1, Old English Period (also known as Anglo-Saxon Period AD 450- 1 100)
After the Germanic tribes settled in Britain, they occupied some areas. Angles occupied most of England and the Scottish lowlands north of the Thames, Jutes occupied the area around Kent, and Saxons occupied most of the area south of the Thames. Small kingdoms were established by various tribes, and the Seven Kingdoms period appeared in British history. It was not until 830 AD that King Alfred unified the whole of England. Due to the long-term disunity of the whole country, there are many dialects of Old English, mainly including West Saxon, Kent, Mercia and North Umbria. These four dialects once dominated. West Saxon hands are best preserved. Other dialects have also played an important role in the formation of English.
The vocabulary of Old English has strong Germanic characteristics. This is mainly manifested in the fact that compound words are an important word-formation method. Compound words occupy a prominent position in old English vocabulary. According to statistics, there are 1069 compound words in line 3 183 of the epic Beowulf. The unstressed parts of some compound words gradually lost their independent status and evolved into affixes, such as for-, in-, -ful and -ful derivatives, which were also widely used in Old English. * * * has twenty-four noun suffixes and fifteen adjective suffixes, and affixes such as -dom, -hood, -ship, -ness, -the, -ful, -ish can be traced back to Old English. Poetry in the old English period had a special rhetorical device, namely alliteration, from which many phrases have been preserved to this day, such as the labor of love with the Lord, friends or enemies at night.
There are two important historical events in Old English, which have a great influence on English vocabulary. The first thing is the introduction of Christianity into Britain. In 597 AD, a priest named Augustine came to England from Rome to preach. Roman culture was introduced into England with Christianity. At the same time, some Latin words entered English.
The second thing is the Nordic invasion of Britain. Since 790 AD, a large number of Scandinavians have settled in Britain. King Knut of Denmark was once the monarch of England. Scandinavians have frequent contact with the British, so many words from Scandinavian countries have entered English.
2. Middle English period (A.D.1100-1500).
In A.D. 1066, the Normans, led by conquering Wang Weilian, crossed the English Channel and defeated the Anglo-Saxon army in the Battle of Hastings. King Harold died and England was conquered. This is called Norman Conquest in history. From then on, Britain ended its split state and was placed under centralized feudal rule. The conquest of mankind is an important turning point in British history, which has a great influence on the development of English.
After the Norman conquest, the Kinmen occupied all the important positions in the church and government. In the next two or three hundred years, German and French became the official language of Britain. Ordinary people still speak English, but the written record of English is almost interrupted. Middle English is generally divided into two periods. After 1204, English gradually recovered its dominant position. 1362, King Edward III of England addressed Parliament in English for the first time. /kloc-In the 5th century, the standard dialect of London rose. From 65438 to 0476, caxton introduced printing to Britain, which greatly promoted the standardization of English spelling and the spread of written English.
During the Middle English period, English experienced great changes. Most of the suffix changes disappear, and the nature of nouns also disappears. Word order, function words and intonation become the main means to express sentence relations. If Old English is a typical comprehensive language like other Germanic languages, by the end of Middle English, English has gradually become an analytical language. And this trend has been going on.
The change of vocabulary is also remarkable. Since Norman French was once the language of the British ruling class, a large number of French words poured into English. Reflected in politics, religion, law, military, social communication, food, clothing, housing and transportation and other fields related to the ruling class. French vocabulary has become the main body of vocabulary used in these fields. Since then, English has changed the main means of creating new words with compound morphology, using it to refer to new things and express new concepts, which is a feature of Germanic language family and opens the door to foreign words. The demand for new words is met by directly introducing foreign words. This change has a far-reaching impact on the development of English vocabulary, paving the way for a large number of foreign words-mainly Greek words and Latin words-to enter English in the future.
With many French loanwords being absorbed into English, some French and Latin affixes have also been anglicized and become important materials for English word formation. For example, prefixes DIS-, EN-, INTER-, MAL-, Non-, Pre-, re-, Semi- and Sub- suffixes, such as -able, -ACY, -age, -Al, -anci/ency, -ate, -ory, -ance,-ant/- At the same time, some native English affixes have been abandoned. In the form of compound words, it also absorbs some characteristics of French, such as nouns+adjectives, adverbs+past participles (such as by-gone). These phenomena are called Romanization of English in the history of linguistics. This is why, from the pedigree point of view, English and German belong to the same family, but the vocabulary of modern English is more similar to that of French.
The influx of French words has also changed the meaning of English words. Some words inherent in English have been eliminated, and some still exist, but their meanings have changed, or they have unique stylistic and emotional colors. For example, wed defined "marriage" in old English, but the French word "merry" was introduced into middle English, and the meaning of "marriage" in English was gradually expressed by marry, and wed was only used for extension; Its gerund wedding is still a common word, but it only refers to "wedding". English native words with different stylistic meanings coexist with French, forming a unique synonym group format in English.
3. Modern English Period (1500-)
By the end of Middle English, English had established its position as the national language of Britain. Chaucer's works prove that English has become a mature literary language. English grammar simplification is basically completed, spelling is fixed and basic vocabulary is formed. In short, the foundation of modern English has been laid. If reading English before Middle English seems to be reading another language, then the difference between English after16th century and contemporary English is not so obvious. Modern English is generally divided into early modern English and late modern English by 1700. 1700 has completed the process of English standardization and normalization. Since then, English pronunciation and grammar have not changed much, but vocabulary has been continuously expanded and enriched.
In the early days of modern English, the Renaissance had the greatest influence on English vocabulary. The full-time Renaissance of China literature began in Italy in the14th century, and had a great influence on Britain in the two centuries after the16th century. During this period, the study of ancient Greek and Roman culture was emphasized to counter the feudal culture in the Middle Ages. Therefore, many foreign words, mainly Latin and Greek, have been introduced into English and become the basic components of English written language and terminology. At the same time, it also provides a lot of synonyms for English. Some Greek and Latin words have retained their original forms after entering English, such as climax, appendix, external, axis; Some have lost their suffixes, such as (Latin in extended numbers), consult, exclusive(exclusive eum)exotic (foreign America); Others have changed the suffix to make it more suitable for English forms, such as the adjective suffix us has become ous or al, and the noun suffix tas has become ty.
1640 After the British bourgeois revolution and the subsequent industrial revolution, the British Empire began to expand outward and had more frequent contacts with the rest of the world. Languages from all over the world have entered English, such as Harun [Persia, caravan], Bazaar [Persia, market], shawl [Persia, shawl] and kiosk[ Turkey, gazebo]. Nabob[ Hindi, Monopoly], soy[ Japanese, soy sauce], orang-outang[ Malay, orangutan], paddy[ Malay, rice].
At the same time, due to the close relationship with France, French words are still being introduced into English. Many French words introduced into English during this period retained the features of French pronunciation and spelling, such as protégée, protected person and chaise.
In word formation, truncated words and mixed words increase rapidly. The method of vowel alternation to form new words is gradually abandoned.
During this period, English was brought to some regions and countries outside Britain. Become the common language there. Special mention should be made to American English here. As time goes by, although the Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic use basically the same English, there are some differences in language, spelling and grammar.
Since the 20th century, great progress has been made in British and American science and culture, and various propaganda media have become more and more popular, resulting in two world wars. With more and more communication between students, English vocabulary becomes richer and richer. The vocabulary has doubled. As an international language, English is the national language of Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other countries. With a population of over 340 million, it is the most widely used language in the world and plays an important role in international communication.
After a change of 1500 years, English has developed from the languages of several Germanic tribes to a language with great international influence today. There are political, economic and social reasons for this, but English itself has advantages that other major languages do not have. One of his strengths is the internationality of his vocabulary. From the brief review of this unit, we can see that English is good at absorbing foreign words. On the one hand, English belongs to the Germanic language family, with Germanic homonyms; on the other hand, it has long been closely linked with French and other Romanesque languages, and at the same time, it has absorbed a large number of classical words. It can be said that English is unique among European languages, because it contains all the words representing the major European cultures. From the grammatical point of view, English suffixes change simply, and there is no complicated gender numeral case change. English is developing towards analytical language and simplification, and English word order plays an increasingly important role, which makes English easier to learn, especially easy to get started.
English also has its weaknesses. The easiest thing to detect is the spelling confusion caused by inconsistent spelling. In addition, there are many synonyms and idioms, which make them expressive, but also bring many difficulties to English learners.