Language in "Here" to 1400-Part 1
...e trunk, but can be very different to each other. Examples of this can be: Latin French English German pater père father vater When the Romans left Britain, the Celts, who were used to being protected by the Romans, did not know how to defend themselves. So Germanic invaders became a threat. The Angles (from Schleswig), the Saxons (from Holstein) and the Jutes (from what is now Denmark) came over and pushed back the Celts into Wales, Cornwall and even across the channel into Brittany. By 600 AD, the Anglo-Saxons were beginning to think of themselves as "English" (from "Angles"). In the Anglo-Saxon period (roughly from 450 to 1100), the Celtic language disappeared almost completely from here. Anglo-Saxon was a spoken and written language that probably would be unintelligible to current English speakers, even though approximately half of the vocabulary of Modern English is derived from Anglo-Saxon. A good example of this would be the Anglo Saxon version of the “Our Father”. Fæder ure, ðu ðe eart on heofenum, si ðin nama gehalgod; to-becume ðin rice; geweorþe ðin willa on father our thou which art on heavens, be thy name hallowed; come thy kingdom; be-done thy will on eorðan swa swa on heofenum. Urne ge dæghwamlican hlaf syle us to-deag, and forgyf us ure gyltas earth as in heavens. Our daily bread give us today, and forgive us our debts swa swa we forgifaþ urum gyltendum, ane ne gelæde ðu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfle. Amen. as we forgive our debtors, and not lead thou us on temptation, but deliver us of evil. Amen At first glance it looks difficult to understand. But when translated into English you can see similarities between the two. We see that fæder and father are similar. We see that hlaf means bread, this is where we get the word loaf from. Another similarity is forgyf meaning forgive. By comparing the two, it can be seen that Anglo-Saxon has more in common with Modern English then at first glance meets the eye. In 865 AD, the Scandinavians (Vikings) invaded Britain from Norway and Sweden. Their languages were similar to that of the Anglo-Saxons because they were roughly from the same part of Europe. The only difference in the two languages were the inflections so to understand each other, they simply dropped them. Because the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon languages were so similar, they Scandinavians did not really contribute anything new to the developing English language. They did introduce the word “them” to the language. Also, there are a few Scandinavian influenced place names, such as Whitby (-by meaning settlement) and Haverthwaite. Nothing of further note happened until 1035AD when Edward the Confessor was king of “Angleland” or England. When he died, three men competed for his throne, William, Duke of Normandy (later to become William the Conqueror), Harald Hardrada and Harold Godwin. Since Harold Godwin was English, he made himself king. This caused a furor between William and Harald, so they both planned invasions. Harald got there first but was defeated by Harold at Stamford Bridge (25 September 1066). Harold then marched down to Hastings to fight off William. He failed and was killed at the battle of Hastings (14 October 1066). William, Duke of Normandy, became king of England on 25 December 1066 and ruled for twenty-one years. Even though he ruled for this short period of time the Norman dynasty ended with the death of King Stephen in 1154 AD. During this time, Norman French was spoken and, as with the Romans and Latin centuries earlier, the main language was Norman French. But some people spoke both. To see the French influence in English we can take the Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales” as a good example: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of march hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye (so priketh hem nature in hir corages); Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of engelond to caunterb...