History of English Development (Brief Introduction to English)

Futhark)→ Old English (Anglo-Saxon) → British English.

1. The development of English can be traced back to AD 4 10. After the Romans left Britain, Germanic tribes including the Angles and Saxons began to flood in.

The Romans left without leaving the Latin they used. On the contrary, practical Anglo-Saxon language entered the local language and brought new words.

In 597 AD, Christianity was introduced to Britain. The popularity of Christianity makes it easier for local people to accept Latin strange words, such as "martyr", "bishop" and "font".

In 800 AD, the Danes invaded Britain. Viking has brought warlike words to English. There are 2000 words in English that originated from vikings.

5. 1066, William the Conqueror invaded Britain and brought French from the other side of the Strait. French has become the language of high society and official affairs. Generally speaking, English probably absorbed more than 10,000 words from Norman.

6. 1337, the centennial war between Britain and France began. In this 1 16 struggle, English absorbed French war words, such as "army", "navy" and "soldier", and gradually replaced French as the language of the authorities.

Shakespeare was born after 7 100. The dictionary tells us that Shakespeare may have invented more than 2000 new words, including useful words and many popular words at that time.

The King James Bible appeared in August.1611year. The new Bible uses a language that everyone can understand, so that the lessons in the Bible are no longer words on the "white wall of the palace", but pamphlets in hand, and missionaries preach in every church.

9.17th century, science developed rapidly. Scientists at the Royal College began to communicate in Latin, but later found it easier to use their mother tongue English. The discovery of new things has produced many new words.

10. During the rapid expansion of the empire, English absorbed many new words and expressions from different languages in the colonies. According to statistics, from 18 15 to 19 14, new varieties of English have developed all over the world.

1 1. With the expansion of English in all directions, lexicographers appeared, and they wanted to solve the anarchy of inconsistent spelling. So Dr. Johnson spent nine years compiling an English dictionary, which promoted the unification of spelling.

12. English evolved from the language spoken by white people of Anglo-Saxon and jute tribes who immigrated to the British Isles from Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and surrounding areas, and spread to all parts of the world through the active exchanges of British colonists.

13. 19 From the 20th century, Britain and the United States took the lead in culture, economy, military affairs, politics and science, making English an international language. Nowadays, English is used as a medium of communication in many international situations.

Old English is greatly influenced by low Germanic languages, such as verbs, basic vocabulary, pronunciation, compound word structure, morphological changes, etc., but it is still very different from modern standard German.

Modern English does not originate or evolve from Romance or French, but thousands of modern English words, a large part of which come from French, which is close to or even the same as French. Modern English and most modern European languages are spelled by letters.

The spelling letters used in modern English are also completely borrowed from 26 letters. The so-called "English letters" are the spelling letters used by ancient Romans when writing.

English began to use Latin letters as its spelling system in the Anglo-Saxon era in the sixth century.

Reference English-Baidu Encyclopedia