THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The English language is spoken today in parts of Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and in some of the islands of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is spoken as a first language by 320-370 million people, by about the same number – as a second one. English is also used for many different kinds of international communication. Politics and business are often carried out in English. It is used in most medical and scientific studies, on the internet and in the computer industry, in the world’s pop music and films. The ‘languages’ of international sea and air traffic control, known as ‘Seaspeak’ and ‘Airspeak’, use English. (For example, in Seaspeak instead of “Sorry, what was that?” or “What did you say?”, you say “Say again”.)

But who were the first English speakers?

We know now that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, English and many other languages all belong to one enormous “family” called Indo-European family. The Celts were the first group of Indo-European speakers to move across Europe. Towards the end of the fifth century BC they began to spread from their homeland north of the Alps in central Europe – and reached Britain and Ireland. The names of some English cities, London and Leeds for example, are Celtic, the word dubris (water) became Dover, Thames is also Celtic, meaning dark river.

In AD 43 the Romans invaded Britain and remained for almost 400 years; they introduced laws and police, roads and towns. When they left Britain in the fifth century AD, the country became an easy prize for the Germanic tribes, the Anglo-Saxons, who brought language they called Englisc (pronounced like modern English). That was the beginning English. Later, around 1000, the country was called Englaland from which we get England.

In the sixth century AD Christianity came to Britain, and the Anglo-Saxons borrowed a number of Latin words mostly connected to the Church and education (monk, school, to spend, to dance, to turn).

The next changes were brought by the new invasion. The Vikings came from Denmark and Norway, first in small attacks, and invaded part of England in 850. From 1016 to 1041 England had Danish kings. The language of the Vikings, Old Norse, enriched Old English(1): for example, many words from everyday life (sister, want, ill, bag, cake, die, egg, get, give, leg, take, get) and some words beginning with sk- (skin, skirt, sky) came from Old Norse.

The first English king after several Danish ones, Edward died in 1066. One of his relations, Harold was chosen to be the next king. However, at the Battle of Hastings on 10 October 1066, King Harold was killed and his army defeated by the Norman army which came from the North of France led by William of Normandy (William the Conqueror). William was made King of England in London. Norman French immediately became the language of the governing classes and remained so for the next two hundred years. French and Latin were used in the Church, the law, and literature. But most ordinary people continued to speak only English.

A great event in the fourteenth century was the Black Death. In 1348-1350 about 30% of the people in England died. As a result many churchmen, monks and schoolteachers were replaced by less educated men, who spoke only English. Ordinary people became more independent, and the social importance of their language, English, grew. In the fifteenth century English completely replaced French and Latin in the home, in education and in government. It survived – but it changed. Through the Norman period of English history 10,000 French words were taken into it. (Some of them are: city, crime, fashion, fruit, gentle, government, literature, medicine, music, palace, river, table, travel). Sometimes French words were used for life in the upper classes, and Old English ones for life in the lower classes. For example, the words for the animals in the fields were Old English (cows, sheep, ,pigs), but the words for the meat on the table were French (beef, mutton, pork).

In 1476 the first printing machine was brought to England by William Caxton. What words and spellings had to be used? Caxton and other printers used the dialect spoken in London. It became the base of the Modern English which starts in the sixteenth century.

The age of Queen Elisabeth I (Queen of England 1558-1603) was one of a great flowering of literature. Shakespeare (1564-1616) is considered the greatest writer of plays. In them – and in his poems – he explored the complications of human nature and expressed his understanding of them in extraordinarily rich language. He had the largest vocabulary of any English writer (20,000 words) and was a great inventor of words (he created about two thousand ones) and expressions.

King James I, who came after Elisabeth I, ordered a translation of the Bible into English. The King James Bible (1611) became very popular and was read in churches everywhere in England, Scotland and Wales for the next three hundred years. Its language became part of everyday English, with expressions like: the apple of somebody’s eye, the salt of the earth, the straight and narrow (way).

Charles I, James I’s son, was not a popular king, and in 1642 the Civil War broke out between those who supported him and those who did not. Charles I was killed in 1649, and England, Scotland and Wales remained without a king till 1660, when Charles II returned to England. After revolution people wished more order and regularity in their lives, and in their language. In the previous century spelling remained very varied. For example, there are six known examples of Shakespeare’s name that he wrote himself, and in each one he spelt his name differently. In the seventeenth century, the appearance of the first English dictionaries slowly brought more regularity in spelling. Everybody in England knows the name of Samuel Johnson who produced in 1755 “A Dictionary of the English Language” explaining words with examples from literature. This was followed, over many discoveries and inventions in all areas of science, by the first “Oxford English Dictionary” (1928), or “Murray’s”(after the name of its author, James Murray), over ten times bigger than Johnson’s one. The second OED (1989) included more scientific words and words from North America, Australia, new Zeland, South Africa, the Caribbean, India and Pakistan. The work is still in progress. A new, electronic version will be completed towards 2017.

In each English-speaking country one variety of English is used as “Standard English” of that country. It is different in different countries. In the 1920s the BBC chose particular accent for its presenters. This was the educated accent of the upper classes of south-east England. It became known as “Received Pronunciation” (“RP”), or “the King’s English”. It was not acceptable to use strong regional accents on TV or radio, in teaching and politics. However, in the 1960s social differences began to break down. Today RP is no longer a particularly important accent and people in Britain are now used to hearing all kinds of accents on radio or television. There are many regional and social (2) dialects. In some parts of the north of England people pronounce /a/ in grass as in hat, /u/ in up as in soup, /i/ in night as in meet. Outside England, in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, there are other varieties of English.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 1539