A History of English

1
A History of English
Some Highlights
2
Early Influences

• Celtic borrowings A few Celtic words, such as
  crag, entered what would become the English
  language.
• Latin loans Roman soldiers and priests came to
  the British Isles before the massive invasions of
  Northern Europeans.

3
Northern Invasions

• Angles, Jutes, Saxons Frisians, Danes, and
  Norwegians brought new languages.

4
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes

• Germanic invaders called the native Celts wealas
  (foreigners), from which the name Welsh is
  derived. The Celts called the invaders Saxons,
  regardless of their tribe, and and this practice
  was followed by the early Latin
  writersReferences to the name of the country as
  Engaland (land of the Angles), from which came
  England, do not appear until c. 1000 (Crystal 7).

5
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

• Although most European chronicles of the era
  appeared in Latin or French, these were written
  in Old English.
• These manuscripts make up multiple chronicles.
• The chronicles cover the period from around the
  birth of Christ to the twelfth century.

6
Beowulfmanuscript copy from the oral tradition,
ca. 1000
7
Question

• In 1066, what event took place that changed the
  course of the English language?

8
Answer

• The Battle of Hastings

According to legend, King Harold plucked an arrow
out of his eye.
9
Domesday Book

• In 1086, King William (Guillaume) ordered a
  survey of English lands, written in Latin.

10
Which Witch is Which

• How did we end up with such weird spellings?

11
The Story of Ye

• How do you pronounce the word ye?

12
It all goes back to a thorn

• What now looks like the letter y was a thorn, a
  letter sounding like the contemporary th. Over
  time, readers sounded this out with a y sound.

13
U need to see a V

• Many manuscripts used a v at the beginning of a
  word and a u within the word.

14
A New Look for Old English

• Scribes added letters to make words look more
  like Latin or French, languages considered more
  cultivated than English for example, det became
  debt and iland became island.

15
British Bilingualism

• French held its place as the language of
  government, law, literature, and, along with
  Latin, in the church.

English remained the language of household staffs
and other so-called common people. Sometimes
upper-class employers learned English in order to
talk with their servants.
16
French words in English

• Baron, count, courtier, duchess, duke,
  marchioness, marquis, noble, peer
• Appetite, beef, biscuit, confection, plate,
  raisin, supper, treacle, veal, vinegar
• Ambush, army, battle, enemy, garrison,
  lieutenant, moat, peace, sergeant
• By heart, come to a head, have mercy on hold
  ones peace, take leave

17
English-French Pairs

• Sheep-mutton
• Calf-veal
• Deer-venison
• Pig-pork
• Begin-commence
• Child-infant
• Doom-judgment
• Freedom-liberty

• Happiness-felicity
• Hearty-cordial
• Help-aid
• Hide-conceal
• Holy-saintly
• Meal-repast
• Stench-aroma
• Wish-desire

18
Words from Other Languages

• Latin Alias, homicide, diocese, mediator,
  scripture, lucrative, tolerance
• Netherlands poll, skipper
• Spanish cork, savvy
• Portuguese marmalade
• Arabic saffron, admiral, mattress, algebra,
  alkali, zenith
• Persian chess, rook, checkmate

19
Middle English

• The period we call Middle English runs from the
  beginning of the 12th century until the middle of
  the 15th (Crystal 30).

20
Language Standardization

• William Caxton brought the printing press to
  England in 1476. In 1041, movable clay type was
  first invented in ChinaJohannes Gutenberg
  invented the printing press with
  replaceable/moveable wooden or metal letters in
  1436 (completed by 1440) (About.com)

21
Caxtons Concerns

• Should he replace foreign words?
• Which regional varieties should he use?
• Should he edit local writers to make their more
  works more widely understood?
• Scribes wrote with many variations. Which
  spellings and punctuations should he use?

22
Dictionaries

• Grammar books appeared, recording and prescribing
  language use.
• Samuel Johnsons A Dictionary of the English
  Language, published in 1755, further standardized
  English usage.

23
Middle English Literature

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a story
  from Arthurian legend, written in English but
  showing the influence of the French courtly
  tradition. Late 14th century
• The Canterbury Tales,
  written by Geoffrey Chaucer (ca.
  1345-1400)

24
E-Mod
Early Modern English (1400-1800)

• The Renaissance
• Shakespeare
• Protestant Reformation
• Printing Presses
• First English colonization of America tobacco,
  potato, and other words enter the language

25
Bible Translations

• John Wycliffe risked his life by translating the
  Bible in the fourteenth century. Although he
  survived, opponents burned his bones after his
  death.

How did the Protestant Reformation change English?
26
King James Bible 1611

• This translation became one of the most commonly
  used Christian bibles in the world.

27
English in Education

• Shakespeare read Cervantes at a time when
  scholars considered Spanish a more important
  language than English.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Latin
still served as the tongue spoken by educated
Europeans. By the end of the 1700s, scholars had
begun to consider English a language appropriate
for academia.
28
Shakespeares Neologisms

• William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
• Shakespeares plays and poems introduced
  accommodation, assassination, barefaced,
  countless, courtship, dislocate, dwindle,
  eventful, fancy-free, lack-lustre, laughable,
  premeditated, puppi-dogs, and submerged.
• Not all of his words remained in the language.
  Neologisms that failed to survive include
  abruption, appertainment, cadent, exsufflicate,
  persistive, protractive, questrist, soilure,
  tortive, ungenitured, unplausive, and vastidity.

29
Vocabulary

• According to some linguists, English contains
  some 500,000 words.
• Shakespeare employed about 30,000.
• The King James Bible contains about 12,000.
• Generally, speakers with well-developed
  vocabularies employ 30,000
• That leaves the most articulate among us about
  470,000 words short.

30
English Today

• Modern English came into being during the
  eighteenth century.
• Even so, authors such as Jane Austen (1775-1817)
  use formulations that seem odd to our ears and
  words, such as direction as an address, that
  now convey different meanings.

31
English Outside of England

• An American Dictionary of the English Language,
  published in 1828
• Noah Webster (1758-1843)

32
The Use of English has Spread

• 1.Mandarin Chinese (1.1 billion)
• 2.English (330 million)
• 3.Spanish (300 million)
• 4.Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
• 5.Arabic (200 million)
• 6.Bengali (185 million)
• 7.Portuguese (160 million)
• 8.Russian (160 million)
• 9.Japanese (125 million)
• 10.German (100 million)
• 11.Punjabi (90 million)
• 12.Javanese (80 million)
• 13.French (75 million)

Estimates of language use varies. George Webers
articleTop Languages The Worlds 10 Most
Influential Languages in Language Today (Vol. 2,
Dec 1997).
33
English in a Global Context

• More than 40 countries around the world consider
  English their primary language (University of
  Texas at Austin website).
• Antigua, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Barbuda,
  Belize, Botswana, Cameroon, Canada, Dominica,
  Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya,
  Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritius,
  Micronesia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Papua New
  Guinea, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon
  Islands, South Africa, St. Lucia, St.Vincent,
  Swaziland, The Grenadines, The Philippines,
  Trinidad Tobago, Uganda, United Kingdom, United
  States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

34
English in a Global Context

• Many other countries, such as India and Nigeria,
  recognize English as one of their official
  languages

The United States federal government does not
recognize English as an official language.
35
Language Change Will Continue

• Words enter from other countries, especially as
  their authors contribute to contemporary English
  literature.
• Neologisms arise from mixtures of English with
  Hindi, Yoruba, and Spanish.
• Technology contributes to language formation with
  new terms and altered spellings.

36
Works Cited

• Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the
  English Language. Cambridge U of Cambridge,
  1997.
• English Department, University of Texas at
  Austen. lthttp//www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/english/
  gt. Accessed 10 Sept. 2008.
• English in the World. lthttp//www.about.comgt.
  New York New York Times, 2008. Accessed 10 Sept.
  2008.
• Knowles, Gerry. A Cultural History of the English
  Language. London Arnold, 1999.