The History of English in Ten Minutes (Or: Who's language is it anyway?)

[Cheetah]

The Open University has put together ten one-minute clips where they go through the history of the English language. It's quite interesting and somewhat entertaining.

The Open University: The History of English in Ten Minutes

This isn't yet a discussion about anything, but I'm sure this is a topic we can have several interesting conversations about.

For instance: I had no idea Shakespeare is credited with having made so many new words!

 

[Arakhor]

1700 or so, I believe. There's a reason he's generally credited as one of the (if not the) greatest playwrights of all time.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Just watched the Anglo-Saxon one. It was pretty funny. Didn't know that "give" and "take" were of Scandinavian origin.

 

[Arakhor]

Most four-letter English words are either Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian (particularly the ones with harsh consonant sounds). Melvyn Bragg did a great book about English: The Adventure of English, but then I did AS English Language, so I might be biased.

 

[Cutlass]

That was entertaining.

 

[PeteAtoms]

vagina (1682)
penis (1693)

How the heck was the word for vagina invented 11 years before penis?

EDIT: Haha, forgot to mention how amusing this was. Thanks for sharing

 

[Arakhor]

Well, given that vagina is the Latin word for a scabbard or sheath, I guess it's just a change of usage over the years (from the profane to the polite).

 

[aronnax]

That was an enjoyable 10 minutes well spent! Did not know the King James Bible matter that much in the evolution of the English language.

 

[Abegweit]

Hilarious and informative. Thank you.

 

[Joecoolyo]

I'll join in and say I liked it too

 

[MagisterCultuum]

A lot of what was in the King James Bible was taken from earlier translations, like the Geneva Bible. The purpose main purpose of the KJV was to provide a popular vernacular version that would not contain commentary attacking such ideas as The Divine Right of Kings. It was intended to combine the vigorous and popular rhetoric of the Geneva Bible with the older and more soberly respectable language of the Great Bible. It was designed to sound archaic when first published, as this made people think of it as more authoritative. The Geneva Bible was published 51 years earlier yet uses more modern language.



For the most part English spellings made a great deal of sense when those spellings originated. English was one pronounced phonetically, but pronunciations shift and the standard pronunciation often does not come from the same regional dialect as the standard spelling. Also, the English alphabet used to contain a few more letters or Runic origin, used for sounds like th and ough. The Normans strongly discouraged the use of these "Pagan" characters, and introduced some crazy combinations of letters as alternatives. They didn't really die out though until after the printing press became popular, since the first presses were imported from nations that did not have such characters. The letter thorn still lived on for a while after that, but in print was indistinguishable from the letter Y.

Well, given that vagina is the Latin word for a scabbard or sheath, I guess it's just a change of usage over the years (from the profane to the polite).

Similarly, Penis is just a Latin word for "tail," originally a rather vulgar euphemism.

Testicles is Latin for "little witnesses," but had already taken on their anatomical reference in the vulgar speech of antiquity due to the practice of swearing oaths by one's junk.

 

[ZeletDude]

I watched it, thought it was interesting and pretty funny

 

[Cheetah]

Similarly, Penis is just a Latin word for "tail," originally a rather vulgar euphemism.

Testicles is Latin for "little witnesses," but had already taken on their anatomical reference in the vulgar speech of antiquity due to the practice of swearing oaths by one's junk.

The more you know!

I can just imagine respectable, old, doctors and professors holding formal discussions 500 years into the future, using all of the banned vocabulary from CFC, and sounding more like a modern-day rap song.