西方文化发展史

Road of English

(1-23 pages) is written by Lizheng, 11-2 (24-40 pages) is written by Liwei, 11-2
(450A.D.-1100A.D.)
I. The origin of Old English
A. The Anglo-Saxon period
a. Julius Caesar



In the English history, Roman Conquest actually began in 43 B.C. The king Claudius conquered the middle and southeast of England in three years. And with the conquest of military affairs, the Roman culture and custom permeated in England gradually. The cultural trend changed, the language also changed. Latin speeded quickly in England, especially in the upper society, Latin was used in official language, law and business. Then, the whole Western world eventually became Roman.
Around 410, the Roman ended his domination in England. Then, three Germanic tribes, Angles, Saxons and Jutes, were to invade England, displacing the indigenous Celtic languages of what became England.
b. Claudius
B. The influence of Roman Empire
Greek and Roman mythology nourishes the English words, and it produces a lot of lexical stories which strengthens English life force.
C. The influence of Anglo-Saxon period
It is the beginning of the development of English history.
II. The first development of Old EnglishA. Roman来自Civilization


Middle English
(1100A.D.-1450A.D.)
I. The brief introduction
From about 1100 A.D. until 1450 A.D. we see the development of what we call Middle English. It was highly influenced by Norman French and Latin via Norman French.
1.The

Rise of the Roman Empire :
The Latin tribes formed a repubic in 509 B.C. The Romans gradually conquered the other peoples on the Italian peninsula. In the second half of the 3rd century B.C., Rome clashed with Carthage in the first of three wars (264-146 B.C.). These wars resulted in Rome‘s first overseas territories , of Sicily and Hispania , and the rise of Rome as an imperial power. After defeating the Macedonian and Seleucid Empires in the 2nd century B.C., the Romans became the powerful people of the Mediterranean Sea.
IV. The literature in the period of Old English
•The most famous surviving work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf" composed by an unknown poet; it is thought to have been recorded by Christian monks long after it was composed. This happened at around 750 A.D.


B. The definition of Old English
The dialects spoken by the Angles and Saxons formed what is now called Old English. This happened around 450 A.D.



2.Two famous heroes of Roman Empire
From about 500 B.C., Rome was a republic guided by a senate. However, The republic eventually weakened, however, and Rome became ruled by one man — Julius Caesar. In 55 B.C., Caesar came to England after conquered Gaul, but he didn’t conflict with the local Celtic people. The next year, he went to England personally again, occupied the southeast of England and conflicted with the local Celtic people. Although Caesar’s army won the war, the local Celtic people didn’t yield to him. Thus, the Roman Empire didn’t make huge influence on English social culture.


E.g. The English words origin from god’s name of Roman
mythology
Flora: she is the god of flower, and she marries Zephyr who is the god of westerly wind. Her husband gives her a garden that fills with different kinds of flowers. In modern English, Flora refers to plants, its derivational words include flower ,flour , flourish , floral , florist
V. The end of the Old English

Later, Old English was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who invaded and settled mainly in the north-east of England. The Germanic Anglo-Saxon language of these Old English-speaking people was influenced by contact with Norse invaders. It is likely that Norse was responsible for some of the simplification of Old English, including the loss of grammatical gender and marked cases. Therefore, thanks to the Vikings English is easier to learn!

During this time English was the language of the common people, but not the language of the Upper class Norman population that continued to speak French for a time… By 1350 A.D. French had declined so much that few spoke it well and the Kings of England began to speak English with little regard for French. Indeed, during this time there was a growing sense of “Englishness”.