A History of the English Language (Chapter 1)

PORTAJADA, Emmanuel, M. AB English 1B ELS 100

1. The proliferation of neologisms or newly coined words, such as “app”, “chillax“, and “binge-
watch”, is an example of an external change since it is motivated by social change and is
relevant to the concept of loanwords. On the other hand, the increased custom of teenagers
with their perception of building grammar is considered an internal change because young
people, compared to their antecedents, have a rather disparate and resistant manner of
studying English. Even though they are used to articulate what they think is acceptable, it is
still considered incorrect by the well-established standards of English.

2. With the effect of modernization around the world, it is apparent that social media
platforms are capable of motivating or stopping language change. It is not surprising that
people are actively engaged in the cyberspace since almost everyone has a phone or any
gadget that can have access to social media. The immense inclination of many people within
these platforms can create dynamic discussions, which further develops into a movement
that can sway beliefs, conventions, etc. Applying this principle in the concept of language
modification is helpful because trends cultivate the perceptions of people, and later could be
extended to their vocabulary.

3. The words "enemy" and "pavement" were the ones that I was not aware of to be loanwords;
hence they were derived from the Latin and French influences.

4. Since "ethnologue.com" is not available for free, I obtained a piece of alternative

information from another site called "babbel.com". In the website, it stated that there are at
least 350 languages spoken across the United States, but the languages English, Spanish,
Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and French are deemed to be largely spoken by American
citizens.

5. These are the four ‘weird’ words I looked into:

• serendipity - 1754 coined by Horace Walpole, suggested by The Three Princes of Serendip,
the title of a fairy tale in which the heroes ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and
sagacity, of things they were not in quest of'.
• bootleg - Late 19th century from the smugglers' practice of concealing bottles in their
boots.
• culprit - Late 17th century (originally in the formula Culprit, how will you be tried?, said by
the Clerk of the Crown to a prisoner pleading not guilty): perhaps from a misinterpretation
of the written abbreviation cul. prist for Anglo-Norman French Culpable: prest d'averrer
notre bille ‘(You are) guilty: (We are) ready to prove our indictment’; in later use influenced
by Latin culpa ‘fault, blame’.
• tacky - Early 19th century of unknown origin. Early use was as a noun denoting a horse of
little value, later applied to a poor white in some Southern states of the US, hence ‘shabby,
cheap, in bad taste’ (mid-19th century).

6. Figuring out how many words you know would always depend on the context or situation.
However, if you open to observe your usage of words in your daily interactions and
endeavors, you would then ascertain your capacity to recognize and use various terms;
frequent practice and acquisition are both effective methods of retaining how many words
you know and can imply.

7. English, compared to Filipino, is a more complex language because it has some

characteristics that vary from the latter's vocabulary: its pronouns indicate gender while the
other does not; it has different aspects of tenses; it has a custom for auxiliary verbs; and it
 A History of the English Language (Chapter 1)
PORTAJADA, Emmanuel, M. AB English 1B ELS 100

has a variety for every word from their pronunciations to spellings. These are merely
features that I recognized so there are still some to be indicated.

8. These are the words that were confirmed to be borrowed:

• scholar - Old English scol(i)ere ‘schoolchild, student’, from late Latin scholaris, from Latin
schola.
• travel - Middle English a variant of travail, and originally in the same sense.
• venerable - Late Middle English from Old French, or from Latin venerabilis, from the verb
venerari.
• the - Old English se, sēo, thæt, ultimately superseded by forms from Northumbrian and
North Mercian thē, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch de, dat, and German der, die, das.