Brief history of the English language. History of the emergence and development of the English language

The history of the English language began with three Germanic tribes that invaded Britain in the 5th century AD. These tribes - the Angles, Saxons and Jutes - came from the territories of what is now Denmark and northern Germany, crossing the North Sea.

At that time, the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language, but the invaders pushed the Celts to the western and northern edges of the island - essentially to what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles called their country "Englaland", and their language was called "Englisc" - this is where the words "England" and "English" came from.

Old English (450-1100 AD)

In the 5th century, Germanic conquerors entered Britain from the east and south coasts. The Germanic tribes spoke similar languages. On the island, their dialects formed a common language, which we now call Old English.

It bears almost no modern resemblance and would be very difficult for current English speakers to understand. However, about half of the most common words in modern English have Old English roots.

This is where words like be, strong and water come from, for example. Old English was spoken until around the end of the 11th century.

Middle English (1100-1500)

In 1066, Britain was invaded by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy (now part of France). The Norman invaders brought with them French, which became the language of the royal court, as well as the ruling and trading classes.

This was a period of linguistic class division, with the lower classes speaking English and the upper classes speaking French. In the 14th century, English began to gain strength again, but...

This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400), but would still be obscure to modern speakers.

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

At the end of the Middle English period, sudden and significant changes in pronunciation began (the Great Vowel Shift), with vowel sounds becoming shorter. Since the 16th century, Britain has had increasing contact with different peoples around the world.

This fact, as well as the advent of the Renaissance, led to the fact that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also contributed to the development of a common language of literature. Books became cheaper, and more and more people learned to read and write. Thus, printing led to the standardization of English.

Hamlet's famous lines, "To be or not to be," were written by Shakespeare in Early Modern English.

The rules of spelling and grammar were fixed, the standard of which was the London dialect, since that was where most of the printing houses were located. In 1604, the first dictionary of the English language was published.

Late Modern English (1800–present)

The main difference between Early and Late Modern English is the vocabulary of the language. Late Modern English has many more words due to two key factors: first, the Industrial Revolution and the development of technology led to the need to create new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered about a quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language borrowed many words from other countries.

Varieties of English

Since the beginning of the 17th century, the colonization of North America by the British led to the emergence of. Some words and pronunciations were “frozen in time” when they reached America. In some ways, American English is even more similar to the language of Shakespeare than modern British English.

Some expressions that the British call “Americanisms” are, in fact, originally British expressions preserved in the colonies (for example, rubbish instead of trash, loan instead of lend and fall instead of autumn; another word, frame-up - “falsification, juggling” - Britain re-adopted through Hollywood gangster films).

Spanish also influenced American English (and subsequently British). Words such as canyon, ranch, stampede and vigilante are Spanish words that came into English during the development of the American West.

Today, American English has great strength due to US influence in film, television, music, commerce and technology (including the Internet). But there are many other types of English - for example, Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English, Indian English and Caribbean English.

What fact in the history of English aroused your greatest interest or surprise? We are waiting for your answers in the comments.

In principle, the English language is not much different from most other Western European languages. In the sense that it is the same remake as they are.
It should be said right away: until 1733, the official language of the English state was Latin. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/beginners/ Although Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell tried to translate records management into English in 1653. The first pancake came out lumpy. And 7 years later, in 1660, Latin again became the language of documents. In 1731, Parliament passed a law according to which English was declared the official language. The law came into force only in 1733.
So who created the English language and when? and what languages ​​were spoken in Foggy Albion in the past? This is the picture that emerges. Each class had its own language. Thus, the peasants spoke mainly Germanic Saxon and Frisian dialects.
The nobles preferred French. At first, the Norman language was popular among them. The Duke of Normandy once conquered England. The local nobility switched to the language of the conquerors. Later, among the noble class it became good form to speak the Parisian dialect. Not surprising. After all, England owned significant territories on the continent. English kings laid claim to the French throne. And the French and English aristocracy were a single whole. Contrary to popular belief, none of the French languages ​​were official in England.
Latin was used in the churches. Even when the Reformation gained momentum in Europe and liturgical books began to be translated into national languages, England in this matter for the time being remained an outpost of conservatism in this matter. However, a crack once arose between the English crown and the papal throne. King Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife. The Pope did not give consent to the divorce. Then Henry separated England from the Catholic Church and established the Anglican Church, himself becoming its head. And he decided: to translate the services into a language understandable to the people. True, the extravagant king soon reversed his decision. A series of quarrels and reconciliations began. Work on translating books into the popular language either stopped or started again.
Finally. in 1604, King James (James) I commissioned 48 scholars and priests to translate the Bible. In 1611 the translation was completed. It turned out very clumsily. But it was possible to create rules for spelling and semantics of the new English language. The King James Bible became the basis on which modern English was formed.
In the 17th and 18th centuries there was an intensive growth of vocabulary. Borrowed from many languages. Mostly from Latin. The creation of the English language was completed in 1755 when Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary.
The greatest contribution to the creation of the English language, introducing over three thousand new words into it, was made by W. Shakespeare. Author of 37 plays, several poems and many sonnets. In the words of Mark Twain, “the greatest man who ever lived.” Shakespeare had a great understanding of all aspects of human life. He knew very well cities and countries that he had never been to. It's hard to believe that "Shakespeare" was a semi-literate court theater actor. The most plausible version seems to be that “Shakespeare” is a single pseudonym for a group of authors. But this is a topic for another conversation...
When was the English language created (Samuel Johnson's Dictionary)
The creation of the English language as a whole was completed with the publication of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary on April 15, 1755. It was not the first English dictionary and not even the first ten. That would not be the most voluminous dictionary. "Samuel Johnson's Dictionary" was originally conceived as a standard of the English language and served as it for 173 years, until the publication of the Oxford Dictionary.
In 1746, a consortium of the most successful book publishers in London, the most authoritative members of which were Robert Dodsley and Thomas Longman, signed a contract to create an English dictionary with the writer Samuel Johnson, already quite famous in narrow circles. Such a dictionary was vitally needed. By the mid-18th century, technological advances in printing and binding made books, pamphlets, and newspapers available to the general public for the first time at reasonable prices. The explosion of the printed word required a model of grammar and spelling rules for words known to everyone. This could be achieved with the help of an authoritative English dictionary.

William Strahan signed the contract on behalf of the book publishers. On the part of the government, the project was overseen by Lord Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, who at that time held the position of Secretary of State, whose responsibilities included the actual government administration of England and Wales. The Earl of Chesterfield complained that the English language lacked structure and argued: “we must have recourse to the old Roman expediency in a time of confusion and choose a dictator; Therefore, I cast my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill this great and difficult position.” The Earl of Chesterfield financed the project and pushed for its speedy completion, threatening to stop giving money.

Initially, Johnson promised to complete the creation of the dictionary in three years. For comparison, the French Academy has been doing this for forty years. Naturally, in such a short time, Johnson did not succeed. The work dragged on for ten years. It is naive to assume that Johnson worked alone. For "copying and mechanical work", he hired a large staff of assistants. According to eyewitnesses' descriptions, there was constant noise and disorder in his house. Hundreds of books were scattered around, some of which, unique and expensive, were read to the gills, in the literal sense of this expression.

The dictionary was published in April 1755. Johnson was immediately awarded a Master of Arts degree. The dictionary was a huge book: 41 centimeters high and 51 centimeters wide, it contained 42,773 entries. The dictionary was sold at a huge price, even by today's standards - 410 pounds sterling per copy. However, it sold well, which allowed the project to pay off financially. Johnson himself was given a lifetime pension of 300 pounds by King George II. The pension did not make the titular author of the dictionary rich, but it allowed him to more or less make ends meet.

The main innovation in the dictionary was that Johnson supported the meaning of words with quotations from literary works, including Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden. There were about 114 thousand such quotes. The most frequently quoted author was, of course, Shakespeare. It is not surprising that after finishing work on the dictionary, Johnson began editing his works.

English has long been the language of international communication. It spread throughout the world, became the main language of the Internet and united all continents. Why this became possible can be partly answered by the history of the emergence of the English language, in which fascinating events took place.

Many learners know that English belongs to the Germanic group of languages, but if you compare it with German, you will see huge discrepancies. Of course, you will find words that sound similar. And yet, an Englishman who has not studied German will never understand a native German.

At the same time, according to the majority of Europeans, and even residents of other continents, English speech is the easiest to memorize and reproduce. In many countries, this language is included in school curricula and is studied as one of the main subjects.

In linguistic universities, the history of the emergence of the English language cannot be explained briefly, so it is singled out as a separate subject for study. We will note the main periods of history and elements of influence on the development of the English language.

How it all began

In the 5th century AD, tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes settled the British Isles (mostly the territory of modern Great Britain). The Celts, who inhabited these lands at that time, were unable to provide worthy resistance - and went deeper into the island.

Assimilation with the Celts was weak, and therefore they had little influence on the English language (which became dominant). The first result of the change in Anglo-Saxon vocabulary was the conquest of the island by the Vikings, who “left” on the island such words as sky, window and others.

The beginning of the rapid development of English - the English language and culture - occurs during the reign of King Alfred the Great, who marked the birth of the English state and strengthened its influence.

A period of great change

In the 11th century, Britain was occupied by the Normans, led by William the Conqueror. They themselves were descendants of German tribes (Normans - northern people), who, having captured part of the territory of France, assimilated with the local residents and adopted the French language as a means of communication.

The rule of the Franks lasted about two centuries, and they had a huge influence on the development of English. As a result, an almost new language was formed, in which the main cases disappeared, and more than 50 percent of lexical units were replaced by French words.

It is interesting that the London nobility, most of whom were Franks, retained that part of the vocabulary that was close to them. For example, they did not keep livestock, but ate meat products. Therefore, the names of animals and basic life-sustaining things were retained by the Anglo-Saxons - peasants: cow - cow, sheep - sheep, horse - horse, swine - pig, bread - bread, house - house. The Franks consumed everything indicated as food, luxurious living and entertainment, so they left such words as: pork - pork, beef - beef, veal - veal, palace - palace, etc.

Shakespeare, Catholics and Modernity

The history of the development of the English language did not end there, and several more significant changes occurred. The era of Shakespeare (1564-1616) and the rapid development of theater and other arts had a significant impact on its change. The heroes of the great poet gained immortality, and the English language was enriched with new phraseological units: “the wild-goose chase” - “the pursuit of the impossible” and much more.

By the way, several advents of Latin took place, since already at the end of the 5th century the Catholic Church began to actively penetrate Great Britain. Services in temples were conducted in the language of the ancient Romans, which was no longer used in worldly life, but many words and expressions were borrowed.

Thus, English became a conglomerate of the main European languages, changing the basic principles of word formation and syntax. From a synthetic language (the language of cases and endings) it turned into an analytical means of communication, where context (the place of a word in a sentence and in the text) took on the leading role.

To make the history of the development of the English language more clear to you, the Lim English website provides a presentation of its main periods. The evolution of English is most amazing, and it has never stopped. It continues to this day - which is confirmed by the gradual elimination of the use of the auxiliary verb shall, when describing events in the future.

The history of the English language began in England. English is a West Germanic language originally spoken in England. Currently, English is the most widely used language in the world. The history of the English language includes the spread of English across a significant number of countries and continents. English is the first language of most people in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. It is the third most widely spoken mother tongue in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. English is the most popular language as a second language. The total number of people speaking English - including native and non-native speakers - exceeds the number of people speaking any other language. English is the official language of the European Union, many Commonwealth countries and the United Nations, as well as many world organizations.

History of the emergence of the English language.

The history of the English language began in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and in what is now south-eastern Scotland, but was then under the control of the kingdom of Northumbria. It was in this region that the English language originated. Thanks to the extensive influence of Great Britain from the 18th century, through the British Empire, and the United States from the mid-20th century, it was widely spoken throughout the world and became the leading language of international communication in many regions. Historically, the English language is born from a fusion of closely related dialects. Old English was brought to the east coast of Great Britain by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) settlers. A significant number of English words are based on Latin roots because Latin was used in some form by the Christian church. The language was further influenced by Old Icelandic due to the Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman-French. In vocabulary and spelling there was a close connection with the Romance languages. This is how Middle English was formed. Changes that began in the south of England in the 15th century led to the formation of modern English based on Middle English. Due to the assimilation of words from many other languages ​​throughout history, modern English contains a very large vocabulary. Modern English has not only assimilated words from other European languages, but also from all continents, including words of Hindi and African origin. This is the history of the English language.

The history of the emergence and development of the English language, as in the case of any other language, cannot be considered in isolation from the history of the emergence and development of the state whose inhabitants speak this language. So, England.

Initially, the territory of the British Isles was inhabited by Celts who spoke Celtic. By the 5th century, conquerors from Rome successfully coexisted with them, bringing the Latin language to these lands. However, it was in the 5th century that several Germanic tribes came to British territories, so successfully gaining a foothold here that the original Welsh and Gaulish languages ​​have remained to this day only in territories not conquered by the Germans - in Cornwall, the mountains of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, distant and extremely difficult to achieve. Modern English is Germanic English, which has very little in common with Celtic and Latin.

However, it did not end with the Germans. British territories were for some time attacked by Vikings who came from Scandinavia and spoke Old Icelandic. And in 1066, under the rule of the French, England began to farm out its native language to the uneducated lower strata of the population, recognizing only French, the language of the conquerors, as the language of high society. Thanks to this, by the way, the vocabulary of modern English has significantly expanded: the system of synonyms in the language is truly extensive. However, in many cases the same division into higher and lower languages ​​can be traced. So, for example, cattle - the topic of conversation among peasants - has German names (cow - cow), but dishes prepared from it were discussed in the world, which is why they have French names (beef - beef). Exactly the same pair of names exists for calf - calf and veal - veal and other concepts.

Here are a few more examples:
sheep- sheep, but mutton- mutton;
swine- pig, but pork- pork.

Such external influences certainly have a significant impact on the language. But underneath the veneer of changes that have been introduced there is still a solid Anglo-Saxon foundation.
Some time passes, the culture of England develops, and naturally the English language finds literary use, and in the 14th century it was the language spoken by lawyers and specialists in various fields of science. A little later, thanks to mass migrations to the New World - America - the language received a new direction of development, now changing simultaneously, but not always equally in different territories.

Spread around the world

The opportunity to travel around the world and the need to build relationships not only with the closest neighbors on the continent has caused a rather significant problem to arise: what language should we speak among ourselves? English, along with some other languages, has been used for political negotiations and conferences since the beginning of the 20th century. There is a need to teach it, study it, and formalize it. It is the English language that is still one of the main subjects of close attention of linguists around the world.

Where does learning a foreign language begin? Of course, from the dictionary. Grammar, style, punctuation make no sense without vocabulary. According to scientists, the modern English dictionary contains more than a million entries. How many of them do you need to learn to become confident in the language?

The earliest grammar textbooks were created to help students studying Latin and foreigners studying English. That is, the task of teaching the English their native language was not set. This problem only began to be solved in 1750, and, like many pioneers, linguists made mistakes. In particular, Latin was adopted as the standard language. And grammatical rules were considered universal and applicable to all languages. This sometimes led to absurd attempts to remake one language for another.

In addition to attempts to Latinize the language, scientists also resisted the course of its natural development towards simplification, considering this process to be degradation. For example, the endings of verbs died off. Conservative teachers and their textbooks, distributed throughout the country as part of widespread educational programs, have preserved for posterity - that is, for us - many more irregular constructions, irregular verbs and exceptions than would have remained without outside influence. But who knows, it is likely that in a few generations English will turn from a synthetic language into an analytical one? The process of change, although slowed down, did not stop completely. The only things that don't change at all are dead languages ​​that no one speaks.

Despite all the specific features, the English language in our time remains simple enough to learn and at the same time a full-fledged, rich and colorful language to be successfully used as a truly universal international language of communication.