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Historical Perspective Of English Language
Historical Perspective Of English Language
Topics in history of english
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The English language as many other languages in the World has been evolving through time, and it passed through many stages including its nearly extinction. So where and when did this story begin? 2000 years ago in what now would be the United Kingdom, the language was incomprehensible. The Anglo-Saxon, wich is known also as Old English, was a language that sounded like the modern Frisian language. This language arrived when Germanic tribes invaded Britain and subjugated the native Celts. Nowadays some words have stayed more or less the same down the centuries, words like: buter (butter), brea (bread), tsiis (cheese) miel (meal), sliepe (sleep), boat (boat), snie (snow), see (sea), stoarm (storm). It was the west Germanic tribes which invented these words. Anglo-Saxon, we all speak it every day; nouns like: youth, son, daughter, field, friend, home and ground; prepositions: in, on into, by, and from. And, an; come from Old English, so as all the numbers and verbs like: drink, come, go, sing, like, and love.
Britain was devided in several kingdoms: Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex, East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria. During the 6th and 7th centuries, Christian missionaries brought the Latin language, thus the Anglo-Saxon absorbed Latin words which helped the language evolve. The Christian missionaries brought the Latin alphabet which later on would become the primary means of writing Anglo-Saxon.
Beowulf was the first great rite poem written in Old English; since its appearance, it marked the beginning of a glorious tradition which would lead to Chaucer, Shakespeare and beyond. With this poem the descriptive and narrative power is revealed; the poem describes the glorious times of the hero Beowulf from the Geats.
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...nguage of the streets was not allowed in Jane Austen’s world.
During the late 18th and 19th century, came the Inustrial Revolution with its new words to enrich the English language; not only did it change the language, but it changed the world too. The steam engine changed the meaning words like "train", "locomotive", and "tracks" so that they could fit with the new technology. There was a change in society too, “Cockney rhyming slang” appeared and became a new form of speech used by the lower class.
Today English circles the globe, it inhabits the air we breath. What started as a guttural tribal dialect simile isolated in a small island is now the language of well over a thousand million people around the world. The story of the english language is an extraordinary one, tenacity, luck near extinction, dazzling flexibility and an extraordinary power to absolve.
Christian missionaries to Britain in the early centuries took many words belonging to heathen beliefs and practices and adopted them into the church (Blackburn 3). For example, Hel was at one time the goddess of the world of the dead; Catholic missionaries used Hell to indicate the place of the dead, later of the damned. Likewise with words such as Yule, Easter, God, haelend, nergend, drihten, metod, frea; the latter ones have fallen from usage. We see these words used in Beowulf as well as other Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Language has been said to effect culture and a person’s way of thinking; in addition to culture effecting language. Throughout the last 100 years there have been apparent and subtle changes in the English language. The changes an English speaking person may see throughout their life time are different catchphrases, the way language is written, the type of formality used, and how deeply English is affected by cultures; as well as how it effects other cultures around the world.
One of the many permutations that language has made is into what is collectively known as English. This particular tongue was brought to the British Isles in the Sixth Century CE by Northern Europeans or “Germanic” people. (Kemmer) It followed English colonists around the world, including areas in North America, which will be the subject of this essay.
how the English language has changed in the many years from then until now. The
Mollin, S., 2006. “English as a Lingua Franca: A New Variety in the New Expanding Circle?”, The Nordic Journal of English Studies 5(2), pp. 41-57. Available from
...Kentish, West Saxon, Northumbrian, and Mercian. Since the Normans came from France and had already taken over the rule over England, certain dialects of the French language integrated into the English language. Several years after the Normans had invaded England, the English language underwent numerous changes due to the influence of various settlers. However, the arrival of the Normans in England introduced a new language and culture. Most people had little knowledge about the language and culture introduced. The French language was a preserve for the upper class and the ruling class. Although French remained a language of the upper class and the rulers for a long time, a period came when even the people in higher social classes considered it a necessity to learn the English language. The Norman Conquest resulted in a complete transformation of the English language.
Beowulf is the single greatest story of Old English literature and one of the greatest epics of all time. Ironically, no one can lay claim to being the author of this amazing example of literature. The creator of this poem was said to be alive around 600 A.D. and the story was, since then, been passed down orally from generation to generation. When the first English monks heard the story, they took it upon themselves to write it down and add a bit of their own thoughts. Thus, a great epic and the beginning to English literature was born.
The final shift towards their evolution, and the big culture bomb, started with the Norman invasion of Britain; this battle caused an influx of culture into a mainly homogenous society. It started in 1066 when William the Conqueror won at the Battle of Hastings (Delahoyde 1), took the British crown by force, and brought French language and its influence into the quaint British countryside (McIntyre 12). This French influence gave the final shove and created the next step towards a modern language; it provided a stepping-stone into becoming a more advanced society with a more advanced language. Without the French, there would be no evolution from Old English to Middle English.
The English language arose from the early Anglo Saxon inhabitants in ancient England and spread to Scotland and other European countries via the British Empire and later to the United States through colonial political and economical influences. It later dispersed to other parts of the world through these same influences to become one of the leading languages of the world. It has over the years developed by adopting different dialects to create a language, which is the standard lingual Franca in many countries. The rapid growth of the English language and its adoption by different cultures across the globe is sufficient ground to make it the global language.
Invasion in the 9th century by Scandinavians, who settled in the north of England and the establishment of Danelaw in 886 AD defining the area governed by the Danes in the north and east, had a marked effect on the language spoken there (Beal, J. 2012, p. 59). These periods are known as Early and Later Old English (Beal, J. 2012, p. 50). The Norman invasion of 1066 AD began a period of two centuries in which French was the official language of England, resulting in the introduction of many words with French or Latin roots, such as 'baron', 'justice' and 'government' (Beal, J. 2012, p. 64). English was first used in Parliament in 1362 AD and gradually displaced French (Appendix I, in Seargeant, J and Swann, J.... ... middle of paper ... ...
SeargentPhilip, and Joan Swam. English in the world: History, diversity, change. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012.
The development of the English language was a combination of cultural, political, social and religious events that each playing their own part shaping the modern English language spoken today as a first language by 400 million people . As Baugh and Cable convey to us in A History of the English Language; ‘It understates matters to say that political, economic, and social forces influence a language’. Although it cannot be identified exactly when the inhabitants of Britain began to speak English, there are some sources that give an insight into the nature of the forces that played a role in its foundation such as: the four medieval manuscripts;
Christian missionaries introduced the Germanic tribes to a much more rounded Roman alphabet, common to that we have today, which was easier to write with and read. Therefore, the Anglo-Saxons quickly adopted this new Roman alphabet. Old English literature developed rather quickly around the 6th and 8th Century. Many beautiful poems and text survive from this period in history, including the best known epic long poem “Beowulf” which may have been written in about the 8th century. With its three thousand one hundred and eighty two lines of work Beowulf shows that Old English was a fully developed language at this time. This poem also illustrates the variety and depth of the English vocabulary at that time, in addition to its fondness for synonyms and subtleties of meanings. Old English is considered a complex language in comparison with that of modern English used today. In Old
New locations, mingling with different cultures and being away from the changes that were also happening in England, played a major part in the forming of a new variety which we have come to know as American English.
While studying the history behind the Latin and the Scandinavian influence on the Old English language, I wondered the following: