The English language
The surprising story
English comes from England, right?
No. English does not come from England, at least not originally. Get ready for a surprise because very few people in the English speaking world today know this. In all the years I have been teaching English, I have asked this question many times - Where did English first come from? - and no-one of any age or nationality has ever answered correctly.
The answer is not England, although the language certainly passed through that country. Neither is it Italy, Germany or Greece, the other three common answers I get. It is Europe, but not where you might think. The earliest echoes and hints of English actually came first from what is now modern Ukraine, almost 5000 years ago, although it wasn’t called English then, but Proto-Indo-European. You can see this on the map below.
No. English does not come from England, at least not originally. Get ready for a surprise because very few people in the English speaking world today know this. In all the years I have been teaching English, I have asked this question many times - Where did English first come from? - and no-one of any age or nationality has ever answered correctly.
The answer is not England, although the language certainly passed through that country. Neither is it Italy, Germany or Greece, the other three common answers I get. It is Europe, but not where you might think. The earliest echoes and hints of English actually came first from what is now modern Ukraine, almost 5000 years ago, although it wasn’t called English then, but Proto-Indo-European. You can see this on the map below.
This image comes from protogermanic.com.
From Ukraine, it moved to Europe (and many other places as well), then Germany, where the people who spoke it over two millennia ago lived in a place in northern Germany called Angeln (it is still there today, as you can see on this modern map. It is very small, but you can see it under Flensburg in the top middle of the map.) These people were called the Angles, and the language they spoke was called Angl-isc.
This map is from https://www.gifex.com/fullsize-en/2011-06-10-13927/Natural_landscapes_in_Schleswig_Holstein_2007.html
The Angles took this language to Britain, where it became English (Angl-isc → Engl-isc → English), and the country then took on the name of the language, which in turn bore the name of the Angle invaders. Usually, a language takes its name from the country, but here, it was the other way around. The name of the Angles also lives on in Anglo-Saxon. By the way, the original language of England was Brythonic, from which we get Britain and also Brittany.
From England, a tiny little country on the edge of Europe, English spread out all over the world, to the USA, South-east Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and all the nations represented in the Commonwealth Games. It also became a second language for dozens of countries as well, and is now one of the main languages of trade, politics, film aviation and diplomacy all over the world.
From England, a tiny little country on the edge of Europe, English spread out all over the world, to the USA, South-east Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and all the nations represented in the Commonwealth Games. It also became a second language for dozens of countries as well, and is now one of the main languages of trade, politics, film aviation and diplomacy all over the world.
This comes from https://usefulcharts.com/blogs/charts/evolution-of-the-english-alphabet.
Full credit to Matt Baker, UsefulCharts.com
Here, you can see how the English alphabet developed. We originally got our alphabet from the Middle east! From there, the Ancient Greeks took it and changed it, then the Latins in Italy, and then the English in England.
And now we have it, all over the world. Amazing!
And now we have it, all over the world. Amazing!
