The History of English in 10 Minutes, Annotated By Xah Lee. Date: , This page is a annotated version of: The History of English in Ten Minutes By The Open University. @ The original work are licensed by ©cc. Chapter 1: Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon JutesJutes were one of the three most powerful Germanic peoples of their time, the other two being the Saxons and the Angles. The English language begins with the phrase “Up Yours Caesar!” The Romans left some very straight roads behind, but not much of their Latin language. Anglo Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Saxon medieval confederation of Germanic tribes on the North German plain. The Anglo-Saxon vocab was much more useful as it was mainly words for simple everyday things like house, woman, loaf and werewolf. Chapter 2: The Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest 1066.
The History of English - Before English (Prehistory - c. 500AD) The branch of Indo-European we are most interested in is Germanic (although the Hellenic-Greek branch and Italic-Latin branch, which gave rise to the Romance languages, also became important later). The Germanic, or Proto-Germanic, language group can be traced back to the region between the Elbe river in modern Germany and southern Sweden some 3,000 years ago. Jacob Grimm (of fairy tales fame, but also a well-respected early philologist) pointed out that, over time, certain consonants in the Germanic family of languages have shifted somewhat from the Indo-European base. Thus, Germanic words like the English foot, West Frisian foet, Danish fod, Swedish fot, etc, are in fact related to the Latin ped, Lithuanian peda, Sanskrit pada, etc, due to the shifting of the “p” to “f” and the “d” to “t”. Several other consonants have also shifted (“d” to “t”, “k” to “h”, “t” to “th”, etc), disguising to some extent the common ancestry of many of the daughter languages of Indo-European.
The 50 most useful Idioms and their Meaning - A list on 1 page Commonly used Idioms Idiom: a manner of speaking that is natural to native speakers of a language Every language has its own collection of wise sayings. They offer advice about how to live and also transfer some underlying ideas, principles and values of a given culture / society. These sayings are called "idioms" - or proverbs if they are longer. Smart Idioms A hot potato Speak of an issue (mostly current) which many people are talking about and which is usually disputed A penny for your thoughts A way of asking what someone is thinking Actions speak louder than words People's intentions can be judged better by what they do than what they say. Add insult to injury To further a loss with mockery or indignity; to worsen an unfavorable situation. At the drop of a hat Meaning: without any hesitation; instantly. Back to the drawing board When an attempt fails and it's time to start all over. Ball is in your court It is up to you to make the next decision or step Barking up the wrong tree Best of both worlds
The History of English - Middle English (c. 1100 - c. 1500) The Normans bequeathed over 10,000 words to English (about three-quarters of which are still in use today), including a huge number of abstract nouns ending in the suffixes “-age”, “-ance/-ence”, “-ant/-ent”, “-ment”, “-ity” and “-tion”, or starting with the prefixes “con-”, “de-”, “ex-”, “trans-” and “pre-”. While humble trades retained their Anglo-Saxon names (e.g. baker, miller, shoemaker, etc), the more skilled trades adopted French names (e.g. mason, painter, tailor, merchant, etc). While the animals in the field generally kept their English names (e.g. sheep, cow, ox, calf, swine, deer), once cooked and served their names often became French (e.g. beef, mutton, pork, bacon, veal, venison, etc). The pronunciation differences between the harsher, more guttural Anglo-Norman and the softer Francien dialect of Paris were also carried over into English pronunciations.
The 50 most important English proverbs The 50 most important English proverbs What are proverbs? Every culture has a collection of wise sayings that offer advice about how to live your life. How can you use proverbs to learn English? It's good to know the really common English proverbs because you hear them come up in conversation all the time. You know what they say: when the going gets tough... (Read #5 below to learn the rest of this proverb and what it means.) Learning proverbs can also help you to understand the way that people in English-speaking cultures think about the world. Proverbs can also give you good example sentences which you can memorize and use as models for building your own sentences. The most important English Proverbs This is a list of some of the most important and well-known English proverbs. The meanings of some of these phrases have shifted over the years, so a proverb might have originally had a different meaning than the one I explain. "Two wrongs don't make a right." Print this List
The History of English The history of the English language is a complex tapestry of gradual developments and short, sharp shocks, of isolation and mutual influences, of borrowings and obsolescences. I am unlikely to do it justice in this short exposition, but it may at least suffice to give an overview of the main developments. There are many sources of further information which can be consulted by those requiring more (or less) detail, some of which are listed on the Sources and Links page. The main phases can be conveniently (if a little simplistically) divided into: The dates attributed to the various phases are somewhat arbitrary, but they do provide some convenient markers and give a general idea of the timescales involved. However, different studies do use different demarcations.
45 ways to avoid using the word 'very' Writers Write is your one-stop resource for writers. Use these 45 ways to avoid using the word ‘very’ to improve your writing. Good writers avoid peppering their writing with qualifiers like ‘very’ and ‘really’. They are known as padding or filler words and generally add little to your writing. According to Collins Dictionary: ‘Padding is unnecessary words or information used to make a piece of writing or a speech longer. Adding modifiers, qualifiers, and unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, weakens your writing. This post gives you 45 ways to avoid using the padding word ‘very’. Three Telling Quotes About ‘Very’ “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. If you enjoyed this, you will love: Top Tip: If you want to learn how to write a book, sign up for our online course. by Amanda Patterson © Amanda Patterson
The History of English - Early Modern English (c. 1500 - c. 1800) The next wave of innovation in English vocabulary came with the revival of classical scholarship known as the Renaissance. The English Renaissance roughly covers the 16th and early 17th Century (the European Renaissance had begun in Italy as early as the 14th Century), and is often referred to as the “Elizabethan Era” or the “Age of Shakespeare” after the most important monarch and most famous writer of the period. The additions to English vocabulary during this period were deliberate borrowings, and not the result of any invasion or influx of new nationalities or any top-down decrees. Latin (and to a lesser extent Greek and French) was still very much considered the language of education and scholarship at this time, and the great enthusiasm for the classical languages during the English Renaissance brought thousands of new words into the language, peaking around 1600.