HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE (OCT. 14, 2015)

Good day, Grade 10 Rizal!

If you have missed any of the discussion or the entire discussion today, here’s the complete transcription. You may download this text and print it out so you can have a ready reference for the assignment I gave you which is also embedded at the bottom of this page. One more thing, the tabulation of your quiz scores has just been updated; meaning the result of the exercise you took this morning is already out. I’m glad almost everyone nailed a high score. Keep it up!

Yours,
Sir Francis

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
(Miguel, Revilla, & Barraquio, 2010)

OLD ENGLISH

The language which you read today and which you have studied since grade school has a very interesting history. In fact, it traces its history back to the 5^th century CE when the three Germanic tribes–the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—arrived in the British Isles. These seafaring tribes from Denmark and present-day northern Germany and Netherlands brought with them their own mix of language—dialects falling within Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin. Their language was called “Englisc” from which the word English is derived. Collectively, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, became known as the Anglo-Saxons.

The conversion to Christianity brought some Latin words (the language of the church) into English language. They were concerned with naming the church dignitaries, ceremonies, etc. some words, such as church, bishop, baptism, monk, eucharis, and presbyter came indirectly through Latin from the Greek.

The Vikings, also known as the Norsemen, invaded England by the 8^th century, which in turn, gave English a Norwegian and Danish influence. Some words derived from the Norse include cake, take, egg, leg, window, husband, skill, sky, skin, anger, flat, odd, they, their and them.

Watch this 51-min documentary on the history of English language.
We will discuss this tomorrow.

MIDDLE ENGLISH

Then came the Norman Conquest of 1066. When William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded England, he became its king. He brought home his nobles, who spoke French and formed the new government. The Normans imposed their language on the whole country. French became the language of the court, administration, and culture. It was the language used for instruction in schools. The English language became mostly the language of the uneducated classes and was considered a vulgar tongue.

Most of the English words rooted in French are words that have something to do with power, such as crown, castle, court, parliament, army, mansion, gown, beauty, banquet, art, poet, romance, duke, servant, peasant, traitor, and governor. Because the Anglo-Saxons, now considered the English underclass cooked for Norman upper class, the words for most domestic animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer), while the words for meats derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison).

MODERN ENGLISH

Modern English developed after Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in Germany around 1405 and William Caxtor established England’s first printing press at Westminister Abbey in 1476. The press made books available to more people; more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization of English.

Between the 18^th and 20^th Centuries, the English language continued to change as the British Empire moved across the world—to the USA, Australia, New Zealand, India, Asia, and Africa. The Empire sent people to settle and live in these conquered places and because of interactions with natives, new words were added to the English vocabulary. For example, kangaroo and boomerang are words of the Australian Aborigines,; juggernaut and turban came from India; aardvark and wildebeest came from Africa; alchemy and algebra came from Arabian peninsula.

The majority of words in modern English have foreign, not Old English roots. In fact, only about 1/6^th of the known Old English words have descendants surviving today. This one-sixth, however, represents the most commonly used words in English today such as Water and Strong.

Reference:

 Miguel, S., Revilla, & Barraquio. (2010). Smart English (Second Edition). Quezon City: C & E Publishing.

ASSIGNEMNT:

Answer the following questions:

 1. How has English language changed over the time since its birth?

 2. Based on your own understanding, how have foreign influences helped in keeping English an alive language?