The History of the English Language by Lucy Rucker

How Did the English Language Begin?




The topic of the reading I read is The history of the English language. The audience might be all those people who want to research about the language, maybe some students who have any homework. Teachers who want to talk about how English has changed in years, and maybe some other writers to criticize what, in this case Lucky Rucker, tried to emphasize. The purpose of the reading is to update readers about how English has being changing, and the way native speakers do not say word since they have no meaning at all; we can also tell that the purpose is knowing how words are differently used in the South, North, East and West of the countries. The tone of this reading is considered to be formal since we can see how the author expresses in a proper way her idea of what English’s changes have been



We can notice in this reading how English has being changing with years, not only in the way people use the word, but in the significance they give to words, for example, it is really interesting how even in the same countries, people –being all native speakers – can develop different ways to use words. It is not the function of the word only, but the way we can use the word, maybe in Boston we can use one specifically word as an adjective, and even when in Texas we do know the word with the same meaning, we ,my use it as a noun or as an adverb.



It is also interesting how the English has evolved, not only because of the Middle English’s changing of grammatical expressions, but also for they deleting words had no use at all. It is interesting how there is no specific word for an action or a term, just as we saw in our first classes of English A2, but even though they have no word for that, they are removing words that could’ve been practical for those meanings.



I, as an student, think that Modern English, is actually what we like the most, because we do understand its meaning, even though sometimes is frustrating when you’re trying to explain something and you cannot do it. But that’s what learning is all about. So English has been changing, just the way we have, so there’s no reason to concern about EVOLUTION, because we will change, and we need languages able to explain what we want to express.

The history of English Language. By Laura Howard.

Topic: How the English language came to be.

Audience: People interested in the English language and the history of it, and on its changes over the time.

Purpose: The purpose is to inform people about the History of the English Language. It explains how the English language came to be the most popular language in the world and how is it divided through time.

Tone: the tone is formal, although it incorporates some opinions and judgments.

English has become the most popular language in the world, it is the official language of the Internet and it is the one people really want to learn.

English didn´t exactly began in England, as funny as it may sound, but in Germany. The English language is also divided into categories, for a better explanation of it.

The old English was spoken in Europe, especially by Germanic people. But the language was limited in vocabulary, which meant borrowing some of it to the Celtics.

The Middle English changed the language a lot with the incorporation of French words that was spoken in the Royal courts. It is recognizable to an English speaker; however it would have a degree of difficulty.

The early modern English was also a reformation of the language, with Shakespeare introducing many idioms like “Vanished in thin air” and with the change of pronunciation of many words.

English today is constantly evolving with the new technologies and terms that are added to it. These words didn´t existed in the old English, but they had been incorporated and are now commonly used in the day by day language of native English speakers, and they are learn by 418 million of people now a days.

The rise of the British empire brought the English to the world, but today it remains as a powerful language with being the most popular language, under the Chinese, in the world. It is spoken in the most recondite places on earth and it would still be the predominant language in the world.

It is important to know where the language originally came from and from what period of time, as it is still developing because of the new technologies and the introduction of other languages to it.

That´s mostly why people learn it so easily, they had been touched by the several influences of the English language that now a days we have from all over the world, interviews, news, internet. And all because of the rise of the British Empire.

The history of Enligsh Language. By Sammy Stein

This topic is focused also in The History of English Language, but this time it was written by Sammy Stain. The Audience might be all those people who want to research about the language, maybe some students who have any homework. Teachers who want to talk about how English has changed in years, and maybe some other writers to criticize what, in this case Sammy Stein, tried to emphasize. The purpose of the reading is to illustrate people who are interested about how English has being evolving and how its changes affect us either in good or bad ways. The tone of the reading is not as formal as the other ones were, but it is still being formal since the informal words he uses are to explain how English has been changing.





In this article, Sammy Stein explains how English has being changing not only in a scientific aspect but also in the social one.



The one thing I like the most of this author is that he expresses how much people who were not from England, or the united states became part of the history of this beautiful language, because even though we don’t know how to use the language in a perfect way, it does contains words that derivate from Spanish, or even French.



Sammy Stein puts in plain words not only how we contributed some words to the English language, but also the way that having French people working in the parliament affected in good and bad ways. Another example that even though Sammy did not mention in the article is how Spanglish and Chicano are important, because they may not be official but as he said, nowadays the language is changing, and we can see that if we look for some words in a dictionary that was written 25 years ago and in another one written nowadays. That means that we are evolving, but English is too, which make us competitive and that makes a progress in every aspect of communication.



There’s also another interesting idea Sammy expressed in this article and it was how much technology – for example – has become a major part of the English, because years ago we did not used words such as he mentioned download, hyper drive and even byte. This makes English stand out from other languages since we, speaking in Spanish, don’t have words for those meanings, which demonstrate how English evolves, and maybe Spanish doesn’t.

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean*

Despite English is not my first language, I do shoot the breeze with my friends like if it were. I'm definitely a person who enjoys learning about English, but what I enjoy the most is PRACTICING what I've learned. I know it’s important for us – as students – to understand not what people say, but what they mean; that is why I think we should learn English as a lingua franca. We definitely know the meaning of words, but what we should be familiar with is how to express what we feel. English is not only about what you say, but the way you say what you mean. “Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” (Benjamin Lee Whorf ).

We are now in English A2 and I’m hoping to learn about the language and about the modus operandi; because this is a higher level and we should focus not in what we already know - such as listening comprehension, grammar, reading and speaking, - but in what we still have to learn; GETTING TO KNOW THE TONGUE.