LITERATURE 1 WEEK 1

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ADAPTED FROM MARIAN WILKINSON
AND INTERNET SOURCES

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HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE
 Thehistory of the English language has
traditionally been divided into three main
periods:

 Old English (450-1100 AD),

 Middle English (around 1100- 1500 AD) and

 Modern English (since 1500).

 Over the centuries, the English language has

been influenced by a number of other
languages. 2
Pre-Historical / Pre-Roman
 The island we know as England was
occupied by a race of people called the
Celts who had probably come from Europe
between 300-100 BC. One of the tribes
living there was called Britons (from which
we get the term Britain)
 The Celts were Pagans and their religion
was known as “animism” a Latin word for
“spirit.” Celts saw spirits everywhere
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 WHERE THE CELTS LIVED
BEFORE THEY CAME TO ENGLAND
 The Celts inhabited most of Europe by 300
B.C. and there was a hugely diverse range of
different Celtic peoples inhabiting the Continent.
They were largely unopposed for decades because
the Romans were busy expanding their territory to
the South. However, in the first century B.C. Julius
Caesar destroyed many of their civilisations on the
mainland of Europe.

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 WHERE THE CELTS LIVED
BEFORE THEY CAME TO ENGLAND

 When the Romans attempted to invade Britain, it

was occupied by the Celts. The Romans were
unable to conquer many of the outlying islands,
and they did not take the far northern
regions, so this is where the Celts established
their new homeland. Today, cultural
traditions in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales can
be traced back to the Celts.

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OLD ENGLISH (450 - 1100 AD):
 Old English (450 - 1100 AD): During the 5th
Century AD, three Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles,
and Jutes) came to the British Isles from various
parts of northwest Germany as well as Denmark.
These tribes were warlike (hostile groups) and
pushed out most of the original, Celtic-speaking
inhabitants from England into Scotland, Wales,
and Cornwall. One group migrated to the Brittany
Coast of France where their descendants still speak
the Celtic Language of Breton today.

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 Today, the term 'Celtic' generally refers
to the languages and cultures of Ireland,
Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of
Man, and Brittany (in Northwestern
France); which are also called the Celtic
nations. These are the regions where
Celtic languages are still spoken to some
extent.

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OLD ENGLISH (450 - 1100 AD):
 Through the years, the Saxons, Angles and
Jutes mixed their different Germanic
dialects. This group of dialects formed what
linguists refer to as Old English or Anglo-
Saxon. The word "English" was in Old
English "Englisc", and that comes from the
name of the Angles. The Angles were named
after Engle, their land of origin.

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OLD ENGLISH (450 - 1100 AD):
 Before the Anglo-saxons, the language spoken in
what is now England was a mixture of Latin and
various Celtic languages. It was the Romans that
brought Latin to Britain, which became part of the
Roman Empire for over 400 years. Many of the
words from this era are those coined by Roman
merchants and soldiers. These include win (wine),
candel (candle), belt (belt), weall (wall).

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OLD ENGLISH (450 - 1100 AD):

 Theinfluence of Celtic upon Old

English was slight. In fact, very few
Celtic words have lived on in the English
language. But many of place and river
names have Celtic origins: Kent, York,
Dover, Cumberland, Thames, Avon, Trent,
Severn.

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OLD ENGLISH (450 - 1100 AD):
 Around 878 AD, Danes and Norsemen, also called
Vikings, invaded the country and English got many
Norse (Scandinavian/Norwegian) words into the
language, particularly in the north of England. The
Vikings, being Scandinavian, spoke a language (Old
Norse) which, in origin at least, was just as
Germanic as Old English.
 Words from Norsemen include: sky, egg, cake, skin,
leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill,
anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die,
they, their, them.
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OLD ENGLISH (450 - 1100 AD):
 Several written works have survived from
the Old English period. The most famous is a
heroic epic poem called "Beowulf". /ˈbeɪəʊwʊlf/
It is the oldest known English poem and it is
notable for its length - 3,183 lines. Experts
say "Beowulf" was written in Britain more
than one thousand years ago. The name of
the person who wrote it is unknown.

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PART OF BEOWULF, A POEM WRITTEN IN
OLD ENGLISH

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MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100-CIRCA 1500 AD):
 Middle English (1100-circa 1500 AD): After
William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy,
invaded and conquered England in 1066 AD with
his armies and became king, he brought his nobles,
who spoke French, to be the new government. The
Old French took over as the language of the court,
administration, and culture. Latin was mostly used
for written language, especially that of the Church.
Meanwhile, the English language, as the language
of the now lower class, was considered a vulgar
tongue.
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MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100-CIRCA 1500 AD):
 By about 1200,English had changed a lot, because it
had mostly been spoken instead of written for about
300 years. After that date, the use of Old English
started to come back, but with many French words
added. This language is called Middle English. Most
of the words embedded in the English vocabulary are
words of power, such as crown, castle, court,
parliament, army, mansion, gown, beauty, banquet, art,
poet, romance, duke, servant, peasant, traitor and
governor. ("Language Timeline", The British Library
Board)
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MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100-CIRCA 1500 AD):
 Because the English underclass cooked for the
Norman (French) upper class, the words for most
domestic animals are English (ox, cow, calf,
sheep, swine, deer), while the words for the meats
derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton,
pork, bacon, venison). ("The Origin and History of
the English Language", Kryss Katsiavriades)

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 MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100-CIRCA 1500 AD):
 The Normans ruled England more than three centuries,
during which thousands of French words entered
English. Current English is a mixture of the languages
of Anglo-Saxon-Jute tribes, that of the Normans
(French) and Latin. Over 30 % of the words in English
came from French. Look at the French question from an
ÖSYM exam. How many words look familiar?

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MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100-CIRCA 1500 AD):
 The most famous literary example of Middle
English is Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales",
a collection of stories about a group of thirty
people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury,
England. The portraits that he paints in his
Tales give us an idea of what life was like in
fourteenth century England.

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AN EXAMPLE OF MIDDLE ENGLISH BY
CHAUCER

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MODERN ENGLISH (1500 TO THE PRESENT):
 Modern English (1500 to the present): Modern
English developed after William Caxton
established his printing press at Westminster
Abbey in 1476. Johann Gutenberg invented the
printing press in Germany around 1450, but
Caxton set up England's first press. The Bible
and some valuable manuscripts were printed.
The invention of the printing press made books
available to more people. The books became
cheaper and more people learned to read.
Printing also brought standardization to English.
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MODERN ENGLISH (1500 TO THE PRESENT):
 Bythe time of Shakespeare's writings (1592-
1616), the language had become clearly
recognizable as Modern English. There were
three big developments in the world at the
beginning of Modern English period: the
Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and
the British Colonialism.

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ENGLISH RENAISSANCE /renɪsɑːns/
 It was during the English Renaissance that
most of the words from Greek and Latin
entered English. This period in English cultural
history (early 16th century to the early 17th
century) is sometimes referred to as "the age of
Shakespeare" or "the Elizabethan era
"/ɪˌlɪzəˈbiːθən ˈɪrə/, taking the name of the English
Renaissance's most famous author and most
important monarch, respectively.

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 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
 England began the Industrial Revolution (18th century)
and this had also an effect on the development of the
language as new words had to be invented or existing
ones modified to cope with the rapid changes in
technology.

 New technical words were added to the vocabulary

as inventors designed various products and machinery.
These words were named after the inventor or given the
name of their choice (trains, engine, pulleys, combustion,
electricity, telephone, telegraph, camera etc).
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BRITISH COLONIALISM
 Britain was an Empire for 200 years between the
18th and 20th centuries and English language
continued to change as the British Empire moved
across the world - to the USA, Australia, New
Zealand, India, Asia and Africa.

 They sent people to settle and live in their

conquered places and as settlers interacted with
natives, new words were added to the English
vocabulary. For example, 'kangaroo' and
'boomerang' are native Australian Aborigine
words, and 'turban' came from India.
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AMERICAN ENGLISH AND OTHER VARIETIES
 English colonization of North America and the
subsequent creation of American English.
 Some pronunciations and usages "froze" when they
reached the American shore. In certain respects, some
varieties of American English are closer to the English
of Shakespeare than modern Standard English
('British English').
 Some "Americanisms" are actually originally English:
English expressions that were preserved in the
colonies while lost at home (e.g., fall as a synonym for
autumn, trash for rubbish, and loan as a verb instead
of lend).
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AMERICAN ENGLISH AND OTHER VARIETIES
 Spanish has also been great influence on
American English. Mustang, canyon, ranch,
stampede, and vigilante /vɪdʒəˈlænti/ are all
examples of Spanish words that made their way
into English through the settlement of the
American West.
 Likewise, dialects of English have developed in
many of the former colonies of the British Empire.
There are distinct forms of the English language
spoken in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
India and many other parts of the world.
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