The English language

1. The English language

2. History of English 50.000 yearsago 3.000 yearsago Fewknowingsaboutthelanguagesspoken Celts • Celtic languages were spoken al over Europe. • There were many tribes and one of them may have been given a name such as “pritaini” from the names Britain and British may derive. • Celtic languages survive to the present Wales, Scotland and Ireland, but they are not consider English. • The celts and its languages were displaced further west.

3. 476 Romans collapse(theRoman troopswerewithdrawn fromBritainaround 410) (RomanEmpire rules much of Europe) Latin • Latin was spoken in parts of Britain and Europe. • Latin influenced Celtic and Germanic language. Eg: • From Latin • Wall, wine, kitchen, street into Germanic (from germanic into English) • The settlements and roads of the Romans were remained important even after they left the island (410) • The Latin continued trough medieval and renaissance times in the Catholic Church and intellectual development such as Humanism and the Renaissance.

4. 449 Germanics Englishstarts (TheGermanictribes arrivedtothe British Isles) • There was an early contact between Europe and Britain, because: • During the Roman ocupation, speakers of Germanic dialects served in the Roman army. • Many trade contact. • Slavery in Europe (means of contact between Celtic, Germanic and Roman culture). • From the Angles (one of the Germanic tribes which occupied the British Isles) derives the word “English. • what started as a Germanic dialect spoken in small parts of England is now a language spoken in many parts of the world (as a 1st or 2nd)

5. Germaniclanguage + words of otherlanguges = English Half of thevocabulary comes fromfrench and Latin (theygiveformalitytothelanguage) • Fromthe 10.000 mostfrecuentEnglishwords: • TheEnglishis a partialresult of theborrowings and itisthecollection • of wordsthatwereselectedtoappear in a dictionary. • Most of thespeakers of English are saidtohave a vocabulary of 40.000 to60.000 words. • The Oxford Englishdictionary (OED) isthebestresourceontheEnglishlanguage and itshistory. • Ifweknowallthewords, westillwouldnotknowtheEnglishlanguage. WealsoneedGrammar, phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

6. ModernEnglishcomparedtoearlier and otherlanguages Differences in sound, words and sentences. Nuscylunherganhefaenricaesuard (Old English/OE) www.wwnorton.com/nael/noa/audio.htm b) now should praise-INF heaven-kingdom-GEN guardian (first sentence of the Caedmon’s Hymn, from a manuscript dated 737) Now we should praise the guardian of the heavenly kingdom. (Modern English) • Thereisnotleter v in heafen (heaven). • Theu in uard (guard) ispronounceddifferentlylikew. • Itisnotcompletelyclearhowthesc and g are pronounce in OE, sk and g orsh • and y.

7. Words and sentences. • Lack of grammaticalwords: of,theand we. • The OE sentence (a) contains 5 words, whereastheModernEnglish 1 has twice as many. • He additionalwords in ModernEnglishfulfill gramatical functionperformedbyendingssuch as –es in OE. • Sounds. • ModernEnglish has 13or14differentvowels and allcontaindifferentvowelsounds. • English has 25 consonants. • Thus, eachlanguage has a uniquesystem and manylanguages and manyvarieties of English do nothavesomsounds. • Englishsyllablestructureiscomplex (consonantscluster), so in otherlanguagestheclusterisbrokenup.Eg: • Spanishspeakersadaptaninitialsk-sound, as in school, toeskool.

8. One of themajorfunctions of languageistoindicatewhodoeswhattowhom and where, when, how and whythatoccurs. endingsontheverbs and nouns • Thelanguagesdiffer in how • theymarkthesefuntions through wordorderand grammaticalwords • ModernEnglishis more likeChinese. • OldEnglishis more like Navajo (number of endings). Butthedifferenceisthat in OE theendings are onthenouns and in Navajo theendings are ontheverbs . • Theendingsin OE expresswhatwordorder and preposition do in ModernEnglish • ThemajorchangethatoccurredbetweenOldanModernEnglishisthechangefromsynthetictoanalytic.

9. Varieties. • Sociolinguisticsisthebranch of linguisticswhichisinterested in varietieswithin a single language. Of region, social class, registerorlevel of formality. • Throughoutthehistory of English, stndarvarietieswereestablished in a somewhatarbitraryfashion.

10. External and internalchanges. Externalchangesare releatedto: - languagecontact (betweenspeakers of differnetlanguages) - inovationsbyspeakers. -issues of politicalor social identity. Externalchanges are unpredictible. (Politically, geographically and sociallychanges) Internalchangesare when,forinstance, spekers stop usingendingsorinflections and starttorelyonwordsuch as of, for, theandhave. Internalchangesalsooccurswhenthecategory of a wordisreanalyzedwhenprepositionsdtartbeingusedto introduce sentences. However, there are factorsthatinhibitinternalchange, prescriptive rules (includedon´tsplitinfinitives and don´tendendsentenceswith a preposition) (Linguisticallymotivatedchanges)

11. Conclusion • English: • -thelanguge of a group of Germanictribesafter --theyarrived in britain. • -Gammarand words a speaker knowsforconstructsentences. • ModernEnglishisdifferentto OE and otherlanguages . English has lostendings and acquiredgrammaticalwords. • Thechanges are dividedintocategories: 1) Internal(linguisticreasons. Eg a appleanapple) 2) External(social, economic, geographical, political and historicalreasons. Eg: migrationsanndtradecontact)