A%20History

1
A History of the English Language
2
The Roman Empire
55BC Julius Caesar arrives in Britain 43AD
Invasion of Britain under Emperor
Claudius Building of Hadrians wall 436 AD End
of the Roman withdrawal
The Roman occupation left little influence upon
the language, apart from place names such as
those ending in Chester/cester from the Latin
word castrae meaning camp
3
Anglo-Saxon Invasion
436 AD Germanic/ northern European tribes
Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Saxons invaded
first but it is the Angles who give us the name
of the language Englisc (anglish)
Todays regional variations in accents and
vocabulary can be traced to the arrival of the
Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who brought with them
different versions of the same language.
4
The Celts
Descendants of Indio-European tribes, who are
believed to have originated in south east Europe.
Arrived from c500 BC.
Displaced by the arrival of the Angle and Saxon
tribes. They are driven in the mountains,
islands and costal fringes of the far north and
west Scots, Irish, Welsh, Manx, Cornish and
Breton are all descended from Celtic
The Scottish word sassenachs is the Celtic word
for Saxons. Very few Celtic words remain in
modern English River names Nene Dart Coombe
(deep valley)as in Ilfracombe Some nouns ass,
bannock, brock binn
Brittany (Breton) Taken to France by migrating
Celts 5 6c
5
The Runic Alphabet
Old English was first written using the runic
alphabet Each letter had a name The origins are
unknown The common runic alphabet consisted of
24 letters but in its most developed form, in 9th
century Northumbria, it consisted of 31
letters Runic inscriptions are found on
artefacts and stone monuments The earliest
evidence dates back to 450-80 Ad
6
Old English Manuscripts
Main literary work of the period is a poem,
Beowulf transcribed around AD1000, but
originally composed some 250 years earlier The
story tells of a Scandinavian,hero who kills a
monster in Denmark and later becomes the king of
the Geats, in southern Sweden
7
597AD St Augustine landed at Thanet and
introduced the Benedictine order in to
England Christian monks brought a huge new
vocabulary mainly Latin but also some Greek,
Hebrew and Arabic words The monks established
churches, monasteries and schools, where
education and culture thrived Within a century
most Anglo-Saxons were converted 7th 8th
centuries the centre of religious and cultural
learning was at Lindisfarne, in
Northumberland 9th century Winchester became
chief centre for learning. It was where Aelfric
translated the bible and other major texts into
English (Anglo-Saxon)
Christianity
Some Latin borrowings in the Old English
period abbot, alms, alter, anchor, angel,
apostle, ark, cancer candle, canon, cap, cedar
cell, chalice, chest. cleric, creed, cucumber,
deacon, demon, disciple, elephant, epistle,
fever, font, giant, grammatical, history, hymn,
idol, laurel, lentil, lily, litany, lobster,
marshmallow, martyr, mass, master, mat, noon,
nun, offer organ, oyster, paper, place, plant,
pope, priest, prophet, psalm, purple, radish
relic, rule. sabbath, school, scorpion, shrine,
sock, temple, tiger, title, tunic, verse
8
Ecclesiastical History of the English
Nation Written in Ad 731 by the Venerable
Bede Written in Latin and translated into
Anglo-Saxon in the 9th Century
9
Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon
some differences - graphemes
Anglo-Saxon Modern English
æ
a
ash
þ
th (that)
thorn
th (this)
ð
eth
?
w
wyn
g
?
yogh
10
Old English 500-1050 AD
some similarities
Anglo-Saxon Modern English wæs was fæder fat
her worold world cwen queen cyning king mon
man hus house feld (a cleared area of
woodland) field
11
Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon
some differences - vocabulary
Anglo-Saxon Modern English
gelimplice
fitting/suitable
neata
cattle
swefn
dream

frumseaft
beginning/creation
12
Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon
some differences - grammar
Se guma geseah þone bodan
The man saw the messenger
Se boda geseah þone guman
The messenger saw the man

Therefore, the word the before the object of the
sentence is þone and the object noun takes the
inflection n
13
Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon
some differences - grammar
Se guma geseah þone bodan
Hence
The man saw the messenger
means the same as
þone bodan geseah se guma

The messenger was seen by the man
14
Old English 500-1050 AD - Summary of main points

• Anglo-Saxon derived from a Germanic branch of the
  Indo-European family of languages
• Its alphabet differed from the Roman alphabet
• There is no single spelling system at the time.
  So the word evil can be found as yfel or efel
• It was an inflected language, so word order did
  not need to be fixed
• There were punctuation marks or capital letters
  in Anglo-Saxon writings and many variations in
  the spaces between words
• There were many compound words e.g. banhus
  (bone-house), meaning a persons body
• There is a clear line of descent from Old English
  to present day English, in sounds, spelling
  vocabulary and grammar
• 1/3 of the words we use on any page have Old
  English origins

15
Old Norse
Old Norse Words -by (village) -thorpe
(settlement) Riding (third part)
739AD First landing of Scandinavian invaders
collectively known as the Vikings Old Norse is
derived from the same language family as
Anglo-Saxon but most often the word endings
(inflections) were different, so, for ease of
understanding they dropped them. This accelerated
the loss of these inflections from English
16
Danelaw During the 9th century Alfred the Great
defeated the Norsemen and they withdrew to the
north, behind an agreed line known as the
DANELAW. Hence, their influence survives more
strongly in the north and north east e.g gate
Old Norse meaning street Generally it was a
matter of chance whether the Anglo-Saxon or Old
Norse word survived. Sometimes both survived but
one changed its meaning e.g. to die and to
starve originally meant the same but the latter
acquired a more specific meaning over time
17
Middle English 1050 - 1550
18
The Norman Conquest - 1066
After the Norman Conquest, land and power were
taken by French noblemen. French, as the
language of the dominant class, became the
language of government, administration and high
culture. French was seen as the language of
sophistication and so adopted by upper class
English people English was submerged for nearly
300 years When it did re-emerge as the national
language it was heavily influenced by
French English - ox, sheep, swine, calf French
- beef, mutton, pork, veal
19
(No Transcript)
20
Resurgence of English
Great deal of antagonism between France and
England By the end of 12th century the children
of Norman noblemen were speaking English Black
Death of 1384 made labour scarce and raised the
status of the English speaker By middle of 14th
century, English again being used as language of
government and administration 1356 English
used for court proceedings 1362 English used
to open Parliament 1399 English used in the
coronation of Henry IV
21
Middle English
Grapheme changes
After 1400, the Old English letters þ ð ? and æ
had fallen out of use And there were some
inconsistencies ? or g was used for g u was used
where we would now use V uu was used to represent
w



22
Middle English
Spelling changes The French qu was adopted in
place of the Anglo-Saxon cw Irregular words
were replaced by more regular forms e.g. the Old
English bok was bek in the plural. This and
other words adopted the regular s ending. Very
few irregular plurals exist now
23
Middle English
Grammar Inflected noun endings died out The
Anglo-saxon þæm scipum had become to the shippes
using a preposition and a regular plural ending
New verbs constructions, such as shal be, and
hadde maked are in use The infinitive form is
now marked by to rather than the inflected an
cuman became to come
Inflected verb endings remained Present
tense Past tense I play(e) played(e) thou p
layest playedest he/she playeth played(e) w
e/you/they playe(n) played(en)
24
Vocabulary
Old English French Latin kingly royal reg
al ask question interrogate fast firm se
cure rise mount ascend Holy sacred conse
crated
popular? learned? literary?
25
Chaucer
By mid 14th century English was being used in
literature 1386 Geoffrey Chaucer began work on
The Canterbury tales
26
Middle English
By the end of 15th century the pronunciation of
English had radically and rapidly changed
within the over the course of a couple of
generations, in what is known as the Great Vowel
Shift So the sentence so it is time to see
the shoes on the same feet now Would sound like
this in Middle English saw it is team to say
the shows on the sarm fate noo The Great Vowel
Shift marks the last major barrier between early
English and the Standard English of today
27
The beginnings of Standard English
Greatly influenced by the advent of printing,
instigated by Caxtons first printing press 1476
He bases his spellings on the phonetics of his
own dialect - the English of London and the East
Midlands Literacy is spreading and the demand
for English books grows Caxton published around
100 titles - including Chaucers Canterbury
Tales During the 15th century, written English
gradually became more uniform and English grammar
simpler Thou, thee, thy and ye were starting to
disappear - as was -eth as a verb ending It
lives on however, in this famous quotation
cometh the hour, cometh the man
28
The beginnings of Standard English
Why did the East Midlands dialect become the
standard?
29
Early Modern English
The Renaissance (rebirth) late 15th
century Rediscovery of philosophy arts scienc
e astronomy chronology mathematics Navigation
The Renaissance was a period of changing ideas
about humanity and our place in the universe See
Crystal page 193 for examples of classical and
other vocabulary
30
Shakespeare
In his writings, William Shakespeare used more
than 33,000 different words 3,000 of those
words make their first appearance in his
plays The estimated vocabulary of an average
adult in Britain today is 15,000 Shakespeare is
renowned for his ability to coin new words and
phrases
bare-faced
dislocate
assassination
thin air
stark naked
31
Shakespeare
Changes in meaning Hamlet (1.II. Shakespeare
uses the word merely in the sense of
entirely wants lacks flushing redness galled
sore dexterity speed
32
The Authorised Version of the Bible
1604 a conference of leading churchmen, supported
by King James I, called for a new translation of
the Bible It took 47 scholars 7 years to finish
it It introduced 8,000 new words to the
lexicon The common people still largely
illiterate could now listen to readings and
sermons in their own tongue
33
Concern over the standard of English
1712 The massive influx of new foreign was a
cause of concern for many. Jonathan Swift, in
Dublin, proposes an English Academy, to fix
the language. It was believed that the language
was changing too rapidly and that it was being
corrupted. Latin was revered and purists tried
to impose its rules on the English language.
34
Concern over the standard of English
Prescriptivism

• You should never end a sentence with a
  preposition
• You should never start a sentence with a
  conjunction
• You should never split an infinitive

35
Dr Johnsons Dictionary
Published in 1775 Written in two
volumes Defined 43,500 words and offered 118,000
quotations of usage The dictionary is famous for
the precision of its definitions. Johnson cites
the verb take as having 113 transitive meanings
and 21 intransitive The dictionary also traces
the history of the words, up to that date e.g. he
gives 15 examples of the spelling of
good good god gode guod guode godde goed gowd
godd guid guide gud gwde guyd gewd
36
Role of the Dictionary
Designed to record the language in use at a
particular time in history The status of
dictionaries Word becoming institutionalised H
ow words are selected for entry into the
dictionary Language change at word level
37
Modern English 1700 -Present
The growth of the English vocabulary Dates New
words and senses New words alone 1750-99 25,000
10,500 1800-49 55,000 25,000 1850-99 73,0
00 33,000 1900-49 35,000 15,000 1950- 12,5
00 5,000 Figures from the Oxford English
Dictionary database
38
Modern English 1700 -Present
Other factors influencing the language?
39
English Today
Can we speak about just one English?