English is a member of the Indo-European family of languages. This broad family includes most of the European languages spoken today. The Indo-European family includes veral major branches: Latin and the modern Romance languages (French etc.); the Germanic languages (English, German, Swedish etc.); the Indo-Iranian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit etc.); the Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech etc.); the Baltic languages of Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish Gaelic etc.); Greek.
The influence of the original Indo-European language can be en today, even though no written record of it exists. The word for father, for example, is vater in German, pater in Latin, and pitr in Sanskrit. The words are all cognates, similar words in different languages that share the same root.
By the cond century BC, this Common Germanic language had split into three distinct sub-groups:
East Germanic was spoken by peoples who migrated back to southeastern Europe. No East Germanic language is spoken today, and the only written East Germanic language that survives is Gothic. 阅读短文回答问题
North Germanic evolved into the modern Scandinavian languages of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic (but not Finnish, which is related to Hungarian and Estonian and is not an Indo-European language).
West Germanic is the ancestor of modern German, Dutch, Flemish, Frisian, and English.
Old English (500-1100 AD)
West Germanic invaders from Jutland and southern Denmark: the Angles (who name is the source of the words England and English), Saxons, and Jutes, began to ttle in the British Isles in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. They spoke a mutually intelligible language, similar to modern Frisian - the language of the northeastern region of the Netherlands - that is called Old English. Four major dialects of Old English emerged, Northumbrian in the north of England, Mercian in the Midlands, West Saxon in the south and west, and Kentish in the Southeast.
suppo的用法The invaders pushed the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants out of what is now England into Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland, leaving behind a few Celtic words. The Celtic languages survive today in the Gaelic languages of Scotland and Ireland and in Welsh. Cornish, unfortunately, is, in linguistic terms, now a dead language. (The last native Cornish speaker died in 1777) Also influencing English at this time were the Vikings. Nor invasions and ttlement, beginning around 850, brought many North Germanic words into the language, particularly in the north of England. Some examples are dream, which had meant 'joy' until the Vikings imparted its current meaning on it
attackpower
from the Scandinavian cognate draumr, and skirt, which continues to live alongside its native English cognate shirt.日语翻译
The majority of words in modern English come from foreign, not Old English roots. In fact, only about one sixth of the known Old English words have descendants surviving today. But this
is deceptive; Old English is much more important than the statistics would indicate. About half of the most commonly ud words in modern English have Old English roots. Words like be, water, and strong, for example, derive from Old English roots.
Old English, who best known surviving example is the poem Beowulf, lasted until about 1100. Shortly after the most important event in the development and history of the English language, the Norman Conquest.
The Norman Conquest and Middle English (1100-1500)
wupdmgrWilliam the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered England and the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 AD. The new overlords spoke a dialect of Old French known as Anglo-Norman. The Normans were also of Germanic stock ("Norman" comes from "Norman") and Anglo-Norman was a French dialect that had considerable Germanic influences in addition to the basic Latin roots.
生命的奇迹Prior to the Norman Conquest, Latin had been only a minor influence on the English language, mainly through vestiges of the Roman occupation and from the conversion of Britain to Christianity in the venth century (ecclesiastical terms such as priest, vicar, and mass came into the language this way), but now there was a wholesale infusion of Romance (Anglo-Norman) words.
The influence of the Normans can be illustrated by looking at two words, beef and cow. Beef, commonly eaten by the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, while the Anglo-Saxon commoners, who tended the cattle, retained the Germanic cow. Many legal terms, such as indict, jury , and verdict have Anglo-Norman roots becau the Normans ran the courts. This split, where words commonly ud by the aristocracy have Romantic roots and words frequently ud by the Anglo-Saxon commoners have Germanic roots, can be en in many instances.
Sometimes French words replaced Old English words; crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam. Other times, French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French gentle and the Germanic man formed gentleman. Other times, two different words with roughly the same meaning survive into modern English. Thus we have the Germanic doom and the French judgment, or wish and desire.
In 1204 AD, King John lost the province of Normandy to the King of France. This began a process where the Norman nobles of England became increasingly estranged from their French cousins. England became the chief concern of the nobility, rather than their estates in France, and conquently the nobility adopted a modified English as their native tongue. About 150 years later, the Black Death (1349-50) killed about one third of the English population. And as a result of this the labouring and merchant class grew in economic and social importance, and along with them English incread in importance compared to Anglo-Norman.
This mixture of the two languages came to be known as Middle English. The most famous example of Middle English is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Unlike Oskillet
ld English, Middle English can be read, albeit with difficulty, by modern English-speaking people.
By 1362, the linguistic division between the nobility and the commoners was largely over. In that year, the Statute of Pleading was adopted, which made English the language of the courts and it began to be ud in Parliament.
The Middle English period came to a clo around 1500 AD with the ri of Modern English.
Early Modern English (1500-1800)
The next wave of innovation in English came with the Renaissance. The revival of classical scholarship brought many classical Latin and Greek words into the Language. The borrowings were deliberate and many bemoaned the adoption of the "inkhorn" terms, but many survive to this day. Shakespeare's character Holofernes in Loves Labor Lost is a satire of an overenthusiastic schoolmaster who is too fond of Latinisms.
Many students having difficulty understanding Shakespeare would be surprid to learn that he wrote in modern English. But, as can be en in the earlier example of the Lord's Prayer, Elizabethan English has much more in common with our language today than it does with the language of Chaucer. Many familiar words and phras were coined or first recorded by Shakespeare, some 2,000 words and countless idioms are his. Newcomers to Shakespeare are often shocked at the number of cliches contained in his plays, until they realize that he coined them and they became cliches afterwards. "One fell swoop," "vanish into thin air," and "flesh and blood" are all Shakespeare's. Words he bequeathed to the language include "critical," "leapfrog," "majestic," "dwindle," and "pedant."
Two other major factors influenced the language and rved to parate Middle and Modern English. The first was the Great Vowel Shift. This was a change in pronunciation that began around 1400. Wh网上翻译
ile modern English speakers can read Chaucer with some difficulty, Chaucer's pronunciation would have been completely unintelligible to the modern ear. Shakespeare, on the other hand, would be accented, but understandable. Vowel sounds began to be made further to the front of the mouth and the letter "e" at the end of words became silent. Chaucer's Lyf (pronounced "leef") became the modern life. In Middle English name was pronounced "nam-a," five was pronounced "feef," and down was pronounced "doon." In linguistic terms, the shift was rather sudden, the major changes occurring within a century. The shift is still not over, however, vowel sounds are still shortening although the change has become considerably more gradual.
The last major factor in the development of Modern English was the advent of the printing press. William Caxton brought the printing press to England in 1476. Books became cheaper and as a result, literacy became more common. Publishing for the mass became a profitable enterpri, and works in English, as oppod to Latin, became more common. Finally, the printing press brought standardization to En
glish. The dialect of London, where most publishing hous were located, became the standard. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the first English dictionary was published in 1604.
Late-Modern English (1800-Prent)
The principal distinction between early- and late-modern English is vocabulary. Pronunciation, grammar, and spelling are largely the same, but Late-Modern English has many more words. The words are the result of two historical factors. The first is the Industrial Revolution and the ri of the technological society. This necessitated new words for things and ideas that had not previously existed. The cond was the British Empire. At its height, Britain ruled one quarter of the earth's surface, and English adopted many foreign words and made them its own.
The industrial and scientific revolutions created a need for neologisms to describe the new creations and discoveries. For this, English relied heavily on Latin and Greek. Words like oxygen, protein, nuclear, and vaccine did not exist in the classical languages, but they were created from Latin and Greek roots. Such neologisms were not exclusively created from classical roots though, English roots were ud for such terms as horpower, airplane, and typewriter.
This burst of neologisms continues today, perhaps most visible in the field of electronics and computers. Byte, cyber-, bios, hard-drive, and microchip are good examples.
difficult是什么意思
Also, the ri of the British Empire and the growth of global trade rved not only to introduce English to the world, but to introduce words into English. Hindi, and the other languages of the Indian
subcontinent, provided many words, such as pundit, shampoo, pajamas, and juggernaut. Virtually every language on Earth has contributed to the development of English, from Finnish (sauna) and Japane (tycoon) to the vast contributions of French and Latin.
The British Empire was a maritime empire, and the influence of nautical terms on the English language has been great. Phras like three sheets to the wind have their origins onboard ships.
Finally, the military influence on the language during the latter half of twentieth century was significant. Before the Great War, military rvice for English-speaking persons was rare; both Britain and the United States maintained small, volunteer militaries. Military slang existed, but with the exception of nautical terms, rarely influenced standard English. During the mid-20th century, however, a large number of British and American men rved in the military. And conquently military slang entered the language like never before. Blockbuster, no dive, camouflage, radar, roadblock, spearhead, and landing strip are all military terms that made their way into standard English.
American English and other varieties
Also significant beginning around 1600 AD was the English colonization of North America and the su
bquent creation of American English. Some pronunciations and usages "froze" w
hen they reached the American shore. In certain respects, some varieties of American English are clor to the English of Shakespeare than modern Standard English ('English English' or as it is often incorrectly termed 'British English') is. Some "Americanisms" are actually originally English English expressions that were prerved in the colonies while lost at home (e.g., fall as a synonym for autumn, trash for rubbish, and loan as a verb instead of lend).
The American dialect also rved as the route of introduction for many native American words into the English language. Most often, the were place names like Mississippi, Roanoke, and Iowa. Indian-sounding names like Idaho were sometimes created that had no native-American roots. But, names for other things besides places were also common. Raccoon, tomato, canoe, barbecue, savanna, and hickory have native American roots, although in many cas the original Indian words were mangled almost beyond recognition.
Spanish has also been great influence on American English. Mustang, canyon, ranch, stampede, and vigilante are all examples of Spanish words that made their way into English through the ttlement of the American West.
A lesr number of words have entered American English from French and West African languages.
Likewi dialects of English have developed in many of the former colonies of the British Empire. There are distinct forms of the English language spoken in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and many other parts of the world.
Global English
English has now inarguably achieved global status. Whenever we turn on the news to find out what's happening in East Asia, or the Balkans, or Africa, or South America, or practically anywhere, local people are being interviewed and telling us about it in English. To illustrate the point when Pope John Paul II arrived in the Middle East recently to retrace Christ's footsteps and addresd Christians, Muslims and Jews, the pontiff spoke not Latin, not Arabic, not Italian, not Hebrew, not his native Polish. He spoke in English.
陕西英语培训Indeed, if one looks at some of the facts about the amazing reach of the English language many would be surprid. English is ud in over 90 countries as an official or mi-official language. English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN. It is the de facto working language of 98 percent of international rearch physicists and rearch chemists. It is the official language of
the European Central Bank, even though the bank is in Frankfurt and neither Britain nor any other predominantly English-speaking country is a member of the European Monetary Union. It is the language in which Indian parents and black parents in South Africa overwhelmingly wish their children to be educated. It is believed that over one billion people worldwide are currently learning English.
One of the more remarkable aspects of the spread of English around the world has been the extent t
