HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
By William H. Maxwell, M. A. , LL. D.
A reprint taken directly from his book, published by American Book
Company 1907.
Edited by Lene M. Jaqua
MikeJaqua@worldnet.att.net
Languages are arranged in families according to
resemblances in words and in the grammatical
forms used to combine words into sentences.
The English language belongs to the most imporant
of these families, called the Indo European because
comprises the most important languages that are
or have been spoken from India to the western
coast of Europe.
It is also called the Aryan,
from an ancient Asiatic race of that name.
The Indo-European family has two great divisions
(a) Asiatic; (b) European.
Under each of these divisions are
several distinct groups of languages
(a) ASIATIC DIVISION
1. The Indian languages, including the Sanskrit
(a language flow no longer spoken),
the modern Indian dialects of Hindo-stan,
and the Gypsy dialect.
2. The Persian languages, including the Zend
(the ancient language of Persia) and modern Persian.
(b) EUROPEAN DIVISION
1. The Hellenic languages,
including the various dialects of ancient
Greek and the varions dialects of modern Greek.
2. The Latin languages, including ancient
Latin and the several Romance languages
to which the Latin has given rise, (a)
Italian; (b) French; (c) Spanish; (d) Portuguese;
(e) Romansch or Romanese, spoken in southern
Switzerland; (f) Walachian, spokea in Wallachia
and Moldavia.
3. The Teutonic languages, comprising:
(a) the Low German dialects, spoken originally
by the tribes living on the northern shores and
lowands of Germany - now represented by Frisian,
Dutch, Flemish, and English; (b) High German
formerly the language of the southeast of Germany,
Bavaria and Austria, now the literary dialect of
Germany; (c) Scandinavian, including Icelandic,
Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish
4. The Celtic languages, divided into:
(a) the Cymric branch including Welsh, Cornish,
and Armorican of Brittany; (b) Gaelic branch,
comprising the Irish or Erse, the Scottish Gaelic
and the Manx of the Isle of Man.
5. Scilaonic, including Russian, Lettish,
Lithuanian, Finnish, etc.
The English language, then,
is a member of the Indo-European family;
it belongs to the Teutonic group, and it is
a German dialect. It was brought to America
from England. It was brought to England,
where it developed into its present form,
from northern Germany, about the middle of
the 5th century after Christ.
Up to that time, the country now called
England had been known as Britannia
or Britain.
The chief historical events that should
be born in mind in tracing the development
of the Enlgish language are the following:
The island of Britain was originally peopled by a
Celtic race who spoke a Celtic language.
Britain was invaded by a Roman army under
Julius Caesar in 55 B.C. It was afterward
conquered by Rome in and it was held as a
Roman province until 426 A.D.
On the retirement of the Romans, the country was
invaded by three Low German tribes - Jutes, Saxons,
and Angles. These Teutonic invaders took complete
possession of the country, driving the native,
population , except a few who were kept
as slaves, to Cornwall, Wales, and Strathclyde,
a region bordering the
Solway Firth.
The Jutes settled in Kent; the Saxons, in the southern
part of the island; and the Angles,
in the center and north of England and the southern
half of Scotland. From the Angles, who were the most
numerous, the country was called Angle- or Eng~land,
or England, "the land of the Angles."
Toward the close of the ninth century the various
Teutonic tribes became united politically under a
single king. They spoke several Low German dialects,
which are now included under the general term
Anglo-Saxon.
About the year 596 the English were converted
to Christianity by missionaries from Rome.
Toward the end of the eighth century, the Northmen
of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden),
generally called Danes, ravaged
the east coast of England. In the ninth century
they gained possession of a large part of the east
coast, and in the eleventh century
Danish sovereigns sat on the throne of England
for nearly thirty years.
In 1066 the Normans - Northmen who had
settled in France and who had acquired the French
language - under Duke William invaded England.
The English army under King Harold was defeated at
Hastings. William became king and made his followers
the nobles, the bishops, and the landlords of the
country. French became the language of the law
courts, the churches, and the schools, and
was generally spoken by the Normans; while
the Teutonic folk, though they no longer,
except in rare cases, owned the land, stubbornly
asserted their rights and clung tenaciously to their
own language.
Gradually, the conquering Normans and the conquered
Saxons coalesced and became one people. After
a struggle of three hundred years the English
language won at last and became the language of
the country.
In 1349 boys at school began to
translate their Latin into English instead of
into French. In 1362 English was made the
language of the courts of law.
The first fruits of the triumph of the
English language were the noble poetry of Geoffrey
Chaucer, who has been called father of English poetry,
and John Wycliff's version of Bible.
Chaucer raised the midland dialect,
that which descended from the Angles,
to the rank of the literary language of England.
The supremacy of this dialect was confirmed
by Willi Caxton. Setting up the first English
printing press at Westminster in 1474,
he printed many books in the dialect
ennobled by Chaucer. It is interesting to
remember that this benefactor of English
speech and of English literature died in the year
in which America was discovered.
About the time at which John Smith
was establishing first permanent English
colony in America, at Jamestown, Virginia,
the English language became established
in its features as we now know it through the
influence of two literary works - the translation of
the Bible prepared under the authority of King James,
and the dramas of William Shakespeare.
The spelling of English words was
fixed very nearly as we now have it by
Samuel Johnson's English Dictionary,
published in 1755.
The language brought by the Angles,
Saxons, etc,. was an unmixed language;
that is, it contained few or no
words that were not Low German.
English is now a mixed or composite
language, because, while the frame work is English,
it has absorbed
many thousands of foreign words.
The following are the principal foreign elements in
English:
I. The Celtic Element. - A few Celtic
words that have come down to us from the
early inhabitants of Britain,
or through the Norman French,
are still retained; such as,
breeches, basket, clout, crock, cradle, kiln,
mattock, mop, pot.
II. The Scandinavzan Element.-
The Danes, or Northmen, spoke a language very
much akin to the Anglo-Saxon. Hence it
is difficult to distinguish words of purely
Danish origin. Names of places ending in by
(town), fell (hill), beck (stream), shaw -(wood),
garth (inclosure), are of Danish origin.
III. The Latin Element. -
By far the largest foreign element in
English is the Latin. Words derived from
the Latin were introduced at four distinct
periods: -
1. Latin of the First Period. -
The Roman occupation of Britain gave
us a few names of places, as Chester,
Gloucester, Dorchester, from castra,
a camp, becanse tlie Romans had fortified
towns at these places; Lincoln, from colonia,
a colony and Portsmouth, from portus, a harbor.
The Latin strata became street, the Romans
being great roadmakers.
2. Latin of the Second Period. -
The introduction of Christianity brought
many terms connected with the Church and
its services, as chalice (calix), cloister
(claustrum), deacon (diaconus), clerk
(clericus), etc.
3. Latin of the Third Period. -
The Norman conquerors spoke the French
language; As the French is derived
from the Latin, several thousands of Latin words
were introduced through this medium. They
were religious, philosophical, and poetic terms,
used by English writers who translated religious
books, poems, and romances from French into English;
law terms; words pertaining to the chase, to war,
and to chivalry.
4. Latin of the Fourth Period. -
About the beginning of the sixteenth
century occurred what is called the
revival of learning. More profound study
than ever before was given to the literatures
of ancient Greece and Rome. From this time down
many words have been taken directly from the Latin.
IV. The Greek Element. - Philosophical
and scientific words
are generally derived from the Greek, though
the Greek element is only about one eighth
as large as the Latin; as, logic,
physics, philosophy, astronomy, geography,
problem, diagram.
V. Words of Miscellaneous Origin
Through commece and social intercourse
with every part of the known world, the
English vocabulary has been enriched
with words relating to natural productions,
works of art, or social institutions. Thus the word
taboo comes from the Sandwich Islands; the word
tea is Chinese; and algekra, almanac, and alcohol
are Arabic.
Words of classical origin are about
twice as numerous as pure English words; but,
as the English wo are much more frequently used
than the classical, the English element greatly
preponderates, not only in talk, but in the pages
of our great writers. Words from all sources
other than English, Latin, and Greek do not
exceed one-twentieth. of the entire vocabulary.
The following classes of words are of English,
Low German, origin:
1. Demonstrative adjectives; pronouns;
numerals.
2. Auxiliary and defective verbs.
3. Prepositions and conjunctions.
4. Nouns forming their plurals by
change of vowel.
5. Verbs forming their past
tense by change of vowel.
6. Adjectives forming their degrees
of comparison irregularlyarly.
7. Most words of one syllable and many
of two syllables
8. Words relating to common
natural objects, to home life to agriculture, to the simpler feelings of the mind, and to common trades and processes.
On the other hand, most words of three or
more syllables, and many words of two syllables,
words relating to religion, law, government, and war,
to the higher processes of the mind, to art,
science, and philosophy, are of Latin origin.
In the following passage from Washington Irving's
"Westminster Abbey," the words of foreign origin
are printed in italics:
"It was the tomb of a
crusader;
of one of those military
enthusiasts ,
who so strangely mingled religion
and romance ,
and whose exploits formed
the connecting
link between fact and fiction , between
the history and the fairy tale. There is
something extremely picturesque in the
tombs
of these adventurers , decorated as they are
with rude armorial bearings and Gothic
sculpture ."
In many cases we find an English and a
Romance word used to express the same thing with
slightly different shades of meaning; as, feeling,
sentiment; work, labor; bloom, flower. In this
way, many so-called synonyms have been developed.
Besides the introduction of foreign words, the
English language has undergone another great change
since the days of pure Anglo-Saxon, namely,
in its grammar.
The Anglo-Saxon was a highly inflected language.
"Nouns had five cases, and there were different
declensions (as in Latin); adjectives were
declined, and had three genders; pronouns
had more forms, and some had a dual number
as well as a singular and plural; the verbs
had more variety in their personal
terminations. All that remains of grammatical
inflection in English is of Anglo-Saxon origin;
most of the Anglo-Saxon inflections have been
dropped, and their places have been supplied by
prepositions and auxiliary verbs. This change had
commenced even before the Norman Conquest,
particularly in those parts of the country affected
by Danish incursions, but it was accelerated by the
presence the Norman-French, possibly because the
Saxons and Normans had enough to do in learning the
two vocabularies without acquiring a cumbrous
system of inflections.
Professor Lounsbury divides the historical
development of the English language into four periods:
I. The Anglo-Saxon period,
from the first coming of Saxons
and Angles to the year 1150.
Toward the end of this period inflections
began to drop
II. The Early Enghsh period,
from 1150 to 1350; so times subdivided into
semi-Saxon from 1150 to 1250, and English from
1250 to 1350.
During this period the language was steadily
losing inflections and incorporating French words.
Toward the end of this period three dialects of
equal rank were marked:
1. The Northern dialect, spoken
from the Humber to Firth of Forth. This developed
into lowland Scotch.
2. The Southern dialect, spoken south
of the Thames.
3. The Midland dialect, spoken in the
intervening districts
III. Middle English, from 1350 to 1550.
During this period inflections were reduced almost
to their
present number; foreign words were freely introduced
from the Italian as well as from the Latin and the
French; and the Midland dialect, because Chaucer,
the first great English poet, wrote in it, became
the literary language of England.
IV Modern English, from 1550 to the present
time.'-- lmj
Artes Latinae Lectiones, A software review:
.
by lmj August, 2000
Artes Latinae Lectiones is self-instructional Latin Course
.
Platform: Windows 95, 98 , NT 4.0
486 or higher
.CD-ROM Drive
16 MB RAM
25 MB free disk space
1 MB SVGA card or better
Macintosh:
System 7.1 or better
68040 or better Processor
CD ROM drive
Standard built in speakers
Artes Latinae Lectiones is a supplemental Latin reading program, where the student learns Latin while studying the wisdom of the Ancients. Proverbs and sayings are extracted from the Bible, Latin sages and philosophers such as Bacon. The sayings increase in difficulty as you go through the program.
The program provides users with a detailed, easily accessible
details of grammar and meaning of each sentence.
Click on a word to learn its person, number, gender, meaning,
syntax, and English derivatives.
The pronunciation is classical. Each sentence or each individual word can be pronuonced by the click of a mouse, also a graphical voice comparison with your own pronunciation is an available feature. Likewise, translations of words, segments or full sentences are readily available.
The most entertaining part of the program
is the game section,
which can be played at
various levels of difficulty and
at three different speeds. All games are
educational rather than arcade style.
We enjoyed the word puzzles,
word scrambles, sentences scrambles, allowing us
to practice newly acquired language
skills in a fun and engaging way.
In my limited experience and judgment
Artes Latinae Lectiones
could be used by a second or third year
independent Latin student. initially getting used to
the set up of the first window in the program was
not intuitively
obvious to me, but
any young student, familiar
with software programs, and pull-down
menus should have no trouble navigating
Lectiones in a very short while.
Many of the sayings in this soft ware are found also
in Wheelock's Latin. I would recommend
Lectiones for a strong student, who enjoys Latin,
as a rewarding way to learn
Latin proverbs, or as a fun supplement for a student who needs more practice in
vocabulary
and grammar.
It has the distinct advantage over textbooks
and cassette tapes of instant feedback on
spelling, syntax, pronunciation and grammar.
-- lmj