Overview

History Of English Language

By David Denison, Professor of English Linguistics, University of Manchester, Richard Hogg,

Smith Professor of Language and Medieval English, University of Manchester
Edited by Richard Hogg, University of Manchester, David Denison, University of Manchester
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791154.002

David Crystal estimates that about 400 million people have English as their first language, and
that in total as many as 1500 million may be to a greater or lesser extent fluent speakers of
English (see Chapter 9, Table 9.1). The two largest countries (in terms of population) where
English is the inherited national language are Britain and the USA. But it is also the majority
language of Australia and New Zealand, and a national language in both Canada and South
Africa. Furthermore, in other countries it is a second language, in others an official language or
the language of business.
If, more parochially, we restrict ourselves to Britain and the USA, the fact that it is the inherited
national language of both does not allow us to conclude that English shows a straightforward
evolution from its ultimate origins. Yet originally English was imported into Britain, as also
happened later in North America. And in both cases the existing languages, whether Celtic, as in
Britain, or Amerindian languages, as in North America, were quickly swamped by English. But
in both Britain and the USA, English was much altered by waves of immigration. Chapter 8 will
demonstrate how that occurred in the USA.
In Britain, of course, the Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons brought their language with them as
immigrants. The eighth and ninth centuries saw Scandinavian settlements and then the Norman
Conquest saw significant numbers of French-speaking settlers.

Objectives

This exceptionally clear text focuses on internal changes in the English language. It outlines the
history of English from pre-Old English times to the present. Not only does it present the
traditional morphological descriptions of the various stages of the language, it provides many
example sentences, texts, and cartoons that are analyzed for the benefit of the student and which
make this book ideal for class use. Some language-external topics are covered such as early
printing and authorship debates. Tables and figures complement the material covered and
exercises review the main points as well as ask further, more challenging, questions. Answers to
the exercises are provided, as is a time line listing some of the external events, and some
guidance on how to use the OED. Complementary web site information is provided throughout
the book, and a companion web site accompanies the book.

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 Discusion

The term "English" is derived from Anglisc, the speech of the Angles—one of the three

Germanic tribes that invaded England during the fifth century. The English language is the
primary language of several countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United
Kingdom and many of its former colonies, and the United States, and the second language in a
number of multilingual countries, including India, Singapore, and the Philippines.

It's an official language in several African countries as well, such as Liberia, Nigeria, and South
Africa, but is spoken worldwide in more than 100. It's learned around the world by children in
school as a foreign language and often becomes a common denominator between people of
different nationalities when they meet while traveling, doing business, or in other contexts.

According to Christine Kenneally in her book "The First Word," "Today there are about 6,000
languages in the world, and half of the world's population speaks only 10 of them. English is the
single most dominant of these 10. British colonialism initiated the spread of English across the
globe; it has been spoken nearly everywhere and has become even more prevalent since World
War II, with the global reach of American power."

The influence of the English language has also spread globally through American pop culture,
music, movies, advertising, and TV shows.

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 The Indo-European Family of Languages

The term Indo-European was introduced in 1816 by Franz Bopp of Germany and referred

to a family of languages in Europe and Asia (including Northern India, Iran, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh) that were found to have a remarkable structural relationship. It turns
out that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Hittite, Old Irish, Gothic, Old Bulgarian, Old Prussian, and other
languages share surprising attributes, meaning that most European languages and many of the
languages of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India belong to the Indo-European
family. 

The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or subfamilies. It consists of

numerous Indo-Iranian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, and Farsi (Persian); Greek; Baltic
languages such as Lithuanian and Latvian; Celtic languages such as Breton, Welsh, and Scottish
and Irish Gaelic; Romance languages such as French, Spanish, Catalan, and
Italian; Germanic languagessuch as German, English, and Swedish; and Slavic languages such as
Polish and Serbian. 

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This family has been the one most studied. It is also the one with the greatest number of
surviving ancient documents and the one for which genetic links can be established with absolute
certainty.

Here is the list of Indo-European languages presented in their respective subgroups:

Group Subgroup Languages

NOTE: † = Extinct language

Sanskrit†, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Bihari, Gujarati, Punjabi, Oriya,
Indian Rajasthani, Nepali, Assamese, Bundeli, Sindhi, Konkani, Pahari, Singhalese,
Indo- Santali, Gypsy, etc.
Iranian
Avestan†, Persian (Farsi/Dari/Tajik), Afghan (Pashtu), Kurdish, Balouchi, Hazara,
Iranian
Aimak, Ossetian, Talyshe, Tat, etc.
Greek Ancient Greek†, modern Greek
Oscan†, Umbrian†, Venetic†, Messapian†, Rhaeto-Romanic†
Italic or Romance Latin† (mother language of Romance languages)
languages Italian, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Galician, Mirandese, Provençal,
Sardinian, Romanian, Romansch, Ladino, Friulian, Dalmatian†, Sicilian, etc.
Gaulish†
Celtic Breton, Welsh, Cornish †
Irish, Scots, Manx†
Gothic†
Germanic Danish, Swedish, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk), Icelandic, Faroese
English, Friesian, German, Dutch, Afrikaans
Baltic Old Prussian†, Lithuanian, Latvian
Polish, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian
Slavic Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Bulgarian, Macedonian
Russian, Belorussian, Ukranian (and Ruthenian)
Armenian (isolate) Armenian
Albanian (isolate) Albanian (Tosk and Gheg)
Various isolates Hittite†, Tocharish†, Lykian†, Lydian†, Luwian†, Phrygian†, Thracian†, etc.

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 1. The Discovery of Sanskrit

The most important discovery leading to this hypothesis was the recognition that Sanskrit, a
language of ancient India, was one of the languages of the group. This was first suggested in the
latter part of the eighteenth century and fully established by the The Indo-European family of
languages 17 beginning of the nineteenth.1 The extensive literature of India, reaching back
further than that of any of the European languages, preserves features of the common language
much older than most of those of Greek or Latin or German. It is easier, for example, to see the
resemblance between the English word brother and the Sanskrit bhrātar-than between brother
and frāter. But what is even more important, Sanskrit preserves an unusually full system of
declensions and conjugations by which it became clear that the inflections of these languages
could likewise be traced to a common origin. Compare the following

The material
offered by
Sanskrit for
comparison with
the other languages of the group, both in matters of vocabulary and inflection, was thus of the
greatest importance. When we add that Hindu grammarians had already gone far in the analysis
of the language, had recognized the roots, classified the formative elements, and worked out the
rules according to which certain sound-changes occurred, we shall appreciate the extent to which
the discovery of Sanskrit contributed to the recognition and determination of the relation that
exists among the languages to which it was allied.

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In a famous paper of 1786, Sir William Jones, who served as a Supreme Court justice in India,
proposed that the affinity of Sanskrit to Greek and Latin could be explained by positing a
common, earlier source. See Garland Cannon, The Life and Mind of Oriental Jones: Sir William
Jones, the Father of Modern Linguistics (Cambridge, UK, 1990), pp. 241–70.

2. The Germanic Languages

The common form that the languages of the Germanic branch had before they
became differentiated is known as Germanic or Proto-Germanic. It antedates the earliest
written records of the family and is reconstructed by philologists in the same way as is
the parent Indo-European. The languages descended from it fall into three groups: East
Germanic, North Germanic, and West Germanic.
The principal language of East Germanic is Gothic. By the third century the Goths
had spread from the Vistula to the shore of the Black Sea and in the following century
they were Christianized by a missionary named Ulfilas (311–383), whose father seems to
have been a Goth and his mother a Greek (Cappadocian). Our knowledge of Gothic is
almost wholly due to a translation of the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament
made by Ulfilas. Except for some runic inscriptions in Scandinavia it is the earliest record
of a Germanic language we possess. For a time the Goths played a prominent part in
European history, including in their extensive conquests both Italy, by the Ostrogoths,
and Spain, by the Visigoths. In these districts, however, their language soon gave place to
Latin, and even elsewhere it seems not to have maintained a very tenacious existence.
Gothic survived longest in the Crimea, where vestiges of it were noted down in the
sixteenth century. To the East Germanic branch belonged also Burgundian and Vandalic,
but our knowledge of these languages is confined to a small number of proper names.
North Germanic is found in Scandinavia, Denmark, Iceland, and the Faroe
Islands. Runic inscriptions from the third century preserve our earliest traces of the
language. In its earlier form the common Scandinavian language is conveniently spoken
of as Old A history of the english language 28 Norse. From about the eleventh century
on, dialectal differences become noticeable. The Scandinavian languages fall into two
groups: an eastern group including Swedish and Danish, and a western group including
Norwegian and Icelandic. Norwegian ceased to be a literary language in the fourteenth
century, and Danish (with Norwegian elements) is one written language of Norway.7 Of
the early Scandinavian languages Old Icelandic is by far the most literary. Iceland was
colonized by settlers from Norway about A.D. 874 and early preserved a body of heroic
literature unsurpassed among the Germanic peoples. Among the more important
monuments are the Elder or Poetic Edda, a collection of poems that probably date from
the tenth or eleventh century, the Younger or Prose Edda compiled by Snorri Sturluson
(1178–1241), and about forty sagas, or prose epics, in which the lives and exploits of
various traditional figures are related.
West Germanic is of chief interest to us as the group to which English belongs. It
is divided into two branches, High and Low German, by the operation of a Second (or

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High German) Sound-Shift analogous to that described above as Grimm’s Law. This
change, by which West Germanic p, t, k, d, etc. were changed into other sounds, occurred
about A.D. 600 in the southern or mountainous part of the Germanic area but did not take
place in the lowlands to the north. Accordingly in early times we distinguish as Low
German tongues Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, Old Frisian, and Old English. The last
two are closely related and constitute a special or Anglo-Frisian subgroup.8 Old Saxon
has become the essential constituent of modern Low German or Plattdeutsch; Old Low
Franconian, with some mixture of Frisian and Saxon elements, is the basis of modern
Dutch in the Netherlands and Flemish in northern Belgium; and Frisian survives in the
Netherland province of Friesland, in a small part of Schleswig, in the islands along the
coast, and other places. High German comprises a number of dialects (Middle, Rhenish,
and East Franconian, Bavarian, Alemannic, etc.). It is divided chronologically into Old
High German (before 1100), Middle High German (1100–1500), and Modern High
German (since 1500). High German, especially as spoken in the midlands and used in the
imperial chancery, was popularized by Luther’s translation of the Bible (1522–1532) and
since the sixteenth century has gradually established itself as the literary language of
Germany.
The union of Norway and Denmark for 400 years made Danish the language of
culture. The latter half of the nineteenth century witnessed the beginning of a movement
to make the Norwegian dialects into a national language (Landsmål), but this
regeneration of the national speech has not succeeded in displacing Dano-Norwegian
(Bokmål ‘book language,’ formerly Riksmål ‘national language’) as the dominant
language. An amalgam of rural speech in normalized form (Nynorsk ‘New Norwegian’)
is trying to compete in literature, the theater, etc. and is further complicating the linguistic
problem. The whole conflict is treated historically in Einar Haugen, Language Conflict
and Language Planning: The Case of Modern Norwegian (Cambridge, MA, 1966).
The West Germanic languages may be classified in different ways according to
the features selected as the basis of division. Thus it is very common to divide them into
an Anglo-Frisian group and a German group that includes Old Saxon. The division given
in the text is none the less basic and is here retained for the sake of simplicity.

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 The English Language in Britain Periods in the history of English in Britain

English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought

to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now
northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in
the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great
Britain. Their language, now called Old English, originated as a group of Anglo-
Frisian dialects which were spoken, at least by the settlers, in England and southern and
eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages, displacing the Celtic languages (and, possibly, British
Latin) that had previously been dominant. Old English reflected the varied origins of the Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain. The Late West Saxon dialect eventually
became dominant. A significant subsequent influence on the shaping of Old English came from
contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavian Vikings who conquered
and colonized parts of Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries, which led to much lexical
borrowing and grammatical simplification. The Anglian dialects had a greater influence on
Middle English.
After the Norman conquest in 1066, Old English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-
Norman as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old
English or Anglo-Saxon era, as during this period the English language was heavily influenced
by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. The conquering
Normans spoke a Romance langue d'oïl called Old Norman, which in Britain developed into
Anglo-Norman. Many Norman and French loanwords entered the local language in this period,
especially in vocabulary related to the church, the court system and the government. As Normans
are descendants of Vikings who invaded France, Norman French was influenced by Old Norse,
and many Norse loanwords in English came directly from French. Middle English was spoken to
the late 15th century. The system of orthography that was established during the Middle English
period is largely still in use today. Later changes in pronunciation, however, combined with the
adoption of various foreign spellings, mean that the spelling of modern English words appears
highly irregular.

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 Early Modern English – the language used by William Shakespeare – is dated from
around 1500. It incorporated many Renaissance-era loans from Latin and Ancient Greek, as well
as borrowings from other European languages, including French, German and Dutch. Significant
pronunciation changes in this period included the ongoing Great Vowel Shift, which affected the
qualities of most long vowels. Modern English proper, similar in most respects to that spoken
today, was in place by the late 17th century. The English language came to be exported to other
parts of the world through British colonisation, and is now the dominant language in Britain
and Ireland, the United States and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many smaller former
colonies, as well as being widely spoken in India, parts of Africa, and elsewhere. Partially due to
United States influence, English gradually took on the status of a global lingua franca in the
second half of the 20th century. This is especially true in Europe, where English has largely
taken over the former roles of French and (much earlier) Latin as a common language used to
conduct business and diplomacy, share scientific and technological information, and otherwise
communicate across national boundaries. The efforts of English-speaking Christian missionaries
has resulted in English becoming a second language for many other groups.
Global variation among different English dialects and accents remains significant
today. Scots, a form of English traditionally spoken in parts of Scotland and the north of Ireland,
is sometimes treated as a separate language.
Evolution of English pronouns
Pronouns such as whom and him (contrasted with who and he), are a conflation of the old
accusative and dative cases, as well as of the genitive case after prepositions (while her also
includes the genitive case). This conflated form is called the oblique case or the object
(objective) case, because it is used for objects of verbs (direct, indirect, or oblique) as well as for
objects of prepositions. (See object pronoun.) The information formerly conveyed by distinct
case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order. In Old English as well as
modern German and Icelandic as further examples, these cases had distinct forms.
Although some grammarians continue to use the traditional terms "accusative" and "dative",
these are functions rather than morphological cases in Modern English. That is, the
form whom may play accusative or dative roles (as well as instrumental or prepositional roles),
but it is a single morphological form, contrasting with nominative who and genitive whose.
Many grammarians use the labels "subjective", "objective", and "possessive" for nominative,
oblique, and genitive pronouns.
Modern English nouns exhibit only one inflection of the reference form: the possessive case,
which some linguists argue is not a case at all, but a clitic (see the entry for genitive case for
more information).
Interrogative pronouns

Case Old English Middle English Modern English

Masculine Nominative hwā who who

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 hwone,
Accusative
hwæne
whom whom, who1

, Dative hwām, hwǣm

Feminine
(Person)
Instrumental

Genitive hwæs whos whose

Nominative hwæt what

Accusative hwæt what

what, whom
Neuter
Dative hwām, hwǣm
(Thing)

Instrumental hwȳ, hwon why why

Genitive hwæs whos whose2

1 - In some dialects who is used where Formal English only allows whom, though variation
among dialects must be taken into account.
2 - Usually replaced by of what (postpositioned).
First person personal pronouns

Old
Case Middle English Modern English
English

Singula Nominative iċ I, ich, ik I

r

Accusative mē, meċ me me

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 Dative mē

Genitive mīn min, mi my, mine

Nominative wē we we

Accusative ūs, ūsiċ

Plural us us
Dative ūs

Genitive ūser, ūre ure, our our, ours

(Old English also had a separate dual, wit ("we two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive
from it.)
Second person personal pronouns

Old and Middle English singular to the Modern English archaic informal

Old
Case Middle English Modern English
English

Nominative þū þu, thou thou (you)

Accusative þē, þeċ

Singula
þé, thee thee (you)
r
Dative þē

Genitive þīn þi, þīn, þīne, thy; thin, thine thy, thine (your, yours)

Plural Nominative ġē ye, ȝe, you you

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 Accusative ēow, ēowiċ
you, ya
Dative ēow

Genitive ēower your your, yours

Note that the ye/you distinction still existed, at least optionally, in Early Modern English: "Ye
shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" from the King James Bible.
Here the letter þ (interchangeable with ð in manuscripts) corresponds to th. For ȝ, see Yogh.

Formal and informal forms of the second person singular and plural

Old English Middle English Modern English

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

For Infor For Infor For Infor For Infor For Infor For Infor
Case
mal mal mal mal mal mal mal mal mal mal mal mal

Nomin
þū ġē thou ye
ative

Accusat you you you

þē, þeċ ēow, ēowiċ
ive
thee you

Dative þē ēow

Genitiv þīn ēower your thy, your, yours your, yours

e , thine
your

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 s

(Old English also had a separate dual, ȝit ("ye two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive
from it.)
Third person personal pronouns

Old Modern
Case Middle English
English English

Nominative hē he he

Accusative hine
Masculine
him him
Singular
Dative him

Genitive his his his

Nominative hēo heo, sche, ho, he, ȝho she

Accusative hīe
Feminine Singular hire, hure, her, heore her
Dative
hire
Genitive hir, hire, heore, her, here her, hers

Neuter Singular Nominative hit, it it

hit
Accusative hit, it, him

Dative him

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 Genitive his his, its its

Nominative he, hi, ho, hie, þai, þei they

hīe
Accusative
hem, ham, heom, þaim, þem,
Plural them
þam
Dative him

Genitive hira here, heore, hore, þair, þar their, theirs

(The origin of the modern forms is generally thought to have been a borrowing from Old
Norse forms þæir, þæim, þæira. The two different roots co-existed for some time, although
currently the only common remnant is the shortened form 'em. Cf. also the demonstrative
pronouns.)
1. Old English
The Germanic settlers in the British Isles initially spoke a number of different dialects,
which would develop into a language that came to be called Anglo-Saxon, or now more
commonly Old English. It displaced the indigenous Brittonic Celtic (and the Latin of
the former Roman rulers) in parts of the areas of Britain that later formed the Kingdom of
England, while Celtic languages remained in most of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, and
many compound Celtic-Germanic place names survive, hinting at early language mixing.
Old English continued to exhibit local variation, the remnants of which continue to be
found in dialects of Modern English.The four main dialects
were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon; the last of these formed the basis
for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of
Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian.
Old English was first written using a runic script called the futhorc, but this was replaced
by a version of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish missionaries in the 8th century.
Most literary output was in either the Early West Saxon of Alfred the Great's time, or the
Late West Saxon (regarded as the "classical" form of Old English) of the Winchester
school inspired by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester and followed by such writers as the
prolific Ælfric of Eynsham ("the Grammarian"). The most famous surviving work from
the Old English period is the epic poem Beowulf, composed by an unknown poet.
The introduction of Christianity from around the year 600 encouraged the addition of
over 400 Latin loan words into Old English, such as the predecessors of the
modern priest, paper, and school, and a smaller number of Greek loan words. The speech
of eastern and northern parts of England was also subject to strong Old Norse influence
due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century (see below).

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 Most native English speakers today find Old
English unintelligible, even though about
half of the most commonly used words in
Modern English have Old English
roots. The grammar of Old English was
much more inflected than modern English,
combined with freer word order, and was
grammatically quite similar in some respects
to modern German. The language had
demonstrative pronouns (equivalent
to this and that) but did not have the definite
article the. The Old English period is
considered to have evolved into the Middle
English period some time after the Norman
conquest of 1066, when the language came
to be influenced significantly by the new
ruling class's language, Old Norman

Orthography

Old English was first written in runes, using the futhorc – a rune set derived from the Germanic
24-character elder futhark, extended by five more runes used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel
sounds, and sometimes by several more additional characters. From around the 8th century, the
runic system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin
alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by Insular script, a cursive
and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century
when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline) replaced the insular.
The Latin alphabet of the time still lacked the letters ⟨j⟩ and ⟨w⟩, and there was no ⟨v⟩ as distinct
from ⟨u⟩; moreover native Old English spellings did not use ⟨k⟩, ⟨q⟩ or ⟨z⟩. The remaining 20
Latin letters were supplemented by four more: ⟨æ⟩ (æsc, modern ash) and ⟨ð⟩ (ðæt, now
called eth or edh), which were modified Latin letters, and thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩, which are
borrowings from the futhorc. A few letter pairs were used as digraphs, representing a single
sound. Also used was the Tironian note ⟨⁊⟩ (a character similar to the digit 7) for
the conjunction and. A common scribal abbreviation was a thorn with a stroke ⟨ꝥ⟩, which was
used for the pronoun þæt. Macrons over vowels were originally used not to mark long vowels (as
in modern editions), but to indicate stress, or as abbreviations for a following m or n.

Page 15
Modern editions of Old English manuscripts generally introduce some additional conventions.
The modern forms of Latin letters are used, including ⟨g⟩ in place of the insular G, ⟨s⟩ for long S,
and others which may differ considerably from the insular script, notably ⟨e⟩, ⟨f⟩ and ⟨r⟩.
Macrons are used to indicate long vowels, where usually no distinction was made between long
and short vowels in the originals. (In some older editions an acute accent mark was used for
consistency with Old Norse conventions.) Additionally, modern editions often distinguish
between velar and palatal ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ by placing dots above the palatals: ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩. The letter wynn
⟨ƿ⟩ is usually replaced with ⟨w⟩, but æsc, eth and thorn are normally retained (except when eth is
replaced by thorn).
In contrast with Modern English orthography, that of Old English was reasonably regular, with a
mostly predictable correspondence between letters and phonemes. There were not usually
any silent letters—in the word cniht, for example, both the ⟨c⟩ and ⟨h⟩ were pronounced, unlike
the ⟨k⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ in the modern knight. The following table lists the Old English letters and
digraphs together with the phonemes they represent, using the same notation as in
the Phonology section above.

Characte
IPA transcription Description and notes
r

Spelling variations like ⟨land⟩ ~ ⟨lond⟩ ("land") suggest

a /ɑ/, /ɑː/ the short vowel may have had a
rounded allophone [ɒ] before [n] in some cases.

ā /ɑː/ Used in modern editions to distinguish from short /ɑ/.

Formerly the digraph ⟨ae⟩ was used; ⟨æ⟩ became more

common during the 8th century, and was standard after
800. In 9th-century Kentish manuscripts, a form of ⟨æ⟩
æ /æ/, /æː/
that was missing the upper hook of the ⟨a⟩ part was
used; it is not clear whether this represented /æ/ or /e/.
See also ę.

ǣ /æː/ Used in modern editions to distinguish from short /æ/.

b /b/

[v] (an allophone of /f/) Used in this way in early texts (before 800). For
example, the word "sheaves" is spelled scēabas in an

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 early text, but later (and more commonly) as scēafas.

/k/

The /tʃ/ pronunciation is sometimes written with

a diacritic by modern editors: most commonly ⟨ċ⟩,
sometimes ⟨č⟩ or ⟨ç⟩. Before a consonant letter the
c pronunciation is always /k/; word-finally after ⟨i⟩ it is
always /tʃ/. Otherwise, a knowledge of the history of the
/tʃ/
word is needed to predict the pronunciation with
certainty, although it is most commonly /tʃ/ before front
vowels (other than [y]) and /k/ elsewhere. (For details,
see Phonological history of Old English
§ Palatalization.) See also the digraphs cg, sc.

West Germanic gemination of Proto-Germanic *g

resulted in the voiced palatal geminate /jj/.
Consequently, the voiced velar geminate /ɡɡ/ was rare in
[ddʒ] (the phonetic Old English, and its etymological origin in the words in
realization which it occurs (such as frocga 'frog') is unclear.
of geminate /jj/); [41] Alternative spellings of either geminate included
or /ɡɡ/ (infrequently) ⟨gg⟩, ⟨gc⟩, ⟨cgg⟩, ⟨ccg⟩ and ⟨gcg⟩.\ The two geminates
were not distinguished in Old English orthography; in
cg modern editions, the palatal geminate is sometimes
written ⟨ċġ⟩ to distinguish it from velar ⟨cg⟩.\

In a cluster with a preceding nasal, /j/ was realized as

[dʒ] (the phonetic [dʒ] and /g/ was realized as [g]. The spellings ⟨ncg⟩,
realization of post- ⟨ngc⟩ and even ⟨ncgg⟩ were occasionally used instead of
nasal /j/) or /ɡ/ (after ⟨n⟩) the usual ⟨ng⟩.\ The cluster ending in the palatal affricate
is sometimes written ⟨nċġ⟩ by modern editors.

d /d/ In the earliest texts it also represented /θ/ (see þ).

Called ðæt in Old English; now called eth or edh.

/θ/, including its
ð Derived from the insular form of ⟨d⟩ with the addition of
allophone [ð]
a cross-bar. See also þ.

Page 17
e /e/, /eː/

A modern editorial substitution for the modified Kentish

ę
form of ⟨æ⟩ (see æ). Compare e caudata, ę.

ē /eː/ Used in modern editions to distinguish from short /e/.

Sometimes stands for /æ/, /æː/ or /ɑ/ after ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩

ea /æɑ/, /æːɑ/
(see palatal diphthongization).

Used in modern editions to distinguish from short /æɑ/.

ēa /æːɑ/
Sometimes stands for /æː/ after ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩.

Sometimes stands for /o/ after ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩ (see palatal

eo /eo/, /eːo/
diphthongization).

ēo /eːo/ Used in modern editions, to distinguish from short /eo/.

/f/, including its

f
allophone [v] (but see b).

In Old English manuscripts, this letter usually took

its insular form ⟨ᵹ⟩ (see also: yogh).
The [j] and [dʒ] pronunciations are sometimes written
⟨ġ⟩ in modern editions. Word-initially before another
/ɡ/, including its
consonant letter, the pronunciation is always velar [ɡ].
allophone [ɣ]; or /j/,
Word-finally after ⟨i⟩, it is always palatal [j]. Otherwise,
g including its
a knowledge of the history of the word in question is
allophone [dʒ], which
needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty,
occurs after ⟨n⟩.
although it is most commonly /j/ before and after front
vowels (other than [y]) and /g/ elsewhere. (For details,
see Phonological history of Old English
§ Palatalization.)

h /h/, including its The combinations ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hr⟩, ⟨hn⟩, ⟨hw⟩ may have been

Page 18
 realized as devoiced versions of the second consonants
allophones [ç, x]
instead of as sequences starting with [h].

i /ɪ/, /iː/

ī /iː/ Used in modern editions to distinguish from short /i/.

/iy/, /iːy/

ie
Only occurs sometimes in this sense and appears after
/e/, /eː/
⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩ (see palatal diphthongization).

Used in modern editions, to distinguish from short /iy/.

īe /iːy/
Sometimes stands for /eː/ after ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩ .

Occurs in dialects that had such diphthongs. Not present

io /iu/, /iːu/ in Late West Saxon. The long variant may be shown in
modern editions as īo.

k /k/ Rarely used; this sound is normally represented by ⟨c⟩.

Probably velarised [ɫ] (as in Modern English) when

l /l/
in coda position.

m /m/

/n/, including its

n allophone [ŋ] (before
/k/, /g/).

o /o/, /oː/ See also a.

Page 19
ō /oː/ Used in modern editions, to distinguish from short /o/.

/ø/, /øː/ (in dialects having

oe
that sound).

ōe /øː/ Used in modern editions, to distinguish from short /ø/.

p /p/

A rare spelling of /kw/, which was usually written as

qu /kw/
⟨cƿ⟩ (⟨cw⟩ in modern editions).

The exact nature of Old English /r/ is not known; it may

have been an alveolar approximant [ɹ] as in most
r /r/
modern English, an alveolar flap [ɾ], or an alveolar
trill [r].

/s/, including its

s
allophone [z].

sc /ʃ/ or occasionally /sk/.

t /t/

Represented /θ/ in the
th
earliest texts (see þ).

þ /θ/, including its Called thorn and derived from the rune of the same

allophone [ð] name. In the earliest texts ⟨d⟩ or ⟨th⟩ was used for this
phoneme, but these were later replaced in this function
by eth ⟨ð⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩. Eth was first attested (in
definitely dated materials) in the 7th century, and thorn
in the 8th. Eth was more common than thorn
before Alfred's time. From then onward, thorn was used

Page 20
 increasingly often at the start of words, while eth was
normal in the middle and at the end of words, although
usage varied in both cases. Some modern editions use
only thorn. See also Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩.

/u/, /uː/. Also
u sometimes /w/ (see ƿ,
below).

Sometimes used
uu
for /w/ (see ƿ, below).

Used for /uː/ in modern

ū editions, to distinguish
from short /u/.

w /w/ A modern substitution for ⟨ƿ⟩.

Called wynn and derived from the rune of the same

name. In earlier texts by continental scribes, and also
ƿ /w/ later in the north, /w/ was represented by ⟨u⟩ or ⟨uu⟩. In
modern editions, wynn is replaced by ⟨w⟩, to prevent
confusion with ⟨p⟩.

/ks/ ([xs ~ çs] according
x
to some authors.

y /y/, /yː/.

ȳ /yː/ Used in modern editions to distinguish from short /y/.

A rare spelling for /ts/; e.g. betst ("best") is occasionally

z /ts/
spelt bezt.

Page 21
Beowulf
The first example is taken from the opening lines of the folk-epic Beowulf, a poem of some
3,000 lines and the single greatest work of Old English. This passage describes how Hrothgar's
legendary ancestor Scyld was found as a baby, washed ashore, and adopted by a noble family.
The translation is literal and represents the original poetic word order. As such, it is not typical of
Old English prose. The modern cognates of original words have been used whenever practical to
give a close approximation of the feel of the original poem.
The words in brackets are implied in the Old English by noun case and the bold words in
brackets are explanations of words that have slightly different meanings in a modern context.
Notice how what is used by the poet where a word like lo or behold would be expected. This
usage is similar to what-ho!, both an expression of surprise and a call to attention.
English poetry is based on stress and alliteration. In alliteration, the first consonant in a word
alliterates with the same consonant at the beginning of another word, as with Gār-Dena and ġeār-
dagum. Vowels alliterate with any other vowel, as with æþelingas and ellen. In the text below,
the letters that alliterate are bolded.
Original Translation
Hƿæt! ƿē Gār-Dena in ġeār-
1 What! We of Gare-Danes (lit. Spear-Danes) in yore-days,
dagum,
of thede (nation/people)-kings, did
þēod-cyninga, þrym ġefrūnon,
thrum (glory) frayne (learn about by asking),
how those athelings (noblemen) did
hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.
ellen (fortitude/courage/zeal) freme (promote).
Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena
Oft did Scyld Scefing of scather threats (troops),
þrēatum,
monegum mǣġþum, meodosetla of many maegths (clans; cf. Irish cognate Mac-), of mead-
5
oftēah, settees atee (deprive),
[and] ugg (induce loathing in, terrify; related to
egsode eorlas. Syððan ǣrest ƿearð "ugly") earls. Sith (since, as of when) erst (first) [he]
worthed (became)
fēasceaft funden, hē þæs frōfre [in] fewship (destitute) found, he of this
ġebād, frover (comfort) abode,
ƿēox
[and] waxed under welkin (firmament/clouds), [and amid]
under ƿolcnum, ƿeorðmyndum
worthmint (honour/worship) threed (throve/prospered)
þāh,
oðþæt him ǣġhƿylc oth that (until that) him each of those umsitters (those
þāra ymbsittendra "sitting" or dwelling roundabout)
10 ofer hronrāde hȳran scolde, over whale-road (kenning for "sea") hear should,
gomban gyldan. Þæt ƿæs gōd [and] yeme (heed/obedience; related to "gormless") yield.
cyning! That was [a] good king!

The Lord's Prayer

Page 22
This text of the Lord's Prayer is presented in the standardised West Saxon literary dialect, with
added macrons for vowel length, markings for probable palatalised consonants, modern
punctuation, and the replacement of the letter ƿynn with w.
Line Original IPA Translation
Fæder ūre þū þe eart on /ˈfæ.der ˈuː.re θuː θe æɑrt on Father of ours, thou who art in
[1]
heofonum, ˈheo.vo.num/ heavens,
[2] Sī þīn nama ġehālgod. /siː θiːn ˈnɑ.mɑ je.ˈhɑɫ.ɡod/ Be thy name hallowed.
[3] Tōbecume þīn rīċe, /toː.be.ˈku.me θiːn ˈriːt͡ʃe/ Come thy riche (kingdom),
ġewurþe þīn willa, on /je.ˈwur.ðe θiːn ˈwi.lːɑ on
Worth (manifest) thy will, on earth
[4] eorðan swā swā on ˈeor.ðan swɑː swɑː on
as also in heaven.
heofonum. ˈheo.vo.num/
Ūre ġedæġhwāmlīcan /ˈuː.re je.ˈdæj.ʍɑːm.ˌliː.kɑn Our daily loaf do sell (give) to us
[5]
hlāf syle ūs tō dæġ, l̥ ɑːf ˈsy.le ˈuːs toː.ˈdæj/ today,
and forġyf ūs ūre gyltas, /ɑnd for.ˈjyf uːs ˈuː.re ɡyl.ˈtɑs
And forgive us our guilts as also
[6] swā swā wē forġyfað swɑː swɑː weː for.ˈjy.fɑθ
we forgive our guilters[47]
ūrum gyltendum. uː.rum ɡyl.ˈten.dum/
And do not lead thou us into
And ne ġelǣd þū ūs on /ɑnd ne je.læːd θuː uːs on kost.
temptation, but
[7] costnunge, ac ālȳs ūs of ˈnuŋ.ɡe ɑk ɑː.ˈlyːs uːs of y.
alese (release/deliver) us
yfele. ˈve.le/
of (from) evil.
Soothly (Truly; the meaning of
[8] Sōþlīċe. /ˈsoːð.liː.t͡ʃe/
Hebrew Amen).

Charter of Cnut
This is a proclamation from King Cnut the Great to his earl Thorkell the Tall and the English
people written in AD 1020. Unlike the previous two examples, this text is prose rather than
poetry. For ease of reading, the passage has been divided into sentences while
the pilcrows represent the original division.

Original Translation
¶ Cnut, king, greets his archbishops and his
¶ Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas and his leod- lede'(people's)'-bishops and Thorkell, earl, and all
biscopas and Þurcyl eorl and ealle his eorlas and his earls and all his peopleship, greater (having a
ealne his þeodscype, tƿelfhynde and tƿyhynde, 1200 shilling weregild) and lesser (200 shilling
gehadode and læƿede, on Englalande freondlice. weregild), hooded(ordained to priesthood) and
lewd(lay), in England friendly.
And I kithe(make known/couth to) you, that I will
And ic cyðe eoƿ, þæt ic ƿylle beon hold hlaford
be [a] hold(civilised) lord and
and unsƿicende to godes gerihtum and to rihtre
unswiking(uncheating) to God's rights(laws) and
ƿoroldlage.
to [the] rights(laws) worldly.
¶ Ic nam me to gemynde þa geƿritu and þa ƿord, ¶ I nam(took) me to mind the writs and the word
þe se arcebiscop Lyfing me fram þam papan that the Archbishop Lyfing me from the Pope

Page 23
 brought of Rome, that I should
ayewhere(everywhere) God's
brohte of Rome, þæt ic scolde æghƿær godes lof
love(praise) uprear(promote), and
upp aræran and unriht alecgan and full frið
unright(outlaw) lies, and full
ƿyrcean be ðære mihte, þe me god syllan ƿolde.
frith(peace) work(bring about) by the might that
me God would(wished) [to] sell'(give).
¶ Now, ne went(withdrew/changed) I not my
shot(financial contribution, cf. Norse cognate in
¶ Nu ne ƿandode ic na minum sceattum, þa hƿile scot-free) the while that you
þe eoƿ unfrið on handa stod: nu ic mid-godes stood(endured) unfrith(turmoil) on-hand: now I,
fultume þæt totƿæmde mid-minum scattum. mid(with) God's support, that [unfrith]
totwemed(separated/dispelled) mid(with) my
shot(financial contribution).
Tho(then) [a] man kithed(made known/couth
to) me that us more harm had found(come
upon) than us well liked(equalled): and
Þa cydde man me, þæt us mara hearm to fundode,
tho(then) fore(travelled) I, meself,
þonne us ƿel licode: and þa for ic me sylf mid-
mid(with) those men that mid(with) me
þam mannum þe me mid-foron into Denmearcon,
fore(travelled), into Denmark that [to] you most
þe eoƿ mæst hearm of com: and þæt hæbbe mid-
harm came of(from): and that[harm] have [I],
godes fultume forene forfangen, þæt eoƿ næfre
mid(with) God's support,
heonon forð þanon nan unfrið to ne cymð, þa
afore(previously) forefangen(forestalled) that to
hƿile þe ge me rihtlice healdað and min lif byð.
you never henceforth thence none unfrith(breach
of peace) ne come the while that ye me rightly
hold(behold as king) and my life beeth.

2. Middle English

Middle English is the form of English spoken roughly from the time of the Norman
Conquest in 1066 until the end of the 15th century.
For centuries after the Conquest, the Norman kings and high-ranking nobles in England and to
some extent elsewhere in the British Isles spoke Anglo-Norman, a variety of Old Norman,
originating from a northern langue d'oïl dialect. Merchants and lower-ranked nobles were often
bilingual in Anglo-Norman and English, whilst English continued to be the language of the
common people. Middle English was influenced by both Anglo-Norman, and later Anglo-French
(see characteristics of the Anglo-Norman language).
Until the 14th century, Anglo-Norman and then French were the language of the courts and
government. Even after the decline of Norman, standard French retained the status of a formal
or prestige language, and about 10,000 French (and Norman) loan words entered Middle English,
particularly terms associated with government, church, law, the military, fashion, and
food (see English language word origins and List of English words of French origin). The strong
influence of Old Norse on English (described in the previous section) also becomes apparent
during this period. The impact of the native British Celtic languages that English continued to
displace is generally held to be very small, although a few scholars have attributed some
grammatical forms, such as periphrastic "do", to Celtic influence. These theories have been
Page 24
criticized by a number of other linguists. Some scholars have also put forward hypotheses that
Middle English was a kind of creole language resulting from contact between Old English and
either Old Norse or Anglo-Norman.

English literature began to reappear after 1200, when a changing political climate and the decline
in Anglo-Norman made it more respectable. The Provisions of Oxford, released in 1258, was the
first English government document to be published in the English language after the Norman
Conquest. In 1362, Edward III became the first king to address Parliament in English.
The Pleading in English Act 1362 made English the only language in which court proceedings
could be held, though the official record remained in Latin. By the end of the century, even the
royal court had switched to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in limited circles somewhat
longer, but it had ceased to be a living language. Official documents began to be produced
regularly in English during the 15th century. Geoffrey Chaucer, who lived in the late 14th
century, is the most famous writer from the Middle English period, and The Canterbury Tales is
his best-known work.
The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, both in vocabulary
and pronunciation, and in grammar. While Old English is a heavily inflected language
(synthetic), the use of grammatical endings diminished in Middle English (analytic). Grammar
distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were levelled to -e. The older plural
noun marker -en (retained in a few cases such as children and oxen) largely gave way to -s,
and grammatical gender was discarded. Definite article þe appears around 1200, later spelled
as the, first appearing in East and North England as a substitute for Old English se and seo,
nominative forms of "that."

English spelling was also influenced by Norman in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being
spelled th rather than with the Old English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth), which did not exist in

Page 25
Norman. These letters remain in the modern Icelandic and Faroese alphabets, having been
borrowed from Old English via Old West Norse.

Ortography

With the discontinuation of the Late West Saxon standard used for the writing of Old English in
the period prior to the Norman Conquest, Middle English came to be written in a wide variety of
scribal forms, reflecting different regional dialects and orthographic conventions. Later in the
Middle English period, however, and particularly with the development of the Chancery
Standard in the 15th century, orthography became relatively standardised in a form based on the
East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Spelling at the time was mostly quite regular (there
was a fairly consistent correspondence between letters and sounds). The irregularity of present-
day English orthography is largely due to pronunciation changes that have taken place over
the Early Modern English and Modern English eras.
Middle English generally did not have silent letters. For example, knight was
pronounced [ˈkniçt] (with both the ⟨k⟩ and the ⟨gh⟩ pronounced, the latter sounding as the ⟨ch⟩ in
German Knecht). The major exception was the silent ⟨e⟩ – originally pronounced, but lost in
normal speech by Chaucer's time. This letter, however, came to indicate a lengthened – and later
also modified – pronunciation of a preceding vowel. For example, in name, originally
pronounced as two syllables, the /a/ in the first syllable (originally an open syllable) lengthened,
the final weak vowel was later dropped, and the remaining long vowel was modified in the Great
Vowel Shift (for these sound changes, see under Phonology, above). The final ⟨e⟩, now silent,
thus became the indicator of the longer and changed pronunciation of ⟨a⟩. In fact vowels could
have this lengthened and modified pronunciation in various positions, particularly before a single
consonant letter and another vowel, or before certain pairs of consonants.
A related convention involved the doubling of consonant letters to show that the preceding vowel
was not to be lengthened. In some cases the double consonant represented a sound that was (or
had previously been) geminated, i.e. had genuinely been "doubled" (and would thus have
regularly blocked the lengthening of the preceding vowel). In other cases, by analogy, the
consonant was written double merely to indicate the lack of lengthening.
Alphabet
The basic Old English Latin alphabet had consisted of 20 standard letters plus four additional
letters: ash ⟨æ⟩, eth ⟨ð⟩, thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩. There was not yet a distinct j, v or w, and Old
English scribes did not generally use k, q or z.
Ash was no longer required in Middle English, as the Old English vowel /æ/ that it represented
had merged into /a/. The symbol nonetheless came to be used as a ligature for the digraph ⟨ae⟩ in
many words of Greek or Latin origin, as did œ for ⟨oe⟩.
Eth and thorn both represented /θ/ or its allophone /ð/ in Old English. Eth fell out of use during
the 13th century and was replaced by thorn. Thorn mostly fell out of use during the 14th century,
and was replaced by ⟨th⟩. Anachronistic usage of the scribal abbreviation   ("þe", i.e. "the") has
led to the modern mispronunciation of thorn as ⟨y⟩ in this context; see ye olde.

Page 26
Wynn, which represented the phoneme /w/, was replaced by ⟨w⟩ during the 13th century. Due to
its similarity to the letter ⟨p⟩, it is mostly represented by ⟨w⟩ in modern editions of Old and
Middle English texts even when the manuscript has wynn.
Under Norman influence, the continental Carolingian minuscule replaced the insular script that
had been used for Old English. However, because of the significant difference in appearance
between the old insular g and the Carolingian g (modern g), the former continued in use as a
separate letter, known as yogh, written ⟨ȝ⟩. This was adopted for use to represent a variety of
sounds: [ɣ], [j], [dʒ], [x], [ç], while the Carolingian g was normally used for [g]. Instances of
yogh were eventually replaced by ⟨j⟩ or ⟨y⟩, and by ⟨gh⟩ in words like night and laugh. In Middle
Scots yogh became indistinguishable from cursive z, and printers tended to use ⟨z⟩
when yogh was not available in their fonts; this led to new spellings (often giving rise to new
pronunciations), as in McKenzie, where the ⟨z⟩ replaced a yogh which had the pronunciation /j/.
Under continental influence, the letters ⟨k⟩, ⟨q⟩ and ⟨z⟩, which had not normally been used by
Old English scribes, came to be commonly used in the writing of Middle English. Also the newer
Latin letter ⟨w⟩ was introduced (replacing wynn). The distinct letter forms ⟨v⟩ and ⟨u⟩ came into
use, but were still used interchangeably; the same applies to ⟨j⟩ and ⟨i⟩. (For example, spellings
such as wijf and paradijs for wife and paradise can be found in Middle English.)
The consonantal ⟨j⟩/⟨i⟩ was sometimes used to transliterate the Hebrew letter yodh, representing
the palatal approximant sound /j/ (and transliterated in Greek by iota and in Latin by ⟨i⟩); words
like Jerusalem, Joseph, etc. would have originally followed the Latin pronunciation beginning
with /j/, that is, the sound of ⟨y⟩ in yes. In some words, however, notably from Old French, ⟨j⟩/⟨i⟩
was used for the affricate consonant /dʒ/, as in joie (modern "joy"), used in Wycliffe's
Bible. This was similar to the geminate sound [ddʒ], which had been represented as ⟨cg⟩ in Old
English. By the time of Modern English, the sound came to be written as ⟨j⟩/⟨i⟩ at the start of
words (like joy), and usually as ⟨dg⟩ elsewhere (as in bridge). It could also be written, mainly in
French loanwords, as ⟨g⟩, with the adoption of the soft G convention (age, page, etc.)
Other symbols
Many scribal abbreviations were also used. It was common for the Lollards to abbreviate the
name of Jesus (as in Latin manuscripts) to ihc. The letters ⟨n⟩ and ⟨m⟩ were often omitted and
indicated by a macron above an adjacent letter, so for example in could be written as ī. A thorn
with a superscript ⟨t⟩ or ⟨e⟩ could be used for that and the; the thorn here resembled a ⟨Y⟩, giving
rise to the ye of "Ye Olde". Various forms of the ampersand replaced the word and.
Numbers were still always written using Roman numerals, except for some rare occurrences
of Arabic numerals during the 15th century.
Letter-to-sound correspondences
Although Middle English spelling was never fully standardised, the following table shows the
pronunciations most usually represented by particular letters and digraphs towards the end of the
Middle English period, using the notation given in the article on Middle English phonology. As
explained above, single vowel letters had alternative pronunciations depending on whether they
were in a position where their sounds had been subject to lengthening. Long vowel
pronunciations were in flux due to the beginnings of the Great Vowel Shift.

Page 27
Symbo
Description and notes
l

/a/, or in lengthened positions /aː/, becoming [æː] by about 1500. Sometimes /au/

a
before ⟨l⟩ or nasals (see Late Middle English diphthongs).

ai, ay /ai/ (alternatively denoted by /ɛi/; see vein–vain merger).

au, aw /au/

/b/, but in later Middle English became silent in words ending -mb (while some words
b
that never had a /b/ sound came to be spelt -mb by analogy; see reduction of /mb/).

c /k/, but /s/ (earlier /ts/) before ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨y⟩ (see C and hard and soft C for details).

ch /tʃ/

/k/, replaced earlier ⟨kk⟩ as the doubled form of ⟨k⟩ (for the phenomenon of doubling,
ck
see above).

d /d/

e /e/, or in lengthened positions /eː/ or sometimes /ɛː/ (see ee). For silent ⟨e⟩, see above.

ea Rare, for /ɛː/ (see ee).

/eː/, becoming [iː] by about 1500; or /ɛː/, becoming [eː] by about 1500. In Early

ee Modern English the latter vowel came to be commonly written ⟨ea⟩. The two
vowels later merged.

ei, ey Sometimes the same as ⟨ai⟩; sometimes /ɛː/ or /eː/ (see also fleece merger).

Page 28
ew Either /ɛu/ or /iu/ (see Late Middle English diphthongs; these later merged).

f /f/

/ɡ/, or /dʒ/ before ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨y⟩ (see ⟨g⟩ for details). The ⟨g⟩ in initial gn- was still
g
pronounced.

[ç] or [x], post-vowel allophones of /h/ (this was formerly one of the uses of yogh). The
gh ⟨gh⟩ is often retained in Chancery spellings even though the sound was starting to be
lost.

/h/ (except for the allophones for which ⟨gh⟩ was used). Also used in several digraphs
h
(⟨ch⟩, ⟨th⟩, etc.). In some French loanwords, such as horrible, the ⟨h⟩ was silent.

As a vowel, /i/, or in lengthened positions /iː/, which had started to be diphthongised by

i, j
about 1500. As a consonant, /dʒ/ ( (corresponding to modern ⟨j⟩); see above).

ie Used sometimes for /ɛː/ (see ee).

/k/, used particularly in positions where ⟨c⟩ would be softened. Also used in ⟨kn⟩ at the
k
start of words; here both consonants were still pronounced.

l /l/

m /m/

n /n/, including its allophone [ŋ] (before /k/, /g/).

o /o/, or in lengthened positions /ɔː/ or sometimes /oː/ (see oo). Sometimes /u/, as

Page 29
 in sone (modern son); the ⟨o⟩ spelling was often used rather than ⟨u⟩ when adjacent
to i, m, n, v, w for legibility, i.e. to avoid a succession of vertical strokes.

oa Rare, for /ɔː/ (became commonly used in Early Modern English).

oi, oy /ɔi/ or /ui/ (see Late Middle English diphthongs; these later merged).

oo /oː/, becoming [uː] by about 1500; or /ɔː/.

ou, ow Either /uː/, which had started to be diphthongised by about 1500, or /ɔu/.

p /p/

qu /kw/

r /r/

s /s/, sometimes /z/ (formerly [z] was an allophone of /s/). Also appeared as ſ (long s).

sch, sh /ʃ/

t /t/

/θ/ or /ð/ (which had previously been allophones of a single phoneme), replacing

th
earlier eth and thorn, although thorn was still sometimes used.

Used interchangeably. As a consonant, /v/. As a vowel, /u/, or /iu/ in "lengthened"

u, v positions (although it had generally not gone through the same lengthening process as
other vowels – see history of /iu/).

Page 30
 w /w/ (replaced Old English wynn).

wh /hw/ (see English ⟨wh⟩).

x /ks/

As a consonant, /j/ (earlier this was one of the uses of yogh). Sometimes also /g/. As a
y
vowel, the same as ⟨i⟩, where ⟨y⟩ is often preferred beside letters with downstrokes.

z /z/ (in Scotland sometimes used as a substitute for yogh; see above).

Sample text
Ormulum, 12th century

This passage explains the background to the Nativity(3494–501):

Forrþrihht anan se time comm

As soon as the time came
þatt ure Drihhtin wollde
that our Lord wanted
ben borenn i þiss middellærd
be born in this middle-earth
forr all mannkinne nede
for all mankind sake,
he chæs himm sone
at once He chose kinsmen for Himself,
kinnessmenn
all just as he wanted,
all swillke summ he wollde
and He decided that He would be born
and whær he wollde borenn ben
exactly where He wished.
he chæs all att hiss wille.

Epitaph of John the smyth, died 1371

An epitaph from a monumental brass in an Oxfordshire parish church

Original text Translation by Patricia Utechin

man com & se how schal alle dede li: wen Man, come and see how all dead men shall lie:
þow comes bad & bare when that comes bad and bare,
noth hab ven ve awaẏ fare: All ẏs wermēs we have nothing when we away fare: all that we
þt ve for care:— care for is worms:—
bot þt ve do for godẏs luf ve haue nothyng except for that which we do for God's sake, we have
yare: nothing ready:

Page 31
hundyr þis graue lẏs John þe smẏth god under this grave lies John the smith, God give his
yif his soule heuen grit soul heavenly peace

Wycliffe's Bible, 1384

Luke 8:1-3

First version Second version Translation

1And it came to pass

1And it was don aftirward,
1And it was don aftirward, and afterward, that Jesus went
and Jhesu made iorney by
Jhesus made iourney bi citees throughout every city and
citees and castelis, prechinge
and castels, prechynge and village (castle), preaching
and euangelysinge þe rewme
euangelisynge þe rewme and showing the kingdom
of God, 2and twelue wiþ him;
of 2God, and twelue wiþ hym; of 2God, and the twelve were
and summe wymmen þat
and sum wymmen þat weren with him; and certain
weren heelid of wickide
heelid of wickid spiritis and women, which had been
spiritis and syknessis, Marie,
sijknessis, Marie, þat is clepid healed of wicked spirits and
þat is clepid Mawdeleyn, of
Maudeleyn, of whom seuene sicknesses, Mary called
whom seuene deuelis
deuelis 3wenten out, and Joone, Magdalene, out of
wenten 3 out, and Jone, þe
þe wijf of Chuse, þe whom 3went seven devils,
wyf of Chuse, procuratour of
procuratoure of Eroude, and and Joanna the wife of
Eroude, and Susanne, and
Susanne, and many oþir, þat Chuza, the steward of Herod,
manye oþere, whiche
mynystriden to hym of her and Susanna, and many
mynystriden to him of her
ritchesse. others, which provided for
riches.
Him from their substance.

Chaucer, 1390s
The following is the very beginning of the General Prologue from The Canterbury
Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The text was written in a dialect associated with London and
spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard.

First 18 lines of the General Prologue

Original in Middle English Word-for-word translation into Modern English

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote When [that] April with his showers sweet

Page 32
The droȝte of March hath perced to the roote The drought of March has pierced to the root

And bathed every veyne in swich licour, And bathed every vein in such liquor,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Of which virtue engendered is the flower;

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth When Zephyrus eke with his sweet breath

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth Inspired has in every holt and heath,

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne The tender crops; and the young sun

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, Has in the Ram his half-course run,

And smale foweles maken melodye, And small fowls make melody,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye That sleep all the night with open eye

(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages); (So pricks them Nature in their courages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages Then folk long to go on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes And palmers [for] to seek strange strands

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; To far-off hallows, couth in sundry lands;

And specially from every shires ende And, especially, from every shire's end

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, Of England, to Canterbury they wend,

Page 33
The hooly blisful martir for to seke The holy blissful martyr [for] to seek,

That hem hath holpen, whan that they were That them has helped, when [that] they were
seeke. sick.

Ormulum, 12th century

This passage explains the background to the Nativity(3494–501)

Forrþrihht anan se time comm

As soon as the time came
þatt ure Drihhtin wollde
that our Lord wanted
ben borenn i þiss middellærd
be born in this middle-earth
forr all mannkinne nede
for all mankind sake,
he chæs himm sone
at once He chose kinsmen for Himself,
kinnessmenn
all just as he wanted,
all swillke summ he wollde
and He decided that He would be born
and whær he wollde borenn ben
exactly where He wished.
he chæs all att hiss wille.

Epitaph of John the smyth, died 1371

An epitaph from a monumental brass in an Oxfordshire parish church:

Original text Translation by Patricia Utechi

man com & se how schal alle dede li: wen Man, come and see how all dead men shall lie:
þow comes bad & bare when that comes bad and bare,
noth hab ven ve awaẏ fare: All ẏs wermēs we have nothing when we away fare: all that we
þt ve for care:— care for is worms:—
bot þt ve do for godẏs luf ve haue nothyng except for that which we do for God's sake, we have
yare: nothing ready:
hundyr þis graue lẏs John þe smẏth god under this grave lies John the smith, God give his
yif his soule heuen grit soul heavenly peace

Wycliffe's Bible, 1384

From the Wycliffe's Bible, (1384):

Page 34
 Luke 8:1-3

First version Second version Translation

1And it came to pass

1And it was don aftirward,
1And it was don aftirward, and afterward, that Jesus went
and Jhesu made iorney by
Jhesus made iourney bi citees throughout every city and
citees and castelis, prechinge
and castels, prechynge and village (castle), preaching
and euangelysinge þe rewme
euangelisynge þe rewme and showing the kingdom
of God, 2and twelue wiþ him;
of 2God, and twelue wiþ hym; of 2God, and the twelve were
and summe wymmen þat
and sum wymmen þat weren with him; and certain
weren heelid of wickide
heelid of wickid spiritis and women, which had been
spiritis and syknessis, Marie,
sijknessis, Marie, þat is clepid healed of wicked spirits and
þat is clepid Mawdeleyn, of
Maudeleyn, of whom seuene sicknesses, Mary called
whom seuene deuelis
deuelis 3wenten out, and Joone, Magdalene, out of
wenten 3 out, and Jone, þe
þe wijf of Chuse, þe whom 3went seven devils,
wyf of Chuse, procuratour of
procuratoure of Eroude, and and Joanna the wife of
Eroude, and Susanne, and
Susanne, and many oþir, þat Chuza, the steward of Herod,
manye oþere, whiche
mynystriden to hym of her and Susanna, and many
mynystriden to him of her
ritchesse. others, which provided for
riches.
Him from their substance.

Chaucer, 1390s
The following is the very beginning of the General Prologue from The Canterbury
Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The text was written in a dialect associated with London and
spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard.

First 18 lines of the General Prologue

Original in Middle English Word-for-word translation into Modern English

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote When [that] April with his showers sweet

The droȝte of March hath perced to the roote The drought of March has pierced to the root

And bathed every veyne in swich licour, And bathed every vein in such liquor,

Page 35
Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Of which virtue engendered is the flower;

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth When Zephyrus eke with his sweet breath

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth Inspired has in every holt and heath,

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne The tender crops; and the young sun

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, Has in the Ram his half-course run,

And smale foweles maken melodye, And small fowls make melody,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye That sleep all the night with open eye

(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages); (So pricks them Nature in their courages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages Then folk long to go on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes And palmers [for] to seek strange strands

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; To far-off hallows, couth in sundry lands;

And specially from every shires ende And, especially, from every shire's end

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, Of England, to Canterbury they wend,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke The holy blissful martyr [for] to seek,

Page 36
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were That them has helped, when [that] they were
seeke. sick.

Translation into Modern English prose: When April with its sweet showers has pierced March's
drought to the root, bathing every vein in such liquid by whose virtue the flower is engendered,
and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath has also enlivened the tender plants in every wood and
field, and the early-year sun is halfway through Aries, and small birds that sleep all night with an
open eye make melodies (their hearts so pricked by Nature), then people long to go on
pilgrimages, and palmers seek foreign shores and distant shrines known in sundry lands, and
especially they wend their way to Canterbury from every shire of England in order to seek
the holy blessed martyr, who has helped them when they were ill.
Gower, 1390
The following is the beginning of the Prologue from Confessio Amantis by John Gower.

Near word-for-word translation Translation into Modern English:

Original in Middle English
into Modern English: (by Richard Brodie)

Of hem that written Of them that wrote Of those who wrote

ous tofore before us before our lives
The bokes duelle, The books remain, and Their precious legacy
and we therfore we therefore survives;
Ben tawht of that Are taught of what was From what was written
was write tho: written then: then, we learn,
Forthi good is that For it is good that we And so it's well that we
we also also in turn,
In oure tyme among In our time among us In our allotted time on
ous hiere here earth
Do wryte of newe Do write some matter Do write anew some
som matiere, anew, things of worth,
Essampled of these Given an example by Like those we from these
olde wyse these old ways sages cite,
So that it myhte in So that it might in such So that such in like
such a wyse, a way, manner might,
Whan we ben dede When we are dead and When we have left this
and elleswhere, elsewhere, mortal sphere,
Beleve to the Be left to the world's Remain for all the world
worldes eere ear to hear
In tyme comende In time coming after In ages following our
after this. this. own.

Page 37
 Bot for men sein, But for men say, and
But it is so that men are
and soth it is, true it is,
prone
That who that al of That who that entirely
To say that when one
wisdom writ of wisdom writes
only reads
It dulleth ofte a It dulls often a man's
Of wisdom all day long,
mannes wit wit
one breeds
To him that schal it For him that shall it
A paucity of wit, and so
aldai rede, every day read,
If you agree I'll choose to
For thilke cause, if For that same cause, if
go
that ye rede, you sanction it,
Along a kind of middle
I wolde go the I would like to go the
ground
middel weie middle way
Sometimes I'll write of
And wryte a bok And write a book
things profound,
betwen the tweie, between the two,
And sometimes for
Somwhat of lust, Somewhat of lust,
amusement's sake
somewhat of lore, somewhat of lore,
A lighter path of pleasure
That of the lasse or That of the less or of
take
of the more the more
So all can something
Som man mai lyke Some man may like of
pleasing find.
of that I wryte: that I write:

Translation in Modern English prose:

The books of those that wrote before us survive, and therefore we are taught about what was
written then. For this reason it is good that we also in our time, here among us, write some
material from scratch, inspired by the example of these old customs; so that it might, when we
are dead and elsewhere, be left to the world's ear in the time coming after this. But because men
say, and it's true, that when someone writes entirely about wisdom, it often dulls a man's wit who
reads it every day. For that reason, if you permit it, I would like to take the middle way, and
write a book between the two, somewhat of passion, somewhat of instruction, that whether of
high or low status, people may like what I write about.

3. Modern English

The first authoritative and full-featured English dictionary, the Dictionary of the

English Language, was published by Samuel Johnson in 1755. To a high degree, the dictionary
standardized both English spelling and word usage. Meanwhile, grammar texts
by Lowth, Murray, Priestly, and others attempted to prescribe standard usage even further.

Early Modern English and Late Modern English, also called Present-Day English (PDE), differ
essentially in vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from the Industrial
Revolution and technologies that created a need for new words, as well as international
development of the language. The British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth's

Page 38
land surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries. British
English and North American English, the two major varieties of the language, are together
spoken by 400 million people. The total number of English speakers worldwide may exceed one
billion.The English language will almost certainly continue to evolve over time. With the
development of computer and online environments (such as chat rooms, social media
expressions, and apps), and the adoption of English as a worldwide lingua franca across cultures,
customs, and traditions, it should not be surprising to see further shortening of words, phrases,
and/or sentences.

The English Language in America

Though American histories of other kinds abound, of politics, of diplomacy, of painting, music,
even of furniture, the American language has strangely escaped historical treatment. Perhaps it
has generally been assumed that the language of America enjoys the felicity which is said to be
the lot of persons and states without a history. But the life of the English language in America
has covered three hundred years, and so long a stretch of static happiness certainly could not be
expected in any thing human. In truth American English extends over just those periods in which
the English language, reflecting new and complicated developments in social and economic
conditions, has undergone some of its most interesting changes. In these changes the English

Page 39
language in America has shared to as great an extent as the American people have shared in the
development of the civilization of the modern world.

In their immediate day and hour the facts of current American English have not infrequently
challenged attention. But such studies of American English as have been made reflect for the
most part an impressionistic or polemic interest in the speech of the day, and though often
animated and amusing, and sometimes the vehicles for a certain amount of valuable information,
they have offered very little in the way of systematic elucidation of the English language in
America. Perhaps most attention has been paid in these treatises, both by Britons and by
Americans, to the ever-burning question whether American English is as good as British English.
Among recent discussions of the relations between British and American English the most
elaborate as well as the most independent is contained in Mencken American Language. Studies
of this kind, however, have usually been more significant as inquiries into social prejudices than
into linguistic history.

1. The Settlement of America

The English language was brought to America by colonists from England who settled along the Atlantic
seaboard in the seventeenth century.1 It was therefore the language spoken in England at that time, the
language spoken by Shakespeare and Milton and Bunyan. In the peopling of this country three great
periods of European immigration are to be distinguished. The first extends from the settlement of
Jamestown in 1607 to the end of colonial times. This may be put conveniently at 1787, when Congress
finally approved the Federal Constitution, or better, 1790, when the last of the colonies ratified it and the
first census was taken. At this date the population numbered approximately four million people, 95
percent of whom were living east of the Appalachian Mountains, and 90 percent were from various parts
of the British Isles. The second period covers the expansion of the original thirteen colonies west of the
Appalachians, at first into the South and into the Old Northwest Territory, ending finally at the Pacific.
This era may be said to close with the Civil War, about 1860, and was marked by the arrival of fresh
immigrants from two great sources, Ireland and Germany. The failure of the potato crop in Ireland in
1845 precipitated a wholesale exodus to America, a million and a half emigrants coming in the decade or
so that followed. At about the same time the failure of the revolution in Germany (1848) resulted in the
migration of an equal number of Germans. Many of the latter settled in certain central cities such as
Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis or became farmers in the Middle West. The third period, the period
since the Civil War, is marked by an important change in the source from which our immigrants have
been derived. In the two preceding periods, and indeed up to about 1890, the British Isles and the
countries of northern Europe furnished from 75 to 90 percent of all who came to this country. Even in the
last quarter of the nineteenth century more than a million Scandinavians, about one-fifth of the total
population of Norway and Sweden, settled here, mainly in the upper Mississippi valley. But since about
1890 great numbers from Southern Europe and the Slavic countries have poured in. Just before World
War I, Italians alone were admitted to the number of more than 300,000 a year, and of our annual
immigration of more than a million, representatives of the east and south European countries constituted
close to 75 percent.

Page 40
Outside the patterns of European immigration was the forced immigration of Africans through the slave
trade that began in the seventeenth century and continued until the midnineteenth. There are presently
some 25 million African Americans in the United States, mostly settled in the South and in the larger
cities of the North. Finally, one should note the influx during the mid-twentieth century of Mexican,
Puerto Rican, and other Hispanic immigrants. Extreme economic imbalances among the countries of the
Western Hemisphere have caused a sharp increase in migration, both legal and illegal, to the United
States during the past two decades.

For the student of the English language the most interesting period of immigration to America is the first.
It was the early colonists who brought us our speech and established its form. Those who came later were
largely assimilated in a generation or two, and though their influence may have been felt, it is difficult to
define.2 It is to these early settlers that we must devote our chief attention if we would understand the
history of the English language in America.

2. The American Dialects

Certain features of pronunciation characteristic of a part of New England and others associated
with many parts of the South are so easily recognized and so well known that A history of the
english language 354 for a long time it was customary to distinguish three main dialects in
American English— the New England dialect, the Southern dialect, and General American,
meaning the dialect of all the rest of the country. Such a division, in a broad way, is not
unjustified because each of the dialect types is marked by features that distinguish it clearly from
the others. But it is not sufficiently exact. Not all of New England shares in the features— such as
the so-called “broad a” and the loss of [r] finally and before consonants—that are thought of as
most characteristic. Parts of the South were settled from Pennsylvania and are not typically
southern in speech. And finally, General American itself shows regional differences which,
although not so obvious to the lay person, can be recognized by the linguist and charted.

Our ability to distinguish more accurately the various speech areas that exist in this country is due
to the fact that we now have a large mass of accurate data gathered by field workers for the
Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada (see page 399) and a growing number of
detailed studies of regional pronunciation and other features. These have contributed greatly to a
clearer understanding of some of the speech areas of the country

In 1949 Professor Hans Kurath published a study of the first importance, A Word Geography of
the Eastern United States. On the basis of lexical evidence, mainly in the Atlantic Coast states as
far south as South Carolina, he distinguished eighteen speech areas, which he grouped into three
main groups: Northern, Midland, and Southern. Positing a Midland dialect had the effect of
taking parts of what had been considered General American and

Page 41
THE DIALECTS OF AMERICAN ENGLISH Southern and carving out a third major dialect, straddling
the traditional boundary and extending from the Middle Atlantic area to the Mississippi and beyond. This
area was divided into North Midland, which comprised most of Pennsylvania and the central areas of the
Great Lakes states; and South Midland, which continued to be referred to as the Upper South or the
Southern Uplands, and which included the southern Appalachians, the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas,
and parts of Oklahoma and Texas. Subsequent studies have supported or modified particular isoglosses
and dialect boundaries, the results varying from study to study with the phonological and lexical criteria
used. The main point of controversy has been whether the selection and weighting of isoglosses supports
a distinct Midland dialect. Although Kurath’s tripartite division was widely accepted for forty years,
recent investigations have led some dialectologists to reemphasize a primary North-South linguistic
boundary. Craig M.Carver, for example, proposes Upper South for South Midland and Lower North for
North Midland. 28 Ellen Johnson, while supportive of Kurath’s Midland, prefers the term Appalachian
for that dialect, and for Kurath’s South the term Deep South. 29 These and other differences among
dialectologists are partly matters of nomenclature, though not merely that, because it is nomenclature
linked to culture and history; the differences also result from the indeterminacy of the concept dialect
itself. Unlike state and county boundaries, which can be found demarcated on the land, dialect boundaries
are abstractions of linguists, artifices that are built on empirical observations but that depend on the
diagnostic features chosen. We shall use the terms “Upper North,” “Lower North,” “Upper South,” and
“Lower South,” and we shall recognize Eastern New England as a distinctive enough subregion within
Upper North to merit separate description.

The boundary marking the main North-South division begins in central Delaware, runs westward near the
old Mason-Dixon Line and continues approximately along the Ohio River, eventually extending south
into Oklahoma and Texas.30 The line separating the Upper North (Kurath’s Northern) from the Lower
North (North Midland) runs northwest across New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania and then in a fairly
regular westward progression across the northern parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. As
the boundary approaches the Mississippi in northwestern Illinois it turns north and, to the extent that it
can be traced as a boundary at all, continues that general course across the upper Midwest. The division
between the Upper South (South Midland) and the Lower South (Southern) begins at the Atlantic Ocean

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at a midpoint on the Delmarva peninsula, describes a northward arc through Maryland, and turns
southwest, skirting the eastern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia and North Carolina and
turning west just north of Atlanta. To the east lie the Piedmont and the coastal plain. To the west the
Midland-Southern boundary continues through northern Georgia and Alabama, then turns north into
western Tennessee. West of the Mississippi the boundary becomes predictably more diffuse, but it can
still be traced through Arkansas and east Texas.

At least six regional dialects in the eastern half of the country are prominent enough to warrant individual
characterization, and three additional dialects of considerable importance extend over several regions.

The English Language in Asia

There are few native English speakers in Asia, but a large number of the population use English
as a second or third language. India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Singapore all recognize
English as an official language. India is the most populous state that uses English in an official

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capacity. The exact number of people who can speak English in Asia is hard to ascertain due to
the large and diverse population, but it is estimated that there are 125 million in India, 94 million
in Pakistan, and 90 million in the Philippines.

This is not to say that the rest of Asia cannot converse in English. Thousands of locals and
immigrants in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Japan, South
Korea, Vietnam, and Laos are conversant with English. India and Pakistan trace their English
roots to the colonial period when British colonialists introduced the language and integrated it
into the education system. The national language of Pakistan is Urdu but English is the official
language meaning that government transactions are handled in English. Thousands of native
English expats are found in Pakistani cities such as Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore. There are
about 22 major languages and about 720 dialects in India. Both English and Hindi are official
languages, and it is uncommon to come across Indians speaking fluent English anywhere in the
country.

 English in Asia is the result of a specific kind of nonsettler colony, for instance in countries like
India or Pakistan and thus forms a good contrast to settler colonies like the United States, Canada
or Australia.
 English in Asia is often the result of different historical inputs, e.g. British English in South Asia
but American English in the Philippines.
 English in Asia is the result of complex interactions of background languages and learner
varieties of English, e.g. in Hong Kong or Malaysia.
 English in Asia consists of many different levels of second-language competence and can thus
help us in our understanding of learner varieties of English.
 English in Asia also contains an emergent set of native speaker or quasi-native speaker varieties
in countries like Singapore.
 English in Asia also contains an emergent set of native speaker or quasi-native speaker varieties
in countries like Singapore.
 English in Asia is demographically significant given the numbers of speakers involved.

1. The English Language in the Philippines

Philippine English is any variety of English native to the Philippines, including those used by the

media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos. English is taught in schools as one of the two official
languages of the country, the other being Filipino (Tagalog). Due to the highly multilingual nature of the
Philippines, code-switching such as Taglish (Tagalog-infused English) and Bislish (English infused with
any of the Visayan languages) is prevalent across domains from casual settings to formal situations.

2. The English Language in other Asian countries.

English is the second most-spoken language in the world after the Chinese language. About 372
million natives and about a billion non-native speakers are conversant. Approximately 64% of
native English speakers are in the United States, 16.6% in the United Kingdom, 5.3% in Canada,

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 4.7% in Australia, 1.3% in South Africa, 1.3% in Ireland, 1.3% in New Zealand, and the
remaining 5.5% are spread across the world.

The Language in the world

A world language is one that is spoken internationally and learned and spoken by numerous
people as a second language. A world language is characterized not only by the total number of

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speakers (native and second language speakers) but also by geographical distribution and its use
in international organizations and diplomatic relations.
The most widely spoken (and likely the fastest spreading) world language today is English, with
over 1.1 billion native and second-language users worldwide.[3] On similar grounds, French is
also commonly categorized as a world language. Other possible world languages
include Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Portuguese.
Historically, Aramaic, Ancient Greek, Latin, Classical Chinese, Persian, Sanskrit, and Classical
Arabic have also functioned as world languages due to their previous standings as lingua
francas over large parts of the world.

Geographic Distribution of Living Languages (2009)

  Total Living Percentag   Number of  
Languages e speakers
 Africa 2,110 30.5 %   726,453,403  
Countries in Africa
 The Americas 993 14.4 %   50,496,321  
Countries in the Americas
and the Caribbean
 Asia 2,322 33.6 %   3,622,771,264  
Countries in Asia
 Australia/Pacific 1,250 18.1 %   6,429,788  
Countries in
Australia/Pacific
 Europe 234 3.4 %   1,553,360,941  
Countries in Europe
Total 6,909 100 %   5,959,511,717  
 
Source: Ethnologue
 
Top 20 of the most widely spoken languages by "First language" speakers (2009)
Number of total  
Rank Language Primary Country countries where Speakers
the language is (millions)
spoken
1 Chinese China 31 1,213  
2 Spanish Spain 44 329  

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3 English United Kingdom 112 328  
4 Arabic Saudi Arabia 57 221  
5 Hindi India 20 182  
6 Bengali Bangladesh 10 181  
7 Portuguese Portugal 37 178  
8 Russian Russian Federation 33 144  
9 Japanese Japan 25 122  
10 German, Standard Germany 43 90.3  
11 Javanese Indonesia 5 84.6  
12 Lahnda Pakistan 8 78.3  
13 Telugu India 10 69.8  
14 Vietnamese Viet Nam 23 68.6  
15 Marathi India 5 68.1  
16 French France 60 67.8  
17 Korean Korea 33 66.3  
18 Tamil India 17 65.7  
19 Italian Italy 34 61.7  
20 Urdu Pakistan 23 60.6  

1. The importance of English

 English may not be the most spoken language in the world, but it is the official language in a
large number of countries. It is estimated that the number of people in the world that use in
English to communicate on a regular basis is 2 billion!

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   English is the dominant business language and it has become almost a necessity for people to
speak English if they are to enter a global workforce, research from all over the world shows
that cross-border business communication is most often conducted in English. Its importance
in the global market place therefore cannot be understated, learning English really can change
your life.
 Many of the world’s top films, books and music are published and produced in English.
Therefore by learning English you will have access to a great wealth of entertainment and
will be able to have a greater cultural understanding.
 Most of the content produced on the internet (50%) is in English. So knowing English will
allow you access to an incredible amount of information which may not be otherwise
available.

2. The future of English in the world

Crystal estimates that around 60-70 new 'Englishes' have emerged since the 1960s in
countries across the globe. There are an estimated 400 million people who speak English
as a first language and 7-800 million people who speak English as a second language.
Around a billion more speak English as a foreign language. This means that now there is
just one native speaker to every five non-native speakers of English -- an unprecedented
situation in the history of languages. It also means that people are no longer exclusively
looking to Britain. British English is now a minority amongst the many 'Englishes' that
are spoken around the world.

'English is of no use beyond our shores', stated the Earl of Leicester upon returning from
his tour of Europe in the late 1500s. Indeed, Chaucer asked why anyone would want to
study English: a language 'with no literature' (as David pointed out, though, anyone lucky
enough to have studied Chaucer would be able to confirm that his works are almost
unintelligible to modern English speakers). And yet, in the very same year, Shakespeare
emerged from his ‘lost years’ - a period from 1585 to 1592, when it was thought that the
playwright was perfecting his dramatic skills and collecting sources for plots -- and
produced some of his finest work. Just over a decade later, Walter Raleigh’s expeditions
in the early 1600s saw American English take root within a matter of days, with terms
such as 'wigwam' and 'skunk' appearing and becoming commonplace extremely
quickly. It takes very little time for a language to evolve; this language 'of no use beyond
British shores' grew from a population of four million speakers to two billion in just 400
years.

Refferences

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Overview - https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-the-english-
language/overview/A98FD9DB49F001141FEB82EA2565F01B

Objectives - https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027293244#overview

Discussion - https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-english-language-1690652

The Indo-European Family of Languages - https://www.uottawa.ca/clmc/indo-european-family

1. The Discovery of Sanskrit- file:///C:/Users/%20%20%20%20Admin/Desktop/Baugh

%20Cable%20A%20History%20of%20English%20Language.pdf
2. The Germanic Languages- file:///C:/Users/%20%20%20%20Admin/Desktop/Baugh
%20Cable%20A%20History%20of%20English%20Language.pdf

The English Language in Britain Periods in the history of English in Britain -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English#:~:text=English%20is%20a%20West
%20Germanic,southern%20Denmark%20and%20the%20Netherlands.

1. Old English - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English#:~:text=English%20is

%20a%20West%20Germanic,southern%20Denmark%20and%20the%20Netherlands.
2. Middle English - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English#:~:text=English%20is%20a
%20West%20Germanic,southern%20Denmark%20and%20the%20Netherlands.
3. Modern English - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English#:~:text=English%20is
%20a%20West%20Germanic,southern%20Denmark%20and%20the%20Netherlands.

The English Language in America - https://www.questia.com/library/720454/the-english-

language-in-america

1. The Settlement of America – https://people.umass.edu/~sharris/in/e412/BC

%2011%20America.pdf
2. The American Dialects - https://people.umass.edu/~sharris/in/e412/BC%2011%20America.pdf

The English Language in Asia- https://www.uni-due.de/ELE/Spread_of_English_(Asia).pdf,

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/english-speaking-countries-in-asia.html#:~:text=English%20in
%20Asia,English%20in%20an%20official%20capacity.

1. The English Language in the Philippines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_English

2. The English Language in other Asian countries. -
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/english-speaking-countries-in-asia.html#:~:text=There
%20are%20few%20native%20English,English%20in%20an%20official%20capacity.

The Language in the world - https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/languages.htm,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_language#:~:text=The%20most%20widely%20spoken
%20(and,categorized%20as%20a%20world%20language.

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1. The importance of English
https://sites.google.com/site/wwweducation347com/importance-of-english-language
2. The future of English in the world - https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/whats-
future-english#:~:text=New%20forms%20of%20'English'%20are,English%20as%20a%20second
%20language.

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