The history of English:
The beginning
by Domi
English
may be
full of unexpected spellings and
inconsistent
pronunciation, and it may be
frustrating
and
puzzling
at times, but it has managed to become one of the most important languages of our times. In the last few centuries it has made itself into a language for many
significant
periods; from the 17th and 18th centuries English-speaking Britain when England was a
leading
colonial
country, through the 18th and 19th centuries with the
Industrial Revolution,
to the late 19th and 20th centuries when English-speaking America became one of the strongest
economic
powers, and finally up to the late 20th and early 21st centuries when it was a the
vanguard
of the digital and electronic
revolution.
Through its history, English has shown that is can be flexible and adaptable. It has survived invasions and attempts to destroy it, and it has often done this by absorbing some of the other languages. It also has survived because of the complete stubbornness of the people who refused to stop using it. Its success can be seen today in the number of people who speak it and its number of different variations across the world.
We will look at the history of this strange and interesting language in parts, beginning with its Indo-European origin, to Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, Late Modern English, until we reach the English of today.
Through its history, English has shown that is can be flexible and adaptable. It has survived invasions and attempts to destroy it, and it has often done this by absorbing some of the other languages. It also has survived because of the complete stubbornness of the people who refused to stop using it. Its success can be seen today in the number of people who speak it and its number of different variations across the world.
We will look at the history of this strange and interesting language in parts, beginning with its Indo-European origin, to Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, Late Modern English, until we reach the English of today.
Indo-European
Most European languages, including English,
originate
from people called Indo-Europeans. These people lived from after 5000BC in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. As we do not have any original examples of the language, we do not really know what it was like. The only way has been for modern day
linguists
to use the similarities in the modern languages that we think came from Indo-European to
reconstruct
it. Linguists believe that the modern language that is most similar to the original Indo-European language is Lithuanian.
Indo-European is only one many root languages across the globe, but it is the biggest. Almost 50% of the people in the world have a native language that comes from Indo-European, including most of the areas of Europe, some of Western and Central Asia and a lot of South Asia. There are only a few languages in Europe that do not originate from Indo-European, namely: Basque, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish.
Between 3500BC and 2500BC Indo-Europeans began to move across Europe and Asia looking for new places to hunt and live. As they divided and went their separate ways, their languages changed and grew independently from each other so that, by 1000BC, there were many different language families. The principal language groups were Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian and Italic. At that time there were other language families too, for example Tocharian and Thracian, but they did not survive. It is also very likely there were others that died out and that we do not know about today.
Indo-European is only one many root languages across the globe, but it is the biggest. Almost 50% of the people in the world have a native language that comes from Indo-European, including most of the areas of Europe, some of Western and Central Asia and a lot of South Asia. There are only a few languages in Europe that do not originate from Indo-European, namely: Basque, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish.
Between 3500BC and 2500BC Indo-Europeans began to move across Europe and Asia looking for new places to hunt and live. As they divided and went their separate ways, their languages changed and grew independently from each other so that, by 1000BC, there were many different language families. The principal language groups were Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian and Italic. At that time there were other language families too, for example Tocharian and Thracian, but they did not survive. It is also very likely there were others that died out and that we do not know about today.
Indo-European migrations
These language families then also
divided
up into more language families, until we get to the languages we know today. Even languages that seem to be so very different from each other, like Welsh, Romanian, Dutch, Persian and Hindi, all come from the same mother language.
The first person to have noticed these connections between the languages was Sir William Jones, in 1786. The connections can be clearly seen by the similarity of words in the different languages.
For example:
There are many more examples of these similar words.
The first person to have noticed these connections between the languages was Sir William Jones, in 1786. The connections can be clearly seen by the similarity of words in the different languages.
For example:
- brother in English, is broeder in Dutch, Bruder in German, braithair in Gaelic and bhratar in Sanskrit.
- me in English, is me in Latin and eme in Greek.
- mouse in English, is Maus in German, muis in Dutch and mus in Sandskrit.
There are many more examples of these similar words.
Germanic
The next language family we look at is the Germanic family. Germanic
existed
by around 1000BC and was in the area of north Germany and southern Sweden. In the early 19th century a linguist called Jacob Grimm (who also wrote the Grimm Fairy Tales) noticed that some sounds in Germanic had changed from their Indo-European origins.
For example, the English word foot, Danish fod and Swedish fot were connected to the Latin ped, Lithuanian peda and Sandskrit pada. He explains this by saying that the sounds for 'p' changed to 'f' and the sounds for 'd' changed to 't'. He also said that there were other changes including, 'k' to 'h' and 't' to 'th'.
These changes also explain the differences between the English words with a Germanic and Latin origin. For example, father from the Germanic and paternal from the Latin, ten and decimal, and three and triple.
The Germanic languages also used words from the local languages that existed before them that were not of Indo-European origin. Words to describe things like: the natural environment such as sea and land; equipment used to travel on the sea such as ship and sail; new social rituals such as bride and groom; and farming such as lamb and sheep.
As the Indo-European language family divided into daughter families, so did Germanic. This happened because people moved into different parts of Europe. The daughter families were:
For example, the English word foot, Danish fod and Swedish fot were connected to the Latin ped, Lithuanian peda and Sandskrit pada. He explains this by saying that the sounds for 'p' changed to 'f' and the sounds for 'd' changed to 't'. He also said that there were other changes including, 'k' to 'h' and 't' to 'th'.
These changes also explain the differences between the English words with a Germanic and Latin origin. For example, father from the Germanic and paternal from the Latin, ten and decimal, and three and triple.
The Germanic languages also used words from the local languages that existed before them that were not of Indo-European origin. Words to describe things like: the natural environment such as sea and land; equipment used to travel on the sea such as ship and sail; new social rituals such as bride and groom; and farming such as lamb and sheep.
As the Indo-European language family divided into daughter families, so did Germanic. This happened because people moved into different parts of Europe. The daughter families were:
- North Germanic first became Old Norse, and then split into some Scandinavian languages: Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish.
- East Germanic became Burgundian, Vandalic and Gothic, and these died out! East Germanic was mainly used in eastern and southeastern Europe, but Gothic was also used in central and western Europe up until the early 9th century.
- West Germanic from which Old High German, Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old Dutch and Old English originated. From these families came Dutch, Flemish, Frisian, Low German and eventually, English.
.png)
The expansion of the Germanic tribes 750 BC – AD 1 (after the Penguin Atlas of World History 1988):
Red: Settlements before 750 BC
| Orange: New settlements after 750 BC until 1 AD
| Yellow: New settlements until 100 AD
| Green: New settlements after 100 AD
Click here to read the original article The History of English.
