English throughout time

Different periods of English:


The English language originated in around the 5th century from a variety of other languages including Angles, Anglo-Saxons and Jutes; before it became a language we spoke in Celtic. Due to historical events like the Viking raids until the 11th Century language has been caused to change. A large influence on our language has been Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse which is proven if you look at the etymology of most words; the origins will most likely be one of the two or from Latin, which is also highly influential.


In the 11th Century (Middle English), the Norman invasion was very important in the evolution of the English Language. The verbal language at the time was mostly French where as written documentation used Latin, mainly by the Church. Towards the end of this period English became prominent through writers like Chaucer who decided on writing in English than French (the most known verbal language). The differences between dialects became clearer at this point and separated the different parts of the English Language.


By the 15th Century many works were printed in English by the printing press from Europe by Caxton, this contributed to beginning of a standard form of English. It used the dialect form the South East as the basis of the new standard English. At this time there was an increasing pride in English as a language, as more writers write in the language like the Bible being printed into English and Shakespeare.


By the time of Modern English (18th Century), the language had increased it's usage including the borrowed words from Latin, Greek, French and other languages around the world. The structure of language and grammar was studied to reveal patterns in the way we use language which created what was right and what was wrong in language by people with prescriptive views. Now in present day English has developed through the influence of the media, travel and technology as world-wide language.




Samuel Johnson's Dictionary:
When looking at a page from Samuel Johnson's Dictionary it is very clear that language has changed dramatically since 1755. There are few words that I recognise from the extract and the words that I do recognise have changed since then. The meanings have changed as have the way we pronounce them. An interesting part of the extract is that next to each word it has a name of who had used the word in their works; like Shakespeare and Dryden, then there was an example of the word being used. We have examples in the Oxford English Dictionary and even references if the example is from writing but  we don't have an example from a text after every single word.


Inkhorn Controversy:
From the 16th-17th Century, as mentioned before,  there was an increase in pride of the language. New words were coined using borrowed words from languages like Italian, Spanish and Latin, and compounding.
In 'The Arte of Rhetorique' inkhorn terms were first used. The terms were considered pretentious and artificial but encouraged creativity. They were used by many writers like Shakespeare.