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410
Anglo-saxon
410 AD-The English begins with the phrase “Up yours, Cesar” as the Romans leave Britain, and a lot of Germanic tribes start flooding in (450 AD). Tribes such as the Angles and the Saxons, who together gave us the term Anglo-Saxon and the Jutes who didn’t. Four of our days of the week were named in honor of Anglo-Saxon gods, they didn’t bother with Saturday Sunday and Monday. -
1066
The Norman Conquest
William the conqueror invades England bringing new concepts from across the channel like the French language, the Doomsday Book and the duty-free Gauloise multi-pack.
1129-Cler ->Clerk
1290-Souverain->Sovereign, Parlement ->Parliament
French was de rigueur for all official business, with words like, 1290- Judge, 1400-Jury, 1300-Evidence, 1154-Justice, giving John Grisham’s career a kick start. -
1564
William Shakespeare
1564-1616- about 2,000 new words and phrases were invented by Shakespeare. He also showed the world that English was a rich, vibrant language with limitless expressive and emotional power. He opened many tea rooms in Stratford. -
English and Empire or the Sun never sets on the English language
1583-1914-Britain decided to ask only for land, wealth, natural resources, total obedience to the crown and a few local words in return.
1550- The barbecue, the canoe and a surprisingly good recipe for rum punch was discovered when they went to the Caribbean to look for gold.
1820- In India Yoga was found.
1610-Cummerbund
1500-Bungalows
In1670- Africa, they picked up words like voodoo and zombie.
1852-Autralia took the words nugget,
1827-boomerang and
1828-walkabout -
American English or not English but somewhere in the ballpark
1607- Brits landed in America, they needed names for plants and animals, they borrowed words from the Native Americans, and most of their territory. Immigrants fed America’s hunger for words, the Dutch came sharing coleslaw (1794) and cookies (1703)
1856- Germans arrived selling pretzels.
1935- Italians arrived with pizza, in 1874-pasta and their mafia (1875)
1914-America spread a new language of capitalism, getting everyone worried about the break-even and the Bottomline (1967) -
The king James Bible or let there be light reading
1611-The powers that turned the world upside down with a labor of love, a new translation of the Bible. Its words and phrases took root to the ends of the earth, at least the ends of Britain.
Jonathan begat Maribel and Maribel Begat Myka and King James Bible begat a whole glossary of metaphor and morality that still shapes the way English is spoken today. -
The English of Science or how to speak gravity
1635-Before the 17th Century weren’t really recognized, but suddenly Britain was full of physicists.
1635-1703 Robert Hooke,
1627-1691-Robert Boyle and
1643-1727-Issac Newton.
On 1660-The Royal Society was formed out of the invisible college after they put it down and couldn’t find it again.
Science was discovering things faster. Words like acid gravity and many more. -
The Age of the Dictionary or the definition of a hopeless task
With English expanding all directions, along came a breed of men called lexicographers who wanted to put an end to this Anarchy.
Dr. Johnson- whose Dictionary of the English Language took him nine years to write. It was 18 inches tall and contained 42,773 entries. it was useful if you wanted to reach a high shelf.
In 1857- a new book was started, the Oxford English Dictionary. It took another seventy years to be finished
In 1928- it finally paid in and it’s continued to be revised ever since. -
Internet English or language reverts to type.
In 1972, the first email was sent, soon the internet arrived: a free global space to share information, ideas. Before the internet, English changed through people speaking it, but the net brought typing back. No one had to download (1980) anything or use a toolbar (1991) and when someone set up a firewall it ended with an insurance claim.
Conversations were shorter, using abbreviations it gave you time to blog (1998), poke (2004) and reboot when your hard drive crashed (1973) -
Conclusion
Around 1.5 billion people speak English of these about a quarter are native speakers, a quarter speak it as their second language and half are able to ask for directions.
The language has little to do with England these days