Tag: Language

As most of you know, this editor is a student of history. Part of history is language. Today we’ll take a look at the origins and history of the English language.

Like most things, English has changed or evolved over time. Old English (as spoken by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes between 450 and 1100) is the basis of the English we speak today. It was not the native language of the British Isles, the Germanic Anglo-Saxons brought it with them during the Migration era (375-568 AD) invasions. The native Britons spoke a variety of Celtic and Brithonic languages. There are some remnants of those languages in Southern England and Wales, Cornish and Welsh respectively. As we see over and over in history, the victors determine the language and law in conquered territory. It was no different with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England.

In numerical terms, the total number of English words of native Anglo-Saxon origin in use today is around 4,500 – which may seem a small number in a language which counts some 130,000 words in total current use. However, these 4,500 comprise the fundamental basis of English and, indeed, its grammar too.

How many native English words still exist today?

The only words in that sentence which are not derived from Anglo Saxon or Old English are exist and native. The rest are from Anglo-Saxon:

• ‘How’ derives from hü.
• ‘many’ from manig.
• ‘English’ from Englisc
• ‘words’ hasn’t changed (though the pronunciation probably has).
• ‘still’ from
• ‘today’ from the phrase to dæg.

After that pesky William the Bastard beat Harold Godwinson at the battle of Hastings in 1066, the English language started to change again. William and his men, being both Normans and the victors, introduced many Norman French words to the English language. This hybrid of Norman French and English was, at first, mainly spoken by the Norman peerage, but spread to the entire country before too long. Nowadays this hybrid is called Middle English, and was spoken from the Norman conquest up until 1470-ish. If you’ve ever read any Chaucer, you were reading Middle English. Here are a few examples of Middle English words.

• Al be that – Although.
• Anon – At once; at another time.
• Bet – Better.
• Can – Know; be able.
• Cas – Happening now; chance.
• Coy – Quiet.
• Echo – Each one.
• Everich – Every; every one.

Around the turn of the 15th century, pronunciation of vowels began to change. The Great Vowel Shift began in the late 14th century and was completed by the 17th century. One of the more notable changes was to the letter C. In middle and old English C was always pronounced as a hard C -like cat or coin- while a modern C is either hard or soft like ceiling or cent.

It was during this period that initial clusters, like kn and gn were reduced. Prior to that words like knife – a ‘loan word’ from the scandinavian languages (knifr) – went from being pronounced KNIF to NIFE. The same happened with gnat, knot and several others. Spelling also began to become more standardized (due in no small part to the spread of printing, made possible by Johannes Gutenberg’s 1439 invention of the moveable type printing press). Prior to this period, correct and consistent spelling of words was optional.

Seeing as I just mentioned it above, let’s take a look at ‘loan words’. A loan word is (as the name implies) a word adopted from one language into another. The word is adapted to fit the pronunciation, spelling, and grammar of the borrowing language. As a consequence of the British Empire conquering most of the world, nearly 80% of the modern English lexicon consists of loan words. There are loan words from nearly all of the languages/cultures the Brits had contact with over the years.

Some of them date as far back as the Viking period. In fact, the names for four of the days of the week are Scandinavian loan words. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were Tyr’s day, Odin’s day, Thor’s day and Freya’s day respectively in old Danish and Norse. All four were Gods in the Nordic pantheon. As I said above, knife is another load word. The Anglo-Saxon word was seax. Over time seax came to mean a specific type of blade while knife came to mean all small (not swords) blades. Here are some examples of loan words and their origins:

• Admiral – Arabic
• Khaki – Urdu/Persian
• Law – Scandinavian languages
• Street – Latin
• Attorney – French
• Karaoke – Japanese
• Boomerang – Dharuk (an Australian Aboriginal language)

You may be surprised to learn that nearly all of the words used to describe military ranks in English come from French. General, colonel, captain, sergeant and corporal are all french loan words. Many of the words used in the legal profession come from the French as well. You probably shouldn’t be though. After 1066, the English nobility were nearly all Norman. They ran the courts and the military.

All these loan words can lead to some humorous outcomes. Consider, if you will, the name of the English town of Torpenhow Hill. Translated, it means Hill Hill Hill Hill. Each syllable in the first word is a name for hill in a different language. Tor comes from the old Welsh, Pen is from Brithonic and How is old Norse. Pendle hill has similar origins.  In the 13th century it was called Pennul or Penhul, apparently from the Cumbric pen and Old English hyll, both meaning “hill”. The modern English “hill” was appended later, after the original meaning of Pendle had become opaque. A Bronze Age burial site has been discovered at the summit of the hill. These types of English place names are relatively common – often happening because the local inhabitants only recalled the names, not the original meanings of them.

Don’t think that English has stopped evolving – it hasn’t. New technologies and modern communications, like text messaging, have introduced new words into the lexicon. Many of them are abbreviations or acronyms, but not all. Here are some examples of recently introduced words with their definitions:

• Copy pasta – A copypasta is a block of text copied and pasted to the internet and social media. 
• Shrinkflation – The process of items shrinking in size or quantity, or even sometimes reformulating or reducing quality, while their prices remain the same or increase. The word is a portmanteau of the words shrink and inflation.
• Nomophobia –  Fear or worry at the idea of being without your mobile phone or being unable to use it.
• Mid – Neither very good nor very bad : so-so, meh
• Stan –  A person who idolizes, loves to the point of obsession.
• Petfluencer – A person who has a large social media following by posting photos of their pet or a pet who has achieved Internet fame.

The Oxford English Dictionary, the gold standard for dictionaries, makes a big deal about adding new words every year. The publishers of the OED estimate that there are between 170,000 and 250,00 words in current use, with an additional 47,000 obsolete words. However, it’s impossible to determine how many words there are in the English language from the dictionary alone. This is because:

• Languages are ever expanding
• Their boundaries are always flexible
• It takes a while for dictionary publishers to include new words in their dictionaries
• Slang and jargon also exist

So, why does English keep evolving? The answer is relatively simple. The world is shrinking and English speakers continually encounter new words that are useful. The mindset in the English speaking world allows us to borrow words and ideas with little to no worry about how it will affect the language, unlike, say, the French, who have an entire organization, the Académie Francaise, that regulates the French language. Other than the Oxford dictionary, which is more of a repository of words, there is no overarching English language organization to keep the language pure. The more things change, the more they remain the same.