The History of English Language

  • 410

    romans

    latin was used for scholarly things
    anglo-saxan was used for everyday language
  • 597

    christianity

    christians bring words from the semantic field
  • 800

    vikings

    vikings brought action words
    increase of 2000 words
  • 1066

    french

    french invades
    french words were considered upper class
    'judge' 'jury' 'evidence' and 'justice'
    10,000 words
  • 1300

    upper and lower class language

    cow (from english) was commonfolk but beef was french and upperclass
    anglo-saxan english vs french
  • 1453

    the 100 year war

    english won the war against the french and won
    english became the dominant language
  • 1564

    shakespeare

    created 2000 words
    had advantage bcs of written language
    poetry gave creative freedom for creating new words
  • Period: to

    british colonisation

    since english was used in church, science and common people... english is colonising many other countries and are picking up the language from the countries they colonised
  • Period: to

    american english

    waves of immigration, lots of new language
    language of capitalism!!
  • king james' bible

    king james' bible was translated from latin to english
    bridged the gap between the classes
    filled with metaphors and moral and ethical words
  • the english of science

    royal society of physicists converted academic works from latin to english
  • Period: to

    johnson's dictionary

    9 years to write
    18" tall
    42,773 thousand words
  • Period: to

    the creation of the oxford english dictionary

  • internet language

    abbreviations are introduced
  • global english?

    english evolved. is english english? no (?)