“THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE”

Language Human faculty

-Creative expression-Face to face communication-Scientific inquiry--Many other purposes

The origins and history of English

Its origin

History

English can be defined through

History

Celtic Languages

influence

-Irish English-

Scotish English

Roman

Empire

Latin

Words such as

wall, kitchen, wine, mile and

street were

borrowed

from Latin into

Germanic and throuh Germanic into English

English officially starts when the Germanic tribes and their languages reach the British Isles

Even though it is a Germanic language, English has adopted a large number of words from other languages.Borrowings Euphemisms

Half of vocabularycomes from French and Latin

Make things better than they are.Ex. Filing a property irregularity report means having to tell an airline that it lost your bags.

Modern English compared to earlier English and other languages

Old English Modern English

Has 13 to 14 vowels

At least 25 consonants

English syllable structure

is complex –> many

consonants together

To make sense, sounds need to be combined into words and words into sentences

Language

One of

the

majo

r

funct

ions o

f lan

guage

is to

indica

te w

ho

does t

hat to

whom

.

Languages differ in

how they mark these

functions through

endings of the verbs

and nouns or through

word order and

grammatical words

One of the major changes that occurred between

Old and Modern English is the change from

synthetic to analytic

SociolinguisticsSociolinguistics

The branch of linguistics that is particularly interested in varieties

region Social class Register or level of formality

External and Internal change

External changes

•Are brought about by language contact, or innovations by speakers, or issues of political or social identity

Internal changes

•Occur when, for instance, speakers stop using endings and start to rely on words such as of, for, the and have.

Periods of English