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Languages and the History of English

Languages and the History of English. English 112. Indo-European Languages. English is an Indo-European language It’s part of the Germanic subfamily of Indo-European languages What does that mean?. …Babel?. Dissemination. Indo-European Family Tree. Indo-European Languages Today.

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Languages and the History of English

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  1. Languages and the History of English English 112

  2. Indo-European Languages • English is an Indo-European language • It’s part of the Germanic subfamily of Indo-European languages • What does that mean?

  3. …Babel?

  4. Dissemination

  5. Indo-European Family Tree

  6. Indo-European Languages Today

  7. When did English appear? • About 600 A.D. or so, when the Anglo-Saxons, or Angles, conquered Britain • At the time, Britain was called Britannia by the Romans, and Prydain by the local peoples, who were driven north into Ireland and Scotland • The Anglo-Saxons gave the southern part of Britain the name England (“Angle-land”)

  8. Anglo-Saxon (Old English) • Spoken from about 600 A.D. to 1066 A.D. • Bore strong resemblance to the German of the time • Featured a slightly different alphabet, with letters such as thorn (Þ, þ) and eth (Ð, ð) • No longer comprehensible to most Modern English speakers

  9. Caedmon and Bede

  10. Beowulf

  11. Middle English • 1066 A.D.-1500 • Middle English is much more similar to Modern English • It consists of Old English, plus Middle French, some Arabic, and some Latin • …how did those languages get in there?

  12. The Norman Conquest

  13. Animals (Old English Origins) Cow Swine Chicken Meats (Middle French Origins) Beef Pork Poultry French Vs. English

  14. Alcohol Timber Heaven Govern Stone Candle Orange Court Guess where the word comes from!(French, Old English, Latin, Arabic) Arabic – al-kol, “spirit” OE - stan OE – timbrod, “build” Latin - candelarius OE - heofonah Arabic - naranj French - governer French – cohors, “an enclosed space”

  15. Chaucer, Mallory, Langland, the Pearl Poet

  16. Early Modern English • Standardization of grammar and spelling occurred slowly • In the interim between Chaucer and our modern English, people spoke EME, which is archaic, but comprehensible to the modern speaker • 1500-1799

  17. Shakespeare, Milton, KJV, Austen

  18. Standardization of Spelling

  19. Modern English • Modern English is the English that we speak today • It’s been roughly the same since 1800 • Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Charles Darwin

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