19
Oct
2009
Origins of the English language
Origins of English
English is a West Germanic language brought to Britain from various parts of northwest Germany and the Netherlands in the 5th century AD. As England was made up of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the language included a combination of various Germanic tribal dialects including the Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes and possibly the Franks, known as the Anglo-Frisian dialects. The dialect that came to dominate was the Late West Saxon, which was then influenced further by Scandinavians who invaded parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th century. As a result, much of the grammar was simplified and the vocabulary enriched.
Then the Normans invaded in the 11th century, so Anglo-Norman developed with a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance languages (Latin-based languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian and Catalan). Although invasion was not the only way that the Old English language was influenced. Trade with the Roman Empire influenced vocabulary long before Britain was invaded, including Latin-based words such as cheese, fork, linen, street and wall.
Old English
Old English came to replaced the indigenous languages of Britain, the Celtic languages. These were made up of the Brythonic and Goidelic languages. Goidelic languages included Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic. Brythonic langues included Cumbric, Welsh, Cornish and Breton. The golden era for Old English was during the period of the Anglo-Saxon kings, when it was used in legal, political, religious and economic arenas. It was during this period that new words were coined rather than borrowed from foreign languages.
The Old English era ended sometimes after the Norman Conquest in the 12th or 13th century, although about fifty per cent of standard modern English words have Old English roots, such as strong or water. Even English dialects such as Scots and Northumbrian English feature many characteristics of Old English vocabulary and pronunciation.
12
Oct
2009
Learning English
Language Acquisition
Language acquisition is a field of study in linguistics that examines the process through which humans learn to understand and use the complexity of language. There are two main ideas as to how children learn their first language, the first is the experience-dependent approach (or nurture), the second is the nativist approach (or nature). The former argues that the meanings of words are learnt through social conventions. This happens through operant conditioning, where consequences modify future behaviour. This would mean a certain word given certain stimulus would reinforce its contextual probability.
The second argument is based on innate meanings. Rather than focusing on a set of rules (grammar) that would generate syntactically correct sentences, it was argued that grammar was innate. Grammar is constructed based on examples of well-formed sentences, but ignores semantics and context. In addition, it was deemed that the input available to the child learner was insufficient to acquire a language on the basis of grammar. Chomsky and others claimed there was a universal grammar connected to the language acquisition faculty, consisting of a set of principles that were modified for each particular language by a set of parameters. These ‘hidden assumptions’ allow children to figure out what was and wasn’t possible in their language.
English Language
Because of its widespread use, the English language is a useful language to learn. The language spread as a result of first the British empire, then the American empire. In consequence, English is now used across many of the Commonwealth nations, whether as a first or second language. These nations include the UK (which consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), Ireland, Australia, Canada, the USA, various islands (e.g. Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa), Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, the Philippines, Mauritius, Jamaica, etc.