6.6 English Language History

What did Old English look like?
Old English is almost unrecognisable to modern English speakers. Here is the opening of the Lord's Prayer in Old English:

"Fæder ure, þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod."
(Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.)

Key features of Old English:
- Highly inflected — nouns, adjectives, and verbs had many different endings depending on their grammatical function (like modern German or Norwegian)
- Germanic vocabulary — almost entirely Germanic, with very few foreign loanwords
- The letter "þ" (thorn) — represented the "th" sound, which is why old signs sometimes say "Ye Olde Shoppe" — the "Y" was actually a misread thorn

Surviving Old English words in Modern English:
The most basic, everyday English words come from Old English:
- house, water, bread, mother, father, child, love, eat, drink, sleep, good, man, woman, earth, sky, sun, moon, day, night, friend

These are the words we use most — the foundation of English vocabulary.

Viking influence (8th–11th centuries):
Norse-speaking Vikings settled in large parts of England, bringing many Old Norse words that are still used today:
- sky, egg, window, husband, law, they, them, their, get, give, take, want, wrong, happy, ugly, skill

Connection to Norwegian:
Old English and Old Norse were closely related Germanic languages. This is why many basic English words resemble Norwegian: water/vann, house/hus, man/mann, mother/mor, green/grønn.

The most dramatic transformation in the history of English came in 1066, when William the Conqueror from Normandy (France) invaded England and became king. The Norman Conquest changed English forever.

What happened after 1066?
- The ruling class (kings, nobles, bishops, judges) spoke Norman French
- The common people continued speaking English
- Latin remained the language of the Church and scholarship
- England became a trilingual society: French for power, Latin for learning, English for everyday life

The lasting effect: French words in English
Over the next 300 years, approximately 10,000 French words entered English. They tended to be words associated with power, culture, law, and refinement:

Two developments transformed English in this period: the printing press and the Renaissance.

The printing press (1476)
William Caxton set up the first English printing press in 1476. This was revolutionary because:
- Books could now be mass-produced, making literacy more widespread
- A standard written form of English began to emerge (based on London English)
- Spelling became more fixed — but it was fixed at a time when pronunciation was changing, which is why English spelling is so inconsistent today

The Great Vowel Shift (1400–1700)
During this period, English long vowels dramatically changed their pronunciation. For example:
- "name" used to rhyme with "comma" → shifted to its current pronunciation
- "see" used to sound like "say" → shifted to the current "ee" sound
- "moon" used to sound like "moan" → shifted to the current "oo" sound

The spelling was already fixed by the printing press, but the pronunciation kept changing — which is why English spelling often does not match pronunciation.

Shakespeare and new words (1564–1616)
William Shakespeare invented or first recorded approximately 1,700 English words, many of which are still in daily use:
- lonely, generous, gloomy, suspicious, amazement, assassination, bedroom, eyeball, moonbeam, bloodstained, cold-blooded, break the ice

He also popularised many phrases:
- "All that glitters is not gold"
- "Wild goose chase"
- "Wear your heart on your sleeve"
- "The world is your oyster"

Latin and Greek scholarly borrowings:
The Renaissance brought a flood of Latin and Greek words for abstract and scientific concepts:
- education, atmosphere, skeleton, thermometer, democracy, philosophy, biology, psychology

The King James Bible (1611)
This widely read translation standardised many English expressions:
- "The salt of the earth," "a labour of love," "the writing on the wall," "a wolf in sheep's clothing"

Modern English (1700–present) has continued to absorb words from languages around the world, reflecting Britain's colonial history and the global exchange of culture, food, and ideas.

Loanwords from around the world:

English continues to evolve rapidly. New words enter the language constantly from technology (blog, hashtag, selfie, livestream), social movements (woke, cancel culture), and global culture (K-pop, anime, cosplay). The internet has accelerated language change more than any previous technology.