TESL 2200 Word Usage and Vocabulary in Context Lecture 2 The history of English: with relevance to the origin and development of English vocabulary

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TESL 2200Word Usage and Vocabulary in Context
Lecture 2 The history of English with
relevance to the origin and development of
English vocabulary
2009-2010 Semester 2
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Why the history of English

• The history of English is a fascinating field of
  study in its own right.
• The historical account can inform the present-day
  English language use.
• It satisfies the deep-rooted sense of curiosity
  we have about linguistic heritage.
• (Crystal D 19955)

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The story of English

• In the simplest terms, the language was brought
  to Britain by Germanic tribes, the Angles,
  Saxons, and Jutes, influenced by Latin and Greek
  when St Augustine and his followers converted
  England to Christianity, subtlely enriched by the
  Danes, finally transformed by the French
  speaking Normans.
• (McCrum,R.198646)

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• The making of English is the story of three
  invasions and a cultural revolution.

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How it began

• The history of English begins with the conquest
  and settlement of what is now England by the
  Angles, Saxons and the Jutes from about 450 AD.

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• To Aetius, thrice consul, the groans of the
  Britons..the barbarians drive us to the sea. The
  sea drives us back to the barbarians. Between the
  two we are exposed to two sorts of death we are
  either slain or drowned. Venerable Bede, c. AD
  700

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Old English(450-1100 AD)

• 450600 AD. The invasion of Britain by The
  Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Almost all of these
  invaders spoke dialects of a language they called
  Englisc (pronounced/ingli?/)
• In 597, St Augustine and a group of monks from
  Rome arrived in England and taught the
  Anglo-Saxons about Christianity.

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• During the Old English period, English language
  borrowed a considerable number of Latin words,
  e.g. bargain, cheap, inch, pound cup, dish,
  wall, wine abbot, altar, candle, disciple, hymn,
  martyr, nun, priest, pope, shrine, temple and a
  great many others.

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• Although about 85 of the Old English vocabulary
  has been replaced in Modern English with words
  from Latin or Greek, the hundred most common
  words in Modern English all come from the
  language used at this time.

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• These Old English words are for very basic things
  and ideas mann(person),wif(wife),cild(child),
  hus(house), mete(food), drincan(drink),
  etan(eat),slæpan(sleep),æfter(after), and, we on,
  is, and many more.

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• 787-878. Vikings (Danes) invasion. Throughout the
  ninth and tenth centuries and into the eleventh,
  Norwegian and Danish Vikings invaded large parts
  of England. As a consequence, English borrowed
  words from the North Germanic tongue of the
  invaders, Viking Norse.

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• Many words from Old Norse(ON) entered and
  enriched Old English(OE).
• Some of them replaced the Old English words. For
  example, syster(ON) replaced sweostor(OE).
• In some cases, both the Old Norse and Old English
  words for the same idea was used. For example,
  there was wish (OE) and want (ON), and sick (OE)
  and ill (ON).

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• Some old Norse word survived in a dialect. For
  example today some Scots say kirk (ON) where
  English say church.
• About 900 Old Norse words became part of Old
  English, and they include many modern words
  beginning with sk-skin, skirt, and sky, for
  example.

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• Others are bag, cake, die, egg, get,
  give,husband,leg,neck,same,take,window.

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• By the 8th century England was a centre of
  learning in western Europe. The greatest piece of
  literature in Old English is a long poem called
  Beowulf.

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• Early History of the Danes
• ListenYou have heard of the Danish Kings in the
  old days and how they were great warriors.
  Shield, the son of Sheaf,took many an enemy's
  chair, terrified many a warrior,after he was
  found an orphan. He prospered under the sky until
  people everywhere listened when he spoke.He was
  a good king!

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Middle English (1100-1500)

• The Norman Conquest (1066). At the Battle of
  Hastings in Sussex, the last Saxon king Harold
  was killed. On Christmas Day of the same year,
  William of Normandy was made the King of England.
• French and Latin were used in government, the
  Church, the law and literature. English people
  who wanted to become important in society learnt
  French.

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• French words came into every part of life For
  example, chair, city, crime, fashion, fruit,
  gentle, government, literature, medicine, music,
  palace, river, table, travel.
• Sometimes the French words replaced Old English
  (OE) words for example, ask,(OE) and
  demand(F),wedding(OE) and marriage(F), king(OE)
  and sovereign(F).

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• Sometimes French words were used for life in the
  upper classes, and Old English ones for life in
  the lower classes.
• For example, the words for the animals in the
  fields were Old English (cow, sheep and pigs) but
  the words for the meat on the table were French
  (beef, mutton, and pork).

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• At the same time several thousand words also
  entered English from Latin. They came from books
  about law, medicine, science, literature or
  Christianity.
• Some words which came from Latin at this time
  were admit, history, impossible, necessary and
  picture.

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• However, English did not die out and it was
  gradually widely used because
• -the increased marriage between Normans and
  English people
• -The loss of Normandy to France
• -the loss of Frenchs social importance in
  England.

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• From 13th century, English was used more and more
  in official papers, and also in literature.
• Geoffery Chaucer (1343/4-1400), who was born in
  London, wrote in the East Midland dialect (spoken
  by people living in the Oxford, London, Cambridge
  triangle), authored The Canterbury Tales.

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• Later in 15th century, English completely
  replaced French in the home, in education and in
  government. It also replaced Latin as the
  language of written communication. English had
  survivedbut it had changed enormously.

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• By the end of 15 century English was starting to
  be read by thousands of people. In the next
  century it was read by many more, and used by the
  great star of English literature-William
  Shakespeare.

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Modern English (16th century)

• However, the acceptance of English as a language
  of learning was not complete until the end of the
  seventeenth century.
• During 16th and 17th centuries, writers in
  English borrowed about 30,000 words from about
  fifty languages, mainly to describe new things
  and ideas, and many of them are still used today.

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• The new words came mainly from Latin for
  example, desperate, expensive, explain, fact.
• As the European explorations of the world
  widened, so words came into English from America,
  Africa and Asia. For example, chocolate and
  tomato came from Mexico, banana from Africa,
  coffee from Turkey, and caravan from Persia.

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Shakespeare(1564-1616)

• The age of Queen Elizabeth I (Queen of England
  1558-1603) was one of a great flowering of
  literature.
• Shakespeare is considered the greatest writer of
  plays.

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• He created about two thousand words, and a huge
  number of expressions which are now part of
  everyday English.
• For example, he invented its early days (it's
  too soon to know what will happen) in my minds
  eyes( in my imagination) tongue-tied (unable to
  speak because you are shy) the long and short of
  it( all that needs to be said about something)

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The King James Bible(1611)

• This version has an important influence on the
  English language.
• They aimed to make the language sound poetic and
  musical when it was read aloud.

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• Its language became part of everyday English,
  with expressions like the apple of somebodys
  eye( a person who is loved very much by
  somebody) by the skin of your teeth( you only
  just manage to do something the salt of the
  earth ( a very honest person) the straight and
  narrow (an honest way of living).

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Bringing order to English

• The great growth in new words between 1530 and
  1660 left people uncertain.
• What was happening to the language? If so many
  foreign and newly-formed words kept on being
  added to it, would it remain English?

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• Some people in England wanted to create an
  official organization to control the English
  language.
• In 17th century, the appearance of the first
  English dictionary slowly brought about more
  regularity in spelling.

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• In 1755, Samuel Johnson produced A Dictionary of
  the English Language.
• During 18th century, ways of spelling that
  differed from these dictionaries were seen to be
  incorrect and a sign of stupidity or bad
  education.

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• The grammarians at this time considered the
  grammar of much ordinary spoken language and
  regional dialects (especially Scots) to be wrong
  and believed that the grammar of English should
  be the same as that of Latin.
• For example, they thought that a sentence should
  not end with a preposition because in Latin it
  did not. For example, it would be correct to say
  I like the town in which I live, but not I like
  the town which I live in.

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Modern English(1800-now)

• The discoveries and inventions in all areas of
  science in the last 200 years have led to new
  words for machine, materials, plants, animals,
  stars, diseases and medicines, and new
  expressions for scientific ideas.
• About 100,000 new words have entered the language
  in the last hundred years-more than ever before.

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• Some example of these new words, with the date
  when each word first appeared in writing. Most
  new words( about two-thirds) have been made by
  combining two old words fingerprint(1859),
  airport(1919), streetwise(1965).
• The recent development in computers introduced
  many of its type online (1950), user-friendly,
  download(1980).

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• Some new words have been made from Latin and
  Greek for example, photograph (1839),
  helicopter(1872), aeroplane(1874), and
  video(1958).

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• Others are old words given new meanings. For
  example, pilot(1907) was first used to refer to a
  person who directs the path of ship, and
  cassette(1960) used to mean a small box.
• About five percent of new words have come from
  foreign languages. For example, disco(1964) has
  come from French and pizza(1935) from Italian.
  And a few words have developed from the names of
  things we buy for example, coke(1909) from
  Coca-Cola, and walkman (1981) from Sony Walkman.

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• Some words have been shortened photo (1860) for
  photographplane(1908) for aeroplane telly
  (1940) and TV (1948) for television.
• Some words first appeared as slang before they
  joined the main language for example boss (1923)
  was an American slang word, meaning manager.

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• Some words have combined sounds from two other
  words for example,smog(1905), used to describe
  the bad air in cities, is made from smoke and
  fog.
• Only a few new words have not been created from
  other words. Two examples are nylon(1938) to
  describe a man-made material, and
  flip-flop(1970), a type of shoe that makes a
  noise as you walk.

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• Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which was
  completed in 1928, includes a total of 414,800
  words, all English words since 1150 ( even those
  that are no longer used).

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• OED does not include many spoken words, slang
  words or words from non-British kinds of English.
  
• Some people think that there are probably a
  million different words and expressions in
  English today.

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• The spread of new words in the 20th century was
  made possible by newspapers, radio, television,
  films, pop music and the Internet.
• English passed the 1,000,000 threshold on June
  10, 2009 at 1022 am GMT and today English has
  1,001,543.(source the global language monitor)

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The future of English(es)?

• we no longer control English in any meaningful
  way. It is no longer our ship, but the sea.
  (Andrew Marr,1998)