English language Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == History == {{Main|History of English}} === Overview of history === The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as [[Old English]] or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of [[North Sea Germanic]] dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by [[Old Norse]]-speaking [[Viking]] [[Viking Age#England|invaders and settlers]], starting in the 8th and 9th centuries. [[Middle English]] began in the late 11th century after the [[Norman Conquest]] of England, when a considerable amount of [[Old French]] vocabulary, was incorporated into English over some three centuries.<ref name="Ian Short 2007">Ian Short, ''A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World'', "Language and Literature", Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2007. (p. 193) {{doi|10.1017/9781846150463.011|nolink=y}}</ref>{{sfn|Crystal|2003b|p=30}} [[Early Modern English]] began in the late 15th century with the start of the [[Great Vowel Shift]] and the [[Renaissance]] trend of borrowing further [[Latin]] and [[Greek language|Greek]] words and roots, concurrent with the introduction of the [[printing press]] to [[London]]. This era notably culminated in the [[King James Bible]] and [[Shakespeare's plays|the works of William Shakespeare]].{{sfn|How English evolved into a global language|2010}}<ref>Crystal, David; Potter, Simeon (editors). "[https://www.britannica.com/topic/English-language/Historical-background English language: Historical background]". ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Jan. 2024.</ref> The printing press greatly standardised English spelling,{{citation needed|date=April 2023}} which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of the worldwide influence of the [[British Empire]] and the [[United States]]. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international [[discourse]] and the ''[[lingua franca]]'' in many regions and professional contexts such as science, [[navigation]], and law.{{sfn|The Routes of English}} Its [[English grammar|modern grammar]] is the result of a gradual change from a typical [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[dependent-marking language|dependent-marking]] pattern with a rich [[inflection]]al [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] and relatively [[free word order]] to a mostly [[analytic language|analytic]] pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed [[subject–verb–object word order]].{{sfn|König|1994|page=539}} Modern English relies more on [[auxiliary verb]]s and [[word order]] for the expression of complex [[grammatical tense|tenses]], [[grammatical aspect|aspects]] and [[grammatical mood|moods]], as well as [[passive voice|passive constructions]], [[interrogative]]s, and some [[negation (linguistics)|negation]]. === Proto-Germanic to Old English === {{Main|Old English}} [[File:Beowulf Cotton MS Vitellius A XV f. 132r.jpg|thumb|The opening of ''[[Beowulf]]'', an Old English epic poem [[manuscript|handwritten]] in [[half-uncial]] script between 975 AD and 1025 AD: {{lang|ang|Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon...}} ("Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings...")]] The earliest form of English is called [[Old English]] or Anglo-Saxon ({{Circa|550–1066}}). Old English developed from a set of [[West Germanic]] dialects, often grouped as [[Anglo-Frisian]] or [[North Sea Germanic]], and originally spoken along the coasts of [[Frisia]], [[Lower Saxony]] and southern [[Jutland]] by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the [[Angles (tribe)|Angles]], [[Saxons]], and [[Jutes]].<ref>Baugh, Albert (1951). A History of the English Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 60–83, 110–130</ref> From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons [[Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain|settled Britain]] as [[end of Roman rule in Britain|the Roman economy and administration collapsed]]. By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons [[Celtic language decline in England|became dominant in Britain]], replacing the languages of [[Roman Britain]] (43–409): [[Common Brittonic]], a [[Celtic language]], and [[British Latin]], brought to Britain by the Roman occupation.{{sfn|Collingwood|Myres|1936}}{{sfn|Graddol|Leith|Swann et al.|2007}}{{sfn|Blench|Spriggs|1999}} At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. ''England'' and ''English'' (originally {{lang|ang|Ænglaland}} and {{lang|ang|Ænglisc}}) are both named after the Angles.{{sfn|Bosworth|Toller|1921}} Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ([[Mercian dialect|Mercian]] and [[Northumbrian Old English|Northumbrian]]) and the Saxon dialects ([[Kentish Old English|Kentish]] and [[West Saxon dialect|West Saxon]]).{{sfn|Campbell|1959|p=4}} Through the educational reforms of [[Alfred the Great|King Alfred]] in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of [[Wessex]], the West Saxon dialect became the [[standard language|standard written variety]].{{sfn|Toon|1992|loc=Chapter: Old English Dialects}} The [[epic poetry|epic poem]] ''[[Beowulf]]'' is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, ''[[Cædmon's Hymn]]'', is written in Northumbrian.{{sfn|Donoghue|2008}} Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the [[Scots language]] developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the early period of Old English were written using a [[Anglo-Saxon runes|runic script]].{{sfn|Gneuss |2013|p=23}} By the 6th century, a [[Old English Latin alphabet|Latin alphabet]] was adopted, written with [[half-uncial]] [[letterform]]s. It included the runic letters ''[[wynn]]'' {{angbr|{{lang|ang|ƿ}}}} and ''[[thorn (letter)|thorn]]'' {{angbr|{{lang|ang|þ}}}}, and the modified Latin letters ''[[eth]]'' {{angbr|{{lang|ang|ð}}}}, and ''[[Æ|ash]]'' {{angbr|{{lang|ang|æ}}}}.{{sfn|Gneuss |2013|p=23}}{{sfn|Denison|Hogg|2006|pp=30–31}} Old English is essentially a distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern [[German language|German]]: [[Old English grammar|nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs]] had many more [[inflectional morphology|inflectional endings and forms]], and word order was [[free word order|much freer]] than in Modern English. Modern English has [[grammatical case|case forms]] in pronouns (''he'', ''him'', ''his'') and has a few verb inflections (''speak'', ''speaks'', ''speaking'', ''spoke'', ''spoken''), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more [[grammatical person|person]] and [[grammatical number|number]] endings.{{sfn|Hogg|1992|loc=Chapter 3. Phonology and Morphology}}{{sfn|Smith|2009}}{{sfn|Trask|Trask|2010}} Its closest relative is [[Old Frisian]], but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable [[mutual intelligibility]] with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the [[Danelaw]] and other [[Viking]] invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility,<ref name="Gay 2014">{{cite thesis |last1=Gay |first1=Eric Martin |title=Old English and Old Norse: An Inquiry into Intelligibility and Categorization Methodology |type=MA thesis |publisher=University of South Carolina |date=2014 |url=https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/2604/ |access-date=16 December 2022 |archive-date=16 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221216164617/https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/2604/ |url-status=live }}</ref> although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than the southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them.<ref name="Gay 2014" /> The translation of [[Matthew 8:20]] from 1000 shows examples of case endings ([[nominative case|nominative]] plural, [[accusative case|accusative]] plural, [[genitive case|genitive]] singular) and a verb ending ([[present tense|present]] plural): * {{lang|ang|Foxas habbað holu and heofonan fuglas nest}} * Fox-as habb-að hol-u and heofon-an fugl-as nest-∅ * fox-{{sc|NOM.PL}} have-{{sc|PRS.PL}} hole-{{sc|ACC.PL}} and heaven-{{sc|GEN.SG}} bird-{{sc|NOM.PL}} nest-{{sc|ACC.PL}} * "Foxes have holes and the birds of heaven nests"{{sfn|Lass|2006|pp=46–47}} === Influence of Old Norse === From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually [[Middle English#Transition from Old English|transformed]] through [[language contact]] with [[Old Norse]] in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with [[Old Norse]], a [[North Germanic]] language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in the [[Danelaw]] area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in [[Scots language|Scots]] and [[English language in Northern England|Northern English]]. The centre of Norsified English was in the [[Midlands]] around [[Kingdom of Lindsey|Lindsey]]. After 920 CE, when Lindsey was reincorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today is the third person pronoun group beginning with ''th-'' (''they, them, their'') which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with {{lang|ang|h-}} ({{lang|ang|hie, him, hera}}).{{sfn|Thomason|Kaufman|1988|pp=284–290}} Other core [[List of English words of Old Norse origin|Norse loanwords]] include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. === Middle English === {{Main|Middle English|Influence of French on English}} [[File:University College Oxford02.jpg|thumb|The [[University of Oxford]] in [[Oxford]], the world's oldest English-speaking university and world's [[List of oldest universities in continuous operation|second-oldest university]], founded in 1096]] [[File:St John's College Second Court, Cambridge, UK - Diliff.jpg|thumb|The [[University of Cambridge]] in [[Cambridge]], the world's second-oldest English-speaking university and world's third-oldest university, founded in 1209]] {{Quote box |align=right |quoted=true | |salign=right |quote={{lang|enm|Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting.}}<br /><br />Although, from the beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. |source= [[John Trevisa]], {{Circa|1385}}{{sfn|Hogg|2006|pp=360–361}} }} Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the [[Norman Conquest|conquest of England]] by [[William the Conqueror]] in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1200 to 1450. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with [[Old French]], in particular [[Old Norman|Old Norman French]]. The Norman French spoken by the elite in England eventually developed into the [[Anglo-Norman language]].<ref name="Ian Short 2007"/> Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of [[loanword]]s related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains.{{sfn|Svartvik|Leech|2006|p=39}} Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating [[possession (linguistics)|possession]]. The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms,{{sfn|Lass|1992|pp=103–123}} and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible.{{sfn|Fischer|van der Wurff|2006|pages=111–13}} In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: {{lang|enm|Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis}}.<ref>{{cite web |last=Wycliffe |first=John |url=http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wycliffe/wycbible-all.pdf |publisher=Wesley NNU |title=Bible |access-date=9 April 2015 |archive-date=2 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202202047/http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wycliffe/wycbible-all.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Here the plural suffix {{lang|enm|-n}} on the verb ''have'' is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'', and [[Thomas Malory]]'s ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]''. In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Horobin |first1=Simon |title=Chaucer's Middle English |url=https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu/refmideng/ |website=The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales |publisher=Louisiana State University |access-date=24 November 2019 |quote=The only appearances of their and them in Chaucer's works are in the Reeve's Tale, where they form part of the Northern dialect spoken by the two Cambridge students, Aleyn and John, demonstrating that at this time they were still perceived to be Northernisms |archive-date=3 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191203092713/https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu/refmideng/ |url-status=live }}</ref> === Early Modern English === {{Main|Early Modern English}} [[File:Great Vowel Shift2a.svg|thumb|Graphic representation of the [[Great Vowel Shift]] showing how the pronunciation of the long vowels gradually shifted with the high vowels i: and u: breaking into diphthongs and the lower vowels each shifting their pronunciation up one level]] The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the [[Great Vowel Shift]] (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a [[chain shift]], meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. [[Mid vowel|Mid]] and [[open vowel]]s were [[raising (sound change)|raised]], and [[close vowel]]s were [[vowel breaking|broken]] into [[diphthong]]s. For example, the word ''bite'' was originally pronounced as the word ''beet'' is today, and the second vowel in the word ''about'' was pronounced as the word ''boot'' is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages.{{sfn|Lass|2000}}{{sfn|Görlach|1991|pp=66–70}} English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of [[Henry V of England|Henry V]]. Around 1430, the [[Court of Chancery]] in [[Westminster]] began using English in its [[writ|official documents]], and a new standard form of Middle English, known as [[Chancery Standard]], developed from the dialects of London and the [[East Midlands English|East Midlands]]. In 1476, [[William Caxton]] introduced the [[printing press]] to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English.{{sfn|Nevalainen|Tieken-Boon van Ostade|2006|pages=274–79}} Literature from the Early Modern period includes the works of [[William Shakespeare]] and the [[King James Version|translation of the Bible]] commissioned by [[James VI and I|King James I]]. Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the [[consonant cluster]]s {{IPA|/kn ɡn sw/}} in ''knight'', ''gnat'', and ''sword'' were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent the distinct characteristics of Early Modern English.{{sfn|Cercignani|1981}} In the 1611 [[King James Version]] of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests."{{sfn|Lass|2006|pp=46–47}} This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of ''of'' instead of the non-possessive genitive), and the introduction of loanwords from French (''ayre'') and word replacements (''bird'' originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE ''fugol'').{{sfn|Lass|2006|pp=46–47}} === Spread of Modern English === By the late 18th century, the [[British Empire]] had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication.{{sfn|How English evolved into a global language|2010}}{{sfn|The Routes of English}} English was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent [[State (polity)|states]] that had multiple [[indigenous language]]s opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others.{{sfn|Romaine|2006|p=586}}{{sfn|Mufwene|2006|p=614}}{{sfn|Northrup|2013|pp=81–86}} In the 20th century the growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a [[superpower]] following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the [[BBC]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Baker|first=Colin|title=Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education|url={{GBurl|id=YgtSqB9oqDIC|p=311}}|date=1998|page=311|publisher=Multilingual Matters|isbn=978-1-85359-362-8|access-date=27 August 2017}}</ref> and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster.{{sfn|Graddol|2006}}{{sfn|Crystal|2003a}} In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been.{{sfn|McCrum|MacNeil|Cran|2003|pp=9–10}} As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755 [[Samuel Johnson]] published his ''[[A Dictionary of the English Language]]'', which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, [[Noah Webster]] published the ''[[Webster's Dictionary|American Dictionary of the English language]]'' to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of the prestige varieties among the middle classes.{{sfn|Romaine|1999|pp=1–56}} In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as ''he'' and ''him'', ''she'' and ''her'', ''who'' and ''whom''), and SVO word order is mostly fixed.{{sfn|Romaine|1999|pp=1–56}} Some changes, such as the use of [[do-support]], have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory.{{sfn|Romaine|1999|p=2|ps=: "Other changes such as the spread and regularisation of do support began in the thirteenth century and were more or less complete in the nineteenth. Although do coexisted with the simple verb forms in negative statements from the early ninth century, obligatoriness was not complete until the nineteenth. The increasing use of do periphrasis coincides with the fixing of SVO word order. Not surprisingly, do is first widely used in interrogatives, where the word order is disrupted, and then later spread to negatives."}} Now, do-support with the verb ''have'' is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in ''-ing'', appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as ''had been being built'' are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. ''dreamed'' instead of ''dreamt''), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. ''more polite'' instead of ''politer''). British English is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power.{{sfn|Leech|Hundt|Mair|Smith|2009|pp=18–19}}{{sfn|Mair|Leech|2006}}{{sfn|Mair|2006}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page