The Formation of English (1) The Old English Period
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The Formation of English (1) The Old English Period. The Old English Period (also known as the Anglo-Saxon Period) saw the Germanic tribes settle in Britain, each occupying certain areas. The Angles occupied most of England north of the Thames and the lowlands of Scotland, the Jutes occupied the area around Kent, and the Saxons occupied most of the land south of the Thames. Various tribes established small kingdoms, giving rise to the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy in English history. It was not until 830 AD that Alfred the Great unified all of England. Due to the long period of lack of unity across the country, there were various dialects during the Old English period; the main ones were West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian, and Northumbrian. All four of these dialects were once dominant. The West Saxon language has the largest number of surviving manuscripts, and other dialects also played an important role in the formation of English. The vocabulary of Old English has strong characteristics of the Germanic language family. This is mainly reflected in the fact that compounding is an important method of word formation, and compounds hold a significant place in Old English vocabulary. According to statistics, among the 3,183 lines of the epic Beowulf, there are as many as 1,069 compound words. In some compound words, the unstressed parts gradually lose their independent status and evolve into affixes. Derivational elements such as for-, in-, -ful, etc., were also widely used in Old English; there are 24 noun suffixes and 15 adjective suffixes in total, with affixes like -dom, -hood, -ship, -ness, -the, -ful, -ish all tracing their origins back to Old English. Poetry from the Old English period featured a particular rhetorical device, namely alliteration; many phrases that originated from this practice have survived to this day, such as might and main (with all one’s effort), friend and foe (friends and enemies), and a labour of love (something done out of love). There were two significant historical events during the Old English period that had a major impact on the English vocabulary. The first thing is to **teach it in English**. In 597 AD, a priest named Augustine came from Rome to Britain to preach. Roman culture was introduced to Britain along with **religion. At the same time, a number of Latin words entered English. The second thing is the invasion of Britain by the Norse. Starting in 790 AD, a large number of Scandinavians settled in Britain, and the Danish king Knut even became the ruler of Britain for a time. Scandinavians have frequent interactions with Britons, so many words from Scandinavian countries have entered English.
During the Middle English period, in 1066, the Normans, led by William the Conqueror, crossed the English Channel and defeated the Anglo-Saxon army at the Battle of Hastings. King Harold was killed in battle, and England was conquered. This is historically known as the Norman Conquest. From then on, Britain ended its state of division and came under the rule of a centralized feudal system. The Norman Conquest was an important turning point in British history, having a profound impact on the development of the English language. After the Norman conquest, the Normans occupied all the important positions in the church and **. For the next two or three hundred years, Norman French became the official language of Britain. Written records in English were almost interrupted. Middle English can generally be divided into two periods: the year 1204, when the English king lost Normandy in France, serves as the dividing line between these two periods. After 1204, English gradually regained its dominant position. In 1362, King Edward III used English to address Parliament for the first time. In the 15th century, the London standard dialect emerged. In 1476, William Caxton introduced printing to England, which played a significant role in standardizing the spelling of the English language and promoting its written form. During the Middle English period, the English language underwent drastic changes. Most suffix changes disappeared, as did the gender of nouns; word order, function words, and intonation became the main means to indicate the structural relationships in sentences. If Old English, like other Germanic languages such as German, is a typical fusional language, by the end of Middle English, English had gradually begun to exhibit characteristics of agglutinative languages (such as Chinese), and this trend has continued to this day. Changes in vocabulary are also significant. Since Norman French was once the language of the British ruling class, a large number of French words entered English. This is reflected in all areas related to the ruling class, such as politics, religion, law, **, social life, clothing, diet, and so on. French words became the main component of all words in these fields. From then on, English shifted away from using compounding as the main method for creating new words, a feature of the Germanic language families that involved using such methods to refer to new things and express new concepts; instead, it opened the door to foreign words, adopting the approach of directly importing loanwords to meet the need for new terms. This change had a profound impact on the development of the English vocabulary, paving the way for a large number of loanwords to enter English in later times—mainly words from Greek and Latin. As numerous French loanwords were incorporated into English, some French and Latin affixes were also Anglicized, becoming important elements in English word formation. Such as the prefixes dis- (distrust), en- (enrich), inter- (intermingle), mal- (maladjustment), non- (nonage), pre- (preconceive), re- (reenter), semi- (semi-circle), sub- (subtenant) ； Suffixes such as -able (believable), -acy (delicacy), -age (peerage), -al (rehearsal), -ancy/-ency (vacancy, innocence), -ate (translate), -ory (transitory), -ance (hindrance), -ant/-ent (occupant, resident), -ician (geometrician), -ise/-ize (epitomise, fertilize). At the same time, some native English affixes have been abandoned. In terms of the structure of compound words, some features of French have also been adopted, such as: noun + adjective (knight-errant, a roving knight), adverb + past participle (by-gone, things from the past). Linguists refer to these phenomena as the Romanization of English. This is why, from a genetic perspective, English is related to German, but the vocabulary of modern English is more similar to that of French. The influx of a large number of French words has also caused changes in the meanings of English words. Some words that are inherent to the English language have fallen out of use; others still exist, but their meanings have changed, or they have acquired a distinct stylistic flavor and emotional connotation. For example, in Old English, “wed” meant “to get married,” but during Middle English the French word “marry” was introduced, and the meaning of “to get married” in English gradually came to be expressed by “marry”; “wed” was only used in extended meanings ； Its gerund form, wedding, is also a common word, but it is used only to refer to “weddings”.
The Formation of English (3) Modern English By the end of the Middle Ages, English had established itself as the **national language** of England. The works of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400) demonstrate that English had become a mature literary language. The simplification process of English grammar has been largely completed, spelling has become standardized, and a basic vocabulary has also taken shape. In short, the foundation of modern English has been laid. If reading English before Middle English is like reading another foreign language, then the difference between English after the 16th century and modern English is not so obvious. Modern English is generally divided into Early Modern English and Late Modern English, with 1700 as the boundary. By 1700, the process of standardizing and regularizing the English language was complete; thereafter, there were no major changes in English pronunciation or grammar, with only the vocabulary continuing to expand and grow. During the early periods of modern English, it was the Renaissance that had the greatest influence on the language. The Renaissance began in Italy in the 14th century and had a significant impact on England over the two centuries following the 16th century. During this period, there was an emphasis on studying ancient Greek and Roman cultures in order to counter the feudal culture of the Middle Ages. As a result, many foreign words, primarily from Latin and Greek, entered English and became an essential part of its written language and technical terminology; they also provided English with a large number of synonyms. When Greek and Latin words entered English, some retained their original form, such as climax (**), appendix (appendix), exterior (external), a*s (axis) ； Some have lost their endings, such as consult (to discuss) ← consultare, exclusion (to exclude) ← exclusioneum, exotic (of an exotic style) ← exoticus ； Others changed the word endings to suit English forms; for example, the adjective ending -us was changed to -ous (conspicuus → conspicuous, meaning ‘obvious’) or to -al (externus → external, meaning ‘external’), and the noun ending -tas was changed to -ty (celeritas → celerity, meaning ‘quick’). Following the British bourgeois revolution and the industrial revolution that followed, the British Empire began to expand outward, engaging in increasing contact with various parts of the world. As a result, words from languages around the globe were incorporated into English, such as: harem for caravans, bazaar for markets, shawl for scarves, kiosk for pavilions, coffee for the beverage, nabob for extremely wealthy people, soy for soy sauce, orang-outang for gorillas, and paddy for rice. In terms of morphology, truncated words and blends are increasing rapidly. The method of forming new words through vowel alternation (ablaut), such as filmflam meaning nonsense, has gradually been abandoned. During this period, English was taken to areas outside Britain**, where it became the common language; American English deserves special mention in this context. Over time, the English spoken by the Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic remained largely similar, but certain differences began to appear in terms of language, spelling, and grammar. The first influential large English dictionary was The Dictionary of the English Language, compiled by Samuel Johnson and published in 1775. From the perspective of modern linguistics, this dictionary has many shortcomings, but it played a positive role in standardizing vocabulary at that time. The An American Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1828, and the Oxford English Dictionary, which was published in stages at the beginning of the 20th century, are representative works of dictionary compilation in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively. Since the 20th century, the scientific culture in Britain and the United States has developed greatly. Various forms of media have become increasingly widespread, two world wars have taken place, interactions between people have grown more frequent, and the vocabulary of English has also expanded significantly, with its size increasing many fold. As an international language, English is the official language of countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. With over 340 million speakers, it is the most widely used foreign language in the world and plays an important role in international communications. After 1500 years of change, English has evolved from the language of several Germanic tribes into a language with significant international influence today. While political, economic, and social factors have played a role in this, English also possesses advantages that other major languages do not have. One of its obvious advantages is the international nature of its vocabulary. On the one hand, English belongs to the Germanic language family, and it shares common words with other Germanic languages ； On the other hand, it has long been closely connected to French and other Romance languages, while absorbing a large number of classical (Greek, Latin) words. It can be said that English incorporates words representing Europe’s major cultures, which is unique among the languages of Europe. From a grammatical perspective, English has simple suffix changes, with no complex changes related to gender, number, or case. English is continuously evolving toward an analytical language, becoming more simplified. There are increasing changes in the word order in English, which also makes it easier to learn*, especially for beginners. English also has its weaknesses; the most noticeable one is the inconsistency between spelling and pronunciation, which leads to spelling confusion. Furthermore, there are many synonyms and idioms, which indeed enhance its expressiveness, but at the same time pose considerable difficulties for English learners. To truly master English, one must put in a lot of effort.
Take the chemical industry as an example: the weakness of English is its lack of the precision that languages such as German and Chinese possess! Many technical terms are easy to confuse. And currently, the development of the Chinese language is quite impressive. Terms like those related to aviation and aerospace reflect different fields. However, Taiwan lags far behind in terms of the development of the Chinese language; it even uses the term \"flying shuttle\" for things related to aviation and aerospace, which is a sign of lack of progress and fails to reflect the charm of the Chinese language. Similarly, English also has similar weaknesses. Progress is also needed in the innovation of vocabulary.