History of English

[Carol]

Geoff:
> > Strictly speaking, that isn't accurate. At the time of the Norman
Conquest, the general language of Britain was Anglo-Saxon. German and
English are closely related languages. During the early years of the
Normans, French was the official language and Anglo-Saxon was left in
the hands of the yeomans and peasants and in the intervening period,
they did interesting things like largely demolishing gender and
annihilating most of the case structure and inflection, the
combination of the two ending up by giving us possibly one of the most
expressive languages in the world.
> > 
Cabal:
> > It is accurate, because you are speaking of a much latter period,
after the Anglos and Saxons arrived. But long, long before the
Anglo/Saxon period the inhabitant of the area where people that
migrated from Germany. No matter how you look at it, the Germans where
there first, before the Anglo/Saxon, before the Norman invasion and
French rule. You are correct, except you and I are not talking about
the same part of history. 

Carol responds:

Once again, they're not the Anglos. That's a term used by Hispanic
Americans to refer to English-speaking (white) Americans.

That aside, here's a partial chronology that may help to clear up any
confusion as to "Germans" being in England before the Germanic tribes
arrived.

pre-600 A.D.	THE PRE-ENGLISH PERIOD <snip>
ca. 1000 B.C. <snip> Celtic peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France,
Germany and England.
55 B.C. Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles.
43 A.D.	Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia"
established. Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others
continually rebel).
200 B.C.-200 A.D. Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and
spread over Central Europe [not Britain] in successive waves. <snip>
Early 5th century. Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain
and other colonies <snip> 
ca. 410 A.D. First Germanic tribes arrive in England. 
410-600	 Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles,
Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects
descended from Proto-Germanic. <snip> Celtic peoples, most of whom are
Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite occasional violent
uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland,
Wales. Anglo-Saxons, originally sea-farers, settle down as farmers,
exploiting rich English farmland.
By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a
language distinct from the continental Germanic languages.
ca. 600-1100	THE OLD ENGLISH, OR ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD
600-800 Rise of three great kingdoms politically unifying large areas:
Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex. Supremacy passes from one kingdom to
another in that order.
ca. 600 Christianity introduced among Anglo-Saxons by St. Augustine,
missionary from Rome. Irish missionaries also spread Celtic form of
Christianity to mainland Britain.
793 First serious Viking incursions. <snip>
10th century Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and
ultimately become indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter
the language; English even borrows pronouns like they, them, their.
<snip>
1066 October.  Harold [the Saxon] is defeated and killed at the battle
of Hastings.
December. William of Normandy crowned king of England in Westminster
Abbey on Christmas Day.
ca. 1100-1500 	THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
1066-1075 William crushes uprisings of Anglo-Saxon earls and peasants
<snip>. Anglo-Saxon earls and freemen deprived of property; many
enslaved. William distributes property and titles to Normans (and some
English) who supported him. Many of the English hereditary titles of
nobility date from this period.
	English becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and
slaves). Norman French becomes the language of the court and
propertied classes. The legal system is redrawn along Norman lines and
conducted in French. <snip> Authors write literature in French, not
English. For all practical purposes English is no longer a written
language. Bilingualism gradually becomes more common, especially among
those who deal with both upper and lower classes. Growth of London as
a commercial center draws many from the countryside who can fill this
socially intermediate role.
1204 The English kings lose the duchy of Normandy to French kings.
England is now the only home of the Norman English.
1205 First book in English appears since the conquest.
1258 First royal proclamation issued in English since the conquest.
ca. 1300 Increasing feeling on the part of even noblemen that they are
English, not French. Nobility begin to educate their children in
English. French is taught to children as a foreign language rather
than used as a medium of instruction.
1337 Start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
1362 English becomes official language of the law courts. More and
more authors are writing in English. 
ca. 1380 Chaucer writes the Canterbury tales in Middle English. the
language shows French influence in thousands of French borrowings. The
London dialect, for the first time, begins to be recognized as the
"Standard", or variety of English taken as the norm, for all England.
1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany.
Publishes the first printed book in England. Beginning of the long
process of standardization of spelling.
1500-present	THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD
1500-1650 Early Modern English develops. The Great Vowel Shift
gradually takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek
borrowings and neologisms.
1611 King James Bible published, which has influenced English writing
down to the present day. <snip the rest>



You can see the growth of English fairly clearly here if you assume
the influence of the languages on each other both in terms of loan
words and the erosion of word endings. We start with the Germanic
language spoken by the three tribes (four, if we count the Frisians),
which develops into Old English, the Saxon dialect being dominant. OE
acquires loan words from Latin and Celtic but not many and they have
no effect on the grammar and structure of the language. Later contact
with another Germanic language, the Old Norse spoken by the Vikings,
softens the inflections and results in many loan words adopted into
the language (which is still entirely Germanic). 

Then the unthinkable happens. Harold the Saxon is overthrown and
killed, and the Normans (originally a Germanic people but now speaking
a variety of French) take over England. Many of the English
aristocrats are killed. English goes underground but continues to
flourish. The loss of Normandy (no loss at all!) brings English to the
forefront. Bilingualism brings many (Norman) French words into English
and further erodes the inflections, virtually eliminating grammatical
gender except in pronouns. Chaucer's works made the London dialect
standard; the printing press helped to standardize spelling. The
Renaissance and eighteenth-century classicism brought in hundreds of
borrowings from classical languages.

>From there, of course, English continued to evolve and is still
evolving. Today, it's a lingua franca, the Latin or Koine Greek of our
day.

For anyone else fascinated by this topic, here's the URL for the site
whose chronology I've borrowed:

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/chron.html

Carol, hoping that Cabal will consult his textbooks regarding "Anglos"