Creation of the English Language

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I'm confused. What were the people speaking before Old English? Was it French or viking?

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HERE:

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HOW DID ENGLISH HAPPEN?
by Asst General Secretary
JEREMY MULDOWNEY

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Nobody in Britain spoke English before the Anglo Saxons settled here following the collapse of the Roman Empire. The native population at that time spoke a variety of Celtic languages and some, especially in the old Roman towns, would have had a good working knowledge of Latin. (Welsh, Gaelic, Cornish and Manx all originated in this early period)

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When the Anglo Saxons came across the North Sea from Germany and parts of Denmark, they naturally brought their language with them. This language, now usually referred to as Old English, was the direct ancestor of modern English. Today, English, German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages (except Finnish) are all still related and belong to the Germanic group. The grammar and spelling may be very different, but much of the vocabulary is shared eg house / haus / hus etc.
http://www.ydsociety.org.uk/id8.html

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You still seem to insist that the "French" ruled England prior to 1066. (Provided you insist on calling the originally Viking Normans the "French") Show me any evidence that "France" occupied England prior to 1066. No book I have ever read supports this claim, and I've read dozens on English history, including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the original source of much of this history written by the people who were often there at the time.

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I never said before 1066, only that during an early period, circa 800, [which includes 1066], the french ruled england, and made decrees to enforce the french language in briton; and that one of briton's kings was responsible for over-turning this goal, thereafter establishing english as a british language.

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Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions

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Norman Conquest

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(1066) Military conquest of England by William, duke of Normandy (later William I), mainly through his victory over Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. Edward the Confessor had designated William as his successor in 1051. When Harold, duke of Wessex, was crowned king of England in 1066 instead, William assembled an invasion force of 5,000 knights. After defeating Harold's army near Hastings on October 14 and advancing to London, he was crowned king in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. Native revolts continued until 1071, notably in Northumbria. The Norman Conquest brought great social and political changes to England, linking the country more closely with western Europe and replacing the old English aristocracy with a Norman aristocracy. The English language was subjected to a long period of influence by Anglo-French, which remained in literary and courtly use until the reign of Edward III and in legal reporting until the 17th century.

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I am going to the store (English)
Jag gr till affren (Swedish)
Direct translation: I go to store-the.

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What are you doing?
Vad gr du?
Direct translation: What do you?

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Above examples are non-english grammar. It is not a mystery - one can instantly see it when a european speaks english, which becomes an easy exposure he is not a native english speaking person.

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It is sunny.
Det r soligt.
Direct translation: It is sunny.

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This is correct english grammar, but the example is not a conclusive one, being too short.

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I garuantee there are more differences between the french and german languages than there are between spanish and french and italian.

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Let me put it this way, it is easy to see that one english speaker is from europe [no matter which part of europe], and not from england - by his english rendition. Amazingly, Indians do not have the same problem, and seem to take on board the prefix factors very well, while much adjustments are required when the same thing is said by a european speaking english - be it a french, german, polish or russian.

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US Constitution is based on the OT

This is getting ridiculously off topic, but how about starting a new one on whether the US constitution is based off of the old testament. I can categorically claim that it isn't. Funny thing though, you're right about it not being based off of the NT, but not for the reasons you probably think. I'm going to venture a guess and state that you're one of those people who think the US is a christian nation versus being a nation of christians.

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I find it telling that you have to resort to arguments that rely on the US in order to explain that the UK is not part of Europe and that you have barely touched on my original points. The UK has long been a key player in European politics, and has been treated as if it is part of Europe. Naturally, that would be because it is part of Europe. Check the real history, not the made up one in your head. Check the real current situation, not the one made up in your head.

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What are you hoping to show by proving that the UK is not a part of Europe?

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I'm not trying to prove anything in particular, and now must recall how this topic came to this point. But yes, I do maintain UK as different in many intrinsic respects than Europe, and closer with US - despite the proximity factor. Also, that the US Constitution is based on the OT laws and advocations, which Europe unsuccessfully tried to negate and make obsolete. There is no question that liberty, democrasy and inalienable human rights, as well as the entire corpus of judiciary laws, family, workers and animal rights laws - are OT, not NT, premises.Edited by IamJoseph, : No reason given.

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The Norman Conquest brought great social and political changes to England, linking the country more closely with western Europe

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Wait, haven't you been arguing the exact opposite?

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Is this yet another case of "proof for is actually proof against"?

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The french, scandis, vikings, romans - all invaded England. The significant factor here is, Briton caused a new breakaway language, which is representative of a new mindset as well. So yes, in a sense, the break is confirmed and highlighted, that this was achieved while encompasing all the input of Europe into Briton's new invention: ENGLISH. This does represent a triumph of sorts, whereby the invading input became the booty of the new enterprize.It was briton and the english language, which made french and other european words part of an international, universal lingo. Europe lost something here, which is represented by briton's triumph with english. It is understandable that briton declares as her greatest asset Shakespeare and other british writers: there is much truth in it.Edited by IamJoseph, : No reason given.

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The point was to show that the grammar is like enough as to be understandable.

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This is not the point, and there is no dispute of similarities or being understood; my point is there is a narrow but critical difference, which renders english different from all the commonalities it contains with all european languages. This difference is not seen between english of americans and some asian countries, who don't seem to have a problem with the critical grammartical inflections. This subtle variation is seen in your examples also. It is possible, this reflects a variation in mindset, or at least it would stand for something, language being a mysterious phenomenon in itself.

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At any rate, for being so different, English doesn't seem to be so different from Swedish. If it wasn, the direct (as direct as possible, at any rate) translation would be largely unintelligable.

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If the difference is enough to exclude English from being european, then every state could not be european, for all the languages differ from a much less degree

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I agree that with translations of languages, adjustments have to be made. Yet, a sweed speaking english is different, both in the pronouncement of certain alphabetical phonations, and a loss of prefix, which is not seen when some asians [eg. Indians], who speak english as a second language, but do not have the same affectation as do Europeans. I'm not sure why this is so.Also, I have a problem when you say all european languages are different from one another, equally as english is different from any european language: the difference of english strikes all european languages, but the same factor does not exist inter-european languages.I do not think this is attributed to phonation only, e.g., that certain alphabets were not contained in the latin, such as the 'V' [thus we have Abraham, instead of the original AVraham with a V]. There are other such variations of alphabets between the Hebrew and Indian, and all european and Russian languages; however, this does not seem to have impacted english, which had no problem here. The different grammatical construction impacts more than the phonation: a different grammar means one percieves things differently, in a different order, placing an emphasis differently.It could mean, that the source points of european and hebrew are not the same, and evolved via different paths, or are among the different kinds of 70 primal languages which later became widespread. I suspect that grammar came to Europe via the Hebrew [which introduced this faculty in the OT], via greece [which first translated the hebrew in 300 BCE], and which impacted strongly on philosophy, Europe, the Latin, and even on christianity itself.To take this thought further, languages have the single most powerful impact on all aspects of humanity, and it cannot be under-estimated. After all, if one does not know a word and its meaning, one cannot think in terms of that word; this impacts one's thinking. Equally, there is nothing which mankind has done, which was outside of a language utility, which includes the wheel, cars, planes and PCs.All of humanity's output is from language, which is represented by a word. To take this to a furtherest level, one can say that man creates everything via a word, and thus the universe itself could have emerged from a word, which represents a thought/will/action process. From such a vista, it is feasable, or even w/o alternatives, that Genesis deems the universe came about by a word: consider that there were no tools or forces, and that all products are post-universe, including matter, space, energy and time [the universe is finite].So what's left? The same which occured for mankind, all came from the word, and this makes the verse, 'AND THE LORD *SAID* LET THERE BY LIGHT - AND THERE WAS LIGHT'. Here, the word 'said' refers to language, thought/will/action - with the caveat there were no tools, obviously so in a 'FINITE' universe: if the universe is finite - all its components are finite - meaning at one time they never existed, yet the universe emerged. I understand that evolutionists would not take such thinking as imperical, but equally, they have not a clue how the universe came about, and appear in a path which will not yield any answers. It is thus a question of perspectives, whether language is a force of its own, same as light, heat, energy, etc.

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what is this "narrow but critical" difference you speak of?

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narrow, meaning the A's and THE's appear minor, but make a big difference. Why do most Europeans say, 'THE' God, instead of just God, as in the english - it is a dead give-away?

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Speaking of grammar problems:
critical grammartical inflections

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You seem to have one here. "Grammar" is a noun. You're trying to use it as an adjective (near as I can tell), and -tical is not one of our adjective declinations. In fact, english doesn't have adjective declensions.

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This shows english as a very pliable and adaptive language, and one of the reasons it became a global-speak.

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So let me get this straight: an unnamed English king around 800 decided to translate the then current language of England, which was, surpisingly, French, into a non-existing language.

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No. I'm not certain of the date [circa]; english was already spoken in some form, while the french saught to establish french as the operative language for briton: this failed, by the actions of a british king.

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This brilliant move was of course greeted with great approval by his French-speaking subjects, if only because in the initial stages of the project people must have had belly-aching fits of laughter when they heard their king trying out the new language. (Ever seen "Allo, allo"?)

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And they must also have revered their king's great foresight in inventing a word like 'cafe', the use of which had to wait another eight hundred and fifty years or so, after which coffee, from which the word derives, was actually introduced into polite society in England and France.

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There were no belly laffs, the people supported the king against the french goal; the term cafe and many other french words were incorporated into the english.

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Joseph, what planet are you from?

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You must look in the mirror if I'm right. Yes/no?

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I had to pick myself off of the floor when you said that 1066 is "circa 800CE".

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Yes, that's very obtuse, but I never intended the date as the operative factor here. The issue is, that none here can vindicate my stated premise, english was established/saved from destruction - by a British king. I stand by it, al biet w/o evidencing it as yet.

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First of all, everytime you use the word "microcosm", God kills a llama.

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Death is factored in - the universe is finite. A counterpart of your statement is also that everytime you use the word microcosm: God takes life - *and also gives life*.

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Your claims contradict everything about standard English history. I wanted to debate creationists, but no creationist would want to be associated with your ideas.

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English, like any other language emerged mostly through slow, gradual changes, sometime made more rapid by cultural events (none of which you have correctly identified). Old English can be said to have emerged when the Anglo-Saxons came to England around 450CE (you're right that there were already ancient Britons, also called Brythons living in England at that time. Their language had very little influence on English so they are not germane to this discussion). That's the fifth century, and it's not circa 800! And there are NO FRENCH YET! It's Anglo-Saxons!

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Nothing I stated contradicts or addresses those issues. 'slow and gradual' are subjective terms, and not disputed. I never said that olde english was exclusively anglo-saxon.

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Their language, Anglo-Frisian slowly became what we call Old English. Got that? Old English. In the years 500-800! BEFORE THE FRENCH!

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Obviously - else how could the french target briton's then prevailing language!

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IAJ writes:
there is no written proof of english before this date

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Have you ever heard of Beowulf? That's right, it's a new CGI movie with Angelina Jolie. Well, it turns out that it's based on an Old English epic composed somewhere in 700-750CE! Other examples of Old English text include Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica (731) and the aforementioned Cædmon's Hymn of about the same time.

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I quoted a link, as an estimated timeframe. If you are making an alternative assertion, then point us to the museum where a hard copy relic exists.

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The vikings start coming in around 800-1000 (this is still BEFORE 1066 and there are NO FRENCH YET). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are composed late 9th century and it has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FRENCH!

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No contest.

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1066: cue the French (Normans). The Norman conquerors bring in French and the common people mostly continue to speak Old English. The intersection of cultures will slowly and gradually transform Old English into Middle English.

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In 1086, The English king, William I -- who happens to be French (Norman), remember -- orders the great survey that came to be known as the Domesday Book. It's written in ...(drumroll)... LATIN!

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This French/Norman line of kings gradually over decades and centuries thinks of themselves as English. There is no act of rebellion against the French/Norman language which was the language of the English royalty for a few centuries. Instead the borrowing of words and other slow, gradual changes results in the emergence of Middle English. By the 1400s English has slowly become the language of the king and the Establishment. After the 1500s we have Early Modern English (again through slow changes). In the 1600s the word coffee/cafe is first used and it originally came from ... TURKISH! (kahveh) Coffee - Wikipedia. Incidentally the 1600s are NOT circa 800.

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Yes, I know of all this, but there is a pivotal factor missing here, namely which I stated: the english did rebel against the french decree to have all official writ in french, and this challenge was initiated by an english king. My specs are missing, while this factor is missing from your historical vocab of this issue. But for this king, the Brits would have a french language today.

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To sum up from 500-1000 in England Old English was developing from its Anglo-Frisian roots BEFORE THE FRENCH came in 1066. There was NO Rebellious document to overturn the French language. The borrowing of French words played an important role in the gradual emergence of Middle English. Coffee came later still.

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And I remain in contradiction with your 'There was NO Rebellious document to overturn the French language'. Amazing, that none here can back me up!

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This document here contains the specs of a language I have just invented. I call it English

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Why 'invented'? - all I said was he refused to make french the national language, and made all british writs in old english. A team of scholars was formed, which house did form new english words and incorporated many other language words into english. This is an important event in the history of the english language, which overturned what would have emerged as a french speaking briton.

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All languages all pliable and adaptable. The reason english became the international language has much to do with the british empire, not with any "critical difference".

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Also, many languages are dead, or not spoken outside its own; many european nations were, like Briton, conquering states. France tried desperately to make french a global language, but was felled by english. All languages are not equally pliable.

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even Shakespeare would not have written 'grammartical'. Maybe you meant to say "grammatical", which does exist?

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You spellchecked me!

I will try to this weekend, or drop it. I will lose by technicality, but not by being incorrect. In fact I'm surprised this king is not adequately celebrated for this deed, as I am surprised none here know what I'm talking about.

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This too is wrong. I often find myself thinking of something about which I have no clue what word to use to describe what I am thinking.

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This confirms my point. You won't do that once you know that word. The action of that word also becomes stymied till you have that word in your vocab, which calls for interaction with others.

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If everything is post creation of the universe, then how can "word" (which you describe as a force) exist to create the universe, when it must exist after creation like everything else, because it is a force, a tool?

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Its a good question. As you will know, a thought must precede any action, and the former is represented by a word. Its like the house that jack built: first jack sees the completed house image in his mind [the thought], then comes the blueprint [the word], then the ingredients [the universe], then the action [verb: creating]. The word is the conduit here for the thought, which must precede the action - namely, of the universe's creation. There is a logic here, whereby we have to illustrate how a 'finite' entity can emerge, meaning we cannot nominate anything already contained in that finite entity as the source's instrumentation, thus no tools or ingredients at this stage - not even the BB particle, nor the act of expansion per se, nor heat or space. Therein is the rub!This is not my thought, but is in the source which introduced creationism [cosmology], and I do agree with it, there being no alternatives possible here. Mostly, anti-creationists resort to challenging the 'finite' factor, thereby totally loosing it from a science POV: they avoid the enigma presented them - because the universe IS finite, from an imperical view and from all evidence presented us.An expanding universe means it was not infinite 10 seconds ago; and whatever is finite, makes all its components finite: if you add or subtract $5 from an infinite number of $ - it means you never had an infinite in the first place. Mostly, the disdain of theology is the reason to put genesis in the same green bag - but this may require examing this document on its own instead - it is as varied from theologies and religions as can be, and constitues an enigma in its precedence and transcendence.That genesis nominated the 'word' [language] as the instrument, is backed by all deeds of creating and forming by humans. So your question contains a contradiction if pursued: namely, if it is vested in the realm of creation, why is it not feasable that if the universe was created, that the word would not be? And why not in its correct order - before creation? I have posted elsewhere in this forum, even the greatest scientists of the day see language as a mysterious factor - they cannot even 'define' it. But if the thought is imperitive for an intelligent and complex action, then there is good science in genesis, namely that the word, an abstract utility requiring no material parts, able to exist w/o material parts, apparently occured and pre-existed the uni, and with no alternative scenario possible.We do not know how languages came about originally, and there is not a shred of evidence this occured via grunts and coos; in fact all evidences negate the latter. Without going into that subject again, there is sufficient evidence to back the inexplicable premise that language appeared suddenly and in an already advanced state, before its evolving, bypassing the evolutionary thread, confounding any means to define it and its hollistic and intrinsic connection with the brain and every cell in humans, and responsible for all of man's works. Genesis is saying, the word and the thought likewise predated the universe.

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Or maybe, you just don't have a clue about physics. I'm betting that this is the case.

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There is remarkable science and logic there, and science is but one of the faculties of acquiring knowledge, in line with maths, history and geography; all are equally inter-dependential, and must be equally factored in. The universe is an 'intergrated' system - the first factor, and there is no physics w/o this as the preamble. And correct physics says, an intergration negates any possibility of a randomity: I know my physics!

I know of this event from many years ago, having read up on it. My surprise is, it does not appear to be known. Its not something I invented: there is no motive in such.

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There's a much larger player in the story of English-language domination; let's see if you can guess who it is.

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As in a person? I know not.

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All languages are not equally pliable.

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First: dene pliable. Second: provide evidence showing that English is more pliable than other languages.

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English emerged differently from other languages, whereby we can actually trace its emergence, and not so with other languages. This, and the fact it contains more outside words than any other language, makes it a true microcosm. That english is the only global language today, nicely answers your question it is more pliable.Edited by IamJoseph, : No reason given.Edited by IamJoseph, : No reason given.