The Celts
The Celts were present in Britain in the Stone Age, and are indigenous to England and became exposed to English in the Fifth Century. Usually when a new language enters a country it is either totally discarded or absorbed into the language, but the Celts adopted it and used it. Often when indigenous cultures are exposed to new languages and sounds, the phonology of the language is often effected. The Celtic-English contact had little impact on morphology and lexicology. Although the phonology changed quite a lot, because The Celts vocal organs could quite simply not produce the sounds which was needed for English, so they modified them so that they could pronounce the sounds. The Celts gave English many names of towns and places. The French
In 1042 the King of England married a Norman (French speaking) woman. He gave his Norman friends the most respected and highly valuable position in both church and government. During this era, both the church and the government were the most highly influential sources.Their speaking French affected the English spoken in the court. French was very much the superior language over English at this time. From this, French words entered the English language. Examples are proud, tower, market, etc. During this time period, approximately 10,000 words were adopted into the English language. Many of the words borrowed were 'prestigious' and highly classed words. Even in English today, the type of words which were borrowed all represent prestige. |
The Scandinavians
Celtic-English and Scandinavian-English contacts with the English language are quite the opposite. Instead of adopting the language like The Celts, The Scandinavians absorbed it. Obviously when a native population absorbs a language, difficulties in vocabulary and modifications are bound to occur. Even though The Scandinavians raided England in the Ninth and Eleventh Centuries, English stayed the first language of the country, and did not fall at the knees of Scandinavian. Although English resisted Scandinavian, it was still effected in a lexical manner. There are hundreds of new words used from the Scandinavian's, especially when it comes to names. Scandinavian words and names are still highly used and influenced in todays world, with an analysis of names ending in -son evidence of the Scandinavian language. |