English is the world’s most widely spoken language. It is a language that is even taught in almost every country in the world. However, the roots of this language are deep, mysterious, and fascinating.
Modern English is a mix of many languages, and over the centuries has borrowed many words from completely unrelated languages, such as Arabic and Algonquin. Most languages borrow from other languages when two groups meet together (mainly in trade or war, not a business or casual meeting between ten people.) For example, the word “lemon” is an ingrained part of the English language. If you don’t know, lemons are sour, bitter, and yellow citrus fruits that have an oval shape. The word “lemon” has a deeper origin than one might think, though.
“Lemon” comes from Arabic “al-laymūn” via French, and goes even deeper as the Arabs borrowed their word from Sanskrit “nimbū“, lime, via Farsi/Persian “limūn“, citrus fruit.
As you can see, just one word has a deep, deep history. This process is followed by many words in any language. English is a Germanic language. Thus, its closest surviving relatives are Dutch, German (duh), and Danish. Germanic languages include:
- English
- Old English
- Icelandic
- Danish
- Faroese
- Norwegian
- Swedish
- Pennsylvania Dutch
- Dutch
- German
- Saxon/Low German
- Gothic
- Swiss German
- Flemish
- Walloon
- Old Franconian
- Old German
- Yiddish
- Frisian
Obviously, English is a descendant of Old English, or Anglo-Saxon. Old English was a dialect of Saxon spoken by the Anglic and Frisian tribes in what is now the Danish-German border. Frisians to the southwest had their own dialects which morphed into the West Frisian language. These tribes migrated to the British Isles when pressure from the Franks and Danes, powerful warlike tribes forced the Anglo-Saxons to move out, who displacing the Welsh and Breton people in England. The new settlers brought their language and culture along with them as well. The words “England” and “English” are ultimately derived from the Old English “Ænglisc” (in which the “sc” is pronounced as “sh”) and “Ængle-land“, “Anglish” and “Angle-land”.
Old English was not too similar to English. An English speaker would recognize some of the words, but a Dutch or German speaker would be better at understanding the language. For example, “eoh” is the word for horse, and joy is “wynn“. However, some words are near identical when written, such as “fyr“, fire, and “land”, which is identical in all Germanic languages.
The Vikings also came over to the British isles and after some awkward skirmishes and some scheming on the English king Alfred, settled down in the Danelaw, which was basically Scotland and half of England. Danelaw meant the lands in which the Danes (which was a generic term for Vikings; even those that came from other places) made law. In this arrangement, though, a lot of Old Norse, which was basically old-fashioned Icelandic, got mixed in with Old English. This led to some changes, such as the change of meaning of the word “dream”. “Dream” meant joy as well in Old English, but “dream” in Norse had the modern meaning–a muddled up subconscious memory that was jumbled up with other memories.
In 1066, England would be shaken up by a huge event — the Norman Conquest of William the Conqueror.
William the Conqueror led an army of Normans, Vikings that had settled down in France after the ubiquitous skirmish, across the English Channel and into England. His vast army routed the English resistance, (and England wasn’t a country; Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, and the Danelaw were different states with different rulers) which was mainly untrained farmers, “scrabble and rabble” back in the olden days.
William–King William was crowned at Canterbury by the archbishop of said town and he and his Norman aristocracy mixed in with the local English population. Many things in the English language changed; for example, “cow meat” changed to “beef” from “bœuf“, the French word for the meat.
This event caused a big change in English: Old English was now truly old. Middle English is the form of the language that was used after the Norman conquest. It was much more understandable, although it would still seem like gibberish without careful consideration. A verse from the beginning of The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer (who was the Shakespeare of the Middle Ages) provides as an example:
“Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote the droghte of March hath perced to the rote, and bathed every veyne in swich licour, of which vertu engendred is the flour; When Zephyrus (the west wind) eek with his swete breeth, Inspired hath in every holt and heet the tender croppes, and the yonge sonne hath in the Ram his half cours y-ronne.
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
This might make some sense to you, but the translation can be surprising. We’ll end this post with a translation:
When that April with his showers has pierced the drought of March to the root, and bathed every vein (in the trees) in swished liquor (a poetic reference to sap) from which springs forth the flower; When the west wind is about with his sweet breath, inspired in every holt and heath (meadows and fields) the tender crops (to grow), and the young sun has halfway to go in the Ram (Aries, a constellation).
Translation from Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
The next post on this subject will cover the transformation of Middle English into Modern English.
Anay Ganesh 