The history of the English language started small and is now one of the most common languages used today. It started with Old English(Anglo- Saxon), then Middle English, and now is Modern English! It went from having small words and not being very known to 375 million people speaking it as their first language. English has evolved our technology, sciences, and even the books we read. Most People only know the root is mostly latin but there is much more to this language than that. It evolved from many places and many important people.
The English language starts in about 450 AD. when the Anglos and Saxons ( Anglo- Saxons) invade Britain. The Anglos and the Saxons combined were estimated to only be about 3,000 men. They were a small group but started a large chain reaction that would help create the english language. They brought us everyday words like loaf, house, women and even named 4 days of the week of of anglo gods. Most of the gods were people named off of things in nature.
Around 597 AD. Christian Missionaries started to come and brought us some words like martyr and bishop. The Christian Missionaries came in and started to change what the Anglo-Saxons believed in. They were led by St. Augustine during this time. They then started to teach us about the Latin language and start to put them into our English language.
Not much later after this time Vikings started to come in. They brought violent words like thrust and die but also brought us words like take and give. They would rule and control most if not all of Eastern England for quite a while(hundreds of years). The Vikings started to help devolop a
Later around the time of 1066 a man named William the conqueror invaded Britain. He brought some concepts of the French la...
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...d take 70 years to be mad and was finished in 1928. The dictionaries today contain 220,000 words and are still revised to this day.
When the british first got to America we got our words like racoon and moosed! These words traveled the world when the british were traveling back. During this time cities and towns would start to civilize and come together. We started to get skyscrapers, and highways, and businesses would start to be built in small towns and civilizations.
Then we started to get into technology! Around the time of 1972 the very first email was sent. Internet was becoming more popular and less people were starting to handwrite and more were now using the cool new technology to email. This brought us our abbreviations like BTW, FYI and FAQ. This would make english more easy to communicate and help people around the world to communicate to each other.
Kapelle, W.E. ‘The Norman conquest of the North:The region and its transformation 1000-1135’ (Croom Helm 1979)
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.
In England during 939 AD, the English King Æthelstan died and was succeeded by his son Edmund I. Soon after King Edmund's coronation, he faced military threats from King Olaf Guthfrithson (Olaf III of the Norse-Gael dynasty and King of Dublin) whom still laid claim to York which ...
Before England was the superpower it is known to be today, it was a small country inhabited by many groups of people over time. First to England came the Celts, then the Romans, and then the Anglo Saxons. The Anglo Saxon’s traveled to England from the northern countries of Germany Norway and Sweden. When they arrived, they brought their gods with them. The Anglo Saxon’s religion consisted of multiple gods and goddesses and their own view of Heaven and what it would be like. The Anglo Saxon’s also loved poetry, and they used it to keep track of the history of their people. Beowulf is an epic poem that was past down by the Anglo Saxons from generation to generation. The poem is infused with multiple elements of their pagan religion. However, when they immigrated to England and began to tell the tale of Beowulf, the local inhabitants began to listen and put their twist on it. Douglas Wilson states:
The history of the Icelandic language began in the 9th century when the settlement of Iceland, mostly by Norwegians, brought a dialect of Old Norse to the island.The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100. The majority of these texts are poems or laws, preserved
There are a multitude of events and rulers that generated an influence on England before the 1200s. The topics discussed will be centered on a similar time period, but assisted in the heightening of England’s power as a country. As a result, England becomes a potent country, and runs along with many other powerhouses at the time. Without the Norman Conquest, Anglo-Saxons, and William the Conqueror, England would not have developed and flourished well into the 1200s. Several results of these pivotal events include becoming the most powerful monarchy in Western Europe, compiling the greatest governmental system in Western Europe, and modifying the English language and culture, while distancing themselves from the French.
The first English dictionary, Table Alphabeticall, wasn’t very useful, however. It was comprised of only 120 pages and 2,543 words defined very briefly. However, is paved the way for newer, fuller dictionaries to take its place. Its creator, Robert Cawdrey, published it in London in 1604. Dictionaries became much more useful as more and more words were added to them, and they are still used in modern society today.
Beowulf was written around the year of 700 AD by the Anglo-Saxons, a Germanic tribe that had recently landed and took up residence in England. However the events of the unnamed, orally passed tale which came to be known as Beowulf take place in Scandinavia. The main protagonist, Beowulf, is called by the King of the Danes, Hrothgar because he has heard of his great exploits and feels that he is the only one capable of killing the monster Grendel. Beowulf indulges this request and slays Grendel and his mother to spare the Danes continued
Sommerville, J. P. "Anglo Saxon England II." History Department, University of Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. .
In Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language, Johnson argues the importance of preserving language. Other dialects had a produced their own dictionaries, such as the French and Italians. Various writers of the eighteenth century were alarmed at the fact that there was no standard for the English language, since there was no standard it could easily become extinct. Johnson explored many points, such as how and why languages change as well as how many words are formed.
Old English literature flourished during the time the Anglo-Saxons ruled Britain from 450 AD to 1066 AD. Old English was first oral, but later used a runic alphabet written on manuscripts. Old English, is of course, related to our modern English, but is referred to the language and literature spoken and written in England. Works such as Beowulf and The Wanderer are priceless and timeless pieces of literature almost like a time capsule telling us about the history, society, and
There have been many influential influences to the English culture throughout its hundreds of years of existence, but there was one man who arguably was one of the most important figures to have ever changed the course of English culture forever. This man was no inventor who sparked a new age, nor an artist who introduced a romantic theme. Shockingly, this man was not even of English descent, but rather a conqueror from a foreign land. He is most well known as William the Conqueror and the date 1066, is remembered as the year of his arrival to Anglo-Saxon England when he began the famous Norman invasion. This alien invader to the British island was a Duke in the northern region of France. To be more specific, he was the Duke of Normandy, a province of France whose culture was descended from the Norse influence of Vikings. In a series of tactfully genius military battles, William the Conqueror captured the English throne. Few figures in history can boast of conquering an entire nation and even less can claim that they kept control and influenced their new lands. After his invasion and being crowned king of England, William began to dig into England like a tick and his Norman culture spread. William had pulled off an amazing feat through his invasion in England and as well as his earlier life when he rose to power in Normandy which allowed him to embark on such rigorous campaign.
While studying the history behind the Latin and the Scandinavian influence on the Old English language, I wondered the following:
Before the English came to America, they all lived in England. There were no major varieties in England because the English people lived in the same place and pretty much talked the same. They were all going along their merry way until...
The beginnings of English can be found in the occupation of England from the 5th century by north and west German ethnic groups who brought their 'indigenous dialects' (Seargeant, P. 2012, p. 1). The Oxford English Dictionary defines English as 'Of or related to the West Germanic language spoken in England and used in many varieties throughout the world' (Seargeant, P. 2012, p. 7). 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).