Where did English come from? - Claire Bowern
-
0:07 - 0:11When we talk about English,
we often think of it as a single language -
0:11 - 0:15but what do the dialects spoken
in dozens of countries around the world -
0:15 - 0:17have in common with each other,
-
0:17 - 0:19or with the writings of Chaucer?
-
0:19 - 0:23And how are any of them related
to the strange words in Beowulf? -
0:23 - 0:25The answer is that like most languages,
-
0:25 - 0:28English has evolved
through generations of speakers, -
0:28 - 0:31undergoing major changes over time.
-
0:31 - 0:33By undoing these changes,
-
0:33 - 0:36we can trace the language
from the present day -
0:36 - 0:38back to its ancient roots.
-
0:38 - 0:41While modern English
shares many similar words -
0:41 - 0:43with Latin-derived romance languages,
-
0:43 - 0:45like French and Spanish,
-
0:45 - 0:48most of those words
were not originally part of it. -
0:48 - 0:50Instead, they started coming
into the language -
0:50 - 0:55with the Norman invasion
of England in 1066. -
0:55 - 0:58When the French-speaking Normans
conquered England -
0:58 - 1:00and became its ruling class,
-
1:00 - 1:02they brought their speech with them,
-
1:02 - 1:05adding a massive amount
of French and Latin vocabulary -
1:05 - 1:08to the English language
previously spoken there. -
1:08 - 1:11Today, we call that language Old English.
-
1:11 - 1:13This is the language of Beowulf.
-
1:13 - 1:16It probably doesn't look very familiar,
-
1:16 - 1:20but it might be more recognizable
if you know some German. -
1:20 - 1:24That's because Old English
belongs to the Germanic language family, -
1:24 - 1:28first brought to the British Isles
in the 5th and 6th centuries -
1:28 - 1:31by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
-
1:31 - 1:36The Germanic dialects they spoke would
become known as Anglo-Saxon. -
1:36 - 1:39Viking invaders in the 8th
to 11th centuries -
1:39 - 1:43added more borrowings
from Old Norse into the mix. -
1:43 - 1:46It may be hard to see the roots
of modern English -
1:46 - 1:48underneath all the words borrowed
-
1:48 - 1:52from French, Latin, Old Norse
and other languages. -
1:52 - 1:57But comparative linguistics can help us
by focusing on grammatical structure, -
1:57 - 1:59patterns of sound changes,
-
1:59 - 2:01and certain core vocabulary.
-
2:01 - 2:04For example, after the 6th century,
-
2:04 - 2:09German words starting with "p,"
systematically shifted to a "pf" sound -
2:09 - 2:13while their Old English counterparts
kept the "p" unchanged. -
2:13 - 2:17In another split, words
that have "sk" sounds in Swedish -
2:17 - 2:20developed an "sh" sound in English.
-
2:20 - 2:23There are still some English
words with "sk," -
2:23 - 2:25like "skirt," and "skull,"
-
2:25 - 2:28but they're direct borrowings
from Old Norse -
2:28 - 2:32that came after the "sk" to "sh" shift.
-
2:32 - 2:34These examples show us
-
2:34 - 2:38that just as the various Romance languages
descended from Latin, -
2:38 - 2:42English, Swedish, German,
and many other languages -
2:42 - 2:46descended from their own common ancestor
known as Proto-Germanic -
2:46 - 2:49spoken around 500 B.C.E.
-
2:49 - 2:52Because this historical language
was never written down, -
2:52 - 2:56we can only reconstruct it
by comparing its descendants, -
2:56 - 2:59which is possible thanks
to the consistency of the changes. -
2:59 - 3:04We can even use the same process
to go back one step further, -
3:04 - 3:10and trace the origins of Proto-Germanic
to a language called Proto-Indo-European, -
3:10 - 3:12spoken about 6000 years ago
-
3:12 - 3:17on the Pontic steppe
in modern day Ukraine and Russia. -
3:17 - 3:21This is the reconstructed ancestor
of the Indo-European family -
3:21 - 3:25that includes nearly all languages
historically spoken in Europe, -
3:25 - 3:29as well as large parts of Southern
and Western Asia. -
3:29 - 3:31And though it requires a bit more work,
-
3:31 - 3:36we can find the same systematic
similarities, or correspondences, -
3:36 - 3:40between related words in different
Indo-European branches. -
3:40 - 3:42Comparing English with Latin,
-
3:42 - 3:46we see that English has "t"
where Latin has "d", -
3:46 - 3:50and "f" where latin has "p"
at the start of words. -
3:50 - 3:54Some of English's more distant relatives
include Hindi, Persian -
3:54 - 3:58and the Celtic languages it displaced
in what is now Britain. -
3:58 - 4:03Proto-Indo-European itself descended
from an even more ancient language, -
4:03 - 4:08but unfortunately, this is as far back
as historical and archeological evidence -
4:08 - 4:10will allow us to go.
-
4:10 - 4:12Many mysteries remain just out of reach,
-
4:12 - 4:16such as whether there might be a link
between Indo-European -
4:16 - 4:18and other major language families,
-
4:18 - 4:23and the nature of the languages spoken
in Europe prior to its arrival. -
4:23 - 4:27But the amazing fact remains that nearly
3 billion people around the world, -
4:27 - 4:30many of whom cannot understand each other,
-
4:30 - 4:36are nevertheless speaking the same words
shaped by 6000 years of history.
- Title:
- Where did English come from? - Claire Bowern
- Speaker:
- Claire Bowern
- Description:
-
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/where-did-english-come-from-claire-bowern
When we talk about ‘English’, we often think of it as a single language. But what do the dialects spoken in dozens of countries around the world have in common with each other, or with the writings of Chaucer? Claire Bowern traces the language from the present day back to its ancient roots, showing how English has evolved through generations of speakers.
Lesson by Claire Bowern, animation by Patrick Smith.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TED-Ed
- Duration:
- 04:54
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