Transcript All About English? Day 2: Foreign Language

All About English:
English as a
Foreign Language
All About English:
English as a Foreign
Language
Many words have entered
English through other
languages.
Lingua franca…lots of words from other languages
In some cases, words from one language enter English through another language.
Some Latin words have entered through Greek or Spanish, for example.
French: fry, veal, royal, prayer, venison, princess, courageous, treacherous
Italian: cameo, design, algebra
Spanish: banana, tobacco, mosquito, alligator
Native American: canoe, squash, raccoon, chipmunk
Dutch: cookie, boss
German: noodle, pretzel, saurkraut
Latin in English
The Roman civilization was highly regarded. Since
Latin was the language of that civilization, the AngloSaxons wanted to learn it.
 Words that entered English from Latin were
words that reflected that contact that the AngloSaxon people had with the Romans.
 These include commercial and military contact
at first, then later contact introduced religious and
intellectual words.
Latin in English
Latin had three opportunities to influence the English Language.
 The first influence came the first time Romans took over. Most
words from this period are common household words and military
words. A few examples include: stræt (street), cytel (kettle, L. catillus),
and cuppe (cup, L. cuppa).
The second influence came from Celtic transmission. Latin words
had filtered into the Celtic language from the previous Roman rule.
Most of these words are place names, such as Lancaster, Winchester,
Worcester, and Gloucester. These words include a form of the word
ceaster, which represents the Latin word castra, which means camp.
The final and largest influence was an attempt by the Romans to
make England a Christian country, beginning in 597. Christianity was
not really new, thanks to Irish monks, but this attempt was brought on
by the mission of St. Augustine. A few examples from the massive list
of words in this era include: alter, alms, martyr, cleric, disciple, psalm,
and temple.
Scandinavian in English
Old Norse is the language spoken by the Scandinavian invaders. Old
Norse and Old English are cousins in the language world.
Many words borrowed from Scandinavians have the hard sk sound, such
as sky, skin, skill, scrape, scrub, bask, and whisk.
Words such as ship, shall, and fish are actually English, which is in close
to Scandinavian, due to the same Germanic origins.
However, some of the words are confusing when considering whether or
not they are Old English or Old Norse. An example would be the Old
English scyrte, which gives us shirt, while the Old Norse word skyrta gives us
the word for skirt.
The amount of words of Scandinavian origin is not extensive. Words are
often associated with sailing ships and predatory people. Names ending in
–by or –son are also generally Scandinavian.
In some cases, two words for the same thing existed side-by-side until
one finally replaced the other. An example of this is ey (Old English) and
egg (Scandinavian). Can you guess which word replaced the other?
French in English
French came with the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Norman
Conquest is the event that had the greatest impact on the English language.
It is due to the large amount of French that entered the English language
at this time that English has lost so much of its Germanic sound and seems
at times to be just as much of a Romance language.
A Romance language refers to a language of Roman origin (Latin
speaking). Romance languages include: French, Spanish, Italian,
Portuguese, and Romanian.
Norman French was looked down upon compared to the French of
Paris. However, in England, French became the language of the Upper
Class, since the rulers spoke French and those who were ruled spoke
English. Parents would send their children to Paris to rid them of the
“barbarity” of their French. Chaucer made fun of the difference in dialect:
And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.
French in English
Thanks in part to “The Black Death,” French did not become the
language of England. The plague killed epidemic numbers of people,
resulting in a labor shortage. Since the number of laborers went down,
wages went up, increasing the importance of the Middle Class workers, as
well as the language they spoke.
French was used in the government, clergy, courts of law, military, arts
and medicine, and in food and fashion. Words such as crow, empire,
authority, and tyrant are just a few examples of the government area.
Religious words include clergy, religion, theology,
Many French words that have become part of the English language have
synonyms that mean almost the same thing. Due to the Upper Class use of
French, many of the French synonyms have a meaning that is a bit more
fancy. Some examples of these include: