THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION

English is one of the significant languages in the World. Most people use English language for communication purposes like in business, tourism even it might not be their mother tongue. There are different kinds of English spoken throughout the World like Britain English, American English. However, they are not separate languages; they referred as ‘dialects’.

ENGLISH WORDS

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More than 840 million people speak English as their first or second language. It has predicted that, nearly or over two billion people speak English as their first or secondary language in 2020. English is second most spoken language in the world next to Mandarin. English, first spoken in early medieval England and became a common lingua franca around the world.

English has its roots from West Germanic language. Germanic is a division of the Indo-European language family.

The word ‘English’ coined from Anglisc – the language of the Angles.

English Language is the first or primary language of many countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and many islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. English is also an official or secondary language of many other countries like India, Singapore and Philippines; in African Countries like Liberia, Nigeria and South Africa.

HISTORY

English belongs to Indo European language family. The root of this language is Proto-Indo-European language spoken by nomads who were roaming in the southeast European plains about 5000 years ago. The language German also originated from this.  English historically divided into three categories.

• Old English – 500 - 1100 AD
• Middle English -1100 - 1600 AD
• Modern English -1600 AD to Present

Old English

The period is between 500-1100 AD. During the 5^th Century AD, the Germanic tribes the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes crossed North Sea and invaded the Britain. By that time, the language of Britishers was ‘Celtic’. The Tribes of Angels came from ‘Englaland ’, their language was ‘Englisc’ from which the words ‘England’ and ‘English’ were coined. Old English are very difficult to understand even by native English speakers. Many modern English words have their roots in Old English. E.g., the words ‘water’ and ‘strong’ derived from Old English. Old English was categorized into four dialects:

• The Anglian dialects: Merican and Northumbrian
• The Saxon dialects: Kentish and West Saxon

Middle English -1100 - 1600 AD

William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France) invaded and conquered Britain in 1066 AD. The language of conquerors was French. The lower class people spoke English and the upper class people spoke French. In the 14^th century, English became dominant but with many French words mixed in it. The Great poet Chaucer (1340-1400) language was middle language. He started writing ‘The CanterburyTales’ in 1388 using Middle English. However, it is still difficult to understand this language even by    native English speakers.

Modern English -1600 AD to Present

Early Modern English Period : 1500 – 1800 AD

Early modern English began around the time of William Shakespeare. There was a rapid and unique change in pronunciation referred as ‘the Great Vowel Shift’ (1400-1750) emerged i.e., vowels pronounced shorter and shorter, pronunciation of long vowels changed. In 1476, William Caxton initiated the printing press to England. Therefore, the first printed books published in London and thus, the language English expanded. Books became cheaper and people learned to read. In 1611 King James Version of the Bible, used Early Modern English.

English medical receipts, late 15th century

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Revival of Classical learning and the Great Vowel Shift created many new words and phrases to enter into the English language.

William Shakespeare's King Henry the Eight
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Due to printing, the English language became standardized, thus spelling mistakes, grammatical errors bugged and the dialect of London became the standard.

Modern English : 1800 – Present

English always adopts new words from other languages. Due to the advancement in technologies, new words are required to describe new things, so English looked to Latin and Greek. Vocabulary is the main difference between early and later modern English.

FACTS ABOUT ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Now let us see some interesting unknown facts about English language.

• April 23, celebrated as UN English Language Day. The day marks the Birth and death date of William Shakespeare, English Play writer and poet. However, his exact birthday is unknown.

• The first English lexicon was written dates back to 1755.

• In 1604, the first English lexicon published.

• William Shakespeare invented more than 17,000 words. For instance Addiction, Bedazzled, Cold-blooded, Break the ice, dwindle, green-eyed, torture, worthless, champion, lonely, elbow.

• English is official/standard Language for Air Travel and maritime Communication.

• English is not the official language of the United States.

• The term ‘Couch potato’ refers to someone who watches Television a lot.

• The words ‘mouse potato’ refers to someone who works on the computer a lot.

• For every two hours, a new English word/term added to the language and lexicon. Oxford English Dictionary estimated that 4000 new words added every year.

• ‘E’ : most frequently used letter in English. E appears  approximately in 11% of words in the vocabulary followed by ‘a’.

• ‘Q’ : least commonly used letter.

• ‘S’ : most common letter used at the beginning of the words.

• ‘X’ : least common letter used at the beginning of the words.

• Alphabet : combination of first two letters of the  Greek alphabet ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’.             

• ‘I am’ : is the shortest complete sentence.

• ‘the’ :  most repeated English word.

• Portmanteau : blends the sound of two English words to form a single/new word which combines their meaning.

E.g., smog = smoke + fog ; Biopic = Biography + Picture

Brunch = Breakfast + Lunch ; carjack = car + hijack

• Pangram : Sentence which holds all the letters of the alphabets.

E.g., ‘THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER A LAZY DOG’ is the commonly known pangram.

• Palindrome : Word or phrase has a same letters while reading forward or backward.

Eg., MADAM , MALAYALAM, CIVIC

• Ambigram : Words that looks same upside down.

Eg., SWIMS, NOON

• Isogram : Word or phrase in which each letter appears same number of times. Eg., UNCOPYRIGHTABLE(S), ISOGRAM, DERMATOGLYPHICS

• ‘Go’ : smallest grammatically correct and concluded sentence.

• ‘run’  is the most complex word in the English followed by ‘set’ which  has 430 definitions and 60000 word definitions published in first edition of Oxford English Dictionary in1928.  

• More than 40 unique sounds made by using the 26 letters of the alphabet.

• ‘Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’ is the lengthiest Word in the English Dictionary. It is a Medical term refers to lung disease.

• There is no ‘B’ used in the words of a number (one, two, three) until one writes Billion.

• ‘I’ :  shortest and antique word.

• An adult English speaker knows average of 20000 – 35000 words.

• Hydroxyzine : unique word which contains the letters x,y,z in order.

• ‘I’ and ‘U’ : two most common words.

• Worldwide, over 80% of information stored on the computers is in English.

• ‘Town’ : antique English term which is still in use.

• The arduous tongue twister : “sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick”

• ‘Angry’ and ‘hungry’ are the only two current using words, which end in ‘gry’.

• ‘Senseless’ : is the longest word made using only 4 letters.

• Modern English vocabulary use 58% of French and Latin languages today.

• ‘Dreamt’ is the only English term ends with ‘mt’ according to Oxford Dictionary. Undreamt, daydreamt and redreamt are derivatives of Dreamt.

• ‘Ghost words’ or ‘Phantomnation’ are refers to the words which has no meaning.

• ‘Laugh out loud’ or ‘lol’ added to the Oxford English Dictionary in the year 2011.      

 CONCLUSION

English is the first or secondary language of several countries. English is now the global lingua franca. English language used in many streams like commerce, science, technology, diplomacy, art and education. It is one of the mandatory language in the world.