History of English First Britons were Celts Celtic languages Scots & Irish Gaelic, Welsh, Breton A few Celtic words in Modern English Whiskey = uisgebaigh = water of life

Roman empire spoke Latin Romance languages are descendants French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian Latin used up until 19 th /20 th century: Scholars & scientists all over Europe Catholic Church services Most high schools

Latin influences on English Romans traded with Britain Conquered it about 100 AD Ruled it to about 500 AD Through Church, scholars, scientists Through French

Angles & Saxons & Danes &.. Invaded England 500 to about 1300 England is from “Angle land” Much of English is from Anglo-Saxon Related to: German, Dutch Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic

Vikings From Scandanavia Now Norway, Sweden, Denmark Good sailors, even reached Canada Often tall, and blond or red-headed

The great fears China: guys on horses, Mongol, Manchu, … Good fighters, not very civilized Great Wall to keep them out It did not work: Yuan & Qing Dynasties Europe: Vikings coming by ship Good fighters, not very civilized

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1066 William the Conqueror Duke of Normandy (in France) Conquered England Defeated Harold, the last Saxon king Peasants still spoke Anglo-Saxon So animals are cow, pig, sheep, deer Nobles spoke French Meat is beef, pork, mutton, venison

Anglo-Saxon → English Vowel changes for plural: tooth/teeth, man/men, mouse/mice, foot/feet, house/houses, … Vowel change for tense: break/broke, read/read, fight/fought, get/got, sit/sat, drink/drank,... will/would, may/might,...

F → V Plurals wife/wives, life/lives, wolf/wolves, thief/thieves, half/halves, knife/knives, sheaf/sheaves, loaf/loaves Noun/verb change belief/believe, life/live,...

'en' ending Plurals Oxen, children Verbs broken, taken, given, gotten, … Adjective drunken, shrunken

Two ways to say same thing Normal English, from Anglo-Saxon I broke my arm. Technical/medical, often from Latin I fractured my ulna. All the rude words are Anglo-Saxon.

Where does English come from? Count the words in a dictionary More than half are from Latin Count the words used in a book More than half are from Anglo-Saxon

English borrows everywhere Arabic: algebra, algorithm, … Czech: robot Finnish: sauna Indian languages: pyjamas, bungalow,... Chinese: typhoon, Long time no see,...

Latin for logic & rhetoric QED = quod erat demonstrandum = which was to be proved Reductio ad absurdum = assume x, prove an absurdity, so not x Flawed arguments: Ad hominem = “to the man” Ad populum = “to the people”

Latin plurals, technical English cactus/cacti*, nucleus/nuclei, focus/foci, radius/radii, … formula/formulae*, nebula/nebulae, vertebra/vertebrae,... forum/fora*, medium/media, … * = regular English 's' or 'es' also used

“data” is odd In Latin, it is the plural of ”datum” Can be used that way in English: That's an interesting datum These data are interesting More often, used as non-count noun That's an interesting piece of data This data is interesting

More... index/indices*, matrix,matrices*, appendix/appendices, … thesis/theses, axis/axes, crisis/crises, basis/bases, parenthesis/parentheses,... phenonmenon/phenomena, criterion/criteria, … (but photons, electrons,...)

Rare, but possible Hebrew: kibbutz/kibbutzim French: beau/beaux, bureau/bureaux, tableau/tableaux