A Brief History of the English Language,

or Why English is Hard to Spell!

How did English get to England?

Prepare to fill in the spaces on your notes sheet.

How did English get to North America?

English immigrants to Jamestown, Plymouth,. . . In the early 1600s

English is a member of the

West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages.

Whew!

Think of it as the Family Tree of our Language!

One of the leaves is our language, English. The branch it has come from is West Germanic, which grows out of Germanic, which comes from the roots of The Indo-European family of languages.

English is the official language of ___?__ nations.

about

English is the official language of ___?__ nations.

about

45

English is spoken by how many people?

more than

English is spoken by how many people?

more than

million

450

English is one of the two working languages of the United Nations. The other one is __?___. French!

Francais!

English is the mother tongue of the British Isles.

English spread because of

British exploration, colonization, and empire building during the Seventeenth Eighteenth And Ninteenth centuries

The history of the English Language

parallels the history of the English people and the British Islands.

In the middle of the fifth century

Tribes of Germanic

invaders -- Angles, Saxons, and Jutes - brought their

languages across the English Channel to the British Isles.

In the sixth century

Christian missionaries arrived in England and brought Latin with them. Other invaders from

Scandinavia
established settlements in Britain.

By the ninth century

Anglo-Saxon (a
dialect spoken in Southern England) had become standard English.

Today,
One fifth of the English words we use derive from this Anglo-Saxon English.
AngloSaxon

But in the eleventh century

The Norman Conquest of Britain brought foreign rulers whose native language was

French.

For more than three hundred years,

French was the official language of England. French was the language of the court. English was spoken only by peasants. For example, consider the words pig and pork.

Another half of our English vocabulary is

of French and Romance origins.
French/ Romanc e

Other

AngloSaxon

No, not that kind!

In the fourteenth century,

English/Wessex again became the language of the English upper class. The new standard was a London dialect since London was now the capital city. During the three hundred years kings of England had spoken French, the English language had changed greatly. The French spoken by nobles became more like English. The English of the common people was now full of French words.

There are three periods of English:

1. Old English or Anglo-Saxon to c. 1150. 2. Middle English to c. 1500. 3. Modern English to today.
An Englishman of 1300 wouldnt have understood the English of 500; nor would he understand the English we speak today.

Heres an example of changes in English pronunciation:

The word name In Old English was pronounced nm (the a as in fther) In Middle English was pronounced nme (fther) + (sofa) In Modern English, is pronounced nm

Vocabulary Sources of the English Language

Words come from all over!

From Anglo-Saxon English bread, good, shower, home, stones, fox

From Latin Christianity priest, bishop, anthem, candle, epistle, hymn

From Scandinavian Settlers Husband, sky, skin, club, gape, root, egg, take, give, window, leg, skin, crawl, die, sister

From Norman French and Vulgar Latin

Legal terms: judge, jury, tort, attorney, crime, assault Terms of rank: prince, duke, baron, parliament, countess Others: honor, courage, season, manner, study, castle. . .

From Latin and Greek during the Renaissance and after

Words for science, invention, and technology: conifer, cyclamen, helium, halogen, intravenous, isotope, metronome, polymer, telephone

Word Parts from Greek and Latin

Prefixes: (Pre from Latin means earlier or before) bi- from Latin means _____ extra from Latin means _________ fore from Old English means _____ il from _______ means ______ mis from Latin means ________ pre and post mean ___________

Word Parts from Greek and Latin

Suffixes: ( from Latin for to fasten beneath) For example: -ment from Latin is a word part that indicates product, means, action, or state.

We often use -ment to turn a verb into a noun: Excitement is the state of being excited. Encouragement is the action of encouraging. Discouragement is the product of being discouraged.

Want to know lots more words?

One of the best ways to increase your vocabulary is to learn word parts (prefixes, suffixes, and roots) that are often used in English. bio (life) + logy (study of) = biology which is the study of life What about geology, hydrology, psychology?

Words from everywhere over the past three hundred years

tobacco, banana, pajamas, squash, raccoon, prairie, chowder, canyon, ranch, chop suey, kudzu, pretzel, kindergarten, bagel, pizza coleslaw, bedspread, tomato, jazz, yams

The origins of a word is called its

Etymology
Use a good dictionary to find out where the words you use come from.

Part 2: The Etymology of a Few Words

tobacco
The word tobacco comes from the Arabic for euphoriacausing herb. Euphoria (from the Greek) means a feeling of happiness or well-being.
Tell that to someone in the hospital with lung cancer from smoking cigarettes! Then again, perhaps thats why people have such a hard time quitting once they start smoking.

pajamas
This comes from Hindi from a Persian word for leg or foot combined with another for garment.

banana
This word comes through Portuguese and Spanish from a native West African name.

squash
This comes from a Native American word. Can you wrap your tongue around this word? askootasquash

I looked up the Etymology of

the word like as in I sure like chocolate!

I found out it comes from the Old English word lician, which means to please, to be sufficient.

English is hard to spell, but it is a wonderful, versatile, expanding language!

Expand your vocabulary!