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Flemish, ENGLISH
THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
PRE-ENGLISH
500 BCE
Britain is populated by Neolithic tribes of Middle Europeans
who conquered the original Britons.
500 - 1 CE CELTIC PERIOD
Celts arrive in waves and eventually settle.
Their language mainly survives in place names:
_________________________
_________________________________________
43 – 420 CE ROMAN PERIOD
Romans conquer Britain in 43 CE.
_________________________________ is the language of the law,
commerce, government, (eventually) the church.
Romans abandon Britain because of __________________________
attacks.
THE BIRTH OF ENGLISH
450 – 1100 ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD
A. In 449, four groups invade Britain from
___________________________, _______________________________, and
_______________________________________.
These peoples -___________________________________________________________
-- spoke closely related languages now referred to as
___________________________________________.
B. Seven kingdoms were set up with Angles as the
dominant group. By the year 1000, the country was known
as __________________________, meaning “land of the Angles.”
C. Anglo-Saxon is ________________________________, a language
much more like __________________________ than modern
English. It had irregular verbs ( _____________________________),
three genders, and weak plurals (____________________________).
Its vocabulary comprises about 15% of our current
vocabulary. These words are mostly “core vocabulary”
words: _________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________.
D. Famous Old English works: ______________________________
and The Ecclesiastical History of the English Language.
E. Second Latin Influence – 600 to 700 CE. England was
reconverted to _______________________________ by St.
Augustine’s missionaries. Some words were taken from
Latin and given an “Anglo twist” -- ___________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
F. Scandinavian Influence – 793 to 870 CE. Warrior
_____________________ invaded England, burning and
slaughtering along the way. The English king,
__________________________________, hid out and ascended to the
throne in 871. He is credited with saving England, deciding
on _______________________________ for education, restoring
monasteries, and founding the _________________________________
_________________________________.
What did we borrow from the Danes?
-- duo-decimal system (dozen, inches)
-- “-Thorp” (Maplethorp, etc)
-- “-By” (Rigby, Derby, etc)
-- ___________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
1100-1500 MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD/ FRENCH INFLUENCE
A. Duke William of Normandy destroys the English army at
the __________________________________________________ and
becomes king in ________________. French becomes the
language of the ruling class until _________________. The Anglo
Saxon Chronicle is abandoned.
B. Until 1250, only about _______________ words from French
enter English – savior, preach, friar, clergy, paradise,
baptism, grace, castle, court, country, parliament, baron,
viscount, marquis, duke, prince, judge, jury, attorney, crime,
marriage, interest, rent, leisure, sport, pork, veal, beef,
dinner, supper.
C. Between 1250 and 1400, __________________ words enter
English from French, many of them synonyms. ___________ of
these words survive today.
D. Chaucer, author of the ______________________________________,
was the first writer to choose to write in English rather than
_______________________ or ______________________. This brings
status to the English language.
E. Other changes during this period – irregular verbs and
other word endings were mostly eliminated; word order
was reordered.
1500 on
MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD
A. __________________________________ -- interest in
____________________ languages arises. The language of biology,
botany, chemistry, and medicine comes from Greek and
Latin.
B. __________________________________ expands trade and also
language.
a. Dutch – gin, cookie, smuggle, easel, etch, sloop,
buoy, yacht, commodore, dock, freight, leak
b. Spanish – armada, banana, cannibal, mosquito,
hurricane, guitar, potato, tornado, tobacco
c. Italian – _________________________________________
______________________________________________________
d. French – ________________________________________
______________________________________________________
C. Shakespeare created ______________________ words:
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
D. Other changes – plurals formed with s, es. Syntax
hardens.
AMERICAN INFLUENCE
American speech was influenced by a new life on a new
continent with new experiences!
A. __________________________________ Influence – American
English borrowed from 350 NA languages, 75% of the
words coming from ________________________________. Most of
the NA words are for culture and places -- _________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________.
B. _______________________ Influence – Americans came into
contact with the French in two ways -- _____________________
and ________________________________. The lexical borrowings
from these groups: ___________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________.
C. _____________________________Influence – Americans came
into contact with Western/ranch culture. Lexical
borrowings here: armadillo, marijuana, mustang, corral,
lasso, rodeo, stampede, taco, canyon, poncho, bonanza,
cafeteria, patio
D. _______________________ Influence -- Americans came into
contact with the Dutch in the Hudson Valley. Lexical
borrowings: ___________________________________________________
E. German Influence -- This group’s immigration to
America let us borrow beer, delicatessen, frankfurter,
pretzel, poker, semester.
SEPARATION FROM BRITISH ENGLISH
A. Collective nouns are treated as plurals by Britain,
singular by America – the government are, the
administration are
B. Spelling – “our” v. “or” (colour), “re” v. “er” (centre),
“ise” v. “ize” (harmonise), “ence” v. “ense” (offence)
C. Phonology:
a. o (bone) is ou (house)
b. er is ar (clerk, derby)
c. calf, path are caaaahlf, paaaahth
d. dictionary v. diction’ry
D. Lexical changes:
a. underground = ____________________________
b. wireless = __________________________________
c. biscuits = ___________________________________
d. flat = ________________________________________
e. to queue up = ______________________________
f. lorry = ______________________________________
g. fringe = _____________________________________
h. black-coated worker = ____________________
So, how has English changed? How will it change?
1. migration/population shifts/polyglot communities
2. borrowing
3. metaphor
4. semantic shift
5. phonological change
6. standardization/ writing academies
7. morphological change
8. syntactical change
9. folk etymology