"…We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary…" James D. Nicoll

As a well-read and intelligent person, you probably have an understanding of how the Internet was created, or how Great Experiments in American Economic Policy from Kennedy to Reagan came to be, and who was its foremost practitioners. More than likely, you are also familiar with the projects undertaken in various programs of research--to investigate the work practices and organizational contexts of settings synoptically challenged around the use of applying complex adaptive systems theory to organizations and management.

But, do you know where English, the language you communicate in each and every day, came from? Do you know how it evolved? Why we spell the way we do? Why we pronounce words the way we do? Why we use the very words we do?

Indeed, English has certain commonalties with such Romance languages as French and Spanish, but do you realize what language—or, more properly, mix of languages—spawned English? Do you know when and why the British developed British accents? Or what accent Shakespeare had? (It wasn’t British.) Do you fully understand the roles William Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Samuel Johnson and, more recently, Noam Chomsky, played in the evolution and understanding of English as we know it today? One last question: You love ideas and the experience of understanding, so wouldn’t it be wonderful if every sentence you heard, read, or thought might have a pearl of insight nestled in it?

English is a Germanic Language of the Indo-European Family. It is the second most spoken language in the world.

It is estimated there are 300 million native speakers and 300 million who use English as a second language and a further 100 million use it as a foreign language. It is the language of science, aviation, computing, diplomacy, and tourism. English is listed as the official or co-official language of 45 countries.

This spectacular domination is without parallel in history. Although French, Spanish and Arabic speakers may disagree, English is well on its way to becoming the unofficial international language of the world. Mandarin (Chinese) may be spoken by more people, but English is by far the most widespread of the world's languages.

The history of the language can be traced back to the arrival of three Germanic tribes to the British Isles during the 5th Century AD. Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the North Sea from what are presently Denmark and northern Germany. The inhabitants of Britain previously spoke a Celtic language which was quickly displaced. Most of the Celtic speakers were pushed into Wales and Scotland. One group migrated to the Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak a Celtic Language (Breton) today. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin. Their language was called Englisc which gave us the word, English.

During the next few centuries four dialects of English developed:

• Northumbrian in Northumbria, north of the Humber
• Mercian in the Kingdom of Mercia
• West Saxon in the Kingdom of Wessex
• Kentish in Kent

During the 7th and 8th Centuries, Northumbria's culture and language dominated Britain. This domination came to an end with the Viking invasions during the 9th Century which also destroyed Mercia. Only Wessex remained as an independent kingdom. By the 10th Century, the West Saxon dialect became the official language of Britain. Written Old English is mainly known from this period. It was written in an alphabet called Runes, derived from Germanic. The Latin alphabet was brought over from Ireland by Christian missionaries.

At this time the vocabulary of Old English consisted of an Anglo Saxon base with borrowed words from the Scandinavian languages and Latin. Latin gave English words like street, kitchen, kettle, cup, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, martyr, and candle. The Vikings added many Norse words: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die, they, their, them. Celtic words also survived mainly in place and river names (Devon, Dover, Kent, Trent, Severn, Avon, and Thames).

In 1066 the Normans conquered Britain. French became the language of the Norman aristocracy and added more vocabulary to English. More pairs of similar words arose. This accounts for why English has so many pairs of words:

French English

• close shut
• reply answer
• odour smell
• annual year
• demand ask
• chamber room
• desire wish
• power might
• ire wrath

Because the English underclass cooked for the Norman upper class, the words for most domestic animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer) while the words for the meats derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison).

It wasn't until the 14th Century that English became dominant in Britain again. In 1399, King Henry IV ascended the throne. He was the first king of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English. By the end of the 14th Century, the dialect of London had emerged as the standard dialect of what we now call Middle English. Chaucer wrote in this language. Modern English began around the 17th Century and, like all languages, is still changing.

Since the 16th Century, because of the contact the British had with many peoples from around the world, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, many words have entered the language either directly or indirectly. As the language of learning, the vocabulary of English is the largest in the world. The list of borrowed words is enormous (estimated at 5 million words from 80 languages).

Even with all these borrowings the heart of the language remains the Anglo-Saxon of Old English. Only about 5000 or so words from this period have remained unchanged but they include the basic building blocks of the language: household words, parts of the body, most pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs. Grafted onto this basic stock was a wealth of contributions to produce, what many people believe, is the richest of the world's languages.

Baugh ,A.C. and Cable, T. A History of the English Language , 4th ed. Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1993.

Denning, K. and Leben, W. English Vocabulary Elements, Oxford University Press 1995.

History of the English Language –URL http://www.teachco.com: 80/Courses/History/hist_eng_lang.htm

Hoad, T.F. Ed., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology Oxford University Press, 1993.

Lederer, R. Crazy English: the Ultimate Joy Ride Through Our Language (Pocket Books, 1989).

Merriam Webster. The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories, 1991.

O'Hearn, C., class notes from "History of the English Language." Pittsburgh State University, Pittsburgh, KS.