The Origin Of English Language
Transcription:
The English language in its oldest stages, incorporated vocabulary from Celtic dialects, native to Britain, as well as from Latin, the official language of the Roman Empire, which had Britain as one of its provinces 3,500 years ago. After that, approximately in the year 500 A.D., three Germanic tribes came to the British Isles; Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
The land of the Angles was known as Angul or Engle and its language was called Englisc, that's what gave the name to the language.
Many of the Celts, that lived in Britain before the arrival of the Germanic people, emigrated to Wales, Cornwall and Scotland, another group set off to the coast of French Brittany.
In the year 900, The Vikings came to the British Isles and approximately during a century, the dialect of West Saxon became the official language of Great Britain. Some of the samples found from this era are the evidence that they used Runic alphabet, which was originally created for Scandinavian languages. Many years later, some Christian missionaries brought the Latin alphabet from Ireland. The Latin alphabet is used as a writing system of English to the present day. The vocabulary of Old English was a mix of Anglo-Saxon words, some other Scandinavian words and Latin. Some of the words coming from Latin are: street, kitchen, cheese or wine. Words coming from the Vikings are: sky, egg, skin or window. And vocabulary from Celts, that is still used, are usually names of places and rivers. Such as Dover, Kent, Avon or Thame.
In the year 1066, the Normans conquered Great Britain and French became a language of the Norman aristocracy, adding a lot of its words to English. Actually, names of meats, that are obtained from animals, are derived from French; Beef, mutton, pork, bacon, venison.
In the 15th century, during the rule of Henry VI, English became a dominant language in Great Britain. It was considered that the English language spoken in London would serve as a standard language in the whole kingdom. Especially in higher classes of society.
Someone, who had a lot to do with the development of culture, literature in English, was William Shakespeare. This man invented at least 1,700 words, including: Alligator, puppy dog and fashionable. Shakespeare made English rich in vocabulary, and culturally meaningful. By having Latin, Anglo-Saxon and Germanic roots, English is a very rich language in terms of words. It's calculated that there are at least 750,000 words, which are part of the English language. The Webster dictionary contains 470,000 words, whilst the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, which is more strict, has only 93,000 words.
Much later, in the 16th and 18th century, the fast development of the scientific world started to change the English language that led to the need for creating new words, like gravity, acid and electricity. As England was experiencing this important scientific development, these advances in science were accompanied by the evolution of the language.
From the 18th century, the United Kingdom started conquering other countries, forming the immense British Empire. The English language spread to five continents. Although the countries are no longer conquered at this time, countries such as India, Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Bangladesh, Philipines, Kenya, Malawi, Malasia, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Tanzania are using it as an official language without losing their native language. Besides the spread of English to every part of the world, this caused the development of local varieties and dialects of English and even more new words! The word barbeque, for example, comes from Caribean, whereas zombie was adopted from Africa.
The vocabulary of English is growing at a rate of approximately one thousand accepted new words a year, like OMG, abbreviation of "Oh my God!". Due to its worldwide expansion, English is the official language of the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee. In the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States there are different dialects or ways of speaking it and writing it because of the culture and history of every place, including substrate languages, which are the ones that were spoken in these areas before the arrival of colonizers. Without a doubt, it is a fresh language that is continuously changing and allows you to go in the rhythm of the development of the planet. Imagine the number of new words that will exist in this language in the future!