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The History of The English Language - Coggle Diagram
The History of The English Language
CHAPTER 1
English is often called a "World language"
In countries like Britain and the US: English is 1st language.
In countries like India, Singapore and Kenya: English is 2nd language
Spoken as a first language by 370 to 400 milllion people
The spread of English began with the British settlement of North America, the Caribbean, Australia, and Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It also became important internationally because in the 19th century Britain was the most important industrial nation in the world.
Many people wanted to do business with American companies because the US was rich, and in order to to that they had to speak English.
CHAPTER 2
In AD 43 the Romans invaded Britain. They remained there for almost four hundred years, andalmost all of what is now England came under their control.
Sir William Jones was a British judge who lived in India and began to study Sanskrit.
As they travelled, different dialects of their language developed.
People thought that Latin, Greek, and all European languages came from Sanskrit, but Jones disagreed. In 1786 he wrote that those languages came from a "common source" known as Proto-Indo-European which maybe disappeared.
The Celts were the first group of Indo-European speakers to move across Europe.
More than 2 billion people speak an Indo-European language as their first language.
They introduced a new language called Latin.
From various Germanic dialects used by these people, English developed.
CHAPTER 3
There were four main dialects: West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian
Old English in the 5th and 6th centuries had some words that weren't Germanic. There were Latin words, which the Anglo-Saxons had borrowed from the Romans before inviding Britain.
Most Anglo-Saxons couldn't read or write, but those who could used runes. These were letters which had been used by the Germanic peoples since about the 3rd century AD. They were cut into stone or weapons and were often used to say that someone had made or owned something.
Old English is the language that was spoken from th middle of the fifth century to the middle of the 12th century in what is now England and southern Scotland.
The arrival of Augustine and the monks
This was the first attempt to make the people of Britain Christians.
Augustine and the monks were welcomed in Canterbury by the King Aethelbert of Kent and Queen Berta who were Christians.
The arrival of Augustine in 597 brought changes to Britain and Old English.
They had come from Rome to teach Anglo-Saxons about Christianity.
The monks taught poetry, Greek, Latin and Christianity in churches. As a result Latin words entered Old English.
Example:
Spendan
(to spend)
Writers usually chose their own spelling of words and tried to show how a word was pronounced.
The vocabulary of Old English was almost Germanic.
About 85% of the vocabulary has disappeared from Modern English.
There were more personal pronouns than in Modern English.
Verb endings also changed.
In the 8th century Britain waws++s