An example of Middle English by Chaucer public domain. Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation the Great Vowel Shift started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter.
From the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard.
In the first English dictionary was published. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries. From around , the English colonization of North America resulted in the creation of a distinct American variety of English.
Some English pronunciations and words "froze" when they reached America. Home Blog Old English—an overview. Old English is the name given to the earliest recorded stage of the English language, up to approximately AD when the Middle English period is generally taken to have begun.
It refers to the language as it was used in the long period of time from the coming of Germanic invaders and settlers to Britain—in the period following the collapse of Roman Britain in the early fifth century—up to the Norman Conquest of , and beyond into the first century of Norman rule in England. It is thus first and foremost the language of the people normally referred to by historians as the Anglo-Saxons.
On the history of the terms see Old English n. Before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, the majority of the population of Britain spoke Celtic languages.
In Roman Britain, Latin had been in extensive use as the language of government and the military and probably also in other functions, especially in urban areas and among the upper echelons of society. However, it is uncertain how much Latin remained in use in the post-Roman period. During the course of the next several hundred years, gradually more and more of the territory in the area, later to be known as England, came under Anglo-Saxon control.
On the history of the name, see England n. Precisely what fate befell the majority of the Romano- British population in these areas is a matter of much debate.
Certainly very few words were borrowed into English from Celtic it is uncertain whether there may have been more influence in some areas of grammar and pronunciation , and practically all of the Latin borrowings found in Old English could be explained as having been borrowed either on the continent i.
The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, which began in the late sixth century and was largely complete by the late seventh century, was an event of huge cultural importance. One of its many areas of impact was the introduction of writing extensive texts in the Roman alphabet on parchment as opposed to inscribing very short inscriptions on wood, bone, or stone in runic characters.
Nearly all of our surviving documentary evidence for Old English is mediated through the Church, and the impress of the literary culture of Latin Christianity is deep on nearly everything that survives written in Old English. Conflict and interaction with raiders and settlers of Scandinavian origin is a central theme in Anglo-Saxon history essentially from the time of the first recorded raids in the late eighth century onwards.
However, the linguistic impact of this contact is mainly evident only in the Middle English period. Likewise, the cataclysmic political events of the Norman Conquest took some time to show their full impact on the English language. In grammar, Old English is chiefly distinguished from later stages in the history of English by greater use of a larger set of inflections in verbs, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, and also connected with this by a rather less fixed word order; it also preserves grammatical gender in nouns and adjectives.
Thunder comes from heat and from moisture. The air draws the moisture to it from below and the heat from above. For another example of gender agreement, look at the pronoun hire i. In vocabulary, Old English is much more homogeneous than later stages in the history of English. Some borrowings from Latin date back to before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain i. However, words borrowed from Latin or from other languages make up only a tiny percentage of the vocabulary of Old English, and the major influx of words from French and from Latin belongs to the Middle English period and later.
There are also numerous loan translations and semantic loans from Latin in Old English, reflecting the influence of Latin on the language of religion and learning. Some Old English words of Latin origin that have survived into modern English include belt, butter , chalk, chest, cup, fan, fork, mile, minster , mint, monk, pepper , school, sock , strop, wine. Some borrowing from early Scandinavian is attested in later Old English, but again the major impact of contact with Scandinavian settlers becomes evident only in Middle English.
There is also a great deal of continuity between Old English and later stages in the history of the language. A great deal of the core vocabulary of modern English goes back to Old English, including most of the words most frequently used today. For a very few examples see I pron. The pronunciation of e. It is very difficult to say when Old English began, because this pushes us back beyond the date of our earliest records for either Old English or any of its closest relatives with the exception of very occasional inscriptions and the evidence of words and names occurring in Latin or in other languages.
Some other material was certainly composed before , but survives only in later copies. OpenLearn works with other organisations by providing free courses and resources that support our mission of opening up educational opportunities to more people in more places. All rights reserved. The Open University is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to its secondary activity of credit broking. Skip to content Study with The Open University.
Search for free courses, interactives, videos and more! Free Learning from The Open University. Featured content. Free courses. All content. How and why has English changed over time? Pig in the New Forest [Image: BinaryApe under CC-BY licence] The borrowed words came to signify only the meat of these animals, mainly eaten by wealthier French speakers, whereas the words inherited from OE came to refer only to the living animals.
More free resources on the English Language Copyrighted Image. Used with permission. Video Level: 1 Introductory. Exploring the English language How has the English language changed over the course of the last years? Learn more Exploring the English language. Free course 9 hours Level: 2 Intermediate. Become an OU student. Copyright information. Publication details Originally published : Friday, 8th July Last updated on : Friday, 1st March Leave a comment.
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