After we converse English, we would say we’re converseing the language of Samuel Johnson, the person who wrote its first dictionary. Or lets say we’re converseing the language of Shakespeare, who coined extra English phrases than any other individual in history. It might make simply as a lot sense to explain ourselves as converseing the language of the King James Bible, the mass printing of which did a lot to standardize English, steamrolling flat most of the dependmuch less native variations that existed within the early seventeenth century. However as many an Englishman (and quite a lot of Americans) could be loath to confess, once we converse English, we’re, a lot of the time, actually converseing French.
“In 1066, the Normans flip up and seize the English throne from the Anglo-Saxons says YouTuber Robphrases in the brand new video above, describing the single most important occasion in all the history of the English language, which he recounts in simply 22 minutes. “William the Conqueror turns into king, and Norman French turns into the language of England’s élite.”
Underneath its new ruler, the counstrive’s earls, thanes, and athelings could be known as barons, dukes, and princes. “The now-subdued Anglo-Saxons wanted to be taught French phrases if they needed to get by, so English absorbs an entire host of French phrases associated with power, justice, artwork, government, regulation, and culture — comparable to power, justice, artwork, government, regulation, and culture,” to call only a few.
This thoroughgoing Frenchification gave rise to what we now name Middle English, as distinct from the Previous English spoken earlier than. As noted by RobPhrases, about 85 percent of Previous English vocabulary is not in use as we speak, but we’re nonetheless “utilizing Previous English in each sentence that we utter,” not least once we escape such irregular-seeming plurals as mice, oxen, and wolves. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday make reference to “the Anglo-Saxons’ pre-Christian gods.” And even within the fast-changing, slang-ridden, internet-influenced, and — for wagerter or for worse — excessively “globalized” English we converse as we speak, we will nonetheless hear dim echoes of the traditional ancestor linguists name Professionalto-Indo-European. Perhaps that’s why, regardless of being so extensively spoken, English continues to be so difficult to be taught: once we converse it, we’re converseing not only a language, however many languages .
Related content:
The History of the English Language in Ten Animated Minutes
Tracing English Again to Its Previousest Recognized Ancestor: An Introduction to Professionalto-Indo-European
The place Did the English Language Come From?: An Animated Introduction
The Tree of Languages Illustrated in a Huge, Beautiful Informationgraphic
The Alphawager Defined: The Origin of Each Letter
Based mostly in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His tasks embrace the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the guide The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by means of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social internetwork formerly often called Twitter at @colinmarshall.
