The English Language.

Language: It is Human Faculty.

The English language will be defined into tree categories:

1) The origins and history of English.

2) Comparison between, Modern English to Old English and other languages.

3) Reasons for language change, (internal and external ).

1.The origins and history of English.

English

Origin.

History

Celts

The Celtic language were spoken all over Europe, and there were many tribes. One of this tribes may have been given a name such as «painted» from which the names Britain and British.In Britain, this language survive in: Wales Scotland Ireland. (But they are not consider English, because of its influence). .

Later they and their language displaced and dissapeared.

The Roman empire ruled until 476, and because of the political power , Latin was spoken in parts of Britain and the European continent.

Words like: wall, kitchen, wine, were borrowed from Latin into Germanic. The Latin influence continues through medieval and renaissance times.

They exerted an influence on:

Celtic

Germanic.

When does English become official?

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The arrival of the Germanic tribes into

the British Isles in 449 .

The word English derived from one of the tribes:

The germanic dialect is now a language spoken by Over a billion people in many parts of the world.

The Angles

The English language even though it is a Germanic language, it has adopted the influence of other language from: a) Latin b) French.

It is estimated that half of the vocabulary of English comes from this two dialects. French and Latin loanwords are also used in English to add formality to language. The most frequent words: The, a(n), did, it and of are native, also the plural –s and third person singular –s.

The English language is the result of loanwords, as the collection of words that were selected to appear in the dictionary.

The Oxford Dictionary is the best resource on the English language and its history. Nowdays many libraries have access to the OED online. However, we still need rules to put the words together into sentences, words, sounds, meaning and the appropiate use.

2.Modern English compare to Old English.

The English language will be examined through three differents levels:

Sound Word Sentence

Differences:

Sound: Pronunciation «Sc» and - Modern English has 13 «g». Or 14 different vowels. - English has 25 consonants.

Word: Lack of grammatical The most unusual English words, such as of, consonant is the one spelled the and we. As «th».

Sentence: The sentences contains English syllable structure is five words. complex, there are cluster, like «Strikes», in which they become adapted across world’s language. The most common syllable pattern is CV even in English.

*Language differ in how they mark these functions: - by endings (verbs ,nouns etc). - Word order and grammatical words.

The major function of language is:

To indicate Who does What to Whom (where , when, how and why that occur).

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Old English: It has a number of endings, they are mainly on the nouns. The Endings express what word order and prepositions do in Modern English.A change from:

Synthetic to Analytic.

The major change :

3.External and Internal change.

External : Political Geography Social changes.

Internal: Linguistics changes.

Internal Changes:Haga clic en el icono para agregar una imagen

Internal change occur when :• Speakers stop using

inflections • Also occur when the

category of a word is reanalyzed.

However, there are factors that inhibit internal change, namely Prescriptive rules.These rules are explicity taught in school, for example, the use of the proper case endings, and the third person –s are reinforced in schools.

External changes:• Incorporation of new words

into English, like French words, (hot-dog, e-mail, computer).

This lead to changes in the actual grammar or sound system . • Also external changes have

certain expression s that become markers of identity.

A bit of History

During the history of the English language there are also evidence of external changes.

In the last 2000 years. The English language suffered the influences from Latin and the Celtic language, through Roman civilizations. They provided many geographical names: Kent – Avon – Dover and Loch.

Later on..Germanic Invasion.(6th century).

.The conversion to Christianity introduced Latin words .

Scandinavian (8th and 10th centuries)

Scandinavian may be the most important of the external influences on English grammar and vocabulary.A. The dissapearance of Old

English caused influence on the grammar.

B. Scandinavian words become «everyday» words.

Finally

In 1066 during the Battle of Hastings, William of Normandy arrived and defeated Harold.As a conclusion, French became the language of the nobility and the court and much new vocabulary was introduced. a) Political b) Cultural.