Source: www.speakup.com.br
As a matter fact English is a miscellaneous of Languages, it was born due the need of the World Population communicating each other. Check out the text THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH, THE BIG MIX. And le me know what do you think of.
The owner of the text by William Sutton.
Imagine a situation where diverse cultural groups are thrown together. They need to communicate for trade and technology. Many of them speak more or less the same language, but variations in vocabulary and grammar cause misunderstandings.
Sounds like the internet today? Not at all: this is a description of theBritish Isles in the first millennium.
FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS
English had tiny beginnings. In 500 A.D., it was spoken by perhaps twenty thousand people – less than today speak Cherokee Indian, an endangered language.
The Angles invaded from Angeln in Schleswig (modern Germany) in the 5th century AD. Other Germanic tribes, the Jutes and Saxons settled in the south, while the Angles took the rest, as far as Edinburgh.
The country became known as “Engla Land” (Land of the Angles) and their language as Englisc. From the older languages, Celtic and Latin, only place names survived: Avon is Celtic for river: Chester, Leicester and Lancaster from Latin “castra,” camp. Indeed the word Wales derives from Old English for “foreigners.”
Old English provides all the most common words in modern English: the, is, you, man, house, drink, here, there. It gives us almost all our numbers, personal pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions and conjunctions. Likewise, fundamental concepts: life and death, day and night, month and year, heat and could, love and hate. It is also responsible for irregular past tense and unpredictable pronunciation.
CHANGING TIMES
Alfred the Great, king of Wessex (that is, West Saxon), was the first great promoter of English. he translated St. Augustine’s Latin for his countrymen to read. He also made peace with invading Vikings. As the Norsemen settled peacefully across England, they because the first to need instant E.F.L. lessons.
Although simplified, Old English was enriched by Scandinavian words: happy, ugly, wrong, die. This gave us synonymous pairs: besides Anglo-Saxon wish we have Norse want: we have craft and skill, rear and raise.
FRENCH RYING
Everything changed when the Norman invasion of 1066 subjugated English. consider the language of food. Words for the meat cooked for the Norman aristocracy – beef, pork and venison – derive from French , domestic animals remain distinctly Anglo-Saxon: cow, pig and deer.
The words city, palace and residence are French; but town, house and home are English. Tradesmen have English names: baker, builder, fisherman, shoemaker. But skilled artisans derive from French: carpenter, painter, tailor.
Synonyms from this period are revealing: freedom and liberty, love and affection, truth and veracity. Still today, people regard words of Anglo-Saxon origin as less intellectual than words with French and Latin origins – and therefore more trustworthy.
NEW HORIZONS
As the Age of Colonialism brought English to new shores, native languages form Canada, Australia, South Africa and India colonized and enriched it with new animals (kangaroo, chimpanzee), plants (tea, tobacco) and clothes (pyjamas, anorak).
Back home, the Enlightenment lifted scientific words form Greek and Latin. Musical language was taken from Italian. Martial arts have come from the Far East. Still today, neologisms from around the globe are added to dictionaries every year.
Will English be ruined by this new input? Should we raise the alarm? Ban foreign words, as the French and Germans have? Surely not. There may be no such thing as a pure language, but English is even less pure than most. From the first, it was a means of communication for diverse ethnic and linguistic groups, a mixed-up mongrel. This ability to absorb and mutate may give it just the right pedigree for the challenges of a global future.
Graffiti to Glasnost: The Origin of English Words
Modern English is half Germanic and half Romance, but it has acquired the largest vocabulary of any language by freely adopting and adopting words from countless languages.
Old English (Anglo Saxon): England, man, child water, house.
Old Norse (Viking): Seat, window, ill, ugly.
French: Royal, beef, menu, hotel.
Latin: Family, wine, school.
Greek: Telephone, grammar.
Italian: Crescendo, vibrato, belvedere, grotto, extravaganza.
Spanish: Cannibal, guerrilla, mosquito, tornado, vanilla.
Portuguese: Marmalade, flamingo.
Dutch: Yacht, boss, cookie, apartheid, commando, trek.
Gaelic/Irish: Hooligan, clan, slogan, whisky.
Japanese: Kimono, tycoon, hara-kiri, samurai, tsunami.
Hindi: Guru, jungle, cheetah, shampoo, pyjamas, polo.
Persian: Paradise, divan, lilac, bazaar, caravan, chess.
Aboriginal Australian: Kangaroo, wallaby, boomerang, budgerigar.
Hebrew: Cherub, hallelujah, messiah, jubilee.
Arabic: alchemy, alcohol, assassin, cipher, syrup, zero.
Norwegian: Ski.
Finnish: Sauna.
Czech: Robot.
Turkish: coffee, kiosk, caviar.
Chinese: Tea.
Malay: Ketchup, bamboo, junk, orangutan.
Polynesian: Taboo, tattoo.
Inuit (Eskimo): Kayak, igloo, anorak.
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