Fun Facts About English

This is the second of two posts exploring the history of the English language. The first post is an overview of the British Isles from the prehistoric Celts through the Viking occupation of England. In this post, I’ll take a look at the broadest cultural, political, and linguistic developments from the Norman invasion up to Late Modern English, also called Present-Day English (PDE).

From Rome’s 400-year occupation of the Celtic islands at the beginning of the first millennium CE, through the mass immigration of the Anglos, Saxons, and Jutes after the year 400, and finally the Viking seizure of power from 800, it can be argued that by the turn of the second millennium, England was a powerful, centralized state with a strong military and successful economy. The language of the islands had evolved from the Insular Celtic Group of languages to the Old Germanic-based language of the Anglo-Saxons (Old English) and was reshaped again by Scandanavian Old Norse during Viking rule.

The Norman Invasion 1066 – 1150

In 1066, the English king, Harold Godwinson, defeated King Hardrada of Norway in a long and bloody battle that headed off the final Viking invasion of England. Within a month, William, Duke of Normandy, landed in Kent and, in a decisive win against the exhausted army of King Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, claimed himself the rightful heir to the British throne, thus commencing the Norman conquest and rule of England.

As king, one of William’s first priorities was a survey of the land, livestock, and taxes owed from the shires (established Anglo-Saxon land divisions) of England. The survey was written in Latin and compiled into a two-volume work called the Domesday Book (Middle English, Doomsday Book). The book is an invaluable source for modern historians and historical economists. No survey approaching the scope and extent of the survey of Britain was attempted again until the 19th century.

William and his successors took over the existing state system, repressing local revolts, controlling the population through a network of castles, and introduced a feudal approach to governing England with a monarchial absolute toward Normanization. Resisting English nobility were sent into exile and their confiscated lands were granted to William’s own followers. Norman controls included the government, the courts, and the introduction of Norman French as the language of the new Norman nobility.

During the Norman Period, while the lower classes continued speaking their now Norsified Old English, the language absorbed a significant component of French vocabulary (approximately one-third of the vocabulary of Modern English), developed a more simplified grammar, and was forced to adopt the orthographic conventions of French when spelling Old English. By the 12th century, Middle English was fully developed, having integrated both Norse and French features into a dialect known as Anglo-Norman. Medieval Latin was still the language used for government documents, e.g., the Domesday Book, and continued to be the language of the Church.

Anglo-Saxon identity survived beyond the Norman conquest and came to be known as Englishry under Norman rule. Englishry was, in fact, the status of a person of native Anglo-Saxon stock as opposed to a member of the Anglo-Norman elite. Specifically, presentment of Englishry referred to the establishment that a slain person was English rather than Norman. If an unknown man was found slain, he was presumed to be a Norman and the administrative shire was fined accordingly. If the slain individual was determined to be Anglo-Saxon, Englishry was established and the fine was excused.

During the 12th century, the divisions between the English and Normans began to dissolve as a result of intermarriage and cohabitation. By the end of the century, and possibly as early as 1150, contemporary commentators believed the two peoples to be blending. The loss of Normandy in 1204 only reinforced this trend.

Middle English 1150 – 1500

The period of Middle English was roughly 300 years during the High to Late Middle Ages, running parallel with and beyond Norman rule. The period saw expansion, political and social unrest, and the devastating effects of the Bubonic Plague. English reasserted itself as the language of government and nobility as Norman rule began to crumble in the 13th century.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, England’s population more than doubled, fueling an expansion of the towns, cities, and trade, helped by warmer temperatures across Northern Europe. Despite Norman rule in England’s government and legal systems, infighting among the Anglo-Norman elite resulted in multiple civil wars and, finally, the loss of Normandy in 1204.

England suffered the Great Famine from 1315-1317 and the Black Death from 1347 to 1351. These catastrophic events killed around half of England’s population, threw the economy into chaos, and undermined the political order. Nearly 1,500 villages were deserted by their inhabitants and many sought new opportunities in the towns and cities. Social mixing and unrest followed. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was the result of the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death, the high taxes to support the conflict with France, and finally, the attempts to collect unpaid poll taxes (a fixed sum on every adult without reference to income or resources). Though the rebellion lasted only a month, it failed as a social revolution but succeeded in ending serfdom and prevented further levying of the poll tax.

The Pleading in English Act 1362 was an Act of the Parliament of England. The Act complained that because the Norman French language was largely unknown to the common people of England, they had no knowledge of what was being said for or against them in the courts. The Act stipulated that all charges and complaints shall be pleaded, debated, and judged in the English language. The Act marked the beginning of English Law during the reign of Henry IV (1399 – 1413), a maternal grandson of Philip IV of France, and the first king believed to be a native English speaker since the Norman conquest.

Some 50 years later during the reign of Henry V (1413-1422), English became the language of official government in the form of the London dialect known as the Chancery Standard. The Standard was a version of English that combined elements of northern and southern Middle English to create a standard for the government that could be read by the people, who largely couldn’t read French or Latin. By the end of the Middle English period and aided by William Caxton, who introduced the first printing press to England in 1476, the development of a standardized form of English accelerated and Chancery Standard became the basis for Modern English spelling.

English kings in the 14th and 15th centuries attempted to lay claim to the French throne, resulting in the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) and a see-saw back and forth of victories for the French and English. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. Although each side drew many allies into the war, in the end, the House of Valois retained the French throne and the English and French monarchies remained separate.

By 1450, England was in crisis, facing military failure in France and an ongoing recession. More social unrest broke out, followed by the Wars of the Roses fought between rival factions of the English nobility. Henry VII (Henry Tudor) claimed victory in 1485, marking the end of the Middle Ages in England and the start of the Early Modern period, and the beginnings of the Tudor dynasty.

Little survives of early Middle English literature, due in part to Norman domination and the prestige that came when writing in French rather than English. During the 14th century, a new style of literature emerged with the works of writers including John Wycliffe, eponymously known for the Wycliffe Bible, and Geoffrey Chaucer for The Canterbury Tales. The use of regional dialects in writing proliferated where authors like Chaucer were crucial in legitimizing the literary use of Middle English rather than French or Latin. Today, Chaucer is seen as the greatest poet of the Middle Ages and the “father” of English literature.

Wycliffe’s source for his Bible translation into Middle English came directly from the Vulgate, a late 4th century Latin translation. Wycliffe’s translations were the chief inspiration and cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the Wycliffe Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written:
Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis… (“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air (heaven) have nests…”)

Early Modern English 1300 – 1700

Major historical events in the 400-year Early Modern period include the English Renaissance, the English Reformation, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the Treaty of Union, the Scottish Enlightenment, and the launch of the British Empire. All of these events created more unified governance of the British Isles, brought relative peace to the islands, and set the stage for English to become a global language.

The end of the Wars of the Roses marks the beginning of the Modern English period and brought with it the Tudor (1485-1603) and Stuart (1603-1714) dynasties and a greater degree of stable, centralized government. The Tudor monarchs asserted their claim to the lordship of Ireland, Wales was integrated administratively and legally in 1536 and 1543, the Act of Union brought political unity between England and Scotland in 1707, and the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed.

The British Empire began with decisive sea battles and overseas ventures. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 secured England’s (Protestant) independence in Europe and signaled the British as a serious naval power. The English, relative late-comers to colonial ventures, secured settlements on the North American continent with Jamestown in 1607, Newfoundland in 1610, and Plymouth Colony in 1620. Trading rivalries among the seafaring European powers established trading posts in India in the early 17th century and, by the later 18th century, Great Britain became the dominant power after the East India Company’s conquest in the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

Culturally, the 15th and 16th centuries saw the English Renaissance, a cultural and artistic movement beginning in the 15th century, spilling into the 17th, which stands as the summit of (mostly) musical and literary achievement. The 16th century also saw the English Reformation, a political and religious movement that broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church. At the same time, the 17th-century scientific movement, heralded by Francis Bacon, achieved prominence and had the effect of establishing English as an adequate medium of technical writing in place of Latin. Bacon, along with the 1662 charter of The Royal Society, an ‘invisible college’ of natural philosophers and physicians, promoted the cultivation of a plain style of writing and criticized stylistic excesses.

Early Modern English was also characterized by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardization. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It’s also the main reason for so many irregularities in spelling since our contemporary language retains many Middle English spellings that were influenced by French orthographic standards for writing Old English. The loss of rhoticity (hard /r/) began to accelerate in this period where the English playwright Ben Jonson’s English Grammar (1640) recorded that /r/ was “sounded firme in the beginning of words, and more liquid in the middle, and ends.”

For most modern readers of English, texts from the earlier phase of Early Modern English may present more difficulties but are still obviously closer to Modern English grammar, lexicon, and phonology.

“Certaynly our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that which was vsed and spoken whan I was borne.” William Caxton, Prologue to Eneydos (1490).

Late 16th and early 17th-century texts, such as The King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare, seem much more uniform to a contemporary audience and are still very influential. The original title of The King James Bible (1612) reads:

“THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Teſtament, AND THE NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties ſpeciall Comandement“.

Quoting Shakespeare in his 1599 play, Henry V, when Henry implores the French Princess Katherine to marry him, the language is thoroughly accessible to modern English speakers:

“Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music and thy English broken; therefore, queen of all, Katherine, break thy mind to me in broken English.”

Old English began to be studied during the Early Modern period. Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were collected and published and the first Old English dictionary appeared in 1659. Motivations for this undertaking were mixed: to demonstrate the continuity of the Church of England, to show that the English legal system descended from Anglo-Saxon law, or to support the cause of biblical translation. Nevertheless, it had the effect of introducing a historical understanding of the English language and paved the way for later etymological and philological investigation.

The 1611 King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 8:20 reads:
The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests. (“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests…”)

Modern English – 1715 to the Present

As the British Empire expanded, English-speaking people arrived on the shores of North America, the Australian continent, South Africa, and through the colonization of India. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language.

Modern English can be taken to have fully emerged by the beginning of the Georgian era in 1714, though English orthography remained somewhat fluid until the publication of Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language in 1755. Unlike Johnson’s preference for Norman-influenced spellings such as centre and colour, Noah Webster’s first guide to American spelling, published in 1783, preferred spellings like center and the Latinate color. The difference in strategy and philosophy of Johnson and Webster are largely responsible for the divisions in English spelling that exist today.

The British also became fully non-rhotic, dropping the /r/ by the late 19th century, whereas the dialects of the American colonies evolved independently and maintained the earlier rhotic pronunciations. By the 19th century, the standardization of British English was more settled than it had been in the previous century, and this relatively well-established English was brought to Australia, Africa, Asia, and New Zealand.

In Europe, when the Treaty of Versailles was composed in 1919, and at the request of then-President Woodrow Wilson, the treaty was drafted in both French (the common language of diplomacy at the time) and English – a major milestone in the globalization of English.

English Standard Version (ESV) of the Christian Bible now reads:
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests…”

Present-Day English (PDE) has many dialects spoken in many countries throughout the world, sometimes collectively referred to as the “anglosphere.” These dialects include American English, Australian English, British English (containing English English, Welsh English, and Scottish English), Canadian English, Caribbean English, Hiberno-English, Indian English, Pakistani English, Nigerian English, New Zealand English, Philippine English, Singaporean English, and South African English.

Out of the world’s approximately 7.9 billion inhabitants, 1.35 billion speak English today as a first or second language. English as a native language is spoken by approximately 360 million people with the vast majority being in the United States. In addition to being widely spoken, English is by far the most commonly studied foreign language in the world.

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The name “Britain” comes from Latin: Britannia~Brittania, via Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Breteyne, possibly influenced by Old English Bryten(lond), and ultimately an adaptation of the native word for the island, Pritanī.

This is the first of two posts exploring the history of the English language. In this post, I’ll take a look at the broadest cultural, political, and linguistic developments on the British Isles from the prehistoric up to the Norman invasion in 1066. The second post looks at the history of English from the Norman conquest through Modern English.

Prehistory and the Celts

During the Neolithic and Bronze Ages (4500 to 600 BC), the British islands saw the adoption of agriculture as communities gave up their hunter-gatherer modes of existence to begin farming.

During the British Iron Age (1200 BC to 600 AD) a trans-cultural diffusion and immigration from continental Europe resulted in the establishment of Celtic languages and gave rise to the Insular Celtic group. The Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels or Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish and Manx) and the Celtic Britons or Brythonic languages (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons).

The first historical account of the islands of Britain and Ireland was by Pytheas, a Greek from the city of Massalia, who around 310–306 BC, sailed around what he called the “Pretannikai nesoi,” or “Pretannic Isles.” “Pretani” or “Pritani” was understood on the continent to mean “the land of the tattooed” or “the painted ones.”

Celtic influence on the English language is most apparent through geographic and place names. The Thames and Yare rivers as well as important Roman towns such as London, York, and Lincoln find their origins in the Brittonic Celt language. Beyond this, it has been suggested that it is impossible to point to any feature about Anglo-Saxon phonology or Old English which can be shown conclusively to have been modified due to the linguistic habits of the Celtic Britons.

Roman Invasion, Occupation & Departure – 55 BC – 410 AD

In 55 and 54 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar invaded the British Isles and by 43 AD “Brittania” had became the furthest western province of the Roman Empire. In the first century, governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola enlarged the province significantly, taking in north Wales, northern Britain, and most of Caledonia (Scotland). By the third century, most Britons were granted some form of citizenship in the Roman Empire.

Following the conquest of the Britons, a distinctive Romano-British culture emerged as the Romans introduced improved agriculture, urban planning, industrial production, and architecture. They also built an extensive network of roads, sanitation, and wastewater systems.

By the end of the fourth century, Roman Britain had an estimated population of 3.6 million people, of whom 125,000 consisted of the Roman army and their families and dependents. The capital city of Londinium (London) was an ethnically diverse city with inhabitants from across the Roman Empire, including natives of Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

The British language at the time of the invasion was Common Brittonic and remained so after the Romans withdrew. Although a British Latin dialect was presumably spoken in the population centers, it did not become influential enough to displace Celtic British dialects spoken throughout the country. Examination suggests some 800 Latin words were incorporated into the native language.

The Druids, the Celtic priestly caste, vainly defended their sacred groves from destruction by the Romans and their religion was outlawed by Claudius in the first century AD. Archaeological evidence for Christian communities begins to appear in the 3rd and 4th centuries with small timber churches and Roman Christian burial grounds.

By 410 AD, 460 years into the occupation of the British Isles, the city of Rome was under attack and they could no longer maintain the far western stretches of the crumbling empire. The Roman Emperor Honorius sent a letter to the people of Britain to “look to their own defenses.” There may have been some brief naval assistance from the fading Roman Empire of the West, but otherwise, they were on their own.

With Britain open to invasion, the islands were divided politically as former soldiers, mercenaries, nobles, officials, and farmers declared themselves kings and fighting broke out among each other. Added to this, depredations of the Picts from the north and Scotti from Ireland forced the Britons to seek help from the pagan German tribes of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who then, depending on interpretation, defended, immigrated, and then integrated with the populace peacefully or invaded the islands with an aggressive military occupation. Either way, their presence completely altered the cultural and linguistic makeup of the islands.

Anglo Saxons – 410 – 1060 AD

From the 5th to the 11th centuries of the medieval period, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were formed and gradually came to dominate the territory of present-day England. Gaining control of eastern England in the 5th century, they expanded during the 6th century into the Midlands, and expanded again into the south-west and north of England during the 7th century. By 600, a new order was developing of kingdoms and sub-kingdoms including East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Wessex, Essex, Kent, and Sussex. By the 8th century, the term Anglo-Saxon was in use, but more often than not, was used to distinguish Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent (Old Saxony in Northern Germany). The earliest “English” identity emerged in this period when they were known in Old English as the Angelcynn (‘family of the Angles’).

The Saxon invasions of Britain destroyed most of the Roman Christian churches in the east of Britain, replacing them with a form of Germanic polytheism. The unconquered parts of southern Britain, notably Wales, protected their Romano-British culture, in particular retaining Christianity as well as spoken Celtic. Around 600, the Anglo-Saxon states were again Christianized by the Gregorian Mission; a Christian mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 specifically to convert Britain’s Anglo-Saxons.

When the Saxons arrived, they brought with them a writing system called Runes and a spoken language made up of Germanic languages such as Old Frisian, Old Norse, and Old High German. Over the next few centuries, at the expense of British Celtic and British Latin, these became the predominant languages throughout England. Today, we refer to these medieval dialects as Old English though it bears very little resemblance to the English as spoken today. About 85% of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are the basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. With the spread of Western Christianity during the Middle Ages, the Latin alphabet was adopted and eventually displaced earlier Runic alphabets.

Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period. It was Mercian that influenced the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English.

Old English can be subdivided into three historical periods:

• Prehistoric Old English (c. 450 to 650) This language was a closely related group of dialects spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and pre-date documented Old English or Anglo-Saxon.
• Early Old English (c. 650 to 900) This is the period of the oldest manuscript traditions, with authors such as Cædmon, Bede, Cynewulf, and Aldhelm.
• Late Old English (c. 900 to 1170) This final period also includes the Old Norse (Viking) influence before the transition to Middle English.

The Vikings – 800 to 1150 AD

In 793 came the first recorded Viking raid, where “on the Ides of June the harrying of the heathen destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne, bringing ruin and slaughter.” (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)

The Viking Age and its relationship with England lasted from approximately 800 to 1150 AD. Its expansion took the forms of warfare, exploration, settlement, and trade with the Danish invaders ultimately becoming part of the mix of people on the British islands. Anglo-Saxon writers called the Scandanavian invaders Danes, Norsemen, Northmen, the Great Army, sea-rovers, sea wolves, or the heathen.

The Vikings took over parts of Northumbria, East Anglia, and parts of Mercia. In 866 they captured modern York and made it their capital. The kings of Mercia and Wessex resisted as best they could, but with little success until the time of Alfred of Wessex (Alfred the Great), who managed to re-conquer and unify England for much of the 10th century.

Danelaw is the set of legal terms and definitions created in the treaties between Alfred the Great and Guthrum, the Danish warlord, written following Guthrum’s defeat at the Battle of Edington in 878.

The Danes brought with them the Old Norse branch of Germanic religions commonly known as Norse paganism. Our names for days of the week come mainly from Anglo Saxon equivalents of Old Norse gods – Tuesday from Tiw or Týr, Wednesday from Woden (Odin), Thursday from Thor, etc. Hundreds of adopted words also include give, take, get, husband, fellow, sister, plow, ugly, egg, steak, law, die, bread, down, fog, muck, lump, and scrawny. With the 300-year influence of Old Norse, Old English was transformed beyond its Anglo-Saxon roots. This “Norsification” included changes in syntax, phonology, lexical borrowing, and (importantly) grammatical simplification. Old English was in its nature a synthetic language, where word meaning was indicated by distinctions of tense, person, gender, number, mood, voice, and case. The Old Norse influence simplified the language toward a more analytic language that organizes words and grammar by a strict word order instead of inflections or word endings that show grammar.

The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 AD from Old English:
Foxas habbað holu and heofonan fuglas nest… (“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests…”)

The final Viking invasion of England came in 1066 when Harald Hardrada of Norway sailed up the River Humber and marched to Stamford Bridge with his men. The English king, Harold Godwinson, marched north with his army and defeated Hardrada in a long and bloody battle.

Immediately after the battle, King Harold heard that William of Normandy had landed in Kent with yet another invading army. With no time to rest, Harold’s army marched swiftly back south to meet this new threat. The exhausted English army fought the Normans at the Battle of Hastings on the 14th of October, 1066. At the end of a long day of fighting, the Old French-speaking Normans had won, King Harold was dead, and William of Normandy, aka William the Conqueror or William the Bastard, was the new king of England.

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