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English 1 H

25 February 2016

The History of the English Language

Germanic languages are a specific subgroup of languages that have roots in Europe. These languages are German, Dutch, Yiddish, Lamborg, Frisian, Afrikaans, and the Scandinavian language. English is also a germanic language. The English language has quite dramatically changed as a Germanic language through small but constant influence.

The history is neatly divided into three parts Anglo-Saxon English (or old English), Middle English, and modern english. "Anglo-Saxon english, being the first english, was around from c. 450- 1080 AD" ("Origins of the English Language"). In 436 AD the Romans invaded Britain and colonised it forever altering the Celtic language because latin was spoken by most wealthy merchants. The mixture of Celtic and Latin languages started a base for English. Rome began to decline and stopped its military protection of Britain, this allowed the settlement of the Jutes and then allowed other Germanic tribes to settle. By 450 AD Germans began to take up parts of British mainland bring and "by 470 AD so did the warlike Saxons, from the Lower Saxony area of north-western Germany"(Masti). The slow ingraining of German into the language that was, at that time, a mixture of partly Latin and mostly Celtic phased in more completely than the invasion of Rome bringing Latin, making English a Germanic language rather than a Romance language (a language derived of Rome)."St. Augustine from Rome brought Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons of the rest of England in 597 AD"(Masti). This caused the symbols of the Anglo-Saxons to be used in the writing of some religious texts and artistic poems. That makes the the oldest English writing, written in Anglo-Saxon symbols, arise in c. 658 AD. The most recognizable Literature of this time was the epic poem "Beowulf"which contained a strange mixture of different languages that was determined to be the beginning of old English writings. By 850 AD Vikings were constantly raiding the Anglo-Saxons and Britain, then moving south. The Vikings brought the Germanic language Norse and its suffixes such as,""-gate", "-stoke", "-kirk", "-thorpe", "-thwaite", "-toft" into English" (Masti). By 899 the mixture of influence and the dispersing of the Vikings of them in different ways English became standard. Written words such as he, of, him, for, and, on were written how they are today but they probably were not pronounced that way.

Middle English was prevalent from c. 1100 to c. 1500. The main reason for historians to divide English into Old and Middle English was the invasion of Normans into Britain who brought Latin from the Catholic Church, but mostly French. French is derived from Latin but the Normans were from rural France so there dialect had substantial Germanic influences. For about 300 after that invasion the British nobles spoke Anglo-Saxon French, but the common people spoke English. For example "trades retained their Old English names like baker, miller, shoemaker, and etc, while the more skilled trades adopted French names like mason, painter, tailor, merchant, and etc" (Masti). French writes also switched letters around from old English making "hw" "wh" in words pronounced like where. By the 14th century Middle English .dropped all of the awkward grammar and had none of the gender tenses found in present day German.

English was mostly spoken and not written until the founding of universities of Oxford in 1167 and Cambridge in 1209, then English literacy became common. The "Ormulum", a biblical text, was written late in the 12th Century and is an important example of Middle English pronunciation and Spelling. The "Ormulum" spelled things phonetically rather than the typical way Middle English was spelled which helped Historians understand other text in present day English form. Even with the Literature advances the English Language seemed to be suffering by losing most of its Anglo-Saxon words to French but after 200 years past the sudden Norman french influence faded. This was because the As the people of England were being affected by the Normans did Norman people are being affected by the lower-class English people who could not afford to learn a new language. Also In 1337 England started the 100 year war with France and it made French seem like a language of the enemy and in 1349 Latin speakers in England dropped dramatically because of the bubonic plague killing mostly assisting clergy members. Finally English won the language battle and became the main language of England especially when "In 1389, Wickliffe produced a translation of "The Bible" in English"(Meiklejohn 127), but it was still not done changing.

Early Modern English lived from c. 1500 - c. 1800 and the from 1800 began present day Modern English . It began with the great vowel shift. The Modern English Vowel shift started slowly and 1400 and continued until 1700. Many languages go through shift but English's was . .e Stahl 4 extreme and it lost most of its pure vowel sound. It's unclear why this happened but it is assumed to be from the large immigrant of Roman landowners. The vowel shift is made even more strange by the complete non-effect it had on any other language besides English.

Modern English also experienced change during the Renaissance. During the 16th and 17th century Latin mostly , but also Greek and French, were considered the classical languages of education. The change was due to the intentional taking and use of words from other languages such as the Latin word "horrid" or the Greek suffix "-ism". Often Latin suffixes were added to make verbs of Germanic nouns. Writers were conscious of the adding of foreign words and did it intentionally to seem more interesting. As Modern developed double letters were slowly added. "The first English dictionary, "A Table Alphabeticall", was published by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604"(Masti) this was long after first Dictionaries in many other languages. The English Language no to long after the first dictionary went through a golden age of literature between the 16th and 18th century . This included the late 16th and early 17th century where William Shakespeare wrote many Magnificent feats of English literature. He himself came up with about 2,000 new words and phrase stills used today. During this golden age of literature the British naval forces were growing and would soon spread their language. At the end of the 19th century England had colonized just under a quarter of the world including Canada, Australia, India, much of the Caribbean, Egypt , South Africa, and Singapore. English spread rapidly and changed into different dialects in all of the different colonies.

In 1783, The United States of America which was colonized by Britain became it's own independent English-speaking nation. In the U.S. A. Many modern English terms froze where . . Thnvdsijvndijvndijvndijbndijbnbdijnbdijbndijbndbndifjbnijfbnjfnbrijbnfjb. Stahl 5 they were when they arrived, but in Britain they continued to change. This is possibly because the American populace was mostly people somewhere to settle and not to move, but American English did not freeze entirely because it was influenced by the native tribes living there. From the 20th century on immigrants to the US has differences that were discriminated against and English did not change drastically.

The English language started out as a rather unknown language spoken by people of poor Germanic tribes. After Many years of influence it changed. Then English changed a lot more. Now it is spoken in many places and in many forms and is slowly but still changing with a new word added to the dictionary each year. English is the most widely spoken of the German languages.

Works Cited

Masti, Luke. "The History of English - How the English Language Went from an Obscure. Germanic Dialect to a Global Language." The History of English. 2011. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.

Meiklejohn, J. M. D. A Brief History of the English Language and Literature. Vol. 2. Boston: Heath, 1887. IBooks.

"What Are the Origins of the English Language?" Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, 2015. Web. 19 Jan. 2016.Website