English Development and Linguistic Imperialism： A Historic Perspective.docVIP

English Development and Linguistic Imperialism： A Historic Perspective 　　【Abstract】Contact and assimilation of English with other languages play a very important role for English development and contribute much to its present status as an international language. Seen form a historic perspective， the development history helps to result in linguistic imperialism of English and the potential loss of linguistic identity for many people in other cultures. 　　【Key words】language development； linguistic imperialism； linguistic identity 　　1. History of English language’s development 　　The history of English language can be traced back to the arrival of three Germanic tribes to the British Isles during the 5th Century AD. Angles， Saxons and Jutes crossed the North Sea from what is the present-day Denmark and northern Germany. The inhabitants of Britain previously spoke a Celtic language that was quickly displaced. Most of the Celtic speakers were pushed into Wales， Cornwall and Scotland. One group migrated to the Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak the Celtic Language of Breton today. The Angles were named from Engle， their land of origin. Their language was called Englisc from which the word， English， derives. 　　During the 7th and 8th Centuries， Northumbrias culture and language dominated Britain. The Viking invasions of the 9th Century brought this domination to an end （along with the destruction of Mercia）. By the 10th Century， the West Saxon dialect became the official language of Britain. Written Old English is mainly known from this period. It was written in an alphabet called Runic， derived from the Scandinavian languages. The Latin Alphabet was brought over from Ireland by Christian missionaries. This has remained the writing system of English. 　　In 1066 the Normans conquered Britain. French became the language of the Norman aristocracy and added more vocabulary to English. More pairs of similar words between English and French arose