Meantime, however, the English of the Anglo-Saxons had undergone many changes before Chaucer was born. Most of its inflections had been lost, and still others have been discarded since. Further, there had been extensive borrowing from French and Latin, and this continued throughout the fourteenth century. The habit, once formed, has proved lasting. Our vocabulary has received contributions from many languages, and is still receiving them. Greek may be mentioned in particular as the source of many words, especially in the various departments of science. But French and Latin remain the chief foreign elements in English.
In the following extract from Scott, most of the words printed in Roman type are of Anglo-Saxon origin, whereas the italicized words are derived from Latin or French.
It was not until evening was nearly closed that Ivanhoe was restored to consciousness of his situation. He awoke from a broken slumber, under the confused impressions which are naturally attendant on the recovery from a state of insensibility. He was unable for some time to recall exactly to memory the circumstances which had preceded his fall in the lists, or to make out any connected chain of the events in which he had been engaged upon the yesterday. A sense of wounds and injury, joined to great weakness and exhaustion, was mingled with the recollection of blows dealt and received, of steeds rushing upon each other, overthrowing and overthrown, of shouts and clashing of arms, and all the heady tumult of a confused fight. An effort to draw aside the curtain of his couch was in some degree successful, although rendered difficult by the pain of his wound.
English has also adopted a good many Scandinavian words, though they form no such proportion of its vocabulary as French or Latin. Danish and Norwegian pirates began to harry the coast in the eighth century. Permanent settlements followed, as well as wars of conquest, and for about thirty years (1013–1042) a Danish family occupied the English throne. These events explain the Scandinavian element in our language.
Despite the freedom with which English has adopted words from abroad, it is still essentially a Germanic speech. Its structure is still the native structure. The borrowings have enriched its vocabulary, but have had comparatively little effect upon its syntax. The foreign words have been naturalized, and their presence in no wise interferes with the unity and general consistency of the English language. It is a strange error to regard English as a combination of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. As for the loss or decay of inflections, that is not due to a mixture of dialects. It is a natural tendency, which may be seen, for example, in Dutch and Danish, though there was no Norman Conquest in Holland or Denmark. The loss, indeed, is really a gain, for it is progress in the direction of simplicity.
The Anglo-Saxon or Old English Period comes down to about a century, or a century and a half, after the Norman Conquest. Its extreme limit may be set at 1200. The period from 1200 to 1500 is usually known as the Middle English Period. From 1500 to the present time may be regarded as the Modern Period, though within these boundaries English has changed enormously in pronunciation and in vocabulary, very largely in syntax, and to some extent in inflection. The almost complete abandonment of the subjunctive in common speech is one of the latest of these changes. This, too, is in the direction of simplicity.
The people of Great Britain have long been famous as travellers, explorers, and colonizers. Their language, once the dialect (or dialects) of a handful of Germanic adventurers, has spread to all parts of the world, so that now it is not merely the language of England, but, to a considerable extent, that of Scotland, Ireland, North America, India, Australasia, and South Africa. In this vast area, numerous varieties of pronunciation and of idiom of course occur, but, on the whole, the uniformity of the language is surprisingly well preserved.
FOOTNOTES
1 For a brief history of the English language, see [p. 316].[↑]
2 Compare [pp. 316–317].[↑]