Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The History of English
- How old is English?
- documented for
about 1'300
years
- English was the language
spoken by Germanic tribes
who settled in England in
the course of the 5th century
- comparitive reconstruction =
hypothisis that some languages
are related
- you compare related words
systematically and you then
reconstruct the earlier forms from
which the recorded ones must have
been descended (abstammen von)
- The Indo-European
Family of
Languages
- Indo European -> Germanic ->
West-Germanic (German, English,
Dutch) or North-Germanic -> (Danish,
Norweign)
- Indo European -> Italic -> Latin ->
Romance -> Portuguese, Spanish,
French, etc.
- Indo European -> Celtic -> Insular (->
Goidelic -> Irish or Brittanic -> Welsh,
Cornish) or Continental -> Gaulish
- Relation of languages
- genetically
related languages -> related
words (father, Vater)
- dialects became daughter languages in
their own right
- own language if: they
have a written
standard, do the
speakers feel that
theirs is a language?
- language contact ->
borrowings (Latin: vinum,
English: wine)
- The British Isles before the Arrival of English
- England and Wales were part of Roman Empire
- inhabitants were Celts, spoke
varieties of celtic and in the parts
occupied by the Romans Latin
- Anglo-Saxons arrived, found Romanized Celts
- Celts were conquered (besiegt) and driven
westward -> thats why Celtic languages are
spoken in western parts of the British Isles
(Welsh in Wales)
- The Celtic languages and
Latin have left hardly any
traces in English. Only in
river names or topographical
terms
- later loanwords:
slogan, whiskey
- Insular Latin: place
names ending in -chester
(Manchester), -caster
(from castrum) -> Anglo
Saxons added the Latin
suffix
- External and Internal History
- External History of a language:
History of the people who speak
it
- Example Norman Conquest:
French speaking Normans
came and banished the
Anglo-Saxons
- French was official language of England
(150 years not written but spoken by
almost everyone)
- elite spoke French, many texts in
French -> large-scale borrowing
(10'000 words from French)
- Internal History of a language:
developments which cannot be
explained by historical events