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História da Língua Inglesa   

A Brief History of the English Language

English is a Germanic language belonging to the Indo-European family, and developed from Anglo-Saxon dialects under the strong influence of Norman French and Latin. Its growth can be traced back to the 5th century AD when groups of West Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) settled in the British Isles. The Celts, the original inhabitants of the British Isles, left behind only a handful of words which have survived in modern English, e.g. bin, dun and crag, as well as the names of such places as Dundee, Carlisle and Dover. Many rivers in Britain are called by Celtic names, e.g. Avon and Thames. The early influence of Latin is reflected in the word castrum (camp), which lies behind the names of British cities such as Lancaster, Doncaster, Winchester, etc.

Three stages of development

We can distinguish three stages in the development of English: Old English (8th-12th centuries), Middle English (12th-15th centuries) and Modern English (15th century until the present). In Old English adjectives, nouns, pronouns and verbs were inflected, as in Polish. Verbs had only two tenses: present and past. There were no articles in Old English. The definite article the developed later from the Old English demonstrative se (that) and the indefinite article a/an from the numeral one. One remnant of Old English is the irregular plural in such words as: man/men, woman/women, foot/feet, tooth/teeth, goose/geese, mouse/mice, louse/lice and ox/oxen. The earliest monuments of Old English are inscriptions on stone or wood in a special alphabet known as "runes". Gradually the Latin alphabet began to be employed in Anglo-Saxon Britain. The vocabulary of Old English consisted mostly of words of Germanic stock. For example, the days of the week were named after the pagan gods of Norse mythology: Wednesday, after the supreme god Woden; Thursday after Thor, the god of thunder, and Friday after Frigga, Woden's wife. A small number of words were borrowed from Latin, e.g. bishop, candle, martyr, school, wine. The Vikings, who invaded Britain in the 8th-10th centuries, added such common words as window (wind's eye), call, die, get, give, take, skin, as well as the verb form are.

After the Norman invasion in 1066, Norman French became the official language of the court in England. It was a dialect of French influenced by popular Latin and Old Norse. Many modern English words derive from Norman French, e.g. beef, bacon, mutton, pork, veal, etc. Even today a court officer utters the words Oyez, Oyez, meaning listen. This expression stems from the Norman word oir (to hear). A number of terms dealing with government, such as liberty, parliament, authority, etc., crossed the Channel along with the Normans. Although Norman French became the language of the Royal Court and the ruling class, Old English or Anglo-Saxon was still spoken by the common people. Gradually it was transformed into what is called Middle English, which lost most of its inflections and greatly expanded its vocabulary by borrowing from Norman French and Latin.

After the end of the 15th century the London dialect of English was recognised as the standard form of English, especially in writing. The writers of the Elizabethan age (Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and others) exerted a great influence on the growth and perfection of literary English. Shakespeare, a great master of the English language, invented many words which are now in common use, e.g.: accommodation, assassination, courtship; and idiomatic expressions: star-crossed lovers, the mind's eye, what the dickens, salad days, love is blind. A book which had a profound effect on the development of the standard form of the English language was the Authorised or King James Version of the Bible, first published in 1611. It was widely read and helped to keep alive English words of Germanic stock. There are many expressions still used today which first appeared in the Authorised Version, e.g. by the skin of our teeth, an eye for an eye, cast pearls before swine, the salt of the earth, money is the root of all evil, in sheep's clothing.

The next factor which contributed to the development of standard or literary English was the Protestant Reformation. Numerous books on religion, treatises, and pamphlets written in plain English were distributed in churches or read for ordinary people. In the 17th and 18th centuries a number of English language dictionaries began to appear. The writers of the 18th century paid much attention to the "correctness" of the language. Two great men of letters, Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson, exerted a great influence on the development of norms of standard English. Dr Johnson compiled A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), which led to a greater standardisation of spelling.

In the 19th century, Englishmen who served in the colonies brought home exotic new vocabulary, e.g. bungalow, dinghy, kangaroo, kayak, jungle, etc., which was soon adapted into the language. The Industrial Revolution and subsequent technological advancement produced a number of terms which are now used not only in English but in many other languages, e.g. locomotive, dynamo, volt, watt, etc. During the sixteen hundred years of its history the English language has undergone constant change and is still changing.

Standard English and regional dialects

British English has a standard accent called Received Pronunciation (RP), used mainly by the middle classes, especially in the south. For almost two hundred years, until about 1960, RP was the accent of most educated Englishmen, particularly those who attended public schools. Today there is a growing tendency to regard a slight regional accent as acceptable. A number of regional accents are used in Britain. One major distinguishing feature is the pronunciation of certain sounds.

For example, the Scots and Irish pronounce the 'r' consonant in all positions, whereas in RP 'r' is dropped before a consonant. In some dialects 'h' at the beginning of a word is often dropped. In England we can distinguish Northern, Midlands and South Western dialects.

Scottish English

The Scots speak English, but with their own accent. The various Scottish dialects should not be confused with Gaelic, the Celtic language spoken in the north and west of the country. Scottish Gaelic, the traditional language of Scotland, is basically the same language as Irish Gaelic, and Gaelic speakers from the two countries can usually manage to understand each other. There are still plenty of people in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands, who understand Gaelic, but few places where it remains the language of common conversation, apart from the Hebrides.

The variety of English spoken in Scotland is Scots, descended from the language of the Saxons, who came north to avoid the Normans after 1066. Few English speakers can fully understand a true Scots speaker.

Welsh English

Welsh English is famous for its musical quality. Words are usually stressed in a different way than in RP. Welsh people often use the forms of the past participle instead of the simple past tense, e.g. He never seen her. Another interesting feature of Welsh English is the sentence filler 'look you', which means 'you know'. A great number of people in Wales still use their native language, called Cymraeg or Cymric (from Cymru, meaning Wales), one of the oldest languages in Europe.

Irish English

Under the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland, the Irish language is the national language of the country, English being the second. The Irish language belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. According to statistics, about 30 per cent of the population of the Republic of Ireland claim to have a knowledge of Irish, although few of them use it in everyday life. Although Irish Gaelic is in decline, it has influenced Irish English. A popular construction used in Ireland is to be after doing, e.g. He's after reading a book, which means that he has just finished reading a book. In spelling, the English language used in Ireland follows British practice. However, the Irish accent is different from English accents, particularly from that of southeast England. It is very musical and has a characteristic intonation. In many ways the Irish accent is a relic of the English spoken in the past. Many features of Middle English and Early Modern English, which have completely disappeared in today's Standard English, still survive in Irish English, e.g. the second person plural 'youse' instead of Standard English 'you'.

World English

Today English is one of the richest languages in the world with a vocabulary of more than 600,000 words. However, the majority of people can communicate effectively in everyday situations with only 2,000-3,000 words. English has become an international language and at present every seventh person in the world speaks or understands English. Over a third of the world's population live in countries where English is spoken either as the native language or as one of the official languages. English is spoken as a native language by some 300 million people living in the British Isles, North America, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies and South Africa. For another 300 million people living in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Africa, English is the second language. Last but not least, English is the primary medium of international communication in science, technology, trade, aviation, diplomacy and popular culture. People who speak English fall into three categories: those for whom English is a native language; those who use English as a second language and those who have learnt English as a foreign language. It is true to say that English has become the chief world language and its importance is still growing.

Andrzej Diniejko

For further reading, see:
David Crystal, 
The Cambridge Encyclopedia  of the English Language.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

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