Where did the English language come from
英語というと、普通は一つの言語を思い浮かべます。しかし、世界数十カ国で話されている言語とチョーサーの著作の間にはどのような関係があるのでしょうか。クレア・ボーエンは、現代から古代までの言語をたどり、何世代にもわたって英語を話す人たちがどのように進化してきたかを説明します。(English) When we say English, we usually think of one language. But what is the relationship between the language spoken in dozens of countries worldwide and the writings of Chaucer? Clare Bowen traces the language from modern to ancient times and explains how English has evolved through generations of speakers.
Where does the English language come from? - Clare Bowen.
//Summary -Leve-B2//
The English language has evolved over generations of speakers and undergone significant changes. Old English belonged to the Germanic family of languages and was first brought to the British Isles by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Viking invaders added borrowings from Old Norse. After the Norman invasion of England in 1066, French-speaking Normans added many French and Latin vocabularies to the English language. Today, English is spoken in dozens of countries worldwide and shares many similar words with Latin-derived Romance languages such as French and Spanish.
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1)
When we talk about English, we often think of it as a single language, but what do the dialects spoken in dozens of countries around the world have in common with each other or with the writings of Chaucer?
And how do any of them relate to the strange words in Beowulf?
Like most languages, the answer is that English has evolved through generations of speakers and has undergone significant changes.
By undoing these changes, we can trace the language of the present back to its ancient roots.
While modern English shares many similar words with Latin-derived Romance languages such as French and Spanish, most of these words were not originally part of it.
2)
Instead, they came into the language with the Norman invasion of England in 1066.
When the French-speaking Normans conquered England and became its ruling class, they brought their language, adding many French and Latin vocabulary to the English language previously spoken there.
3)
Today we call this language Old English.
It is the language of Beowulf.
It probably doesn't look very familiar, but it might be more recognisable if you know a bit of German.
Old English belonged to the Germanic family of languages and was first brought to the British Isles in the 5th and 6th centuries by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
4)
The Germanic dialects they spoke became known as Anglo-Saxon.
The Viking invaders of the 8th to 11th centuries added borrowings from Old Norse.
It can be hard to see the roots of modern English among all the words borrowed from French, Latin, Old Norse and other languages.
5)
But comparative linguistics can help us by focusing on grammatical structure, patterns of sound change and specific core vocabulary.
For example, after the 6th century, German words beginning with 'P' systematically shifted to a 'Pf' sound, while their Old English counterparts kept the 'P' unchanged.
In another split, words beginning with "ks" in Swedish developed a "sh" sound in English.
6)
There are still some English words with 'sk', such as 'skirt' and 'skull', but these are direct Old Norse borrowings that came after the 'sk' to 'sh' shift.
These examples show us that, just as the various Romance languages descended from Latin, English, Swedish, German and many other languages descended from their common ancestor, known as Proto-Germanic, spoken around 500 BC.
7)
As this historical language was never written down, we can only reconstruct it by comparing its descendants, which is possible thanks to the consistency of the changes.
We can even use the same process to go back a step and trace the origins of Proto-Germanic to a language called Proto-Indo-European, spoken about 6000 years ago on the Pontic steppe in what is now Ukraine and Russia.
8)
It is historically spoken in Europe and parts of southern and western Asia.
And although it takes a bit more work, we can find the same systematic similarities, or correspondences, between related words in different branches of Indo-European.
9)
If we compare English with Latin, we see that English has 't' where Latin has 'd' and 'f' where Latin has 'p' at the beginning of words.
Some of English's more distant relatives include Hindi, Persian and Celtic languages. It was displaced in what is now Britain.
Proto-Indo-European itself is descended from an even more ancient language, but unfortunately, this is as far back as historical and archaeological evidence allows us to go.
Europe before its arrival.
But the remarkable fact remains that nearly 3 billion people worldwide, many of whom cannot understand each other, speak the words that have been shaped by 6000 years of history.
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How the Normans changed European history - Mark Robinson
In 1066, 7,000 Norman infantry and knights in warships sailed across the English Channel - their destination: England, home to more than a million people. Around the same time, other Norman groups were setting out across Europe. So who were these warriors, and how did they leave their mark so far and wide? Mark Robinson gives a brief history of the Normans.
1)
In 1066, 7000 Norman infantry and knights in warships sailed across the English Channel - their destination: England, home to more than a million people.
It was a short journey with massive consequences.
And around the same time, other groups of Normans set out across Europe, embarking on adventures that would reverberate throughout the continent's history.
2)
So who were these warriors, and how did they leave their mark so far and wide?
Our story begins over 200 years earlier when Vikings settled on the shores of northern France as part of a vast Scandinavian exodus across north Europe.
3)
The French natives called these invaders Normans, named after the direction they came from.
Eventually, in 911, Charles the King of the Franks negotiated peace with the Viking leader Rollo and granted him a strip of land along the northern coast of France, which became known as Normandy.
4)
The Normans proved adaptable to their new way of life.
They married Frankish women, adopted the French language and soon began to convert from Norse paganism to Christianity.
5)
But even as they adapted, they retained their Viking ancestors' warrior tradition and conquering spirit.
Soon, ambitious Norman knights were looking for new challenges.
6)
The Normans' most notable achievement was the conquest of England.
In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, challenged the claim of the new English king, Harold Godwinson.
Soon after landing in England, William and his knights met Harold's army near the town of Hastings.
7)
The decisive moment of the battle is immortalised in the 70-metre-long Bayeux Tapestry, where an arrow piercing Harold's eye seals the Norman victory.
William consolidated his gains with a massive castle-building campaign and the reorganisation of English society.
8)
He lived up to his nickname 'William the Conqueror' with a massive survey known as the Domesday Book, which recorded the population and ownership of every piece of land in England.
Norman French became the language of the new royal court, while the commoners continued to speak Anglo-Saxon.
9)
Over time, the two merged to form the English we know today, although the divide between lords and peasants can still be felt in synonyms such as cow and beef.
By the end of the 12th century, the Normans had expanded further into Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
10)
Meanwhile, independent groups of Norman knights, inspired by tales of pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, travelled to the Mediterranean.
There they plunged into a tangle of conflicts between the established powers of the region.
They became highly prized mercenaries, and in one of these battles, they made the first recorded heavy cavalry charge with couched lances, a devastating tactic that soon became standard in medieval warfare.
11)
The Normans were also central to the First Crusade of 1095-99, a bloody conflict that re-established Christian control over parts of the Middle East.
But the Normans did more than fight.
12)
As a result of their victories, leaders such as William the Iron Arm and Robert the Crafty secured lands throughout southern Italy, eventually uniting them to form the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130.
Under Roger II, the kingdom became a beacon of multicultural tolerance in a world torn apart by religious and civil wars.
13)
Muslim Arab poets and scholars served at the royal court alongside Byzantine Greek seamen and architects.
Arabic and Latin, Greek and Norman French remained official languages.
14)
The world's geographical knowledge was compiled in the Book of Roger, whose maps of the known world would remain the most accurate for 300 years.
And the churches built in Palermo combined Latin architecture, Arabic ceilings and Byzantine domes, all decorated with exquisite gold mosaics.
15)
If the Normans were so victorious, why aren't they still here?
That was a crucial part of their success: ruling the societies they conquered and becoming part of them.
16)
Although the Normans eventually disappeared as a group, their contributions remain.
And today, the Norman legacy lives on, from the castles and cathedrals that dot the European landscape to wherever the English language is spoken.
Where did the English language come from? - Clare Bowen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEaSxhcns7Y
How the Normans changed the history of Europe - Mark Robinson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owf5Uq4oFps
25 maps that explain the English language
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/3/8053521/25-maps-that-explain-english
Norman Conquest of Britain, 1066 - 1086
https://www.worldhistory.org/image/9862/norman-conquest-of-britain-1066---1086/
A map illustrating the origins and progress of the Norman conquest of the Kingdom of England by William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy). Following the death in January 1066 of the childless English king, Edward the Confessor, a series of events followed, leading to the invasion of Britain (one of the few genuinely successful ones). The Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 to complete Norman control and overhaul of England resulted in the replacement of Scandinavian influence on the island with much closer Western European ties, creating one of the most powerful monarchies on the Continent. With the introduction of the French language and culture, the stage was set for the perpetual Anglo-French rivalry and conflict that would persist well into the 19th century.