English is a
West Germanic language that originated from the
Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to
Britain by
Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. Intially,
Old English was simply a group of dialects reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. One of these dialects,
West Saxon, eventually came to dominate. The original
Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the
Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it was never a truly
mixed language in the linguistic sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication.) Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the
Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a
"borrowing" language of considerable suppleness and huge
vocabulary.
Proto-English
The
Germanic tribes who would later give rise to the English language (the
Angles,
Saxons,
Frisians,
Jutes and perhaps even the
Franks) traded and fought with the
Latin-speaking
Roman Empire. Many Latin words for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people even before the tribes reached Britain:
camp,
cheese,
cook,
dragon,
fork,
giant,
gem,
inch,
kettle,
kitchen,
linen,
mile,
mill,
mint (coin),
noon,
oil,
pillow,
pin,
pound,
punt (boat),
soap,
street,
table,
wall, and
wine. The Romans also gave English words which they had borrowed from other languages:
anchor,
butter,
cat,
chest,
devil,
dish, and
sack.
According to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year
449,
Vortigern, King of the
British Isles, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by
Hengest and
Horsa) to help him against the
Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (
Saxons,
Angles, and
Jutes). The
Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the
heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated, and the identification of the tribes with the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes is no longer accepted as an accurate description (Myres, 1986, p. 46ff), especially since the Anglo-Saxon language is more similar to
Frisian.
Old English
Main article: Old English language The invaders dominated the original
Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in
Scotland,
Wales, and
Cornwall. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what is now called
Old English. Later, it was strongly influenced by the
North Germanic language
Norse, spoken by the
Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see
Jórvík). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain was influenced by the contact with Norse invaders, which may have been responsible for some of the morphological simplification of Old English, including loss of
grammatical gender and explicitly marked
case (with the notable exception of the pronouns). The most famous work from the Old English period is the
epic poem "
Beowulf", by an unknown poet.
The introduction of
Christianity added the first wave of
Latin and
Greek words to the language.
It has been argued that the
Danish contribution continued into the early
Middle Ages.
The Old English period ended with the
Norman conquest, when the language was influenced, to an even greater extent, by the
Norman French-speaking
Normans.
Middle English
Main article: Middle English For the 300 years following the
Norman Conquest in
1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of
French called
Anglo-Norman. English continued to be the language of the common people. While the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continued until AD
1154, most other literature from this period was in
Old French or
Latin. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance,
ox/beef,
sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as
Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing".
English spelling was also influenced by French in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being spelled
th rather than with the letters
þ and
ð, which did not exist in French. During the
15th century, Middle English was transformed by the
Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing.
Modern English can be traced back to around the time of
William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the
Middle English period is
Geoffrey Chaucer's
The Canterbury Tales.
Various contemporary sources suggest that within fifty years most of the Normans outside the royal court had switched to English, with French remaining the prestige language largely out of social inertia. For example,
Orderic Vitalis, a historian born in
1075 and the son of a Norman knight, said that he only learned French as a second language.
English literature starts to reappear circa AD
1200, when a changing political climate, and the decline in
Anglo-Norman, made it more respectable. By the end of that century, even the royal court had switched back to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in specialised circles for a while longer, but it had ceased to be a living language.
Early Modern English
Main article: Early Modern English From the late
15th century, the language changed further into what is described as Modern English; the change is often dated from the
Great Vowel Shift.
English has continued to assimilate foreign words, especially
Latin and
Greek, even to the present time. As a result of this history of assimilation, English today is commonly believed to have the largest vocabulary of any language in the world. As there are many words from different languages the risk of
mispronunciation is high. Vestiges of the older forms of English remain in a few regional dialects, notably in the
West Country.
