The document outlines the history and evolution of the English language, tracing its roots from proto-Afroasiatic and Indo-European language families to its development through influences from the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans. It highlights the impact of cognates, loanwords, and grammatical changes that shaped Old English into Middle English and finally Modern English. The document also categorizes the origins of English vocabulary and distinguishes between basic and more complex words.

1. The history and origin of the English
language
Nathan Urinovsky

2. Before we begin, there are few
terms you should know…

3. Cognates
What are cognates?
Cognates are words that share a common etymological origin with similar meanings.
For example:
Spanish: Portuguese:
mucho (much, many) muito (much)
Latin: multus (much)

4. Language family: introduction
Let’s look at another pair of cognates:
Hebrew (spoken in Israel): Kabyle (spoken in northern Algeria):
(aba) ‫אבא‬ (father) baba (father)
proto-Afroasiatic: *ʔab (father)

5. Language family
The proto-Afroasiatic language is the ancestor of all Afro-Asiatic languages, or in
other words, all languages that come from single language are all part of a
language family, in this case, the Afro-asiatic language family.

6. Language branch
Language branch is a group of languages that share a common ancestral language
that came out of a another language.
In the table above we can see languages from two branches of the Afro-asiatic
language family.
Languages
Branch
Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic
Semitic
Coptic
Egyptian
Kabyle
Berber

7. Loan words
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word adopted from one language (the donor
language) and incorporated into another language without translation.

8. Loan words: examples
Here are some examples for words that do not originate in Russian (and not in English), but exist
in both
English: Aviation English: Horizon
Russian: авиация Russian: горизонт
English: Ceremony English: Regime
Russian: церемония Russian: режим
English: Biology English: Physics
Russian: биология Russian: физика

9. Grammatical cases
Grammatical case is a feature in many languages, where the form of a noun,
adjective etc. changes according to its function in the sentence.

10. Grammatical case: examples
Книга [kniga] (book)
Я знаю эту книгу [knigu] (“I know this book” - Accusative case)
[Question answered: Whom or what?]
Карандаш [karandash] (pencil)
Я пишу карандашом [karandashom] (“I write with a pencil” -
Instrumental case)
[Question answered: How? With what or using what? By what
means? With whom?]

11. Guten tag! Und wer bist du?
(Good day! And who are you?)
Did you know, that in some dialects of English, if you want to talk to a single person it is possible to say, not “you”,
but “thou”?
But wait, what if similar words exist in different languages?
English: thou
German: du
Russian: ты (ty)
Italian: tu
Finnish: sinä
Persian: ‫تو‬ (tu)
Hindi: तुम (tum)

12. Indo-European languages
46% of the world speaks an Indo-European
language at a native speaker. Examples:
• English
• German
• Russian
• Italian
• Persian
• Hindi
• And many more...

13. Connection between IE languages: example
Thou (English) Du (German) ‫تو‬ (Persian)
Tu (Italian)
Ты (Russian) तुम (Hindi)
PIE: *tu-

14. The Germanic languages
The Germanic languages started in south Scandinavia. Examples:
• German (West Germanic)
• Dutch (West Germanic)
• Norwegian (North Germanic)
• Danish (North Germanic)
• But most importantly: English (West Germanic)

15. Connection between the Germanic languages:
example
Land (English) Land (Danish)
Land
(Norwegian)
Landa
(Swedish)
Land
(German)
Land (Dutch)
Lân (Frisian)
Proto-Germanic: *landja-

16. English
• West Germanic language
• Started being spoken in northern Germany
• Spoken by 1.8 billion people (400 million native speakers)
But how did it become the English we know today?

17. The Anglo-Saxons: first years
• Migration of Jutes, Saxons and
Angles to Britain
• Creation the Anglo Saxons and
Anglo-Saxon language (Old
English)
• Celtic influence on Anglo-Saxon

18. Anglo Saxon: Celtic influence
• Almost non-existing influence on vocabulary
• Influence particularly on grammar:
The “do support” or “meaningless do”:
“Do you drink coffee?” or “I did wash the dishes”.
Having a specific form for verbs in order to express and action that
happens in the present moment:
“I am running” or “He is drinking”.

19. Anglo Saxon: Viking influence
Throughout the 8th to 11th centuries, part of England were under
control of Vikings. Language, Old Norse, influenced Anglo-Saxon
in terms of both grammar and vocabulary.

20. Viking influence: vocabulary
By the end of the rule of the Danelaw, words from Old Norse made 14% of Anglo
Saxon (in addition to 50% of words that were cognates). A lot of those words are
very basic words, indicating close relationship between Anglo Saxons and Vikings.
Modern English: They Modern English: Anger
Old Norse: Þeir Old Norse: Angr
Modern English: Egg Modern English: Rotten
Old Norse: Egg Old Norse: Rotinn
Modern English: Bag Modern English: Knife
Old Norse: Baggi Old Norse: Knífr

21. Viking influence: grammar
• Instead of conjugating the verb to a future form, a future tense (will/shall) was
added
• Many verbs lost their conjugation in the past form and just got added to them
the suffix d/ed
• Old English lost its grammatical cases.
• Instead of various ways of plural forms, the ending of “s” became generalized to
most nouns.
All these influences pushed Anglo-Saxon towards Middle English.

22. Middle English
• The Normans, a tribe of Vikings who settled in Northern France and
adopted Christianity and the French language.
• In 1066, the Normans invaded England, and influenced English by
pushing a lot of words form French and Latin
• In the 12th century, Anglo-Saxon became Middle English
• A language even developed from Middle English: “Scots” (not to be
confused with Scots Gaelic), which is spoken in Scotland.

23. Modern English
• The English spoken today is English, or to be specific, Modern English
• The majority of words in English aren’t Germanic, but those words are often
used in science and technology, and not basic speech.
Origins of words in English vocabulary
Germanic (26%) French (29%) Latin (29%)
Greek (6%) Other (10)%

24. Big words vs basic words
Big words
Basic words
ambivalence
Yes
Assiduous
No
Auspicious
I
Desideratum
Thanks
Circumlocution
Good
Parsimonious
Do (v.)
Penultimate
Make (v.)
Sesquipedalian
Water
Splendiferous
Tell (v.)
Unencumbered
What

25. Thanks for listening