Middle English Research Paper

“The History of the English Language”. http://www.uni-due.de/SHE/. Univ. of Duisburg Essen. April 2013. Web 4 Oct. 2013.

Old English dates back to approximately the year 700. If you go back even farther, Dutch, German and old English can all be traced back to the same source. French had a large impact on the English language during the medieval centuries primarily because England was ruled by the upper class that spoke French. English today has spread across the globe. People around the world will adapt English into their own cultural practices.

Late Modern English, a global language spoken around the world by over 2 billion people can trace its roots to the Germanic language introduced by Anglo-Saxon invaders in the 5th century. Before the arrival of the Anglo Saxons, many parts of Britain were bilingual Celtic-Latin speakers, although very few traces of Celtic remain in the English language – other than in place names, for example Avon and Ouse – which derive from the Celtic word for ‘water’, and words found more in local dialects than mainstream English – for example ‘broc’ for badger.

Languages are always changing and evolving. The English language itself is full of words from other languages.

English is the main language of the Western world. Many English words originated from the Roman language of Latin. Simple English words such as ?architecture?, ?balm?, ?determine? and ?say? have been derived from Latin. Just flip through a dictionary and an endless amount of words have come from Latin. If the Ancient Romans didn?t have and create the language of Latin, we would probably lose half our vocabulary, because of the great role it has played in making the language of English. The

Early Britain was an era of take overs and violence , overall it was a time of darkness , but despite the darkness this Anglo-Saxon era was a time filled with a new culture and government . Anglo-Saxons came to Britain sometime during AD 425-450 and lasted until 1066 . When the Romans left Britain , new settlement began . With the new population in Britain , there was a need for housing too , the Anglo-Saxon architecture however , did not start until the mid-fifth century . Anglo-Saxon architecture is a different style than modern architecture .

Speaking English in earlier centuries compared to now in the 21st century, you will find a harsh difference. Why is that? Many reasons, some which have varied over the years, have been pivotal to that point of English staying mature and proper or careless and slang. Three reasons explain clearly how the English spoken today is different from the English spoken in earlier centuries. The first is how the needs of people are changing.

Some of those languages are Italian, Spanish, and French. Even though English is a Germanic language, it was solidly influenced by the French-speaking Normans, who conquered England in 1066 c.e. In fact, English still uses the Latin alphabet, although English has 26 letters and Latin has 23 letters. A quote from the History Alive textbook states, "English has borrowed heavily from Latin, both directly and by way of French" (History Alive 14). This proves that the Romans' legacy of language and writing had a the greatest impact on today's society because if it wasn't for the Romans' Latin language, our life would be so much different today. We wouldn't have our native language, English, therefore our communication would be disparate. We still see Latin words show up in our English vocabulary. Many English words begin with Latin prefixes and Latin proverbs are still in use, we use Latin roots as well. An example of a Latin prefix that we use today is "trans", which means across or through. The English word using "trans" is "transportation." A common Latin proverb is E pluribus unum, meaning "Out of many,

The Angles were a Germanic tribe that occupied the region which is now Scleswig-Holstein, Germany. With their fellow ethnic groups, they formed the people who came to be known as the English. The Saxons were a Germanic people

It was spoken in the region south of the Thames (southern and southwestern England). This area was mainly settled by West Saxons, so this dialect soon became known as Wessex. Most of the OE corpus is written in this dialect and the reason for this is the fact that this kingdom became the leading political and cultural force under King Alfred at the end of the 9th century. Mercian Spoken from the Thames to the Humber( in central England). This dialect was spoken in the area around London in the 14th century when this city became very powerful.

In 1066 William of Normandy invaded England. That would mark the beginning of Norman rule of the England, which would last for about four hundred years, until the end of the Hundred Years War. In a first stage, the Norman took over the power and decided to change the language of government as well as impose new institutions inspired in the French ones. However, they let low- and middle-classes speak English. In this period, loanwords come from the domains of political, social and diplomatic activity. In a second stage, which could be dated at between 1250 and 1400, French started to be used by the population. The reason was that many Normans had to permanently settle in England as Normandy was bought by the French king in 1204, and many Normans

Quite a few of the Old English vocabulary can still be found in the Modern English we speak and read today, it is just the spelling that differ is some places. Therefore, if read from a vocabulary perspective, there are familiar words, for example, “awriten” which is “written”, “læst” is “last”, “forð” is “forth”, “steorra” is “star”, etc. These are words which seems familiar, but because of the various influences and where English comes from there is differences and unfamiliar words. Modern English differ from Old English because as the language grew it took in more words and replaced old versions of words (2011:22). For example, the word “sacerda” which means “priests” is from the Latin word “sacerdos” and “folc” and “ic” is Germanic words for “people” and “I”. There are also words from Anglo-Saxon, like “heretoga” which is now “leader or commander” and “tungelwitegan” which is now “wise

Early Modern English started during the Renaissance, between 1500 and 1800, with the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. At this point, Elizabeth I came to the throne of England with a religious revolt, positioning her nation as Protestant. As a consequence, some of the literature during her reign reflected the tension, being the purpose of most of the works didactic. During the Renaissance, it appeared the printing press and started the voyages of exploration, making the language at that time a mixture of different languages, with borrowed words from other idioms, such as Latin, French or German. With the invention of printing, books became cheaper, and thus, literacy became more common. This helped language to standardise its spelling and word meaning, with the London dialect as the standard, as most of the books were printed there.

In the development of English, invasions and other historical events were huge factors that had influence to the process. Through the history, the language especially English has been changed very much. When we see the Shakespeare’s sonnet, we can find out that his sonnet is written in early Modern English but that language is not quite different from Modern English. However, when we read the poem which was written in the Old English period, many of us can realize that Old English is very different from the Modern English. When Old English was changed into Middle English, there was an important historical event, the Norman Conquest. In this report, I would like to explain what Norman Conquest is and how that event changed the Old English.

The origin of English language codification was back to the 16th century, when many of dictionaries and grammar books had published with a view of teaching the language to Welsh noblemen after the 'Act of Union' between Wales and England in 1536. These dictionaries contained a list of hard words, mostly loanwords which adopted and borrowed from other languages, or sometimes invented. Robert Cawdery produced the first English dictionary in (1604). It lists about 3000 words, with a brief simple description for each. He aimed to codify a language, to let readers understand hard words. (Bl.uk, 2017)