Unit 2 - History of The English Language Part II (Student Version)

The story so far…
From the 5th century, Britain was occupied by the

Germanic tribes, namely the Anglo-Saxons, who
drove the locals (the Celts) to the west. That was the
birth of the English language, out of force and
violence.
But things are about to get uglier.

Britain got visitors.
In the 8th century, the Vikings
(otherwise known as the Norsemen)
from Norway, Sweden and Denmark
arrived at the shore of the north of
Britain. These Scandinavian warriors
were strong and ruthless. And their
aim was to take over Britain.
Their attacks were brutal. The ferocious Vikings looted
and burned down villages. The Danes, who were pagans
at the time, slaughtered monks and ripping the jewels
from Christian churches. The most notorious scene was
at the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. The massacre is still
known today as the ‘raid of Lindisfarne’.
https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/lindisfarne/lindisfarnepriory/index.html
As their armies were moving towards the south of England,
the Vikings destroyed schools, libraries and books of the
Anglo-Saxons, making sure they did not leave much behind.
This brought a great threat to Old English, the language
which was still in its infancy. At this point in history, English
was on the verge of extinction.
And it could have been so, if it wasn’t for this man.
King Alfred of Wessex
(Bragg, 2003)
In 878 AD, Alfred, who
ruled Wessex, the last
surviving independent
kingdom, eventually
defeated King Guthrum The Danelaw
of the Danes in a battle.
To end the exhausting

war, they agreed to sign
a peace treaty, splitting
the country in half. The
Danes’ territory was
called the ‘Danelaw’ or
‘Danelagh’.
https://www.royal.uk/alfred-great-r-871-899 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw
The statue of King Alfred the Great in downtown Winchester
In the restoration years, King Alfred tried to promote

English to be used in schools, instead of Latin, as well as
translated many books into English. After his death, he
became one of the only two kings in the English history,
who were given the byname ‘the Great’. Because of his
clever fighting and ruling strategies, England was saved
and so was the English language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great
What impact did the Danelaw
have on English?
Over almost 100 years in

which the Vikings were in
Britain, words from Old
Norse (the language of the
Vikings) were gradually
absorbed into the
everyday language.
For example, words like…
loose
came from Old Norse.

http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~burgess/norse/words.html
Many of them also gave us synonyms
of the Old English words.
Words from Old English Words from Old Norse

craft skill
hide skin
sick ill
wish want
dike ditch
Moreover, if you come across anyone whose last name ends
with –son, their great-great-grandfathers might have been
the descendants of these Norsemen.
Emma Watson
Sir Rowan Atkinson

Robert Pattinson
Louis Tomlinson
But it is the influence of the Vikings on the names of
places that might give us non-Brits a bit of trouble.
We are going to play a little game. Can all of you

read the names of these places in the UK out loud?
Ready?
Activity U2-4
3… 2… 1… GO!
• Huthwaite
• Lowestoft
• Derby
• Ormskirk
• Scunthorpe
They don’t sound like English, do they?

The reason why these town names look a bit unusual to us
is that they were derived from Old Norse.
Yes, the places with the names that

end with -by, -kirk, -thorpe, -waite and
-toft were once under the dominance
of the Vikings, or the Danelaw.
Huthwaite
Ormskirk Scunthorpe
Derby
Lowestoft
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/vikings/vikings_live/old_norse_origins.aspx
So, it is not surprising that the UK is full of places with
strange names that outsiders often have a hard time
figuring out. Can you pronounce the names of these cities?
https://youtube.com/shorts/QCzEeOH67TA?feature=share
Lastly, through the Anglo-Saxons’
contact with the Danes, Old English was
made simpler so that it could be easier
for them to understand each other.
Inflection started to lose its significance in
the late Old English. For the first time,
prepositions came in. Word endings were
dropped. And therefore, the order of words
became very important. People started using
–s with plural nouns and –ed became more
popular as the past tense verb form.
(Bragg, 2003; Viney 2003)
As things were looking up for our
English language, another big event
occurred and English was again put
through another test.
This time the threat was from someone

who would end up becoming Britain’s
long-term frenemy—the French.
1066 AD
The Normans (not to be confused with the Norse men) were the people
from the Normandy region of France. They were led by William
Duke of Normandy, who believed he had the right to claim the
English throne. Long story short, he won the decisive battle at
Hastings on 14 October 1066 and became the new king of
England. He then was nicknamed ‘William the Conqueror’.
As you may have guessed, King
William I preferred doing things the
French way.
Thus, French was declared the language

of the court, administration and culture,
whereas Latin was used for official
documents and anything related to the
Church.
English’s status was downgraded to

being the peasant language. It was
considered the tongue of the lower-class
population.
However, the English language prevailed and continued to
develop, in spite of the political suppression. Once again,
English did what it does best—it adapted. Instead of
fighting against the language of the invaders, it gradually
embraced the Norman-French influence and used it to
enrich itself.
The mixture of the Anglo-Saxons’

Old English and the Normandy-
style French gave birth to what
we call Middle English (1100-
1500 AD)
http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_middle.html#Norman%20Conquest
It is estimated that around 10,000 words flooded
into English in this period. They are the
vocabulary about law (e.g. judge, court, arrest,
sentence), about war (army, soldier, courage, destroy),
about arts (language, poet, literature, colour) and
about food (mutton, beef, pork, venison).
Can you complete this crossword with th
words derived from the Norman-French?
Activity U2-5
French became a part of people’s life. The
Germanic names began to fall out of fashion.
And they were replaced by French names such as
Richard Simon Steven William

As for Latin, although this was not
the first time Latin landed in Britain
(the Romans brought it there in
the 1st Century), the Norman
Conquest was indeed the time
most Latin words entered the
English language: for instance,
scripture, nervous, private,
meditation, history, and intellect.
The Norman legacy in the English language
Not only did French and Latin make the

English Language almost double in size,
they also gave it flexibility as well as
precision. Now we have a number of
synonyms with subtle difference, which we
can choose to use in different contexts.
If Beowulf is the literary
masterpiece from the Old
English Period, Chaucer’s
The Canterbury Tales is the
most famous work written in
Middle English.
Written between 1387 and

1400, it consists of 24 stories
about a group of pilgrims who
traveled to Canterbury to pay
homage to Saint Thomas Becket.
The Canterbury Tales reflects
the feudalism and social
convention under the Norman
rules. Listen to an excerpt
From The Canterbury
Tales in Middle
English. Click here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVG77xTPH6E
The end of Part II
See you in the Modern English Period

Unit 2 - History of The English Language Part II (Student Version)

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Unit 2 - History of The English Language Part II (Student Version)

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The story so far…

From the 5th century, Britain was occupied by the

But things are about to get uglier.

And it could have been so, if it wasn’t for this man.

King Alfred of Wessex

To end the exhausting

In the restoration years, King Alfred tried to promote

Over almost 100 years in

came from Old Norse.

Words from Old English Words from Old Norse

Sir Rowan Atkinson

We are going to play a little game. Can all of you

They don’t sound like English, do they?

Yes, the places with the names that

This time the threat was from someone

Thus, French was declared the language

English’s status was downgraded to

The mixture of the Anglo-Saxons’

Richard Simon Steven William

Not only did French and Latin make the

Written between 1387 and

See you in the Modern English Period

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