur
St. Augustine
Anglo Saxon
Anglo Saxons
Romans leave
Celts fight off
brings
Conquest
win over the
Briton
the Anglo
Christianity
Celts
Saxons
and literacy to
Briton
Viking
Danelaw
Raids
878 A.D.
700's A.D.
French
Henry IV
1066 A.D.
William the
becomes the
1399
Norman
Chaucer
Shakespeare
Conqueror
dominant
English
Conquest
language
speaking King