History of the English Language

A Brief Overview

History of the English Language

Old English Circa 410 – 1100 A.D.

Middle English 1100A.D. – 1500 A.D.

Early Modern English 15oo A.D. – 1650 A.D.

Modern English 1650 A.D. - present

Periods of English

English Pre-HistoryThe Celts and The Romans

Largest tribe = Brythons, hence Britain.Religion = Animism (pagan): saw spirit in all

things; priests were called Druids.Very little of their Celtic language influenced

the development of English, though place names remained visible: -ton (farmstead, hamlet); -ham (homestead, meadow); -ley (wood); -worth (enclosure); -feld (open country); -ing (people of).

The Celts (? – 55 A.D.)

Julius Caesar's invasion/occupation begins 55 A.D.

Roman occupation brings peace and infrastructure to clannish island

Celts in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland maintain resistance.

Latin language becomes standard during period.

Christianity is introduced, though will take centuries of fits and starts to dominate.

The Romans (55 A.D. – 410 B.C.)

Old English410 A.D – 1100 A.D.

The Anglo-Saxon Invasions (449 – 710)

Romano-Celts resisted Anglo Saxon invaders (One king, Artur, won a key battle at Mont Badon in 450 and entered into legend). Celts = OE wealh, or foreigners.

Saint Augustine converts King Aethelbert (Kent) to Christianity in 597, becomes first Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anglo Saxon England eventually forms into seven dominant kingdoms, the Heptarchy: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Wessex, Sussex, Kent.

Anglo Saxons came to be called the Engles, or German tribes, becomes the English.

Anglo Saxon period

The Anglo Saxon Heptarchy:NorthumbriaMerciaEast AngliaEssexKentSussexWessex

The Viking Invasions (787 – 1000)

Vikings were sea-faring (explorers, traders, and warriors) Scandinavians, most active during the 8th through 11th centuries.

Oddly enough, the Anglo-Saxon (and Jute) heritage was not much different from the Vikings’: they, too, were Northern Germanic invaders.

However, when the Viking raids began around 787, the Anglo-Saxons were different culturally from the Viking invaders

The Vikings

The Anglo Saxon “Heroic Code” develops at this time.The Old English Language of this time features many

dialects competing for dominance (Wessex dialect becomes “literary standard”).

Alfred the Great (ruled from approx. 871-899 A.D.) was one of the first Anglo-Saxon kings to push Vikings back; in fact, he was one of the first kings to begin consolidating power, unifying several of the separate Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and establishing the “Danelaw,” a truce with the Vikings.

By @ 950 Britain is unified under a single king, Edgar.

Key Elements of the Viking Age

Caedmon’s Hymn, from the 7th century, is the oldest surviving OE literary work.

Dream of the Rood, among earliest Christian poems in English, inscriptions found on Ruthwell Cross , 7th century.

Beowulf is, of course, best known example: composed orally in 8th century and set in manuscript @1000 A.D.

Majority of Old English ms are historical records, such as The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which was updated from the 10th through the 12th centuries.

In all, there are only 400 mss comprising perhaps a total of 1000 pages of OE text in existence.

Old English Literature

Old English language looks more like German than English.

Remnants of Old English remain in the “glue” of Modern English language, our prepositions and pronouns.

Fundamental concept words hold deep OE influence: hus (house), wif (wife), cild (child), etan (eat), drincan (drink), and fater (father).

Compounding of nouns was introduced during OE period: woroldcyning (world-king), doegred (day-red, dawn), huswiffen (house-wife).

Of 1,000 most commonly used English words, 70% of OE origin.

Old English Language Influence

Middle English1100 A.D. – 1500 A.D.

Middle English is not so much a singular language but rather a transition between Old English and Modern English

Norman Conquest of 1066 put French Kings on throne of England for 200 years; further, French becomes the language of London and the court until Henry V declares English the language of the court in 1415.

During the late 13th and in the 14th century, English was making a comeback. The mood towards France was becoming more and more hostile: it wasn’t seen as a mother country, but as a dangerous rival. Although French and Latin were still languages of prestige, English was becoming the language of communication, even among the nobility.

The Hundred Years’ War with France (mid-14th – mid-15th cent.) marked the definite decline of French and the rise of English as a chief language.

Middle English

Geoffrey Chaucer - Chooses to compose the Canterbury Tales “in the vernacular,” ie. English.

John Wycliffe – translation of the New Testament into English.

William Langland – The Vision of Piers Ploughman, a long alliterative verse narrative of Christian virtue.

Sir Thomas Malory – ‘Morte D’Arthur’ (=Arthur’s Death), 8 tales of Arthur and his knights (mid-15th cent.). This work is important because 8 tales are structurally connected and reminiscent of a novel.

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is also from this time period.

Middle English Literature

The Middle English (ME) period saw the introduction of over 9,000 French words into the English language (But new pronunciations didn’t necessarily bring new spellings, witness ghoti, or “fish”).

Word order in sentences (s – v – o) standardized during this period.

This period of borrowing gave English its distinctive (and maddening) flexibility.

Middle English Language Influence

Early Modern English1500 A.D. – 1650 A.D.

Between the ages of Chaucer to the end of the age of Shakespeare, two significant changes occurred. First, inflected endings were dropped; second, the pronunciation of English long vowels changed, the “Great Vowel Shift.” To our ears, the people of the Early Modern English period would be mispronouncing words.

A rough guide to the shift:A ah > ay Baht the hook / Bait the hookE ay > ee Lunch mate / Lunch meat I ee > eye Dogs beet / Dogs biteO oo > oh Atlanta Boot Show / Atlanta Boat ShowU ou > you Toothpaste toub / Toothpaste tube

The Great Vowel Shift

More than any other invention, the Printing Press (invented in c.1440 by Johannes Gutenberg) substantively changed the English language.

William Caxton brought a printing press to London in 1476 and printed his first book, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

The printing press simultaneously accelerated the growth of literacy and necessitated the standardization of spelling and grammar.

Early Modern English

Modern English1650 A.D. - present

It is your responsibility to engage in battle with any who would deny your privilege of merrymaking.

Beastie Boys

The masses observe the circumlocution of my conveyance, and myself astride. They express disdain.

Chamillionaire