The Origins of English

English is basically a Germanic language with a lot of Latin words in it. In simple terms, that means that the grammar and many of the most frequent words are Germanic, and the more formal or technical vocabulary is Latinate. There is much of this Latinate vocabulary that English is sometimes called a semi-Romance language.

This linguistic mixture is a result of historical events. But the simple historical facts appear not to explain everything about the development of the language. One interesting question is why did the British not learn Latin from the Romans? After all, France, Spain, Portugal and Romania all kept the imperial language after the end of the Roman Empire. The answer may be the distance from Rome; the province of Britannia was on the wild and uncooperative margins of Europe. Although the Romans were here for 400 years, they did not leave very much behind them. It is hard to know how much the Celtic language of the Britons took on a Latin flavour. Actually its living descendant, Welsh, has a lot of Latin roots in it, so perhaps in the 3^rd and 4^th centuries AD they were on their way to creating another great Romance language. But it was not to be. The Anglo-Saxons who took over from the Romans in Britain were relatively untouched by Latin influences, so Celtic was replaced by Germanic, and the British romance with Romance was, temporarily, over.

In 1066, the French-speaking Normans invaded England. Over the next 300 years, their French merged with Anglo-Saxon to create a new language: the writing of Chaucer (1343-1400) is not very far from modern English. As in the rest of Europe, Latin, especially in its written form, remained for a long time the language of science, philosophy and the Church. But English was growing stronger; it was soon not only the language of everyday life but also that of a flowering literature. Caxton introduced printing into the country in 1476, and that did much to standardize forms – spelling was very inconsistent at that time. Latin and Greek classics and the Bible were translated into English. By the time of Shakespeare (1564-1616), the language was highly developed.

27. Read the text carefully, identify key points. Express your opinion on the problem in English or in Russian when being tested on your progress in independent reading.

Britain’s Languages

The Celtic peoples who gave way to the Anglo-Saxons did not disappear – they moved north and west, and their descendants live today in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man and Cornwall. They went on speaking their Celtic languages, but of course shared the islands with a very dominant majority culture. From the 17^th century onwards, the English imposed their language on huge areas of the world, from the north of Canada to the south of New Zealand, so the chances of the Celtic language surviving in Wales were pretty slim.

In fact, it is the Welsh who have preserved their linguistic identity more than any of the other Celtic peoples. The last native speaker of Cornish died in 1777 and of Manx (the language of the Isle of Man) in 1974. Gaelic in Scotland is spoken by no more than 80, 000 people, mostly in the islands off the north-west coast; the only monolingual speakers are young children who have not yet been exposed to English. Irish Gaelic has about 100, 000 speakers confined to small areas on the west coast. The Welsh language, by contrast, has a solid heartland in the north-west of the country and is spoken by half a million people: there is a TV channel and a lot of radio in Welsh, it is taught in schools and used by the nationalist political party, Plaid Cymru.

It is hard to find evidence that the English actually tried to kill off the Celtic languages in a systematic way – to commit linguicide. Their decline has been more a result of indifference from London, and a lack of will to preserve them on the part of the Celtic speakers themselves. But there have been abuses. In the 19^th century, the English education system was imposed, and children were not allowed to speak Welsh at school: if they did, they were forced to wear a wooden board across their shoulders. Echoing this, a Welsh nationalist wrote: ” Dy iaitb ar ein bysgwyddau megis pwn ” (“Your language is like a burden on our shoulders”).

28. Read the text carefully, identify key points. Express your opinion on the problem in English or in Russian when being tested on your progress in independent reading.