Unit 3 American English

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The Development of English

　　The language we call English derives primarily from languages spoken in England for only around 1,500 years ago. The land now known as England was invaded by several tribes known as the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. The name England is derived from Angles' land, and the English language comes principally from a combination of the dialects spoken by these three tribes.
　　The Angles, Jutes, and Saxons were all Germanic tribes. The Angles lived in the southern part of present-day Denmark, the Jutes in the northern part of Denmark, and the Saxons in the northwestern part of present-day Germany. Other tribes in Northern Europe spoke similar languages. English is thus a Germanic language and shares many structural similarities with other Germanic languages.
　　Prior to the conquest of England by the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, the country was inhered primarily by various tribes who spoke Celtic languages. The languages spoken in the British Isles before the arrival of Celtic tribes around 2000 B.C. are unknown. In the wake of the Germanic invasions, the Celts fled to the remote northern and western parts of Britain, including Cornwall and the highlands of Scotland and Wales.
　　Other peoples have invaded England and brought their languages with them as well. Vikings from present-day Norway landed on the northeast coast of England in the tenth century. Although ultimately defeated in their bid to control England, many Vikings remained in the country and added new words to the language.
　　The English language changed considerably as a result of the Norman Conquest in 1066. The Normans spoke French, which they established as England's official language for the next 150 years. Although the royal family, nobles, judges, and clergy spoke French, the masses continued to speak English. By the thirteenth century, English again became the country's dominant language. In l204, during the reign of King John, England lost the control of Normandy and entered a long period of conflict with France. As a result, fewer people in England wished to speak French, and, in 1362, the Parliament enacted the Statute of Pleading to change the official language of court business from French to English. English therefore regained its position as the official language for the inhabitants of England, but with the addition of many French words.
　　The people of England diffused their language around the world through the establishment of colonies. The first English colonies were founded in North America, beginning with Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. The English also established colonies in Africa, Asia, and many of the islands in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans.
　　As recently as the 1950s, one-fourth of the world's people lived in a country where English was the official language, that is, the language adopted for use by the government, even in colonies where only a small percentage of people actually spoke English. After independence, leaders of most former British colonies selected an indigenous language as the official one but continued to use English for international communication.

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