Much of the material that appears below has been taken from Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable's wonderful book A History of the English Language, the Fifth Edition, published by Prentice Hall, 2002. Any confusion or errors that you find in the summary are solely my responsibility. Robert Brunner
The Indo-European Language Tree
Linguists have traced most western--and some non-western--languages back to a common source, called the Indo-European language. Nothing remains of this language, but with the similarities that exist among the surviving branches of it, scholars are able to draw conclusions about it. For instance, look at the word for father in the following languages: Dutch “vader”; Gothic “fadar”; Greek “pater”; Sanskrit “pitar”; English “father.” In addition, look at the similarities in the following languages for the word brother: Sanskrit “bhratar”; German “Bruder”; Dutch “broeder”; Irish “brathair”; Old Slavic “bratu”; Greek “phrater; English "brother.”Clearly there is a connection among these words--and probably a common language from which all of them developed. These similar words--linguistic cousins that have a common source--are called cognates, and they go back to the mother tongue that we call Indo-European. From such a study of cognates, linguists conclude that many of the languages still in existence were at one time connected to a language that no longer exists.
There are two theories about the origins of the Indo-European people. One is called the Kurgan theory, and it states that the Indo-Europeans lived some 6000 years ago, in and around the Russian Steppes. The theory is that they were a warlike people and spread their language through a series of military conquests. The people the Indo-Europeans subjugated were forced to speak the language of their conquerors in order to carry on trade and to survive in an environment controlled by invaders. This is sometimes called the sword theory because it is based on the use of the sword as a weapon for its spread.
The second theory is called the Anatolian theory, and it states that the Indo-Europeans lived approximately 10,000 years ago in Anatolia, the present-day Turkey. This is also referred to as the plough theory because it is based on the idea that the Anatolians were agricultural people, and they spread their influence not through war but through their advancements in farming, by the use of the plough.
Wherever and whenever they lived, Indo-Europeans migrated in different directions throughout Europe and Asia. When they moved, they obviously found differences in weather, vegetation, wildlife, and food in the regions in which they settled. Each group, then, created its own words for these discoveries, and the longer these groups lived in the separate regions, the more their languages differed from one another--in vocabulary, stress, and structure. As a result, people who migrated to the northern regions--for instance, the Norwegians (members of the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European tree) developed many words for snow and ice, as well as words for trees, shrubs, and animals found in cold climates. On the other hand, people who settled in southern areas, like Italy (members of the Italic branch of the Indo-European tree) encountered warmer weather, different trees, shrubs, and animals. Over centuries, the vocabulary, stress, and even structure of their language grew distinct from their northern counterparts. And this would have been true for the early speakers of Russian, Polish, Spanish, French, German, and so on, accounting for the profound differences among many of these languages.
The English Language
The English language is part of the Low German portion of the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European tree. On this same branch is the language of the Afrikaans, Dutch, and Flemish. Farther removed, on the High German portion of this branch, are speakers of Modern High German and Yiddish. On the North Germanic branch are the current speakers of Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic. Although these languages are different from each other today, they all come from a common source--the Germanic branch of the Indo-European tree. The importance of this will become evident as we meet the material below.
Early Invasions of England
Historians believe that England had people in it as early as 50,000 B. C. or B. C. E. (Before the Common Era); however, we don't know much about these people. We do know something about the Iberians, a group of people who invaded England as early as 3,000 B. C. Although today we associate the Iberian Peninsula with Spain and Portugal, the original Iberians came from somewhere around the South Caucasus Mountains. When they migrated, some of the Iberians settled in England, where they found a soil suitable for farming, as well as minerals suitable for creating bronze. For over two thousand years, the Iberians lived in England. Then, in approximately 700 B. C., they were invaded by the Celts.
The Celts originated in what is currently southeastern Germany, Western Austria, and the current Czech Republic. A warlike people, they fought against the Iberians and drove some of them out of England, into what is currently Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Eventually, however, the Celts intermarried with the remaining Iberians and settled down.
In 55 B. C., Julius Caesar attempted to invade England, but the attempt was not successful. He tried again in 54 B. C., with only limited success. The Romans would not return to England for a more permanent settlement for approximately ninety years, when Claudius invaded in 43 A. D. From that point, the Romans stayed in England for over three hundred fifty years. They brought with them a vulgate form of Latin, the Latin of the streets rather than the Latin of literary texts. Although Latin would later have a profound influence on the English language, it was not this invasion that created the influence, mainly because when the Roman Empire came under siege by Germanic tribes, the legions pulled out of England, sometime around 409 A. D. , and the invading tribes that took over England wiped out a great deal of the Roman influence in the country.
Old English or Anglo-Saxon--450-1150
The Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians came from what is currently northern Germany (close to Denmark), from Denmark itself, and from islands off the western coast of these areas. These peoples were warlike, battled with the Celts, eventually became agricultural, and were christianized by St. Augustine and succeeding monks. This Christian influence profoundly affected the language, bringing to it an interest in writing, both religious and secular. The first texts in Old English appeared in the seventh century. This is the beginning of the English language. We call this first stage of the language the Old English or Anglo-Saxon period. It began in approximately 450 A. D.
The Old English period saw another invasion, beginning around 789 A. D., when the Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes (we often refer to them as the Vikings) entered England. Their language was probably not all that different from the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians (recall the different branches of the German language mentioned above), and this Old English period lasted until approximately 1150 A. D. The most significant work from the period is the epic poem Beowulf. During these early years, English was a heavily inflected language; that is, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs took different forms, dependent on if they were singular or plural, past or present tense, in the nominative, genitive, dative, or accusative cases. A modern remnant of inflection can be found in our pronouns. For example, as a subject, the masculine singular third-person pronoun is he. In its possessive form, he becomes his; in its objective form, he becomes him. When a word changes to reveal different forms like this, we call this inflection. Old English also had hundreds of irregular verbs. A modern example of an irregular verb is "swim" because it changes its form: present tense swim, past tense swam, and past participle have, has, or had swum. This is also a type of inflection, called conjugation. Although our modern English grew out of Old English, for us today, Old English is a foreign language. We would need a dictionary for us to understand virtually every word of it. An example appears below:
Nu sculon herigean heofonrices Weard
Meotodes meahte and his modge-Þanc
(Now we must praise heaven's kingdom's Guardian
The Measurer's might and his mind plans)Middle English--1150-1500
The last successful invasion of England occurred in 1066 A. D., when William the Conqueror, a Norman Frenchman, won the battle near Hastings. It's interesting to note that although the Normans came from northwestern France--and brought the French language into England with them--they had many years earlier originated from Scandinavia, from which former invaders of England had come. Therefore, their French was not the Midland French but more of a guttural French. For approximately two hundred fifty years, this form of French had an influence on the English language, as any language of a conqueror affects the subjugated people. French particularly had its influence in government, among the upper classes, and among merchants who wanted to trade and sell goods to the wealthy leaders of England who spoke French. Linguists estimate that between 1250 and 1400, approximately 10,000 French words entered the English language. Here is a sample of that influence, the first group dealing with military matters: peace, enemy, arms, battle, combat, skirmish, siege, defense, ambush, retreat, soldier, guard, spy, sergeant, captain, lieutenant, vanquish, defend; The following French words that refer to cuisine have entered the English language: dinner, supper, appetite, taste, beef, mutton, biscuit, almonds, orange, lemon, cherry, peach, jelly, mustard, vinegar; These originally French words refer to fashion: fashion, dress, habit, gown, robe, garment, cape, cloak, coat, collar, veil, train, petticoat, lace, buckle, button, boots, blue, brown vermilion, scarlet. And these French words refer to government--crown, state, empire, realm, reign, royal, authority, sovereign, majesty, scepter, tyrant, usurp, oppress, court, council, parliament, assembly, statute, and treaty.
This second significant period in the English language is known as Middle English, and it ranges from 1150 A. D. to 1500 A. D. The most significant poet of this period is Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the Canterbury Tales.
During this period, the English language lost much of the complexity that it had possessed in the Old English period. For instance, the use of inflection waned, and many of the irregular verbs used during Old English became regular. These changes were probably due less to the direct influence of French and more to the changes that had already begun by the late Old English Period into early Middle English. By the middle of the fourteenth century, English--not French--was once again the major language in England. This was due to political changes in England, as well as the hundred-year war between England and France. (One does not particularly want to speak the language of one's enemy.) Later in the century, when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, he satirized the pretentiousness of characters in the tales who speak French. Although most of us would initially have trouble reading Middle English, with a bit of guidance, we can understand many of the words--and the general meaning of the text. This is illustrated in the example below:
Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veine in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr:Modern English--1500-PresentBeginning in 1500 A. D., English moved into its third stage, called Modern English. During this century, prominent writers created poetry and drama in England, among them Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare. Born in 1564, Shakespeare had the most profound effect on English; he possessed an enormous vocabulary, experimented with language, and through his sonnets, poems, and plays had a profound effect on the development of English. Most modern readers have little trouble reading poetry or prose from this period, just as most modern readers and speakers are grateful that during this time, the language became simpler than its Old English and Middle English forms. Because of the influence of Shakespeare and the economic and military power that England achieved under Queen Elizabeth I, the English language increased in its international importance.
William Shakespeare
1564-1616Queen Elizabeth
1558-1603The Movement toward Standardization--the Eighteenth Century
Writers and thinkers became concerned about the profound changes in the language that had taken place in just five hundred years. Literate people in Shakespeare's day would not have been able to read Old English, and some would have had trouble reading Chaucer's Middle English. In addition, until about 1650, English spelling had not been standarized, and often prominent writers would spell the same words differently. To prevent such inconsistencies from continuing, writers began to call for the standardization of the language. As early as the sixteenth century, they began this movement by writing grammar texts and guides to spelling. However, the interest in standardization reached its peak in the eighteenth century.
One of the principal proponents of standardization was Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels. In 1712, he proposed that something like an English academy be created, similar to the one that had been established in France. The members of the academy would function as a kind of language police who would determine what words could enter the language, what practices should be discarded, and what rules should be applied to it. This kind of grammar is referred to as prescriptive grammar; that is, it is authoritative and governed by rules; it functions something like the prescription that a doctor writes out for you for the improvement of your health--or, in this case, for the improvement of your language skills. Other influential authors agreed with Swift's prescriptive grammar--John Dryden and Joseph Addison, for instance--but despite the movement to establish a language academy, the academy was never approved. Many grammarians, however, wrote books that advocated prescriptive rules that speakers and writers were told to abide by. Some of these rules had little or no logical basis; others were dictated by the rules used for Latin, and by analogy they were applied to English.
When the academy idea failed, English writers like Nathaniel Bailey in 1721 and Samuel Johson in 1755 created dictionaries to be used as guidelines for the standardization of spelling and definitions. Noah Webster did the same thing for American English. In the 1780's, he wrote books to help Americans with their spelling, grammar, and reading. In 1828, he published his influential An American Dictionary of the English Language, in which he showed that American English was considerably different from British English. For some modern examples of how words differ between American and British English, consider the following: what Americans call the trunk of a car, the English call the boot, what Americans call the hood of a car, the English call the bonnet, what Americans call a truck, the English call a lorry, what Americans call an elevator, the English call a lift. Many other modern examples exist.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Noah Webster (1758-1843) Just as in Swift's day, the argument continues today that the English language is losing its purity and that the media and younger generations have abused it. But these arguments have raged for hundreds of years and, no doubt, will continue to rage. The counter argument to "the loss of purity" or "the decline of standards" faction is that for a language to remain alive and vibrant, it must change to fit new ideas, technologies, and generations. This latter approach to language is often referred to as descriptive grammar. That is, that while they maintain an historical standard, grammar texts should also faithfully record how language is used by various speakers of it, regardless of whether the usage is "good grammar" or "bad grammar." For instance, conservative speakers of the language use the word like only as a preposition: "People like her become upset by the use of poor grammar." In this sentence, her is the object of the preposition like. However, many modern speakers use like as a subordinating conjunction, with a subordinate clause following it: "He treated me like I wasn't even there." Conservative speakers and writers maintain the use of the subjunctive mood in the following use of the verb "to be": "If I were you, I would not do that." Many other speakers and writers disregard the subjunctive mood: "If I was you, I wouldn't do that." Hundreds of other examples of these differences appear in the language, particularly when we think of new technologies. For instance, our language has words like windows, mouse, cursor, download, upload, and many others that have taken on a different meaning when they are applied to computers. Recently a new dictionary included the word McJob to indicate a job that pays poorly and offers little future for its holder; the word stems from the jobs offered by the fast-food franchise McDonald's.
Grimm's Law--1822
In 1822, the German folktale collector and philologist (an old word for linguist) Jakob Grimm clarified what an earlier Danish linguist Rasmus Rask had discovered about the similiarities within certain languages. Jakob, along with his brother, is the author of Kinder und Hausmärchen (we know it as Grimm's Fairy Tales), and he drew attention to a similarity between consonants in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin--and those in certain Germanic languages, including English. Grimm said that the "p" in some Indo-European languages over time became an "f" in Germanic languages. This is how he showed the relationship between the Latin piscis (meaning fish) and the German Fisch and English fish. He also showed the "t" in the Latin tres (three) became the "th" in the English three. Similarly, the Latin centrum (hundred) became the English hundred. In further mutations of these changes, the German offen became the English open, the German essen becomes the English eat.
Jakob Grimm's observations about the connections among these languages have become known as Grimm's Law; it's an important development in the explanation of how these languages have evolved.
For a further study of the history and development of the English language, begin with Baugh and Cable's book, mentioned at the introduction of this discussion.
