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Brief History of The English Language: February 2018
Brief History of The English Language: February 2018
Brief History of The English Language: February 2018
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Maad M. Mijwil
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Maad M. Mijwel February 2018
But it is no less true that the influence was there: having to pay Bangladesh, the Philippines, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia,
tribute to the gentlemen in French, the Englishman was about Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Tanzania use it officially with the aim
to disappear or, at least, be relegated as the language of the of unifying the country, without renouncing their native
lower classes. Little by little, more and more Norman words languages.
and expressions would be introduced in the British In any case, there are many more nations in which it is
imaginary. This linguistic pressure was based on the control spoken. From North America to Oceania, through Africa and
by the Norman class of administration, commerce and culture. Asia. It is true that it is not official in many of these places, but
As an anecdote, it should be noted that current English the colonial past has made people of many nationalities and
countries living irremediably in English. It should be noted
speakers consider expressions derived from French much more
that it is one of the official languages of the United Nations,
formal than those derived from Germanic dialects. This can be
seen in multiple constructions, ranging from welcoming a as well as being a vehicle in the European Union and the
person to the name given to certain farm animals, such as pigs International Olympic Committee. Despite this, it should be
noted that English is not the most spoken language on the
and cows. For example, the duals that exist in English to
planet. Mandarin Chinese has that honor, with almost 1,100
designate the pig: "pig" but "pork" (which is the meat already
sacrificed that was served to Mr. Norman). The sheep of the million speakers. English occupies the 2nd place, with 942
million. Spanish is placed 3rd, a bit far from the first 2, with
flock are "sheep", Anglo-Saxon word (Schaf in German) and
520 million people. However, these figures do not count as
young lambs "lamb" (Lamm in German) but the meat that the
lord eats is "mutton" of the French " mouton " (nothing like much for native speakers as for those who have acquired the
the German Hammelfleisch). The same goes for the very English language as a second language. In this case, Spanish
would be the second world language by number of speakers. If
English "beef" or "bœuf "French, which is the meat that is
eaten (" Rindfleisch "in German) and has nothing to do with we count those who study the language, English would be the
the live animal" ox "or" Ochse "in German. Likewise, the first language with some 2,000 million native people or able to
communicate in that language with some skill, almost a third
French gave rise to duals related to trade such as "commence"
and "start", "continue" and "go on", "encounter" and "meet", of the world's population.
"purchase" and "buy", etc. A peculiar conjugation of verbs
Norman was also clearly noted in ancient British
literature. Usually it is written in Latin. In fact, there are Regarding the conjugation of verbs in English, it must be
numerous words from the Romance language by antonomasia said that it has undergone an evolution very similar to that
that were incorporated into the considered ancient experienced in languages such as German and others
English. The same thing happened with the Germanic dialects, derived from Romance languages, such as French and
something that should be considered normal, since English has Spanish. Specifically, different forms have been created to
clear roots in this area of Europe. In fact, there are many allude to the past, present and future, as well as other
words and grammatical constructions that can be made with conjugations known as periphrasis (also seen in those that
words from both Romance and Germanic. come from Latin), which denote that an action is going to be
carried out or is being carried out.
it is estimated that around 45% of the vocabulary of the
English language comes from French, if we include Despite everything, there are differences. For example,
compounds in which at least a part has its origin in that English, as a Germanic language, has been forgotten in the
language ("ice cream ", for example). Other estimates point to subjunctive mood, related to phrases that show a lack of
29% by tearing down the words directly incorporated from certainty or constructions of hypotheses. This has not
Latin (25%) and which in many cases are only used in legal happened in the Romance and other Germanic languages, such
and legal texts, etc. For all this we could consider English as a as German. In English, the subjunctive has been weakened and
hybrid Germanic language that largely maintains its Germanic condemned to the background.
syntactic structure, typical in the creation of compounds,
although they are not written together as in German or In all other cases, it must be said that English complies with
Scandinavian languages, but with a huge Latin influence the traditional rules included in any language. For example,
(direct or indirect) in their vocabulary. there is the difference between singular and plural, something
that was incorporated in more modern stages, since it was
Colonialism and the language something that did not happen in Old English. In certain
cases, it does not make gender differences (like the formulas
The need to expand borders experienced by the United "we" and "you"). This does not happen in the Romance
Kingdom from the sixteenth century made the English languages, in which the pronouns have a variant for each
language spread throughout the globe. The clearest example
gender and number ("we" and "we" and "you" and "you").
can be seen in the creation of the Commonwealth, of which 53
States are part. This community of nations maintains To conclude, it must be said that the Norman invasion made
English as the only official language. Some countries in the words of Anglo-Saxon origin almost disappear. In the
which English is spoken, although not officially, are Bahamas, fourteenth century there were barely 4,500 words of Old
Jamaica (English is the de facto language, but the official English in front of the more than 10,000 from France. In spite
language is Jamaican Patois) and Trinidad and Tobago, among of everything, the Anglo-Saxon words survived, being key
many others. On the other hand, places as exotic as in the day to day of the speakers.
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