THE ROOTS OF ENGLISH
- English began as a west Germanic language, brought to England by The Saxons around 400 AD.
- Old English → spoken and written language of England between 400 – 1100 AD.
- Many common words in modern English, like man, woman, king, mother... come from Old English.
- 9th and 10th centuries – Vikings invasions: Old Norse words (sky, take, get... many place names) entered English.
- From the Norman Conquest (1066) – the late 12th century: Norman French replaced English as the official language → English became the
language of the lower classes.
- Middle English (1300 – 1500) was influenced by French and Latin in vocabulary and pronunciation.
+ Words from French were connected with gorvernment itself (sovereign, royal, court, legal, government...)
+ Words from Latin were related to religion and learning (minister, angel, master, school, grammar...)
- Literature in Middle English, such as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, began to emerge, marking a shift in written English.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN ENGLISH
→ developed from the Middle English dialect of the East Midlands.
- Modern English
→ was influenced by the English used in London, where a printing press was set up by William Caxton in 1476.
- During the Renaissance: many words from Greek and Latin were introduced → express new ideas → especiallyin science, medicine and
philosophy (physics, species, architecture, enclopedia, hypothesis).
- 16th century: several versions of the Bible helped bring written English to ordinary people.
- The Elizabethan periods: drama and plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare were seen by many people.
- The development of printing → establish standards of spelling and grammar.
- Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) – the first authoritative treatment of English → defined about 40,000 words
with examples of use.
- Soon afterwards → grammatical rules were establish: the use of me after a preposition; from should follow different;...
- The idea of having an English academy to protect agreed standards has been suggested several times → has never found enough support.
- In Britain during the 19th anh early 20th centuries: many dictionaries and books about language were published:
+ The Oxford English Dictionary was published in Britain, beginning in 1858.
+ In 1926, Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage was released, offering a traditional view of grammar but rejecting extreme rules.
+ The development of radio promoted standard English, and Received Pronunciation (RP), known as the BBC English, became the standard
for "correct" English. Many older British people still regard RP as the proper form of English, expressing concerns over declining
standards in schools and media.
- At the end of the 20th: English is becoming less formal and grammar is less taught → few British people know much about grammar.
- An RP accent is now associated mainly with upper classes, and many younger educated people have a modified regional accent.
- New words are being added from other languages (Italian, Chinese, Japanese), and many slang terras is becoming more common → through
television and the Internet.
- English is now a global language, influenced by many cultures and used to communicate in many countries. It may evolve into a new
international standard.
