The story of English--from its start in a jumble of West Germanic dialects to its role today as aglobal language--is both fascinating and complex. This timeline offers a glimpse at some of the key events that helped to shape the English language over the past 1,500 years. To learn more about the ways that English evolved in Britain and then spread around the world, check out one of the fine histories listed in the bibliography at the end of page three.…
A well-known musician once said, “ Realistically, English is a universal language; it’s the number one language…for communicating with the rest of the world.” English is the most widely used language in the history of the world. In 2015, there were sixty-seven sovereign states and twenty-seven non-sovereign entities where English was an official language. Additionally, many country’s subdivisions have declared English an official language at the local or regional level. Despite being the most widely used language in the world, English varies from country to country, and even from region to region! Each variety of English has its own set of rules and guidelines, as a result, a universal standard had to be proposed (The History of English: Origins…
Throughout the years the Saxons, Angels, and Jutes mixed their different languages together which resulted in what is called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. Old English is very hard to understand and only a few experts can understand it this earliest form of English. About 1,100 years ago the next invasion came from a people called the Vikings. They came from Denmark, Norway, and other northern countries and they raided the coast areas of Britain looking for valuables like slaves and traded goods. Some Viking areas became so powerful that they started to build temporary bases and they eventually became permanent. Later, the Vikings stayed in Britain and many of the English words such as “sky”, “leg”, “skull”, “egg”, “lift”, and “crawl” came from the ancient Vikings and are also from the old languages of the far northern countries. More than 900 years ago, in 1066, the next invasion took place and history experts call it the invasion of Norman Conquest. This conquest was led by William the conqueror. The Normans were French speakers from Normandy in the north of France and became rulers over Britain. These rulers only spoke French for several hundred years and at that time it was…
It was about time for me to read another non-fiction book. This is an irreverant and often-humorous look at the history and quirks of the English language, covering both British and American English and the distinctions between them (and touching briefly on Australian as well).…
No one denies the importance of the English language in the present time as a global language. It is clear that the English language has become very dominant around the world. This is one reason among many other reasons why I would like to do Year 11 Extension English in my senior years. English has become an important part of my life as I use it every day through many mediums, for example socialising or communicating. The advantage of learning the universal language of English has offered me those opportunities and many more. This is because English is the language of the modern era, where many people use it in various fields of life such as political, business or travel.…
The English language is the most widespread language in the world spanning every continent and extending to almost every nook and corner across the globe. From its humble beginnings as an Anglo-Saxon language it has become a vibrant language embracing and absorbing words and phrases from many foreign languages and this has gained wide popularity. However, greatly influenced by a large number of contributions from poets, playwrights, novelists and writers of various prose forms of the English language.…
English is the most widely used universal language in the world and so it is no surprise that there will be many external influences from other languages. It continues to change and evolve as the years go on. There are many external influences that effects how language changes. An individual can choose if they want to follow the influences or choose to stick to what is to be believed as Standard English.…
Today the English language is widely spoken throughout the world. It is the language of 21st century the language of informative technologies, so while describing the English language; first of all it should be underlined that the English language is the mother tongue of the global media. To understand English clearly one should know not only its standard vocabulary but also its different styles, dialects, proverbs, sayings, phrasal verbs and idioms, as they are used in any sphere: books, films, newspapers, formal speeches. One, looking through some papers, magazines and journals, will discover the same language to sound quite different, because he will find familiar words with unfamiliar meanings. He will face idioms, phrasal verbs etc.…
English has become the first `truly global language` (McCrum et al., 2002, p.9). As a result of advances in technology and transport, varieties of English have spread throughout the world. This internationalisation has been described by Shreeve as an `identified phenomenon` (1999, p.1). English now underpins the lives and cultures of a broad spectrum of people, with one in four people in the world now fluent users of English (Crystal, 2002, p.10).…
The English Language is Rich in its history. Studying the events that formed our language is vital to understand not only why we speak the way we do, but it also enables us to understand who we are. It comprises French, Latin, German, Norse, and a few lesser known tongues. Before there was written English, our texts were primarily written in Latin, and were reserved to be read by only the Pious and Royal. We also have historical landmarks such as Stonehenge that can guide us in understanding our English heritage. The language we speak today was formed only after Centuries of fierce battling, governments being overthrown, and a period of time known as the Dark Ages. During this time, the language began as Old English. Later it was simplified into Middle English and finally refined into Modern English.…
English Language is one of the oldest Languages in the world. To become what it is today it has been through a series of changes in the course of history.…
It is undeniable that English is beginning to become a global language in most parts of the world by and large. It is spoken frequently especially in developed countries for instance The United States of America and The Republic of China. This is an inescapable process of globalisation. However, according to many experts in linguistics, English is dominating today’s modern world and thus, disregard mostly minority languages. Therefore, it is essential to consider both arguments including the history of how English gradually become dominant up to the present time, its’ significance for the international community and how the number of world population affects the widespread of English along with the negative impact of its’ dominance on minority languages of which linguists are aware of.…
Around A.D. 850, Vikings or Norsemen made a significant impact on the English language by importing many North Germanic words into the language. From the middle of the ninth century, large numbers of Norse invaders settled in Britain, especially in the northern and eastern areas and, in the eleventh century, a Danish (Norse) King, Canute, ruled England. The North Germanic speech of the Norsemen had a fundamental influence on English. They added basic words such as “that,” “they,” and “them,” and also may have been responsible for some of the morphological simplification of Old English, including the loss of grammatical gender and cases (Bragg 2003).…
Historically, English originated from the fusion of closely related dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic settlers (Anglo-Saxons) by the 5th century; the word English is simply the modern spelling of englisc, the name of the Angles[14] and Saxons for their language, after the Angles’ ancestral region of Angeln (in what is now Schleswig-Holstein). The language was also influenced early on by the Old Norse language through Viking…
As we know that we are living in the world of globalization. English language is common language and is spoken in many countries. It is considered as universal language. Most of the universities worldwide include English as one of their major subject.…