L ANGUAGE D EVELOPMENTS IN B RITISH E NGLISH

History Of English

5th Century AD Three Germanic tribes invaded Britain The Angles The Saxons The Jutes In this time habitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. Most of Celtic speakers were pushed West and North into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland

History of English Old English (450 – 1100 A.D.) Middle English (1100 – 1500) Modern English (1500 – Present) Old English (450 – 1100 A.D. ): Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots.

History of English Middle English (1100 – 1500 ) In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France) invaded England. The new conquerors called the Normans brought a kind of French. For a period there was a kind of linguistic division, where the lower class spoke English and the upper class spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added.

History of English Modern English Early Modern English ( ) : It was produced a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation. Vowels made shorter and shorter. Spelling and grammar became fixed. Late Modern English (1800 – present): Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries

50% of the vocabulary came from Latin and the other 50% came from Germanic Languages (Anglo – Saxon)

C HANGES I N L ANGUAGE Pronunciation Vocabulary The Internet

P RONUNCIATION

“Of all aspects of spoken language, pronunciation is the most noticeable. Individual words and grammatical constructions are occasional in nature, whereas pronunciation is pervasive. We can say nothing without pronouncing it.”. The Cambrige Companion To Modern British Culture

Celtic Irish Language – Gaeilge. Number of speakers – v=NmrcKZix7w4 v=NmrcKZix7w4 Scottish Gaelic: Number of speakers (Approx) v=YwVCrgvvHeE v=YwVCrgvvHeE Welsh Language: Approx speakers. Welsh is the Celtic language with in the healthiest state. player_embedded player_embedded

Different Accents 1 2 3

V OCABULARY

N EW W ORDS A ND O LD W ORDS 75% of new words used during 1970’s disappeared after a quite short period of time. Hundreds of new Words appear every year. The most common sources for these new words are: the arts, business, computing, the environment, leisure, medicine, politics, popular culture, sports, science and technology. It can be observed these new words in publications like Oxford University Press publication, Twentieth Century Words, that contains a selection of about 5,000 items such as: From the 1990s: applet, Blairism, Britpop, cool Britannia, Dianamania;BlairismBritpopcool Britannia From the 1980s: AIDS, backslash, bog-standard, BSE, mobile phone, designer drug;bog-standardBSE designer drug From the 1970s: action replay, Betamax, biotechnology, cashpoint, club class, detox.action replaycashpoint club classdetox

N EW W ORDS A RE G ENERATED OR I NTRODUCED F ROM E LSEWHERE T HROUGH Newspapers Magazines Radio Television or The local worlds of occupational idiom and street slang. Internet

C OMPUTERS A ND L ANGUAGE Computer mediated communication Old words have gained new meanings due to computer software File View Help Search New compound words have been created: Mousepad Double-click Webcam Podcast

C OMPUTERS A ND L ANGUAGE Affixation: Cybersex Cyberculture Ebooks Ecards Emoticon

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