History of the origin of the English language. How did the English language

Good day, dear readers. You have already made significant progress in learning English. But few people know where this language came from, how it appeared. It's time to find out. Everyone knows that Latin has become the basis of modern European languages. So, for example, the German dialect is a mixture of Latin and Gothic, French is Latin and Gaulish, and English appeared as a result of a mixture of Latin and Celtic. English language

The history of modern English began in the distant 8th century BC. During this period, the territory of modern Great Britain was inhabited by the Celts, who communicated in the Celtic language. So the very word "Britain" came from the Celtic - brith — painted. Also from the Celtic came such words as "slogan" = sluagh + ghairm = battle cry, "whiskey" = uisce + beathadh = living water.

After Britain was conquered by the great Caesar, and in the 1st century BC. it began to be considered part of the Roman Empire. Some Romans began to move to the province, who had to closely communicate with the local population, that is, with the Celts, which was reflected in the language. So, in modern English there were words with Latin roots.

For example, "street" = via strata = paved road, common nouns - "wine - vinum, pear - pyrum, and many place names Manchester, Lancaster. So the Romans and the Celts interacted with each other, forming new English words right up to the 5th century AD, until the territory of Britain was invaded by Germanic tribes, and a new period began in the history of the development of English.

Old English period in English history

This period covers the period from 449 to 1066. In 449 AD the ancestors of the English language, the Celts and Romans, were invaded by the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes, who in their numbers significantly exceeded the local population. So the Anglo-Saxon dialect gradually began to displace the Celtic dialect, destroying or transforming the existing words.

Only in remote and remote areas of Britain the Germans could not reach, and there to this day the Celtic languages \u200b\u200bhave remained. These are Wells, the Highlands of Scotland, Cornwall and Ireland. Therefore, if you want to touch the progenitors of modern English, then go there.

Celtic alphabet Thanks to the Germanic tribes, many words appeared in English with common Germanic roots, which were also borrowed from Latin at one time. These are words like " butter, Saturday, silk, mile, pound, inch". In 597, the Roman Church began to Christianize pagan Britain, and by the early 8th century AD. most of the British Isles were already practicing the new religion.

The close interaction of these cultures naturally reflected in the language. Borrowing words from Latin and assimilating them with Germanic dialects, many new lexemes appeared. For example, school derived from Latin schola, Bishop- from " Episcopus", "mount"- from "montis" and many others. It was during this period that over 600 words with Latin and Germanic roots came into the English language.

Then, in the second half of the 9th century, the Anglo-Saxon lands began to be conquered by the Danes. The Scandinavian Vikings intermarried with the Anglo-Saxons, mixing their Old Norse language with the dialect spoken by the local peoples. As a result, words from the Scandinavian group came to English: amiss, anger, awe, aye. The combination of the letters "sc-" and "sk-" in English words is a clear sign of borrowing from the Scandinavian languages: sky, skin, skull.

Middle English period of the development of the English language

This is the period from 1066 to 1500. AD In the middle of the 11th century, in the Middle Ages, England was conquered by the French. Thus, in the history of the development of the English language, the era of three languages \u200b\u200bbegan:

French - for the aristocracy and the judiciary
Latin - for science and medicine
Anglo-Saxon - for the common people

The mixing of these three dialects gave rise to the formation of the English that the whole world is studying today. Thanks to the mixing, the vocabulary has doubled. In the vocabulary, there was a split into high (from French) and low (from German) variants of the language. The same distinctions can be traced in the semantic rows, synonyms that arose as a result of the use of the languages of the aristocracy and peasants.

Map of Britain 11th century So, an example of social division can be the names of pets that have Germanic roots, that is, worker and peasant: swine, cow, sheep, calf. But the name of the meat of these animals, which the intelligentsia ate, originated from French: pork, beef, mutton, veal. However, despite not all external factors influencing English, its core still remained Anglo-Saxon.

In the 14th century, English becomes literary, that is, exemplary, it also becomes the language of education and law. In 1474 the first book in English appeared. It was William Caxton's translation of R. Lefebvre's A Collection of Stories of Troy. Thanks to the activities of Caxton, a lot of English words have gained completeness and integrity.

During this period, the first grammar rules appeared. Many verb endings disappeared, adjectives acquired degrees of comparison. Changes are also taking place in phonetics. In the early 16th century, the London pronunciation became popular in Britain. This dialect was spoken by about 90% of the total population of the country.

With the beginning of mass migration from England to North America, the language began to change there in a different direction. This is how British, American and other varieties of modern English appeared, which today differ significantly from each other, both grammatically, phonetically, and lexically.

New English period of the formation of English

This period begins from 1500 to the present day. William Shakespeare is considered to be the founder of modern literary English. It was he who cleared the language, gave it shape, introduced many idiomatic expressions and new words that English speakers now use to communicate. In the Age of Enlightenment in 1795, L. Murray's textbook "English Grammar" was first published. For almost 200 years, everyone has studied from this book.

Lindley Murray Linguists argue that modern English is a mixture of different languages, and even today it is not static, constantly being updated. This is the main difference between this language and other European dialects. English not only allows, but welcomes neologisms, different dialects and variants. As you can see, he still keeps the tradition of "mixing dialects."

The early 20th century saw the globalization of the English language, aided by the colonial policies of the United Kingdom. In the middle of the last century, the world importance of the United States increased, which also contributed to the popularity of the American version of the language.

English has long been not only the language of international communication No. 1, but also the language of science, media, education, technology. Today it is difficult to calculate exactly how many people speak this language. Numbers from 700 million to 1 billion are called. Someone is its carrier, and someone, like you and me, is trying to learn it.

Invading Britain. It became native to the majority of the population of Great Britain, and with the territorial growth of the British Empire, it spread to Asia, Africa, North America and Australia. After the British colonies gained independence, English remained either the native language of the majority of the population (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), or one of the official languages (India, Nigeria).

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Linguistic geography

English is the native language of about 335 million (2003), the third native language in the world after Chinese and Spanish, in general, speakers (including the second language) - over 1.3 billion people (2007). One of the six official and working languages of the United Nations.

English is the official language in 54 countries - Great Britain, the USA (the official language of thirty-one states), Australia, one of the official languages of Ireland (along with Irish), Canada (along with French) and Malta (along with Maltese), New Zealand (along with with Maori and sign language). It is used as an official language in some states of Asia (India, Pakistan and others) and Africa (mostly former colonies of the British Empire, members of the Commonwealth of Nations), while the majority of the population of these countries are native speakers of other languages. English speakers are referred to in linguistics as Anglophones; this term is especially common in Canada (including in a political context, where Anglophones are in some respects opposed to Francophones).

Dialects

The English language has many dialects. Their diversity in Great Britain is much greater than in the USA, where the Mid-Atlantic dialect was the basis of the literary norm until the middle of the 20th century. Since the 1950s, the dominant role in the United States has shifted to the Mid-Western (Mid-Western) dialect.

In the works of modern researchers, there is a significant variability of the English language in the modern world. Braj Kachru and David Crystal distinguish three concentrically diverging from one point of the circle of the countries of its distribution. The first, internal, includes countries with a long-standing predominant number of native speakers of English; in the second - the countries of the British Commonwealth, where it is one of the official ones, not being native to the majority of the population, and the third, expanding to other countries, where English becomes the language of interstate communication, including scientific. The spread of the English language to ever new territories and spheres of human activity causes an ambiguous reaction in the modern world.

England

Cockney is a term for a number of historical dialects of areas and craft workshops in London
Scouse is a dialect of the inhabitants of Liverpool
Geordie (English)- dialect of the people of Northumberland, in particular Newcastle-upon-Tyne
West Country
East England (East England)
Birmingham (Brummy, Brummie) (Birmingham)
Cumberland (Cumberland)
Central Cumberland (Central Cumberland)
Devonshire (Devonshire)
East Devonshire (East Devonshire)
Bolton Lancashire (Bolton to Lancashire)
North Lancashire
Radcliffe Lancashire
Northumberland (Northumberland)
Norfolk (Norfolk)
Tyneside Northumberland (Tyneside Northumberland)
Sussex (Sussex)
Westmorland (Westmoreland)
North Wiltshire
Craven Yorkshire (Yorkshire)
North Yorkshire (North Yorkshire)
Sheffield Yorkshire (Sheffield)
West Yorkshire (West Yorkshire)

Scotland, Wales and Ireland

Lowland Scottish (Lowland Scotland) - also considered a separate language (Lowland Scots).
Edinburgh (Edinburgh) - also considered a dialect of the Lowland Scots language.
South Wales (South Wales)
Yola is a dead language, separated from medieval English.

North America

American English (AmE, AmEng, USEng)
- Socio-cultural dialects
  - Standard American English
- Regional dialects
  - Northeastern dialects
    - Boston dialect
    - Dialect of Maine and New Hampshire
    - New York Dialect, Northern New Jersey Dialect (New York metropolitan area)
    - Dialect of Providence, Rhode Island
    - Vermont dialect
    - Philadelphia dialect
    - Pittsburgh dialect
  - Inland North American (includes western and central New York)
    - Northern Pennsylvania (Scranton, PA)
  - Mid-Atlantic dialects
    - Washington dialect
    - Baltimore dialect
    - Tidewater dialect
    - Virginian Piedmont dialect
  - Inland northern dialects (lower Michigan, northern Ohio and Indiana, Chicago suburbs, parts of Wisconsin and New York State)
    - Chicago dialect
    - buffalo dialect
  - North Central American (mainly Minnesota, but also parts of Wisconsin, upper Michigan, and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa)
    - - Yuper (A variety of North Central spoken in upper Michigan and some neighboring areas)
  - Central American English
    - North central (thin strip from Nebraska to Ohio)
    - St. Louis dialect
    - South Central (thin strip from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania)
    - Appalachian English
  - Southern American dialects
    - Coastal Southeast (Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia)
    - Cajun (descendants of the French in Louisiana)
    - Harkers Island dialect (North Carolina)
    - Dialect of the Ozark Plateau
    - Podgorny dialect
    - Southern Highland dialect
    - Florida colonial dialect
    - Galla or Gichi
    - Tampa dialect
    - Yat (New Orleans)
  - Western dialects
    - Californian
    - Jutish
    - Idaho
    - Buntling
    - Hawaiian
    - Pacific Northwest
Canadian English (CanE, CanEng)
- Newfoundland
- Seaside dialect
  - Lunenburg dialect
- Western and Central Canadian English
  - Quebec dialect
  - Ottawa nasal
  - Pacific Northwest dialect

India

Indian English is one of the largest in the world in terms of the number of speakers. It, in turn, breaks up into dialects, the most important of which are:

Standard Indian English - used in the federal media of India, practically the same as Hinglish
Hinglish is a dialect spoken mainly by people whose mother tongue is Hindi.
Punjabi English
Assamese English
Tamil English

Other

Pseudodialects

Story

The ancestor of modern English - Old English - stood out in the pre-literate period of its history from the environment Germanic languages, retaining much in common with them both in vocabulary and in grammatical structure. In an earlier era, the ancient Germans themselves stood out from the Indo-European cultural and linguistic community, which included the ancestors of modern peoples speaking Indo-Iranian - (Indian, Iranian) and European (Celtic, Romance, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic) languages. And the Germanic languages retained the ancient layers of the common Indo-European vocabulary, which underwent natural (Grimm and Werner's laws) historical changes in them, which continued in English after it gained independence. So, terms of kinship and quantitative numerals are traditionally referred to the common Indo-European vocabulary.

Examples of preserved common Indo-European vocabulary [ ] :

latin Pater"father" with the sound transition [p] to [f] in the Germanic languages corresponds to German Vater and English father; soror"sister" - Schwester-sister.
latin unus"one" - german ein- English an / one.

Examples of common German vocabulary [ ] :

German house"house" - English house,
German hand"hand" - English hand.

It is customary to divide the history of the English language into the following periods: Old English (450-1066, the year of the conquest of England by the Normans), Middle English (1066-1500), New English (from 1500 to our time). Some linguists also distinguish Early Modern English (English) Russian period (late XV - mid XVII centuries).

Old English period

The ancestors of the current British - the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes - moved to the British Isles in the middle of the 5th century. During this era, their language was close to Low German and Frisian, but in its subsequent development it moved far away from other Germanic languages. During the Old English period, the Anglo-Saxon language (as many researchers call Old English) changes little, without deviating from the line of development of the Germanic languages, except for the expansion of the vocabulary.

The Anglo-Saxons who settled in Great Britain entered into a fierce struggle with the indigenous local population - the Celts. This contact with the Celts hardly affected either the structure of the Old English language or its vocabulary. No more than eighty Celtic words have been preserved in the monuments of Old English. Among them:

words associated with the cult: cromlech - cromlech (buildings of the Druids), coronach - an ancient Scottish funeral lament;
words of a military nature: javelin - spear, pibroch - military song;
animal names: hog - pig.

Some of these words are firmly established in the language and are still used today, for example: tory ‘member of the conservative party’ - in Irish it meant ‘robber’, clan - tribe, whiskey - whiskey. Some of these words have become international property, for example: whiskey, plaid, clan. This weak influence of Celtic on Old English can be explained by the cultural weakness of the Celts compared to the victorious Anglo-Saxons. The influence of the Romans, who owned part of the territory of Britain for 400 years, is more significant. Latin words entered Old English in several stages. Firstly, some of the Latinisms were adopted by the German-speaking population of the north of continental Europe even before the resettlement of part of the Germans to the British Isles. Among them:

street - from lat. strata via ‘straight, paved road’;
wall - from lat. vallum, wall;
wine - from lat. vinum ‘wine’.

Another part - immediately after the resettlement of the Anglo-Saxons: these are the names of the areas, for example:

Chester, Gloucester, Lancaster - from lat. castrum ‘military camp’, or
Lincoln, Colches - from lat. colonia ‘colony’,
Port-Smouth, Devonport - from lat. portus ‘harbour’ and a number of others.

The names of many types of food and clothing are also Latin in origin:

butter - Greco-Latin butyrum'butter',
cheese - lat. caseus ‘cheese’,
pall - lat. pallium ‘cloak’;

names of a number of cultivated or farmed plants:

pear - lat. pira ‘pear’,
peach - lat. persica ‘peach’.

Another layer of Latin words refers to the era of the penetration of Christianity into Britain. There are about 150 such words. These words also deeply entered the language and became part of it along with the root Germanic words. These are, first of all, the terms directly related to the church:

apostle - Greco-lat. apostolus ‘apostle’,
bishop - Greco-lat. episcopus ‘bishop’,
cloister - lat. claustrum ‘monastery’.

The era of raids, and then the temporary conquest of Britain by the Vikings (790-1042) gives Old English a significant number of commonly used words of Scandinavian origin, such as: call - call, cast - throw, die - die, take - take, ugly - ugly, ill - sick. The borrowing of grammatical words is also characteristic, for example, both - both, same - the same, they - they, their - theirs, etc. At the end of this period, a process of great importance gradually begins to appear - the withering away of inflection. It is possible that the actual bilingualism of the part of the English territory that was under Danish control played some role in this: linguistic confusion led to the usual consequences - a simplification of the grammatical structure and morphology. It is characteristic that inflection begins to disappear earlier precisely in the north of Britain - the area of \u200b\u200b"Danish" law.

Middle English period

The next period in the development of the English language covers the time from 1066 to 1485. The invasion of the Norman feudal lords in 1066 introduced into the Old English language a new powerful lexical layer of the so-called Normanisms - words dating back to the Norman-French dialect of the Old French language, which was spoken by the conquerors. For a long time, Norman French remained in England the language of the church, administration, and upper classes. But the conquerors were too few to impose their language unchanged on the country. Gradually, medium and small landowners, who belonged to a relatively greater extent to the indigenous population of the country - the Anglo-Saxons, become more important. Instead of the dominance of Norman French, a kind of "linguistic compromise" is gradually taking shape, the result of which is a language approaching that which we call English. But the Norman-French language of the ruling class retreated slowly: only in 1362 was English introduced into legal proceedings, in 1385 teaching in Norman-French was discontinued, and it was replaced by English, and from 1483 parliamentary laws began to be published in English. language. Although the basis of the English language remained Germanic, it included such a huge number (see below) of Old French words that it became a mixed language. The process of penetration of Old French words continues until the end of the Middle English period, but reaches a peak between 1250 and 1400 [ ] .

As expected, the vast majority of words related to government go back to Old French (with the exception of the original Germanic king - king, queen - queen and a few others):

reign - reign, government - government, crown - crown, state - state, etc .;

most nobility titles:

duke - duke,
peer - peer;

military related words:

army - army,
peace - peace,
battle - battle,
soldier - soldier,
general - general,
captain - captain,
enemy - enemy;

court terms:

judge - judge,
court - court,
crime - a crime;

church terms:

service - service (church),
parish - arrival.

It is very significant that the words related to trade and industry are of Old French origin, and the names of simple crafts are Germanic. An example of the first: commerce - trade, industry - industry, merchant - a merchant. No less significant for the history of the English language are two rows of words noted by Walter Scott in his novel Ivanhoe:

names of living animals - Germanic:

the names of the meat of these animals are borrowed from Old French:

beef (modern French le bœuf) - beef,
veal (modern French le veau) - veal,
mutton (modern French le mouton) - lamb,
pork (modern French le porc) - pork

Etc.

The grammatical structure of the language undergoes further changes during this period: nominal and verbal endings are first mixed, weakened, and then, by the end of this period, almost completely disappear. In adjectives, along with simple ways of forming degrees of comparison, new analytical ones appear, by adding words to the adjective more‘more’ and most'most'. By the end of this period (1400-1483) in the country is the victory over other English dialects of the London dialect. This dialect arose from the merger and development of the southern and central dialects. In phonetics, the so-called Great shift vowels takes place.

As a result of the migration in 1169 of the British to the territory of the Irish county of Wexford, the Yola language developed independently, which disappeared in the middle of the 19th century.

New England period

The period of subsequent development of the English language, to which the state of the language of modern England belongs, begins at the end of the 15th century. With the development of printing and the mass distribution of books, the normative book language is being consolidated, phonetics and spoken language continue to change, gradually moving away from vocabulary norms. An important stage in the development of the English language was the formation of diaspora dialects in the British colonies.

Writing

The writing of the ancient Germans was runic; based on the Latin alphabet has existed since the 7th century (in the early Middle Ages, additional letters were used, but they fell out of use). The modern English alphabet contains 26 letters.

The orthography of English is considered to be one of the most difficult to learn among the Indo-Europeans. Reflecting relatively faithfully the English speech of the Renaissance period, it does not correspond at all with the modern oral speech of the British, Americans, Australians and other native speakers. A large number of written words include letters that are not pronounced when read, and, conversely, many spoken sounds do not have graphic equivalents. The so-called "reading rules" are limited to such a high percentage of exceptions that they lose all practical meaning. The student has to learn the spelling or reading of almost every new word, and therefore it is customary to indicate the transcription of each word in dictionaries. The famous linguist Max Muller called English spelling "a national disaster."

Punctuation is one of the easiest. Between British English and American English there are a number of differences in punctuation. So, for example, with a polite form of address in a letter in the UK, a period after Mr, Mrs or Dr is not put, unlike in the USA, where they write Mr. Jackson instead of Mr Jackson. There is also a difference in the form of quotation marks: Americans use a double apostrophe ‘‘…’’, and the British use a single ‘…’, more active use of the American serial comma, etc.

The transfer of English-language names and titles in the Russian text is determined by a rather complex system of rules that compromise between phonetic and orthographic systems, for more details see the article “English-Russian Practical Transcription”. Many names and titles, however, are transmitted by tradition, archaic, in partial or complete contradiction to these rules.

Linguistic characteristic

Phonetics

If we take the so-called standard pronunciation of the English language in England, the Commonwealth states and the USA as a unit of comparison, without taking into account the features of modern dialects and dialects of the USA and England, we can note:

almost complete absence of "soft", that is, palatalized consonants;
the absence of stunning final voiced consonants, a phenomenon observed in the Russian language;
assimilation and dissimilation in English is carried out much less frequently than in Russian;
strong reduction vowels.

Morphology

In modern English, declension is completely absent (with the exception of some pronouns). The number of verb forms is four or five (depending on the view of the 3rd person singular with the ending -s: it can be considered a separate verb form or a variant of the present tense), this is compensated by an extensive system of analytical forms.

The fixed word order, which, like in other analytical languages, acquires a syntactic meaning, makes it possible, and even sometimes necessary, to eliminate formal-sound differences between parts of speech: "we prefer to name him by his name"“She prefers to call him by his first name.” In the first case "name"- the verb "call", and in the second "name"- a noun meaning "name". Such a transition (the transformation of one part of speech into another without external changes) is called conversion in linguistics.

Typical conversion cases:

The noun becomes a verb: "water" - "water" and "to water" - "water"; "wire" - "wire" and "to wire" - "telegraph"; "love" - "love" and "to love" - "to love";
The adjective becomes a verb: "master" - "skillful, skilled, professional" and "to master" - "to master perfectly";
The adverb becomes a verb: "down" - "down" and "to down" - "lower";
The interjection becomes a verb: "shush!" - "shhh!" (call for silence) and "to shush" - the verb in the phrase "Simon shushed him quickly as though he had spoken too loudly in church", "shush";
The verb becomes a noun: "to run" - "run" and "the run" - "jog", "run"; "to smell" - "smell", "smell" and "the smell" - "smell";
The noun becomes an adjective: "winter" - "winter" and "winter month" - winter month;
The adverb becomes an adjective: "above" - "above" and "the above remark" - "the above remark".

Verb

Every English verb has four basic word forms:

infinitive form, infinitive: to go= "go, walk, go";
past indefinite form, past indefinite: went= "went";
past participle form, past participle - performs the functions of a passive participle or participle of a perfect form verb: gone= "departed";
the present participle form, present participle / gerund - performs the functions of a real participle, gerund or verbal noun (gerund): going= "walking", "walking", "walking", "walking".

English verbs change little by person, most of them only take the ending -s in the third person singular.

Although most verbs form the past tense in the correct way - with the suffix -ed (work: worked; worked), there is a significant number of irregular verbs using suppletives ( go: went; gone).

The tense conjugation system of verbs is compiled in an analytical way: one of these four forms of the main verb is joined by the corresponding forms of two auxiliary verbs to be("to be") and to have("have").

Based on its analyticity in English, there are a total of 12 grammatical tenses or types of tense forms. The three main tenses, as in Russian, are the present ( present), past ( past) and future ( future; sometimes they also separately consider the form of the future in the conditional mood, used when coordinating tenses in complex sentences, - the so-called " future in the past", future in the past). Each of these times can have four types:

simple, or indefinite (simple, indefinite),
long, or continued (continuous, progressive),
perfect (perfect),
perfect continuous ( perfect continuous/perfect progressive).

When combined, these grammatical categories form such aspect-temporal forms, such as, for example, the simple present ( present simple) or the future perfect long ( future perfect progressive).

Syntax

Word order in a sentence is mostly strict (in simple declarative sentences it is "subject - predicate - object"). Violation of this order, the so-called inversion, occurs in English (except for interrogative turns, which are common) less often than in its related Germanic languages. If, for example, in German the inverted sentence only changes the logical stress in it, then in English the inversion gives the sentence a more emotional sound.

For declarative sentence(both affirmative and negative) is characterized by a direct (The Direct Order of Words) word order:
(time circumstance) - subject - predicate - direct object (without a preposition) - indirect object (with a preposition) - circumstance - a circumstance of time, place or mode of action.
For general interrogative sentence(General Questions) is characterized by the inverse (The Inverted Order of Words) word order:

verb (usually auxiliary) - subject - semantic verb - secondary members of the sentence.

The exception is interrogative sentences for declarative sentences with to be (to be) and modal verbs (can - to be able, to be able, may - to be possible or permitted, dare - to dare). In such cases, when questioning, this verb, being semantic, is simply placed before the subject: Is she a student? Can he drive?

For interrogative sentence with a special question(Special Questions) it is characteristic that the interrogative word always comes first (for example, who, whom, what, whose, which, where, when, why, how). Moreover, if the question is addressed to the subject or its definition, then further in the sentence the word order is direct. If the question is addressed to any other member of the sentence, except for the subject or its definition, then the word order in the sentence is reversed.

Vocabulary

In the vocabulary, according to its origin, the most ancient Indo-European layer is distinguished, then the common Germanic vocabulary, which appeared after the separation of the Germanic tribes from the rest of the Indo-Europeans, the English vocabulary of subsequent periods and borrowings that penetrated the language in several waves (Greekisms and Latinisms in the scientific and religious (Christianity) spheres, borrowings from the Old French times of the Norman Conquest).

The English language has an enormous lexical richness: Webster's complete dictionary has about 425,000 words. This lexical wealth in its etymology is distributed approximately as follows: words of German origin - 30%, words of Latin-French origin - 55%, words of ancient Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German, etc. origin - 15%. The situation is different if we turn from the words contained in the dictionary to the living dictionary. With regard to the oral dictionary, one can only make assumptions, but for the dictionary of written speech, such work has already been carried out in relation to some writers.

Average word length

One of the most characteristic features of the English language is a short word.

The result of counting the number of monosyllabic words in passages:

Author	Total number of words		monosyllabic words		in %%
Macaulay	150	102	112,5	54	75	53
Dickens	174	123	126	76	72,5	61,8
Shelly	136	102	103	68	76	66,8
Tennyson	248	162	199	113	82,4	70

The first vertical rows are the result of counting all words, the second rows are the result of counting, in which repeated words are counted as one.

Already from this table it can be seen that the short word in English prevails, however, there are also long words, for example, individualization and even anti-establishmentarianism (the longest word in English is

When learning any new material, we first turn to history.

Of course, I guessed that it was not so simple, this English language, but what is so ... Okay, read for yourself, I hope this will help you in your study.

Modern English as we know it is derived from Scandinavian, German, Celtic, Greek and Latin. Every time a new dictionary is published, there are words that need to be added because there are more and more words that the English language has absorbed. You might think that English came from England, because that language has always been spoken there, right? This is not entirely true. The English language developed with the Germanic and Scandinavian settlers who settled in the British Isles. When one country invades another, their languages are mixed and a whole new language is obtained.
English is a language derived from the Anglo-Saxons and some Germanic tribes from the northwest coast of Europe. The Anglo-Saxons were first known as Angles, then became known as Engles. That's where the word English came from. The invasion of the Anglo-Saxons and Germanic tribes took place in the 5th century AD. In the 8th - 9th centuries there was an invasion of the Scandinavian tribes.
Before the arrival of English to the British Isles, people there spoke Celtic, but most of the Celts moved to Wales and Scotland. What we call Old English is Anglo-Saxon, which also depends on the language of the invading Vikings. Old English was also influenced by the language of the Normans. It was a mixture of old French and Latin. And many of the words have been preserved in the language to this day. For example: servant, juggler, baron, dame, noble, feast, story.

Modern English has survived from about the 15th century. Between 1200 and 1600 there was a significant change in the language. The Danish linguist called this phenomenon the Great Vowel Shift.

I understand perfectly well that such a portion of historical material should simply contain illustrative examples, here you go:
Let's look at the word "date". In modern English we pronounce a long "a" sound, but in old English, this word sounded more like "dot". Differences exist not only in written language. The spoken language also changed at the phonetic level. Phonetics changed in the transition from dialect to dialect. The dialect of people living in England and America differed from each other. Due to the introduction of many languages into English, there are often many exceptions to its rules.

Learning English will help you to know a lot of new and interesting things!

In modern business relations, English is a priority. In many countries, it is the second state language; newspapers, magazines, television and radio broadcasts are published in it.

Most export products have instructions in English. Also, in many programs, from the phone to the car, systems in English are initially installed.

If Russification has not yet been developed for your equipment, with a tolerable knowledge of the language, you will perfectly cope with all the difficulties of setting up. However, let us return to our main question: how and when did the English language appear?

In the 5th-6th centuries, the ancient Greek tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Utes moved from the continent to Britain inhabited by the Celts. The neighborhood of these tribes led to the emergence of the English people, and the interaction of tribal dialects - to the gradual formation of the Anglo-Saxon language (VII-XI centuries AD).

During this period, the development of the language was significantly influenced by the Scandinavian and Latin languages.

With the beginning of the era of the penetration of Christianity into Britain, Latinisms appeared in Old English. First of all, these were terms directly related to the church, as well as the names of various types of food and clothing.

From the Scandinavian tribes, the British, in turn, borrowed such grammatical words as they - they, their - theirs, same - the same.

In 1066, England was conquered by the Normans - that was the name of the inhabitants of France. This conquest led to a long period of bilingualism. French was the official language - this meant that all documents were written in it, state affairs were conducted.

The prolonged use of the French language became the reason for fixing in writing some letter combinations that did not quite correspond to the sound composition of the English language, and an extensive layer of French vocabulary appeared in oral speech.

Also during this period, the appearance of a number of words that were obtained by borrowing from other languages is noted. For example, the names of simple crafts and animals come from the Germanic language. During this period, a number of changes in the grammatical structure of the language are also noted. First of all, it is necessary to note the confusion of nominal and verbal endings, which subsequently completely disappear from the pages of English grammar.

In addition, the language of central London formed the basis of literary English. The period of its formation is considered the XIII-XIV centuries.

The popularity of the works of J. Chaucer (1340-1400), who wrote in the London dialect, contributed to the consolidation and spread of London forms. And the typography that appeared in the 15th century recorded some traditional spellings that did not reflect the pronunciation norms of the late 15th century.

This discrepancy between pronunciation and spelling is also characteristic of modern English. And it is precisely this that causes foreigners who study English to have difficulty in learning to read. But this is not the only difficulty in the way of those wishing to thoroughly study English.

In addition to the official British English, there is also American English. Despite the fact that both of these languages have the same progenitor, there are a lot of differences between them, both lexical and grammatical.

For linguists and historians, for a long time, one of the most important questions was how the English language appeared. Indeed, today it is considered international, it is known to almost all peoples of the world from Japan to Hawaii. It is easy to learn, pronounce, has not too much vocabulary, which makes it easy to remember all the most important things. Let's try to find out how it appeared. We will find out which peoples originally spoke it, what influenced its formation and what changed it over the centuries.

Celtic vocabulary database

The first tribes from which a worthy legacy remained on the British Peninsula were precisely the Celtic. They settled these lands around the year 800 and since then have made a huge contribution to the culture and development of future peoples who lived and live here. It is with the Celts that one should begin the story of how the English language appeared. Of course, they did not communicate in English in the form familiar to us, but many of their records and documents could easily be deciphered by modern archaeologists. The roots of the words that are now used in this speech were laid back in those distant centuries and have hardly changed to this day.

Names and words

The Celts themselves, as history says, were a very developed people at that time. Patriarchy reigned in society, all the boys were under the strict guardianship of their fathers. Everyone who belonged to this people knew writing, could read in their native language. The Celts also had one feature - the warriors painted themselves with blue paint, which made them more terrible in battle with any enemy. This technique they called the word "brith" (brith), which translates as "painted". It was it that formed the basis of the name of the whole country and the peoples who settled it in the future. It would seem that at this stage it becomes extremely clear where the English language came from, but there are a couple more interesting points. Similarly, many names have migrated from the Celtic dialects, which are now widely used by the British and Americans. Words such as "whiskey", "plaid", "slogan" and many others have also retained their meaning and structure.

Roman conquests and speech assimilation

In 44 BC, the British Isles officially became and ruled over these lands by Emperor Claudius. In the light of these events, there was also a mixture of peoples - Roman and Celts, due to which speech also changed. It is worth noting here that many historians who carefully study how the English language appeared are sure that it has exactly Latin roots. General grammar, many similarities as well as undeniable historical events speak in favor of this. Here we note that the whole of Europe at the turn of the eras was under the influence of the Romans and each individual people took something from it for themselves, and something was supplemented by the original dialects. In the same way, English speech became an assimilation of Celtic and Latin words. But in the modern language, one can also distinguish such words that came exclusively with the Romans. These are all that have the root "castra" (lat. "camp") - Lancaster Leincester. Also, this word "street" ("street"), derived from lat. "via strata" - "paved road". This also includes the words "wine", "pear", "pepper" and others.

Scandinavian influence

In the late 800s, Denmark conquered the British Isles. During the occupation, which lasted far from one year, the population was assimilated, and speech changed accordingly. Therefore, Denmark plays a big role in how the English language appeared. In addition to the many words that replenished the stocks of English speech at that time, letter combinations also fit tightly into it, which later formed independent, independent of the Scandinavian words. In particular, these are -sc and -sk. They formed words such as "skin" - "skin" (with the original "hide"), "skull" - "skull" (with the original "shell") and "sky" - "sky" (previously there was only "heaven" ).

Is modern speech mixed?

Now we will consider the basics of the origin of that speech, which is understandable to and finally resolve the question of how the English language appeared. In principle, English was not spoken until the 11th century. There were dialects that were called Anglo-Saxon, Romanesque, Celtic, and so on. It was in this century that the French, under the leadership of King William, conquered Britain. Since then, French has become the official language in the camp. Courts, jurisdiction and other state affairs were conducted on it. At the same time, Latin was in use - it was considered the language of science. The common people spoke Anglo-Saxon dialects. It was from this turbulent mixture that English was born, which a modern person can already understand.

The New England Years: From the 1500s to the Present Day

The language was finally formed in the 16th century. Its founder is the famous writer William Shakespeare. Not only did this man create written records of the existence of literate speech in those days in Britain, he also coined many new words that we use today. One of the most surprising is "swag" (swagger) - means a sprawling, depraved gait. Later, in 1795, the textbook "English Grammar" was published, which was compiled by L. Murray. Until now, it is the basis for teaching aids.

Posting of new lands

The question of how English appeared in America is very interesting, because now all the states speak it. It is officially believed that he came to Novaya Zemlya in the 17th century, along with the famous British colonies, who went there in search of a better life. It is important to note that at that time other peoples of Europe had already founded their settlements on the lands of America - Romance-speaking (Spaniards, French, Italians), as well as German-speaking (Germans, Swedes, Danes). Among this national diversity, the Spaniards stood out mainly, who settled the southern part of the new continent. In second place were the French, who migrated to the north of America. But the vast majority were British. That is why the English language began to spread in these lands.

American dialects

Another mixture of Scandinavian, Romanesque and British roots gave humanity a new language - American. In its structure, it is no different from the British one, but here it is much simpler and more understandable. Americans do not use complex time structures, they always express themselves briefly and simply. In addition, they came up with many new words that were not clear to the British for a long time. Also, the American dialect is heavily saturated with Spanish words. Many are used in their pure form, others are altered in their own way.

How English appeared in Russia

Each of us is well aware that no one has ever spoken English in their native country. Over the centuries, our Slavic language evolved, then Russian speech, which acquired a modern look only in the middle of the 20th century. However, the elite of society began to learn this overseas language since the writings of Shakespeare appeared in the country. Initially, they were translated into Russian, which also required knowledge of the source language. Later, people came to the conclusion that the classics should be taught in its original form. Gradually, the Russian people learned this language, but only the nobles could have such a privilege. Most of the population, which were peasants, could not even read in their native language. In this regard, until now, our nation remains the least knowledgeable in foreign languages, even at the level of users.

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