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Fun Facts About English

Fun Facts About English #100 – The Future of English

04/24/2021 by admin

Kinney Brothers Publishing Donald's English Classroom Fun Facts About English 100

Out of the world’s approximately 7.9 billion inhabitants, 1.35 billion speak English as a first or second language. Natively, English is spoken by about 360 million people with the vast majority being in the United States. In addition to being widely spoken, English is also the most commonly studied foreign language in the world. Today, for every native speaker of English there are five non-native speakers. In fact, the global spread of English, a language once considered useless outside the shores of Britain, is unprecedented in the history of languages. Who could have predicted that English, an amalgamation of European languages, would one day become the lingua franca of the world?

Modern, or Present-Day English (PDE), has many dialects spoken in countries 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.

Non-native speakers of English take the learning very seriously. Adults and children all over the world invest years of time and money studying English as a second language. English is the official language of maritime and aeronautical communications. English is the international language of science, business, and the hyper-connected web of global trade. In almost any international education environment, English is the central language. A 2013 Harvard University report found that English skills and better income go hand-in-hand and lead to a better quality of life, a fact not lost on citizens in developing nations.

We are increasingly moving toward a time when no one will be able to claim sole ownership of the English language. It will have become a common property of all, a Global English, albeit with many varieties. A World English will be the common factor that allows for mutual intelligibility among its localized varieties. Unlike most major languages in the world, English has no regulatory agency overseeing its use. Attempts have been made to create a standardized international English protocol, but no consensus on the path to this goal has been achieved. And yet, the language continues to spread.

As languages are prone to do, these Englishes are also continuously evolving. With so many varieties, the possibility exists that English will look different in the not-too-distant future. What’s in store for the English language is anybody’s best guess. Our crystal balls have shattered making it impossible to divine a clear message. Looking at the history of English, once a reliable way of making predictions, is not going to give us a blueprint for the future of a language unleashed to the rest of the world.

six official languages of the United Nations

With native speakers clearly in the minority, the course of the English language may well be dependent on the billion people speaking it as a second language. This influence is not just because of their number, but also because the majority of interactions in English occur between non-native speakers. As Modern English moves into its global lingua franca role, changes are inevitable and could happen out of the purview of its native speakers.

Pronunciation

When looking at how a language may change among differing populations, look no further than the pronunciations most often stumbled over or difficult to differentiate to provide clues as to how English may be adapted. The aspects of a language that promote intelligibility tend to spread while those that promote misunderstanding wither away.

There are linguists who believe that we aren’t finished yet with the Great Vowel Shift. Though some vowels may seem durable, e.g., “ship,” “bet,” “ox,” and “full” have been the same for centuries, other vowels are certainly going to shift and drift. The word “home” was once pronounced “heim” in Germanic, “hahm” in Old English, and “hawm” in Middle English. Someday, it may be “hoom.” Consider the regional pronunciations of the word “tour” in both England and North America.; variations include /toor/, /too-uh/, and /tew-r/. Americans and Britons alike increasingly make less distinction between the pronunciations of “pour,” “pore,” and “poor” or “Mary,” “marry,” and “merry.” These shifts in pronunciation, while subtle, can indicate the direction the language will change in the future.

There may also be changes ahead for consonants. Consider how often the “th” of “this” and “that” are dropped and replaced with either “s” and “z” or “t” and “d.” The soft “l” of “hotel” and “rail” are sounds that can be particularly difficult for second-language speakers to hear. Some clusters of consonants will simplify, surviving in the beginning of words, but vanish at the end of words; e.g., “best” may become “bess” and “accept” could change to “assep.”

Spelling and Grammar

The third person singular (such as “she runs” or “he writes”) is the only English verb form with an “s” at the end and is often dropped by non-native speakers. Simplifying verb phrases also occurs, saying “I look forward to see you tomorrow” instead of “I am looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.” In my own distinct Midwestern American dialect, we Iowans often drop the cumbersome “to be” in passive sentences, such as “the baby wants fed” instead of “the baby wants to be fed,” or “the cat wants let out” rather than “the cat wants to be let out.”

Mass and count nouns are another difficult aspect of the English language that non-native speakers might simplify, opting for “informations” and “furnitures” rather than be encumbered with object/noun agreement. While such “grammatical errors” have a negative ding in any native speaker’s ear, it’s more efficient for non-native speakers negotiating across their own cultural borders.

Technology, slang, and popular culture will continue to have enormous influence over language. Where changes may have occurred more slowly in the past, today they are happening at the lightning speed of satellite connections. Abbreviations and acronyms, once the provenance of military and business cultures, are now the language of tech-savvy youth who text, sext, and share with friends all over the world. Zoom meetings, Facebook groups, and other popular platforms are the virtual trading posts of language. Given one’s field of expertise, there is undoubtedly a long list of acronyms and industry-specific vocabulary that must be known to communicate among global colleagues.

Though the lack of oversight and the changes incurred by non-native speakers may seem off-putting to native speakers, this is English playing its role as a global lingua franca, helping speakers of other languages connect with each other. New dialects, slang, expanding lexicons, and linguistic variations will evolve. Some will stick and others will die out. Walter Raleigh’s expeditions in the early 1600s saw American English take root within a matter of days, with newly encountered Native terms such as ‘wigwam,’ ‘pecan,’ and ‘skunk’ becoming a permanent part of the American dialect. Likewise, it’s imperative that we nurture an adaptability and willingness to adopt new language that will most efficiently serve our communicative needs.

Fun Facts About English has 100 posts dedicated to the rich history and use of the English language. The Kinney Brothers Publishing blog also has teaching tips for teachers teaching newcomers in regular classes or ESL courses overseas! Click here to check out the full lineup of topics, download helpful worksheets, or grab some free activities! Thanks so much for visiting!

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Donald's English Classroom

Bringing building activities into the English language classroom can have a powerful impact on students’ learning experience. Following instructions for folding, cutting, building, and pasting are important cognitive and physical exercises that many students will find great pleasure and a sense of accomplishment. Visit Donald’s English Classroom for a variety of activities that tap into your students’ project-based interests.

Filed Under: Fun Facts About English Tagged With: esl, ESL Activities, ESL Flash cards, ESL Games, ESL teaching, esl textbooks, ESL Worksheets, future of english, kinney brothers publishing

Fun Facts About English #99 – The History of English 2

03/27/2021 by admin

Kinney Brothers Publishing Fun Facts About English English History 2

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

French Castles English history

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.

Norman Rule

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

Middle English period

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 Black Plague

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

Early Modern English

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.

If you enjoyed this post, click on the “next” button below to learn more about the future of English! You might also be interested in the reason English has no language academy, or why the U.S. has no official language!

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Donald's English Classroom

Fishing activities are so easy to set up, fun to play, and kids just can’t get enough of them! Check out all the fishing activities in Donald’s English Classroom!

Filed Under: Fun Facts About English Tagged With: esl, ESL Activities, ESL Flash cards, ESL Games, ESL teaching, esl textbooks, ESL Worksheets, history of english, kinney brothers publishing

Fun Facts About English #98 – The History of English 1

02/22/2021 by admin

Kinney Brothers Publishing English History 1

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

Stonehenge
Stonehenge, 3000 BC, built by Celtic high priests known as the Druids

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).

Insular Celtic culture

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

Roman Invasion of England

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.

Roman Britannia

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.

Roman Empire

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

Anglo Saxon culture

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’).

Anglo Saxon invasions

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

The Viking Age

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 and the Viking Age in England

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.

To continue this history, click on the “next” button below! You might also be interested in the influence of Native American languages in the North American dialects, or English words you didn’t know were originally Spanish!

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Fun Facts About English #97 – Universal Language

02/21/2021 by admin

Kinney Brothers Publishing pizza Fun Facts About English

Words like taxi, tea, bikini, OK, and pizza are a type of “universal” language due to their highly frequent borrowings among populations around the planet. Such widespread adoption is the result of cultural contact, colonialism, war, trade, and popular media. The global spread began happening centuries ago. Below are four “universal” words and the histories of their intrepid march around the globe.

Pizza

pizza

This culture-specific word is written and pronounced in a variety of ways around the world: bǐsà-bǐng, biitza, pitstsa, pizā and pijā.

The precursor of modern pizza was likely focaccia, a flatbread known to the Romans as panis focacius. The word pizza was first documented in A.D. 997 in Gaeta and successively in different parts of Central and Southern Italy. The introduction of a savory tomato sauce came centuries later after the red fruit from the Americas was introduced.

In 16th-century Naples, the flatbread pizza was known as a dish for poor people and was sold as street food and in pizzerias. Over the next two centuries, the dish gained popularity and became a tourist attraction as visitors ventured into the poorer areas of Naples to visit the pizzerias and sample the local specialties.

Pizza made its appearance in the United States with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the late 19th century. Italian-American pizzerias flourished in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Trenton, and St. Louis. Following World War II, returning veterans who were introduced to Italy’s native cuisine abroad flocked to the American restaurants and entrepreneurs eyed the market for expansion.

By the 1960s, pizza consumption exploded in the U.S. Parallel to their fast-food brethren, pizza chains created a wildly popular dining market that included Shakey’s Pizza (1954), Pizza Hut (1958), and Little Ceasars (1959). Chilled and frozen pizzas sold in supermarkets made pizza readily available nationwide.

In the latter part of the 20th century, American pizza chains expanded into world markets. The recipes were adopted and adapted to local tastes with preferred toppings. Pizza Hut®, for example, has 18,703 restaurants around the globe. In Japan, eel and squid are popular toppings, Pakistanis love their curry pizza, and Norwegians eat the most pizza in the world! Once the provenance of the Italian poor, pizza has become one of the most recognized and popular dishes worldwide.

Coffee

This word is recognized in more than eight widely-spoken languages. Though its discovery is the fodder of various legends, coffee originated in the Arabic qahwah. There is evidence of coffee drinking from the early 15th century in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen (kingdom of Sheba) and spread to Mecca and Medina. By the 16th century, it reached the rest of the Middle East, South India, Persia, Turkey, India, and northern Africa. Coffee then spread to the Balkans, Italy, the rest of Europe, and Southeast Asia.

The Beat Belt

The word “coffee” entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch koffie. The French pronounce the word café, Germans say kaffee, in Italian it’s caffè, and in Japanese, コーヒー (kōhī). From iced coffee in Portugal to the spiced coffee of Morocco, each culture has adapted the drink to their own distinctive cultural tastes. Major American chains such as Starbucks can be found in 76 countries around the globe.

Metro

The UK’s London Underground opened in 1863 with locomotive trains. In 1890, it became the world’s first urban railway “system” when electric trains began operating on its deep-level tube lines. In France, the Paris Métro opened in 1900. It was one of the first to use the term “metro,” an abbreviation from its original operating company’s name, “Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris.

This is a digitized and colorized film of Germany’s Wuppertal Schwebebahn shot in 1902. Where the train itself appears so recognizably “modern,” the background is shockingly old world!

Today, “metro” has the same meaning and almost the same pronunciation in Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Finnish, Basque, French, English, and Hungarian. There are more than 178 transportation systems globally with an average of 168 million daily passengers. From subway to above-ground railways, metro systems have become a ubiquitous part of the urban landscape worldwide.

Shampoo

Shampoo

The word shampoo entered the English language from the Indian subcontinent during the colonial era. It is dated to 1762 and was derived from Hindi chāmpo, from the Sanskrit root chapati, meaning “to press, knead, or soothe.”

The people of India would historically boil saponin-rich soapberries with a mixture of herbs and fruits, then strain it for an effective, lathery soap. This product would clean hair and was part of a massage and bathing routine known as chāmpo.

When early colonial traders in India returned to Europe, they introduced these newly-acquired bathing habits and the hair treatment they called “shampoo.” The first “champooi,” or Indian health spa and massage, was opened in England in 1814 by Sake Dean Mahomed, an Indian traveler, surgeon, and entrepreneur. Mr. Mahomed was also appointed as shampooing surgeon to both King George IV and William IV.

During the early stages of its adoption in Europe, hair stylists boiled shaved soap in water and added herbs to create a shampoo treatment that gave the hair shine and fragrance. Commercially-made shampoo wasn’t available until the turn of the 20th century when companies like Canthrox and Rexall offered shampoo products at local druggists. In 1927, liquid shampoo was created by German inventor Hans Schwarzkopf in Berlin. The first shampoo using synthetic surfactants instead of soap was Proctor & Gamble’s Drene brand in the 1930s.

Today, shampoo is an 85-billion dollar health and beauty market crossing every continent and nearly every nation on the planet. The word “shampoo” is also found in most major languages including French, Albanian, Corsican, Danish, Dutch, Finish, German, Italian, and Japanese. In Spanish, it’s champu, and in Korean, syampu.

I’ll finish this post with one more world map.

Netflix

If you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in what makes a word autological, the everyday language of anatomy, or why we use the word dumbbells!

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Fun Facts About English #96 – Proverbs

02/14/2021 by admin

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The short version, “jack-of-all-trades and master of none,” derogatorily suggests that a “handy-man” lacks any expertise. The full proverb, however, states the opposite where an expert of one trade isn’t necessarily more knowledgeable than one who knows a bit about many. Though the “jack-of-all-trades” idiom has varieties dating back to the 14th century, it’s believed that the second line, “and oftentimes better than a master of one,” is a twentieth-century addition.

From the late 14th century forward, “Jack,” whether in a familiar or contemptuous fashion, indicated a lower-class young man and a catch-all name for a servant or assistant. Over the centuries, “Jack” evolved into a generic term for a common man, like “average Joe” or “John Doe.” The legacy is evident in Every-man Jack, Jack Tar (sailor), Jack-pudding (baffoon), Jack the Ripper, Jack and Jill, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack Be Nimble, Jack Sprat, Little Jack Horner, The House that Jack Built, jack-in-the-box, and jack-o-lantern. We still use the word in occupations like lumberjack and steeplejack.

In the first published mention of William Shakespeare, popular pamphleteer, Robert Greene, derisively called the Bard a Johannes factotum (Johnny do-it-all) in his 1592 booklet, Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit, to dismiss the talents of the actor-turned-playwright.

Below are eleven more well-known proverbs and quotes that are often incomplete, misconstrued, or mistranslated.

Great minds think alike.

As it’s often used, this proverb has an air of self-congratulation that the original quote undermines in a qualifying statement of humility: “Great minds think alike and fools seldom differ.” It is thought to date back to the 17th century in Dabridgcourt Belchier’s Hans Beer-Pot, who wrote “good wits doe jumpe” where “jumpe” means “agree with.”

My country, right or wrong!

This is another incomplete quote that misconstrues its original intent. The real quote by Carl Schurz from 1872, isn’t so blindly patriotic as to make one a fool: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” Mr. Schurz was a German revolutionist, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army general in the American Civil War.

Money is the root of all evil.

As the verse from 1 Timothy 6:10 clearly states, it’s not money itself that’s evil, but the love for money that drives people away from virtue and toward greed. The full quote reads, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

Now is the winter of our discontent…

This is a partial quote from Shakespeare’s Richard III and is often used to signal dark or downtrodden times. The complete lines suggest the contrary: “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York. / And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house / In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

When one door closes another opens.

The full quote, attributed to Alexander Graham Bell, warns about the tendency to be blinded by unhappiness and regret. “When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” Ergo, it’s not simply about something lost or gained — it’s about our focus.

Curiosity killed the cat.

Before the 20th century, it wasn’t “curiosity” that killed the cat, it was “care.” “Care” translated as “worry” and meant that an anxious person could worry themselves to death.

The earliest reference to this saying is attributed to British playwright, Ben Jonson, in his 1598 play, Every Man in His Humour: “Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care will kill a cat, up-tails all, and a pox on the hangman.”

Shakespeare used a similar quote in his play, Much Ado About Nothing: “What, courage man! what though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.”

The proverb remained the same until at least 1898 when E. C. Brewer included the idiom in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. In that same year, the phrase “it is said that once curiosity killed a Thomas cat” appeared in The Galveston Daily News in the U.S. state of Texas. Similarly, “Curiosity can do more things than kill a cat,” was recorded in O. Henry’s early 20th-century short story, Schools and Schools. It again appeared in Eugene O’Neill’s Diff’rent in 1922, and by that time, had transformed into the phrase we know today.

The devil is in the details.

This well-known idiom means that something that appears to be simple will take more time and effort to complete owing to the details. However, the original idiom is “God is in the details,” expressing the idea that whatever one does should be done thoroughly and with attention to the details. The idiom is historically attributed to a number of individuals but is thought to be a translation of “Le bon Dieu est dans le détail” (the good Lord is in the detail) by Gustave Flaubert in the 19th century.

One foul swoop!

The correct phrase, “one fell swoop,” refers to something happening all at once. Sometimes mistaken for “foul,” “fowl”, or “full,” the fossilized word “fell” survives only in this phrase. The Old French term means “fierce” or “deadly” and is best known by its derivative, “felon,” meaning “a wicked person, one who deceives, commits treason, or a felony.”

The phrase was first recorded in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, where it’s used by Macduff on learning of the murder of his wife and children by the king: “All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?”

The proof is in the pudding.

According to Merriam-Webster, this proverb dates back to at least the 14th century. Variations include “the proof in the pudding” and “the proof of the pudding.” The full saying is, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” “Proof” in this case means “test” and suggests that you must test something to determine whether it’s good or not. Medieval puddings were essentially sausages — boiled or steamed mixtures of minced meat, cereal, spices, and blood stuffed into intestines or stomachs. They could be very good, bad, or possibly fatal if the meat was contaminated and not tested.

Stepping away from the “pudding” context, if one were to say, “The proof is in the car,” it’s difficult to understand what exactly “in the car” is the proof. “The proof of the car is in the driving” makes better sense.

Pull one’s self up by one’s bootstraps

This phrase was originally a joke about a preposterous thing one could not possibly do. Originating in the U.S. in the early 19th century, the adynaton (meaning a figure of speech in the form of hyperbole) originally read, “pull oneself over a fence by one’s own bootstraps.”

The Green-eyed Monster

Though their origins are often forgotten, idiomatic phrases like “the green-eyed monster” or “Off with his head!” have been borrowed by writers so often, it’s good to be reminded that they come from that Johannes factotum, William Shakespeare. In his play, Othello, the playwright turned the idea of being sick (green) and, combining it with jealousy, created the metaphor that we still use today: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” Take that, Robert Greene.

You may also be interested in reading more about Shakespeare’s amazing contribution to the English language, the influence of Native American languages in the North American dialect, or words that you didn’t know were originally Spanish!

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Fun Facts About English #95 – Eponyms

02/08/2021 by admin

Law-student-turned-acrobat, Jules Leotard, is credited with inventing the aerial trapeze act in 1859. He starred in the Paris Cirque Napoleon and was the inspiration for the song, “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” In order to show off his “splendid” physique and eliminate any safety hazards from loose clothing, Mr. Leotard designed a tight-fitting, one-piece knitted costume with long sleeves he called a “maillot.” He died from either smallpox or cholera in 1870 at the young age of thirty-two. Within a few decades after his death, his circus garment became eponymously known as a “leotard.”

Jules Leotard Kinney Brothers Publishing

Eponymy is when a thing, place, or event is named after or becomes synonymous with someone. For example, Queen Victoria of England is the eponym of the Victorian era. The label can be a fictional character as well. To be called a Grinch refers to the Christmas-hating central character in How The Grinch Stole Christmas. The term is also applied to creative work such as the album, The Doors, a work by the band, the Doors, which is then called a self-titled album. Unlike Marxism or Christian, eponymous words like quisling and sandwich have evolved a common-word status and no longer derive meaning from their proper-noun origin.

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Below are six more eponyms with colorful histories that may surprise you!

Boycott

In 19th-century Ireland, absentee landlords in England grew wealthy at the expense of the Irish tenants working their land. With fears of another potato famine, the Irish National Land League demanded that British land agents, like Charles Boycott, reduce their rents. After Mr. Boycott rejected the order, the Land League responded with a nonviolent protest. Local workers refused to harvest Boycott’s crops, shops would not serve him, neighbors shunned him, and even the postman “forgot” to deliver his mail. Boycott was forced to hire armed guards to protect workers he imported from the north of Ireland. Boycott’s name has since become synonymous with the method of protest employed against him.

Gerrymander

The word “gerrymander” refers to the unfair practice of dividing voting districts to give an unfair advantage to one party. In 1812, Massachusetts governor, Elbridge Gerry, reshaped one of his voting districts in a shape that suggested the body of a salamander. This prompted a staffer at the Boston Gazette to coin the portmanteau “gerrymander.”

Cardigan

James Brudenell was the 7th Earl of Cardigan and a British military hero. Lord Cardigan led the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War against Russia in 1854. The earl used his own funds and designed a knitted wool waistcoat with an open front for his soldiers to stay warm during the Russian winter. Although his cavalry was decimated, the British major general was hailed a hero at home for the bravery of his soldiers. Lord Cardigan’s popularity led to the Cardigan sweater, a clothing item that has since become a fashion staple on both sides of the Atlantic.

Miranda Rights/mirandize

In 1963, Ernesto A. Miranda was a laborer convicted of kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery based on his confession under police interrogation. His conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court (Miranda v. Arizona) because arresting officers had failed to inform him of his legal rights. After his conviction was overturned, he was retried and again convicted based on other evidence. He served eleven years in prison and was paroled in 1972. After his release, he made money by selling Miranda warning cards with his signature for $1.50 each. In 1976, at the age of 34, he was stabbed to death in a bar fight. One suspect fled the scene and another was arrested. The detained suspect invoked his Miranda rights and refused to talk to the police. With no evidence against him, he was released.

Silhouette

Etienne de Silhouette was a French finance minister who imposed high taxes on the upper classes during the Seven Years War with Britain in the late 1700s. As France’s deficit spiraled out of control, he became an object of Parisian ridicule for his austerity measures. The phrase “a la Silhouette” was a mocking description for doing something “on the cheap.” At the time, profile portraits and framed images cut from black paper were looked at derisively as worthless replacements for more expensive paintings and sculptures. Today, the penny-pinching minister is eponymously remembered by these “silhouette portraits.”

Derrick

In the late 16th century, Thomas Derrick was a convict facing the death penalty in Elizabethan England. Derrick was offered a pardon by the Earl of Essex if he would work for the state as an executioner — an undesirable job often filled by coercion. During his time as a hangman, Derrick designed a new system with a topping lift and pulley to replace the rope-over-the-beam hanging method. Derrick executed over 3,000 people, one of whom, ironically, was the man who pardoned him, the Earl of Essex. Today, a derrick is known as a crane or lifting device designed for moving large objects. They are widely used in engineering and drilling for oil and gas reserves.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in the conundrum with cotronyms and capitonyms, or the explosive use of acronyms in the English language!

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