There is no doubt that language, whether it is English, Chinese or any other, is a historical phenomenon and cultural changes in any society which hereby affect linguistic features of that language. As such it does not stay unchanged for any considerable period of time or for any time at all, but it inconstantly changing throughout its history. The changes affect all the spheres of the language: grammar and vocabulary, phonetics and spelling. The changes that any language undergoes are gradual and very slow but pronounced enough if we compare the stages of its development within a century or even half a century. We can imagine that with the passage of time the difference between different stages of the development of the language grows and we will easily deduce that if you speak of such a language as English the history of which embraces over fifteen centuries we will have to analyze and explain a great number of linguistic data characterizing the language at different stages of its history.
The aims set before a reader of the history of the English language are as follows:
1. To speak of the characteristics of the language at the earlier stages of its development.
2. To trace the language from the Old English period up to modern times.
3. To explain the principal features in the development of modern language historically.
Therefore, this paper is dedicated to explore the history of English language in terms of -its first dictionaries and grammars, intruded and borrowed words, the Scandinavian historical impact on the language, its evolution from the old to the modern and the main source of post-medieval loans along with the motivation for borrowing-.
Almost each language is influenced by one way or another during its evolution from the earlier foundation up to now by many different changes. Therefore, English is a language that has been affected by other languages since its birth, due to some strong factors which has shaped its identity. The factors are many in periods and varied in backgrounds, so these influences have a big deal in shaping today's English language. The history of English language began with arrival of Germanic tribes whom their invasion of Britain during the 5th century A.D left to much change on English language. These tribes were Angles, the Saxon and Jutes, whereas the residents of Britain at those times were speaking Celtic.
The main purpose of studying the history of the English language is to account for the present-day stage of the language to enable a reader of English to read books and speak the language with understanding and due knowledge of the intricate and complicates mechanism they use. We said that the history of any language is an unbroken chain of changes more or less rapid. But though the linguistic tradition is unbroken it is impossible to study the language of over 15 centuries long without subdividing it into smaller periods. Thus the history of the English language is generally subdivided conventionally into Old English (5th—11th century), Middle
English (11th—15"' century) and new English (15th century—till now).
The outer history of the language is the events in the life (history) of the people speaking this language affecting the language, i.e. the history of the people reflected in their language. The inner history of the language is the description of the changes in the language itself, its grammar, phonetics, vocabulary or spelling.
It is well known that the English language belongs to the Germanic subdivision of the Indo-European family of languages. The direct and indirect evidence that we have concerning old Germanic tribes and dialects is approximately twenty centuries.
To begin with first English dictionaries and grammars, there are two important questions which have to be considered. These questions are: When were the first English dictionaries compiled? Why they had been produced?
To trace the facts we must go back to the profound history of English in order to give concrete dates of the earlier dictionaries. The following are some English dictionaries:
"Richard Mulcaster’s 'Elementarie' was first published in 1582. It was written as a pedagogical guide, and was an attempt to make English language and culture more respected and accessible and it contains 8000 words."
"Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, published in 1604, was the first single-language English dictionary ever published. It lists approximately 3000 words."
"Thomas Blount's 'Glossographia' was first published in 1656 andlists over 11,000 words."
"Nathan Bailey's 'Dictionarium Britannicum' was first published in 1730. It contains 48,000 words."
"Samuel Johnson's 'Dictionary of the English Language' is one of the most famous dictionaries in history. First published in 1755, the dictionary took just over eight years to compile, required six helpers, and listed 40,000 words".
"Francis Grose's 'Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue' was first published in 1785, and is a dictionary of slang words".
"1879 - 1928 Oxford English Dictionary: The idea for this enormously complex dictionary was first dreamt up in the 1850s. The plan was to create a vast and comprehensive collection of English words, those from the Early Middle English period (1150) onwards, a lexicon of the language more complete than any English dictionary-maker had ever attempted".
"The Joys of Yiddish was published in 1968; it presents a rich collection of words from a language that has been moving around the world for the last 1000 years. The book records the Yiddish words that have imprinted themselves on to the English language, following the huge migration of Jewish communities to America and England during the 19th and 20th centuries. For many of us today, words such as schmaltz, shmooz, or chutzpa are part of a familiar, everyday vocabulary".
All above English dictionaries were gradually produced since then, that's why they have a noticeable connection to one another linguistically, culturally, socially and historically. They were compiled to maintain the language and stabilize it against any possible changes that could happen, as well as to build a strong background for the people who speak that specific language.
Every single language has common words with other languages that are borrowed by trades, wars, and technological terms, so there are some loanwords from languages such as Dutch, Italian and Turkish sated in the following example.
Dutch: aardvark, blink, boss, cruise, and tackle.
Italian: arsenal, broccoli, casino, motto and piano.
Turkish: bosh, ayran, dunam, horde and yuruk .
The constant contacts and intermixture of the English and the Scandinavians brought about many changes in different spheres of the English language: word-stock, grammar and phonetics. The influence of Scandinavian dialects was especially felt in the North and East parts of England, where mass settlement of the invaders and intermarriages with the local population were especially common. The relative ease of the mutual penetration of the languages was conditioned by the circumstances of the Anglo- Scandinavian contacts, i.e.:
a) There existed no political or social barriers between the English and the Scandinavians, the latter not having formed the ruling class of the society but living on an equal footing with the English.
b) There were no cultural barriers between the two people as they were approximately the same in their culture, habits and customs due to their common origin, both of the nations being Germanic.
c) The language difference was not so strong as to make their mutual understanding impossible, as their speech developed from the same source — Common Germanic, and the words composing the basic word-stock of both the languages were the same, and the grammar systems similar in essence.
"The Scandinavians in England remained very strong through centuries, and at the beginning of the 11th century, namely in the period between 1016 and 1042 the whole of England came under the Scandinavian rule — the conquest was completed and the Danish king was seated on the English throne. Although in 1042 England was back under English power, the English king who came to the throne — Edward the Confessor — was to be the last English king for more than three centuries.
Old English (450-1100 AD)
"The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. 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. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English. Old English was spoken until around 1100".
Middle English (1100-1500)
"In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered England. The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today".
Modern English Early Modern English (1500-1800)
"Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published".
Late Modern English (1800-Present)
"The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. 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".
Post-medieval literature
"The end of the Middle Ages brought with it a waning of interest in King Arthur. Although Malory's English version of the great French romances was popular, there were increasing attacks upon the truthfulness of the historical framework of the Arthurian romances – established since Geoffrey of Monmouth's time – and thus the legitimacy of the whole Matter of Britain. So, for example, the 16th-century humanist scholar Polydore Vergil famously rejected the claim that Arthur was the ruler of a post-Roman empire, found throughout the post-Galfridian medieval "chronicle tradition", to the horror of Welsh and English antiquarians. Social changes associated with the end of the medieval period and the Renaissance also conspired to rob the character of Arthur and his associated legend of some of their power to enthrall audiences, with the result that 1634 saw the last printing of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur for nearly 200 years. King Arthur and the Arthurian legend were not entirely abandoned, but until the early 19th century the material was taken less seriously and was often used simply as vehicle for allegories of 17th- and 18th-century politics. Thus Richard Blackmore's epics Prince Arthur (1695) and King Arthur (1697) feature Arthur as an allegory for the struggles of William III against James Il .Similarly, the most popular Arthurian tale throughout this period seems to have been that of Tom Thumb, which was told first through chapbooks and later through the political plays of Henry Fielding; although the action is clearly set in Arthurian Britain, the treatment is humorous and Arthur appears as a primarily comedic version of his romance characteristics".
To conclude, the history of English language had mingled with many different civilizations and cultures throughout the history, that's why it is obvious that the language has sort of linguistic mixture from other languages through wars, trades, and transition of different races of people during those times. Thus, it is a must for anyone who wants to trace the origin of any language to go back to its history in order to turn the pages of facts and data of that language so that to come out with reliable outcomes.
