HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: Viewing Guide Answers
The Language of Beowulf: Early English Aloud and Alive
1. The dates of he 3 stages of development of the English language:
Old English- 1800 to 1500
Middle English- 1500-1100
Early Modern English- 800-449
2. The first known language spoken in Britain was Celtic..
a. The Roman invasion of 55BCE
b. The Germanic invasion of 449CE
3. The vocabulary, word order, pronunciation and form of words of Shakespeare’s Early Modern
English we can generally understand. Chaucer’s Middle English allows us some understanding of
vocabulary, syntax and form of words, but difficulty with its pronunciation. The Old English of
Beowulf has vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation and morphology that we cannot understand and is
extremely difficult to understand.
4. Some points made by Professor Gallagher that account for Beowulf’s reputation as the greatest
poem of the Old English period are:
 Power of sound
 Greatest horror story of English
 Elaborate concepts of day and night- illumination of day means safety, while Grendel represents
the dark, is a shadow-walker and walks the border between man and beast.
 The hero’s triumph over 3 monsters- Grendel, mother, dragon
 The development of the idea that man is the intruder with his civilization in the middle of the
monster landscape—a very timeless idea in many stories, but significant for writing and
understanding civilization at the time of Beowulf
Birth of a Language
1. The language of Friesland in the Netherlands (Holland) is most similar to the English of 500 CE
(AD).
2. The invaders of 500AD were German.
3. The invaders named the Celts, ‘Welas’ meaning foreigner or slave, which became the Welsh.
4. This indicated that the Celts were considered 2nd class citizens and pushed to the margins after the
invasion.
5. The majority of Celtic words in English today are for place names.
6. –ing means people of
-ton means enclosure, village
-ham means farm
7. The dialect of the Germanic tribes that emerged as Old English was Anglo-Saxon.
8. Old English consisted of 25,000 words.
9. The average person today has about 10,000 words in her/his vocabulary.
10. The Monk Augustin was responsible for bringing Christianity to England in 597. Latin was the
language of the Christian religion then.
11. The importance of the Christian monks for the language was:
 Created a layering of words from different languages
 The script from Latin allowed words to be written
 Written pages of script could be formed into books which could be circulated for wider
reading/exposure to the language
 Circulation of the book created a culture of reading and scholarship in Latin and writing
 The history of English was written in Latin
 Old English was able to be written in Latin script
12. According to Seamus Heaney, Old English was a fully developed language because it allowed for
elaboration, it was clear and direct, indicative mood, action, and description.
13. The Vikings invaded Britain in the late 8th century.
14. The Vikings attacked for 70 years.
15. Eventually, the only part of England that remained in Anglo-Saxon hands was Wessex but the Old
Norse language was spreading.
16. King Alfred the Great came to the throne in the first year of the attacks and went on the run. He
discovered the art of irregular warfare. He was able to protect English by calling for warriors in
878 to fight the Danish and prevailing. He then established a peace treaty with the Danes and
borders between their land.
17. English absorb between 100 and 1000 words from the Old Norse.
18. Old Norse dramatically affected the grammar of English by:
 Increasing flexibility and richness of the language
 Introducing pronouns they, there, then
 Restructuring word order
 Lessening the use of adding endings for meanings to words
 Introduced prepositions in place of word endings which simplified word order
19. The Normans, led by William, Duke of Normandy, invaded England in 1066.
20. William had been named successor to the throne by King Alfred but Alfred’s wife’s brother,
Harold, had crowned himself king instead. William invaded to claim the throne that was rightfully
his.
21. The sorts of words the Normans introduced to English demonstrate how they also came and
imposed their rule on the English. The Normans took law into their own hands and with it brought
words of this sort:
Battle, enemy, castle, army, archer, soldier, garrison, peasant, liberty, authority, obedience, traitor,
felony, arrest, judge, jury, accused, acquit, sentence, condemn, prison, jail
22. As a result of the Norman conquest, approximately 10,000 French words were added to English.
English Goes Underground
1. Following the Norman invasion the hierarchy of languages in England was first, French, second,
Latin, and third, English.
2. –
a. The original definition of the word “chivalry” came from horse and meant ‘cavalry’ and
referred to the fierceness of mounted soldiers. When the cavalry became knights, they became
a model of behavior: honour, altruism, how to act towards your lord and ladies.
b. Now the word chivalry connotes honour towards women, politeness and respect.
3. Some common Anglo-Saxon words and their French food equivalents:
 cow—beef
 sheep—mutton
 pig—pork
 deer—venison
 calf—veal
 basically the English animal becomes the French prepared meat because the English labored as
the ‘serfs’ and the French feasted on their labours.
4. What happened to many Anglo-Saxon words following the Norman invasion was that they became
more specific and narrowed in meaning. For example, ‘apple’ used to mean any kind of fruit but
then began to refer to a very specific type of fruit because the Normans had introduced the word
‘fruit’.
5. French didn’t completely absorb English following the Norman invasion because:
 In 1204, the king lost his Norman lands to another empire
 The French speakers were then cut off from their linguistic roots, they lost their connections
across the channel
 French speakers married English wives and married into the English language
 Children were learning English from their English speaking mothers and nurses
 French became a foreign language
6. Some ‘almost synonyms’ that resulted from the mixing of French and English:
 swan—signet
 ax—hachet
 ask—demand
 bit—morsel
 wish—desire
 might—power
 room—chamber
 answer—respond
 begin—commence
 freedom-liberty
7. –
a. The Black plague arrived in England via rats in 1348.
b. Approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the population of England died as a result of it.
8. The result of the labour shortage following the Black plague meant that many clergymen and other
positions were replaced by English speaking laymen. Those who did the work now, the English
laymen, could demand higher wages because there was no one else to do the work. Working
people seized opportunities.
9. English was re-recognized as a language in the British parliament in 1362 for the first time in 3
centuries.
10. Geoffrey Chaucer was a Londoner who held a high position in the civil service with connection to
the royalty.
11. Chaucer’s most famous work of literature was The Canterbury Tales, which was about pilgrims
gathering to set out on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. The characters in the tales pass the time by
telling stories and thus each tale was formed by the teller of the story.
12. Reasons why Chaucer was a great literary writer:
 He was able to change the tone for each teller
 He mixed Old English words and French words
 He introduced words such as paramour and plaissance
 He played with the exalted style of elevated synonyms for literary effect
 He used particular styles for particular purposes
13. Chaucer used French words to show and give the feeling of elegance, exalted style and elevated
grandeur. He used English for its directness and earthiness, and to make the character and its
language to be simple, basic and colloquial.