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II.The Origin and Development of British English
2.1 The Origin of British English
British history has been a history of invasions. The history of British English began over 1500 years ago in North Europe. The English language is a result of the invasions of the island of Britain over many hundreds of years. The invaders lived along the northern coast of Europe. The first invasions were by a people called Angles about one thousand five hundred years ago. The Angles were a German tribe who crossed the English Channel. Later two more groups crossed to Britain. They were the Saxons and the Jutes. These groups found a people called the Celts, who had lived in Britain for many thousands of years. The Celts and the invaders fought. After a while, most of the Celts were killed, or made slaves. Some escaped to live in the area that became Wales. Through the years, with the development of society the dialect of Saxons, Angles and Jutes merged into one language. The result is what is called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. Old English is extremely difficult to understand. The next great invasion of Britain came from the far north beginning about one thousand one hundred years ago. Fierce people called Vikings raided the coast areas of Britain. The Vikings came from Denmark, Norway and other northern countries. They were looking to capture trade goods and slaves and take away anything of value. In some areas, the Vikings became so powerful that they built temporary bases. These temporary bases sometimes became permanent. Later, many Vikings stayed in Britain. The next invasion of Britain took place more than nine hundred years ago, in ten sixty-six. We call this invasion as the Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror led it. The Normans were a French-speaking people from Normandy in the north of France. They became the new rulers of Britain. These new rulers spoke only French for several hundred years. It was the most important language in the world at that time. It was the language of educated people. But the common people of Britain still spoke Old English. Old English took many words from the Norman French. Most English words that describe law and government come from Norman French. The French language used by the Norman rulers greatly changed the way English was spoken eight hundred years ago. English became what language we call Middle English. As time passed, the ruling Normans no longer spoke true French. Their language had become a mix of French and Middle English.
2.2 The Development of British English
The development of British English can be pided into three periods. The first period is Old English period from 5th century to 12th century, the next is Middle English from 12th century to 16th century, the last is Modern English from 16th century till now.
During the first period, Britain was invaded by foreign tribes three times and experienced one Culture Revolution. In the middle of 5th century, Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded the Great Britain one after another when the Roman Empire came under threat from the east. Their languages were very close to each other, then with the development of society the dialect of Angles, Saxons and Jutes gradually formed a new native English and finally they merged into a new language—Old English. Christianity was spread in the United Kingdom after the first foreign invasion in 597A.D. With the spread of Christianity, Britain constructed a lot of churches and abbeys. The construction of these churches and abbeys of Christianity encouraged people to use their own language and to carry out all kinds of culture activities. The tendency of this has turned into Culture Revolution. In 793 A.D, the second invasion has taken place in the United Kingdom, at that time, the Scandinavian of Northern Europe which was called Danes by the Angle-Saxon, invaded the United Kingdom. The second invasion enriched the ways of expression in English and simplified the structure of English. In 1066, the British English experienced a language conflict again because of the Norman Conquer. In the following 300 years French became the official language in England. They used French in court circular, noble, sociality and literature, during that time both British and French can speak English and French. English became the common language spoken by different levels in England till the end of 20th century.