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Notes About English History

The document summarizes the history of the English language from the 5th century onwards. It notes that in the 5th century, Germanic tribes first arrived in England and the country divided into seven kingdoms based on tribal territories, with West Saxon becoming dominant. It then discusses the influence of Old English, Vikings, the Norman invasion of 1066, and the establishment of London English as the standard by the 14th century with the help of authors like Chaucer. Printing was introduced to England by William Caxton in the late 15th century, further helping to standardize English.

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81 views2 pages

Notes About English History

The document summarizes the history of the English language from the 5th century onwards. It notes that in the 5th century, Germanic tribes first arrived in England and the country divided into seven kingdoms based on tribal territories, with West Saxon becoming dominant. It then discusses the influence of Old English, Vikings, the Norman invasion of 1066, and the establishment of London English as the standard by the 14th century with the help of authors like Chaucer. Printing was introduced to England by William Caxton in the late 15th century, further helping to standardize English.

Uploaded by

Justo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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449

First Germanic tribes arrive in England

Late 5c onwards
England divides roughly into seven kingdoms which reflect the tribes occupying the
relevant areas. Of these groupings that of the West Saxons in the central south was
destined to become the strongest.

End of 6c
The first records of English are extant from this period. Later in the 9th and 10th
centuries the language of West Saxony became the accepted dialect form for written
works (historical and religious). A dialect used in this function is called a koiné. The bulk
of works in this dialect are those of Ælfric and the commissioned translations of King
Alfred. Note that parallel to these and other works we have a large number of works in
Latin such as Bede’s ecclesiastical history.

End of 8c
Invasion of north England by Vikings. This is the beginning of a series of invasions (the
most important in 865) which brings the Vikings to England on a more or less permanent
basis. Their language affects English and is responsible for a large number of loan-words
entering the language. It is not until 1042 that the Vikings’ power is entirely vanquished.

1066
The invasion of England by the Normans is an event which had vast consequences for
England, not only linguistically. The influence of the Anglo-Norman language was
greatest immediately after the invasion among the clergy and in the English court which
was now seated not in Winchester as in Old English times but in London where it was to
remain. Writing in English in the early Middle English period is marked by extreme
dialectal diversity as the old West Saxon standard was infinitely too archaic and the later
standard of the London area had not yet become established.

1204
The political influence of the Normans ceased to exist with the loss of Normandy for the
English under King John. After this it was Central French which provided the source for
newer French loan-words. The stylistic two-tier structure of the English lexicon has its
roots in this period.

1400
By the time of Chaucer the English of London had become the implicit standard for the
whole country with the exception of Scotland where early forms of Scots had been
established in writing and which were to exercise a strong influence in Scotland up to
the present century. Note that London English combines elements from three main
dialect sources: East Midland, Kentish and to a limited degree from the North.

1476
William Caxton introduces printing to England and greatly contributes, not least through
his own literary efforts, to the codification of English orthography.

15th century onwards


In the fifteenth century in the light of the humanist tradition and the renewed interest
in Latin and Greek the study of classical rhetoricists and grammarians lead to a series of
works on English which lasted until well into the 18th century. The authors of these
works are called orthoepists. All of them are of a prescriptive nature; nonetheless they
contributed to various aspects of the standardisation of English, for example in the
sphere of lexis (vocabulary). At the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century
the dispute known as the Inkhorn Controversy raged: here the adherents of classical
borrowing to an inordinate degree engaged in learned squabbles with those who wished
to avoid an alienation of English vocabulary by wholesale borrowing from the classical
languages Latin and Greek.

17th and 18th centuries


Another factor in the development of the standard in English is the lexicographical work
done on English. This starts at the beginning of the 17th century (1604) and culminates
in the famous English dictionary by Samuel Johnson (1755) which uses English authors
as authorities on usage and which itself had an unprecedented influence on subsequent
generations of writers in English and was thus a factor in the standardisation of English
vocabulary.

19th century to the present


More than in any other European country England is marked by an emphasis on standard
pronunciation. The type of pronounciation known today as Received Pronunciation (after
Daniel Jones) or under other less precise epithets such as The Queen’s English, Oxford
English, BBC English, etc. is a sociolect of English, that is, it is the variety of English
spoken by the educated middle classes, irrespective of what part of England they may
live in. In the nineteenth century and into this century as well, this accent of English was
that fostered by the so-called public schools (private, fee-paying schools) which were
the domain of the middle class. It is also the variety which foreigners are exposed to
when they learn ‘British English’.

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