TESL 2200
Word Usage and Vocabulary in Context
Lecture 2
The history of English: with relevance to the
origin and development of English
vocabulary
2009-2010 Semester 2
Why the history of English
• The history of English is a fascinating field of
study in its own right.
• The historical account can inform the presentday English language use.
• It satisfies the deep-rooted sense of
curiosity we have about linguistic heritage.
(Crystal D 1995:5)
The story of English
• In the simplest terms, the language was brought
to Britain by Germanic tribes, the Angles,
Saxons, and Jutes, influenced by Latin and
Greek when St Augustine and his followers
converted England to Christianity, subtlely
enriched by the Danes, finally transformed by
the French –speaking Normans.
(McCrum,R.1986:46)
•The making of English is the story of three invasions
and a cultural revolution.
How it began
The history of English begins with the conquest and
settlement of what is now England by the Angles,
Saxons and the Jutes from about 450 AD.
“To Aetius, thrice consul,
the groans of the
Britons..the barbarians
drive us to the sea. The
sea drives us back to the
barbarians. Between the
two we are exposed to
two sorts of death; we
are either slain or
drowned.” — Venerable
Bede, c. AD 700
Old English(450-1100 AD)
• 450—600 AD. The invasion of Britain by The
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Almost all of these
invaders spoke dialects of a language they called
Englisc (pronounced/ingli∫/)
• In 597, St Augustine and a group of monks
from Rome arrived in England and taught the
Anglo-Saxons about Christianity.
• During the Old English period, English
language borrowed a considerable number of
Latin words, e.g. bargain, cheap, inch, pound;
cup, dish, wall, wine; abbot, altar, candle,
disciple, hymn, martyr, nun, priest, pope,
shrine, temple and a great many others.
• Although about 85% of the Old English
vocabulary has been replaced in Modern
English with words from Latin or Greek, the
hundred most common words in Modern
English all come from the language used at
this time.
• These Old English words are for very
basic things and ideas:
mann(person),wif(wife),cild(child),
hus(house), mete(food), drincan(drink),
etan(eat),slæpan(sleep),æfter(after),
and, we on, is, and many more.
• 787-878. Vikings (Danes) invasion. Throughout the
ninth and tenth centuries and into the eleventh,
Norwegian and Danish Vikings invaded large parts
of England. As a consequence, English borrowed
words from the North Germanic tongue of the
invaders, Viking Norse.
• Many words from Old Norse(ON) entered and
enriched Old English(OE).
• Some of them replaced the Old English words. For
example, syster(ON) replaced sweostor(OE).
• In some cases, both the Old Norse and Old English
words for the same idea was used. For example,
there was wish (OE) and want (ON), and sick (OE)
and ill (ON).
• Some old Norse word survived in a
dialect. For example today some Scots
say kirk (ON) where English say church.
• About 900 Old Norse words became
part of Old English, and they include
many modern words beginning with sk;skin, skirt, and sky, for example.
• Others are: bag, cake, die, egg, get,
give,husband,leg,neck,same,take,window.
• By the 8th century England was a centre of
learning in western Europe. The greatest piece
of literature in Old English is a long poem
called Beowulf.
• Early History of the Danes
• Listen:
You have heard of the Danish Kings in the old
days and how they were great warriors. Shield,
the son of Sheaf,
took many an enemy's chair, terrified many a
warrior,
after he was found an orphan. He prospered
under the sky until people everywhere listened
when he spoke.
He was a good king!
Middle English (1100-1500)
• The Norman Conquest (1066). At the Battle of
Hastings in Sussex, the last Saxon king Harold was
killed. On Christmas Day of the same year, William
of Normandy was made the King of England.
• French and Latin were used in government, the
Church, the law and literature. English people
who wanted to become important in society learnt
French.
• French words came into every part of life: For
example, chair, city, crime, fashion, fruit,
gentle, government, literature, medicine,
music, palace, river, table, travel.
• Sometimes the French words replaced Old English
(OE) words: for example, ask,(OE) and
demand(F),wedding(OE) and marriage(F), king(OE)
and sovereign(F).
• Sometimes French words were used for
life in the upper classes, and Old English
ones for life in the lower classes.
• For example, the words for the animals in
the fields were Old English (cow, sheep
and pigs) but the words for the meat on
the table were French (beef, mutton,
and pork).
• At the same time several thousand words also
entered English from Latin. They came from books
about law, medicine, science, literature or
Christianity.
• Some words which came from Latin at this time
were: admit, history, impossible, necessary and
picture.
• However, English did not die out and it was
gradually widely used because
-the increased marriage between Normans and
English people;
-The loss of Normandy to France;
-the loss of French’s social importance in
England.
• From 13th century, English was used more and more
in official papers, and also in literature.
• Geoffery Chaucer (1343/4-1400), who was born
in London, wrote in the East Midland dialect
(spoken by people living in the Oxford, London,
Cambridge triangle), authored The Canterbury
Tales.
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夏雨给大地带来了喜悦，
送走了土壤干裂的三月，
沐浴着草木的丝丝经络，
顿时百花盛开，生机勃勃。
西风轻吹留下清香缕缕，
田野复苏吐出芳草绿绿；
碧蓝的天空腾起一轮红日，
青春的太阳洒下万道金辉。
小鸟的歌喉多么清脆优美，
迷人的夏夜怎好安然入睡——
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美丽的自然撩拨万物的心弦，
多情的鸟儿歌唱爱情的欣欢。
香客盼望膜拜圣徒的灵台，
僧侣立愿云游陌生的滨海。
信徒来自全国东西南北，
众人结伴奔向坎特伯雷，
去朝谢医病救世的恩主，
以缅怀大恩大德的圣徒。
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转自[英美者]-英语专业网站：
http://www.enmajor.com/cn/Html/M/L/9238
9.html
For the movie you can go to
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http://v.ku6.com/show/xM_D_qNZg6CI
H7TA.html
• Later in 15th century, English completely
replaced French in the home, in education and
in government. It also replaced Latin as the
language of written communication. English
had survived—but it had changed enormously.
• By the end of 15 century English was starting
to be read by thousands of people. In the
next century it was read by many more, and
used by the great star of English literatureWilliam Shakespeare.
Modern English (16th century)
• However, the acceptance of English as a
language of learning was not complete until
the end of the seventeenth century.
• During 16th and 17th centuries, writers in
English borrowed about 30,000 words from
about fifty languages, mainly to describe new
things and ideas, and many of them are still
used today.
• The new words came mainly from Latin; for
example, desperate, expensive, explain, fact.
• As the European explorations of the world widened,
so words came into English from America, Africa
and Asia. For example, chocolate and tomato came
from Mexico, banana from Africa, coffee from
Turkey, and caravan from Persia.
Shakespeare(1564-1616)
• The age of Queen
Elizabeth I (Queen of
England 1558-1603)
was one of a great
flowering of literature.
• Shakespeare is
considered the
greatest writer of
plays.
• He created about two thousand words, and a huge
number of expressions which are now part of
everyday English.
• For example, he invented: it’s early days (it's too
soon to know what will happen); in my mind’s eyes(
in my imagination); tongue-tied (unable to speak
because you are shy); the long and short of it( all
that needs to be said about something)
The King James Bible(1611)
• This version has an important influence on the
English language.
• They aimed to make the language sound poetic and
musical when it was read aloud.
• Its language became part of everyday English, with
expressions like: the apple of somebody’s eye( a
person who is loved very much by somebody); by
the skin of your teeth( you only just manage to do
something; the salt of the earth ( a very honest
person); the straight and narrow (an honest way
of living).
Bringing order to English
• The great growth in new words between 1530 and
1660 left people uncertain.
• What was happening to the language? If so many
foreign and newly-formed words kept on being
added to it, would it remain English?
• Some people in England wanted to create an
official organization to control the English
language.
• In 17th century, the appearance of the first
English dictionary slowly brought about more
regularity in spelling.
• In 1755, Samuel Johnson produced A
Dictionary of the English Language.
• During 18th century, ways of spelling that
differed from these dictionaries were seen to
be incorrect and a sign of stupidity or bad
education.
• The grammarians at this time considered the
grammar of much ordinary spoken language and
regional dialects (especially Scots) to be wrong and
believed that the grammar of English should be the
same as that of Latin.
• For example, they thought that a sentence should
not end with a preposition because in Latin it did
not. For example, it would be correct to say I like
the town in which I live, but not I like the town
which I live in.
Modern English(1800-now)
• The discoveries and inventions in all areas of
science in the last 200 years have led to new words
for machine, materials, plants, animals, stars,
diseases and medicines, and new expressions for
scientific ideas.
• About 100,000 new words have entered the
language in the last hundred years-more than ever
before.
• Some example of these new words, with the date
when each word first appeared in writing. Most new
words( about two-thirds) have been made by
combining two old words: fingerprint(1859),
airport(1919), streetwise(1965).
• The recent development in computers introduced
many of its type: online (1950), user-friendly,
download(1980).
• Some new words have been made from Latin
and Greek; for example, photograph (1839),
helicopter(1872), aeroplane(1874), and
video(1958).
• Others are old words given new meanings. For
example, pilot(1907) was first used to refer to a
person who directs the path of ship, and
cassette(1960) used to mean a small box.
• About five percent of new words have come from
foreign languages. For example, disco(1964) has
come from French and pizza(1935) from Italian.
And a few words have developed from the names of
things we buy: for example, coke(1909) from CocaCola, and walkman (1981) from Sony Walkman.
• Some words have been shortened: photo
(1860) for photograph;plane(1908) for
aeroplane; telly (1940) and TV (1948) for
television.
• Some words first appeared as slang before
they joined the main language; for example
boss (1923) was an American slang word,
meaning manager.
• Some words have combined sounds from two other
words: for example,smog(1905), used to describe
the bad air in cities, is made from smoke and fog.
• Only a few new words have not been created from
other words. Two examples are nylon(1938) to
describe a man-made material, and flip-flop(1970),
a type of shoe that makes a noise as you walk.
• Oxford English
Dictionary (OED),
which was completed in
1928, includes a total
of 414,800 words, all
English words since
1150 ( even those that
are no longer used).
• OED does not include many spoken words,
slang words or words from non-British kinds
of English.
• Some people think that there are probably
a million different words and expressions in
English today.
– The spread of new words in the 20th century
was made possible by newspapers, radio,
television, films, pop music and the Internet.
– English passed the 1,000,000 threshold on
June 10, 2009 at 10:22 am GMT and today
English has 1,001,543.(source: the global
language monitor)
The future of English(es)?
…we no longer control English in any
meaningful way. It is no longer our ship,
but the sea. (Andrew Marr,1998)