Mr. Maloney
ETYMOLOGY NOTES 1
DISCUSSION
1.
How does a language begin?
2.
How does a language develop?
3.
What are some examples of new words?
THE FAMILY TREE

The Indo-European Languages:
 Celtic
 Germanic
 Latin
 Indo-Iranian
 Balto-Slavic
INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

English is part of the Indo-European family of
languages.

These languages are related because they
started from the same source and share the
same basic structure.
ENGLISH IN ENGLAND?

English is not the original language of England.

English did not begin until the fifth century A.D.

The Celts drove out the earliest inhabitants of
England and brought with them key parts of
civilization…cattle, metal tools, the wheel,
and…
CELTS TO ROMANS

The Celts brought with them language!
 Shamrock
 Galore
 Plaid
 Slogan
 Whiskey
 penguin
ROMAN POWER

In 43 A.D. forty thousand Roman soldiers
invaded Britain.

Why would the Romans conquer England?
ROMAN RULE!!!

The Romans brought in Latin and Christianity to
England?
 Why

is this significant to language?
The Romans stayed in Britain for 400 hundred
years.
 Why
would they leave?
 Who comes next?
FIRST SIGNS OF ENGLISH

The Celts, Picts, and Scots fought for control of
the land.

The Celts hired a tribe called the Jutes to help
them win the land control.

The Jutes and Celts won, however….
THE JUTES

The Jutes refused to leave the land!

The brought with them their Germanic
language.

Two other key Germanic tribes arrived
 The
Angles
 The Saxons
ANGLES AND SAXONS

The Germanic tribes overran England and
forced the Celts to leave.

The word Angles gradually changed into the
word English.

The Celts were called “Weales” (Welsh) which
means foreigner.
GERMANIC BASE OF ENGLISH
Germanic words make up 1/5 of our vocabulary
but we use them more often than any other words.
 Examples:

Hand, thumb, leg, ankle, hip
 Man, wife, child
 Sun, moon, stars
 Love, hate, friendship
 Sleep, wake, hungry, food, meat, milk, floor, roof


What do these words have in common?
OLD ENGLISH

OE=Old English in the dictionary

700 A.D. to 1150 A.D.

Significance of Beowulf?
 “Com
on wanre niht”= Came on the dark night
BASIC TERMINOLOGY

Prefix: placed at the beginning of a word to
change its meaning.

Suffix: placed at the end of the word to change
its meaning.

Root: base of a word
THE NORMAN CONQUEST

Around 1066 a group of Vikings from Normandy
called Normans invaded England.

The Normans led by William the Conqueror
defeated the English forces and the French
language became the official language of
England?
 WAIT….WHAT?
 How
do you believe the English language survived?
A SURVIVING LANGUAGE
After the conquest, the English people were
forced to become servants or peasants.
 The French language was reserved for the
wealthy…government, law, and business.
 The lower classes kept the English language
alive and strong, it even became easier to use
and understand because it was spoken.

 How
could the language be easier to use?
MIDDLE ENGLISH
In 1204, the Normans lost their land in France
and adopted England as their permanent
home.
 To strengthen numbers they began to “mingle”
with the English people more often and created
an English/French language.
 Examples: court, servant, feast, privilege,
peace, war, treasure, mercy, crime, reward.

IMPORTANT INFLUENCES

Geoffrey Chaucer
 The

Canterbury Tales
William Shakespeare
 Ushered

in Modern English
Johannes Gutenberg
 Invented
the printing press
LATIN AND GREEK

Latin was the language of learning.
 Latin
was used to express an idea or create a word
when there was nothing available in English.
 Examples:

celebrate, exist, genius, nervous
Greek was the language of storytelling.
 People
studied Greek and passed on the stories to
future generations.
MODERN ENGLISH
Today’s English has nearly the same sound,
style, and sentence structure as the English of
the 16th century (Shakespeare’s era).
 The major change is Vocabulary:

 English
has expanded freely by coining, borrowing,
and adapting words!