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Evolution of the English Language
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Evolution of the English Language
Current Day English
Example sentence: My Grandma knit me this sweater, actually.
Example sentence: That skirt and shirt go so well together!
Facts
German Influence
The letter G
Easily incorporated through English
------------------------------------------
Swedish Influence
SK sounds
English soon adapted
SK-SH (with a few exceptions)
What is Language?
When did it become relevant?
What is Language?
When did it become relevant?
Facts
Language has been a part of everyday life since the dawn of humans, making diverse and constantly changed languages. They words/way people address others have relaxed or transitioned into a different form of speech.
English has evolved from hundreds of previous ancient languages, taking and borrowing dialects and spelling from various regions and tongues.
Fun Fact
6909 current living languages!!!
The first dramatic change.
The first dramatic change.
Traced to the Basics
English, Swedish, German, and various other languages evolved from an ancient language known as Proto-Germanic spoken around 500 BCE. This language was never recorded, so most of what we know about the language comes from comparative linguistics and grammatical structure of present day languages. Proto-Germanic is then able to be traced down to an even more ancient language, Proto-Indo European which is unfortunately as far back as historians can trace.
Facts
Before the Norman invasion, the Celts of Britain were ruled by Romans, during the great Roman empire. The Romans fiercely protected the area and people from the Northern European Saxon tribes. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the Saxon tribes attacked, became ruling class and influenced the current language.
Progress and Change over Time.
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes spoke variations of German dialect, but it was most commonly known as Anglo-Saxon. The English/ Anglo-Saxon mix was called Old English, but is part of the Germanic language family, which was first brought to the British Isles around the 5th and 6th centuries.
English shares many words with Latin derived Romance Languages (French and Spanish), those words were not originally part of the language. They were thought to have been brought over to England during the Norman Invasion of 1066, when the French speaking Normans became the ruling class, added a large amount of French vocabulary. After in the 8th-11th centuries, Vikings brought hints of Old Norse when they carried out the invasions.
Second dramatic change.
With the french Normans brought over French, which then became the language of the British monarchy. There were 2 social classes, French speaking aristocrats and Old English speaking peasants. The French brought with them Roman Catholic Clergy, who began to include hints of Latin into the English language.
Future English
If English is to change like it did across the centuries, English will vary due to immigration, wars, and neighboring influences. We might be able to see what languages will be incorporated, but we can never tell what the final product will be. Languages evolve almost every decade, with more and more words fading away and others being born.
Sources
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/types-of-english-formal-informal-etc/formal-and-informal-language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEaSxhcns7Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIzFz9T5rhI