{"id":9,"date":"2017-09-04T05:47:36","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T05:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/?page_id=9"},"modified":"2020-12-29T07:36:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T07:36:38","slug":"vocabulary-from-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/vocabulary-from-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"Vocabulary: From the Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Workshop Index<\/a>\u00a0Next Lesson \u27a1<\/a><\/div>\n

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Vocabulary: From the Beginning<\/h1>\n

Objective<\/h3>\n

This section will provide a brief history of the English language including vocabulary, a number of\u00a0etymological perspectives, and an overview of important Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon affixes and\u00a0roots.<\/p>\n

Conquering English: The Beginning to 1066<\/strong><\/p>\n

The roots of the English language can be traced to the various Germanic tribes who immigrated to Britain\u00a0to fight and trade with the Romans, who ruled Britain from 43 – 410 CE. The Romans allowed the Angles,\u00a0Saxons, and others to trade with Britain but not to settle there. During this period, simple English\u00a0words such as cook, mile, street, <\/em>and wine <\/em>came into being. In the early fifth\u00a0century, the Romans were called back to Rome. When the Romans left, the military went with them, and the\u00a0Celtic tribes they had ruled became vulnerable to invasion. By 600 CE, England was ruled by the\u00a0Anglo-Saxons. The Celts were pushed west to Wales and north to Scotland.<\/p>\n

In 787 CE, groups of Danes and Norwegians began to attack the east coast of Britain. Most of the\u00a0Norse<\/abbr> who came to England settled in the east. King Alfred the Great<\/abbr> fought hard against the Norse to keep them from conquering all of England. His success earned him his title. The Treaty of Wedmore in 868 established the Danelaw<\/abbr>, which gave the eastern half of England to the Danes, but guaranteed that the English who lived there were to be treated as full citizens.<\/p>\n

Many Norse words entered the English language at this time, including words illustrative of the intimate, probably familial, contact between the two groups. The English not only adopted Norse vocabulary words such as take<\/em> and law<\/em> but also the pronoun they<\/em>, the verb form are<\/em>, and the preposition until<\/em>, among various other function words. Because both the Norse and the English languages were Germanic in origin, two words with the same meaning often gained different meanings. Here is a list of such pairs: school\/shoal<\/em>, skirt\/shirt<\/em>, and scale\/shell<\/em>. The Norse words sky, scrape, skill,<\/em> and skin<\/em> replaced their Anglo-Saxon counterparts.<\/p>\n

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Most of the literature from this time is in the form of anonymously written alliterative poetry,\u00a0part of a family of verse forms whose origins trace back to the earliest literary documents of the\u00a0old Germanic languages. Common features of alliterative poetry include linguistic elements such as\u00a0strongly stressed words, or \u201clifts,\u201d generous use of alliteration (when successive words or stressed\u00a0syllables begin with the same consonant letter or sound), and carefully placed caesura, or audible\u00a0pauses that break up lengthy lines of text. Two excellent examples of alliterative poetry are Beowulf<\/em> and The Wanderer<\/em>. To\u00a0learn more about the literature from this time, see the comprehensive account of English history\u00a0written by Saint Bede or, as he is commonly called, the Venerable Bede. His work is the Historia\u00a0ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum<\/em> (Ecclesiastical History of the English People<\/em>).\u00a0This well-known monk was recognized primarily as an author and scholar and was called the father\u00a0of English history.
\nBede depicted in an early medieval manuscript<\/span><\/div>\n

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