HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

NAME : MUHAMAD ZAKI ZAFRI BIN ZAINAL ID : 920329-01-5067 CLASS/GROUP : TESL 2 1PISMP LECTURERS NAME: MADAM JASWIR KAUR A/P KARTAR SINGH

OLD ENGLISH (500-1100 AD)

West Germanic invaders from Jutland and southern Denmark: the Angles (whose name is the source of the words England and English), Saxons, and Jutes, began populating the British Isles in the fifth and sixth centuries AD

 These invaders pushed the original, Celticspeaking inhabitants out of what is now England into Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland, leaving behind a few Celtic words. The Angles came from Englaland and their language was called Englisc - from which the words England and English are derived.

 The Celts were already resident in Britain when the Anglo-Saxons arrived, but there are few noticeable traces of their language in English today.

 Those that survive in modern English include brock (badger), and coomb a type of valley, alongside many place names.

Middle English (11001500)

William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, attacked and occupied England and the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 AD. The new ruler spoke a dialect of Old French known as Anglo-Norman.

 The influence of the Normans can be shown by looking at two words, beef and cow. Many legal terms, such as indict, jury, and verdict have AngloNorman roots because the Normans ran the courts.

 French words replaced Old English words; crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam. French gentle and + Germanic man = gentleman We have the Germanic doom and the French judgment, or wish and desire. The next three hundred years the French presence altered the development of English through direct contributions and reinforcement of linguistic trends.

 Four fricative consonants emerged as distinctive elements of the sound system during this period, the initial sounds of veal, zeal and thee, as well as the medical sound in leisure. The single outright contribution of Norman French to the sound system of English was the diphthong of joy.

 In 1204 AD, King John lost the region of Normandy to the King of France. About 150 years later, the Black Death (1349-50) killed about one third of the English population. This mixture of the two languages came to be known as Middle English.

 The most famous example of Middle English is Chaucers Canterbury Tales. By 1362, the linguistic separation between the nobility and the commoners was basically over.

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

English changed again during the Renaissance period. Many students having difficulty understanding Shakespeare would be surprised to learn that he wrote in modern English. Many familiar words and phrases were created or first recorded by Shakespeare, some 2,000 words and countless catch-phrases are his. One fell swoop, vanish into thin air, and flesh and blood are all Shakespeares. Words he gave to the language include critical, leapfrog, majestic, dwindle, and pedant.

 The first was the Great Vowel Shift. This was a change in pronunciation that began around 1400. It was the beginning of a modification in quality of all long vowels and diphthongs, and the inconsistent treatment of weakly stressed vowels placed many syllables in jeopardy.

 Long vowel sounds began to be made higher in the mouth and the letter e at the end of words became silent. In linguistic terms, the shift was quite unexpected, the major changes taking place within a century.

 The introduction of the printing press. William Caxton brought the printing press to England in 1476. Books became cheaper and as a result, literacy became more common. Finally, the printing press brought standardization to English. The dialect of London, where most publishing houses were located, became the standard. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the first English dictionary was published in 1604.

Bibliography
Coila, B. (2009, July 21). suite101. Retrieved March 29, 2012, from suite101: http://bridget-coila.suite101.com Durkin, P. (-, - -). Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved March 29, 2012, from Oxford English Dictionary: http://oxforddictionaries.com Essberger, J. (-, - -). EnglishClub. Retrieved March 29, 2012, from EnglishClub: http://www.englishclub.com humagaia. (-, - -). hubpages. Retrieved March 29, 2012, from hubpages: http://humagaia.hubpages.com LINDA MILLER CLEARLY, M. D. (1993). LINGUISTIC FOR TEACHERS. SINGAPORE: McGraw-Hill Book Co. Wilton, D. (2001, January 25). Wordorigins.org. Retrieved March 29, 2012, from Wordorigins.org: http://www.wordorigins.org