A Brief istory of the English Language.docVIP

Immigrants from Denmark and NW Germany arrived in Britain in the 5th and 6th Centuries A.D., speaking in related dialects belonging to the Germanic and Teutonic branches of the Indo-European language family. Today, English is most closely related to Flemish, Dutch, and German, and is somewhat related to Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. Icelandic, unchanged for 1,000 years, is very close to Old English. Viking invasions, begun in the 8th Century, gave English a Norwegian and Danish influence which lasted until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Old English Words The Angles came from an angle-shaped land area in contemporary Germany. Their name Angli from the Latin and commonly-spoken, pre-5th Century German mutated into the Old English Engle. Later, Engle changed to Angel-cyn meaning Angle-race by A.D. 1000, changing to Engla-land. Some Old English words which have survived intact include: feet, geese, teeth, men, women, lice, and mice. The modern word like can be a noun, adjective, verb, and preposition. In Old English, though, the word was different for each type: gelica as a noun, geic as an adjective, lician as a verb, and gelice as a preposition. Middle English, from 1066 until the 15th Century The Norman Invasion and Conquest of Britain in 1066 and the resulting French Court of William the Conqueror gave the Norwegian-Dutch influenced English a Norman-Parisian-French effect. From 1066 until about 1400, Latin, French, and English were spoken. English almost disappeared entirely into obscurity during this period by the French and Latin dominated court and government. However, in 1362, the Parliament opened with English as the language of choice, and the language was saved from extinction. Present-day English is approximately 50% Germanic (English and Scandinavian) and 50% Romance (French and Latin). Middle English Words Many new words added to Middle English during this period came from Norman French, Parisian French, and Scandinavian. Norma