The Origin of the English Language (as told in less than 15 minutes)

by Louise Egan

Introduction

If you took three and a half cups full of salt, filled them each to the brim and then spilled them over a table long enough to count each and every granule, that would represent just how many people are born today speaking English as a first language: that is, between 300–400 million people. That same amount speak English as a second language. Chinese and Hindi (spoken in India) have as many speakers, but those languages exist largely within their respective countries. English, with its roughly 750 million speakers, can be heard on every continent of the world and is today’s most global language.

The chances of English expanding worldwide to such an extent would probably have seemed slim – or really, impossible – in the 5th century A.D., which is when a band of fierce Germanic warriors in iron helmets and chain mail vests first came thundering onto the shores of what is now England. However, 1,000 years later the audience for Shakespeare’s plays was 5–7 million strong, and soon enough the English pilgrims would be sailing to the New World.

The growth of English worldwide can be traced through history, but the story of the English language itself is another question — one that lies in the centuries between those iron helmets and Hamlet.

What makes English different from other languages is that it did not come from one main source, the way Italian, French and Spanish grew out of Latin. Rather, English formed slowly, over centuries, as waves of Romans (from Italy), Saxons (Germany), Scandinavians (Norway and Denmark) and Normans (France) invaded the country and shaped the language.

Those early invasions – as well as later influences from trade, exploration, colonization and international war – made English flexible, able to absorb and take advantage of different ways of saying a single idea; or to make nouns into verbs, verbs into nouns; or to take words from other languages and make them our own – words like tea, coffee, sushi, pajamas, banana, skunk, ski, canoe and raccoon.

Yet English, at heart, is still mainly the language of the ancient tribe of Anglo-Saxons, with its short, direct words for informal, daily speech, or speech that wants to grab one’s attention. (That would include curse words.) Even today, English speakers would naturally say, for example get, go out, and eat over their Latin-based counterparts, obtain, exit and consume. That is because English is largely the language of the common folk: Old English words like men, women, children, husbands, wives, house, horse and food -– reflect the down-to-earth quality of the language still found today. Our Latin-based words, on the other hand, came from the ruling classes – the monarchs, dukes, princesses as well as ministers and priests (all Latin words). The rulers did not speak English; in fact, it took many centuries until they deigned to learn it. Meanwhile, the people – the farmers, traders. shepherds and other ordinary folk – were able to speak, change and adapt their tongue the way they saw fit.

To appreciate what “sounding Anglo-Saxon” means today, listen to greetings (“Hi!” “Hey, what’s up!”) and quick phone calls (“Thanks for calling – gotta go”); notice advertisements for bank loans (“Save Now!”) and other places targeting “the average Joe” and you’ll hear and see words of early English origin. On the other hand, invitations to embassy balls (“Cordially invited to attend”) and ads for exotic travel and pleasure–seeking (“enchanting,” “fantastic,” “gorgeous”) will use Latin–root words to impress and dazzle.

In effect, knowing the origins of English will help you better understand your own study and use of this wonderful, rich language.

In the Beginning There Were the Celts…

In the beginning, the island was called Britain, which was another name for the tribe we call Celts, the ancient people who first lived there. The Celtic people – peasants, farmers, hunters and warriors – lived in simple thatched roof huts and did not bother anyone in other lands. (The Celtic language eventually became the Gaelic language of Ireland and Scotland, and the Welsh language of Wales, while their former land, and language, was completely displaced by the English.)

The Romans Arrive

The Roman emperor, Claudius, came to Britain in 43 AD with 40,000 troops, who immediately set to establishing Roman towns, baths and public buildings right in and among the Celtic villages. The two societies had nothing in common and mostly kept away from each other. Still, the Romans – both soldiers and civilians – stayed in Britain for almost 400 years. But the linguistic contact was so little, that only a few useful Latin-based words came out of that time – words such as, street (from stratus) and kitchen (from coquina).

The Romans Leave – Barbarians Descend – and English Is Born

In 445 AD the Romans left Britain – too much going on back home. The Celts, who had relied on the Romans to defend them for the past 400 years, were suddenly completely vulnerable to attack; and the first to seize the opportunity were the Picts and Scots, tribes from the northern part of Britain. The desperate Celtic king made a deal with the Saxons, a tribe of wild warriors from an area in northern Germany, who gladly set off in their longships to Britain to fight the invaders. The Saxons loved a good fight and easily won.

The Saxons Want Power – So Do the Angles – and Celts Leave

After their victory in Britain, the Saxons decided to stay and take over the land for themselves. By then other Saxon tribes, including the Angles (from Denmark) were also in Britain and fighting for power and land. Ultimately, the Saxons and the Angles were the big winners. The losers were the Celts, who mostly moved to Ireland, Scotland and Wales – taking their Celtic language with them.

The Saxons Establish Anglo–Saxon, or Old English

By the 500’s Britain was the land of the Angles and Saxons; the main language became Anglo-Saxon, an earthy language, with its short words and harsh sounds that mirrored the crude, simple lives of the people. Words like night, fight, right, laugh, tough, caught and bought were once pronounced with gutteral gh’s, which are now, thankfully, silent. Other quite basic words, like speak, understand and answer are also Anglo-Saxon.

English grammar and the parts of speech are from Anglo-Saxon-based Old English; so are words like father, mother, sister, brother, foot, tooth, book, church, goose and mouse. Note that words with irregular plurals – mouse–mice, goose–geese, foot–feet, tooth–teeth, child–children, man–men and woman–women – are all from Old English and reflect important words of daily life back then.

How England Got Its Name

The Angles were a branch of the Saxon tribe who originally came from Denmark. The Saxons originally came from Germany. Why, you may wonder, didn’t Britain become “Saxonlandia” since both peoples were Saxons. Historians think that the name England came from the Old Saxons, back in Europe, who in their writings, called the British Saxons the “Angli-Saxons” to distinguish them from their original group. Angli-Saxon Land proved a bit too long a name and was eventually shorted to Angle-Land and eventually to England.

Horns and Helmets – The Vikings Invade

Vikings were Scandinavian pirates focused on raiding distant lands like Iceland, Greenland and England. Between the years 800–1000, the Norwegian Vikings struck northern England, while the Danish Vikings hit the South. Although the Anglo-Saxons could probably understand a lot of what the invaders said (the Scandinavian languages were Saxon-based as well), that linguistic connection did not stop the Vikings from burning English villages and monasteries. After a while, the destruction stopped and the Vikings joined the Anglo-Saxons in farming, trading, and daily life – and added more words to the English language.

The Norwegian/Danish Effect on English

The early Norwegian and Danish settlers in England contributed many words to modern English. Words such as: take, get, call, ill, sick, egg, fog, muggy, seem, neck, freckle, kid, leg, law, crooked, rotten, husband, crawl, scream, lift, cake, anger, dirt, flat, tight and sk–words like ski, skull, skill and sky.

The Anglo-Saxons also thought it easier to say the Norwegian words, “they, them and their,” so they adopted those pronouns, along with the verb, “are.”

Our days of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are named after the Norse gods: God of Battles (Tyr), Chief of the Gods (Woden), God of Thunder (Thor) and Goddess of Beauty (Freya). Easter is named after the Saxon goddess of fertility, Oestre; and Yule, a word heard around Christmastime, refers to the pagan winter solstice celebration.

The French Normans Become Anglo–Normans and Bring Latin Vocabulary

The Normans (“Norse Men”) were former Vikings who settled on the northwest coast of France around 800. The Normans adopted French as their language (but being Saxon, did not pronounce everything like the Parisians). In 1066, William the Conqueror, of France, sailed across the English Channel to claim his right to the English throne. (William said that the English king had promised the throne to him, but that king died before making it happen.) So William fought for the throne – and won. Though it looked like a disaster for the English at the time, it was, eventually, an amazing coup for the English language, if not the culture as a whole. As a French-speaking king, William brought more than a new accent and customs – his biggest contribution was VOCABULARY. French words, which came from Latin, were usually longer and sounded more elegant.

At first, the new French words merely reflected the new establishment: Victory, monarchy, court, royal, nobles, prince, princess, duke, duchess, aristocrats; also, government, administration, testaments, justice, legal, supremacy, parliament and sovereign. Such French influence in England also created a verbal separation between the common people and the powerful. Those who couldn’t speak French or Latin could not take part in the professions – religion, law, or government – that were conducted in those languages. Over time, the divide diminished, but French and Latin-based words are still the most common terms in religion, law and government; and any French/Latin words used outside of those areas can sound either knowledgeable and sophisticated – or pretentious and snobby. In the end, however, we can thank the Normans for contributing at least 10,000 words to the English language.

The Middle Period – A Time of Change

In the 11th and 12th centuries, while the court spoke in the comparatively elegant Anglo-Norman French about religion, law, science and literature were in Latin, the common folk continued to speak in English – though that too was changing. With trade, commerce and even marriage among people with differing English dialects, people started to speak in simpler ways in order to make themselves understood. Over time, English lost its genders, cases and almost all inflections: the simplified rules made all non-breathing things an “it,” while “he” and “she” are only used for people (and their pets); “you,” became singular, plural, informal and formal; “they” was either masculine or feminine; and word endings no longer showed whether something was the subject or object, but used prepositions instead to show the meaning (the origin of phrasal verbs!)

English Blossoms

Once into the 14th century and beyond, as Oxford and Cambridge universities were established as places of higher learning, and London and other cities were becoming important centers of commerce, English writers discovered they could literally invent words: borrowing from Greek and Latin, they created words that sounded more fluid, fancier and more important than plain English ones. Critics scoffed at this, but many words have remained from then: dismiss, celebrate, encyclopedia, commit, capacity and ingenious. To this day, though, such words as expedite, impede, extraneous, clandestine have a potentially overly formal sound to them that is not found in the shorter counterparts: rush, get in the way, too much, and secret.

William Shakespeare was unique in his ability to coin new and brilliant words and expressions, many of which are an integral part of English today. Words first used by this writer-poet include amazement, bedazzle, birthplace, cheap, colorful, and hundreds of others that are taken for granted today.

English Today

Thus, from a small island of warriors and peasants a language was able to grow and spread its way across the ocean. Though American English sounds different from British English and Britain’s former colonies, the words and expressions we use are mostly the same.

Today, after centuries of trade, the expansion of the British Empire, and the influence of American culture since the end of World War II, English is now spoken on every continent around the globe; it is also the international language for business and diplomacy.

What about spelling, pronunciation, accents and the lack of teaching English grammar in school (at least in most American schools)? Those are all interesting subjects, able to be discussed and debated – another day.

P.S. What’s a Word for “Nice to Look At?”

With all the linguistic influences shaping English, there are many ways to express a single idea. For instance, to describe someone nice to look at, you could choose from beautiful, attractive, good–looking, striking, handsome, stunning, comely, lovely, dazzling, elegant, gorgeous and pretty – and those are just the standard adjectives. Add some slang, and you’ve got: hot, sexy, dynamite, god- or goddess-like and even babe-a-licious.

Can you guess the origins of these words?