Anglo Saxon-
Romans leave Britain, Anglo-Saxons flood in.
Anglo-Saxon vocab is much more useful, mainly words for
simple, everyday things, like hours, women, loaf and wave.
Four days of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday) named after Anglo –Saxon gods.
Christians came, everybody was fond of them and they brought
more latin words such as ‘bishop’ ‘font’ and ‘martyr’.
Vikings brought words like ransack, thrust, die, give and
take.
The Norman conquest- (1066)
William the conqueror invaded England bringing new concepts
such as the French language, the doomsday book. French was used for official
words such as Judge (1290), Jury (1400), Evidence (1300) and Justice (1154).
Latin was still used in church but the common man used English.
Words like cow, sheep and swine came from the English speaking farmers. Versions
such as beef, mutton and pork came from the French speaking people.
The English absorbed around 10,000 new words from the Normans.
Shakespeare- (1564-1616)
Around 2000 new words and phrases were invented by William
Shakespeare, words such as eyeball, puppy dog, alligator and the hob-nob. Also phrases
like ‘flesh and blood’ ‘eat out of house and home’ ‘good riddance to the green
eyed monster’. Showed the world that English was a rich, vibrant language with
limitless expressive and emotional power.
The English of science- (1700)
Britain became full of Physicists. Royal society was formed.
Worked first in Latin. Realised they all spoke English and could communicate easier
and quicker using English. Science was discovering things faster than we could
name them, such as ‘acid’ (1626) ‘gravity’ (1641) ‘electricity’ (1646) and ‘pendulum’
(1660). Also words to describe the human
body such as ‘cardiac’ (1601) ‘tonsil’ (1601) ‘ovary’ (1658) and ‘sternum’ (1667)
also the words ‘penis’ (1693) and ‘vagina’ (1682).
English and Empire-
English was making its name with the world of science, the
bible and Shakespeare so they decided to tour around the world and find new
places, new resources, new land and people that would conform to their way of
living (using the English language and following the queen). They landed on the
Caribbean, discovering the BBQ, the Canoe, rum punch and the word cannibal.
India there was Yoga, bungalow and cummerbund. Africa there
was words such as voodoo, and zombie. Australia there was words such as Nugget,
boomerang and walkabout.
Age of the dictionary-
English was expanding in all directions, there came new men
called lexicographers who wanted to standardise the spelling of the English language.
Dr Johnson- Dictionary of the English language took him nine
years (1746-1755) to write it was 18”inches tall and contained 42,773 entries.
Words kept being invented so in 1857 the oxford English dictionary
was started, took 70 years to be finished after the first editor resigned to be
an arch bishop, the second died of TB and the third was so boring that half his
volunteers quit and one of them ended up in an asylum. It eventually appeared
in 1928 and has been revised ever since.
American English-
1607 the English landed in America, they needed new names
for plants and animals so they borrowed words such as racoon, squash and moose
from the Native Americans. The Dutch came and shared the American words
coleslaw and cookies, later the Germans arrived selling pretzels from delicatessens
and then the Italians arrived with their pizza, pasta and mafia. American words
came back to English such as ‘’cool movies’’ and ‘’groovy jazz’’.
Internet English-
In 1972 the first email was sent, in 1991 the internet
arrived. Before the internet English changed through people speaking it, but
the internet brought typing back into fashion. Downloading started in 1980,
firewalls in 1990 and toolbars in 1991. Conversations became shorter, people
began using abbreviations allowing more time to blog and post on other
networks. Abbreviations such as ‘btw’ ‘lol’ ‘rofl’ and ‘lmao’ started being
used. Some changeds even passed into spoken English such as ‘FYI’ and ‘FAQ’ .
Global English-
Stole and borrowed words from over 350 languages and
established itself as a global institution. Right now around 1.5bn people speak
English, of these around a quarter are native speakers a quarter speak it as
there second language and half are able to ask very simple questions/say simple
phrases.
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