Origin and History of the English language

May 21, 2015 pvt.blog Uncategorized

The English language has come a long way: what began as a dialect of invading peoples was
enriched with the contribution of various cultures until it became the most important
language worldwide. Here is a review of this interesting story.

English in our days

English is a Germanic language of the Indo-European family. Today it is the second most
spoken language in the world after Chinese. However, English is the most widespread
language worldwide and is on its way to becoming the universal language. Here are some of
the reasons that explain this supremacy over other languages such as French, Spanish and
Arabic:

 It is the official or co-official language in more than 45 countries.

 Half of all business agreements are carried out in English.
 Two-thirds of scientific studies are written in English.
 More than 70% of all emails are written and addressed in English.
 It is the language par excellence of science today: computing.
 Most international tourism, aviation and diplomacy are conducted in English.
 Furthermore, English is present in the cultural, social, political and economic life of
most countries in the world.

As an interesting fact, we can mention that more people who speak English live in China
than in the United States.

Origin and History

The history of English can be described from the arrival of three Germanic tribes to the
British Isles in the years 500 BC The Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the North Sea from
what we now know as Denmark and northern Germany. The Angles received that name
because of their land of origin Engle or Angels. They called their own language Englisc, a
word that derived from English or English.

Before the arrival of the Germanic tribes, the inhabitants of Great Britain spoke a language
of Celtic origin. These people were forced to move towards Wales, Cornwall and Scotland,
which is why the Celta was quickly displaced. A group emigrated to the coast of French
Brittany, where their descendants, even today, speak the Breton language, of Celtic origin.

The oldest written specimen of the English language is an Anglo-Saxon inscription dating
between 450 and 480 BC. During the following centuries, and as the Germanic tribes
expanded throughout the country, four dialects developed:

 Northumbrian in Northumbria, north of the River Humber

 Mercian in the kingdom of Mercia, in the central part of present-day England.
 West Saxon in the kingdom of Wessex, in the southwestern part.
 Kentish in Kent, in the far south east.

During the 700s and 800s, Northumbrian culture and language dominated Britain. The
Viking invasions in the 900s put an end to that domination, and also brought about the
destruction of Mercia. Only Wessex remained an independent kingdom.

By the 10th century, the West Saxon dialect became the official language of Britain. There
are samples of Old English dating from this period and are mostly written using the Runic
alphabet, which originated in the Scandinavian languages.

The Latin alphabet was brought by Christian missionaries from Ireland and is still the
English writing system today.

The Old English vocabulary consisted of a mixture of Anglo-Saxon words with words
borrowed from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norwegian) and Latin. Thus, Latin
introduced to English words such as street, kitchen, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, among
others. The Vikings, for their part, added Norwegian words such as: sky, egg, skin, window,
husband, skill, odd, get, give (give), take (take), call (call). Celtic words still exist, mainly in
the names of places and rivers (Devon, Dover, Kent, Trent, Severn, Avon, Thames).

Many word pairs in English and Norwegian coexist giving us two words with the same or
similar meaning. Examples of this:

Norwegian English
Anger Wrath
Nay No
Fro From
Ill Sick
Dyke Ditch
Skirt Shirt

In 1066 the Normans conquered Britain. French became the language of the Norman
aristocracy and consequently more words were added to English. More similar word pairs
emerged:

French English
Close Shut
Reply Answer
Annual Yearly
Demand Ask
Desire Wish
Ire wrath / anger

Because English servants cooked for the Norman nobility, the names of most domestic
animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer), while the names of the meats
obtained from these animals They are of French origin (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon,
venison).

Eventually, the Germanic form of plurals (house, housen; shoe, shoen), was displaced by the
French way of creating plurals: adding an “s” to the end of words (house, houses; shoe,
shoes). Only in some cases has the Germanic form of the plural been preserved: men, oxen,
feet, teeth, children.
The French influence also affected writing, so that the “cw” sound became written as “qu”
(thus, “cween” became written as “queen”).

It was not until the 14th century that English again became the dominant language in
Britain. In 1399, Henry IV became the first king of England, since the Norman Conquest,
whose native language was English. By this time, the London dialect had emerged as the
standard dialect of what is now called Middle English, or Medieval English.

During the last years of the medieval period and the first of the modern period (15th to 17th
centuries), a continuous process of standardization of the English language was observed in
the territory that extends south of the border with Scotland. The language spoken and
written in London (The London Standard) continued to evolve, spreading its use among the
upper sectors of society, especially in formal contexts. The other regional varieties were
displaced, under the stigma that they indicated a lack of social prestige and education.

In 1476, William Caxton introduced the first printing machine to England and through this
new medium, the London Standard spread its influence throughout the country. Books
became more affordable for the common population and literacy spread. Works in English
became more common, while the opposite was true for works in Latin. Standards of writing
and grammar were established and, in 1604, the first dictionary of the English language was
published.

It is from this period that the English language begins to take shape and resemble
something like the language spoken today. Although the word order and sentence
construction was still slightly different, this early version of Modern English would have
been understood by the Old English speaker. For example, the Old English phrase “To us
pleases sailing” became “We like sailing.” Classical elements, from Greek and Latin, deeply
influenced the creation and origin of new words. Early Modern English borrowed from Greek
words such as grammar, logic, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy.

Starting in the 16th century, the expansion of the British Empire, together with the
Renaissance, brought with it many words of foreign origin that were incorporated into
English, directly or indirectly. New words were created at an increasingly intense pace.

The number of words from other languages incorporated into the English language is
enormous, but the heart of the language is in the Anglo-Saxon core of Old English.
Around 5,000 words from this time remain unchanged. Among these words we have the
bases on which language is built: words of domestic use, parts of the body, names of
common animals, names of natural elements and phenomena, most of the pronouns,
prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs.

Sources consulted:
· Crystal, David, “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language” Cambridge
University Press: (1997)
· Katsiavriades, Kryss & Qureshi, Talaat, “The Origin and History of the English Language”
The Kryss Tal Website: (1997, 2002)
· Waters, Jen, “Whither English?” The Washington Times: (Sept. 16, 2004 )
http://www.privateacher.edu.pe/blog/?p=47

Under this criterion, most archaeologists agree that Sumerian is the oldest language
in the world. Their writing, called cuneiform , dates back to about 3200 BC. c. while
the first Egyptian hieroglyphs date to around 3100 BC. c.
The oldest language with a continuous written tradition is Chinese ; oracle writing on
bone 甲骨文 jiǎgǔwén (under the 商 Sh ā ng dynasty ) dates back to 1400 BC. C., and
the descendants of that writing still exist.
Abjad , the consonantal alphabet of several Semitic languages , was invented around
1500 BC. c.

The English language was born thanks to the Germanic invaders who arrived in the British Isles
from what is currently northwest Germany and the Netherlands.

(misnamed Holland) which is a mere province of this European kingdom), in addition to those in
southern Denmark. At first, this language was made up of a set of dialects, among which West
Saxon stood out. To it had to be added many other profound influences, coming, above all, from
Scandinavian conquerors (in the northern and eastern part of England, where they constituted a
Danelagh or Danelaw since their laws prevailed over the Anglo-Saxon ones). To these migrations
we must add the Germanic ones and especially the Normans who arrived in Britain between the
8th and 11th centuries. Hence, it can be assured that current English is, in reality, a conglomerate
of influences from Scandinavia and continental Europe. Especially from France. All these
migrations caused the extinction of the ancient Celtic languages and the Latin that was spoken in
some cities.

It is true that English, in its oldest phases, incorporated words from the original Celtic dialects of
Britain, which still remain in places like Scotland and Wales; as well as Latin, the official language
of the Roman Empire, which had Britain as one of its provinces. It should not be forgotten that
Romanization had a great influence in the province of Britannia, but it is also necessary to go back
more than 3,500 years to know when all these expressions were incorporated into English. Of the
ancient native Celtic languages, only Welsh remains, as Cornish disappeared in the 20th century.

https://pangeanic.es/knowledge/breve-historia-del-idioma-ingles/

English is the third language in the world in number of speakers who have it as their mother
tongue (between 300 and 400 million people)18, as well as the third most spoken, behind
Mandarin and Spanish,19 if you count also to those who have it as a second language, which is 200
million more people.

English, as England spread its language throughout the world (British Empire), and as the United
States of America became the greatest economic and military power, has become the de facto
lingua franca of our days.

Despite the existence of other international languages and planned international languages, such
as Esperanto or Interlingua, which are neutral lingua francas although with fewer speakers, English
is today the main language of international communication. This is due to the predominance of
the dominant civilization, which generally does not adopt another language, but, on the contrary,
imposes its own with the privileges it entails in front of 96% of the world's population today. For a
similar reason, many European countries speak languages derived from Latin, which was the
official language of the Roman Empire. And because of these trends, especially the intellectual
elites went from Latin to French, then to English after the end of the Second World War in
September 1945 and it is expected that English will decline in the following decades compared to
other languages such as Spanish, Arabic or Mandarin Chinese, among others.20

Currently there are millions of people who also use a neutral auxiliary language as an alternative,
simple by design and not conditioned to changes in world powers. However, according to the Grin
Report, which concludes that the use of Esperanto would be the best solution in the medium and
long term for the European Union and its citizens, it is true that in the short term it would involve
an investment or expense in information campaigns and changes of the teaching and learning
process.21

origins

English descends from the language spoken by the Germanic tribes who migrated from the coasts
of the North Sea, in what are now the Netherlands, northern Germany and part of Denmark, to
the British Isles - a territory the same size as the which would end up being called England
(Englaland 'land of the Angles')—. Among the tribes that migrated, there were contingents of
Angles, Frisians, Jutes and Saxons. Their language is called Old Anglo-Saxon.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, king of the British Isles,
extended an invitation to some Angles led by Hengest and Horsa to help him against the Picts. In
exchange, the Anglo-Saxons would be granted land in the southeast. More help was sought, and
Angles, Saxons and Jutes came in response. The chronicle documents the subsequent arrival of
"settlers", who eventually formed seven kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Essex,
Sussex and Wessex. However, in the view of most modern scholars, this Anglo-Saxon story is
legendary and politically motivated.

Old English

Main article: Anglo-Saxon language

Beowulf, written in Old English.

These Germanic invaders dominated the native Celtic-British and Latin-speaking inhabitants. The
languages spoken by these Germanic invaders formed what would be called Old English, which
was a language related to Old Frisian. Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) was heavily influenced
by another Germanic dialect, Old Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in northeastern
Britain. The English words English and England are derived from words that referred to the Angles:
englisc and England. However, Old English was not a unified language common to the entire
island, but mainly four dialects were distinguished: Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentic and West
Saxon.

From a grammatical point of view, Old English has many typological similarities with ancient Indo-
European languages, such as Latin or Greek, and also modern German. Among these similarities
are the presence of morphological case in the name and the difference in grammatical gender. The
verbal system was synthetic in nature unlike modern English, which uses more verbal periphrasis
and auxiliary verbs.

Intermediate English

Middle English of the 14th and 15th centuries presents important typological changes with respect
to Old English. Middle English is typologically closer to Modern English and the Romance
languages than Old English. The main difference between Middle English and Modern English is
pronunciation. In particular, the great vowel shift extensively modified the vowel inventory,
producing diphthongs from numerous long vowels and changing the degree of openness of many
monophthongs. The influence of the French-speaking Norman nobility, who arrived on the island
around this time, also left effects on the lexicon of Middle English, which are still preserved today.
This gives rise, for example, to the distinction between pig (pig) and pork (pork), the first being of
German origin and the second of French origin (the lower classes raised pigs that became pork for
the upper classes ).

Starting in the 18th century, the pronunciation of English was already very similar to that of
modern English. And from that time on, most of the phonetic changes that today are the basis of
modern dialects began to occur.

Early Modern English

Main article: Early Modern English

Early Modern English is the ancient form of current English, as a variant of the Anglo-Saxon
language and Middle English in particular that was practiced until then. This is the English that was
primarily spoken during the Renaissance, and most commonly associated with the literary
language of William Shakespeare.22
Chronologically it is situated between the 16th and 18th centuries (between approximately 1450
and 1700) in the areas populated by the Anglo-Normans. It was consolidated largely due to the
rise of British literature in that historical period and the contributions of foreign languages.

It is considered the most evolutionary phase and closest to current English.

Geographical distribution

See also: Annex: Countries where English is the official language and British Empire.

Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language. English today is probably
the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.
However, when native and non-native speakers are combined, it is surely the most spoken
language in the world, although possibly second, counting a combination of the various Chinese
languages (depending on whether distinctions in the latter are classified as "languages" or
"dialects").2324

Estimates that count it as a second language vary greatly, between 470 million to more than one
billion, depending on how literacy or proficiency is defined and the different levels.2526 Linguistics
professor David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers They are more numerous than native
speakers in a proportion of 3 to 1.27

The countries with the largest population of native English speakers are, in descending order: the
United States (226 million),28 the United Kingdom (61 million),29 Canada (18.2 million),30
Australia (15. 5 million),31 Nigeria (4 million),32 Ireland (3.8 million),29 South Africa (3.7
million),33 and New Zealand (3.6 million) in the 2006 Census.34

Countries such as the Philippines, Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of native speakers of
creole dialect forms ranging from a creole with some English basis to a more standard version of
English. Of the countries where English is spoken as a second language, India has the largest
number of such speakers (see English ind

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idioma_ingl%C3%A9s

ENGLISH WORLDWIDE
It seems that the command of the English language in Colombia is not improving.
According to EF Education First's 2018 global second language proficiency ranking, the
country went from 51st in 2017 to 60th in 2018.

In addition to this, the study revealed that in Colombia men predominate in the use of the
language with a score of 49.24 compared to 48.65 points for women. It is worth mentioning
that worldwide it is women who lead with a score of 54.57.

(Read: How difficult is it to learn English? )

“The study provides a comprehensive and close look at the level of language use in the
workplace, as well as scores by industry type, seniority and job function. In addition, it
presents an innovation in the correlation of data that allows us to determine that societies
where English is spoken are more open and egalitarian, as well as countries with a greater
command of it obtain better productivity rates," said Catalina Arteaga, general manager.
from EF Colombia.

The ranking is carried out thanks to the test scores of the EF Standard English Test (EF
SET), the first free standardized English test in the world carried out by the company and
which is used by thousands of schools, companies and governments around the world.
world for large-scale testing.

(Read: The challenges that Colombia has to improve English proficiency )

Another of the findings of the study is that Bogotá is the city in the country with the best
rating, with a score of 54.25, followed by Bucaramanga (51.01), Cali (50.61), Medellín
(50.18), Barranquilla ( 49.37) and Cartagena (46.71).

At the regional level, Valle del Cauca has the best score with 49.96 points, followed by
Santander (49.90) and Antioquia (49.54).

“Working for better economic and educational equity in Colombia, in addition to reducing
levels of insecurity and violence in the country, will allow government entities to redouble
their efforts to facilitate children and young people's access to education, with an important
focus in the development of competencies regarding the mastery of the English language as
a foreign language in basic, secondary and higher education,” adds Arteaga.

Globally, Sweden and Holland are the best-rated countries in English language proficiency.
The results for Latin America generally showed a slight decrease in the mastery of this
language, however the region is the most homogeneous in the study since there are only
eleven points of difference between the first country in the region (Argentina) and the last
(Venezuela). ).
https://www.portafolio.co/economia/colombia-mantiene-un-nivel-bajo-en-el-dominio-del-
ingles-523167

The challenges regarding bilingualism in Colombia are enormous: the level of English of

students is relatively low; This is demonstrated by the results associated with

their performance in the English test of the state exams. These results are

consistent with those of S´anchez-Jabba (2012) and MEN (2005), where it was estimated
that

a very small proportion of Colombian students can be classified

as bilinguals.

Among high school graduates, the results are particularly worrying, since more

90% does not exceed the level corresponding to that of a basic user (A-, A1 or A2).

For their part, higher education students, particularly university students, have a better level
of English, although they are still far from the ranges

expected by the MEN. In that sense, the fact that the baseline does not show a

good performance on the English test leads one to think that the goals proposed by

the MEN for 2019 are ambitious, since the objectives have not yet been met

and the trends that have been presented are characterized by showing little progress

significant in the English level of the students.

This situation not only compromises the students, but also occurs among English teachers,
since only 25% of the latter reach the

expected level in the tests. In that order of ideas, the results obtained by the students are not
surprising, since the quality of the teachers has a

significant impact on their academic performance. The qualitative deficit in

supply of English teachers is evident from their passage through higher education

and the baccalaureate, since the students of the bachelor's program in English

do not present the expected performance in the English area of the Saber Pro test

and, before that, in the Saber 11 test as high school students. This situation

indicates that high school graduates with a comparatively high level of English do not enter

31
to English degree programs, a factor that negatively affects the quality

teacher. The above is because this profession is unattractive from the point of view of

economically, due to their comparatively low remuneration, which could

explain the quantitative deficit in the supply of qualified English teachers.

To make up for the deficit in supply, it is recommended that educational policies aimed at
improving the level of English focus mainly on teachers. Specifically, those who do not
have the linguistic skills must be trained

required for your job. Likewise, incentives must be generated that promote

the inclusion, to the teaching profession, of individuals who reach high levels from school

of English. One way to achieve the latter could consist of modifying the

teacher remuneration, implementing salary schemes that take into account achievements

of the teaching staff, as has been done in other countries, so that there are incentives

for highly skilled individuals to enter. This is consistent with what was suggested

by Barrera et al. (2012), who propose the allocation of specific resources to

the bonus for teachers, which allow them to have a remuneration determined by their effort
and their performance in the evaluations. Likewise, it is crucial

strengthen the degree programs in English currently offered in the country,

since, as was seen in this study, these programs do not have the standards

academics required to train highly qualified English teachers.

The recommendations of this study are not far from the objectives of the PNB,

since one of its main lines of action consists of teacher training.

Nor are they distant from those of Mej´ía (2009), who warns of the need to train and
provide greater support to English teachers in basic education, who

They are the ones that show the worst results in diagnostic tests. In essence, it is necessary
to strengthen the GNP to achieve a greater degree of bilingualism in

Colombia, concentrating efforts through the existing institutions. For

This requires that this program have a greater impact and reach, because although it has
brought together important efforts, the advances in the issue of bilingualism have been

limited, which is reflected in the students' performance on the English test.

32