The history of English

English is the first international language, and people whose mother tongue is not English prefer English. According to genealogy, languages can be divided into eight language families, namely Sino-Tibetan, Indo-European and Semite. English belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic family of Indo-European languages. English-speaking countries include the United States, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Caribbean countries (Bahamas, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago) and Guyana in South America. English is also used as the official language in some countries, such as India, Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Cameroon. About 300 million people in the world speak English, and another 2 billion people know English to some extent. How English roses deserve our careful study.

First, the British English period

1. Old English began in 449 AD, when Gittish, the leader of the Germanic people, landed in Kent, England. In BC, Carte and others lived on the island of Great Britain, and the Anglo-Saxons began to move in in the 5th and 6th centuries. The seven Anglo-Saxon countries appeared in the 7th century, and the word English evolved from Angles. Three languages had a great influence on ancient English. They are Celts, and the remains are Evan, kennet, Dover and London; . In Latin, the surviving words are: Anchor (anchor), Flace (flask), MIL (mile), Altar (altar), Papa (plant) and Dihtan (domination); After 10 13, the Danes ruled the whole of England, so Old Norwegian was the third language that influenced Old English. Their shadows have multiple /sk/, such as: sky, skin, skeleton, fright, skill. The earliest English literary works can only be traced back to 750 years ago, and then "the Dream of the Rood" appeared on the stone tablet. Later than China's The Book of Songs 1000 years.

2. English in the Middle Ages can be divided into two stages. The first stage began with the Norman Conquest in 1066. King Edward (confessor) of England died childless, and Harold was chosen as the heir. William, Duke of Normandy, sent troops to conquer England on the grounds that Harold was not of royal blood. During the two-century conquest, French, as the official language of the ruling class, became the greatest linguistic achievement. In order to give orders, British survivors had to learn some French. Since then, French has often been used to describe the life of the upper class and as a refined vocabulary. English words have left a deep impression on French. For example, English people live in houses and French people live in towers. Prefixes de-, dis-, in-, inter-, pre-, pro-, ad-,-and suffixes -able, -ment, -ess are all borrowed from French. French words that entered English in the early days are: bacon, castle, market, prison, service, heaven and fruit. After the Hundred Years' War between Britain and France (1337- 1453), England returned to the hands of the English people, and English regained the dignity of its national language. After 1489, French was only used to write decrees and parliamentary records. By 1500, the London dialect has been upgraded to standard English. 1350- 1500 is the era of literary masters. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Longhran's Farmer Pierce and weekley's Bible all had revolutionary influences on English. It is found that one tenth of Chaucer's and Langren's works are written in French and Latin.

Second, the World English Period.

1492 After Columbus discovered the New World, Britain's overseas trade expanded rapidly, and many overseas companies with franchise patents were established, such as Donglu Company (1579), Africa Company (1588) and East India Company (1600). 1588 defeated Spain's "Armada", excluded overseas competitors and went global. By the beginning of the17th century, Britain had established a large number of colonial strongholds in Asia, Africa, North America and the West Indies. 15 17 Martin Luther's religious reform provided a rare opportunity for the development of English. Renaissance writers expanded English vocabulary by borrowing and coining words. Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Scandinavian, Germanic, Arabic, Hindi and Spanish flooded into English rivers with trade and religion.

Garland Cannon, an American scholar, calls the English between 1500- 1900 modern English. The author thinks this division seems inappropriate. After all, 1500 is a distant era, and 1900 is not modern, so it is more appropriate to call it modern English. It can be divided into two stages. The first stage is the Renaissance (1500- 1660), and the second stage is authoritative English (1660- 1800). During the Renaissance, under the protection of Elizabeth, education in Britain developed rapidly. Schools have replaced private schools, printed textbooks have replaced manuscripts, and scholars have written books. Three geniuses, Spencer, Shakespeare and Milton, were born. The upper limit of authoritative English began at 1660 after the restoration of Stuart Dynasty and ended at 1800 after the French Revolution. This period is characterized by what linguists call "appealing to authority", that is, a grammarian found the English structure he admired and regarded it as authority; If he doesn't like the next structure, he thinks that "even the best author will make mistakes." /kloc-There were three grammarians in the 8th century, namely Bishop Ross, Dr. Johnson and noah webster.

1800- 1900 This century is a period when English is widely spread and won the world. /kloc-In the middle of the 0/9th century, Britain was the most industrialized country in the world, and its goods monopolized the world market and became the "world factory". By 19 14, its colonies were all over the continents, covering an area of more than13 million square kilometers, which was 50 times that of the native/kloc-0 and its population was 9 times that of China, so it was called "the sun never sets". With the colonial expansion, millions of British people moved to the four seas, and English was exported to the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and the West Indian Ocean Islands.

The most important change in this period is the vocabulary of American colonists and their descendants. The population of the United States increased from 530 in 1800 to 75.6 million in 1900. Webster pointed out that the population of North America can't just rely on "British English used by millions of people on an island", and British English and American English will inevitably split. For linguistic reasons, both Franklin and Webster advocated affix reform. Webster advocates removing the silent letters and completing the process of englishization of French loanwords. The war of independence, the war of 18 12, the American civil war, economic competition and the rise of nationalism are all causes of language differences. 195 1 published an American English dictionary and collected a large number of American English words. Analysis, American English words come from four aspects.

1. new wine is packed in old bottles, and old words are new, such as fix (bride), swan (claim), turkey (bluff), notch (canyon) and so on.

2. Compound words, such as topographical words, such as remote areas, foothills, watersheds and bushes; Words to express the new world lifestyle: bluebird, bullfrog, devil fish; Spoken vocabulary: light dollar, blue nose, high eyebrows, pale face, peace pipe, road to war; Idiom verbs include: keep neutral, kick yourself, give someone a proper one, pull up the brace, knock it down and drag it out, go in, etc.

3. Borrowing words. Indian words include totem, persimmon, pone (corn bread), hickory (hickory), hominy (corn porridge), moose (moose), Kuhn (smart card), skunk (hateful person), powwow (wizard), tomahawk (tomahawk) and wampum. Words from French are: levee, sleigh, and guli. The words from Spain are: ranch, patio (patio). Words from Holland are: boss, porch, biscuit, sleigh, ghost, Santa Claus. Words from German are: hamburger; ; The Indian language that was not a place name has become a place name, such as Alabama, Chicago, Dakota, Iowa, Massachusetts, Niagara and Ohio. The Dutch place names in new york are: Long, Coney, Staten. French place names include champlain, Huron, lafayette, Louisiana and St. Louis. Spanish place names are: El Paso, Florida, Los Angeles, Montana and San Francisco. Tens of thousands of islands in Hawaii still use Hawaiian: Hawaiian, Honolulu Lu Lu (Protected Bay), Kona (Leeward) and Monaloa. The word American, which we are familiar with, was named by Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, and/kloc-0 was included in the literature in 578.

4. New words, such as pep, chunky, blurb, caucus. The British regard it as the dialect of savage Americans and label it as a "vulgar word".

Contemporary English began at 1900. During this period, the United States defeated Spain to become a world power and won the Philippines, Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico. In Ying Bu War, Britain defeated the Boers and established the South African Union. In this way, English has replaced French as a diplomatic language and a medium of international trade. Geographically, with the support of Europe and North America, English has become king.

As early as the Second World War, there were some words in the languages of Britain and the United States that did not understand each other, which caused many misunderstandings between the two sides. In order to reduce unnecessary troubles, 1942 The US Army issued a short guide to Britain, and the Royal Air Force also compiled notes for your guidance. American educator Ken predicted that future scholars would study English as a dialect in the United States. In 300 years, American English will become an independent language.

Many blacks in the United States speak southern dialects, but blacks do not speak independent dialects. If blacks and whites have the same level of education, it is difficult to tell whether the dialect spoken by blacks or whites is on the phone. If the parents speak nonstandard English and the black person has no chance to receive formal education, then there may be no connecting verbs in his English, but this should not be regarded as a sign of inferior race. For example, she is a big woman (before noun phrases). But now I'm here (before adverbs) (from the cool world). However, in informal situations, there is also reason to ask: What about your sister?

However, according to Joseph Wright, dialects are rapidly disappearing even in rural areas due to the development of education and modern means of communication. It turns out that Mencken exaggerated the trend of American English. After World War II, the phenomenon of dialect parting ways was curbed. English has become the working language of the United Nations, and international political, economic and tourism exchanges, Hollywood movies and cultural exchanges between Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia have all contributed to the unification and rise of English.

Third, American English period.

It should be pointed out that the banner of English communication after World War II was mainly resisted by the United States. After two world wars, the world's major countries were hit hard, and only the United States earned war money, and its comprehensive national strength was unprecedentedly enhanced. After World War II, the industrial output of the United States was 1/2 of that of the capitalist world, export trade accounted for 1/3, and gold reserves accounted for 3/4. In addition, it has the most powerful military machine in the world and monopolized the atomic bomb. By establishing the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, we have completely controlled the world in politics, finance, investment and trade. America keeps making noise all over the world. Television, newspapers and other news media report on America all day. American voices can be heard everywhere in class, music, tourism and business, and the status of American English (English) has been lifted accordingly.

The economic base determines the superstructure, and American English comes from behind, which tends to surpass British English. American English has its own systematic features:

1. Grammatical aspect

British people use the present perfect tense, while Americans use the simple present tense. Americans use subjunctive mood more than British people; The British use one, and the Americans use his; . Americans use like more, while British people use as/ as if; ; English people often use adverbs with -ly, while Americans often use adverbs without -ly; The pp of American English get is get X. The British can use it; On the phone, the Englishman said, Hello, is this Bill? The American said, Hello, is this the bill?

2. Lexical aspects

The same meaning is expressed in different words in American English and English, such as "a suite". Americans say apartments, and the British say flat; ; The same word expresses different meanings in American English and British English, such as mad, which means angry in American and crazy in British.

Step 3 spell

In American English, the suffix is an unstressed syllable with -l, which is no longer written; British people write both, such as: traveler-traveler; ; Some words in American English end in ter, while English people end in tre. For example, the theater-the theater. Some words end with-or-,while English people end with-our. Such as: honor-honor; Some words in American English end with -ize, while English people end with -ise. Such as: realization-realization; Some words in American English are defense-defense, etc.

4. In pronunciation

Americans who stress vowels read longer than the British, who say Americans are "slow"; American English is often nasalized, and air comes out of the mouth and nose at the same time; In standard English, R is pronounced only before vowels, while in American English, R is pronounced everywhere. American English pronounced [оu] as British English vowel, [∧] as a, [α:] as a; In American English, the t and d between vowels are pronounced [d], so the pronunciation of writer and rider sounds the same; Words ending in -tile are pronounced as [-tl] in American English and [-tail] in British English.

Since 1900, the rules of deep structure have hardly changed. The change of vocabulary seems to be much more active, and the semantics are constantly fluctuating. For example, litchi borrowed from Chinese in 1588 is used more frequently. The toilet Byron used in 18 19 has now given way to the bathroom. For women, the bathroom is giving way to the dressing room; Again; Innovative words have mushroomed, and only the words of space exploration are: space station, spaceship, feedback, countdown, launch; Compound words are another kind of innovative words, similar to compound words, which are composed of two or more existing morphemes. For example, dandle is a combination of dance and handle.

Loanwords have greatly increased, and French words include garage( 1902), limousine (car) and camera (camouflage); The Spanish word is tango; ; The word in Czech is robot; Russian words include Bolshevik (19 17) and Sputnik (Soviet artificial earth satellite); Words from Arabic include fedayeen (commando); Abbreviation is the combination of the first letter of each word, AWOL-AWOL; NATO-North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Radar radio detection and ranging; At sixes and sevens-the situation is normal and completely chaotic; Sonar-acoustic navigation ranging; Vice president and others.

Throughout the Millennium evolution, the rise of English has a "triple jump". 1588, Britain defeated the Spanish Armada and gained a foothold in Europe, which was the first time to jump; 1640- 1660 British bourgeois revolution and from the end of 18 to the beginning of 19 century, capitalism developed rapidly, and at the end of 19 century, it became the largest colonial empire in the world-"the empire that never sets", which was the second leap; After the two world wars, Britain's national strength declined and the former colony became independent. Thin camels are bigger than horses, and there are nearly 53 countries in the Commonwealth. ) and the United States made a fortune in the war, suddenly emerged, took over the baton of English and completed the third leap. Culture belongs to the superstructure, and its consciousness is relatively independent, which will inevitably lead or lag behind. But before finding a better landmark event, the great historical change is still an important reference.

At present, English grammar has been simplified to the bottom line and the basic structure has been finalized, but the vocabulary is growing rapidly with about 5,000 new words every year. High school students in Russia are required to master 9000 English words, while the general requirement for college students in China is 4500 words, and graduate students are required to master 5500 words. The shortage of vocabulary will still be a big "bottleneck" that restricts our rapid use of English.

Graddol predicts that English and Chinese will rank among the six major languages in the world in the 2nd/Kloc-0th century (others are Hindi, Urdu, Spanish and Arabic). The lingua franca function of English will not be easily replaced, but it will not reproduce the glory of the 20th century. Japanese, French and German won't do much, but Chinese will definitely rise. English is no longer a British and American patent, but belongs to the whole world, and its future depends on China and India.