Chapter 1:
THE ROOTS OF
ENGLISH
Activity – Draw a timeline of the
English language
Video: A Short History of The English Language
In group, draw a timeline of the evolvement of English through
the stages.
(Some aspects to focus on: invaders, influencers, country
names/regions, examples)
Intro Middle English
- Time/Year? Old English - Time/Year? Early Modern
What happened? - Time/Year? What happened? English
- Which What happened? - Which - Time/Year?
characters? - Which characters? What happened?
characters? - What changed? - Which characters?
- What changed? - What changed?
Middle
Intro English
- Time/Year? Old English - Time/Year? Early Modern
- Time/Year? English
- Time/Year?
What happened? What happened?
What happened?
What happened?
- Which - Which
characters? - Which characters?
characters? - Which characters?
- What changed?
- What changed? - What changed?
The invaders
About AD 450, when Britain was largely inhabited by Celtic
peoples– fair-sized groups of Germanic settlers began coming
into the country.
These invaders probably came from Northern Germany and
Denmark, represented three main tribes of people known as:
Angles Saxons Jutes
The Angles, from whose name
the word English is derived,
settled in the north
produced a
dialectally
varied
language
This may have been due to:
• differences in the Germanic varieties
spoken in their original homelands on
the Continent
• reflects the distinct communities formed
by the groups in various parts of
England.
Some of these early ‘tribal’ differences
can even be traced in rural dialects
today;
e.g: /f/ and /s/ correspond to /v/ and
/z/ in the south-west of England
“Cider from Somerset” ->“Zider
vrom Zummerzet”
Reason for However, contacts with
linguistic the indigenous Celtic
variation and population have not
change resulted in many
=> degree of borrowings in English
contact with e.g: whisky, ‘the water of life’ and galore, ‘lots of ’
speakers of other
languages/dialect
s
In contrast to the limited
evidence of Celtic influence
on English, that of Latin is
certainly pervasive. Some
of the Latin loanwords may
actually have been adopted
e.g: cheese, pepper, street, pound, wall, and camp.
Christianity in AD. 597 =>
Latin became more noticeable
1st , all words related to the Church
were introduced: altar, angel,
candle;
2nd , words connected with everyday life:
clothing and household utensils were
introduced sock, chest
3rd, new names for trees, plants,
and herbs often replaced the Anglo-Saxon words
pine, lily, fennel.
The Latin element has been integrated
into the English system. This integration
includes affixes such as re-, in-,
inter-, -fy
(e.g. reshuffle, incapacitate,
interdisciplinary, rectify).
Around the 8th century , English
speakers began to come into
contact with speakers of another
variety, namely the Viking
invaders from Denmark and
=>
Norway Many individuals
became permanent
settlers, their language
mixed with those of local
Old Norse (Viking’s language) =
quite close to the Anglo-Saxon
dialects spoken by the English (both
were Germanic languages and shared
a common stock of vocabulary)
=> The 2 tongues intermingled and
became one, with dialects being
influenced by both to some degrees.
However, there were marked
differences in the
grammatical systems
=> A need to simplify the two
languages.
e.g: dropping many inflectional
endings –ed, -es, -ing
Norman
1066
conquest
During this period,
the use of English was socially
restricted
x x x
church court government admin
- William the => language variety is
Conqueror endangered
English -> turned out to be a survivor
Crude Ethnicity
peasant and
languag national
e identity
=> formally reinstated in 1362, when
the King’s speech at the opening of
Parliament was delivered in English, an Act
(law) was passed making English instead
of French the official language of the law
courts.
During its heyday in Britain,
however, French had an
enormous impact on the linguistic
repertoire and on the English
language itself.
-> considered
French wasathe
prestigious
language of law, “ unless a man knows
French, people think
language
administration, business
and sophisticated life
little of him
”
Caxton’s time and printing
Up until this point in time,
English had always been a
language with lots of dialects
and many different rules.
William Caxton - English
merchant, diplomat and writer.
He introduced printing press
to England in 1476.
Þ initiate the
standardization of
English
In the 15th century, English was
firmly stated as the language of
power, standardized language
was developed (London-based,
language of prosperous middle-
class businessmen )
Earlier, writing had been clearly
dialectal and extremely varied with
regard to spelling, vocabulary and
The influential University of
Cambridge played an
important role here.
In the 18th century, English
spelling and grammar
codified in a standard
form.
This happened when the
legendary
Review questions
Why do you think the Celtic element in
English is so limited?
Why was it comparatively easy for the
English and the descendants of
Scandinavians to communicate?
In what way did French ‘endanger’
English after the Norman Conquest?
Where might English be ‘endangering’
other languages at present?
