HISTORY

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, A SUMMARY
by CEAF

To analyze a language it is necessary to identify its phonology, grammar, lexis and its social role. By interacting with other cultures, languages evolve, as an example: English lexis has Latin, French, Germanic and Hindi origins -among others; and English pronunciation has been influenced by Anglo-Sazon, Danish and French.
The most famous example of Middle English is “The Canterbury Tales” written by Chaucer, it is a collection of stories about a group of pilgrims who travels to Canterbury, England, it portraits how life was like in fourteenth century England. Some of the features that evoke Middle English are: there were no silent letters, because the final /e/ was pronounced; he used the sentence and question pattern we studied before; and, the pronouns for the second person in singular were: thou, thee and thy, while for the plural were: ye, you and your.

We should also consider that languages are affected by historical events that influence and change them, by doing so we can divide its study into roughly defined periods of time. Thus, we can divide The History of English Language into 3 periods: Old English, Middle English and Modern English. On the following lines I will analyze each one briefly.

First, it is necessary to analyze the backgrounds.

It is believed that the first inhabitants of the British Isles were Celtic that migrated from Europe during the second half of the First Millennium BC.  In 54 BC, the Romans established and conquered some areas of the Island.

At the beginning of the Christian era, western Europe was divided into Celtic speaking (on the South) and Germanic speaking (on the North), but then Latin spread over the Celtic which later influenced the Southern and Western Europe, including France, the North part of Italy and Spain in I BC .

On the other hand, Latin was the language of Latium, but Romans adopted it; then, with the expansion of the Roman Empire, Latin became widespread among Europe, North Africa and Palestine. Even when Latin did not survive as a spoken language, it became the international written language used in education, influencing the vocabulary and grammar used in Europe

THE THREE MAIN PERIODS

OLD ENGLISH- From the time of the settlement in the 5ft century to the Norman Conquest in 1066.

In 409 AC, the Romans left England.  And it was slowly conquered by groups of Germanic- speaking tribes; in the fifth century the Angles –who called themselves Engle, dominated England over  two other groups: the Saesons –who spoken Saesneg, and the Jutes; their culture is known as Anglo-Saxon.

This is how, finally, in the period about the sixth and seventh century, English starts to emerge as a language, product of the mixture of Germanic languages and 4 major dialects: North of the Humber River, Northumbrian -it was the dialect that became the standard of religious and literary culture in the 8^th and 9^th centuries-; in the middle of the country, between the Humber river and the Thames was Mercia dialect; in the Southeastern part of the country Kentish was the dialect; and finally, the most important dialect was West Saxon, which was written and spoken in the Southwestern part of England. In consequence, Old English has a Germanic origin. Today we use words derived from it like be, strong and water.

The earliest English poem, which shows us the richness of Old English Vocabulary, is Caedmon’s Hymn which was composed between 657 and 680.To organize its structure, the author used alliteration (repetition of an initial consonant or vowel sound) and new words formation (compound words) -a characteristic of this period.

  

MIDDLE ENGLISH- During French domination.

During the period from 1000 about 1200 AC , Old English started changing by itself, for

example: the grammatical gender was lost (there were no longer masculine of feminine

words) and Patterns of word order became regularized, stating Subject- Verb- Object

as a standard for declarative sentences and Verb- subject- order for questions.

After the Battle of Hasting on October 14, 1066 the Normans leaded by the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France) conquered England. Then, French became the spoken language of the ruling class and it was used in Court and Culture, turning English to be the language of the low rank population, while Latin was used in education, church and philosophy, making translations very common for public purposes. With the time, the written Old English language was not used any more.

In 1258 Simon de Montfort demanded the restoration of English, soon after the King Henry III issued a proclamation in both, English and French. In 1337, During the time of Edward III  the Hundred Years War  between France and England emerged, forcing citizens to see and recognize their differences not only in language, but in culture too. By 1362, English was used in courts of law and French was not really the language of upper classes, but just a subject they learn at school.

In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added like: crown, castle, court, beauty and poet; sometimes the languages were mixed to form a new word like: gentleman-formed by gentle(Germanic) and man (French). French influenced the English spelling and vowel sounds, for example: hus changed to hous (house), or the use of characters U and V.This stage was also characterized for the beginning of the Vowel Shift, which means that the pronunciation of long vowels changed to be pronounced higher up in the mouth.

MODERN ENGLISH-  It is considered that with the establishment of printing press in 1476, a great change in English occurred, because books were available for more people, so more people learnt to read; consequently, it helped to develop a standard English.

These period was also influenced by social, cultural and political changes, mainly: the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution and the British Colonialism.

During the English Renaissance, also known as “The Age of Shakespeare” or “The Elizabethan Era” many words from Greek and Latin were included in English syntax.

In 1755 Samuel Johnson published “A Dictionary of the English Language”, which pretended to help people to know how to use English language properly.

In the 18^th Century it started in England the Industrial Revolution, the invention of new machines brought new technical vocabulary like: electricity and telephone.

As we saw previously, conquers facilitate the interchange of culture and, therefore, of language, and being England an Empire with colonies around the world (in Australia, New Zealand, India, Asia and Africa), an inevitable influence of them occurred making the English lexis became larger, with words like kangaroo, boomerang, and turban.

Nowadays there are different kinds of English, for example, Canadian, Australian and American English; besides, English is used mainly for people as a second language; this is why it is considered as a lingua franca that is understood in many countries regardless their official first language.

Bibliography

- Durkin, P. (s.f.). Oxxford Dictionaries. Retrived on June 20th 2015, from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/the-history-of-english

English Language. (s.f.). Rectrived on June 20th 2015, from http://www.englishlanguageguide.com/facts/history/

ielanguages. (s.f.). Retrieved on June 18 2015, from http://ielanguages.com/enghist.html

- Knowles, G. (1999). A Cultural History of the English Language (4th ed.). Arnold, a member of the Hodder Headline Group.

- Lerer, S. (1998). The History of the English Language. The Teaching Company.

study english today. (s.f.). Retrieved on June 20th 2015, from http://www.studyenglishtoday.net/english-language-history.html