history of English 英国历史简介

1、,Introduction,In the study of English vocabulary, it is important to know about the history of English. We will look at the major historical events that have shaped the English language. We pay special attention to the development of the native Germanic vocabulary, and to the forces that introduced

2、a large number of foreign words, especially from Latin, Greek, and French. This combination makes English vocabulary extremely rich and heterogeneous among the world languages.,The World Languages,It is estimated that there are about 5000 languages all over the world, which can be grouped into diffe

3、rent language families, such as Sino-Tibetan Family, Indo-European Family, Altaic Family, Austronesian Family, and so on. Chinese is a member in the Sino-Tibetan Family, while English is a member in the Indo-European Family.,The Indo-European Family,Linguists have divided the Indo-European languages

4、 into several groups, or branches. For example, the Italic branch includes Latin and its descendants the Romance (originating in Rome) Languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian), as well as other extinct languages. Other groups important in the history of English include Celtic (

5、e.g., Welsh, Irish, and Scots Gaelic), Hellenic (Greek), etc.,The Germanic Branch,The branch of Indo-European that includes English is called the Germanic group. Proto-Germanic was probably spoken in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia. Proto-Germanic developed into not only English, but also

6、several other languages we are familiar with. Some Germanic tribes moved eastward, into what is now Romania and Ukraine, and developed the language branch known as East Germanic. The most important language in this group was Gothic. All speakers of East Germanic languages eventually abandoned them i

7、n favor of other languages, so the East Germanic branch is now extinct.,The Germanic language that remained after the East Germanic split off developed into two new groups, North Germanic and West Germanic. The West Germanic group includes English. The North Germanic branch includes Viking Norse, wh

8、ich developed into Old Norse and eventually into modern Scandinavian languages such as Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish.,The Germanic Branch,Old English (450-1100),In the fifth century, the Germanic invaders conquered and occupied the eastern part of the British island. The Celtic language

9、originally spoken in that area was replaced by the West Germanic dialects spoken by the invaders, as the original inhabitants (the Celts) were killed, were relocated, or adopted the language of the now dominant society. Roughly speaking, the tribes that settled in Britain comprise three groups: the

10、Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. The Angles and the Saxons occupied the greatest part of the country, so that the Germanic civilization that emerged in Britain is often called Anglo-Saxon. The Angles lent their name to the languageEnglish, and to the land England (the land of Angles).,Old English

11、(450-1100),The period from 450 to 1100 is known as the Old English or the Anglo-Saxon period. In the sixth century, the Roman missionaries headed by St. Augustine brought Christianity to the Germanic tribes (mainly the Saxons). The English language adopted many words from Latin, the official languag

12、e of the church. Latin provided not only religious vocabulary (e.g., abbot, altar, disciple, hymn, nun, mass, pope, and priest) but also a surprising number of what are now everyday words (e.g., candle, cap, school, and spend).,Scandinavian Influences,Throughout the ninth and tenth centuries and int

13、o the eleventh, Norwegian and Danish Vikings invaded large parts of England. As a consequence, English borrowed words from the North Germanic tongue of the invaders, Viking Norse. This created an interesting mixture, because Old English was very similar to this close Germanic relative. For example,

14、Old English Norse loan shrub scrub lend loan rear raise shirt skirt craft skill,Many words beginning with sc-/sk- are borrowed from Scandinavian languages, e. g. score, scorch, skill, skin, skirt, sky.,Scandinavian Influences,Several hundred Norse words were borrowed into Old English, among them til

15、l, flat, they, skin, egg, etc.,Middle English (1100-1500),The Middle English period is from 1100 to 1500. The most important event to affect the history of English, the Norman Conquest (1066), took place at the end of the Old English period. The big changes that this invasion produced in the English

16、 society were accompanied by equal effects in the vocabulary of Middle English. After their victory in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings under William the Conqueror, the Normans quickly assumed leadership and privilege in England.,The Normans were originally Vikingstheir name comes from North man (i.e.

17、, Norse). In a sense, the Norman conquest can be seen as yet another Germanic invasion. But there was a difference this time. The Normans had earlier been given the control of a large piece of land along the northern coast of FranceNormandy. As French subjects, they had adopted French culture. So th

18、e language they brought with them was not a Germanic language, but French. The Norman dialect of French became the language of the upper class, while English completely lost its scholarly and literary importance, and was used only by the peasants and people of the working class. This resulted in a m

19、assive borrowing of French words into English vocabulary.,During this period, English assimilated a large number of Old French words. Crystal (1988: 174) gives the following list of French borrowing during the Middle English period. Government: court, duke, baron, county, crown, government, liberty,

20、 majesty, minister, peasant, parliament, prince, realm, sir, tax, tyrant, trial Religion: abbey, baptism, cathedral, charity, confess, mercy, religion, prayer, pity, saint, salvation, sermon, immortality, miracle, solemn, trinity, virgin Military: peace, enemy, arms, battle, moat, army, battle, navy

21、, soldier, spy, retreat, guard, defend, captain, ambush General: gown, robe, emerald, diamond, feast, savory, cream, sugar, age, paper, music, romance, city, easy, foreign, hour, people, real, reason, river, special, use, wait, joy,Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales,A knight ther was, and that a wort

22、hy man, That fro the tyme that he first bigan To ryden out, he loved chivalrye, Trouthe and honour, fredom and courteisye. English: knight, man, worthy, tyme, first, bigan, ryden, loved, trouthe (truth), Fredom (freedom) French: chivalrye (chivalry), honour, courteisye Danish: fro,English poet, who

23、is regarded as the greatest and most renowned of Middle English writers. His masterwork is The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400). 乔叟，杰弗里：(1340-1400) 英国诗人，被认为是中世纪英国最伟大的文学家。他的代表作是坎特伯雷故事集 (1387-1400年）,Modern English (1500-the present),Modern English is usually divided into Early (1500-1800) and Late (1800-t

24、he present) Modern English. Thanks to the Renaissance (early 14th C-1650), great numbers of Latin and Greek words were added to English. Scholars translated literature from Latin and Greek into English, so over 10,000 Latin and Greek words entered the English language. Among the borrowed words from

25、Latin were exterior, appendix, contradict, exterminate, temperature, and so on. At about the same time, Greek provided catastrophe, anonymous, lexicon, skeleton, and so on.,William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Sonnet 18,Shall I compare thee to a summers day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough

26、 winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summers lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or natures changing course untrimmd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

27、Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst; Nor shall Death brag thou wanderst in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growst: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.,我想将你比作迷人的夏日， 但汝却更显可爱和温存： 狂野之风摧残着五月蓓蕾的柔媚， 也一天天消逝着夏日的归期： 苍天的明眸偶然泻出璀璨， 却难以

28、辉映他暗淡的容颜； 一切明媚的色彩渐已消褪， 过程是如此苍白； 然而你却如永恒之夏， 所有的美好永远也不会改变； 就连死神也不敢对你嚣张， 因你将永生于不朽的诗篇： 只要世人一息尚存， 你将和这诗篇永驻人间。,Late Modern English (1800-the present),The late modern English runs from the beginning of the 19th century to the present. After the Industrial Revolution, England became a great economic power.

29、English began to absorb words from all major languages of the world. Among these words are names for animals and places (moose, skunk, Michigan, Chicago, Manhattan) from American Indian languages; food terms (yam, gumbo, banana) from African languages; new species and technologies (kangaroo, koala,

30、boomerang) from Australian languages; unusual weather phenomena and customs (typhoon, kowtow) from Chinese; and many others. After World War II, thousands of new words have been created to express new ideas, inventions, and scientific achievements.,Admittedly, English does rank high in its hospitality to loanwords. But it remains at its core a typical Germanic language. In general, the most basi