From the History of English Language

If you could go back to England of 1500 years ago, the speech of the people would sound like a foreign language. However, they would be speaking an early form of the English language. This early form is called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. It’s the ancestor of modern English.

The history of the English language begins in about 449 A.D., when tribes from northern Europe, called the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, began to invade the island of Britain. Eventually they conquered the Celts and replaced the Celtic language with their own Anglo-Saxon or Old English.

Old English was spoken and written from about 449 A.D. to 1100 A.D. During this time, often called the Old English Period, the English language changed rapidly. Two important events helped change the English language: the coming of the Christian missionaries and the Viking invasions.

Christianity had a great effect on the English language. St.Augustine, a man sent to Britain by the Church as a missionary and his monks opened schools where they taught Latin, the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. All religious services were in Latin. Soon many Latin words, most having to do with learning and religion, found their way into English. Words such as altar, candle, temple, school, master came into English from Latin during that time.

The second event that helped change the English language was the Viking invasions. During the ninth century the Vikings launched their much-feared warships and sailed to the coast of England. Though they came to conquer, they remained to settle in England. Over a period of many years they contributed many words from their Scandinavian language to English: law, skin, sky, until, both, die.

Then, in 1066, a French-speaking people from Normandy, an area in Northern France, conquered the English. For nearly 300 years after that, both French and English were spoken in England with the result that many French words became part of the English language: chaplain and incense, castle, tower and palace, prison, robber and culprit.

About the same time Europeans were beginning to explore other parts of the world. British admirals and soldiers led expeditions to Africa, western Europe, Asia, and the North and South American continents, where they learned to speak the native languages or at least adopted some of the words into English. Crusaders went on pilgrimages to the Holy Land of Palestine, where they saw for the first time the exotic spices, clothes and perfumes. When they returned, they often had to use a Turkish or Arabic word to describe what they had seen, and these words also became a part of English.

Brand names that become a part of everyday vocabulary are another source of many new entries into the English language. New words are created every day. These words may be acronyms, compound words, shortened words, or people’s names. An acronym is a word made up of the first letters of a series of words. Radar stands for ra dio d etecting a nd r anging.

Two or more existing words are sometimes combined to make a compound word: broadcast, loudspeaker, airplane, bowlegged.

New words often come into the language when longer words are shortened. The word ‘bus’, for example, is a clipped form for original ‘omnibus’.

As for people’s names, the word ‘saxophone’ may be a good example. This musical instrument has this name because it was invented by a man called Sax.

III. Answer the questions.

1. What is the early form of the English language called?

2. When does the history of the English language begin?

3. Which events helped change English very much? How?

4. What words have been kept in English since then?

5. Was there in the history any influence of French?

6. There are plenty of words of different origin in English. How did they come into usage?

7. What are the modern sources of new words appearing? Can you think of any other ways? Is the situation in Russian language similar?

IV. What are the clipped forms for: telephone, zoological garden, motorcar, advertisement, laboratory, examination, influenza.

V. Give your examples of acronyms, clipped forms, compound words, people’s names, scientific terms which were once brand names but are now commonly used.

Read and translate Text III.