Rajarata
University of Sri Lanka
Department of
Languages
Faculty of Social
Sciences and Humanities
Online Lectures
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Year and Semester
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Year-3 Semester-1
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|
Subject
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History of English
Language
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|
Subject Code
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ENGL 3112
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Course Unit
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Introduction to
History of English Language/Celtic Influence
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Date
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05.05.2020/07.05.2020
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|
Time
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Theory (11.00 am-1.00
pm) Practical (2.30 pm-4.30 pm-07.05.2020)
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Lecturer
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D.N. Aloysius
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Theory Hours
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02
Total No of Hours: 02
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Practical Hours
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02
Total No of Hours: 02
|
Old
English
At present, English is considered to be the global language as it is
geographically spread all over the world and used by approximately, one billion
people as their first, second and
foreign language. The English language has become more popular than any other
internationally used languages among many countries. It is, therefore, worth to
investigate how this prominent language originated and spread far and wide so
rapidly. English is a West Germanic language,
first spoken in early medieval England. It is spoken
as a native language by the majority
of the people of the United
Kingdom (UK), United States of America (USA), Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and a host of Caribbean countries and
considered as the third most common native language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. English is
also widely learnt as a second language
and foreign language all over the world and is one of the official languages of the European Union, many Commonwealth countries and the United Nations, as
well as in many other world organizations.
Three Germanic tribes invaded Britain
during the 05th century.
These tribes consisted of Angles, Saxons and Jutes from Denmark and
northern Germany. When they arrived, the inhabitants of Britain spoke Celtic.
However, on their arrival, most of the Celtic people were expelled by the
invaders to Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Celtic became the first language that
influenced Old English. It was further influenced by Scandinavian languages, Latin
and Greek. The Germanic tribes, who invaded Britain, spoke similar
languages, which gradually enriched Old English. Today, even native English speakers find it
difficult to understand Old English. However, most commonly used words in
Modern English have their roots in Old English. The objective of the present study is, therefore, to
investigate how those four ancient languages contributed to expand the English
during the Anglo-Saxon period between 450 and 1100 AD.
Old or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest historical form of the English
language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in
the early Middle Ages. It was probably brought to Great
Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the
mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from
the mid-7th century. After the Norman
conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, as the language of
the upper classes by Anglo-Norman, a relative
of French. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, as
during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman,
developing into a phase known now as Middle
English.
Old
English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects
originally spoken by Germanic tribes
traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became
dominant in England, their language replaced the languages
of Roman Britain: Common
Brittonic, a Celtic language, and Latin, brought to
Britain by Roman invasion. Old English had four main
dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the
basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although
the dominant forms of Middle and Modern
English would develop mainly from Mercian. The speech of eastern and
northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence
due to Scandinavian
rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century.
Old
English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest
relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon.
Like other old Germanic languages, it is very different from Modern English and
difficult for Modern English speakers to understand without study. Within Old English grammar nouns, adjectives,
pronouns and verbs have many inflectional endings
and forms, and word order is much freer. The oldest Old
English inscriptions were written using a runic
system, but from about the 8th century this was replaced by
a version of the Latin alphabet.
Celtic
Influence on Old English
Old
English culture and language spread rapidly across east and central parts of
Britain during the 06th and
07th centuries while the dominant culture and language of the Celtic
people, who captured Britain around 600 BC,[1]
remained. Even today, their languages are found to be preserved in the areas
where they had inhabited. The Celtic
people, who invaded Britain, seem to have integrated with the natives, who were
absorbing elements of the language spoken by the new group. The Celts had
already spread their influence across the most of central Europe and interacted
with the Germanic tribes. Dialects spoken in northern Spain are heavily
influenced by Celtic to this day. There is also a noticeable correspondence
between northern Italian place names with those in Cornwall, particularly
starting with tre, a Celtic word for a farm or settlement.
Celtic words in Old English
derived from identifiable sources from the continent usually those associated
with conflict and battle as they were often used as mercenaries. Celtic loan
words were taken over after their settlement, usually place names, and words
from Ireland frequently associated with Christianization of Britain. However,
the Anglo-Saxons terrorized Celts rather than integrated with them and so their
languages became isolated until the Norman Conquest[2] creating a linguistic hierarchy with Celtic
languages firmly[3].
The social stigma on the Celtic
languages in British society during the long period of thousand years seems to
be responsible for its lack of vocabulary in the English language, which is a
language renowned for its borrowing of words from many other languages. Celtic
languages were considered inferior and as a result it did not acquire due
recognition during that specific period. In general, the words that have
survived are of geographical significance particularly place names. They
remained and all other words disappeared due to less respect. Some adopted
words such as bucket, car, crockery, slogan and flannel, truant and geol
survived. The survival of the Celtic languages can be seen in the areas, which
were densely occupied by the Celts. In many such areas, Celtic influence on the
English language is mostly obvious through place names. The Celtic language was
also known as the British language, the language of Britons, who were the
native inhabitants of the land. Some Celtic names survived in the areas, where
the Celts occupied for a long time. The names of rivers such as the Thames and
the Yare and important Roman towns such as London, York and Lincoln still
remain in the form of Celtic. We also find a number of names, which are the
compounds of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon words including ‘bre’ and ‘pen’ that are two Celtic words, which appear in
a number of names associated with ‘hill’. For example, Brill in Buckinghamshire
is a combination of ‘bre’ and Old English, ‘hyll’. Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire is a combination of ‘bre’ and ‘dun’, both Celtic words, and Brewood
in Staffordshire is combined with Old English ‘wudu’. It is also found that the use of
"Combe" or "Coombe" as part of many place names derived
from the Celtic word, ‘kumb’, which
meant "valley". This was later adopted into Anglo Saxton English. The
Celtic word ‘tor’ is mainly used in the south-west of
Britain. ‘Tor’ means "rock" in English and it is with the granite
peaks on Dartmoor and Bodmin moor, ‘Hay Tor’, ‘Hound Tor’, etc. This was later
incorporated into the name of the coastal town, ‘Torquay’.
The contribution of Celtic
languages to the English language seems to be much less when compared to that
of other languages to the former. However, the place names such as London, York
and Lincoln introduced by the Celtic languages remain even today with their own
identity.
1. Write
a brief essay on The History of the English Language.
2. Explain
the influence of Celtic Language on the English language.
References:
1. A
History of the English Language by Albert C. Baugh
2. Old
English: A Historical Linguistic Companion by Roger Lass
[2]Norman
Conquest took place in 1066 s.
[3] Celtic influence on the
English-language...omes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Lovis.htm-25.09.2013
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