languages and the history of english
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Languages and the History of English. English 112. Indo-European Languages. English is an Indo-European language It’s part of the Germanic subfamily of Indo-European languages What does that mean?. …Babel?. Dissemination. Indo-European Family Tree. Indo-European Languages Today. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Languages and the History of English
English 112
Indo-European Languages
• English is an Indo-European language
• It’s part of the Germanic subfamily of Indo-European languages
• What does that mean?
…Babel?
Dissemination
Indo-European Family Tree
Indo-European Languages Today
When did English appear?
• About 600 A.D. or so, when the Anglo-Saxons, or Angles, conquered Britain
• At the time, Britain was called Britannia by the Romans, and Prydain by the local peoples, who were driven north into Ireland and Scotland
• The Anglo-Saxons gave the southern part of Britain the name England (“Angle-land”)
Anglo-Saxon (Old English)
• Spoken from about 600 A.D. to 1066 A.D.
• Bore strong resemblance to the German of the time
• Featured a slightly different alphabet, with letters such as thorn (Þ, þ) and eth (Ð, ð)
• No longer comprehensible to most Modern English speakers
Caedmon and Bede
Beowulf
Middle English
• 1066 A.D.-1500
• Middle English is much more similar to Modern English
• It consists of Old English, plus Middle French, some Arabic, and some Latin
• …how did those languages get in there?
The Norman Conquest
French Vs. English
–Animals (Old English Origins)
•Cow
•Swine
•Chicken
–Meats (Middle French Origins)•Beef•Pork•Poultry
Guess where the word comes from!(French, Old English, Latin, Arabic)
•Alcohol
•Timber
•Heaven
•Govern
•Stone
•Candle
•Orange
•CourtArabic - naranj
French – cohors, “an enclosed space”French - governer
OE - heofonah
OE – timbrod, “build”
OE - stan
Latin - candelarius
Arabic – al-kol, “spirit”
Chaucer, Mallory, Langland, the Pearl Poet
Early Modern English
• Standardization of grammar and spelling occurred slowly
• In the interim between Chaucer and our modern English, people spoke EME, which is archaic, but comprehensible to the modern speaker
• 1500-1799
Shakespeare, Milton, KJV, Austen
Standardization of Spelling
Modern English
• Modern English is the English that we speak today
• It’s been roughly the same since 1800• Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Charles Darwin