History of the English Language by Sammy Stein

'Do you speak English?'

Probably one of the most commonly asked questions by tourists from England, Canada and America when they are abroad but what if the question back to them was, 'Do you speak French? Or Italian, Or Latin? Or Spanish?' The initial answer might be 'no' but chances are you probably do. No, not the full language but certainly odd words from it.

In this article Stein tries to show the changes in English explaining the conquest of Vikings, Romans and the enormous influence of Latin.

English is a mixture, because during its history it has been changing by many conquers and influences. In this article Stein tries to show the changes in English explaining the conquest of Vikings, Romans and the enormous influence of Latin. This text is for students, teachers and any kind of reader.

English is not as pure as we think. It has been changing during its history and it will continue changing. The first major change in our English language occurred when the Vikings came and conquered England. Some of the words they brought to our language are house, ocean, boat and many others that we use every day. Later, the Romans invaded England bringing words derived from Latin origins such as Judicial, centenarian, legion, villa, vineyard, etc.

For many time, Latin became the main language of scholars and educated people. Poor people would have spoken in their own local dialect, thus distinguishing the learned from the ordinary person. After 1066 French was spoken in parliament and other offices and became widely used because the rulers were from the French court. Then other rulers from Spain came and Spanish words were introduced into our language. During time, words become varied to become “English words”.

English is unique because over time the words have changed and become distinctly “English” in their usage and meanings so it is only linguists who give thought to the root of commonly spoken words, for example: garden which comes from jardin (in French). Swear words have their origins in other languages too with f.... being an old Roman word with similar meaning to how it is used now.       

English is a mish mash of other languages but it is also the second most common language in the world. Nowadays English has become the language of business and the media and wherever you go in the world you find signs in the local language and English. The history of English is still being written, so it in continuous changes. Words like byte, download and hyper drive are now in the dictionary. Other colloquial words like bro, phit, yo' are also appearing in the dictionary so the language is still evolving and hopefully will continue to do so.

The History of the English Language by Risa

“History is based in written records, the runic alphabet earliest written records of the language we speak today date from the mid to late-seventh century” says Risa

This article has the objective to inform about the history of the English Language in relation with culture, old dialects and written records. This text is written for students, teachers, etc.

English arrived from England: “The land of angels” during the fifth century. The early speakers were the “Saxons” and the language was called “englisc”. When this language arrived, Latin was the language in common in the South and EastTwo varieties of the Celtic languages were in common to the West and Northwest; Pictish to the North and East. Syriac was one of the languages North of Hadrian's Wall. Other languages are preserved in place names, for instance, Tintagal.

English belongs to the West-Germanic sub-family of the Germanic family of the Indo-European languages.

English did not become the language in common of England until the tenth century, when Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, conquered all the kingdoms south of the Firth of Forth. Just as today, regional diversity records distinct dialects of Old English in the documents. Although the majority of documents written in Old English that have survived are in the West Saxon dialect of Alfred's Wessex, modern English is descended from the dialect spoken and written in Mercia.

 In the early centuries, York in Northumbria was the center of the English-speaking world. Then Northumbria submitted to Alfred in 886. The language of power shifted to the South and centered on Winchester. After the Danish rule of Canute, the language of power centered on London and has remained there. This last shift has had a profound effect on the language in our days.

English is a stress language; we use stress on a syllable to distinguish words when spoken. The language, however, has a very strong tendency towards recessive accent. This means that, over time, the part of a word we stress moves from the back to the front of the word. An example of this characteristic is “folces” (of the folk) form the Old English, it was pronounced "folcES." By the 12th-century, the word was pronounced "FOLKes." Unstressed vowels tend to be lost. Today we say and write "folk's." This tendency to move stress back *may* have been the cause of an important change and only dead languages do not change. English has changed, but the original “core” is still there. Change to a living language must continue or the language dies. I think Global English is a new phase of the history of English, this language will continue evolving and maybe in a couple of decades it won’t be the most dominant language in the world.

The history of the English Language by Laura Howard

Nowadays English is the most popular language in the Earth. It is the default languages on the internet and there are around 140 millions of learners around the world. English is natively spoken in countries such as USA, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zeeland. These countries have an enormous influence around the world. Laura Howard wrote this article to explain how the historic facts made the English this way. This brief summary is for English learners and all people in general.

English didn’t start on England but in what is now Germany. English started around AD 449 and it is part of an Anglo Frisian group within the “Indo European” languages. The Anglo Frisian group consists of the Germanic languages like Swedish, Dutch, Icelandic and Norwegian, and English and they are all related to each other. There are many similarities between modern English and modern German, for example “Father” (in English) which means the same thing as “Vater” in German.

For a good understanding of English History, it should be divided in three phases:

The Old English Period where English was spoken by West Germanic people such as Angels, Saxons and the Jutes, who invaded Britain in the 5^th century AD.  The native Britons spoke a Celtic language, similar to the native Scottish. The Jutes invaded first, occupying the South of England. The Angles went occupied the north of England, even as far up as Southern Scotland. This invasion pushed the native Britons to the North and the West, to what we now know as Scotland, the West Country (Cornwall) and Wales. The word England itself is pretty suggestive of the Anglo Saxon influence. That’s why Eng - Land translates into Angle - Land. Around the 9^th century, the dominant dialect was spoken by the Saxons, mostly in literature. Old English didn’t have abundance in vocabulary, so they borrowed from the Celtic language. Vikings also introduces some words such as “take” and “cut”.

The second phase of the English history is called the “Middle English”. This phase starts with the invasion of the Normans in 1066 which dramatically changed the language introducing a kind of French. Then the English became the dominant language once again but with many words of French added such as crime" which replaced "firen", and "uncle" replaced "eam".

The Early Modern English starts with the Renaissance which influenced English with many Greek and Latin words and also some idioms such as “vanish into thin air", "flesh and blood" and "one fell swoop". English was also influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, named by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen. It was a change in the pronunciation of words that began at around 1400. The inventions of the printing press lead to the production of cheap books. So, it meant that many people could read, and then this brought about standardization to English.

The English Today started with new technologic and industrial terms. Nowadays English implies global communication and also domination of the British Empire. It is important to know the origins of this language because it is the most popular language in the world and it evolves little by little every day.

What should we learn, English as a Lingua franca or "formal" english?

Learning english is very important because it is the most useful language in the world. But, which is better? lingua franca or formal english? Almost everyone in the world speaks a little of english, this is called lingua franca, which means speaking just with the ability of communicate with others in very common situations. Learning english is easy, but speaking like a native is very difficult, that's why  many people speaks english only as lingua franca. Nowdays formal english in not used as lingua franca, even though books, web pages and many other things are in english. Speaking formal english is more complex , it's not common as lingua franca but is better to learn it because it helps you to understand fully your english. So, I think its better to speak formal english, because when you are speaking it, yo are teaching the speakers around you, it's easier to get access to knowledge and the principal one: you are communicating with others, expresing yourself in a clear and correct way.