A HISTORY OF ENGLISH

WHICH OF THESE WORDS ARE

MISPELLED?
 SUPERCEDE
 CONCEED
 PROCEDE
 IDIOSYNCRACY
 CONCENSUS
 ACCOMODATE
 RHYTHYM
 ANAMOLY
 SPELLING IN ENGLISH
 FOUR  SPELLING SHOULD
 FOURTH RESEMBLE
PRONUNCIATION
 FOURTEEN
 ONLY 3 PERCENT
 TWENTY FOUR OF WORDS HAVE
 FORTY?!?!?! THIS PROBLEM
 400 OR SO WORDS
 COLONEL,
CORONELLE,
COLONELLO
 So why is English so weird?
English's idiosyncrasies can be understood by
looking at its rich history.

A barbarian language of peasants has become

the lingua franca of the modern world.

A language unique for its flexibility, versatility, and

adaptability
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH
 Celtic people lived on
the British Island
 Literate, cultured, and
respected around
Europe
 Barbaric Anglo –
Saxons invade and
conquer the island
starting in 450
OLD ENGLISH
 Not so different as it
looks
 Scip, BæỒ, Bricg
 Ship, bath, bridge
 Simple spelling
 Very, very,
complicated grammar
 THE VIKINGS
 9th century, invaded
Britain
 Brought their
language, especially
in the north
 They, them, and their
The Normans
 Conquered Britain in
1066
 Established a two tier
society – the peasants
spoke English and the
aristocracy spoke
French
 English got simpler
meanwhile
 The Norman Influence
Almost all words relating to government
Justice, jury, damage, prison, marriage, parliament,
govern, etc

Words for animals different from those for meat

cow/beef, calf/veal, pig/bacon

 English lost an official reference point for 300

years
Middle English
 Norman children
forgot how to speak
French
 Only 4,500 words in
English are from
Anglo-Saxon
 Man, wife, child, love,
drink, sleep, eat,
house, to, for, but,
and, at
 Cordial reception vs
hearty welcome
Regularization in the 15th -16th
centuries
London accent became
dominant in most
cases
Love – loven – loveth –
loves
Houses vs housen
Children
This, that, yon
Thou and you
 Where do words come from?
Large number of synonyms in English
Big, large, immense, vast, capacious, bulky, massive, whopping

Strange habit of combining nouns and adjectives:

Mouth/oral, water/aquatic, house/domestic, town/urban

Words are made up by poets or writers

Shakespeare in particular – invented nearly 2,000
words, including, critical, monumental, excellent,
lonely,
 Where else do words come from?
Sometimes come from nowhere
Dog – no other word is similar, but replaced hound
completely in the 15th century
Adopted words from different languages
Shampoo, ketchup, potato, sofa, slogan, macho

Encouraged by spread of British Empire in the

17th and 18th century
English in America
Large scale introduction
of new words to
describe new features
Taken from Spanish and
French colonists
Rodeo, bronco, canyon,
avocado
Indian place names
Chargoggagomanchau -
gagochaubunagungamaug
Lake
Manhattan
Creole English
Creole – French for
native
Languages developed
by slaves
Looked down as
primitive or childish
Bak sit drayva
Bad briz
Gullah, Haitian Creole,
Jamaica
The biggest Americanism in the
world
A lot of different
meanings in English
From enthusiasm to
mediocrity
Comes from the
expression 'Oll
Korrect'
A campaign election
slogan in 1840
Lost to 'Tippecanoe and
Tyler Too'
 Dialects of English
No place has more
dialects than Britain
17 different
pronunciations of
house – only in the
north
In the south people drink
a beer but in the north
they sup a beer
Twenty one vs. one and
twenty
Accents in the USA
Always assumed
American would
become a separate
language

More diversity in north

of England than the
whole continent
A paradox
Maybe the fault of TV?
19th century literature
Regional Differences
Roughly 4 major areas
Coke – pop – soda -
tonic
Most prevalent: north vs
south
This your house? You
coming?
Southern drawl
oil/all, are/hour, far/fire
 Good and Bad English
In the 17th and 18th centuries, good English was
based on Latin
Latin – a classical language, better than English
John Wallis' Grammatic Linguae Anglicane, 1653
Forming sentences in Latin than translating them to
English
Why is English grammar so confusing?
Rules and terminology all taken from Latin
Style guides based on Latin
Central Academy
First proposal to make
an academy in 1660
Proposals even in the
USA
Model was French
Academy, in 1635
Started progressive,
then conservative
Many influential figures
against the idea in
English
 Decentralization
 Without an academy, English is the Wild West
– Anyone can make up a rule, resulting in
absurdities
– The split infinitive: to quickly run is bad; you
have to say to run quickly.
• People take this very seriously
– With whom will you go? Instead of Who will you
go with?
– Different from instead of different than
 Robert Lowth's A Short Introduction to English
Grammar published in 1762
Traditional Disregard for Rules
People were indifferent
First English dictionary
from 1604 spelled
'words' two different
ways on the first page
80 different spelling of
Shakespeare's name
Only one he didn't use:
his alone
People didn't want to
simplify spellings
The Printing Press
Brought fixed spelling to
the language

Unfortunately,
pronunciation still
wasn't fixed
ake/ache, would, folk
 Spelling Reform Efforts
Unfortunately, misguided efforts from the 18th
century complicated things
Changed dette and dout to debt and doubt
To match Latin words dubitum and dubitare
Ailand became Island, and rime became rhyme

Other efforts have failed as well

American spelling board proposed yu, nite, tho, thru
Adopted by many newspapers, but met by popular
resistance
 The Future of English
Fears that other languages will overtake it
A little overdone, most second generation immigrants
speak English exclusively
Not very likely
More people in China study English than Americans

Television exportation of a single accent

Loss of different dialects
This would be a true tragedy