1. A History
of the
English Language

2. The Roman Empire
55BC Julius Caesar arrives in Britain
43AD Invasion of Britain under Emperor Claudius
Building of Hadrian’s wall
436 AD End of the Roman withdrawal
The Roman occupation left little influence upon the language, apart from place names such as those ending in
Chester/cester from the Latin word castrae meaning camp

3. Anglo-Saxon Invasion
436 AD “Germanic/ northern European” tribes Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded
Saxons invaded first but it is the Angles who give us the name of the language Englisc (anglish)
Today’s regional variations in accents and vocabulary can be traced to the arrival of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who brought with them different versions of the same language.

4. The Celts
Descendants of Indio-European tribes, who are believed to have originated in south east Europe. Arrived from c500 BC.
Displaced by the arrival of the Angle and Saxon tribes. They are driven in the mountains, islands and costal fringes of the far north and west
Scots, Irish, Welsh, Manx, Cornish and Breton are all descended from Celtic
The Scottish word “sassenachs” is the Celtic word for Saxons.
Very few Celtic words remain in modern English
River names: Nene Dart
Coombe (deep valley)as in Ilfracombe
Some nouns: ass, bannock, brock binn
Brittany (Breton)
Taken to France by migrating Celts 5 – 6c

5. The Runic Alphabet
Old English was first written using the runic alphabet
Each letter had a name
The origins are unknown
The common runic alphabet consisted of 24 letters but in its most developed form, in 9th century Northumbria, it consisted of 31 letters
Runic inscriptions are found on artefacts and stone monuments
The earliest evidence dates back to Ad

6. Old English Manuscripts
Main literary work of the period is a poem, Beowulf – transcribed around AD1000, but originally composed some 250 years earlier
The story tells of a Scandinavian,hero who kills a monster in Denmark and later becomes the king of the Geats, in southern Sweden

7. Christianity Some Latin borrowings in the Old English period
597AD
St Augustine landed at Thanet and introduced the Benedictine order in to England
Christian monks brought a huge new vocabulary – mainly Latin but also some Greek, Hebrew and Arabic words
The monks established churches, monasteries and schools, where education and culture thrived
Within a century most Anglo-Saxons were converted
7th & 8th centuries the centre of religious and cultural learning was at Lindisfarne, in Northumberland
9th century
Winchester became chief centre for learning. It was where Aelfric translated the bible and other major texts into English (Anglo-Saxon)
Christianity
Some Latin borrowings in the Old English period
abbot, alms, alter, anchor, angel, apostle, ark, cancer candle, canon, cap, cedar cell, chalice, chest. cleric, creed, cucumber, deacon, demon, disciple, elephant, epistle, fever, font, giant, grammatical, history, hymn, idol, laurel, lentil, lily, litany, lobster, marshmallow, martyr, mass, master, mat, noon, nun, offer organ, oyster, paper, place, plant, pope, priest, prophet, psalm, purple, radish relic, rule. sabbath, school, scorpion, ;shrine, sock, temple, tiger, title, tunic, verse

8. Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation
Written in Ad 731 by the Venerable Bede
Written in Latin and translated into Anglo-Saxon in the 9th Century

9. some differences - graphemes
Old English AD
Anglo-Saxon
some differences - graphemes
Anglo-Saxon Modern English æ a
ash þ
th (that)
thorn
th (this) ð
eth ρ w
wyn g ʒ
yogh

10. some similarities Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon Modern English
wæs was
fæder father
worold world
cwen queen
cyning king
mon man
hus house
feld (a cleared area of woodland) field

11. some differences - vocabulary
Old English AD
Anglo-Saxon
some differences - vocabulary
Anglo-Saxon Modern English
gelimplice
fitting/suitable
neata
cattle
swefn
dream
frumseaft
beginning/creation

12. some differences - grammar
Old English AD
Anglo-Saxon
some differences - grammar
Se guma geseah þone bodan
The man saw the messenger
Se boda geseah þone guman
The messenger saw the man
Therefore, the word the before the object of the sentence is þone and the object noun takes the inflection ‘n’

13. some differences - grammar
Old English AD
Anglo-Saxon
some differences - grammar
Se guma geseah þone bodan
Hence
The man saw the messenger
means the same as
þone bodan geseah se guma
The messenger was seen by the man

14. Old English 500-1050 AD - Summary of main points
Anglo-Saxon derived from a Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages
Its alphabet differed from the Roman alphabet
There is no single spelling system at the time. So the word ‘evil’ can be found as yfel or efel
It was an ‘inflected’ language, so word order did not need to be fixed
There were punctuation marks or capital letters in Anglo-Saxon writings and many variations in the spaces between words
There were many compound words e.g. ‘banhus’ (bone-house), meaning a person’s body
There is a clear line of descent from Old English to present day English, in sounds, spelling vocabulary and grammar
1/3 of the words we use on any page have Old English origins

15. Old Norse Old Norse Words -by (village) 739AD -thorpe (settlement)
Riding (third part)
739AD
First landing of Scandinavian invaders collectively known as the Vikings
Old Norse is derived from the same language family as Anglo-Saxon but most often the word endings (inflections) were different, so, for ease of understanding they dropped them.
This accelerated the loss of these inflections from English

16. Danelaw
During the 9th century Alfred the Great defeated the Norsemen and they withdrew to the north, behind an agreed line known as the DANELAW. Hence, their influence survives more strongly in the north and north east
e.g ‘gate’ Old Norse meaning ‘street’
Generally it was a matter of chance whether the Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse word survived. Sometimes both survived but one changed its meaning
e.g.
‘to die’ and ‘to starve’ originally meant the same but the latter acquired a more specific meaning over time

17. Middle English

18. The Norman Conquest
After the Norman Conquest, land and power were taken by French noblemen. French, as the language of the dominant class, became the language of government, administration and high culture.
French was seen as the language of sophistication and so adopted by upper class English people
English was submerged for nearly 300 years
When it did re-emerge as the national language it was heavily influenced by French
English - ox, sheep, swine, calf
French - beef, mutton, pork, veal
English see animals as stock to be reared
French see them as food to be prepared by servants

19. English see animals as stock to be reared
French see them as food to be prepared by servants

20. Resurgence of English
Great deal of antagonism between France and England
By the end of 12th century the children of Norman noblemen were speaking English
Black Death of 1384 made labour scarce and raised the status of the English speaker
By middle of 14th century, English again being used as language of government and administration
1356 – English used for court proceedings
1362 – English used to open Parliament
1399 – English used in the coronation of Henry IV

21. u was used where we would now use V uu was used to represent w
Middle English
Grapheme changes
After 1400, the Old English letters þ ð ρ and æ had fallen out of use
And there were some inconsistencies ʒ or g was used for g
u was used where we would now use V
uu was used to represent w

22. Middle English
Spelling changes
The French ‘qu’ was adopted in place of the Anglo-Saxon ‘cw’
Irregular words were replaced by more regular forms
e.g. the Old English ‘bok’ was ‘bek’ in the plural. This and other words adopted the regular –s ending. Very few irregular plurals exist now

23. Middle English Grammar Inflected verb endings remained
Inflected noun endings died out
The Anglo-saxon þæm scipum had become to the shippes using a preposition and a regular plural ending
New verbs constructions, such as shal be, and hadde maked are in use
The infinitive form is now marked by ‘to’ rather than the inflected ‘an’
cuman became to come
Inflected verb endings remained
Present tense Past tense
I play(e) played(e)
thou playest playedest
he/she playeth played(e)
we/you/they playe(n) played(en)

24. popular? learned? literary? Vocabulary Old English French Latin
kingly royal regal
ask question interrogate
fast firm secure
rise mount ascend
Holy sacred consecrated
popular?
learned?
literary?

25. 1386 Geoffrey Chaucer began work on
By mid 14th century English was being used in literature
1386 Geoffrey Chaucer began work on
The Canterbury tales

26. Middle English
By the end of 15th century the pronunciation of English had radically and rapidly changed – within the over the course of a couple of generations, in what is known as the Great Vowel Shift
So the sentence
so it is time to see the shoes on the same feet now
Would sound like this in Middle English
saw it is team to say the shows on the sarm fate noo
The Great Vowel Shift marks the last major barrier between early English and the Standard English of today

27. The beginnings of Standard English
Greatly influenced by the advent of printing, instigated by Caxton’s first printing press 1476
He bases his spellings on the phonetics of his own dialect - the English of London and the East Midlands
Literacy is spreading and the demand for English books grows
Caxton published around 100 titles - including Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
During the 15th century, written English gradually became more uniform and English grammar simpler
Thou, thee, thy and ye were starting to disappear - as was -eth as a verb ending
It lives on however, in this famous quotation “cometh the hour, cometh the man”
Arbitrary nature of this dialect choice
Why the need for a standard?

28. The beginnings of Standard English
Why did the East Midlands dialect become the ‘standard’?
Arbitrary nature of this dialect choice
Why the need for a standard?

29. Early Modern English
The Renaissance (‘rebirth’) – late 15th century
Rediscovery of
philosophy
arts
science
astronomy
chronology
mathematics
Navigation
The Renaissance was a period of changing ideas about humanity and our place in the universe
See Crystal page 193 for examples of classical and other vocabulary

30. Shakespeare bare-faced dislocate assassination thin air stark naked
In his writings, William Shakespeare used more than 33,000
different words
3,000 of those words make their first appearance in his plays
The estimated vocabulary of an average adult in Britain today is 15,000
Shakespeare is renowned for his ability to coin new words and phrases
bare-faced
dislocate
assassination
thin air
stark naked

31. Shakespeare Changes in meaning Hamlet (1.II. Shakespeare uses the word
merely in the sense of entirely
wants lacks
flushing redness
galled sore
dexterity speed

32. The Authorised Version of the Bible
1604 a conference of leading churchmen, supported by King James I, called for a new translation of the Bible
It took 47 scholars 7 years to finish it
It introduced 8,000 new words to the lexicon
The common people – still largely illiterate – could now listen to readings and sermons in their own tongue

33. Concern over the standard of English
1712
The massive influx of new ‘foreign’ was a cause of concern for many.
Jonathan Swift, in Dublin, proposes an English Academy, to ‘fix’ the language.
It was believed that the language was changing too rapidly and that it was being corrupted.
Latin was revered and purists tried to impose its rules on the English language.

34. Concern over the standard of English
Prescriptivism
You should never end a sentence with a preposition
You should never start a sentence with a conjunction
You should never split an infinitive

35. Dr Johnson’s Dictionary
Published in 1775
Written in two volumes
Defined 43,500 words and offered 118,000 quotations of usage
The dictionary is famous for the precision of its definitions. Johnson cites the verb ‘take’ as having 113 transitive meanings and 21 intransitive
The dictionary also traces the history of the words, up to that date
e.g. he gives 15 examples of the spelling of ‘good’:
good god gode guod guode godde goed gowd
godd guid guide gud gwde guyd gewd

36. Role of the Dictionary
Designed to record the language in use at a particular time in history
The status of dictionaries
Word becoming institutionalised
How words are selected for entry into the dictionary
Language change at word level

37. Modern English 1700 -Present
The growth of the English vocabulary
Dates New words and senses New words alone
, ,500
, ,000
, ,000
, ,000
, ,000
Figures from the Oxford English Dictionary database
Major growth during the Agricultural and Industrial revolution
Rate of growth slowed down in 20th century

38. Modern English 1700 -Present
Other factors influencing the language?
Major growth during the Agricultural and Industrial revolution
Rate of growth slowed down in 20th century

39. English Today
Can we speak about just one English?