The old English literature formerly referred to as Anglo-Saxon was developed between the years of and This form of language descended from North Germanic tribes who settled in English. Old English Literature was the period in which the language started to acquire the mixing characteristics which remain in history over time · English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain. Their language, now called Old English, originated as a group of Anglo-Frisian dialects which were spoken, at least by the settlers, in Engl The Arrival of Celts in Britain English language was known as the language of English people, however, it was not the language spoken by earliest settlers of the lands; historians believed that many races had come and their languages were not known and recorded in the history until the arrival of the Celts which had the trace of Old English language, and began the history of its development
Brief History Of English Literature, Essay Sample
English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by History of english essay migrants from what is now northwest Germanysouthern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain.
Their language, now called Old Englishoriginated as a group of Anglo-Frisian dialects which were spoken, at least by the settlers, in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Agesdisplacing the Celtic languages and, possibly, British Latin that had previously been dominant.
Old English reflected the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain. The Late West Saxon dialect eventually became dominant. A significant subsequent influence on the history of english essay of Old English came from contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavian Vikings who conquered and colonized parts of Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries, which led to much lexical borrowing and grammatical simplification.
The Anglian dialects history of english essay a greater influence on Middle English. After the Norman conquest inOld English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English or Anglo-Saxon era, as during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English.
The conquering Normans spoke a Romance langue d'oïl called Old Normanwhich in Britain developed into Anglo-Norman. Many Norman and French loanwords entered the local language in this period, especially in vocabulary related to the church, the court system and the government.
As Normans are descendants of Vikings who invaded France, Norman French was influenced by Old Norse, and many Norse loanwords in English came directly from French.
Middle English was spoken to the late 15th century. The system of orthography that was established during the Middle English period is largely still in use today. Later changes in pronunciation, however, history of english essay, combined with the adoption of various foreign spellings, mean that the spelling of modern English words appears highly irregular. Early Modern English — the language used by William Shakespeare — is dated from around It incorporated many Renaissance -era loans from Latin and Ancient Greekas well as borrowings from other European languages, including FrenchGerman and Dutch.
Significant pronunciation changes in this period included the ongoing Great Vowel Shiftwhich affected the qualities of most long vowels. Modern English proper, similar in most respects to that spoken today, was in place by the late 17th century. English as we know it today came to be exported to other parts of the world through British colonisationand is now the dominant language in Britain and Irelandthe United States and CanadaAustraliaNew Zealand and many smaller former colonies, as well as being widely spoken in Indiaparts of Africaand elsewhere.
Partially due to influence of the United States and its globalized efforts of commerce and technology, English took on the status of a global lingua franca in the second half of the 20th century. This is especially true in Europe, where English has largely taken over the former roles of French and much earlier Latin as a common language used to conduct business and diplomacy, share scientific and technological information, and otherwise communicate across national boundaries, history of english essay.
The efforts of English-speaking Christian missionaries has resulted in English becoming a second language for many other groups. Global variation among different English dialects and accents remains significant today. Scotsa form of English traditionally spoken in parts of Scotland and the north of Ireland, is sometimes treated as a separate language.
English has its roots in the languages of the Germanic peoples of northern Europe. During the Roman Empiremost of the Germanic-inhabited area Germania remained independent from Rome, although some southwestern parts were within the empire. Some Germanics served in the Roman militaryand troops from Germanic tribes such as the TungriBataviMenapii and Frisii served in Britain Britannia under Roman command.
Germanic settlement and power expanded during the Migration Periodwhich saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire. A Germanic settlement of Britain took place from the 5th to the 7th century, following the end of Roman rule on the island.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that around the year Vortigernking of the Britonsinvited the "Angle kin" Angles allegedly led by the Germanic brothers Hengist and Horsa to help repel invading Pictsin return for lands in the southeast of Britain, history of english essay.
This led to waves of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. The Chronicle was not a contemporaneous work, however, and cannot be regarded as an accurate record of such early events. The languages spoken by the Germanic peoples who initially settled in Britain were part of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic language family. They consisted of dialects from the Ingvaeonic grouping, spoken mainly around the North Sea coast, history of english essay, in regions that lie within modern Denmarknorth-west Germany and the Netherlands.
Due to specific similarities between early English and Old Frisianan Anglo-Frisian grouping is also identified. These dialects had most of the typical History of english essay Germanic features, including a significant amount of grammatical inflection. Vocabulary came largely from the core Germanic stock, although due to the Germanic peoples' extensive contacts with the Roman world, the settlers' languages already included a number of loanwords from Latin.
The Germanic settlers in the British Isles initially spoke a number of different dialects, which would develop into a language that came to be called Anglo-Saxon, or now more commonly Old English. Old English was first written using a runic script called the futhorcbut this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish missionaries in the 8th century. Most literary output was in either the Early West Saxon of Alfred the Great 's time, or the Late West Saxon regarded as the "classical" form of Old English of the History of english essay school inspired by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester and followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham "the Grammarian".
The most famous surviving work from the Old English period is the epic poem Beowulfhistory of english essay, composed by an unknown poet. The introduction of Christianity from around the year encouraged the addition of over Latin loan words into Old English, such as the predecessors of the modern priestpaperand schooland a smaller number of Greek loan words.
Most native English speakers today find Old English unintelligible, even though about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The language had demonstrative pronouns equivalent to this and that but did not have the definite article the. The Old English period is considered to have evolved into the Middle English period some time after the Norman conquest ofwhen the language came to be influenced significantly by the new ruling class's language, Old Norman.
Vikings from modern-day Norway and Denmark began to raid parts of Britain from the late 8th century onward. Inhowever, a major invasion was launched by what the Anglo-Saxons called the Great Heathen Armywhich eventually brought large parts of northern and eastern England the Danelaw under Scandinavian control. Most of these areas were retaken by the English under Edward the Elder in the early 10th century, although York and Northumbria were not permanently regained until the death of Eric Bloodaxe in Scandinavian raids resumed in the late 10th century during the reign of Æthelred the Unreadyand Sweyn Forkbeard eventually succeeded in briefly being declared king of England infollowed by the longer reign of his son Cnut from toand Cnut's sons Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut until The Scandinavians, or Norsemenspoke dialects of a North Germanic language known as Old Norse.
The Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians thus spoke related languages from different branches West and North of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammatical systems were more divergent. Probably significant numbers of Norse speakers settled in the Danelaw during the period of Scandinavian control. Many place-names in those areas are of Scandinavian provenance those ending in -byfor example ; it is believed that the settlers often established new communities in places that had not previously been developed by the Anglo-Saxons.
The extensive contact between Old English and Old Norse speakers, including history of english essay possibility of intermarriage that resulted from the acceptance of Christianity by the Danes in[12] undoubtedly influenced the varieties of those languages spoken in the areas of contact. Some scholars even believe that Old English and Old Norse underwent a kind of fusion and that the resulting English language might be described as a mixed language or creole.
During the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the first half of the 11th century, a kind of diglossia may have come about, with the West Saxon literary language existing alongside the Norse-influenced Midland dialect of English, which could have served as a koine or spoken lingua franca.
When Danish rule ended, and particularly after the Norman Conquestthe status of the minority Norse language presumably declined relative to that of English, and its remaining speakers assimilated to English in a process involving language shift and language death. The widespread bilingualism that must have existed during the process possibly contributed to the rate of borrowings from Norse into English.
Only about or Norse words, mainly connected with government and administration, history of english essay, are found in Old English writing. The borrowing of words of this type was stimulated by Scandinavian rule in the Danelaw and during the later reign of Cnut. However, history of english essay, most surviving Old English texts are based on the West Saxon standard that developed outside the Danelaw; it is not clear to what extent Norse influenced the forms of the language spoken in eastern and northern England at that time.
Later texts from the Middle English era, now based on history of english essay eastern Midland rather than a Wessex standard, history of english essay, reflect the significant impact that Norse had on the language.
In all, history of english essay, English borrowed about words from Old Norseseveral hundred surviving in Modern English. Norse borrowings include many very common words, such as angerbagbothhitlawlegsameskillsky history of english essay, takehistory of english essay, windowand even the pronoun they. Norse influence is also believed to have reinforced the adoption history of english essay the plural copular verb form are rather than alternative Old English forms like sind.
It is also considered to have stimulated and accelerated the morphological simplification found in Middle English, such as the loss of grammatical gender and explicitly marked case except in pronouns. The spread of phrasal verbs in English is another grammatical development to which Norse may have contributed although here a possible Celtic influence is also noted.
Middle English is the form of English spoken roughly from the time of the Norman Conquest in until the end of the 15th century. For centuries after the Conquest, the Norman kings and high-ranking nobles in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles spoke Anglo-Normana variety of Old Normanoriginating from a northern langue d'oïl dialect. Merchants and lower-ranked nobles were often bilingual in Anglo-Norman and English, whilst English continued to be the language of history of english essay common people.
Middle English was influenced by both Anglo-Norman, and later Anglo-French see characteristics of the Anglo-Norman language. Until the 14th century, Anglo-Norman and then French were the language of the courts and government.
Even after the decline of Norman, standard French retained the status of a formal or prestige languageand about 10, French and Norman loan words entered Middle English, history of english essay, particularly terms associated with government, church, law, the military, fashion, history of english essay food [15] see English language word origins and List of English words of French origin.
The strong influence of Old Norse on English described in the previous section also becomes apparent during this period. The impact of the native British Celtic languages that English continued to displace is generally held to be very small, although a few scholars have attributed some grammatical forms, such as periphrastic "do", to Celtic influence.
English literature began to reappear afterwhen a changing political climate and the decline in Anglo-Norman made it more respectable. The Provisions of Oxfordreleased inwas the first English government document to be published in the English language after the Norman Conquest. InEdward III became the first king to address Parliament in English. The Pleading in English Act made English the only language in which court proceedings could be held, though the history of english essay record remained in Latin.
Anglo-Norman remained in use in limited circles somewhat longer, but it had ceased to be a living language. Official documents began to be produced regularly in English during the 15th century. History of english essay Chaucerwho lived in the late 14th century, is the most famous writer from the Middle English period, and The Canterbury Tales is his best-known work. The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, history of english essay, both in vocabulary and pronunciation, and in grammar.
While Old English is a heavily inflected language syntheticthe use of grammatical endings diminished in Middle English analytic. Grammar distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were levelled to -e. The older plural noun marker -en retained in a few cases such as children and oxen largely gave way to -sand grammatical gender was discarded. Definite article þe appears aroundlater spelled as thefirst appearing in East and North England as a substitute for Old English se and seonominative forms of "that.
These letters remain in the modern Icelandic and Faroese alphabetshaving been borrowed from Old English via Old West Norse. English underwent extensive sound changes during the 15th century, while its spelling conventions remained largely constant.
Modern English is often dated from the Great Vowel Shiftwhich took place mainly during the 15th century. The language was further transformed by the spread of a standardized London-based dialect in government and administration and by the standardizing effect of printing, which also tended to regularize capitalization. As a result, history of english essay, the language acquired self-conscious terms such as "accent" and "dialect".
By the time of William Shakespeare mid 16th - early 17th century[24] the language had become clearly recognizable as Modern English. Inthe first English dictionary was published, A Table Alphabeticall. Increased literacy and travel facilitated the adoption of many foreign words, especially borrowings from Latin and Greek from the time of the Renaissance.
In the 17th century, Latin words were often used with their original inflections, but these eventually disappeared. As there are many words from different languages and English spelling is variable, the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, most notably in the West Country. During the period, loan words were borrowed from Italian, German, history of english essay, and Yiddish.
The Origin and Development of English Essay
, time: 28:15English History Essay | Bartleby
· —In his Essay Upon Projects, Daniel Defoe calls for the creation of an Academy of 36 "gentlemen" to dictate English usage. — The Daily Courant, the first regular daily newspaper in English, is published in London · English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain. Their language, now called Old English, originated as a group of Anglo-Frisian dialects which were spoken, at least by the settlers, in Engl · Title Slide of A brief history of english essay Slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website
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