History Of English

The Anglo Saxon invasions 449AD
* Cae el imperio romano
* Britons turn to a variety of Germanic tribes for 'protection'. From 449AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes begin to arrive
* Christian missionaries begin to arrive in 597AD….
…..They bring with them a huge Latin vocabulary, and produce large numbers of manuscripts, in the form of the Bible and other religious texts. In theprocess, the missionaries sow the first seeds of literacy…
* There is no standard system of spelling, so scribes spell words the way they are sounded in their part of the country. As a result, we have evidence of Old English dialects.
* Four major dialects emerge in England: Northumbrian in the north; Mercian in the midlands; West Saxon in the south and west; and Kentish in the south east.* Most Old English documents are written in West Saxon, the dialect of the politically prestigious area of Wessex, where Alfred the Great would rule in the 9th century.
* ****During the Anglo Saxon era, many words are borrowed from Latin
* Religion - angel, bishop, chalice, deacon, font, martyr, Mass
* Everyday vocabulary - candle, cucumber, cheese, cup, elephant, fever, giant,history, kettle, kitchen, laurel, lentil, noon, oyster, paper, plant, purple, street, wine
* The Anglo-Saxons were a pagan race and traces still remain in the names of four days of the week: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They commemorate the gods Tiw, Woden, Thor and Woden's wife, Frig.
The Viking Raids Begin - 787AD
* The Vikings begin raiding Britain in 787AD and continueperiodically until the 11th century. 
* The language of the Danes ejerce* an immense and long lasting influence on Old English, especially in the north and east.
* For example, the '-by' in names like Rugby and Grimsby means 'farm' or 'town; the '-thorpe' in Althorpe and Linthorpe means 'village'; and the '-thwaite' in Braithwaite and Langthwaite means 'isolated area'.
* Many Scandinavianpersonal names come from this time, especially those ending in '-son'. And some very common words – 'both', 'same', 'get', 'give', 'take' - enter the language, as do regular English pronouns like 'they', 'them', 'their'. During this period, over 1,800 words of probable Scandinavian origin enter the language.
* ****A selection of the 1,800 Scandinavian loan words that probably entered thelanguage at this time: awkward, band, bull, crawl, die, drag, dregs, freckle, gasp, get, glitter, harbour, knife, loan, meek, muck, raise, ransack, reindeer, scowl, sister, sky, stack, steak, thrust, tight, want, weak, widow
* Anglo-Saxon writers used a poetic device, common in Old Norse, called a kenning, in which an unusual compound expression replaces a conventional word. In Old English, the seawas often called a ‘sail road’ or ‘whale-way’. Modern kennings include ‘karate juice’ for alcohol, ‘lie detector’ for mother and ‘the beautiful game’ for football.
The Norman Conquest 1066
* In 1066, William of Normandy invades England, ushering in a new social and linguistic era. Pero los manuscritos seguian siendo escritos en old English
* French is rapidly established as the languageof power and officialdom. 
* England becomes a truly trilingual country.
* Clever new constructions enter the language, such as the auxiliary verbs 'had' and 'shall' (had made, shall go). ******
* Spelling and pronunciation begin to shift too, as Norman scribes spell words using their own conventions, such as qu- instead of cw-. Slowly but surely, distinctive Old English charactersbegin to die out. ***
* ****By the 13th century, over 20,000 words have entered English, mostly from Latin and French.
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* Administration – chancellor, council, government, liberty, mayor, parliament
* Religion – abbey, cathedral, communion, confess, crucifix, miracle, saint, sermon
* Law - accuse, bail, evidence, heir, judge, jury, justice, prison, summons, verdict
*...