Variety

English:

The colourful origin of the language

Despite the fact that many languages are spoken by people of different nationalities in the world, the English language has managed to emerge as the globally accepted link language of the world today.

People of all nationalities strive to learn this language which is rather complicated because the rules are very complex and sometimes not strictly followed.

English too like most other languages has been influenced by other languages. If you trace the history of the language you will see that it really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD.

It is said that during this time the three tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what is known as Denmark and northern Germany today, the people who lived in Britain had been speaking a Celtic language. But with the arrival of the tribes most of the Celtic speakers had been pushed west and north - mainly into what is now known as Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles who came from a place called Englaland had spoken a language called Englisc.It is from them that the words England and English have been derived.

Over the years the language developed and it continues to do so todate.Let's check out the different stages of the language...

Old English (450-1100 AD)

The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound or look like the English we know today. Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. However, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example are words derived from Old English.

Middle English (1100-1500)

When William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France),invaded and conquered England in 1066 they introduced a new language then, a kind of French , which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century however, English became dominant in Britain again, but it was influenced by the language of the conquerers with many French words added.It was this language that came to be called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), Like the Old English those who first spoke the original language of English, would still find it difficult to understand Middle English today.

Modern English

The language which is categorised as Modern English also developed in stages.

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

It was towards the end of the period Middle English was spoken that a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation, what is called the Great Vowel Shift, began. Vowels were being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century many new words and phrases entered the language because by then the British had contact with many people from around the world.

The Renaissance of Classical learning,also had an impact on the language . The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print.Printing also brought standardisation to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published.

Late Modern English

(1800-Present)

The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.

The colonisation of North America by the English around the 1600s resulted in the creation of a distinct American variety of English. In some ways, American English is more like the English of Shakespeare than modern British.

Modern English that we are familiar with today which developed with the Great Vowel Shift in 15th-century England, continues to adopt foreign words from a variety of languages, as well as coining new words.

A significant number of English words, especially technical words, have been constructed based on roots from Latin and Greek.

Facts: Internet

A humorous poem:

Only the English could have invented this language

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England .
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
And get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out,
And in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

And if people from Poland are called Poles
Then people from Holland should be Holes
And the Germans, Germs.

And let’s not forget the Americans, who changed s to z, but that's another story...