hISTORY OF ENGLISH
This year we'll be learning about some of the strange spelling patterns in English like -ough or -ight, and the many ways that we might spell the same sounds such as -ea-, -ei-, and -ee- as to make a long E sound. The reasons we do this are not as crazy as they might seem. About 97% of English spelling is systematic, but because of the unique history of the language, there are many different systems.
In our class we will be learning a little bit about those unique origins and having some fun with the ways that people pronounced those words centuries ago. The following video is part of a short series having some fun with English language history. I have also provided a short write up about some of the language's history not discussed in the videos. Feel free to watch the video and read on if you are interested in knowing more about the subject your child will be learning a little about this year.
In our class we will be learning a little bit about those unique origins and having some fun with the ways that people pronounced those words centuries ago. The following video is part of a short series having some fun with English language history. I have also provided a short write up about some of the language's history not discussed in the videos. Feel free to watch the video and read on if you are interested in knowing more about the subject your child will be learning a little about this year.
Like all languages, English has been influenced by all the different peoples that have lived in England over the centuries. After the Romans left, Angles and Saxons came from Northern Europe and gave us the Anglo-Saxon language and their name to England: Angle-Land. Invading Vikings left some words behind as well and then Normans from Northern France not only invaded but conquered the island in 1066. Over the next 300 years the French Language of the Nobility and the English language of the common folk merged together into Middle English. Along came Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the printing press at different critical times in English Language History:
The transition from Middle to Modern English was marked by exciting changes in the pronunciation of vowels leading to the name of this period: The Great Vowel Shift (so cool!). Some places in the British Isles began to change the way they pronounced things while others, namely Scotland and Ireland where Gaelic was still more prevalent, did not. This gives us the different pronunciations of the English poet Keats (/keets/) and the Irish poet Yeats (/yates/). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
The transition from Middle to Modern English was marked by exciting changes in the pronunciation of vowels leading to the name of this period: The Great Vowel Shift (so cool!). Some places in the British Isles began to change the way they pronounced things while others, namely Scotland and Ireland where Gaelic was still more prevalent, did not. This gives us the different pronunciations of the English poet Keats (/keets/) and the Irish poet Yeats (/yates/). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
The first printing press was introduced to England in the late 15th Century smack dab in the middle of this fast paced time of seismic linguistic activity. Until the printing press, folks spelled things as closely as they could to how they personally pronounced them (that is of course on the rare occasion that they could write). The printing press allowed the first mass production of reading materials and a standard way to spell things had to be found. Words adopted from France could be spelled French-ly and those spellings were based on the very well published Latin. But English words didn't have any reference for how to spell them so publishers and scholars looked back in time for something reliable that everyone could agree on:
The Cantebury Tales!
Geoffrey Chaucer's Cantebury Tales were very popular and venerated at the time. In the minds of British printers, Chaucer would surely be a reliable source of standard spelling. The only problem is that authors and publishers of the time were unaware that their language had begun dramatic changes shortly after Chaucer's day. Chaucer's spellings reflected pronunciations that were correct in his day but in just a few decades the language had changed dramatically. Many English speakers had moved away from Chaucer's dialect without realizing it. Now thanks to the printing industry, the spellings of those words have remained unchanged for over half a millennium!
So now if someone complains about the odd way that something is spelled, you can tell them to blame good ol' Geoffrey.
So now if someone complains about the odd way that something is spelled, you can tell them to blame good ol' Geoffrey.