History of the English Language

Tracing the development of our (largely stolen) magnificent language!This is a quickie replacement presentation, so I’m afraid it’s really straightforward and not animated. :p

The Forms of EnglishThe people who decide these

things were nice and made it easy to remember!

Old EnglishMiddle EnglishModern English

◦Early Modern English◦Modern English

Before EnglishLong, long ago, the native people

of the British Isles were sitting around, minding their own business, worshipping their own gods, and only occasionally sacrificing people. All around, they were pretty decent.

They spoke several languages. The most common were Celtic and Gaelic.

Before EnglishTHEN, around 55 BC, the Romans

arrived!They kicked everyone’s fannies

and took over. Very rude. The Romans spoke Latin. They

expected the locals to learn Latin, too.

So most Britons knew a local language, such as Celtic, but also learned Latin.

Old EnglishEventually, the Roman Empire

fell to a lot of German invaders. This was around 430-470 AD.◦They were called the Angles, Saxons,

and Jutes. ◦This is where we get the word

“Anglo-Saxon,” which refers to people of British/Germanic descent.

These Germans came in and took over the Britons.

Old EnglishThe Britons and the Angles had a

lot more trouble communicating. Over time, they started to just…

squish the local languages and the Old German together.

The “squishing” of Celtic, Gaelic, and Old German created a new language – the language of the Angles, oooorrrr…

Old EnglishENGLISH! (Angles = Engles =

English!)This early English doesn’t look or

sound much like modern English.For a long time, in fact, no one

wrote in English. It was the Roman Catholic church that started to write down English, and made up a lot of the spelling.

People also adopted a lot of Latin words and squished them into English.

Old English Examples

Old English Letters

The letters “K,” “Q,” and “Z” were not used. The letter “C” covered “K” and “Q” because only “S” made the ssss sound.

Old English TodayOld English is a dead language – no one

speaks it as a first language anymore.It survives largely as basic English

words.◦Wulf◦Hus◦Hors◦Treo◦Scēp◦Modor◦Fæder

BeowulfMost of the surviving texts we

have in Old English are poems.The most famous example is the

epic poem Beowulf.An epic poem tells a long,

involved story, usually with some action in it.

Beowulf is full of action!

Beowulf

The Opening of BeowulfHwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,

þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearðfeasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendraofer hronrade hyran scolde,gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning!

WHAT did I just listen to?!Listen! We of the Spear-Danes in the days of yore,

of those clan-kings, heard of their glory,how those nobles performed courageous deeds.Often Scyld, Scef's son, from enemy hostsfrom many peoples seized mead-benches;and terrorised the fearsome Heruli after first he wasfound helpless and destitute, he then knew recompense for that,he waxed under the clouds, throve in honours,until to him each of the bordering tribesbeyond the whale-road had to submit,and yield tribute. That was a good king! 

Middle EnglishEventually, the Anglo-Saxons

were beaten up, too..by a group of Vikings led by “William the Conqueror” in 1066.

William is also known as “William the First” of England, and is considered the first king of most of England.

The Vikings spoke Norman French.

Middle EnglishSo now we have people in charge who

speak French, and the locals who work for them (called “serfs,” which is a pretty word for “slaves”) who speak Old English.

Eventually, the two languages started to overlap and merge. English adopted a LOT of French vocabulary, but didn’t pronounce the words properly. The Britons pronounced all these new French words like they were German.

Middle EnglishThe combining of Old English with

Norman French gradually created a new language: Middle English.

Middle English looks a lot more like modern English, but the pronunciation is still deeper in the throat, like German.

We get a lot of our weird spelling from Middle English, because we stopped pronouncing things like the final (and now silent) “e.”

Middle English Examples

Geoffrey ChaucerThe most famous author in Middle

English is Geoffrey Chaucer.Chaucer wrote loads and loads of poems.

A lot of them are pretty dirty. *ahem*His most famous work is The Canterbury

Tales. It’s the story of a group of people on a long trip who tell stories to entertain each other. The stories each person tells fits his or her personality soooo…some of them are sweet, some are religious, some funny, etc.

The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licourOf which vertu engendred is the flour,Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breethInspired hath in every holt and heethThe tendre croppes, and the yonge sonneHath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,And smale foweles maken melodye,That slepen al the nyght with open ye(so priketh hem Nature in hir corages),Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;And specially from every shires endeOf Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,The hooly blisful martir for to seke,That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Early Modern EnglishAround the 15th century (1400s), the

way English is pronounced underwent a fairly sudden change.

This is called the “Great Vowel Shift” and took place over two centuries.

In this time, English stopped being pronounced like German. Vowels moved from the throat to the nasal cavity.

Scholars can’t seem to agree on WHY this happened!

EME: The Great Vowel ShiftLyf becomes LifeFive (Feef) becomes Five (five)Stan becomes StoneHerte becomes heartMine (meen) becomes mineSo even though we can read

things like The Canterbury Tales, the pronunciations are completely different than we’d expect!

EME: SpellingDuring this time, English spelling

was not standardized.You spelled words however they

sounded.So, since vowels were changing,

one word could be spelled many different ways.

“Not,” for example, could be spelled “not” or “nat,” and also pronounced both ways.

EME: ShakespeareThe most famous author of Early

Modern English is William Shakespeare.

He wrote about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and many poems.

He spelled his own last name at least 9 different ways. I told you spelling was just made up!

His writings contain around 34,000 different words.

EME: ShakespeareThere are many English words

that first appear in Shakespeare. He appears to have just made up a lot of them!

Eyeball, bedroom, leapfrog, monumental, puking, countless, laughable, excellent, fretful, obscure, assassination, hot-blooded, dislocate, aggravate, fragrant, gloomy, lonely, the list goes on.

Modern EnglishThis is sometimes called “Late

Modern English” and covers the truly modern versions of English.

Modern English began in the 1800s, during the industrial revolution.

Thousands of words related to factories, trains, cars, computers, etc, have been added to the language since that time.

Modern EnglishSome scholars identify different

“forms” of Modern English:◦British English (spoken in the United

Kingdom and former countries of the UK, such as India)

◦American English (spoken in North America, including the US and Canada)

◦Australian English (spoken in Australia and New Zealand)

Modern EnglishToday, English is the 2nd most

popular “mother tongue” in the world (after Chinese and tied with Spanish).

It is the most common “additional” language in the world, and is a required course in many countries such as China and Japan.

English is the #1 language on the internet.

It is also the #1 business language.

Books in EnglishThe following books have sold

the most copies in English:◦The Bible (led by the King James

version)◦The collected works of Agatha

Christie (a British mystery author)◦The collected works of JK Rowling

(author of Harry Potter)

Where Our Words Come From

English SpellingEnglish spelling rules are a mess!

Why?◦It is made up of many different

languages◦We stopped pronouncing final e’s on

words, but didn’t stop writing them. ◦The Great Vowel Shift led to vowels

being pronounced in many different ways.

◦Until the 1800s, spelling was more or less made up.

Some ExamplesSilent B: comb, tomb, climbSilent G: gnome, gnaw, signSilent K: knight, knife, knowSilent N: column, hymnSilent L: palm, salmon, yolkSilent H: hour, honor, honestHomophones: (our, hour), (right,

write, rite, wright), etc.Ough: tough, cough, plough, dough

More Examples!Weird plurals: feet, moose, mice,

women, men, geese, octopiEnglish vs. American spelling:

(honour, honor), (colour, color), (theatre, theater), (advise, advice)

English vs. American vocabulary: (jumper, sweater), (cell, mobile), (flat, apartment), (ground floor, first floor/first floor, second floor)