history of English 英国历史简介

The World Languages

It is estimated that there are about 5000 languages all over the world, which can be grouped into different language families, such as Sino-Tibetan Family, Indo-European Family, Altaic Family, Austronesian Family, and so on. Chinese is a member in the Sino-Tibetan Family, while English is a member in the Indo-European Family.
The Germanic Branch


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The Germanic language that remained after the East Germanic split off developed into two new groups, North Germanic and West Germanic. The West Germanic group includes English. The North Germanic branch includes Viking Norse, which developed into Old Norse and eventually into modern Scandinavian languages such as Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish.
Scandinavian Influences

Throughout the ninth and tenth centuries and into the eleventh, Norwegian and Danish Vikings invaded large parts of England. As a consequence, English borrowed words from the North Germanic tongue of the invaders, Viking Norse.
Middle English (1100-1500)


The Middle English period is from 1100 to 1500. The most important event to affect the history of English, the Norman Conquest (1066), took place at the end of the Old English period. The big changes that this invasion produced in the English society were accompanied by equal effects in the vocabulary of Middle English. After their victory in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings under William the Conqueror, the Normans quickly assumed leadership and privilege in England.

Old English (450-1100)


The period from 450 to 1100 is known as the Old English or the Anglo-Saxon period. In the sixth century, the Roman missionaries headed by St. Augustine brought Christianity to the Germanic tribes (mainly the Saxons). The English language adopted many words from Latin, the official language of the church. Latin provided not only religious vocabulary (e.g., abbot, altar, disciple, hymn, nun, mass, pope, and priest) but also a surprising number of what are now everyday words (e.g., candle, cap, school, and spend).

The Normans were originally Vikings—their name comes from North man (i.e., ‘Norse’). In a sense, the Norman conquest can be seen as yet another Germanic invasion. But there was a difference this time. The Normans had earlier been given the control of a large piece of land along the northern coast of France—Normandy. As French subjects, they had adopted French culture. So the language they brought with them was not a Germanic language, but French. The Norman dialect of French became the language of the upper class, while English completely lost its scholarly and literary importance, and was used only by the peasants and people of the working class. This resulted in a massive borrowing of French words into English vocabulary.
Pronouns Prepositions Adverbs Adjectives Conjunctions Verbs
both, some, their, them, they fro, till aloft, seemly flat though are, call, die, drown, get, give, lift, raise, take
Old English (450-1100)

In the fifth century, the Germanic invaders conquered and occupied the eastern part of the British island. The Celtic language originally spoken in that area was replaced by the West Germanic dialects spoken by the invaders, as the original inhabitants (the Celts) were killed, were relocated, or adopted the language of the now dominant society. Roughly speaking, the tribes that settled in Britain comprise three groups: the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. The Angles and the Saxons occupied the greatest part of the country, so that the Germanic civilization that emerged in Britain is often called Anglo-Saxon. The Angles lent their name to the language—English, and to the land —England (the land of Angles).

The Indo-European Family

Linguists have divided the Indo-European languages into several groups, or branches. For example, the Italic branch includes Latin and its descendants the Romance (‘originating in Rome’) Languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian), as well as other extinct languages. Other groups important in the history of English include Celtic (e.g., Welsh, Irish, and Scots Gaelic), Hellenic (Greek), etc.

This created an interesting mixture, because Old English was very similar to this close Germanic relative. For example, Old English Norse loan Many words beginning with scshrub scrub /sk- are borrowed from Scandinavian languages, e. g. lend loan score, scorch, skill, skin, skirt, sky. rear raise shirt skirt craft skill
Scandinavian Influences

Several hundred Norse words were borrowed into Old English, among them till, flat, they, skin, egg, etc.
Nouns
birth, bull, gap, quest, leg, egg, sister, skin
The Germanic Branch



The branch of Indo-European that includes English is called the Germanic group. Proto-Germanic was probably spoken in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia. Proto-Germanic developed into not only English, but also several other languages we are familiar with. Some Germanic tribes moved eastward, into what is now Romania and Ukraine, and developed the language branch known as East Germanic. The most important language in this group was Gothic. All speakers of East Germanic languages eventually abandoned them in favor of other languages, so the East Germanic branch is now extinct.
Introduction




In the study of English vocabulary, it is important to know about the history of English. We will look at the major historical events that have shaped the English language. We pay special attention to the development of the native Germanic vocabulary, and to the forces that introduced a large number of foreign words, especially from Latin, Greek, and French. This combination makes English vocabulary extremely rich and heterogeneous among the world languages.