descent of english language essay

A Brief History of the English Language: From Old English to Modern Days

Join us on a journey through the centuries as we trace the evolution of English from the Old and Middle periods to modern times.

What Is the English Language, and Where Did It Come From?

The different periods of the english language, the bottom line.

Today, English is one of the most common languages in the world, spoken by around 1.5 billion people globally. It is the official language of many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

English is also the lingua franca of international business and academia and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Despite its widespread use, English is not without its challenges. Because it has borrowed words from so many other languages, it can be difficult to know how to spell or pronounce certain words. And, because there are so many different dialects of English, it can be hard to understand someone from a different region.

But, overall, English is a rich and flexible language that has adapted to the needs of a rapidly changing world. It is truly a global, dominant language – and one that shows no signs of slowing down. Join us as we guide you through the history of the English language.

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The English language is a West Germanic language that originated in England. It is the third most spoken language in the world after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. English has been influenced by a number of other languages over the centuries, including Old Norse, Latin, French, and Dutch.

The earliest forms of English were spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, who settled in England in the 5th century. The Anglo-Saxons were a mix of Germanic tribes from Scandinavia and Germany. They brought with them their own language, which was called Old English.

The English language has gone through distinct periods throughout its history. Different aspects of the language have changed throughout time, such as grammar, vocabulary, spelling , etc.

The Old English period (5th-11th centuries), Middle English period (11th-15th centuries), and Modern English period (16th century to present) are the three main divisions in the history of the English language.

Let's take a closer look at each one:

Old English Period (500-1100)

The Old English period began in 449 AD with the arrival of three Germanic tribes from the Continent: the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. They settled in the south and east of Britain, which was then inhabited by the Celts. The Anglo-Saxons had their own language, called Old English, which was spoken from around the 5th century to the 11th century.

Old English was a Germanic language, and as such, it was very different from the Celtic languages spoken by the Britons. It was also a very different language from the English we speak today. It was a highly inflected language, meaning that words could change their form depending on how they were being used in a sentence.

There are four known dialects of the Old English language:

• Northumbrian in northern England and southeastern Scotland,
• Mercian in central England,
• Kentish in southeastern England,
• West Saxon in southern and southwestern England.

Old English grammar also had a complex system, with five main cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental), three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and two numbers (singular and plural).

The Anglo-Saxons also had their own alphabet, which was known as the futhorc . The futhorc consisted of 24 letters, most of which were named after rune symbols. However, they also borrowed the Roman alphabet and eventually started using that instead.

The vocabulary was also quite different, with many words being borrowed from other languages such as Latin, French, and Old Norse. The first account of Anglo-Saxon England ever written is from 731 AD – a document known as the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People , which remains the single most valuable source from this period.

Another one of the most famous examples of Old English literature is the epic poem Beowulf , which was written sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries. By the end of the Old English period at the close of the 11th century, West Saxon dominated, resulting in most of the surviving documents from this period being written in the West Saxon dialect.

The Old English period was a time of great change for Britain. In 1066, the Normans invaded England and conquered the Anglo-Saxons. The Normans were originally Viking settlers from Scandinavia who had settled in France in the 10th century. They spoke a form of French, which was the language of the ruling class in England after the Norman Conquest.

The Old English period came to an end in 1066 with the Norman Conquest. However, Old English continued to be spoken in some parts of England until the 12th century. After that, it was replaced by Middle English.

Middle English Period (1100-1500)

The second stage of the English language is known as the Middle English period , which was spoken from around the 12th century to the late 15th century. As mentioned above, Middle English emerged after the Norman Conquest of 1066, when the Normans conquered England.

As a result of the Norman Conquest, French became the language of the ruling class, while English was spoken by the lower classes. This led to a number of changes in the English language, including a reduction in the number of inflections and grammatical rules.

Middle English is often divided into two periods: Early Middle English (11th-13th centuries) and Late Middle English (14th-15th centuries).

Early Middle English (1100-1300)

The Early Middle English period began in 1066 with the Norman Conquest and was greatly influenced by French, as the Normans brought with them many French words that began to replace their Old English equivalents. This process is known as Normanisation.

One of the most noticeable changes was in the vocabulary of law and government. Many Old English words related to these concepts were replaced by their French equivalents. For example, the Old English word for a king was cyning or cyng , which was replaced by the Norman word we use today, king .

The Norman Conquest also affected the grammar of Old English. The inflectional system began to break down, and words started to lose their endings. This Scandinavian influence made the English vocabulary simpler and more regular.

Late Middle English (1300-1500)

The Late Middle English period began in the 14th century and lasted until the 15th century. During this time, the English language was further influenced by French.

However, the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) between England and France meant that English was used more and more in official documents. This helped to standardize the language and make it more uniform.

One of the most famous examples of Middle English literature is The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, which was written in the late 14th century. Chaucer was the first major writer in English, and he e helped to standardize the language even further. For this reason, Middle English is also frequently referred to as Chaucerian English.

French influence can also be seen in the vocabulary, with many French loanwords being introduced into English during this time. Middle English was also influenced by the introduction of Christianity, with many religious terms being borrowed from Latin.

Modern English Period (1500-present)

After Old and Middle English comes the third stage of the English language, known as Modern English , which began in the 16th century and continues to the present day.

The Early Modern English period, or Early New English, emerged after the introduction of the printing press in England in 1476, which meant that books could be mass-produced, and more people learned to read and write. As a result, the standardization of English continued.

The Renaissance (14th-17th centuries) saw a rediscovery of classical learning, which had a significant impact on English literature. During this time, the English language also borrowed many Greek and Latin words. The first English dictionary , A Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words , was published in 1604.

The King James Bible , which was first published in 1611, also had a significant impact on the development of Early Modern English. The Bible was translated into English from Latin and Greek, introducing many new words into the language.

The rise of the British Empire (16th-20th centuries) also had a significant impact on the English language. English became the language of commerce, science, and politics, and was spread around the world by British colonists. This led to the development of many different varieties of English, known as dialects.

One of the most famous examples of Early Modern English literature is William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet , which was first performed in 1597. To this day, William Shakespeare is considered the greatest writer in the English language.

The final stage of the English language is known as Modern English , which has been spoken from around the 19th century to the present day. Modern English has its roots in Early Modern English, but it has undergone several changes since then.

The most significant change occurred in the 20th century, with the introduction of mass media and technology. For example, new words have been created to keep up with changing technology, and old words have fallen out of use. However, the core grammar and vocabulary of the language have remained relatively stable.

Today, English is spoken by an estimated 1.5 billion people around the world, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is the official language of many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. English is also the language of international communication and is used in business, education, and tourism.

English is a fascinating language that has evolved over the centuries, and today it is one of the most commonly spoken languages in the world. The English language has its roots in Anglo-Saxon, a West Germanic language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons who settled in Britain in the 5th century.

The earliest form of English was known as Old English, which was spoken until around the 11th century. Middle English emerged after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and it was spoken until the late 15th century. Modern English began to develop in the 16th century, and it has continued to evolve since then.

If you want to expand your English vocabulary with new, relevant words, make sure to download our Langster app , and learn English with stories! Have fun!

Ellis is a seasoned polyglot and one of the creative minds behind Langster Blog, where she shares effective language learning strategies and insights from her own journey mastering the four languages. Ellis strives to empower learners globally to embrace new languages with confidence and curiosity. Off the blog, she immerses herself in exploring diverse cultures through cinema and contemporary fiction, further fueling her passion for language and connection.

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1.1: Development of the English Language

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Learning Objectives

• Recognize the key influences on the development of the English language.
• Understand the broad timeline of the development of the English language.

The English language and English literature began with the recorded history of Britain.

The early history of England includes five invasions which contributed to the development of the English language and influenced the literature:

• the Roman invasion
• the Anglo-Saxon invasions
• the Christian “invasion”
• the Viking invasions
• the Norman French invasion

Norman Invasion portrayed in the Bayeux Tapestry.

The Roman Invasion

At the time of the earliest written records, the British islands were inhabited by Celtic people known as the Britons. ( See Map 1 .) Although the Roman Empire made initial contacts with the Celtic people in Britain around 55 B.C., the Roman invasion of Britain began around A.D. 43. The Celtic people resisted but were unable to fend off the invading Roman troops. One of the principal figures fighting the Romans was the Celtic queen  Boudicca . Unlike their Roman counterparts, Celtic societies allotted women rights often equal to those of men. When her husband, an ally of the Romans, died, the Romans took over the land of her tribe, the Iceni, flogging Boudicca and raping her daughters. Boudicca led her people in revolt and for some time managed to hold back the mighty Roman legions.

Roman lighthouse at Dover.

Long familiar with Britain as a source of tin, the Romans conquered Britain around A.D. 44 and set up fortresses, light houses on the coast, and a defensive wall across the entire Northern border of England named  Hadrian’s Wall  for the Roman emperor Hadrian. As they did in many parts of the world, the Romans built villas with beautiful mosaics, a series of roads which were used for centuries, and great Roman baths, such as those at Aquae Sulis, now known as Bath, England. View a video  mini-lecture that explains the Roman invasion .

Roman bath overflow at Bath, England.

How did the Roman invasion affect the development of the English language? While there is no direct linguistic connection, the Roman occupation of Britain and their subsequent abandonment of the country set the stage for the most important invasion, the Anglo-Saxon invasion which provided the foundation of the English language.

The Anglo-Saxon Invasions

At the fall of the Roman Empire (ca. 420), the Roman troops were called back to the continent, and Britain was left undefended. This period of time produced the figure that was transformed in legend into  King Arthur . The man who formed the basis of the Arthurian legend was probably a descendent of Celtic and Roman people who led his followers in resisting the Anglo-Saxons. This resistance occurred long before the days of knights in armor mounted on horseback, the picture of King Arthur found in most stories.

The Anglo-Saxons were Germanic tribes who began raiding the coastal areas of Britain around 450. ( See Map 2 .) For over 100 years, the Anglo-Saxons continued to raid and gradually to settle in Britain, pushing the Celtic people into the remote parts of Britain—into what are today the countries of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. ( See Map 3  and  Map 4 .) With them, they took their Celtic language which formed the basis of the Gaelic languages of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. (See Map 5.) Few Celtic words remain in today’s English; those few are primarily place names such as  avon  for river (as in the English town Stratford-upon-Avon) and words associated with the countries to which the Celts dispersed such as  glen  (valley),  loch  (lake), and  cairn  (pile of stones) from Scotland.

Anglo-Saxon ornament in the British Museum.

The Anglo-Saxon Germanic Language Is the Foundation of the English Language

The culture of the Anglo-Saxons is much in evidence in Old English literature, especially in the concept of the Germanic heroic ideal. The primary attribute of the heroic ideal was excellence—excellence in all that was important to the tribe: hunting, sea-faring, fighting. The leader of each tribal unit, often family units especially in earlier years, gained his position because of his physical strength and capabilities in the activities necessary for survival. Each man of the tribe, called a  thane  or retainer, an Anglo-Saxon warrior loyal to a specific leader, swore his allegiance, and in return his leader rewarded him with the spoils of their battles and raids. A group of Anglo-Saxon warriors bound by the reciprocal king-retainer relationship was known as a  comitatus . An example is the group of Geats led by Beowulf.

These Anglo-Saxon tribes led violent lives governed as they believed by  wyrd , the Anglo-Saxon word for fate, the power that controls one’s destiny, and bound by loyalty to their  comitatus , including the obligation of exacting revenge for their comrades. A formal system of  wergild , a price placed on a man’s life and paid in lieu of blood revenge, provided an honorable way to end a feud or to satisfy the demands of revenge.

By the year 700, various tribes settled in different parts of Britain, each with its own dialect. ( See Map 6 .) The language generally known as Old English came primarily from the dialect of the West Saxons, located in an area known as Wessex.

Video Clip 1

The Anglo-Saxon Invasion: Beowulf and the Sutton Hoo Exhibit

(click to see video)

Although mostly illiterate, the Anglo-Saxons had a rich tradition of oral literature. Gathered in the mead hall with its long tables around a central hearth, the Anglo-Saxons listened to tales of battle glory sung or chanted to the strums of a harp. The  scop , the tribal poet/singer, entertained and commemorated significant events by composing and performing tales such as  Beowulf . Although many scholars have varying ideas about how these performances might have sounded, little is known of secular music during this time period, and there is of course no evidence to suggest whether the songs were more like chants with strums of the harp perhaps in the caesura or whether they were lively, rambunctious, melodic performances. We might remember that in  Beowulf , it’s the sound of laughter, the music of the harp, and the singing of the scop that drives Grendel to attack Heorot.

Reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon harp from remnants in Sutton Hoo.

The Anglo-Saxon invasion established the English language and the earliest English literature. The next important step, the recording of that literature, came with the return of Christianity to Britain.

The Christian “Invasion”

Although certainly not a military invasion like the others in the list, the arrival of Christianity in Britain was as influential on the language and the culture, and therefore on the literature. Christianity was not unknown in Britain when St. Augustine arrived in 597 but had appeared during the time of the Romans. However, Christianity was suppressed along with the Celtic tribes during the Anglo-Saxon invasions. In 597, St. Augustine arrived on a mission to Christianize the pagan Anglo-Saxons, and the literature of the time bears witness to his influence. During the same time period, Celtic Christianity continued to spread from the northern and western reaches. The Anglo-Saxons were mostly illiterate; therefore, their oral stories were not written until the Christian monks recorded them. Many twentieth-century scholars believed that  Beowulf , for example, was originally a pagan story and that references to Christianity are interpolations made by the recording monks in their reluctance to perpetuate strictly pagan literature or as a way of converting still-pagan Anglo-Saxons. Most scholars now believe that  Beowulf  was more likely composed by a Christian author who drew on and perhaps paid homage to his pagan roots.

Video Clip 2

The Christian Invasion: St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury

Burial site of St. Augustine’s successor Laurence in the abbey ruins.

Many words with Latin roots found their way into the English language with the assimilation of Christianity into the culture, many of them words for religious concepts for which the Anglo-Saxons had no terms, such as angel, priest, martyr, bishop.

The establishment of monasteries in Britain also led to the production of beautifully illuminated manuscripts, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels. The British Library’s Virtual Books Online Gallery allows you to virtually turn the pages of the  Lindisfarne gospels .

Video Clip 3

The Lindisfarne Gospels

The Viking Invasions

Between 750 and 1050, another group of war-like, pagan tribes raided Britain and gradually established settlements, primarily in the north and east of England. The Vikings were from the area now known as Scandinavia. While they shared cultural similarities with the Anglo-Saxons, they brought their own language, another impact on the developing English language. Words such as sky, skin, wagon originated with the language of the Vikings.

Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory.

Sidebar 1.1.

The  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle  (translated by E. E. C. Gomme, 1909) describes the Viking raid on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne:

“Here terrible portents came about over the land of Northumbria, and miserably frightened the people: these were immense flashes of lightening, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine immediately followed these signs; and a little after that in the same year on 8 June the raiding of heathen men miserably devastated God’s church in Lindisfarne island by looting and slaughter.”

These fishing huts on the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne are built in the shape of overturned Viking boats, still suggesting the Viking heritage of this area as a result of the Viking raiding parties and the eventual coming of Viking settlers. The English language also retains evidence of the Viking influence. In northeastern England, place names recall their Viking settlers: York from Jorvik and Whitby from the Viking  by  meaning a farm.

Alfred the Great  negotiated a peaceful settlement with the Vikings by partitioning Britain in what was known as the  Danelaw , establishing a period of relatively peaceful coexistence in which the language and the culture mingled.

Video Clip 4

The Viking Invasion: Chester, England

Video Clip 5

St. Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale, England

The Norman Invasion

The year 1066 is possibly the most important date in the history of Britain and in the development of the English language. When William the Conqueror defeated the English King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, he brought to England a new language and a new culture. Old French became the language of the court, of the government, the church, and all the aristocratic entities. Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, existed only among the conquered lower orders of society. However, within three to four hundred years, the English language emerged, greatly enriched by French vocabulary and distinctly different from the Anglo-Saxons’ Old English, Chaucer’s language, now referred to as Middle English.

Pevensy Castle ruins—Pevensy Castle was built by William the Conqueror on ruins of Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlements.

Video Clip 6

The Norman Invasion: William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings

The British Library provides an  interactive timeline  that traces the development of the English language, beginning with Beowulf.

Key Takeaways

The development of the English language was influenced by 5 events:

• the Norman invasion
• The Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons, known as Old English, is the foundation of the English language.
• Construct a timeline which includes key events in the development of the English language.
• On a map of the British Isles, locate areas of Roman settlements, Celtic settlements after the Roman invasion, Anglo-Saxon settlements, Canterbury (the site of St. Augustine’s church and monastery), Viking settlements, and the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.
• On a contemporary map of England, locate cities whose names contain recognizable Roman influence such as  castor  or  cester  and  wich  or  wick ; Anglo-Saxon influence such as  stow ,  ham ,  ton , or  bury ; Viking influence such as  by ,  thorpe , or  thwaite ; and Norman influence such as  beau ,  bel ,  ville , or  mont .
• Celtic Peoples of Roman Britain .  Britannia History .
• Roman “Saxon Shore” Forts .  Britannia History
• Saxon Invasions and Land Holdings .  Britannia History
• Saxon Tribes and Celtic Holdings .  Britannia History
• Saxon Control .  Britannia History

General Background

• English Language and Literature Timeline . British Library.

The Britons

• “ Arthur: King of the Britons .” David Nash Ford.  Britannia .
• “ Boudicca .  The Celtic Arts and Cultures Website . The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• “ Britons (Celts) . John Weston.  Data Wales .

British Museum Online Tours:

• “ Daily Life in Iron Age Britain
• “ People in Iron Age Britain
• “ Religion and Ritual in Iron Age Britain
• “ War and Art in Iron Age Britain
• Hadrian’s Wall . “Hadrian: Empire and Conflict.” The British Museum.
• “ Alfred the Great .” Monarchs.  Britannia .
• “ The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle .”  The Online Medieval and Classical Library .
• “ The Anglo-Saxon Fyrd c.400–878 A.D. ” Ben Levick.  Regia Anglorum .

The Arrival of Christianity

• “ St. Augustine of Canterbury .” Terry H. Jones.  Saints.SPQN.com .
• Lindisfarne Gospels . Virtual Books. Online Gallery. The British Library.
• “ The Venerable Bede (672–735) .”  Religion Facts .
• “ The Danelaw .”  Britannia .
• “ The Anglo-Saxon Invasion:  Beowulf  and the Sutton Hoo Exhibit .” Dr. Carol Lowe. McLennan Community College.
• “ The Christian Invasion: St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury .” Dr. Carol Lowe. McLennan Community College.
• “ The Lindisfarne Gospels .” Dr. Carol Lowe. McLennan Community College.
• “ The Norman Invasion: William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings .” Dr. Carol Lowe. McLennan Community College.
• “ The Roman Invasion: Boudicca and the Celts .” Dr. Carol Lowe. McLennan Community College.
• “ St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale .” Dr. Carol Lowe. McLennan Community College.
• “ The Viking Invasion: Chester, England .” Dr. Carol Lowe. McLennan Community College.

Medieval Manuscripts

• Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts . Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. University of California, Los Angeles.
• Digital Scriptorium . Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley.

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A brief history of the English language

Regardless of the many languages one is fortunate to be fluent in, English takes its place as one of the world’s predominant forms of communication with its influences extending over as much as +2 billion people globally.

Quirks and inconsistencies aside, the history surrounding its monumental rise is both a fascinating and rich one, and while we promise to be brief, you just might pick up a thing or two that may stimulate your interest in studying English with us here at Oxford International English Schools.

Where it all started

Many of you will be forgiven for thinking that studying an English Language course consists of English grammar more than anything else. While English grammar does play a part when taking courses to improve English overall, it is but a small part of the overall curriculum where one becomes immersed in a history that was partly influenced by myths, battles, and legends on one hand, and the everyday workings of its various social class on the other.

According to the  Encyclopedia Britannica , the English language itself really took off with the invasion of Britain during the 5th century. Three Germanic tribes, the  Jutes ,  Saxons  and  Angles  were seeking new lands to conquer, and crossed over from the North Sea. It must be noted that the English language we know and study through various English language courses today had yet to be created as the inhabitants of Britain spoke various dialect of the Celtic language.

During the invasion, the native Britons were driven north and west into lands we now refer to as Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The word  England  and  English  originated  from the Old English word  Engla-land , literally meaning “the land of the Angles” where they spoke  Englisc .

Old English (5th to 11th Century)

Albert Baugh, a notable English professor at the University of Pennsylvania notes amongst his published works [1]  that around 85% of Old English is no longer in use; however, surviving elements form the basis of the Modern English language today.

Old English can be further subdivided into the following:

• Prehistoric or Primitive [2]  (5th to 7th Century) – available literature or documentation referencing this period is not available aside from limited examples of  Anglo-Saxon runes ;
• Early Old English (7th to 10th Century) – this period contains some of the earliest documented evidence of the English language, showcasing notable authors and poets like  Cynewulf  and  Aldhelm  who were leading figures in the world of Anglo-Saxon literature.
• Late Old English (10th to 11th Century) – can be considered the final phase of the Old English language which was brought about by the Norman invasion of England. This period ended with the consequential evolution of the English language towards  Early Middle English .

Early Middle English

It was during this period that the English language, and more specifically, English grammar, started evolving with particular attention to syntax.  Syntax  is “ the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language, ” and we find that while the British government and its wealthy citizens  Anglicised  the language, Norman and French influences remained the dominant language until the 14th century.

An interesting fact to note is that this period has been attributed with the loss of case endings that ultimately resulted in inflection markers being replaced by more complex features of the language.  Case endings  are “ a suffix on an inflected noun, pronoun, or adjective that indicates its grammatical function. ”

History of the English language

Charles Laurence Barber [3]  comments,  “The loss and weakening of unstressed syllables at the ends of words destroyed many of the distinctive inflections of Old English.”

Similarly, John McWhorter [4]  points out that while the Norsemen and their English counterparts were able to comprehend one another in a manner of speaking, the Norsemen’s inability to pronounce the endings of various words ultimately resulted in the loss of inflectional endings.

This brings to mind a colleague’s lisp and I take to wondering: if this were a few hundred years ago, and we were in medieval Britain, could we have imagined that a  speech defect  would bring about the amazing changes modern history is now looking back on? Something to ponder…

Refer to the image below for an idea of the changes to the English language during this time frame.

Late Middle English

It was during the 14th century that a different dialect (known as the  East-Midlands ) began to develop around the London area.

Geoffrey Chaucer, a writer we have come to identify as the  Father of English Literature [5]   and author of the widely renowned  Canterbury Tales , was  often heralded as the greatest poet of that particular time. It was through his various works that the English language was more or less “approved” alongside those of French and Latin, though he continued to write up some of his characters in the northern dialects.

It was during the mid-1400s that the  Chancery English  standard was brought about. The story goes that the clerks working for the Chancery in London were fluent in both French and Latin. It was their job to prepare official court documents and prior to the 1430s, both the aforementioned languages were mainly used by royalty, the church, and wealthy Britons. After this date, the clerks started using a dialect that sounded as follows:

• gaf (gave) not yaf (Chaucer’s East Midland dialect)
• such not swich
• theyre (their) not hir  [6]

As you can see, the above is starting to  sound  more like the present-day English language we know. If one thinks about it, these clerks held enormous influence over the manner of  influential  communication, which ultimately shaped the foundations of Early Modern English.

Early Modern English

The changes in the English language during this period occurred from the 15th to mid-17th Century, and signified not only a change in pronunciation, vocabulary or grammar itself but also the start of the  English Renaissance.

The English Renaissance has much quieter foundations than its pan-European cousin, the Italian Renaissance, and sprouted during the end of the 15th century. It was associated with the rebirth of societal and cultural movements, and while slow to gather steam during the initial phases, it celebrated the heights of glory during the  Elizabethan Age .

It was  William Caxton ’s innovation of an early printing press that allowed Early Modern English to become mainstream, something we as English learners should be grateful for! The Printing Press was key in standardizing the English language through distribution of the English Bible.

Caxton’s publishing of Thomas Malory’s  Le Morte d’Arthur  (the Death of Arthur) is regarded as print material’s first bestseller. Malory’s interpretation of various tales surrounding the legendary King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, in his own words, and the ensuing popularity  indirectly ensured that Early Modern English was here to stay.

It was during Henry the VIII’s reign that English commoners were finally able to  read  the Bible in a language they understood, which to its own degree, helped spread the dialect of the common folk.

The end of the 16th century brought about the first complete translation of the Catholic Bible, and though it didn’t make a markable impact, it played an important role in the continued development of the English language, especially with the English-speaking Catholic population worldwide.

The end of the 16th and start of the 17th century would see the writings of actor and playwright, William Shakespeare,  take the world by storm .

Why was Shakespeare’s influence important during those times? Shakespeare started writing during a time when the English language was undergoing serious changes due to contact with other nations through war, colonisation, and the likes. These changes were further cemented through Shakespeare and other emerging playwrights who found their ideas could not be expressed through the English language currently in circulation. Thus, the “adoption” of words or phrases from other languages were modified and added to the English language, creating a richer experience for all concerned.

It was during the early 17th century that we saw the establishment of the first successful English colony in what was called  The New World . Jamestown, Virginia, also saw the dawn of  American English  with English colonizers adopting indigenous words, and adding them to the English language.

The constant influx of new blood due to voluntary and involuntary (i.e. slaves) migration during the 17th, 18th and 19th century meant a variety of English dialects had sprung to life, this included West African, Native American, Spanish and European influences.

Meanwhile, back home, the English Civil War, starting mid-17th century, brought with it political mayhem and social instability. At the same time, England’s puritanical streak had taken off after the execution of Charles I. Censorship was a given, and after the Parliamentarian victory during the War, Puritans promoted an austere lifestyle in reaction to what they viewed as excesses by the previous regime [7] . England would undergo little more than a decade under Puritan leadership before the crowning of Charles II. His rule, effectively the return of the Stuart Monarchy, would bring about the  Restoration  period which saw the rise of poetry, philosophical writing, and much more.

It was during this age that literary classics, like those of John Milton’s  Paradise Lost , were published, and are considered relevant to this age!

Late Modern English

The  Industrial Revolution  and the  Rise of the British Empire  during the 18th, 19th and early 20th-century saw the expansion of the English language.

The advances and discoveries in science and technology during the Industrial Revolution saw a need for new words, phrases, and concepts to describe these ideas and inventions. Due to the nature of these works, scientists and scholars  created  words using Greek and Latin roots e.g. bacteria, histology, nuclear, biology. You may be shocked to read that these words were created but one can learn a multitude of new facts through English language courses as you are doing now!

Colonialism brought with it a double-edged sword. It can be said that the nations under the British Empire’s rule saw the introduction of the English language as a way for them to learn, engage, and hopefully, benefit from “overseas” influence. While scientific and technological discoveries were some of the benefits that could be shared, colonial Britain saw this as a way to not only teach their language but impart their culture and traditions upon societies they deemed as  backward , especially those in Africa and Asia.

The idea may have backfired as the English language walked away with a large number of foreign words that have now become part and parcel of the English language e.g. shampoo, candy, cot and many others originated in India!

English in the 21st Century

If one endevours to study various English language courses taught today, we would find almost no immediate similarities between Modern English and Old English. English grammar has become exceedingly refined (even though smartphone messaging have made a mockery of the English language itself) where perfect living examples would be that of the current British Royal Family. This has given many an idea that speaking  proper  English is a touch snooty and high-handed. Before you scoff, think about what you have just read. The basic history and development of a language that literally spawned from the embers of wars fought between ferocious civilisations. Imagine everything that our descendants went through, their trials and tribulations, their willingness to give up everything in order to achieve freedom of speech and expression.

Everything has lead up to this point where English learners  decide  to study the language at their fancy, something we take for granted as many of us have access to courses to improve English at the touch of a button!

Perhaps you’re a fan of Shakespeare, maybe you’re more intune with John Milton or J.K. Rowling? Whatever you fancy, these authors, poets and playwrights bring to life more than just words on a page. With them comes a living history that continues to evolve to this day!

[1]  Baugh, Albert (1951). A History of the English Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 60–83; 110–130 (Scandinavian influence).

[2]  Stumpf, John (1970). An Outline of English Literature; Anglo-Saxon and Middle English Literature. London: Forum House Publishing Company. p. 7. We do not know what languages the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons spoke, nor even whether they were sufficiently similar to make them mutually intelligible, but it is reasonable to assume that by the end of the sixth century there must have been a language that could be understood by all and this we call Primitive Old English.

[3]  Berber, Charles Laurence (2000). The English Language; A Historical Introduction. Cambridge University Press. p.157.

[4]  McWhorter, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, 2008, pp. 89–136

[5]   Robert DeMaria, Jr., Heesok Chang, Samantha Zacher (eds.), A Companion to British Literature, Volume 2: Early Modern Literature, 1450-1660, John Wiley & Sons, 2013, p. 41.

[6]  http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/chancery-standard

[7]  Durston, 1985

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What are the origins of the English Language?

The history of English is conventionally, if perhaps too neatly, divided into three periods usually called Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Middle English, and Modern English. The earliest period begins with the migration of certain Germanic tribes from the continent to Britain in the fifth century A.D. , though no records of their language survive from before the seventh century, and it continues until the end of the eleventh century or a bit later. By that time Latin, Old Norse (the language of the Viking invaders), and especially the Anglo-Norman French of the dominant class after the Norman Conquest in 1066 had begun to have a substantial impact on the lexicon, and the well-developed inflectional system that typifies the grammar of Old English had begun to break down.

The following brief sample of Old English prose illustrates several of the significant ways in which change has so transformed English that we must look carefully to find points of resemblance between the language of the tenth century and our own. It is taken from Aelfric's "Homily on St. Gregory the Great" and concerns the famous story of how that pope came to send missionaries to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity after seeing Anglo-Saxon boys for sale as slaves in Rome:

Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon."

A few of these words will be recognized as identical in spelling with their modern equivalents— he, of, him, for, and, on —and the resemblance of a few others to familiar words may be guessed— nama to name, comon to come, wære to were, wæs to was —but only those who have made a special study of Old English will be able to read the passage with understanding. The sense of it is as follows:

Again he [St. Gregory] asked what might be the name of the people from which they came. It was answered to him that they were named Angles. Then he said, "Rightly are they called Angles because they have the beauty of angels, and it is fitting that such as they should be angels' companions in heaven."

Some of the words in the original have survived in altered form, including axode (asked), hu (how), rihtlice (rightly), engla (angels), habbað (have), swilcum (such), heofonum (heaven), and beon (be). Others, however, have vanished from our lexicon, mostly without a trace, including several that were quite common words in Old English: eft "again," ðeode "people, nation," cwæð "said, spoke," gehatene "called, named," wlite "appearance, beauty," and geferan "companions." Recognition of some words is naturally hindered by the presence of two special characters, þ, called "thorn," and ð, called "edh," which served in Old English to represent the sounds now spelled with th .

Other points worth noting include the fact that the pronoun system did not yet, in the late tenth century, include the third person plural forms beginning with th-: hi appears where we would use they. Several aspects of word order will also strike the reader as oddly unlike ours. Subject and verb are inverted after an adverb— þa cwæð he "Then said he"—a phenomenon not unknown in Modern English but now restricted to a few adverbs such as never and requiring the presence of an auxiliary verb like do or have. In subordinate clauses the main verb must be last, and so an object or a preposition may precede it in a way no longer natural: þe hi of comon "which they from came," for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað "because they angels' beauty have."

Perhaps the most distinctive difference between Old and Modern English reflected in Aelfric's sentences is the elaborate system of inflections, of which we now have only remnants. Nouns, adjectives, and even the definite article are inflected for gender, case, and number: ðære ðeode "(of) the people" is feminine, genitive, and singular, Angle "Angles" is masculine, accusative, and plural, and swilcum "such" is masculine, dative, and plural. The system of inflections for verbs was also more elaborate than ours: for example, habbað "have" ends with the -að suffix characteristic of plural present indicative verbs. In addition, there were two imperative forms, four subjunctive forms (two for the present tense and two for the preterit, or past, tense), and several others which we no longer have. Even where Modern English retains a particular category of inflection, the form has often changed. Old English present participles ended in -ende not -ing, and past participles bore a prefix ge- (as geandwyrd "answered" above).

The period of Middle English extends roughly from the twelfth century through the fifteenth. The influence of French (and Latin, often by way of French) upon the lexicon continued throughout this period, the loss of some inflections and the reduction of others (often to a final unstressed vowel spelled -e ) accelerated, and many changes took place within the phonological and grammatical systems of the language. A typical prose passage, especially one from the later part of the period, will not have such a foreign look to us as Aelfric's prose has; but it will not be mistaken for contemporary writing either. The following brief passage is drawn from a work of the late fourteenth century called Mandeville's Travels. It is fiction in the guise of travel literature, and, though it purports to be from the pen of an English knight, it was originally written in French and later translated into Latin and English. In this extract Mandeville describes the land of Bactria, apparently not an altogether inviting place, as it is inhabited by "full yuele [evil] folk and full cruell."

In þat lond ben trees þat beren wolle, as þogh it were of scheep; whereof men maken clothes, and all þing þat may ben made of wolle. In þat contree ben many ipotaynes, þat dwellen som tyme in the water, and somtyme on the lond: and þei ben half man and half hors, as I haue seyd before; and þei eten men, whan þei may take hem. And þere ben ryueres and watres þat ben fulle byttere, þree sithes more þan is the water of the see. In þat contré ben many griffounes, more plentee þan in ony other contree. Sum men seyn þat þei han the body vpward as an egle, and benethe as a lyoun: and treuly þei seyn soth þat þei ben of þat schapp. But o griffoun hath the body more gret, and is more strong, þanne eight lyouns, of suche lyouns as ben o this half; and more gret and strongere þan an hundred egles, suche as we han amonges vs. For o griffoun þere wil bere fleynge to his nest a gret hors, 3if he may fynde him at the poynt, or two oxen 3oked togidere, as þei gon at the plowgh.

The spelling is often peculiar by modern standards and even inconsistent within these few sentences (contré and contree, o [griffoun] and a [gret hors], þanne and þan, for example). Moreover, in the original text, there is in addition to thorn another old character 3, called "yogh," to make difficulty. It can represent several sounds but here may be thought of as equivalent to y. Even the older spellings (including those where u stands for v or vice versa) are recognizable, however, and there are only a few words like ipotaynes "hippopotamuses" and sithes "times" that have dropped out of the language altogether.

We may notice a few words and phrases that have meanings no longer common such as byttere "salty," o this half "on this side of the world," and at the poynt "to hand," and the effect of the centuries-long dominance of French on the vocabulary is evident in many familiar words which could not have occurred in Aelfric's writing even if his subject had allowed them, words like contree, ryueres, plentee, egle, and lyoun .

In general word order is now very close to that of our time, though we notice constructions like hath the body more gret and three sithes more þan is the water of the see. We also notice that present tense verbs still receive a plural inflection as in beren, dwellen, han, and ben and that while nominative þei has replaced Aelfric's hi in the third person plural, the form for objects is still hem .

The period of Modern English extends from the sixteenth century to our own day. The early part of this period saw the completion of a revolution in the phonology of English that had begun in late Middle English and that effectively redistributed the occurrence of the vowel phonemes to something approximating their present pattern. (Mandeville's English would have sounded even less familiar to us than it looks.)

Other important early developments include the stabilizing effect on spelling of the printing press and the beginning of the direct influence of Latin and, to a lesser extent, Greek on the lexicon. Later, as English came into contact with other cultures around the world and distinctive dialects of English developed in the many areas which Britain had colonized, numerous other languages made small but interesting contributions to our word-stock.

The historical aspect of English really encompasses more than the three stages of development just under consideration. English has what might be called a prehistory as well. As we have seen, our language did not simply spring into existence; it was brought from the Continent by Germanic tribes who had no form of writing and hence left no records. Philologists know that they must have spoken a dialect of a language that can be called West Germanic and that other dialects of this unknown language must have included the ancestors of such languages as German, Dutch, Low German, and Frisian. They know this because of certain systematic similarities which these languages share with each other but do not share with, say, Danish. However, they have had somehow to reconstruct what that language was like in its lexicon, phonology, grammar, and semantics as best they can through sophisticated techniques of comparison developed chiefly during the last century.

Similarly, because ancient and modern languages like Old Norse and Gothic or Icelandic and Norwegian have points in common with Old English and Old High German or Dutch and English that they do not share with French or Russian, it is clear that there was an earlier unrecorded language that can be called simply Germanic and that must be reconstructed in the same way. Still earlier, Germanic was just a dialect (the ancestors of Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit were three other such dialects) of a language conventionally designated Indo-European, and thus English is just one relatively young member of an ancient family of languages whose descendants cover a fair portion of the globe.

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The Descent of English

West germanic, any way you slice it.

Emonds & Faarlund judge subgrouping by problematic criteria and do not actually employ their stated criteria, while those criteria in fact show English to be West Germanic.

Emonds and Faarlund ( E & F ) challenge the traditional position of English within Germanic, as have others recently and in different ways, within linguistics (e.g., McWhorter, 2002; Trudgill, 2011) and beyond (e.g., Forster et al., 2004, 2006; Oppenheimer, 2006). We show that:

1 E & F ’s stated criteria for determining descent are idiosyncratic; 2 E & F don’t follow those criteria; 3 by E & F ’s criteria, English is clearly West Germanic (WGmc).

First, E & F write (2014: 57) that “no principles of linguistic descent even remotely depend on differences in sources of vocabulary.” Instead, a language’s descent is (2014: 57–58):

[…] in accord with an often unarticulated linguistic practice of 200 years, […] properly determined by its grammar, including its morphosyntactic system, and patterns of regular sound change. […] structuralists at least understood that syntax must play a central role as well.

E & F give no source for these views, but actual practice and theory align closely with Barbançon et al. (2013: 146; also Longobardi et al., 2013: 122):

In the current state of the art, linguistic characters are of three types: lexical, phonological, and morphological. (Syntactic characters are not generally used because not enough is known about syntactic change to justify confidence that any syntactic character could provide good evidence for linguistic descent.)

E & F (this volume) provide “lexical and above all syntactic arguments” that English is North Germanic (NGmc), though admitting that the lexicon “ended up as more English than Scandinavian” (2014: 53).

Similarly, “Middle English phonology, especially its phonetics, is very much a continuation of Old English phonology” (2014: 157). English shows trajectories parallel to WGmc but not NGmc, e.g., losing front rounded vowels (like Yiddish, many German dialects, but unlike NGmc), and using alveolar rather than dental articulation for /t, d, n/ (Haugen, 1976: 477–478). Norse speakers would have presumably continued this articulatory feature rather than adopting WGmc patterns.

Morphological discussion focuses on loss, not shared innovation, basically case deflection. Only shared innovation can speak clearly to kinship (Ringe and Eska, 2013: 256, others). Still, core English inflection matches WGmc, not NGmc, reflecting different developments from Proto-Germanic. For instance, ME plurals are formed with typically WGmc -(e)n and -(e)s , cf. Dutch, Frisian; NGmc relies heavily on -Vr forms, lost in English (Blake, 1992a: 126–133, 1992b: 105; Booij, 2002: 24; Haugen, 1976: 76).

In short, E & F find lexical evidence unhelpful yet use it, and see phonological evidence as central, but both types of evidence show English as WGmc. Their morphological evidence is not probative and even divergent inheritance shows English to be WGmc, not NGmc.

Their case thus rests entirely on syntax: “Syntactic evidence for the ancestor of English […] all goes one way,” i.e. with NGmc, not WGmc (this volume). They rely on standard German and Dutch, ignoring rich dialectal variation in German, Low German, Dutch, and Yiddish, which shows precisely the NGmc-like characters they find in English. First, contrary to E & F ’s claim (2014: 91), invariant relative particles or complementizers are widespread across WGmc (e.g., Harbert, 2007: 423–435). Second, E & F maintain that English future modals reflect Norse skulu, munu (2014: 79–81), yet many WGmc dialects use the WGmc cognates here, wollen and sollen (Schirmunski, 2010: 645–646). The development of modals was slow and complex across the family (e.g., Diewald, 1999), making this ill-suited as a diagnostic.

Syntax is further claimed to be resistant to borrowing: “Syntactic continuity and stability through history is a clear indication of a genealogical linguistic relationship” (this volume). Two of their central examples, parasitic gaps and preposition stranding, do transfer in bilingualism. Wisconsin German heritage bilinguals produce parasitic gaps (Bousquette et al., 2013, 2016a, 2016b; Sewell and Salmons, 2014). Bousquette (2015) shows preposition stranding in the same communities, exemplified by his title. The adoption of stranding under contact is widely attested in heritage bilingualism, e.g., King (2013) on Acadian French and Pascual y Cabo and Gómez (2015) on heritage Spanish. Stranding is also attested in WGmc, especially Low German, as shown by Fleischer (2002) (see Bech and Walkden, 2016 on Old English stranding.)

In conclusion, E & F ’s stated criteria for determining descent are at odds with longstanding practice and theory, especially for syntax. E & F do not consistently rely on their claimed criteria, particularly using lexical and not using phonetic/phonological evidence. Most importantly, they ignore extensive phonetic, phonological, morphological and syntactic evidence from across WGmc showing English-like patterns that E & F portray as exclusively NGmc. Beyond that, the assumption that syntax is less vulnerable to contact (this volume), while perhaps intuitively appealing, proves incorrect for critical examples. The list of examples given could be greatly expanded.

In short, distinctively Norse-like characteristics of English reflect contact, shared heritage or parallel innovation, but crucially not Norse ancestry.

Barbançon, François, Steven N. Evans, Luay Nakhleh, Don Ringe, and Tandy Warnow. 2013. An experimental study comparing linguistic phylogenetic reconstruction methods. Diachronica 30: 143–170.

Bech, Kristin and George Walkden. 2016. English is (still) a West Germanic language. Journal of Nordic Linguistics 39: 65–100 (doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0332586515000219).

Blake, Norman. 1992a. The Cambridge History of the English Language . Vol.  I : Beginnings to 1066 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Blake, Norman. 1992b. The Cambridge History of the English Language . Vol.  II : 1066 to 1476 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Booij, Geert. 2002. The Morphology of Dutch . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bousquette, Joshua. 2015. “Is das der Hammer, das du den Traktor gebrochen hast mit?” Preposition stranding in Wisconsin Heritage German. Paper presented at the Sixth Workshop on Immigrant Languages in the Americas ( WILA 6), Uppsala, September 2015.

Bousquette, Joshua, Benjamin Frey, Nick Henry, Daniel Nützel, Michael Putnam, Joseph Salmons, and Alyson Sewell. 2013. How deep is your syntax?—Filler-gap dependencies in heritage language grammar. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 19(1): 19–30.

Bousquette, Joshua, Benjamin Frey, Daniel Nützel, Michael Putnam, and Joseph Salmons. 2016a. Parasitic gapping in bilingual grammar: Evidence from Wisconsin Heritage German. Heritage Language Journal . 13(1): 1–28. Available at http://hlj.ucla.edu/.

Bousquette, Joshua, Michael Putnam, Joseph Salmons, Benjamin Frey, and Daniel Nützel. 2016b. Multiple grammars, dominance, and optimization. In Géraldine Legendre, Michael T. Putnam, Henriëtte de Swart, and Erin Zaroukian (eds.), Optimality Theoretic Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics: From Uni- to Bidirectional Optimization , 158–176. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Diewald, Gabriele. 1999. Die Modalverben im Deutschen: Grammatikalisierung und Polyfunktionalität . Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Emonds, Joseph and Jan Terje Faarlund. 2014. English: The language of the Vikings . Olomouc: Palacký University Press. Online at http://anglistika.upol.cz/vikings2014/.

Fleischer, Jürg. 2002. Preposition stranding in German dialects. In Sjef Barbiers, Leonie Cornips, and Susanne van der Kleij (eds.), Syntactic Microvariation . Amsterdam: Meertens Institute. Downloadable at http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/books/synmic/ (accessed November 1, 2015).

Forster, Peter, Tobias Polzin, and Arne Röhl. 2006. Evolution of English basic vocabulary within the network of Germanic languages. In Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew (eds.), Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages , 131–138. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archeological Research.

Forster, Peter, Valentino Romano, Francesco Calì, Arne Röhl, and Matthew Hurles. 2004. MtDNA markers for Celtic and Germanic language areas in the British Isles. In Martin Jones (ed.), Traces of Ancestry: Studies in Honour of Colin Renfrew , 99–111. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archeological Research.

Harbert, Wayne. 2007. The Germanic Languages . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Haugen, Einar. 1976. The Scandinavian Languages: An Introduction to Their History . Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press.

King, Ruth. 2013. Acadian French in Time and Space: A Study in Morphosyntax and Comparative Sociolinguistics . Durham, NC : Duke University Press.

Longobardi, Giuseppe, Cristina Guardiano, Giuseppina Silvestri, Alessio Boattini, and Andrea Ceolin. 2013. Toward a syntactic phylogeny of modern Indo-European languages. Journal of Historical Linguistics 3: 122–152.

McWhorter, John H. 2002. What happened to English? Diachronica 19(2): 217–272.

Oppenheimer, Stephen. 2006. The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story: The Surprising Roots of the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh . New York: Basic Books.

Pascual y Cabo, Diego and Inmaculada Gómez Soler. 2015. Preposition stranding in Spanish as a heritage language. Heritage Language Journal 12: 186–209. Downloadable at http://www.heritagelanguages.org/ (accessed November 1, 2015).

Ringe, Don and Joseph F. Eska. 2013. Historical Linguistics: Toward a Twenty-first Century Reintegration . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schirmunski, Viktor M. 2010. Deutsche Mundartkunde . 2nd ed. by Larissa Naiditsch. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Sewell, Alyson and Joseph Salmons. 2014. How far-reaching are the effects of contact? Parasitic gapping in Wisconsin German and English. In Robert Nicolai (ed.), Questioning Language Contact: Limits of Contact, Contact at its Limits , 217–251. Leiden: Brill.

Trudgill, Peter. 2011. Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

We thank the editors for inviting us to contribute to this discussion, and the following for discussions and comments: Joshua Bousquette, Monica Macaulay, Mike Putnam, and George Walkden. All errors are our own.

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Globalization of the English Language: One of the Most Widely Used Languages in the World Expository Essay

English language is one of the most widely used languages in the whole world in spite of the fact that there are many languages. As much as all the other languages are important for various reasons, English language is important because it helps in uniting the whole world.

Consequently, most parts in the world today are united because a high percentage of people have learnt to communicate in English. The issues of languages have a long history. For instance, the story of the tower of Babel has many similarities with the current situation that is facing the English language. While the English language is becoming popular and important, other local languages are vanishing as the days go by.

Therefore, the issue of English becoming an international language and preservation of other languages has become the subject of discussion. With that background in mind, this paper focuses on English language, its importance, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of multiple languages compared to having one single language.

There are some applications on the English language and other languages that can be derived from reading the story of the Tower of Babel as recorded in the book of Genesis in the Christian bible. The story of the tower of Babel came up after people who were speaking only one language united and decided to build one high tower to become famous. God was not delighted with them and he confused their languages such that they started speaking in different languages.

Due to the language confusion, they could not continue with their project and according to the Christian bible, many languages that are present in the world today came up due to the same. Therefore, it is clear that speaking one language is very important because it unites people such that they can be able to undertake a similar project. Some problems and conflicts that are in the world today result from the presence of having many languages as it happened during the time of the Tower of Babel.

As highlighted earlier, other languages are important but on a global scale, English is more important. The issue whether English language is a global language or not is contentious despite the fact that the majority of people in the whole world can communicate in it. In addition, most of the works in different areas such as sciences and literature have been written in English since the authors target meeting a large audience.

On the same note, it is important to point out that most of the works that were originally written in other languages are usually translated into English. As a result, one of the authors concluded in future, all the world literature would be referred to as the English language (Divide).

It is quite true that there is widespread use of English language in the world today but as highlighted earlier, it is not clear whether English will end up becoming a global language. Various studies have indicated that the majority in the world are learning and being taught to speak in English. However, it is important to mention that the number of people speaking a particular language is not the determining factor.

The study of illustrates that the economic as well as the military power of the speakers are usually the most important determining factors. More specifically, the study explains that military power helps in establishing the language but the economic power helps to expand it. Therefore, English may end up becoming an international language not only based on the military power of its speakers but also on their economic power (Crystal).

Although there are some advantages of having one language, it is important to preserve other languages since they are important aspects of culture. According to The Endangered Language Fund, there are about thousand languages which are spoken in the whole world and it is projected that about half of languages may disappear in the twenty first century. Therefore, it is important to perverse those languages failure to which they may become extinct.

There are both advantages and disadvantages of having multiple languages in the world. The story of the Tower of Babel clearly illustrates that having multiple languages leads to misunderstanding, which may eventually lead to conflicts. Language is an important aspect in communication and failure to understand other people does not only lead to conflicts but also lack of harmony.

Though people speaking a similar language may conflict, it is worse when people speak different languages. Secondly, having multiple languages is disadvantageous in the view of the fact that it calls for people to learn and to be taught other foreign languages. Additionally, learning other languages needs not only money but also a lot of devotion.

Currently, people who are learning foreign languages are very few indicating that is not as easy. Translation and localization of products also require additional finances. Therefore, the costs involved in preserving multiple languages as well as the conflicts that emerge from the same are some of the most important disadvantages of having multiple languages.

In the view of the fact that language is an important aspect of culture, it is quite advantageous to have multiple languages since they mark cultural diversity. As much as human beings have had many inventions, studies of Divide indicate that of all the human inventions, language is the greatest.

There are several things concerning culture that can only be learnt and preserved by local languages, which are inclusive but not limited, customs, beliefs, norms and cultural values. Therefore, having multiple languages is very important because it helps in preserving the cultural heritage, which has been developed for many centuries. Apart from that, since the same creates cultural diversity, it can lead to meaningful cultural competition, which may be very beneficial.

The essay has indicated that there are both advantages and disadvantages of multiple languages compared to a single language. Currently, most of the languages are vanishing due to the emergence of international languages, which are becoming very popular. English is an important language in the whole world although the issue whether it is an international language or not is contentious. However, based on its speakers, it is clear that the language is quickly turning out to be important on the global scale.

Most of the English speakers are from the western world like the Americans and they are powerful not only politically but also economically. Study of history indicates that the international languages, which existed in the past like Latin and Greek, are marked by political and economic power. Therefore, if the current trend will continue, English will become an international language.

Works Cited

Crystal, David . English as a Global Language. 2003. Web.

Divide, Linguistic Diversity and the Digital. Jenns Allwood. Web.

The Endangered Language Fund . About the Fund. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, November 2). Globalization of the English Language: One of the Most Widely Used Languages in the World. https://ivypanda.com/essays/english/

"Globalization of the English Language: One of the Most Widely Used Languages in the World." IvyPanda , 2 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/english/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Globalization of the English Language: One of the Most Widely Used Languages in the World'. 2 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Globalization of the English Language: One of the Most Widely Used Languages in the World." November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/english/.

1. IvyPanda . "Globalization of the English Language: One of the Most Widely Used Languages in the World." November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/english/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Globalization of the English Language: One of the Most Widely Used Languages in the World." November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/english/.

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• Importance Of English Language Essay

Importance of English Language Essay

500+ words essay on the importance of the english language.

English plays a dominant role in almost all fields in the present globalized world. In the twenty-first century, the entire world has become narrow, accessible, sharable and familiar for all people as English is used as a common language. It has been accepted globally by many countries. This essay highlights the importance of English as a global language. It throws light on how travel and tourism, and entertainment fields benefit by adopting English as their principal language of communication. The essay also highlights the importance of English in education and employment.

Language is the primary source of communication. It is the method through which we share our ideas and thoughts with others. There are thousands of languages in the world, and every country has its national language. In the global world, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored. English serves the purpose of the common language. It helps maintain international relationships in science, technology, business, education, travel, tourism and so on. It is the language used mainly by scientists, business organizations, the internet, and higher education and tourism.

Historical background of the English Language

English was initially the language of England, but due to the British Empire in many countries, English has become the primary or secondary language in former British colonies such as Canada, the United States, Sri Lanka, India and Australia, etc. Currently, English is the primary language of not only countries actively touched by British imperialism, but also many business and cultural spheres dominated by those countries. 67 countries have English as their official language, and 27 countries have English as their secondary language.

Reasons for Learning the English Language

Learning English is important, and people all over the world decide to study it as a second language. Many countries have included English as a second language in their school syllabus, so children start learning English at a young age. At the university level, students in many countries study almost all their subjects in English in order to make the material more accessible to international students. English remains a major medium of instruction in schools and universities. There are large numbers of books that are written in the English language. Many of the latest scientific discoveries are documented in English.

English is the language of the Internet. Knowing English gives access to over half the content on the Internet. Knowing how to read English will allow access to billions of pages of information that may not be otherwise available. With a good understanding and communication in English, we can travel around the globe. Knowing English increases the chances of getting a good job in a multinational company. Research from all over the world shows that cross-border business communication is most often conducted in English, and many international companies expect employees to be fluent in English. Many of the world’s top films, books and music are produced in English. Therefore, by learning English, we will have access to a great wealth of entertainment and will be able to build a great cultural understanding.

English is one of the most used and dominant languages in the world. It has a bright future, and it helps connect us to the global world. It also helps us in our personal and professional life. Although learning English can be challenging and time-consuming, we see that it is also very valuable to learn and can create many opportunities.

Frequently Asked Questions on English language Essay

Why is the language english popular.

English has 26 alphabets and is easier to learn when compared to other complex languages.

Is English the official language of India?

India has two official languages Hindi and English. Other than that these 22 other regional languages are also recognised and spoken widely.

Why is learning English important?

English is spoken around the world and thus can be used as an effective language for communication.

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• School Education /

Essay on English Language in 500 Words

• Updated on  
• Mar 22, 2024

Essay on English Language: English is one of the most spoken languages in the world. English is the native language of England. During the colonial period, the British Empire ruled around 105 colonies, spread over all 7 continents. Today, English is one of the 5 official languages of the United Nations Security Council.

The use of the English language is growing all around the world. Because of this, more and more people are choosing to learn English as their second language. In India and other countries, English is included in the school curriculum to teach kids from a young age.

Checkout Our 200+ Essay Topics for Students

Why is English Important?

English goes beyond just learning a new language. A person proficient in English can land a job abroad, explore new opportunities for personal and professional growth, etc. The importance of English can be seen from the fact that it is the most spoken language in the world. However, there is more to this.

• The English language serves as a bridge for cultural exchange and understanding people from different backgrounds. In International summits and conferences, English is mostly used as a medium of communication, making us understand different people’s views and thoughts. 
• English is a global language of communication. More than a billion people in the world speak English, making it a common medium for international business, diplomacy, travel, and education. 
• Knowing English allows us to communicate effectively with people from diverse linguistic backgrounds.
• Top international universities like Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, etc. use English for their academic and professional purposes. English proficiency exams are conducted, such as IELTS, PTE, DUOLINGO, etc, to measure English proficiency.
• Much of the world’s information, including literature, scientific research, technology, and entertainment, is available in English. Proficiency in English allows us to understand this valuable information.

Benefits of Learning English Language

Being a global language, English offers us many opportunities and benefits. However, the benefits of learning the English language can vary from person to person. 

• English proficiency allows us to effectively communicate internationally.
• As a professional in English, we can get a job in our dream company.
• English can help us learn about different cultures and people.
• English can help us expand our business globally.
• English fluency can make our travelling experiences enjoyable and enriching.
• English proficiency can offer us admission to our dream university.
• We can watch English movies, and TV shows and read books without any difficulties.

How to Learn English Language?

Learning English can be a beautiful and interesting experience. There are several online and offline English teaching courses available. 

Online sources include applications, YouTube videos, blogs, websites and paid and free courses. One of the best applications to learn English is the Duolingo app. It’s an EdTech application that not only provides access to more than 200 languages but has several certification courses also.

Offline sources to learn English are coaching centres, libraries, newspapers, etc. These sources are very important for self-study and individuals who want to learn English from the grassroots level.

English has become a global language. From our academic realm to international conferences, English is recognized as a medium of communication. As an English-speaking individual, we can share ideas, collaborate on projects, and contribute to global initiatives. Therefore, learning English is very important. 

10 Lines Essay on English

Essay Topics Related to English Language:

Ans: English is one of the most spoken languages in the world. English is the native language of England. During the colonial period, the British Empire ruled around 105 colonies, spread over all 7 continents. Today, English is one of the 5 official languages of the United Nations Security Council. The use of the English language is growing all around the world. Because of this, more and more people are choosing to learn English as their second language.

Ans: English has become a global language. From our academic realm to international conferences, English is recognized as a medium of communication. As an English-speaking individual, we can share ideas, collaborate on projects, and contribute to global initiatives. Therefore, learning English is very important. Top international universities like Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, etc. use English for their academic and professional purposes. English proficiency exams are conducted, such as IELTS, PTE, DUOLINGO, etc, to measure English proficiency.

Ans: The United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. have English as their native language.

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With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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• Why I Love the English Language

by Emma Bates

English, despite not being the most-spoken language in the world by some margin, has become an almost universally accepted lingua franca, and the language of choice for students to learn if they want to get ahead in life.

Yet most of the reasons for this don’t have very much to do with what a wonderful language it is. It’s the language of business and finance, mostly thanks to the economic dominance of Britain in the 19th century and the USA in the 20th. It’s the predominant language of film and music, but with lyrics like, ‘All I wanted was to break your walls/ All you ever did was wreck me’ appearing in number 1 slots worldwide, it’s hard to claim that the linguistic beauty of the English language is responsible. The endurance of the myth that English only beat German by a single vote to become the official language of the USA sums up the general attitude to the English language; it has gained global popularity by chance, not by merit.

All the same, it is a wonderful language. Anyone who has ever studied Wilfred Owen, made their own dress or studied cinematography (bear with me here) will understand the loveliness of things that, when examined and dissected, don’t lose their charm but in fact gain something in the greater understanding, like opening up the back of a pocket watch to see the intricate mechanism inside. That’s what the English language is like; that’s one of the many reasons it’s so worth studying . What’s on the surface is pretty enough, but dive in and you’ll see that there’s so much more going on underneath.

Synonyms galore

Better still, it does so in a particularly elegant way, relating to the three (ish) main sources of words. Anglo-Saxon words are still, in the main, read as simple, easy to understand, or even crude. French words are somewhat more sophisticated. Those who’d like others to know about their level of education but can’t quite bring themselves to wear their degree classification on a t-shirt will favour words derived from Latin. Occasionally and delightfully, these three sources will each provide one word for the same thing, as occurs with ‘kingly’ (as said by the peasant), ‘royal’ (as said by the courtier) and ‘regal’ (as said by the scholar). Eight hundred years ago, each of these people would be speaking a different language; now, they use a different vocabulary that nonetheless maps on to almost exactly the same social distinctions. English history is encoded on the English language , and though it doesn’t say much for social mobility, there’s still something pleasing in how it plays out in the language today. The tendency of the English language to borrow aggressively from other languages didn’t stop with the Norman invasion. Renaissance scholars added the bulk of the Latin and Greek words in use today, and the expansion of British trade and the British Empire led to a hugely varied assortment of words joining the language in subsequent centuries, so that we now have splendid-sounding words like kiosk, kayak and kangaroo seasoning the broth as well.

One result of having so much vocabulary with so many origins is that English is utterly fantastic for puns. An American lecturer of mine once referred to Terry Pratchett “sharing the English delusion that puns are funny”; perhaps this ‘delusion’ exists simply because English is such a versatile and fun language in which to pun. Get four English speakers in a pub, make a comment about fish and see what happens – one of them will be “floundering”, another “cod do batter” and a third will be “feeling koi” and not join in. Suggest cheese and they won’t be able to “camembert it” and the whole cycle will start over again. From the cringe-worthy examples above to the elegant winner of the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe’s funniest joke – “why can’t hedgehogs just share?” – the sheer range of homophones and near-homophones in English makes wordplay a delight. There’s a certain irreverence to all of this; despite its primary modern use as the language of business , English is at heart a language to have fun with.

A truly democratic language?

The main reason it’s impossible to say that English has more words than any other language is that no one knows exactly how many words it actually has. We can count the number of words in various major dictionaries easily enough, but no dictionary is definitive. Where other languages have regulators, like the Académie française or the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung , English has no such thing. No central body. No one to fix dubious spelling patterns, arbitrate on the acceptability of the singular “they” or defend the subjunctive – but no one, either, to bar new and useful loanwords from entering the language, or to prevent English from evolving organically, according to the needs of English speakers. There is no body of Dumbledoresque old men to control where the language goes and how it should be spoken – and if anyone tried to institute one, it seems likely that the vast majority of the world’s 1.5 billion English speakers would ignore its pronouncements anyway.

The consequence of this is that English is more-or-less democratic. Change to the language happens by consensus, not by decree. And yes, it does mean that we’re stuck with ridiculousness like “i before e except after c” (and also just about every other letter in the alphabet), but it also means that as an English speaker, I have just about as much influence over the direction of the language as you do, or as the Merton Professors of English in Oxford do, or even, potentially, as someone who is only just learning their first few words of English does. The only effective way to influence the language is to be good at using it – and that’s why Shakespeare gets the credit for inventing 1,700 English words. If not truly democratic, English is certainly more meritocratic than many other languages in the world. This is all the more worthy of note because any time anyone has succeeded in forcing ‘improvements’ on the English language in an authoritarian, imposed sort of way, it’s almost always made things worse. Think about the utterly unnecessary introduction of the letter ‘b’ into words like ‘debt’ and ‘doubt’, not added to give English teachers extra words to add on spelling tests (though it may seem that way) but in order to give the English words a closer resemblance to their Latin roots. The desire to make English resemble Latin – a language with which it does not have all that much in common grammatically – also gives us the commandment not to split infinitives, which, if obeyed, would have ruined the opening of Star Trek . Like Einstein’s comment on genius – “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” – English has often suffered for not being Latin.

Another dismal failure of English language intervention is Noah Webster’s spelling reforms. Some have been readily accepted (we no longer listen to musick ), some never caught on (we don’t suffer a headake ) but the most confusing are the middle ground of changes, accepted on one side of the Atlantic but not the other. So we’re stuck with traveler and traveller, color and colour , center and centre , a source of annoyance for editors everywhere. This resistance of English to central control is not just one of the reasons it’s such a widely-spoken language today; it’s also central to its development. Received wisdom holds that the clearly Germanic language of Old English evolved into the hybrid Middle English as a result of the Norman invasion and the resulting influence of Norman French. That is certainly true, but it’s also only half of the story. The three-part division in the language that I spoke about earlier – the peasantry speaking English, the nobility speaking French and the intelligentsia speaking Latin – came about at this time, superceding Anglo-Saxon efforts to make the use of English universal among the different social classes.

That meant that what had previously been a language spoken, written and taught by the most educated in society as well as the least educated was then handed over almost entirely to the peasantry. English didn’t re-emerge as a language that could acceptably be used by people of status at least until the Alliterative Revival of the 14th century, and arguably until Chaucer (for which he earns the title of ‘The Father of English Literature’). For around 300 years it was free from interference by the sorts of people who would seek to preserve its more archaic and clunky structures, and therefore evolved naturally. I adore Old English, but it’s a language that’s full of redundancies and unnecessary grammatical complication, such as a strict case system and relatively strict rules on word order – one or the other will do; you don’t need both. Those 300 years of French influence and intellectual neglect stripped English of most of its case system and most of its grammatical gender, as well as simplifying verb endings and making many strong verbs weak, a process that continues to this day. Like antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a challenge to the English language that could have resulted in its annihilation instead just made it stronger. It’s arguable that something similar is happening to English today. The majority of conversations in English happen without a native speaker present; the rise of ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) means that use of English internationally is increasingly about finding the most expedient method of communication rather than any concern about linguistic showiness. English is still shedding redundancies: the subjunctive really only survives in fossilised forms like ‘God save the Queen’, the possessive apostrophe is looking sickly and some experts are predicting that the third person singular ‘-s’ verb ending (e.g. she run s ) could be on the way out too. This is where the lack of a centralised authority is vital to survival. Current English speakers may cringe at the thought of saying “he study hard” or similar, but English speakers 400 years ago would probably have mourned the loss of ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, an egalitarian change to the language that most English speakers nowadays appreciate. Trying to hold back the organic evolution of language is reminiscent of a primordial fish clinging to the nascent stub of a tetrapod’s foot and saying, “you know, it’s a bad idea to go up on land…” What’s great about English is that for most of its history, such attempts have failed.

The most beautiful language in the world

There’s a joke that goes like this: there’s an English speaker, a French speaker, a Spanish speaker and a German speaker, and they’re having a conversation about language. “English is beautiful,” the English speaker sighs. “Listen to this: butterfly !” The French speaker nods and says, “yes, French is beautiful too: papillon !” The Spanish speaker smiles and says, “and Spanish as well: mariposa !” The German speaker huffs and frowns, and eventually says, “look, what is your problem with Schmetterling ?” I mention this joke not because it’s particularly funny (unless you’re telling it in a large group with several Germans, in which case it’s hilarious), but because it’s one of the few instances I can think of where English is grouped with the ‘beautiful’ languages instead of the ‘ugly’ ones. It’s an accepted truth that French is better for romance and Italian is better for music. It isn’t just a Germanic/Romance distinction, though: Icelandic is very pretty. English seldom gets this kind of praise, and the accents that make it sound more euphonious often do so because they’re picking up the rhythms and inflection of a different language and applying it to English, as with Irish pronunciations of words like ‘thirty’ and ‘film’.

I think that’s OK. Many languages that sound beautiful do so because of their consistency – Icelandic, for instance, hasn’t changed all that much in a thousand years, whereas one of the key elements that makes English so wonderful is, as I’ve discussed, its sheer mongrel variety. English doesn’t have the beauty of a Chippendale wardrobe; it’s more the linguistic equivalent of an Ikea Billy bookcase. It’s not superficially attractive, but it’s also accessible to pretty much anyone, and there are no restrictions on what you do with it once you’ve got it. Versatile, rich and democratic, the nature of English allows any speaker to express themselves more or less any way they want – and if that isn’t beautiful, I don’t know what is.

Essay on English as a Global Language

500 Words Essay On English as a Global Language

A global language is one that is spoken and understood at an international level by a wide variety of people. Moreover, no language in the world better fits this description than the English language. This essay on English as a global language will shed more light on this issue.

                                                                                                  Essay on English as a Global Language

Why English is a Global Language

When it comes to languages, one can make a strong argument that a strong link exists between dominance and cultural power. Furthermore, the main factor that the languages become popular is due to a powerful power-base, whether economic or political or military.

The derivation of the English language took place from languages like French, Latin, German, and other European languages. This can be a reason why many Europeans don’t find English a difficult language to learn. Furthermore, linguists argue whether the simplicity of the English language is the main reason for it becoming a global language.

The Latin script of the English language appears less complicated for people to recognize and learn. Also, the pronunciation of the English language is not as complex as other languages like Korean or Turkish for example.

Generally, the difficulty level of a language varies from person to person and it also depends on the culture to which one may belong. For example, a Korean person would find less difficulty in mastering the Japanese language in comparison to a German person. This is because of the close proximity of the Korean and Japanese cultures.

Due to the massive British colonial conquests , no culture is in complete oblivion of the English language or words. As such, English is a language that should not appear as too alien or strange to any community. Consequently, learning English is not such big of a deal for most people as they can find a certain level of familiarity with the language.

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The Effectiveness of the English Language

English is a very effective language and this is evident due to the presence of various native and non-native speakers on a global scale. Furthermore, according to statistics, one-fourth of the world is either fluent in the English language or content with it. While it’s true that the number of native Mandarin speakers is the greatest in the world, Mandarin is not the global language due to its complex spellings, grammar , and letter system.

The English language, on the other hand, does not suffer from such complexity problems. Furthermore, the English language has a lot of words and synonyms to express something. As such, any word or its meaning can be expressed with a high level of accuracy.

Conclusion of the Essay on English as a Global Language

English is certainly the most widely spoken language in the world by far. On a global scale, English has the most number of speakers, who speak English either as a first or second language. Without a doubt, no other language in the world can come close to English in terms of its immense popularity.

FAQs For Essay on English as a Global Language

Question 1: Why English is referred to as the global language?

Answer 1:  Many consider English as a global language because it is the one language that the majority of the population in almost every region of the world can speak and understand. Furthermore, the language enjoys worldwide acceptance and usage by every nation of the world. Therefore, it is an extremely essential global language.

Question 2: How English became the global language in the world?

Answer 2: By the late 18th century, the British Empire had made a lot of colonies. Moreover, they had established their geopolitical dominance all over the world. Consequently, the English language quickly spread in the British colonies.

There was also the contribution of technology, science, diplomacy, commerce, art, and formal education which led to English becoming a truly global language of the world.

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Home — Essay Samples — Science — English Language — The importance of English language

The Importance of English Language

• Categories: English Language

About this sample

Words: 1323 |

Published: Oct 22, 2018

Words: 1323 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

• It’s the most commonly spoken language in the world
• It’s the language of international business
• Most movies are in English:
• It’s easy to learn:
• It helps you understand other languages
• You can say things in a hundred different ways:
• It can be used around the world:
• It’s is the language of Sports:
• It’s the language of the internet:
• It continues to change:
• Most countries know how to speak English. Out of one, five people can speak or at least understand English
• English is the language of Science computers etc. So if you want to do the job in such fields you must learn English.
• English is the official language of 53 countries. That’s why it is important to learn English.
• English is spoken as a first language by around 400 million people around the world.
• English is the language of the media industry. So if you learn English you don’t have to rely on subtitle or dubbing to enjoy your favorite shows.
• English is also the language of the Internet. Many websites are in English. So you must learn English.
• English is based on a simple alphabet and has a simple vocabulary so it requires little effort to learn English
• English is not only useful – it gives you a lot of satisfaction. Making progress feels great. You will enjoy learning English if you remember that every hour you spend gets you closer to perfection.
• Since English is spoken in so many different countries there are thousands of schools around the world that offer programs in English. If you speak English, you have a lot of opportunities to work in schools and you may able to apply somewhere for a job.
• By learning English you can also learn about cultures. And English is also known as the language of freedom. You can also enjoy a lot of quotes and inspirational writings in English so it is also the source of motivation.

Works Cited

• Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language. Cambridge University Press.
• Graddol, D. (2010). English Next: Why Global English May Mean the End of 'English as a Foreign Language'. British Council.
• Jenkins, J. (2015). Global Englishes: A Resource Book for Students. Routledge.
• McKay, S. L., & Bokhorst-Heng, W. D. (2008). International English in Its Sociolinguistic Contexts: Towards a Socially Sensitive EIL Pedagogy. Routledge.
• Pennycook, A. (2017). The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. Routledge.
• Crystal, D. (2012). English as a Global Language: Implications for Translation Studies. In Translation: A Multidisciplinary Approach (pp. 97-113). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford University Press.
• Kachru, B. B. (1992). The Other Tongue: English across Cultures. University of Illinois Press.
• Modiano, M. (2016). English as a Lingua Franca: Theorizing and Teaching English. Modern Language Journal, 100(3), 676-691.
• McKay, S. L. (2002). Teaching English as an International Language: Rethinking Goals and Approaches. Oxford University Press.

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Thomas jefferson: an essay or introductory lecture...dialects of the english language, 1825, 1825.

or Introductory Lecture

towards facilitating instruction in the Anglo-Saxon and Modern dialects of the English Language.

for the use of the University of Virginia

Printed by order of the Board of Visitors

The importance of the Anglo-Saxon dialect towards a perfect understanding of the English language seems not to have been duly estimated by those charged with the education of youth; and yet it is unquestionably the basis of our present tongue. it was a full-formed language, it’s frame and construction, it’s declensions of nouns and verbs, and it’s syntax were peculiar to the Northern languages, and fundamentally different from those of the South. it was the language of all England, properly so called, from the Saxon possession of that country in the 6 th century to the time of Henry III, in the 13 th and was spoken pure and unmixed with any other, altho’ the Romans had been in possession of that country for nearly five centuries from the time of Julius Cæsar, yet it was a military possession chiefly, by their souldiery alone, and with dispositions intermutually jealous and unamicable. they seem to have aimed at no lasting settlements there, and to have had little familiar mixture with the native Britons. in this state of connection there would probably be little incorporation of the Roman into the native language, and on their subsequent evacuation of the island, it’s traces would soon be lost altogether. and, had it been otherwise, these innovations would have been carried with the Natives themselves when driven into Wales by the invasion and entire occupation of the rest of the Southern portion of the island by the Anglo-Saxons. the language of these last became that of the country, from that time forth, for nearly seven centuries; and so little attention was paid among them to the Latin, that it was known to a few individuals only, as a matter of science, and without any chance of transfusion into the vulgar language. we may safely repeat the affirmation therefore that the pure Anglo-Saxon constitutes at this day the basis of our language. that it was sufficiently copious for the purposes of society in the existing conditions of arts and manners, reason alone would satisfy us from the necessity of the case. it’s copiousness too was much favored by the latitude it allowed of combining primitive words so as to produce any modification of idea desired in this characteristic it was equal to the Greek. but it is more specially proved by the actual fact of the books they have left us in the various branches of history geography, religion, law, and poetry. and altho’, since the Norman conquest it has recieved vast additions and embellishments from the Latin, Greek, French & Italian languages, yet these are but engraftments on it’s idiomatic stem. it’s original structure & Syntax remain the same, and can be but imperfectly understood by the mere Latin scholar. hence the necessity of making the A-Saxon a regular branch of Academic education. in the 16 th and 17 th centuries it was assiduously cultivated by a host of learned men. the names Lambard, Parker, Spelman. Wheeloc, Wilkins, Gibson, Hickes, Thwaites, Somner, Benson, Mareschal, Elstob, deserve to be ever remembered with gratitude for the Anglo-Saxon works which they have given us through the press, the only certain means of preserving and promulgating them. for a century past this study has been too much neglected. the reason of this neglect, and it’s remedy, shall be the subject of some explanatory Observations. these will respect I. Alphabet. II. Orthography. III. Pronuntiation. IV. Grammar.

I. The Alphabet.

The Anglo-Saxon alphabet, as known to us in it’s printed forms, consists of 26. characters, about the half of which are Roman, the others of forms peculiarly Saxon. these, mixed with the others, give an aspect to the whole rugged, uncouth and appalling to an eye accustomed to the roundness and symmetry of the Roman character. this is a first discouragement to the English student. next, the task of learning a new alphabet, and the time and application necessary to render it easy and familiar to the Reader, often decides the doubting learner against an enterprise so apparently irksome.

The earliest remains extant of Saxon writing are said to be of the 7 th century; and the latest of the 13 th . the black letter seems to have been introduced by William the conqueror, whose laws are written in Norman French, and in that letter. the full alphabet of Roman character was first used about the beginning of the 16 th century. but the expression of the same sounds by a different character did not change these sounds, nor the language which they constituted; did not make the language of Alfred a different one from that of Piers Ploughman, of Chaucer, Douglas, Spencer, and Shakespear, any more than the 2 d revolution, which substituted the Roman for the English black letter made theirs a different language from that of Pope and Bolingbroke; or the writings of Shakespear, printed in black letter different from the same as now done in Roman type. the life of Alfred written in Latin, and in Roman character by Asser, was reprinted by Archbishop Parker in A-S. letters. but it is Latin still, altho’ the words are represented by characters different from those of Asser’s original. and the extracts given us by D r Hickes from the Greek Septuagint, in A-S. characters, is Greek still, altho’ the Greek sounds are represented by other types. here then I ask, why should not this Roman character, with which we are all familiar, be substituted now for the A-S. by printing in the former the works already edited in the latter type? and also the M.S.S. still inedited? this may be done letter for letter, and would remove entirely the first discouraging obstacle to the general study of the A-Saxon.

II. Orthography

In the period during which the A-S. alphabet was in use, reading and writing were rare arts. the highest dignitaries of the church subscribed their marks, not knowing how to write their names. Alfred himself was taught to read in his 36 th year only, or as some editions of Asser say, in his 39 th speaking of learning in his preface to the Pastoral of Gregory, Asser says ‘swa clean hi was oth-fallen on Angalkin that swithe few wereon behinan Humber the hior thenung cuthon understandan on English, oth furthon an errand y-write of Latin on English areckon. and I ween that not many beyondan Humber nay aren; swa few hior weron that I furthon ane on lepne nay may y-thinkan be-Suthan Thames tha tha I to ric fang.’ or as literally translated into later English by Archbishop Parker, ‘so clean it was fallen amongst the English nation, that very few were on this side Humber which their service could understand in English, or else furthermore an epistle from Latin into English to declare. and I ween that not many beyond Humber were not. so few of them were, that I also one only may not remember by South Thamise when as I to reign undertook.’ in this benighted state, so profoundly illiterate, few read at all, and fewer wrote; and the writer having no examples of orthography to recur to, thinking them indeed not important, had for his guide, his own ideas only of the power of the letters, unpractised & indistinct as they might be. he brought together therefore those letters which he supposed must enter into the composition of the sound he meant to express, and was not even particular in arranging them in the order in which the sounds composing the word followed each other. thus birds were spelt brides , grass gaers, run yrnam, cart crætt, fresh fersh. they seemed to suppose too that a final vowel was necessary to give sound to the consonant preceding it, and they used for that purpose any vowel indifferently. a son , was suna, sune, sunu; mæra, mære, mæro, mæru. fines, limites; ge, ye, y, i, are various spellings of the same prefix. the final e mute in English is a remain of this, as in give , love , curse.

The vowels were used indiscriminately also for every vowel sound. thus the

of this promiscuous use of the vowels we have also abundant remains still in English. for according to the powers given to our letters we often use them indifferently for the same sound as in bulw a rk, ass e rt, st i r, w o rk, l u rk, m y rtle. the single word many , in A-S. was spelt, as D r Hickes has observed in 20. different ways, to wit, mænigeo, mænio, mæniu, menio, meniu, mænigo, mænego, manige, menigo, manegeo, mæanegeo, menegeo, mænygeo, menigeo, manegu, mænigu, menegu, menego, menigu, manigo . to prove indeed that every one spelt according to his own notions, without regard to any standard, we have only to compare different editions of the same composition. take for example Alfred’s preface to Gregory’s Pastoral before cited, as published in different editions.

This unsettled orthography renders it necessary to swell the volume of the dictionaries by giving to each word as many places in order of the Alphabet as there are different modes of spelling it; and in proportion as this is omitted, the difficulty of finding the words increases on the student.

Since then it is apparent that the A-S. writers had established no particular standard of orthography, but each one followed arbitrarily his own mode of combining the letters, we are surely at liberty equally to adopt any mode which, establishing uniformity, may be more consonant with the power of the letters, and with the orthography of the present dialect, as established by usage. the latter attention has the advantage of exhibiting more evidently the legitimate parentage of the two dialects

III. Pronunciation.

To determine what that was among the A-S. our means are as defective as to determine the long agitated question What was the original pronunciation of the Greek & Latin languages. the presumption is certainly strong that in Greece and Italy, the countries occupied by those languages, their pronuntiation has been handed down, by tradition, more nearly that it can be known to other countries: and the rather as there has been no particular point of time at which those antient languages were changed into the modern ones occupying the same grounds. they have been gradually worn down to their present forms by time, and changes of modes and circumstances. in like manner there has been no particular point of time at which the Anglo-Saxon has been changed into it’s present English form. the languages of Europe have generally, in like manner, undergone a gradual metamorphosis, some of them in name as well as in form. we should presume therefore that in those counties of Great Britain which were occupied earliest, longest and latest by the Saxon immigrants, the pronuntiation of their language has been handed down more nearly than elsewhere; and should be searched for in the provincial dialects of those counties. but the fact is that these counties have divaricated in their dialects, so that it would be difficult to decide among them which is the most genuine. under these doubts therefore we may as well take the pronuntiation now in general use as the legitimate standard, and that from which it is most promotive of our object to infer the A-S. pronuntiation. it is indeed the forlorn hope of all aim at their probable pronuntiation; for were we to regard the powers of the letters only, no human organ could articulate their uncouth jumble. we will suppose therefore the power of the letters to have been generally the same in A-S. as now in English; and to produce the same sounds we will combine them, as nearly as may be, conformably with the present English orthography. this is indeed a most irregular and equivocal standard; but a conformity with it will bring the two dialects nearer together in sound and semblance, and facilitate the transition from the one to the other more auspiciously than a rigorous adherence to any uniform system of orthography which speculation might suggest.

I will state some instances only (referring to D r Hickes for more) of the unskilful and inconsistent uses of the letters by the Anglo-Saxons, in proof of the necessity of changing them, to produce, to a modern reader, the very sounds which we suppose them to have intended by their confused combinations. their vowels, promiscuously used, as before observed, must all be freely changed to those used in corresponding words in English orthography.

and finally, in the words of D r Hickes ‘ demum quomodo Anglo-Saxonicae voces factae sunt Anglicae mutando literas ejusdem organi, asperando lenes, et leniendo asperas, vocales, diphthongos, et interdum consonantes leviter mutando, auferendo initales et finales syllabas, præsertim terminationem modi infinitivi, praterea adolendo, transponendo, et interponendo literas, et voces quoque syncopando, exemplis docendum est. ’

IV. Grammar.

Some observations on A-S. grammar may show how much easier that also may be rendered to the English student. D r Hickes may certainly be considered as the father of this branch of modern learning. he has been the great Restorer of the A-S. dialect from the oblivion into which it was fast falling. his labors in it were great, and his learning not less than his labors. his Grammar may be said to be the only one we yet possess: for that edited at Oxford in 1711. is but an extract from Hickes, and the principal merit of mrs Elstob’s is that it is written in English, without any thing original in it. some others have been written, taken also and almost entirely from Hickes. in his time there was too exclusive a prejudice in favor of the Greek and Latin languages. they were considered as the standards of perfection, and the endeavor generally was to force other languages to a conformity with these models. but nothing can be more radically unlike than the frames of the antient languages, Southern and Northern, of the Greek and Latin languages from those of the Gothic family. of this last are the A-S. and English; and had D r Hickes, instead of keeping his eye fixed on the Gr. & Lat. languages, as his standard, viewed the A-S. in it’s conformity with the English only, he would greatly have enlarged the advantages for which we are already so much indebted to him. his labors however have advanced us so far on the right road, and a correct pursuit of it will be a just homage to him.

A Noun is to be considered under it’s accidents of genders, cases & numbers. the word gender is, in nature, synonimous with Sex. to all the subjects of the animal kingdom Nature has given Sex, and that is two–fold only, male or female, masculine or feminine. vegetable and mineral subjects have no distinction of sex, consequently are of no gender. words, like other inanimate things, have no sex, are of no gender. yet in the construction of the Gr. and Lat. languages, and of the modern ones of the same family, their adjectives being varied in termination, and made distinctive of animal sex, in conformity with the nouns or names of animal subjects, the two real genders, which nature has established, are distinguished in their languages. but, not stopping here, they have, by usage, thrown a number of unsexual subjects into the sexual classes, leaving the residuary mass to a 3 d class, which grammarians call Neutral, that is to say, of no gender or sex; and some Latin grammarians have so far lost sight of the real and natural genders as to ascribe to that language 7. genders, the Masculine, feminine, neutral, gender common to two, common to three, the doubtful and the Epicene; than which nothing can be more arbitrary, and nothing more useless. but the languages of the Anglo-Saxons and English is based on principles totally different from those of the Gr. & Lat. and is constructed on laws peculiar and idiomatic to itself. it’s adjectives have no changes of termination on account of gender, number or case . each has a single one applicable to every noun, whether it be the name of a thing having sex, or not. to ascribe gender to nouns in such a case would be to embarras the learner with unmeaning and useless distinctions. it will be said e.g. that a priest is of one gender, and a priestess of another, a poet of one, a poetess another E t c and that therefore the words designating them must be of different genders. I say, not at all. because altho’ the thing designated may have sex, the word designating it, like other inanimate things has no sex, no gender. in Latin we well know that the thing may be of one gender and the word designating it of another. see Martial 7. Epis, 17 the ascription of gender to it is artificial and arbitrary, and, in English & A-S. absolutely useless. Lowthe therefore among the most correct of our English grammarians, has justly said that in the Nouns of the English language, there is no other distinction of gender but that of nature, it’s adjectives admitting no change but of the degrees of comparison. we must guard against the conclusion of D r Hickes that the change of termination in the A-S. adjectives, as god, gode for example, is an indication of gender, this, like others of his examples of inflection is only an instance of unsettled orthography. in the languages acknoleged to ascribe genders to their words, as Gr. Lat, Italian, Spanish, French, their dictionaries indicate the gender of every noun; but the A-S. and English dictionaries give no such indication; a proof of the general sense that gender makes no part of the character of the noun. we may safely therefore dismiss the learning of genders from our language, whether in it’s antient or modern form.

2. our law of Cases is different. they exist in nature, according to the difference of accident they announce. no language can be without them, & it is an error to say that the Greek is without an ablative. it’s ablative indeed is always like it’s dative; but were that sufficient to deny it’s existence, we might equally say that the Latins had no ablative plural, because in all nouns, of every declension, their ablative plural is the same with the dative. it would be to say that to go to a place, or from a place, means the same thing. the grammarians of Port-Royal therefore have justly restored the Ablative to Greek Nouns. our Cases are generally distinguished by the aid of the prepositions of , to , by , from or with , but sometimes also by change of termination. but these changes are not so general or difficult as to require, or to be capable of a distribution into declensions. yet D r Hickes, having in view the 5. declensions of the Latin, and 10. of the Greek languages, has given 6. and Thwaytes 7. to the A-S. the whole of them however are comprehended under the 3. single Canons following.

1. the datives and ablatives plural of all nouns end in um .

2. of the other cases, some nouns inflect their Genitive singular only, and some their Nominative, accusative and Vocative plural also in s , as in English

3. Others, preserving the primitive form in their Nom. and Voc. singular, inflect all the other cases & numbers in en .

3. Numbers.

Every language, as I presume, has so formed it’s Nouns and Verbs as to distinguish the action of a single and a plurality of subjects, and all, as far as I know, have been * p. 17 contented with the simple distinction of singular and plural, except the Greeks, who have interposed between them a Dual number, so distinctly formed by actual changes of termination and inflection, as to leave no doubt of it’s real distinction from the other numbers. but they do not uniformly use their dual for it’s appropriate purpose. the number 2. is often expressed plurally, and sometimes by a dual noun and plural verb. D r Hickes supposes that A-S. to have a dual number also, not going thro’ the whole vocabulary of nouns and verbs, as in Greek, but confined to two particular pronouns, i.e. wit , and yit , which he translates we two, and ye two. but Benson renders wit by nos , and does not give yit at all. and is it worth while to embarras grammar with an extra distinction for two or three , or half a dozen words? and why may not wit , we two, & yit , ye two, by considered plural, as well as we three, or we four? as duo, ambo, with the Latins? we may surely say then that neither the A-S. nor English has a dual number.

4. Verbs, moods.

To the verbs in A-S. D r Hickes gives 6. moods. the Greeks, besides the 4. general moods, Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative and Infinitive have really an Optative mood, distinguished from the others by actual differences of termination. and some Latin grammarians, besides the optative, have added, in that language, a Potential mood; neither of them distinguished by differences of termination or inflection. they have therefore been disallowed by later and sounder grammarians; and we may, in like manner, disembarras our A-S. and English from the Optatives and Potentials of D r Hickes.

Supines and Gerunds.

He thinks too that the A-S. verb has supines & gerunds, among it’s variations; accidents certainly peculiar to Latin verbs only. he considers lufian , to love, as the infinitive, and to lufian , a supine. the exclusion therefore of the preposition to , makes with him the infinitive, while we have ever considered it as the essential sign of that mood. and what all grammarians have hitherto called the infinitive, he considers as a supine or gerund. his examples are given in A-S. and Latin, but I will add the equivalent Greek and English for illustration.

I ask then if απoλεςαι, ϑεραπευειν, δoυναι , are supines or gerunds? why then should to for-spillan, to healan, to a-drivan, to sellen , or, to destroy, to heal, to cure, to drive, to give, be necessarily supines or gerunds? the fact is only that the Latins express by these inflections, peculiar to themselves, what other languages do by their infinitives.

From these aberrations, into which our great Anglo-Saxon leader D r Hickes has been seduced by too much regard to the structure of the Greek & Latin languages and too little to their radical difference from that of the Gothic family, we have to recall our footsteps into the right way, and we shall find our path rendered smoother, plainer, and more direct to the object of profiting of the light which each dialect throws on the other. and this even as to the English language, appears to have been the opinion of Waltus the best of our English Grammarians who, in the preface to his English grammar, says ‘ omnes ad Latinæ linguæ normam [. . .] ne nostram Anglicanam nimium exigentes multa inutilia præcepta de nominum casitus, generibus et declinationibus, [. . .] verborum temporibus, modis et conjugationibus, de nominum item et verborum regimine, a lüsque similibus tradiderunt, qu [. . .] lingua nostra sunt prorsus aliena, adeoque confusionem potius et obscuritatem periunt, quam explicationi inservient. ’

Having removed then this cumbrous scaffolding, erected by too much learning, and obscuring, instead of enlightening our Anglo-Saxon structure, I will proceed to give a Specimen of the manner in which I think might be advantageously edited any future republications of the A-S. writings which we already possess in print, or any MSS. which may hereafter be given to us through the medium of the press.

I take my Specimen from Thwaite’s Heptateuch, beginning with 1 st chapter of Genesis. I give in one column the A-S. text, in the Roman character, preserving letter for letter the orthography of the Saxon original. in another column the same text in the Roman character also, spelt with a combined regard to the power of the letters, to English orthography, and English pronunciation. I interline a version verbally exact, placing every English word under it’s A-S. root, without regard to the change of acceptation it has undergone in time. as e.g. ‘the earth was idle and empty’ 1. Gen. 2. instead of the modern words ‘without form and void’ and the ‘ αορατος και ακαταςκευαςος ’ of the LXX. leaving to the ingenuity of the reader to trace the history of the change. in rendering the A-S. into the corresponding English word, I have considered as English not only what is found in the oldest English writers, in glossaries and dictionaries, but in the Provincial dialects also, and in common parlance of unlettered people, who have preserved more of the antient language than those whose style has been polished by education. Grammar too is disregarded, my principal object being to manifest the identity of the two languages. this version is rendered more uncouth by the circumstances that 1. the ordo verborum of the A-S. is not exactly the same as the English. 2. they used much oftener the noun without the article. 3. they frequently use their oblique cases without a preposition prefixed, the English very rarely. in this verbal versions these omissions are to be understood.

The A-S. writings, in this familiar form are evidently nothing but old English; and we may join conscientiously in the exhortation of Archbishop Parker, in his preface to Asser ‘ omnes qui in regni institutis addiscendis elaboraverint, cohortabor ut exiguo labore, seu pene nullo , hujus sibi linquæ cognitionem acquirant. ’

As we are possessed in America of the printed editions of A-S. writings, they furnish a fit occasion for this country to make some return to the older nations for the science for which we are indebted to them. and in this task I hope an honorable part will in time be borne by our University, for which, at an hour of life too late for any thing elaborate, I hazard these imperfect hints, for consideration chiefly on a subject on which I pretend not to be profound. the publication of the inedited MSS. which exist in the libraries of G. Britain only, must depend on the learned of that nation. their means of science are great. they have done much, and much is yet expected from them. nor will they disappoint us. our means are as yet small. but the widow’s mite was piously given, and kindly accepted. how much would contribute to the happiness of these two nations a brotherly emulation in doing good to each other, rather than the mutual vituperations so unwisely and unjustifiably sometimes indulged in by both. and this too by men on both sides of the water, who think themselves of a superior order of understanding, and some of whom are truly of an elevation far above the ordinary stature of the human mind. no two people on earth can so much help, or hurt each other. let us then yoke ourselves jointly to the same car of mutual happiness, and vie in common efforts to do each other all the good we can. to reflect on each other the lights of mutual science particularly, and the kind affections of kindred blood. be it our task, in the case under consideration, to reform and republish, in forms more advantageous, what we already possess, and theirs to add to the common stock the inedited treasures which have been too long buried in their despositories.

P.S. January 1825. In the year 1818. by authority of the legislature of Virginia, a plan for the establishment of an University was prepared and proposed to them. in that plan the Anglo-Saxon language was comprehended as a part of the circle of instruction to be given to the Students; and the preceding pages were then committed to writing for the use of the University. I pretend not to be an Anglo-Saxon scholar. from an early period of my studies indeed, I have been sensible of the importance of making it a part of the regular education of our youth; and at different times, as leisure permitted, I applied myself to the study of it, with some degree of attention. but my life has been too busy in pursuits of another character to have made much proficiency in this. the leading idea which very soon impressed itself on my mind, and which has continued to prevail through the whole of my observations on the language, was, that it was nothing more than the old English of a period of some ages earlier than that of Piers Ploughman, and under this view my cultivation of it has been continued. it was apparent to me that the labors of D r Hickes, and other very learned men, have been employed in a very unfortunate direction, in endeavors to give it the complicated structure of the Greek and Latin languages. I have just now recieved a copy of a new work, by mr Bosworth on the Elements of Anglo-Saxon grammar, & it quotes two other works, by Turner and Jamieson, both of great erudition, but not yet known here. mr Bosworth’s is indeed a treasure of that venerable learning. it proves the assiduity with which he has cultivated it, the profound knolege in it which he has attained, and that he has advanced far beyond all former grammarians in the science of it’s structure. yet, I own, I was disappointed on finding that in proportion as he has advanced on, and beyond, the footsteps of his predecessors, he has the more embarrassed the language with rules and distinctions in imitation of the grammars of Greek and Latin, has led it still further from it’s genuine type of old English, and increased it’s difficulties by the multitude and variety of new and minute rules with which he has charged it. I had the less expected this from observations made early in the work, on ‘th total disregard of the A-Saxons of any settled rules of orthography, their confounding the letters, using them indifferently for each other, and especially the vowels and diphthongs [pa. 46.] on the frequent transpositions of their letters, and the variety of ways of writing the same word by different A-S. authors,’ giving, as examples, six ways of spelling the word ‘youth,’ and the twenty ways of spelling ‘many;’ observing that, in the Comparative degree, the last syllable er , was spelt with all the vowels indifferently, so also the syllable est , of the Superlative degree, and so the Participial terminations of end , and ed , [pa.54.] adding many other examples of an use entirely promiscuous of the vowels, and much so of the consonants. and in pa. 249. he says ‘it must be evident that learning was not so common in the Saxon æra as at the present time. our ancestors, having few opportunities of literary acquirements, could not have determined upon fixed rules for orthography, any more than illiterate persons in the present day, who, having been employed in manual labor, could avail themselves of the facilities which were offered. hence arose the differences observable in spelling the same words in Saxon.’ and again in a note, pa. 253. he says ‘those changes in Saxon, which are denominated dialects, appear in reality only to be the alterations observed in the progress of the language, as it gradually flowed from the Saxon, varying, or casting off many of it’s inflections, till it settled in the form of the present English. this progressive transformation of the Anglo Saxon into our present form of speech will be evident by the following examples, taken from the translations of the most learned men of the age to which they are referred.’ and he proceeds to give specimens of the Pater nosters of the years 890. 930. 1130. 1160. 1180. 1250. 1260. 1380. 1430. 1500. 1526. 1537. 1541. 1556. 1611. that is, from the time of Alfred to that of Shakespear. these obviously prove the gradual changes of the language from the A-S. form, to that of the present English, and that there was no particular point of time at which the A-S. was superceded by the English dialect; for dialects we may truly call them, of the same language, separated by lines of time instead of space. and these specimens prove also that the language of Alfred was, no more than that of Piers Ploughman, a different one from that we now speak. in like manner the language of France, cotemporary with our Anglo-Saxon, was as different from modern French, as the A-S. from modern English; and their Romanumrusticum, or Romain-rustique, as it was called, has changed insensibly, as our A-S. to the form now spoken. yet so much of the fundamental idiom remains the same in both, that to read and understand the elder dialect, they need but a Glossary for words lost by disuse. I will make one more quotation from mr Bosworth. because it confirms what I have said of the scholastic bias of our early authors to place our old language in the line of Latin and Greek. ‘Hickes, says he, page 213. note 2. indisputably one of the most learned of those who can be said to have examined, with a critical eye, our Saxon literature, influenced by the desire of reducing everything to some classical standard, a prejudice not uncommon in the age in which he wrote, endeavors, with greater zeal than success, to shew that the writers whom he was recommending to the world [the A-S. poets] observed the legitimate rules of Latin prosody, and measured their feet by syllabic quantity.’ Notwithstanding these proofs that our Author was fully aware of the unsettled and uncertain orthography of the A-Saxons, and his particular observations, pa. 53. 54. that ‘the final letters of words are often omitted,’ and ‘that the different letters suffer very frequent changes of position,’ he proceeds, in conformity with preceding authorities, which indeed support him, to make genders, cases, and declensions of nouns to depend on their terminating vowel, pa. 80. 81. 82. 83. 94. the formations of different parts of verbs to depend on the collocation of the letters [pa. 143.] and other formations [pa. 181.] and even regimen [pa. 202.] to depend on the final syllable. and this leads to such an infinitude of minute rules and observances, as are beyond the power of any human memory to retain. if indeed this be the true genius of the A-S. language, then it’s difficulties go beyond it’s worth, and render a knolege of it no longer a compensation for the time and labor it’s acquisition will require: and in that case, I would recommend it’s abandonment in our University, as an unattainable and unprofitable pursuit. but if, as I believe, we may consider it as merely an antiquated form of our present language, if we may throw aside the learned difficulties which mask it’s real character, liberate it from these foreign shackles, and proceed to apply ourselves to it with little more preparation than to Piers Ploughman, Douglas, or Chaucer, then I am persuaded it’s acquisition will require little time or labor, and will richly repay us by the intimate insight it will give us into the genuine structure powers, and meanings of the language we now read and speak. we shall then read Shakespear and Milton with a superior degree of intelligence and delight, heightened by the new and delicate shades of meaning developed to us by a knolege of the original sense of the same words. this rejection of the learned labors of our A-S. Doctors may be considered perhaps as a rebellion against science. my hope however is that it may prove a revolution. two great works indeed will be wanting to effect all it’s advantages. 1. a Grammar on the simple principles of the English grammar, analogising the idiom, the rules and principles of the one and the other, eliciting their common origin, the identity of their structure, laws and composition, and their total unlikeness to the genius of the Greek and Latin. 2. a Dictionary, on the plan of Stephens or Scapula, in which the A-S. roots should be arranged alphabetically, and the derivatives from each root, Saxon and English, entered under it in their proper order and connection. such works as these, with new editions of the Saxon writings, on the plan I venture to propose, would shew that the A-S. is really old English, little more difficult to understand than works we possess, and read & still call English. they would recruit and renovate the vigour of the English language, too much impaired by the neglect of it’s antient constitution and dialects, & would remove, for the Student, the principal difficulties of ascending to the source of the English language, the main object of what has been here proposed.

Observations on Anglo-Saxon grammar

Pronuntiation. Different nations use different alphabets for expressing the sounds of their languages; and nations which use the same alphabet assign very different powers to the same characters. hence, to enable persons to learn the language of other countries, grammars are composed explaining to what letters and combinations of them, in their own language, the letters and combinations of them in another are equivalent. the pronuntiation of the living languages is deposited in records of this kind, as doubtless was that of the Greek and Latin languages, now considered as dead. these evidences of their pronuntiation however being lost, we resort to the countries in which these languages were once spoken, and where they have been insensibly altered to what is now spoken there; and we presume that, the same alphabetical characters being still preserved there, the powers assigned to them are those handed down by tradition, with some changes no doubt, but yet tolerably correct in the main: and that the present pronunciation of those characters by the inhabitants of the same country is better evidence of their antient power than any other to be obtained at this day. hence it is presumed that the pronuntiation of the Greek and Roman characters, now practised by the modern Greeks & Italians, is nearer probably to that of the antient Greeks and Romans than the sounds assigned to the same characters by any other nation.   The Anglo-Saxon is also become a dead language. it’s alphabet is preserved; but if any written evidences exist of the powers assigned to it’s different characters, it is unknown to me. on the contrary I believe that the expressions of the sounds of their language by alphabetical characters had not been long and generally enough practised to settle an uniform power in each letter or combination of letters. this I infer from their infinitely diversified modes of spelling the same word. for example the word many is found spelt in 20. different manners. to supply evidence therefore of the pronuntiation of their words, we should, I think, resort to the pronuntiation of the corresponding words in Modern English. for as the Anglo-Saxon was insensibly changed into the present English language, it is probable the English have the pronuntiation, as well as the words, by tradition. indeed I consider the actual pronunciation of a word by the English as better evidence of it’s pronuntiation by their Anglo-Saxon ancestors than the multiform representation of it by letters which they have left us. the following examples will give an idea of the appeal I make to English pronunciation for the power of the Saxon letters, and sound of the Saxon words.

those, I think, who have leisure and knolege of the subject, could not render it a greater service than by new editions of the Saxon writings still extant digested under four columns, whereof the 1 st should present the text in the Saxon character and original loose orthography; the 2 d the same text in Saxon characters reformed to Modern English orthography as nearly as allowable; the 3 d the same text in the English character and orthography; the 4 th an English version, as literally expressed, both as to words and their arrangement as any indulgences of grammar, or of obsolete, or provincial terms, would tolerate. I will exhibit the following passage from Alfred’s Orosius. L. 1. pa. 23. as a specimen.

the dissimilitude between Saxon and English is more in appearance than reality. it consists chiefly in the difference of character and orthography. suppress that, (as is done in the 3 d column,) represent the sounds by the English character and orthography, and it is immediately seen to be, not a different language, but the same in an earlier stage of it’s progression. and such editions of the Saxon writers, by removing the obstructions of character and false spelling, enabling us to give habitual and true, instead of uncouth and false sounds to words, would promote the study of the English language, by facilitating it’s examination in it’s mother state, and making us sensible of delicacies and beauties in it unfelt but by the few who have had the courage, through piles of rubbish, to seek a radical acquaintance with it.

Declensions of Nouns.

One of the simplifications of the study of the Anglo-Saxon which would result from a reformation of it’s orthography to the present English standard, would be a reduction in the number of the declensions of nouns heretofore assigned to it. the Anglo-Saxons seem to have thought some vowel final necessary to give sound to the preceding consonant, altho’ that vowel was not itself to be sounded; and nothing being less fixed than the power of their vowels and diphthongs, they have used all the vowels indiscriminately for this purpose. thus

notwithstanding these various orthographies, all, I presume, represent the same sound and probably that still retained by the English. for I can more easily suppose that an unlettered people used various modes of spelling the same word, than that they had so many different words to express the same thing. the e final of the English is a relique of the Anglo-Saxon practice of ending a word with a final vowel. a difference of orthography therefore, and still less a mere difference of final vowel is not sufficient to characterise a different declension of nouns. I should deem an unequivocal change in the sound necessary to constitute an inflexion; and a difference in the inflections necessary to form a class of nouns into a different declension. on these principles I should reduce Thwaite’s seven declensions to four, as follows.

I st declension, being Thwaite’s 5 th and 6 th

II d declension, comprehending Thwaite’s 3 d and 4 th

III d declension comprehending Thwaite’s 1 st and 7 th

IV th declension, being Thwaite’s 2 d

In stating the declensions here the 1 st column presents the Anglo-Saxon orthography, the varieties of which have been deemed sufficient to constitute inflections & declensions. the 2 d column presents a reformed orthography, supposed equivalent to the other as to sound, and consequently shewing that a variety in spelling where there is a sameness of sound, does not constitute an inflection, or change of declination.

the four declensions, reformed to an uniform orthography, would stand thus.

In this scheme then

It may be said that this is a bold proposition, amounting to a change of the language. but not so at all. what constitutes a language is a system of articulated sounds, to each of which and idea is attached. the artificial representation of these sounds on paper is a distinct thing. surely there were languages before the invention of letters; and there are now languages never yet expressed in letters. to express the sounds of a language perfectly, every letter of it’s alphabet should have but a single power, and those letters only should be used whose powers successively pronounced would produce the sound required. the Italian orthography is more nearly in this state than any other with which I am acquainted; the French & English the farthest from it. would a reformation of the orthography of the latter languages change them? if the French word aimoient , for example, were spelt émé, according to the French, or ama, according to the English power of those letters, would the word be changed? or if the English word cough were spelt cof , would that change the word? and how much more reasonable is it to reform the orthography of an illiterate people, among whom the use of letters was so rare that no particular mode of spelling had yet been settled, no uniform power given to their letters, every one being left free to express the words of the language by such combinations of letters as seemed to him to come near their sound. how little they were agreed as to the powers of their own letters, & how differently & awkwardly they combined them to produce the same sound needs no better example than that furnished by Doctor Hickes of the short and simple sound of many being endeavored to be represented by 20. different combinations of letters; to wit, in English characters, maenigo, maenio, mæniu, menio, meniu, mænigo, mænego, manige, menigo, manegeo, mænegeo, menegeo, mænygeo, menigeo, manegu, mænigu, menegu, menego, menigu, manigo . now would it change the word to banish all these, and give it, in their books, the orthography of many , in which they have all ended? and their correction in type is no more than every reader is obliged to make in his mind as he reads along; for it is impracticable for our organs to pronounce all the letters which their bungling spellers have huddled together. no one would attempt to give to each of these 20. methods of spelling many the distinct and different sounds which their different combinations of letters would call for. this would be to make 20. words where these surely was but one. he would probably reduce them all, wherever he met with them, to the single and simple sound of many , which all of them aimed to produce. this then is what I would wish to have done to the reader’s hand, in order to facilitate and encourage his undertaking. for remove the obstacles of uncouth spelling & unfamiliar characters, and there would be little more difficulty in understanding an Anglo-Saxon writer, than Burn’s poems. so as to the form of the characters of their Alphabet. that may be changed without affecting the language. it is not very long since the forms of the English and French characters were changed from the black letter to the Roman; yet the languages were not affected. nor are they by the difference between the printed and written characters now in use. the followings note written by Aelfric is not the less Latin because expressed in Anglo-Saxon characters. ‘ Ezo Ælfpicur renipri hunc Libnum in monarzenio Bapdonio ex dedi Bnihzpoldo Pneporizo .’ Hickes. Gram. Island. 158. we may say truly then that the Anglo-Saxon language would still be the same, were it written in the characters now used in English, and it’s orthography conformed to that of the English; & certainly the acquisition of it to the English student would be greatly facilitated by such an operation.

of the form in which the Anglo-Saxon writings still extant might be advantageously published, for facilitating to the English student the knolege of the Anglo-Saxon Dialect.

Genesis Chap. I.

1. On anginne gesceop , God heofenan and earthan.

2. seo corthe sothlice wæs ydel & æmtig, & thoestru wæron ofer thære niwelnisse bradnisse & Godes gast wæs geferod ofer wæteru.

1.   the prefixes ge, ye, y, i. being equivalent, I shall use the y- for them all.

3. God cwæth the ge-weorthe lesht; & leoht wearth ge-worht.

4. God geseah tha thæt hit god wæs, & he to-dælde that leoht fram tham theostrum.

5. and het that leoht dæg, & tha theostra niht. tha wæs ge-worden æfen & morgen an dæg.

6. God cwæth tha eft, gewurthe nu fæstnis tomiddes tham wæterum, and totwæme tha wæteru fram tham wæterum.

2   twam signifies twain

7. and God geworhte tha fæstnisse, & totwæmde tha wæteru the wæron under thære fæstnisse fram tham the wæron bufan thære fæstnisse; hit wæs tha swa gedon.

8. and God het tha fæstnisse heofenan, and was tha geworden æfen & morgen other dæg.

9. God tha sothlice cwæth, beon gegaderode tha wæteru the sind under theare heofenan, and æteowigedrignis; hit wæs tha swa gedon.

10. and God gecigde tha drignisse eorthan and thæra wætera gegaderunga he het sæs. God geseah tha that hit god wæs.

11. and cwæth, spritte seo eorthe growende gærs and sæd wircende, and æppelbære treow wæstm wircende æfter his cinne; thæs sæd sig on him silfum ofer eorthan. hit wæs tha swa ge-don.

12. and seo eorthe fortha-teah growende wirte and sæd berende be hire cinne, and treow westm wireende & gehwile sæd hæbbende æfter his hiwe. god geseah tha that hit god wæs.

3   teon producere. fortha-teon. forth-bring. see post v.20. teon forth also II.9. fortha-teah.

13. and wæs geuroden æfen & mergen the thridda dæg.

14. God cwæth tha sothlice, beo nu leoht on thære heofenan fæstnisse, and todælon dæg & nihte, & beon to tacnum & to tidum & to dagum & to gearum.

4   fastness. firmament

15. and hig scinon on thære heofenan fæstnisse and alihton tha eorthan. hit wæs tha swa geworden.

16. and God geworhte twa micele leoht, that mare leoht to thæs dæges lihtinge, and that læsse leoht to thære nihte lihtings; & steorran he geworhte.

17. and gesette hig on thære heofenan that hig scinon over eorthan.

18. and gimdon thæs dæges thære nihte, & todældon leoht and theostra. God geseah tha that hit god wæs.

19. and wæs geworden æfen & mergen se feortha dæg.

20. God cwæth eac swilce, teon nu tha wæteru forth swimmede cynn cucu on life, & fleogende cinn ofer eorthan under thære heofenan fæstnisse.

5.   eac-swilc. also.

21. and God gesceop tha tha micelan hwalas, & eall libbende fiscinn & stirrigendlice, the tha wæteru tugon forth on heora hiwum, and eall fleogende cinn æfter heora cinne. God geseah tha that hit good wæs.

5.b.   shope. Bailey. for shaped.

6.   Verstegan. tuge. to draw out, to lead. toga. ductor. Ben.

7.   hiwe. colour. Versteg. Benson. it means also a hive, house, family.

22. and bletsode hig thus cwethende, weaxath & beoth gemenigfilde, & gefillath thære sæ wæteru, and tha fugelas beon gemenigfilde ofer eorthan.

23. and tha wæs geworden æfen and mergen se fifta dæg.

24. God cwæth eacswilc, læde seo eorthe forth cuce nitena on heora cinne, and creopende cinn, and deor æfter heora hiwum. hit wæs tha swa geworden.

8   nitena, neat cattle.

9   deer. probably this was then the generic name for all the ferae, or wild quadrupeds.

25. and God geworhte thære eorthan deor æfter hira hiwum, & tha nitenu and eall creopende cynn on heora cynne. God geseah tha that hit god wæs.

26. and cwæth, Uton, wircean man to andlicnisse, and to ure gelicnisse, and he sig ofer tha fixas, & ofer tha fugelas, & ofer tha deor, and ofer ealle gesceafte, and ofer ealle tha creopende se stirath on eorthan.

10.   Uton,

27. God gesceop tha man to his andlicnisse, to Godes andlicnisse he gesceop hine, werhades & wifhades he gesceop hig.

28. and God hig bletsode and cwæth, wexath and beoth gemenigfilde, and gefillath tha eorthan and gewildath hig, & habbath on eowrum gewealde thære sæ fixas and thære lyfte fugelas & ealle nytenu the stiriath ofer eorthan.

29. God cwæth tha, Efne, Ie for-geaf eow eall gærs & wyrta sæd berende ofer eorthan, and ealle treowa tha the habbath sæd on him silfon heora agenes cynnes, that hig beon eow to mete.

11   efne, verily. adv. Bailey. lo!

30.and eallum nytenum & eallum fugelcynne and eallum tham the stiriath on eorthan, on tham the us libbende lif. that hig habbon him to gereordienne. it wæs tha swa gedon.

31. and God y-saw ealle tha thing the he geworhte, and hig wæron swithe gode. was tha geworden æfen and mergen se sixta dæg.

Chapter. II.

1. Eornostlice tha wæron fullfremode heofenas and eorthe, and all heora frætewung.

1.   earnestly, industriously. Bailey.

2. and God tha gefilde on thone seofethan dæg hys weore the he geworhte. and he gereste hine on thone seofethan dæg fram eallon tham weorce the he gefremode.

3. and God gebletsode thone seofethan dæg, and hine gehalgode, for thon the he on thone dæg geswac his weorcas the he gesceop to wirceanne.

4. thas sind thære heofenan & thære earthan cneornisse tha tha hig gesceopene wæron, on tham dæge the God geworhte heofenan & eorthan.

2.   cneornisse, generation. cneoresse. family. kin

5. and ælcne telgor on eorthan ær tham the he uppa-sprunge on eorthan, and eall gærs & wyrta ealles eardes ær than the hig uppa-spritton. God sothlice ne sende nanne ren ofer eorthan tha git: and man næs the tha eorthan worhte.

3   tilia, tiligea, agricola. a tiller.

4   eard, earth. earban, herb. qu. d. forb?

6. Ac an wyll a-sprang of thære eorthan wætriende ealre thære eorthan brodnysse.

7. God gesceop eornostlice man of thære eorthan lame, and onableow on hys ansine lifes orthunge; & se man wæs geworht on libbendre sawle.

5.   orth. breath.

6   winsum, pleasant. Benson. wynsum, winning. Verstegan.

7   from. a, ab. from. frum, beginning. frymthe beginning

8. God tha aplantode wynsumnisse orcerd fram frimthe. on tham he gelogode thone man the he geworhte.

9. God tha fortha-teah of thære moldan ælces cynnes treow fæger on gesihthe, and to brucenne winsum, eke-swilie lifes treow o-middan neorxena wange, and treow ingehydes godes & yfeles.

8   wang. a field. Bailey.

10. and that flood eode of stowe thære winsumnisse to wætrienne neorxena-wang, that flod ys thanon to-dæled on feower ean.

9.   the syntax of this is not obvious.

11. an ea of tham hatte Fifon. se gæth on-butan that land the is ge-haten Evilath, thærthær gold wixt.

12. and thæs landes gold is golda selost thar beoth eac gemette tha gimstanas, dellium & honychinus.

13. thære othre ea nama ys Gion. seo ys eac gehaten Nylus. seo imbæth eall thæra Silhearwena land.

14. thære thriddan ea nama ys Tigris. seo gæth on-gean tha Assirisean. sefeorthe ea ys gehaten Eufrates.

15. God ge-nam tha thone man, & ge-logode hine on neorxena-wange, that he thær wircean sceolde and thær begiman.

16. and bebead him thuss cwethende, of ælcum treowe thises orcerdes thu most etan.

17. sothlice of tham treowe in-ge-hides godes & yfeles ne et thu. on swa whilcum dæge swa thu ets of tham treowe, thu scealt death sweltan.

10.   swelter.

18. God cwæth eacswilce, nis na god thisum men ana to wunienne. Uton. wircean him sumne fultum to his gelicnisse.

11.   to wun, to dwell. Bailey. Verstegan.

19. God sothlice gelædde tha nitenu the he of eorthan gesceop & thære lyftefugolas to Adam, that he fore-sceawode hu he hig ge-cigde. Sothlice æle libbende nyten swa swæ Adam hit gecigde swa ys hys nama.

20. and Adam tha genamode ealle nytenu heora namum, and ealle fugelas, and ealle wild-deor. Adam sothlice ne gemette tha git nanne fultum his gelican.

21. tha sende God slæp on Adam, and tha tha he slep, tha genam he an ribb of his sidan, and gefilde mid flæsce thær thær that ribb wæs.

12.   nam. Bailey. Verst.

22. and geworhte that ribb the he genam of Adame to anum wifemen, and gelædde hig to Adame.

23. Adam tha cwæth, this ys nu ban of minum banum and flæsc of minum flæsc. theos bith geciged fæmne for tham the heo ys of were genumen.

24. for tham for-læt se man fæder and moder, & getheot hine to his wife, and hig beoth butu on anum flæsce.

25. he wæron tha butu nacode, Adam and his wif; and him thæs ne sccamode.

1. Eacswilce seo Næddre wæs geappre thonne ealle tha othre nytenu the God geworhte ofer eorthan; and se næddre cwæth to tham wife, hwi forbead God eow that ge ne æton of ælcum treowe binnan paradisum?

2. that wif andwirde, of thæra treowa wæstme the synd o-middan neorxena wange.

3. God be-bead us that we ne æton, ne we that treow ne hrepodon, thy læs the we swulton.

13   ripan, repan, to reap. repodon, repedon, reaped.

4. tha cwæth se næddre eft to tham wife, ne beo ge nates-whon deade theah the ge of tham treowe eton.

5. ac God wat sothlice that eowre eagan beoth geopenode on swa hwilcum dæge swa ge etath of tham treowe; and ge beoth thonne Englum-gelice witende ægther ge god ge yfel.

2.   ægther, uterque, both.

6. tha geseah that wif that thæt treow wæs god to etanne be than the hire thuhte, and wlitig on eagum, and lustbære on gesihthe, and genam tha of thæs treowes fæstme, and geæt and sealde hire were.

7. and heora begra eagan wurdon geopenode, hig on-eneowon tha that hig nacode wæron, & siwodon ficleaf and worhton him wædbrec.

4   weed-breech. breech-weeds. wede, vestes, garments. we still say ‘widow’s weeds. Bail.

8. eft tha tha God com, hig gehirdon hys stemne thær he 5. eode on neorxena wange ofer mid-dæg. tha be-hidde Adam hyne and his wif eacswa dide fram Godes gesihthe on middan tham treowe neorxena-wanges.

5.   eode, yode, went. Bailey.

9. God clipode tha Adam and cwæth, Adam hwar eart thu?

6   cleped, called. Bail.

10. he cwæth, thine stemne ic gehirde, 7. leof, on neorxena wange, and ic on-dred me for tham the ic eom nacod, and ic be-hidde me.

7.   leof, dilectus, beloved.

11. God cwæth, hwa sæde the that thu nacod wære, gif thu ne æte of tham treowe the ic bebead that thu of ne æte?

12. Adam cwæth, thæt wif that thu me for-geofe to geferan sealde me of tham treowe, & ic æte.

13. God cwæth to tham wife, hwi didest thu that? heo cwæth, seo næddre bepæhte me and ic æt.

14. God cwæth to thære næddron, for than the thu this dydest thy byst awinged betwix eallum nitenum and wild-deorum. thu gæst on thinum breoste and etst tha eorthan eallum dagum thines lifes.

8   werian, lacessere. worry. Bailey. also execrare, curse.

15. Ic sette feond rædene betweox the and tham wife, and thinum of springe and hire of springe. heo to-bryt thin heafod, and thu syrwst ongean hyre ho.

9   feond, inimicus. ræd, consilium. 9. feond-ræden, enmity.

10   sorge, sorrow. sorgian, to sorrow. g. for w.

16. to tham wife cwæth God eacswilce, Ic gemenigfilde thine yrmtha and thine ge-eacnunga. on sarnysse thu a-cents cild, and thu bist under 11. weres anwealde. and he ge-wild thee.

11.   were, man. Bailey.

17. to Adame he cwæth, for than the thu ge-hirdest thines wifes sterane, and thu æte of tham treowe the ic the bebead that thu he æte, ys seo eorthe awirged on thinum weorce. on geswincum thy ætst of thære eorthan eallum dagum thines lifes.

12.   swink, labor. Bailey. Chaucer. Spencer.

18. thornas and bremelas he asprit the, & thu ytst thære earthan wyrta.

19. on swate thines and wlitan thu briest thines hlafes, oth that thu ge-wende to eorthan of thære the thu genumen wære, for than the thu eart dust, and to duste wyrst.

13   weorthan, esse, fieri. Thwaite’s gram.14.

20. tha ge-sceop Adam naman his wife Eva, that is life, for than the heo is ealra libbendra modor.

21. God worhte eac Adame and his wife fellen e-reaf, and ge-scridde hi.

14   reaf, spoils. felt reeve, felt-spoils skin-spoils. garments.

22. and cwæth. nu Adam can yfel and god swa swa ure sum. the leas he a-strecce his hand. nime eacswilce of lifes treowe, and ete and libbe on ecnisse.

15   everness. Bailey.

23. a-dræfde hine tha of neorzena-wange, that he tha eorthan worhte, and him theron tilode of thære he ge-numan wæs.

24. tha the he adræfed wæs of Neorxena-wanges myrthe tha ge-sette God æt tham in-fære Engla hyrd-rædene and fyren swurd, to g e-hældenne thone weg to tham lifes treowe.

16   hyrde, custos, guard. ræden, regimen governor. hyrd: ræden, guardian.

1. Sothelice Adam ge-strynde Cain be Evan his gemæccan, and thus cwæth , thisne man me seald Drihten.

1.   ge-streona, to beget. strain. Anglice a bread. Bailey. Chauc. Spenc. y-strained begat, or bred. 2. make, a wife, Chaucer. a match, a consort. Spenc. Bailey.

2. Eft he ge-strynde Abel. Abel wæs sceop-hyrde, and Cain eortha-tilia.

3. tha wæs hit geworden æfter manegum dagum that Cain brohte Drihtne lac of eorthan tilingum.

3.   lac. lace, lacum. a lay in common parlance means a fixthire.

4. and Abel brohte to lace tha frum-cennedan of his heorde. tha be-seah Drihten to Abele and to his lacum.

5. and ne be-seah to Caine ne to his lacum. tha wæreth Cain un-ge-metlice yrre.

5   ire, is not from ira Lat. as our Dictionaries say, but is the A-S. yr, or yrre. at the date of this translation Latin was known to few, & no derivations recieved from it.

6. and Drihten cwæth to him, hwi eart thu yrre?

7. gif thu goddest, sona hit bith the mid gode for-golden; Gif thu thonne yfel dest, sona hit bith the mid yfele for-golden.

6   geld, paid. Spelm. Gloss. compensatio. Benson.

8. tha cwæth Cain to Abele his brether. Uton, gan ut; tha hi utagane wæron, tha yrsode Cain with his brother Abel and ofsloh hine.

9. tha cwæth Drihten to Caine, hwær is Abel thine brothor? tha answarode he and cwæth, Ic nat. segst thu sceolde ic minne brothor healdon?

10. tha cwæth Drihten to Caine. whæt dydest thu? thines brother blod clypath up to me of eorthan.

11. witodlice thu byst a-wyrged ofer earthan, for than the seo eorthe on-feng thines brother blodes, the thu mid thinum handum agute.

12. thonne thu tilast thin on eorthan, ne sylth heo the nane wæstmas. thy færsth worigende and bist flyma geond ealle eorthan.

13. witodlice Cain cwæth to Drihtne, min unriht-wisnysse is mare thonne ic forgifenysse wyrthe sy.

14. nu to dæg thu me a-flymst, and ic me be-hyde fram thinre ansine, and ic worige and beo aflymed geond ealle eorthan; eale thæra the me ge-mett me of-slyth.

15. tha cwæth Drihten to Caine, ne byth hit na swa, ac ælc thæra the of-slith Cain, on-fehth seofon-feald wite. and God him sealde tacn, thæt nan thæra the hine ge-mette, hine ne of-sloge.

7.   on-fehth. payeth. Wilkins’ Glossary

8   wite, punishment, penalty. Bailey.

16. Cain eode fram Drihtnes ansyne, and he wunode flyma on tham eastdeale thæs landes the is ge-nemned Eden.

17. witodlice Cain nam wif. be thære he ge-strynde Enoch; and he ge-timbrode ceastre, and nemned hi be his suna naman Enoch.

9   Ceastre, chester. oppidum, castrum, Bede’s Sax. Chron. Verstegan.

18. sothlice Enoch ge-strynde Irad, and Irad ge-strynde Mauiahel and Mauiahel ge-strynde Matusael, and Matusael ge-strynde Lamech.

19. witodlice Lamech nam twa wif. other wæs genemned Ada, and other Sella.

20. tha a-cende Ada Jabal; the wæs fæder thare the wunodon on ge-teldum and hirda.

21. his brothor hatte Jubal; the wæs fæder herpera thæra the organan macodan.

22. be Sellan he ge-strynde Tubalcain; se wæs egther ge-goldsmith, ge-irensmith, and ane dohtor, seo hatte Noema.

23. Lamech cwæth tha to his wivum, Ada & Sella, ge-hyrath myne stemne, Lamech wife, hlystath mine spæce; for than the ic of-sloh weron min wunde, & iungling on minum handam;

24. seofonfeald wracu ge-sealde for Cain. and hund seofontig seofonfeald for Lamech.

25. Eft Adam ge-strynde sunu, thone he nemde Seth, and thus cwæth Drihten me sealde thisne sunu for Abel the Cain of-sloh.

26. Seth ge-strynde sunu and nemde hine Enos; se Enos ærest on-clypian Drihtnes naman.

1. this is seo boc Adames mægrace. on thone dæg the God ge-sceop man, to Godes ge-licnesse he ge-worhte hine.

1   mage-race, kin-race. mage, kin. Mag. bote, fine for killing a relation. Verst. Bailey. Spelman Gloss.

2. wer and wif he gesceop hii, and ge-bletsode hi, and het his naman Adam on tham dæge the hi ge-sceopene wæron.

3. Adam sothlice leofode honteonti geare and thritte geare and gestrinde sunu to his ge-licnesse, and anlycnisse, and het hine Seth.

4. tha wæron Adames dages siththen he ge-strind Seth viii. hund yeara, and he ge-strinde sunu and dohtra.

5. wæs tha ge-worden eal the time the Adam leofode nigon hund geara and xxx geare, and he tha forthferde.

6. Seth wæs hund wintre and five, tha he ge-strynde Enos.

7. he lyfed siththan he ge-strinde Enos viii hund geare and seofon geare, and gestrynde sunu and dohtra

8. wæron tha gewordene ealle Sethes dagas, ix hund geare and xii geare and he forthferde.

9. Enos sothlice leofode hund nygontyg geare, and he ge-strynde Cainan.

2.   to the numbers 70. 80. 90. 100. 120. the A-S. prefixed the syllable hund without any meaning

10. Æfter thes up-springe he leofode viii. hund geare and xv. geare, and gestrinde suna and dohtra.

11. wæron tha ge-wordene ealle Enoses dagas ix hund geare and V. geare, and he forthferde.

12. Cainan lyfode hund-seofontig geare, and ge-strinde Malaleel.

13. he lefeode siththan he ge-strinde Malaleel viii. hund wintre, and æfter tham he ge-strinde suna and dohtra.

14. and he forthferde tha he wæs nigon hund wintre and tyn wintre.

15. witodlice Malelehel ge-strinde Jared tha he wæs fif and sixtig wintre.

16. and siththan he ge-strinde suna & dohtra.

17. and he forthferde tha he was eahta hund wintre and fif hund-nigontig wintre.

18. Jared ge-strinde Enoch tha he wæs fif and sixtig wintre.

19. and æfter tham the he ge-strinde suna and dohtra.

20. and he forthferde tha he wæs nigon hund wintre and fif and sixtig wintre.

21. Enoch ge-strinde Mathusalem tha he wæs fif and sixtig wintre.

22. and siththan he ge-strinde suna & dohtra.

23. and he wæs on thisum life threo hund wintre and fif and sixtig wintre.

24. and he ferde mid Gode; and hine nan man siththan ne ge-seah; for tham the Drihten hine nam mid sawle and mid lichaman.

25. witodlice Matusalam ge-strinde Lamech, tha he wæs seofon and hund-eahtatig wintre.

26. and æfter tham he gestrinde suna and dohtra.

27. and he forthferde tha he wæs nigon hund wintre and nigon and sixtig wintre.

28. Lamech ge-strinde sunu tha he wæs an hund wintra, & two and hund-eahtatig wintre.

29. and nemde hine Noe and thus cwæth be-him. thes man us afrefrath fram urum weorcum, and fram urum ge-swince on tham lande the Drihten wirigde.

30. æfter tham the he ge-strinde suna & dohtra.

31. and he forthferde tha he wæs seofon hund wintre and seofon and hund-seofontig wintre.

32. Noe sothlice tha tha he wæs fif hund geara tha ge-strinde he thri suna, Sem, and Cham and Jafeth.

1. Men wurdon tha ge-menigfilde ofer eorthan, and dohtra ge-strindon.

2. tha ge-sawon Godes bearn that wæron gode men manna dohtra, that hig wæron wlitige, and namon him wif of eallum tham tha the hig ge-curon.

1.   bairn. children. Scotch

2.   ye-curon. qu. ge-ceosan. chuse.

3. and God cwæth tha ne thurh-wunath na min gast on menn on ec-nisse, for than the he is flæsc

3   thoro-wuneth, thoro-dwelleth.

4. Entas wæron eacswilce ofer eorthan on tham dagun. æfter them the Godes bearn tymdon with manna dohtra and hig cendon. tha sindemihtige fram worulde and hlisfulleweras.

4   teamed, paired as teams of oxen.

5.   kindle, to breed. Bailey.

6.   hlisa, fama. hlist. auditus. listful, from to listen, listened, heard of, famous.

5. tha ge-seah God that micel yfelnys manna wæs over eorthan, and eall ge-thanc manna heortena wæs ge-wendon on yfel on eallum timan.

7.   ie. thoughts of man’s hearts.

6. Gode tha of-thuhte that he man ge-worhte ofer eorthan. he wolde tha warnian onær; and wæs gehrepod mid heortan sarnisse withinnan

8   these words are not in the original text. their meaning is not obvious.

7. and cwæth, Ic a-dilige thone mannan the ic ge-sceop fram thære eorthan ansine, from tham men oth tha nytenu, fram tham slincendum oth tha fugelas. me of-thincth sothlice that Ic hig worthe.

10   slincan to creep. to sneak. Johnson’s dict.

11   to queme, to please, to favor. Ch. Spenc. Bailey

12   giftan, to give, favor.

9. thas sind Noes cneornissa. Noe wæs riht-wis wer, and ful-fremed on his mægthum. mid God he ferde.

13.a.   nearness, family, kin, relation

13.b.   full-framed, strong, perfect.

14.   mæg, meagth, mata. kin, generation. Verstegan mægbote, penalty for killing a relation. Lambert.

10. and ge-strinde thri suna, Sem, and Cham, and Jafetth.

11. tha wæs eall seo eorthe ge-wemmed æt-foran Gode, and a-fylled mid un-riht-wisnysse.

15.   wem, blemish, fault. Chaucer. Bail. Johnson.

12. tha ge-seah God that seo eorthe wæs ge-wemmed, for than the ælc flæsc ge-wemde his weg ofer eorthan.

13. and God cwæth tha to Noe, ge-endung ealles flæsces com ætforan me. seo eorthe ys a-fylled mid unrihtwisnysse fram heora ansine, and ic for-do hig mid thære eorthan samod.

16   for-do. for is here. a prefix, as in for-bid for-fet E t c. meaning to undo, destroy.

17.   same. self. itself.

14. wirc the nu ænne arc of a-heawenum bordum, and thu wircst wununge binnan tham arce, and clæmst withinnan and withutan mid tyrwan.

18.   wuning. dwelling.

19   clæmst, clammiest, make clammy. daub. Bailey. Johnson.

15. and thu wircst hine thus. threo hund fæthma bith se are on lenge, and fiftig fæthma on bræde, and thrittig on heahnisse.

20   thirle. a hole. Bail-Johns. [. . .] insw. Chaucer.

16. thu wircst thæreon eh-thirl, and thu ge-tihst his heahnisse to gædere on useweardum to anre fæthme duru thu setst be thære sidan with-neothan and thu macast threo fleringa binna tham arce.

17. efne , Ic ge-bringe flodes wæteru ofer earthan, that Ic of-sled eall flæsc on tham the ys lifes gast under heofenum, and ealle tha thing the on eorthan synd, beoth for-numene.

21.   verily. B.S.

22.   numene, name, taken. for is a prefix.

18. Ic sette min wedd to the, and thu gæst into tham arce, and thine suna, thin wif and thinra sunuwif mid the.

23   wedd a covenant, a pledge. Ch. Benson. hence to wed

19. and of eallum nyterum, ealles flæsces, twegen ye-macan thy lætst into tham arce mid the, that hig libban magon.

24   qu? macan to make. maca. par, socius, conjux Benson. make, a mate, husband, wife. Chauc.

20. eac, of fugelum be heora cinne, and of eallum orf-cinne, and of eallum creopendum cinne, twam and twam faran in mid the that hi magon libban.

25   orf-cattle. orf-gild. Bailey Spelm. Gloss.

21. thu nimst witodlice of eallum metlum the to mete magon into the, that hig beon æghther ge-the ge-him to big-leofan.

26.   thu nimest, i.e. nimest thu, take [. . .]

27.   as a verb, to eat.

22. Noe sothlice dide ealle tha thing the him God be-bead.

1. and God cwæth to him, gang into tham arce, and eall thin hiwræden. the ic ge-seah sothlice rihtwisne æt-foran meon thissere mægthe.

1.   hive, a house. rede, council or family. house council, house family. house hold.

2.   mæthe, generation. Verst. tribe.

2. nim into the of eallum clænum nitenum seofen and seofen ægthres ge-cyndes, and of tham unclænum twam and twam.

3. and of fugel-cinne seofen and seofen ægthres ge-cindes, that sæd si ge-healden ofer ealre eorthan bradnisse.

4. Ic sothelice sende ren nu ymbe seofon niht over eorthan feowertig daga and feowertig nihta togædere, and ic a-dilegie ealle the e-dwiste the ic ge-worhte ofer eorthan bradnisse.

3   adilgean, abolere. Bens. but deluge is certainly of that root.

4   e-dwiste. qu. dust, dirt, earth?

5. Noe tha dide ealle tha thing the him God be-bead.

6. and he wæs tha six hund geara on ylde tha tha thæs flodes wæteru ythedon ofer eorthan.

7. hwæt tha Noe eode into tham arce, and his thri suna and his wif, and his suna wif, for thæs flodes wæterum.

5.   eode, yode, went.

8. eac swilce tha nitenu of eallum cinne, and of eallum fufelcynne,

9. comon to Noe into tham arce, swa swa God be-bead.

10. tha on tham eahtogan dæge, tha tha hig inne wæron, and God hig be-locen hæfde withutan. tha y-thode that flod ofer eorthan.

6.   see verse 16 ‘and the Lord shut him in.’

11. on tham othrum monthe, on thone seofenteothan dæg thæs monthes, tha a-sprungon ealle wyll-springas thære micelan niwelnisse, and thære heofenan wæter-theotan wæron ge-openode.

7   well then signified a fountain. missing from this draft, was on previous draft

8   in one. i.e. together.

9   in the A-S. the 13 th to the 16 th verses are omitted being repetitions of the 7 th to the 9 th

10   swithe greatly. Bailey, and swither v19. being the verb of swithe, we might say in English, swithered swithe, enlarged greatly.

18. and y-thedon swythe, and y-fyldon thære eorthan bradnisse. witodlice se arc wæs ge-ferud ofer tha wæteru.

19. and that wæter swithrode swithe ofer tha eorthan. wurdon tha behelede ealle tha hehstan duna under ealre heofenan.

20. and that wæter wæs fiftyne fæthma deop ofer tha hehstan duna.

21. wearth tha for-numen eall flæsc the ofer eorthan styrode.

11   niman, numan, nyman, to take. for-numan, for-taken, over-taken, destroyed.

23. manna and fugela nytena & creopendra, and ælc thing the lif hæfde wearth a-dyd on tham deopan flode, buton tham anum the binnan tham arc wæron.

24. thæt flod stod tha swa an hund daga and fiftig daga.

Chap. VIII.

1. and God tha ge-munde Noes fare, and thæra nyfena the him mid wæron, and asende tha winde ofer eorthan, and tha wætera wurdon gewanode.

2. and tha wil-springas thære miclan niwelnisse wurdon for-dytte, and thære heofenan wæter-theotan, and se ren wearth for-boden.

3. tha wætera tha ge-cirdon of thære eorthan on-gean-farende, and begunnon to wanigenne æfter other healf-hund daga.

1   i.e. a hundred and a half. or 150.

4. tha ætstod se arc on tham seofethan monthe, ofer tha muntas Armenies landes.

5. and tha wætera to-eodon and wanedon oth thæne teothan month, and on tham teothan monthe ateowodon thæra munta cnollas.

6. tha æfter feowertigum dagum undyde Noe his ehthirl the he on tham arce ge-macode.

7. and a-sende ut ænne 3. hremn; se hrem fleah tha ut, and nolde eft ongean-cirran, ær than the tha wæteru adruwedon ofer eorthan.

3   hrem, hremn, hrefn, corvus, a raven.

4.   culver, a pigeon. Bai. Johnson.

8. he a-sende tha eft ut ane culfran, that heo sceowode gif tha wætera tha git geswicon ofer thære eorthan bradnisse.

5   ge-swican, asswicen, swican. ge. & a. are here prefixes, and c sounds ch , as in civic , church. a-swichan, asswage abate. Bailey derives asswage from ad. & suadere. but in Aelfric’s time there were no Latin derivations. that language being them known to very few in England. there is no relation of meaning between asswage and suadere; nor are d. and g. convertible letters in derivations. Johnson derives assuage from A-S. swæs, suavis. but the derivation aswichan, cessare, desistere, is much more probable.

9. heo tha fleah ut, and ne mihte findan hwær heo hire fot a-sette, for than the tha wætera wæron ofer ealle eorthan; and he ge-cirde on-gean to Noe and he ge-nam hig into tham arce.

10. he abad tha git othre seofon dagas, and a-sende ut eft culfran.

11. heo com tha on æfnunge eft to Noe, & brohte an twig of anum ele-beame mid grenum-leafum on hire muthe. tha under-geat Noe that tha wætera wæron a-druwode ofer eorthan.

6.   under-geat. qu. g. for w. under-wat wat, wot Bailey Johnson. wate. Chaucer. under-wat then is to understand. to know.

12. andabad swa theah seofon dagas, and a-sende ut culfran. seo ne ge-cirde on-gean him.

13. thage-openode Noe thæs arces hrof, and beheold ut, and ge-seah that thære eorthan bradnis wæs a-druwod.

15. God tha spræc to Noe thus cwæthende,

16. gang ut of tham arce, and thin wif, thine suna and hira wif, and eall that thær inne ys mid the.

17. læd ut mid the ofer eorthan, and weaxe ge and beoth ge-menigf i lde ofer eorthan.

18. Noe tha ut-eode of tham arce, and hig ealle ofer eorthan.

20. and he arærde an weofod Gode, and ge-nam of eallum tham clænan nytenum and clænum fugelum, and ge-offrode Gode lac on tham weofode.

6.b.   lay is still used for wages, hire.

21. God tha under-feng his lac thære wynsumnysse bræth, and cwæth him to, Nelle ic nates-hwon a-wirgean tha eorthan heonon forth for mannum. and-git and ge-thoht menniscre heortan syndon forth healde to yfele fram iugothe. eornostlice ne of-slea ic heonon forth mid wætere ælc thing cuces, swa swa ic dyde, eallum dagum thære eorthan.

7.   fang is a tooth or claw. fangan, to take.

8   winsom breath, sweet flavor.

9   and-git intellectus qu. g. for w. and-wit.

10.   cuces, i.e. quickes living, as in the phrase the quick and the dead.

22. sæd and ge-rip, cile and hæte, sumor and winter, dæg and niht ne ge-swicath.

1. God bletsode tha Noe and his suna, and cwæth him to, Weahxath and beoth ge-menigfilde, and a-fyllath tha eorthan.

2. and beo eower ege and oga ofer ealle nitenu and fugelas, and ofer ealle tha thing the on eorthan stiriath, ealle sæ-fixas sindon eowrum handum be-tæhte. 2.

1   cge, oge, age, g, for w. awe, terror. ege-leas. aweless, in English it is translated ‘fear and dread,’ in the LXX. T [. . .] s.

2.   be-tæhte, be-taht. part, pas be-tæcan tradere. tæcan to take.

3. and eall that the styrath and leofath, beoth eow to mete, swa swa growende wyrta ic be-tæhte ealle eow.

4. buton tham anum that ge flæsc mid blode ne eton.

5. eower blod ic of-gange æt eallum wild-deorum, and eac æt tham men. of thæs weres handa, and his brothor handa ic of-gange thæs mannes lif.

6. swa hwa swa a-git mannes blod, his blod bith agoten. witodelice to Godes an-licenisse ys se man ge-worht.

7. weaxe ge nu and beoth ge-menigfylde, and gath ofer eorthan and ge-fyllath hig.

8. God cwæth eft to Noe and to his sunum,

9. Efne, nu ic sette min wedd to eow and to eorum of-springe.

3   wedd, wed, pledge, covenant. Chaucer.

10. and to eallum tham libbendum nytenum the of tham arce eodon.

11. thæt ic nates-hwon nelle heonon-forth eall flæsc a-dydan mid flodes wæterum; na heonon forth ne bith flod to sencende tha eorthan.

4   a-die, kill.

12. this bith that tacn mines weddes, that ic do betwux me and eow, and eallum libbendum nytenum on ecum mægthum.

5   mægthum. see VII.1.

13. thæt ys that ic sette minne ren-bogan on wolcnum; and he bith tacn mines weddes betwux me and thære eorthan.

14. thonne ic ofer-teo heofenan mid wolcnum, thonne æteowth min boga on tham wolcnum.

6   teon, ducere. ofer-teon, obducere over-draw

15. and ic beo ge-mindig mines weddes with eow. that heonon forth ne bith flod to a-diligenne eall flæsc.

7   ecan, eke, ever, everlasting.

16. bith thonne min ren-boga on tham wolcnum, and ic hine ge-seo, and beo ge-mindig thæs ecan weddes, the ge-sett ys betwux Gode and eallum libbendum flæsce the ofer eorthan ys.

17. this bith that tacn mines weddes the ic ge-sette betwux me and eallum flæsce ofer eorthan.

18. Wæron tha Noes suna the of tham arce eodon, Sem, and Cham, and Jafeth, and Cham witodlice ys fæder thære Cananeiscre theode.

8   theod nation. Verstegan.

19. and of thisum thrim Noes sunum ys to-sawen eall mancynn ofer eorthan.

20. Noe tha yrthling began to wincenne that land, and ge-sette him win-eard

9   yrthling, agricultor, arator. erian, arare. erend, arans. to are. Chau. to plough. Bailey derives to are from arare. but it was in use with the A-S before they had borrowed any thing from the Latins.

The Anglo-Saxons often used their active verbs in a passive sense, so that “warrian” means to be warned—and wolde tha warrian onær means here “and wished then to have been warned before”—and Justly so—for God, repenting of what he had done, not having forseen the consequences, might well wish to have been warned to them—

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Saturday, may 18, 2013, the descent of the english language, 3 comments:.

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