Hi questionboy!!
I just finish the writting, please read it and tell me if it works for
you, also if it don´t, in this case ask for a request for an answer
clarification if you need more help on this topic or to edit this
little essay in the way that you need.
In spite of the four centuries Roman occupation, English did not
develop mainly from Latin; the modern English language is a direct
descendant of Old English, a tingue of Germanic tribes who invaded
Britain in the 5th century. Immigrants from Denmark and NW Germany
arrived in Britain in the 5th and 6th Centuries A.D., speaking in
related dialects belonging to the Germanic and Teutonic branches of
the Indo-European language family, they was the Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes. Their language was distinct enough to warrant a new name; it's
now known as Anglo-Saxon (from two of the tribes) or Old English.
Viking invasions from Scandinavia, begun in the 8th Century, gave
English a Norwegian and Danish influence, though this was similar to
the old English or Anglo-Saxon language already used. This influences
lasted until the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The Germanic roots of the English language can be easily found, see
some examples:
- English vowels are peculiar for the Indo-European family, especially
[æ] in cat, [a] in cut, and diphthongs like in fear. Dental fricative
sounds [ð] in this and [þ] in thin are also unique among Germanic
tongues.
- Germanic languages developed a preterite tense (called weak or
regular) with a dental suffix, -d or -t (e.g. fish, fished, etc.).
- Germanic languages thus have two types of verbs, weak (regular) and
strong (irregular). Strong verbs indicate tense by an internal vowel
change (e.g. swim, swam, swum). Also Germanic developed weak and
strong adjectives, the weak declension was used when the modified noun
was preceded by another word which indicated case, number, and gender,
you can see an example of this in Old English: : þa geongan ceorlas
'the young fellows' and geonge ceorlas 'young fellows.'
- The Indo-European verbal system was simplified. Indo-European
distinctions of tense and aspect were lost except for the present and
preterite (past) tenses. These two tenses are still the only ones
indicated by inflection in Modern English; future and perfect tenses
are expressed in phrases--e.g., I will have gone, etc.
- Germanic has a number of unique vocabulary items, words which have
no known cognates in other Indo-European languages. Among these words
are Modern English rain, drink, drive, broad, hold, wife, meat, fowl.
What about the Latin influence?
The romanization leave traces of it language in places names and few
words like wine (Old English win, from Latin vinum) and street (Old
English stræt, from Latin via strata (paved way) ).
With the christianization under Irish monks and St. Augustin (since
6th c.) and the Benedictine Reform (8th c.) ecclesisatical terms like
bishop (Old English bisceop), Old English engel (Lat.-Gk. angelus),
apostle, cucumber, creed, paper, gospel (O.E. gôd-spell, coined after
Gk. eu-angelion 'good news') are introduced.
The Norman Invasion and Conquest of Britain in 1066 and the resulting
French Court of William the Conqueror gave the Norwegian-Dutch
influenced English a Norman-Parisian-French effect. From 1066 until
about 1400 Old French and Old English were spoken. Old English almost
disappeared entirely into obscurity during this period, Old French
became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business
class.. However, in 1362, the Parliament opened with English as the
language of choice, and the language was saved from extinction. This
mixture is called Middle English.
We can see the French influence:
Norman French words imported into Middle English include: catch, wage,
warden, reward, and warrant. Parisian French gave Middle English:
chase, guarantee, regard, guardian, and gage. English nobility had
titles which were derived from both Middle English and French. French
provided: prince, duke, peer, marquis, viscount, and baronl.
Governmental administrative divisions from French include county,
city, village, justice, palace, mansion, and residence. Another nice
example is the word language from Old French langage, ultimately from
Latin lingua (tongue).
Modern English developed through the efforts of literary and political
writings, where literacy was uniformly found. Modern English was
heavily influenced by classical usage, the emergence of the
university-educated class, Shakespeare, the common language found in
the East Midlands section of present-day England, and an organized
effort to document and standardize English.
Present-day English is approximately 50% Germanic (English and
Scandinavian) and 50% Romance (French and Latin).
I hope this helps you.
Best Regards.
livioflores-ga |
