Language Timeline The English language is a vast flea market of words, handed down, borrowed or created over more than 2000 years. And it is still expanding, changing and trading. Our language is not purely English at all - it is a ragbag of diverse words that have come to our island from all around the world. Words enter the language in all sorts of ways: with invaders, migrants, tradesmen; in stories, artworks, technologies and scientific concepts; with those who hold power, and those who try to overthrow the powerful. View the chart below to get an overview of some of the many chapters in the history of the English language. Celts 500BC-43BC Romans 43BC-c.450AD Anglo Saxons 449AD St Augustine 597 AD Vikings 789AD Normans 1066 100 Years War 1337-1450s Renaissance 1476-1650 1700s Industrial Revolution 1760-1800s 1900s - Present Day References: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language by David Crystal Words in Time by Geoffrey Hughes
The History of the English Language, Animated By Maria Popova The history of language, that peculiar human faculty that Darwin believed was half art and half instinct, is intricately intertwined with the evolution of our species, our capacity for invention, our understanding of human biology, and even the progress of our gender politics. From the fine folks at Open University — who previously gave us these delightful 60-second animated syntheses of the world’s major religions, philosophy’s greatest thought experiments, and the major creative movements in design — comes this infinitely entertaining and illuminating animated history of the English language in 10 minutes: Complement with these 5 essential reads on language and the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice, in which she explores the beauty of the English language.
Etymology: Languages that have contributed to English vocabulary over time. In Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English, I examine how words borrowed from different languages have influenced English throughout its history. The above feature summarizes some of the main data from the book, focusing on the 14 sources that have given the most words to English, as reflected by the new and revised entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. Using the date buttons at the top of the graphic, you can compare the impact that different languages have made on English over time. If you switch to the "cumulative" view, then you can see how the total number of loanwords from each language has built up over time. The data lying behind this graphic reflects some of the biggest changes in the history of English. The elephant in the room, however, is how Latin and French dominate the picture in just about every period. A version of this post appeared on Oxford Dictionaries.
Do you speak Uglish? How English has evolved in Uganda Please don’t dirten my shirt with your muddy hands. Stop cowardising and go and see that girl. Don’t just beep her again, bench her. Typos? No, we’re speaking Uglish (pronounced you-glish), a Ugandan form of English influenced by Luganda and other local dialects, which has produced hundreds of words with their own unique meanings. Some will be immediately obvious to English speakers: dirten, meaning to make dirty; cowardising, to behave like a coward. Others offer small insights into youth culture: beep – meaning to ring someone but to hang up quickly before the person answers. Now, Bernard Sabiti, a Ugandan cultural commentator has recorded these colloquialisms in a new book which attempts to unlock what he calls “one of the funniest and strangest English varieties in the world”. Working as a consultant for international NGOs, Sabiti kept being asked “what kind of English do Ugandans speak?” The result? He also credits local musicians for introducing a number of words into the lexicon.
25 maps that explain the English language English is the language of Shakespeare and the language of Chaucer. It’s spoken in dozens of countries around the world, from the United States to a tiny island named Tristan da Cunha. It reflects the influences of centuries of international exchange, including conquest and colonization, from the Vikings through the 21st century. Here are 25 maps and charts that explain how English got started and evolved into the differently accented languages spoken today. 1) Where English comes from English, like more than 400 other languages, is part of the Indo-European language family, sharing common roots not just with German and French but with Russian, Hindi, Punjabi, and Persian. 2) Where Indo-European languages are spoken in Europe today Saying that English is Indo-European, though, doesn’t really narrow it down much. 3) The Anglo-Saxon migration The next source of English was Old Norse. 7) The colonization of America 8) Early exploration of Australia 14) Where people read English Wikipedia
The History of English - How New Words Are Created The drift of word meanings over time often arises, often but not always due to catachresis (the misuse, either deliberate or accidental, of words). By some estimates, over half of all words adopted into English from Latin have changed their meaning in some way over time, often drastically. For example, smart originally meant sharp, cutting or painful; handsome merely meant easily-handled (and was generally derogatory); bully originally meant darling or sweetheart; sad meant full, satiated or satisfied; and insult meant to boast, brag or triumph in an insolent way. Some words have changed their meanings many times. Some words have become much more specific than their original meanings. Some words came to mean almost the complete opposite of their original meanings. A related category is where an existing word comes to be used with another grammatical function, often a different part of speech, a process known as functional shift.
English language 'originated in Turkey' Modern Indo-European languages - which include English - originated in Turkey about 9,000 years ago, researchers say. Their findings differ from conventional theory that these languages originated 5,000 years ago in south-west Russia. The New Zealand researchers used methods developed to study virus epidemics to create family trees of ancient and modern Indo-European tongues to pinpoint where and when the language family first arose. Their study is reported in Science. A language family is a group of languages that arose from a common ancestor, known as the proto-language. Linguists identify these families by trawling through modern languages for words of similar sound that often describe the same thing, like water and wasser (German). According to the Ethnologue database, more than 100 language families exist. The Indo-European family is one of the largest families - more than 400 languages spoken in at least 60 countries - and its origins are unclear.
How the internet is killing off silent letters Professor David Crystal says people drop letters when typing them into search engines He says the internet will influence changes in spelling in the future Academic labels the 'h' in rhubarb as 'illogical' By Daily Mail Reporter Published: 08:29 GMT, 2 June 2013 | Updated: 06:40 GMT, 3 June 2013 David Crystal, professor of linguistics of Bangor University, explained how people are dropping letters when typing words into search engines Common misspellings of English words could be acceptable within a few years because they are used online, a linguist has said. ‘Rhubarb’ could change to ‘rubarb’, ‘receipt’ to ‘receit’ and ‘necessary’ to ‘neccesary’. Simpler online forms of ‘irritating’ complex words are starting to affect mainstream usage, linguistics professor David Crystal told the Hay Literary Festival. He started monitoring the word ‘rhubarb’ ten years ago by typing the correct spelling into a search engine, then the error ‘rubarb’. ‘Rhubarb is still the dominant one by a factor of 50.