ENGLISH LANGUAGE HISTORY Flashcards
What languages do we find in Britain before the coming of the Germanic tribes?
Roman and Celtic
What did the Germanic tribes bring with them in terms of language?
What was to become English
Where can we find celtic languages today?
In Wales we have welsh, In scotland we have scottish ?gaelic, in Irland we have irish gaelic, on the isle of man we had Manx (extinct), in cornwall (cornish) in Brittany (a part of France we had Breton)
Who were the celts
They arrived in Britain around 3000 years ago. Gave the name to the island. They spoke celtic. Took control over Britain and Ireland. Names such as Thames, Kent,London are celtic names.
Who were the Pikts?
The celts neighbours. They were not celts. The celts were able to keep the Pikts in the north.
Who were the Romans?
what language did they bring with them? when did they leave Britatin?
They ruled much of Europe up to that time and left Britain in 410. The latin came trugh the catholic church. They built roads introduced their culture and latin became the language that they used. They gave names to settlements and to places like Chester, Castor which goes back to a latin word for a military camp.
When does English officially start?
When the germanic tribes and their language reached the british isles in 449. The celtic kings invited the anglo saxons to help them fight the pikts and the remained on the island of britain.
Who where the germanic tribes?
The Franks, the Goths, the angles, the saxons, vandals and the lombards.
what do we we mean by the words; morphology, phonetics and phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
semantic (the rules for understanding the words), morphology, (words) phonetics and phonology( the structure of sounds) sentence (syntax) and appropriate use (pragmatics)
What happens to the Celts?
They are forced to the fringes of Britain. To the Norh, to the west, to the south east corner(wessex) adn some cross the channel to France, and some to Ireland. The Anglo-saxons give their new country the name of England. English is a Germanic language that absorbes the celtic elements. The celts become slaves and English is the language of those who survived the invasions
What are the external and internal changes ?
External changes: brought about by language contact between speakers of other languages, or issues of political or social identity. Social, economic, geograpichal, political and historical , migrations,
Internal change: May have to do with ease of articulation. Prinicipal of minimal effort. Or people stop using endings or inflections on verbs and nouns and start to rely on words such as of, for, the , and have.
When did the scandinavians raid Britain and what was the result in regards to the English language?
Between the 8 th and the 10 th century, as a result scandinavian everyday language greatly influenced English.
What happened in 1066? And what was the result in regards to the english language?
William of Normandy arrived and deafeated Harold during the battle of Hastings. French became the language of nobility.
Name the periods of English
Old English OE- 450-1150
Middle English ME- 1150-1500
Early Modern English-EMod -1500-1700
Modern English (ModE) 1700-now
What is the diffrence between OE and ME
OE has numerous endings on nouns and verbs, wheras ME uses more grammatical words such as prepositons, articles and Auxiliiaries.
