Roots of English

Some that end in t or d have three forms only: In addition to the above inflections, English employs two other main morphological structural processes—affixation and composition—and two subsidiary ones—back-formation and blend. Affixes, word elements attached to words, may either precede, as prefixes do, undo ; way, subway , or follow, as suffixes do, doer ; way, wayward. They may be native overdo, waywardness , Greek hyperbole, thesis , or Latin supersede, pediment. Suffixes are bound more closely than prefixes to the stems or root elements of words.

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Consider, for instance, the wide variety of agent suffixes in the nouns act or , artis an , dot ard , engin eer , financ ier , hire ling , magistr ate , merch ant , scient ist , secret ary , song ster , stud ent , and work er. Suffixes may come to be attached to stems quite fortuitously, but, once attached, they are likely to be permanent. At the same time, one suffix can perform many functions. The suffix -er denotes the doer of the action in the words worker, driver, and hunter ; the instrument in chopper, harvester, and roller ; and the dweller in Icelander, Londoner, and Trobriander.

Middle English (1100-1500)

Usage may prove capricious. Whereas a writer is a person, a typewriter is a machine. For some time a computer was both, but now the word is no longer used of persons. Composition , or compounding , is concerned with free forms. The primary compounds cloverleaf , gentleman , and less obviously, because of the spelling already show the collocation of two free forms. They differ from word groups or phrases in stress, juncture, or vowel quality or by a combination of these. Thus, already differs from all ready in stress and juncture, cloverleaf from clover leaf in stress, and gentleman from gentle man in vowel quality, stress, and juncture.

In describing the structure of compound words it is necessary to take into account the relation of components to each other and the relation of the whole compound to its components. These relations diverge widely in, for example, the words cloverleaf, icebreaker, breakwater, blackbird, peace-loving, and paperback. In cloverleaf the first component noun is attributive and modifies the second, as also in the terms aircraft, beehive, landmark, lifeline, network, and vineyard.

Icebreaker , however, is a compound made up of noun object plus agent noun, itself consisting of verb plus agent suffix, as also in the words bridgebuilder, landowner, metalworker, minelayer, and timekeeper. The next type consists of verb plus object. The English pastime may be compared, for example, with the French passe-temps , the Spanish pasatiempo , and the Italian passatempo. As for the blackbird type, consisting of attributive adjective plus noun, it occurs frequently, as in the terms bluebell, grandson, shorthand, and wildfire.

The next type, composed of object noun and a present participle, as in the terms fact-finding, heart-rending German herzzerreissend , life-giving German lebenspendend , painstaking , and time-consuming , occurs rarely. The last type is seen in barefoot, bluebeard, hunchback, leatherneck, redbreast, and scatterbrain.

Back-formations and blends are widespread. Back-formation is the reverse of affixation, being the analogical creation of a new word from an existing word falsely assumed to be its derivative. For example, the verb to edit has been formed from the noun editor on the reverse analogy of the noun actor from to act , and similarly the verbs automate, bulldoze, commute, escalate, liaise, loaf, sightsee, and televise are backformed from the nouns automation, bulldozer, commuter, escalation, liaison, loafer, sightseer, and television. From the single noun procession are backformed two verbs with different stresses and meanings: Blends fall into two groups: In the first group are the words clash , from clack and crash , and geep , offspring of goat and sheep.

To the second group belong dormobiles , or dormitory automobiles, and slurbs , or slum suburbs. A travel monologue becomes a travelogue and a telegram sent by cable a cablegram. Aviation electronics becomes avionics ; biology electronics, bionics ; and nuclear electronics, nucleonics. In cablese a question mark is a quark ; in computerese a binary unit is a bit.

In astrophysics a quasistellar source of radio energy becomes a quasar , and a pulsating star becomes a pulsar. Simple shortenings, such as ad for advertisement , that some time ago might have been sneered at by some are now in common use. They are listed in dictionaries side by side with their full forms. Among such abbreviations are exam, gym, lab, lib, op, spec, sub, tech, veg, and vet. Compound shortenings, after the pattern of Russian agitprop for agitatsiya propaganda , are also used. Initial syllables are joined as in the words linocut lino leum cut and FORTRAN for mula tran slation ; these shortenings are not uncommon in, and often become, the names of corporations and other organizations FedEx [ Fed eral Ex press], Intelsat [ In ternational Tel ecommunications Sat ellite Organization].

Simple, declarative, affirmative sentences have two main patterns with five subsidiary patterns within each. Verb and complement together form the predicate. The table listing sentences 1 through 5 provides examples of the first main pattern. The sentences of the first pattern consist of three parts: In Jane knows this country 1 , the complement is the direct object of a transitive verb; in Science is organized knowledge 2 , it is a predicative nominal group forming the second component of an equation linked to the first part by the meaningless copula is ; in Elizabeth becomes queen 3 , it is a predicative noun linked with the subject by the meaningful copula becomes ; in The captain falls sick 4 , it is a predicative adjective; and in Nothing passes unobserved 5 , it is a predicative past participle.

The table listing sentences 6 through 10 shows the second pattern. In the second main pattern, each sentence contains four components: In John gives Mary a ring 6 , inner and outer complements consist of indirect object without preposition followed by direct object; in The sailors make John captain 7 , these complements are direct object and appositive noun; in You have kept your record clean 8 , direct object and predicative adjective; in The driver finds the road flooded 9 , direct object and predicative past participle; and in We want you to know 10 , direct object and predicative infinitive.

One can seldom change the word order in these 10 sentences without doing something else—adding or subtracting a word, changing the meaning. There is no better way of appreciating the importance of word position than by scrutinizing the 10 frames illustrated. If, for instance, in 6 one reverses inner and outer complements, one adds to and says, John gives a ring to Mary ; one does not say John gives a ring Mary.

Some verbs, such as explain and say , never omit the preposition to before the indirect object: If, in 10 , the inner and outer complements are reversed e. Apart from these fundamental rules of word order, the principles governing the positions of adjectives , adverbs, and prepositions call for brief comment. For attributive adjectives the rule is simple: It is also possible, however, to abandon this principle and switch groups to front position: In the ordering of multiple epithets, on the other hand, some tendencies can be seen.

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Attributes denoting permanent qualities stand nearest their head nouns: The order in multiple attribution tends to be as follows: Adverbs are more mobile than adjectives. Nevertheless, some principles seem to be at work. Adverbs of frequency tend to come immediately after the substantive verb You are often late , before other verbs You never know , and between auxiliaries and full verbs You can never tell. In this last instance, however, American differs from British usage. Most Americans would place the adverb before the auxiliary and say You never can tell.

In the title of his play of that name, first performed in , George Bernard Shaw avowedly followed American usage. Adverbs of time usually occur at the beginning or end of a sentence, seldom in the middle. Particular expressions normally precede more general ones: An adverb of place or direction follows a verb with which it is semantically bound: We arrived home after dark.

Other adverbs normally take end positions in the order of manner, place, and time: The bird flew suddenly [manner] from the tree [place] a few minutes ago [time]. This seems a good place to live in seems more natural to most speakers than This seems a good place in which to live. Have you anything to open this can with?

The above are principles rather than rules, and such structural flexibility makes it easy to find ambiguity in isolated sentences. When walking snipe always approach up wind , a shooting manual directs. Two ways in which John gives Mary a ring can be stated in the passive are: Concerning this same action, four types of questions can be formulated: The information sought is the identity of the giver.

The question may be answered by yes or no. This form, differing from the declarative statement only by the question mark in writing, or by rising intonation in speech, calls, like sentences 2 and 3 , for a yes or no answer but suggests doubt on the part of the questioner that the action is taking place. The vocabulary of Modern English is approximately a quarter Germanic Old English, Scandinavian, Dutch, German and two-thirds Italic or Romance especially Latin, French, Spanish, Italian , with copious and increasing importations from Greek in science and technology and with considerable borrowings from more than other languages.

Names of many basic concepts and things come from Old English or Anglo-Saxon: From Old English come all the personal pronouns except they, their, and them , which are from Scandinavian , the auxiliary verbs except the marginal used , which is from French , most simple prepositions, and all conjunctions.

English language

Numerous nouns would be identical whether they came from Old English or Scandinavian: Many verbs would also be identical, especially monosyllabic verbs— bring, come, get, hear, meet, see, set, sit, spin, stand, think. The same is true of the adjectives full and wise ; the colour names gray grey , green, and white ; the possessives mine and thine but not ours and yours ; the terms north and west but not south and east ; and the prepositions over and under. Just a few English and Scandinavian doublets coexist in current speech: The debt of the English language to French is large.

The terms president, representative, legislature, congress, constitution, and parliament are all French. So, too, are duke, marquis, viscount, and baron ; but king, queen, lord, lady, earl, and knight are English. City, village, court, palace, manor, mansion, residence, and domicile are French; but town, borough, hall, house, bower, room, and home are English.

Comparison between the many pairs of English and French synonyms shows that the former are more human and concrete, the latter more intellectual and abstract; e. The superiority of French cooking is duly recognized by the adoption of such culinary terms as boil, broil, fry, grill, roast, souse, and toast. This group began as a common language in the Elbe river region about 3, years ago. Around the second century BC, this Common Germanic language split into three distinct sub-groups:. West Germanic invaders from Jutland and southern Denmark: They spoke a mutually intelligible language, similar to modern Frisian--the language of northeastern region of the Netherlands--that is called Old English.

These invaders pushed the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants out of what is now England into Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland, leaving behind a few Celtic words. Cornish, unfortunately, is now a dead language. Also influencing English at this time were the Vikings. Norse invasions, beginning around , brought many North Germanic words into the language, particularly in the north of England.

Some examples are dream , which had meant joy until the Vikings imparted its current meaning on it from the Scandinavian cognate draumr , and skirt , which continues to live alongside its native English cognate shirt. The majority of words in modern English come from foreign, not Old English roots. In fact, only about one sixth of the known Old English words have descendants surviving today. But this statistic is deceptive; Old English is much more important than this number would indicate.

About half of the most commonly used words in modern English have Old English roots. Words like be , water , and strong , for example, derive from Old English roots. Old English, whose best known surviving example is the poem Beowulf , lasted until about This last date is rather arbitrary, but most scholars choose it because it is shortly after the most important event in the development of the English language, the Norman Conquest. The Bayeux Tapestry, details of which form the navigation buttons on this site, is perhaps the most famous graphical depiction of the Norman Conquest.

The new overlords spoke a dialect of Old French known as Anglo-Norman. The Normans were also of Germanic stock Norman comes from Norseman and Anglo-Norman was a French dialect that had considerable Germanic influences in addition to the basic Latin roots. Prior to the Norman Conquest, Latin had been only a minor influence on the English language, mainly through vestiges of the Roman occupation and from the conversion of Britain to Christianity in the seventh century ecclesiastical terms such as priest , vicar , and mass came into the language this way , but now there was a wholesale infusion of Romance Anglo-Norman words.

The influence of the Normans can be illustrated by looking at two words, beef and cow. Beef , commonly eaten by the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, while the Anglo-Saxon commoners, who tended the cattle, retained the Germanic cow. Many legal terms, such as indict , jury , and verdict have Anglo-Norman roots because the Normans ran the courts.

This split, where words commonly used by the aristocracy have Romantic roots and words frequently used by the Anglo-Saxon commoners have Germanic roots, can be seen in many instances. Sometimes French words replaced Old English words; crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam. Other times, French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French gentle and the Germanic man formed gentleman.

Other times, two different words with roughly the same meaning survive into modern English. Thus we have the Germanic doom and the French judgment , or wish and desire. It is useful to compare various versions of a familiar text to see the differences between Old, Middle, and Modern English. Take for instance this Old English c. Rendered in Middle English Wyclif, , the same text starts to become recognizable to the modern eye:.

And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl. Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen. Giue us this day our daily bread.

The history of English | Oxford Dictionaries

And forgiue us our debts as we forgiue our debters. And lead us not into temptation, but deliuer us from euill. This began a process where the Norman nobles of England became increasingly estranged from their French cousins. England became the chief concern of the nobility, rather than their estates in France, and consequently the nobility adopted a modified English as their native tongue. About years later, the Black Death killed about one third of the English population. The laboring and merchant classes grew in economic and social importance, and along with them English increased in importance compared to Anglo-Norman.

This mixture of the two languages came to be known as Middle English. Unlike Old English, Middle English can be read, albeit with difficulty, by modern English-speaking people. By , the linguistic division between the nobility and the commoners was largely over.

In that year, the Statute of Pleading was adopted, which made English the language of the courts and it began to be used in Parliament. The next wave of innovation in English came with the Renaissance. The revival of classical scholarship brought many classical Latin and Greek words into the Language. These borrowings were deliberate and many bemoaned the adoption of these inkhorn terms, but many survive to this day.

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Many students having difficulty understanding Shakespeare would be surprised to learn that he wrote in modern English. Many familiar words and phrases were coined or first recorded by Shakespeare, some 2, words and countless catch-phrases are his. Newcomers to Shakespeare are often shocked at the number of cliches contained in his plays, until they realize that he coined them and they became cliches afterwards. Words he bequeathed to the language include critical , leapfrog , majestic , dwindle , and pedant. Two other major factors influenced the language and served to separate Middle and Modern English.

The first was the Great Vowel Shift. This was a change in pronunciation that began around Shakespeare, on the other hand, would be accented, but understandable. For most of the Middle English period a dialect was simply what was spoken in a particular area, which would normally be more or less represented in writing - although where and from whom the writer had learnt how to write were also important. It was only when the broadly London standard began to dominate, especially through the new technology of printing, that the other regional varieties of the language began to be seen as different in kind.

As the London standard became used more widely, especially in more formal contexts and particularly amongst the more elevated members of society, the other regional varieties came to be stigmatized , as lacking social prestige and indicating a lack of education. In the same period a series of changes also occurred in English pronunciation though not uniformly in all dialects , which go under the collective name of the Great Vowel Shift.

The phonetic pairings of most long and short vowel sounds were also lost, which gave rise to many of the oddities of English pronunciation, and which now obscure the relationships between many English words and their foreign counterparts. During the medieval and early modern periods the influence of English spread throughout the British Isles, and from the early seventeenth century onwards its influence began to be felt throughout the world. Words were absorbed from all over the world, often via the languages of other trading and imperial nations such as Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

At the same time, new varieties of English emerged, each with their own nuances of vocabulary and grammar and their own distinct pronunciations. More recently still, English has become a lingua franca , a global language, regularly used and understood by many nations for whom English is not their first language. The eventual effects on the English language of both of these developments can only be guessed at today, but there can be little doubt that they will be as important as anything that has happened to English in the past sixteen hundred years. Archaic words have a charm that never fades away, from French sounding to wondrously mysterious ones.

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Five Events that Shaped the History of English

Continue Find out more. The Anglo-Saxon Settlement It's never easy to pinpoint exactly when a specific language began, but in the case of English we can at least say that there is little sense in speaking of the English language as a separate entity before the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain. The Scandinavian Settlements The next invaders were the Norsemen.