The history of the nucleation of the English language. How did English appear: on Hiera Dagum Hengest and Horsa Gesohton Bretene

We offer you to plunge into the fascinating world of the history of the English language! The British Islands, located on the rest of the other European countries, were conquered by many empires and tribes. This is explained by the diversity, beauty and complexity of learning English. Below we will tell you.

Staroangali (450-1100 years N.E.)

The birth of the language begins in the 5th century, when in Britain, whose population consisted of Celts and the Romans, invaded Germanic Saxons, Angles, Utah. The invaders pushed out the population of Britain to the Northwestern regions, to the territory of modern Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The influence of the German tribes was the impetus to the eradication of Latin and Celtic languages. Mix of Celtic and Germanic languages \u200b\u200bgave rise to ancient'Glish language (Old English).

Interesting fact NO1: Old English language has a small percentage of similarity with modern English known to us. To date, the English dictionary contains the words of the period, for example:

  • indexing pronouns: these, those, etc.;
  • geographical names: London, Thames (Thames);
  • comparison degrees: Biggest, Greatest;
  • partially preserved words, for example: Strong, Water, School, Rose, Art, Parliament.

Interesting fact NO2: During this period, the part of the speech was inclined for cases and shared the male, female and medium. There was also a lining on persons, numbers, inclinations.

Interesting fact NO3: It was during the capture period, Britain was renamed "Engla-Land", and the language of the angles was named "englisc". These names were adapted to the famous "England" (England) and "English" (English).

Interesting fact NO4: True coil language can be heard in Wales.

Mid-Indianglian (1100-1500 years N.E.)

Christianity was actively popular, in view of which the borrowing of Latin vocabulary began. Universal Christianization inhabited, directed by Pope Gregoryee became the impetus to the replenishment of the vocabular.

This stage was completed by the invasion of the norms in the face of Wilhelm's conqueror. Normandy, as part of France, brought with him french And he served the origin of the Anglo-Norman lawlessness.

In view of the decline in political forces, the use of Norman lawlessness has not gained popularity. After that, in the 14th century, the popularization of the Middle English has reached its apogee. This language was tongue the greatest poet Jeffrey Chosera. We advise you to get acquainted with his work, you will make sure that the Middle English language has already been similar to modern English.

Words borrowed from French speech and remaining in English: Beauty (beauty), Art (art), Poet (Poet), Parliament (Parliament) and many others.

The words of the Latin language, which are used to this day: Genius (genius), History (history) and many others.

Interesting fact NO5: French has become popular in the highest layers of the British society. However, the overwhelming majority of ordinary population used English.

Interesting fact NO6: The Mid-Galia Stage also describes the influence of Scandinavian and Slavic languages.

Rannenovoangali (1500-1800)

To the completion of the Midgangalian period, vowel sounds suddenly and rapidly began to decline. Thanks to the active contact of the British Empire with foreign world (16th century), many new foreign words appeared. In this important period for Britain, a typography was invented. The gradder has become available to all sectors of society.

Printed publications allowed English to gain installed standards, fix the rules in grammar and spelling.

All the well-known Shakespiest monologue "be or not to be" inherent in the early banking period.

If you are somehow familiar with English, then you will notice similarity with the language you use.

In the 1600s, grammatical and spellotographic standards were recorded, a London dialect was taken as the basis.

This period is characterized by the emergence of the mass of new words. The impetus for the establishment of a well-known modern English language served as an industrial revolution, as well as the fact that the Empire of Britain covered more than a quarter of the entire planet. The late English period accounts for global borrowing of foreign words.

Britain's exit to the world arena brought the English language to the replenishment in the form of a multitude of words from Arabic, Turkish and a number of European languages: Atmosphere (atmosphere), Macaroni (pasta), Coffee (coffee), Tomato (tomatoes), Tobacco (tobacco).

The industrial revolution served the emergence of all familiar words: Biology (biology), Bacterium (microbe), Chromosome (chromosome).

Interesting fact NO7: At the beginning of the 1600s, the first dictionary of English appeared on the market.

Modern English and its varieties

The most important thing you need to know about modern English is that now there are two largest dialects - British and American.

Interesting fact NO8: The American dialect appeared due to the colonization of North America by the British.

There are also Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Indian and many other English dialects.

To date, about 2 billion people speak English, in 67 countries English is a state language.

Despite such a long history of the formation and development of English - it develops to this day, choosing Slang and Jargon. English tagged with modern trees.

English proficiency is a cherished key to a career success and to achieve heights in life. Regardless of your goal, English will become a companion of your life, opening the doors to new features!

We hope that we were able to answer your main question: « How did English happen?" We wish you good luck in learning the most popular language in the world!

The history of English, many philologists and linguists divide for three periods: the Old English, Mizhneangalian and Novoangali. However, the division is quite conditional, because the language existed at the tribes inhabited by the British Islands, long before the conquest of Britain Caesar or distribution in the territory of the country of Christianity.

Celtic culture at the origins of the history of the English language

The first mentions in the ancient chronicles about residents who inhabited the British Islands belong to 800 BC. At this time, the tribe of the Indo-European People - Celts is moved to the island. Those tribes that lived on the islands before the arrival of the Celtic people did not leave any traces in history.

From 800 to AD. The era of British Celts begins and, accordingly, Celtic language in Britain. Many linguists adhere to the opinion that the word "Britain" comes from the word with the Celtic root - Brith "painted". In the chronicles, you can find a mention that the Celts really painted their faces and bodies when they were going to war or hunting. There are mention in the chronicles that the British Celts already at the time of conquesting the British Island of Great Caesar had a developed culture. Patriarchate flourished in tribes. Men had 8-10 wives. Children were brought up by women until a certain age, then the boys passed under the guardianship men who taught them to hunt and own weapons.

Also in the chronicles mention that the British Celts spoke on a special adverb.

And the words like Whiskey, Plaid, Slogan fell into English much later from Celtic languages, which were widespread during that period: Whiskey (Irl. UISCE BEATHADH "Live Water"), Slogan (from Scottish Sluagh-Ghairm "Martial Cry ").

The influence of the Roman Empire on the Development of English

After a century after the conquest of the British Islands, Caesar, in 44 BC The British Islands visited the Roman emperor Claudius, after which Britain began to be considered the Roman province. During this period, there is a close communion of the Celtic people and Romans, which, of course, was reflected in the language.

So, many words in modern English have Latin roots. For example, the word Castra (from the lat. "Camp"). This root is found in many geographical names Modern Britain - Lancaster, Manchester, Leicester.

There are also common words as Street "Street" (from the Latin expression Via Strata "Powered Road") and Wall "Wall" (from Vallum "Shaft").

There are many noun names of nouns borrowed from Latin: Wine "Wine" - from Lat. Vinum "Wine"; Pear "Pear" - from Lat. Pirum "Pear"; Pepper "Pepper" - from Lat. riper.

Old English Period (450 - 1066 g) in the history of English

The direct progenitors of the English people are the German tribes of Saxz, Yutov, Angles and friezes, which have entered the territory of Britain in 449. Since in numbers, these tribes were far exceeded Celtic, then gradually the Anglo-Saxon adverb fully displaced the Celtic adverb.

Thanks to the Anglo-Saxon tribes in English, many names appeared geographic objectsI have survived to this day. Also, words like Butter, Pound, Cheese, Alum, Silk, Inch, Shalk, Mile, Mint - have a communal roots borrowed from Latin. Or the word saturday is deciphered as "Saturn Day" - the father of God Jupiter in ancient Roman mythology.

In 597, N.E. Universal Christianization of Britain begins. Before that, the tribes of Anglo-Saxes were pagans. The Roman Church sent the Island of the monk Augustine, which the appeal of Anglo-Saxons in Christianity gradually began the diplomatic paths. The activities of Augustine and his followers brought tangible results: by the beginning of 700 AD. A significant part of the population of the British Islands professed Christianity.

Such a close fusion of cultures has been reflected in the language. There were many words that were borrowed at this time. For example, School "School" - from Lat. Schola "School", Bishop "Bishop" - from Lat. Episcopus "Watching", Mount "Mountain" - from Lat. Montis (Rod. Pad.) Mountain, PEA "Pea" - from Lat. Pisum "Pea", Priest "Priest" - from Lat. PRESBYTER "Presbyter".

According to approximate estimates of the lingules in this era, English borrowed from Latin more than 6 hundred words, not counting derivatives from them. These are mainly words related to religion, church, as well as to government management.

By this time, the Creativity of the Honorable (Beda Venerabilis), the first English historian and the enlightement, which was the first to translate the Gospel with Latin to Anglo-Saxon. The activities of the trouble presented a significant impact on the development of the language and is an important step in the history of the English language.

The influence of the Scandinavian group of languages

In 878, the conquest of the Anglo-Saxon Land Danes begins. For many years, Danes lived on the lands of Britain, married with representatives of Anglo-Saxons. As a result, a number of borrowing from Scandinavian languages \u200b\u200bappeared in English. For example, AMISS "is wrong", Anger "Anger", Auk "Gagarka", AWE "reverent fear", Axle "Axle", Aye "always".

The letterproof SK or SC- at the beginning of the word in modern English is also very often the indicator that the word is Scandinavian borrowing. For example, SKY "Sky" (with bench-English Heaven), Skin "Leather" (with the original English Hide "skin"), Skull "Skull" (with the original English shell "shell; shell").

Medium Glitenal Period (1066-1500) English History

English language development in the Middle Ages

In the middle of the XI century, residents of Northern France conquer Britain. The king becomes Wilhelm the conqueror, by origin Norman. From this time, the era of three languages \u200b\u200bbegins in the history of the people. The language of the aristocracy, the courts became French, the language of science remained Latin, and simple people continued to speak in Anglo-Saxon. It is the mixture of these three languages \u200b\u200bthat gave the beginning of the formation of modern English.

Modern English - Mixed

Languages \u200b\u200binterpret modern English as mixed. This is due to the fact that many words, with a general sense, do not have general roots. Compare for example a number of words in Russian: Head - head - chief. In English, the same series is represented by the words: Head - Chapter - Chief. Why did it happen? Everything is explained by the mixing of three languages. Anglo-Saxon words denoted concrete items, from here the word Head. From Latin - the word Chapter remains with the language of science and education. From French there is a word left in everyday life, Chief.

The same distinction can be found in many semantic ranks in English. For example, words distinguish the name of the animal (the words of Germanic origin) and the name of the meat of this animal (these words originated from Starofranzuz). So, OX - Bull, Cow - Cow, Calf - Calm, Sheep - Sheep, Pig - Pig; But Beef - Beef, VEAL - Veal, Mutton - Lamb, Pork - Pork, etc.

During this period, the history of the English language occurs changes in the grammatical structure. Many verb endings disappear. The adjectives of the adjectives acquire the degree of comparison, including supporting degrees (with the addition of words more, Most). Significant changes undergoes phonetics of the language. By the end of 1500, the London dialect is becoming increasingly popular in the country, on which 90% of native speakers begin to speak.

First books in English

William Caxton (William Caxton) is considered to be the first primer of Britain (William Caxton), which in 1474 published the first book in English. It was the translation of the work of Raoul Lefevra "Collection of stories about three." For their lives, Cexton printed more than 100 books, many of which were his own translation. It should be noted that due to its activities, many English words have finally gained their finished form.

As for the grammatical rules, Kexton often invented its own rules, which after the publication became publicly available and were considered the only true.

Novoangalian period (1500 - our days) English history

The founder of the English literary language is rightfully considered the Great William Shakespeare (1564-1616). He is credited with the origin of many idiomatic expressions that are used in modern English. In addition, Shakespeare invented a lot of new words that came across the language.

For example, the word swagger "Chwalle gait; the disconnection" for the first time in the history of English is found in the play of Shakespeare "Sleeping in a summer night".

English history in the Epoch of Enlightenment

In 1712, for the first time in history, an image personifies the UK and the National Character of the British appeared. This year was born the hero of political pamphlets John Abertnota - John Bull. And so far the image of Bull is a satirical image of the Englishman.

In 1795 the first textbook comes to the world " English grammarLindley Murray (Lindley Murray). Almost two centuries, this textbook is fundamental in English grammar. All educated people studied Murree's grammar.

Modern English

Modern language in the British Islands is not at all static. Language lives, neologisms are constantly emerging, some words go into the past.

However, the most important difference between the English language from many European languages \u200b\u200bis that there are no static standards in the UK. On the contrary, in the big move it is various dialects and adverbs. Not only the pronunciation of words on the phonetic level differ, but there are also completely different words denoting the same thing.

Media and government members communicate in British English. But the most popular is American English. There are Australian English, and Canadian English and many other dialects. On the territory of the Britain itself, several dialects that residents of a particular province speak.

As you can see, English has retained its traditions of "mixing languages" and today.

The popularity of English has quite facilitated the colonial policy of the UK, the colonization of Australia and North America.

After the Second World War, the value of such a country as the United States has increased, which also contributed to the popularization of the English language.

IN modern world Internet community, people of science and culture mainly communicate in English.

The exact number of people owning English in our time is difficult to name. The results of various studies differ in tens of percent. Numbers and 600 million and 1.2 billion are called.

Definitely, English is the most important means of communication in the modern world.

The history of the English language is neglected with the history of England. She began in the V century, when in Britain, at that time, three German tribes were invaded by the Celts and partly by the Romans. The German influence turned out to be so strong that soon there was almost nothing left in the territory of almost the entire country from Celtic and Latin languages. Only in remote and hard-to-reach areas of Britain, which remained not captured by Germans (Cornwall, Wells, Ireland, Mountain Scotland), local Welsh and Gallic languages \u200b\u200bhave been preserved. These languages \u200b\u200bare preserved today: they are called Celtic languages, unlike German

who is English.


Then Vikings came to Britain from Scandinavia with their ancient abandon. Then in 1066, England seized the French. Because of this, French has been the language of the English aristocracy in the language of the English aristocracy, and the old English was applied by simple people. This historical fact has significantly affected English: it has many new words, the dictionary has increased almost twice. Therefore, it was in the vocabulary to the vocabulary of English - high and low, respectively, French and Germanic origin, - can be quite clearly to feel today.


Thanks to doubling the dictionary, English and today has many identical words - synonyms that arose as a result of the simultaneous use of two different languageswho came from the Saxon peasants and from the Norman owners. A vivid example of such a social division is the differences in the name of livestock originating from the German roots:

  • cow - Cow
  • calf - Calomet
  • sheep - Sheep
  • swine - Piggy
Whereas the namesthe cooked meat is of French origin:
  • beef - Beef
  • veal - Velyatin
  • mutton - lamb
  • pork - Porkin
  • Despite all external influences, the kernel of the tongue remained Anglo-Saxon. Already in the XIV century, English becomes a literary language, as well as the language of law and school. And when there began mass emigration from Britain to America, the language brought there by immigrants, continued to change in a new direction, often retaining his roots in British English, and sometimes quite significantly changing.
    The beginning of globalization of English

    By the beginning of XX in

    eSA English is increasingly becoming a language of international communication. English, along with other languages \u200b\u200bof international communication, was applied at international conferences, in the League of Nations, to negotiate. Already then it became an obvious need to improve his teaching and developing objective criteria, allowing to study the language more efficiently. This need stimulated searches and research of linguists different countrieswho have not dried up to this day.

    It is clear that one of the most important components of learning any foreign language is the accumulation of vocabulary. Only by purchasing some vocabulary, you can proceed to the study of the relationships of words - grammar, stylistics, etc. But what words should we learn in the first place? And how many words should I know? There are a lot of words in English. According to linguists, the full vocabulary of English contains at least one million words.


    The early grammar of the English language (the first of which was written in 1586) were written either in order to help foreigners master the English language, or in order to prepare English-speaking students to study Latin. In general, these books were not intended to train English speakers. Only approximately in 1750, attempts to teach the language of the British.
    It is a pity that this did not happen a few generations later. The linguists of the eighteenth century founded their English language research on incorrect theories. For example, they believed that grammatical rules are alone for all languages, and, arguing that Latin is an ideal, they often tried to remake english expressions On the Latin manner. Moreover, they believed that the death of the endings in words was a sign of degradation, and not progress. They could not return the already disappeared endings, but successfully retained all the others. If it were not for their influence, irregular verbs in modern English would be much smaller. Their theories were fixed and reported to ordinary people Thanks to the wave of ubiquitous education in England. A huge amount of incorrect verbs and carefully retained endings did not allow the English language to be completely transformed from the synthetic language to analytical.

    With the spread of literacy, English slowed down its change, but it continues to change to this day. The simplicity of the use of the rules, as well as the wealth of a vocabulary, which continues to expand, allowed the English language over the past half a century to become an international communication language.

    English has long been the language of interethnic communication. He spread throughout the world, became the main language of the Internet and combined all the continents. Why it became possible, a partly can answer the history of the emergence of the English language, in which exciting events took place.

    Many learners know that English refers to the German group of languages, but if you compare it with German, you will see huge discrepancies. Of course, you will find the words similar in sound. Nevertheless, the Englishman who did not study German will never understand the German indigenous resident.

    At the same time, according to the recognition of most Europeans, and the inhabitants of other continents, the English speech is the easiest to memorize and play. In many countries, this language is introduced into school programs, and is studied as one of the main items.

    In linguistic universities, the history of English cannot be explained briefly, so it is distinguished as a separate subject to study. We note the main periods of history and elements of influence on the development of English.

    How it all began

    In the 5th century of our era, the tribes of the angles, the British Islands (mainly the territory of modern UK) settled down the British Islands. Celts who inhabited at that time these lands could not have decent resistance - and went deep into the island.

    Assimilation with Celts was weak, and therefore they practically did not influence the language of the Angles (which became dominant). The first result of changing the viking of the Anglo-Saxes was the conquest of the island of Vikings, which "left" on the island of such words as Sky - the sky, Window - window and others.

    The beginning of the rapid development of English - English and culture - falls on the period of the reign of the king Alfred Great, who marked the birth of the English state and strengthened his influence.

    The period of large changes

    In the 11th century, Britain occupied Normans, headed by Wilhelm the Conqueror. They themselves were descendants of German tribes (Normanov - Northern people), which, having seized a part of the territory of France, assimilated with the locals and adopted French as a means of communication.

    The dominion of the francs lasts about two centuries, and they had a huge impact on the development of English. As a result, a practically new language was formed, in which the main cases disappeared, and more than 50 percent of lexical units were ousted by French words.

    Interestingly, London to know, most of which was franc, retained that part of the vocabulary that was close to them. For example, they did not contain cattle, but meat foods. Therefore, the names of animals and basic life-supporting things have retained Anglo-Saxons - Peasants: Cow - Cow, Sheep - Sheep, Horse - Horse, Swine - Pig, Bread - Bread, House. Franks used everything specified as a meal, luxurious life and entertainment, so they remained such words as: Pork - Pork, Beef - Beef, Veal - Veal, Palace - Palace, etc.

    Shakespeare, Catholics and Modernity

    On this, the history of the development of the English language was not over, and several more significant changes occurred. Significantly on his change affected the era of Shakespeare (years of life 1564-1616), the rapid development of the theater and other arts. Heroes of the Great Poet found immortality, and English has enriched in new phraseological turns: "The Wild-Goose Chase" - "chase for unnecessary" and much more.

    Between all other things, several coming of Latin took place, since already at the end of the V century the Catholic Church was actively introduced into the UK. Services in the temples were conducted in the language of the ancient Romans, which in worldly life was no longer used, but many words and expressions were borrowed.

    Thus, English has become a conglomerate of major European languages \u200b\u200bby changing the basic principles of word formation and syntax. It turned into an analytical means of communication, where the context was released on a leading role (the word place in the proposal and in the text) was released.

    In order for the history of the development of English to become more clearly, the Lim English website presents a presentation of its main periods. The evolution of English is most amazing, and she never stopped. She continues today - which is confirmed by the gradual conclusion from the use of auxiliary verb Shall, when describing events in the future.