英语的发展史

 

今天，给大家带来的是英语历史的科普。就像当你想了解一个人的时候，你应当先了解她的过去一样，如果你想学好英语，那了解英语的前生今世，也是很有必要的哦~下面就和奇速君一起来看看吧~

背景介绍约公元前700年左右，居住在欧洲西部的凯尔特人越过海峡迁徙到对岸的不列颠岛上在这些凯尔特部族中，有一支名叫布立吞人Britons的民族成为了岛上的主体民族，英语中的不列颠Britain由此而来以布立吞人为首的凯尔特人开始在岛上繁衍生息。

公元43年，罗马帝国征服了不列颠，并将先进的文明传入不列颠岛上

古英语时期英语真正的历史应从公元5世纪时入侵英国的三个日耳曼部落说起这三个部落分别是：盎格鲁人Anglos，撒克逊人Saxons和朱特人Jutes，他们从今天的德国北部和丹麦出发，横渡北海入侵者在不列颠建立了七个主要王国：由盎格鲁人建立的诺森布里亚Northumbria、东盎格利亚EastAnglia、麦西亚Mercia；由撒克逊人建立的萨塞克斯Sussex、威塞克斯Wessex、埃塞克斯Essex；由朱特人建立的肯特Kent。

从此不列颠开始被以盎格鲁人为首的部族所占领。由于其语言基本相近，这些语言渐渐融合发展为一种新的语言，即英语English【盎格鲁人的语言】。为与后来发展衍变的英语阶段区分，故称为古英语。

中世纪英语约公元8世纪起，居住在北欧的日耳曼民族繁衍壮大这些民族多以海上活动、渔猎为生，因此也被称为维京人Vikings【港口人】由于他们来自欧洲北部，故也被法国人称为诺曼人Norman【北方人】8世纪到11世纪之间，这些北方民族不断南下进行各种掠夺和殖民。

法兰克国王不得不在911年将北部一片地区割让给这些诺曼人居住，从此该地区被命名为诺曼底Normandie【诺曼人之地】在法兰克定居了数个世代以后，诺曼人逐渐融入法兰克王国，他们接受了法国文化和法国语言1066年，英格兰国王忏悔者爱德华死后无裔，诺曼底公爵威廉趁机率兵入侵英国，并成功征服了英格兰，从此英国开始了诺曼王朝的统治。

来自诺曼底的征服者带来了法语和法国文化于是在三个世纪的时期内，英格兰实际上变成一种双语国家宫廷、社会上层使用被认为高雅的法语，而农村和底层的工人却使用被认为低贱的英语因此一大批法语词汇进入了古英语，古英语本身也失去了大部分曲折变化，形成中古英语。

早期现代英语十六世纪初，文艺复兴在欧洲兴盛，为欧洲带来了科学与艺术的革命，揭开了世界近代史的序幕，欧洲从此走出中世纪，迈入近代同样在英国，文艺复兴的兴起也标志着从中古英语开始进入现代英语时期文艺复兴时期，英语中大量吸收和借用来自古希腊语、拉丁语中的词汇。

这些词汇大多为文化、艺术、科学、哲学概念的词汇，它们的进入大大地丰富了英语的词汇系统

晚期现代英语早期现代英语与晚期现代英语的主要区别是词汇晚期现代英语增加了许多词汇，这主要有两个因素：1、工业革命的出现需要更多的新词；2、英帝国在其鼎盛时期覆盖了地球大约四分之一的面积，英语也从许多其他国家吸收了很多新词。

英语的变种约从1600年开始，北美地区的英国殖民地开始形成美洲英语美式英语比英式英语更像莎士比亚时代的英语一些英国人所称的“美式风格”表述方式其实是英式表达，但这些表达方式因为其比较古老，他们只在殖民地保留了下来。

如垃圾Trash、借贷Loan、秋天fall等西班牙语对美式英语也有一定影响如canyon、ranch、vigilante等，这些词汇都是通过在美国西部定居的西班牙人传入美国的一些法语词汇和一些西非词汇也影响了美式英语的发展。

由于这些英语国家，特别是美国科学技术发展的壮大与强大的经济文化输出，终使得英语无疑已经成为当今世界最重要的一种通用语言了。

了解了英语的前世今生之后，你是不是对英语学习更加有兴趣了呢？对于英语的各种考试，正因为大家对于各种考试太了解了，不过就是背单词，朗诵或背诵课文，做题目嘛不要象祥林嫂一样，一脸严肃死板的学习英语，本来就是个特别有规律甚至搞笑的东西，何必那么苦大仇深的样子。

学习英文有很多有趣的地方，BBC的这个动画就做得很有趣，建议大家好好对照英文全部看完（中文的翻译不是很好，凑合看看）本动画结束语很惊人，原来英文自己都已经不知道自己是什么语言了，只能皈依我们中文的怀抱，既然我们中文都能够运用自如，只要把握语言的规律，考试真的没有什么好担心的。

或许我们是不是太关注于考试这个点，以至于只顾及了几根树木，而忘记了整个森林呢？THINK BIG, DO SMALL!大处着眼，小处着手任何事情都要达到好的效果，必须都要有一个大局观，大局观甚至决定了你水平的数量级，或许同样的努力，别人乘上的是10的三次方，而你乘上的只是10.。

中英文视频文字对照版No.1 盎格鲁-撒克逊人No.1 Anglo-SaxonThe History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter 1. Anglo-Saxon or whatever happen to the Jutes.

十分钟了解英语历史第一章，盎格鲁撒克逊人或发生在朱特人的任何事The English language begins with the phrase ‘Up Yours Caesar!’ as the Romans leave Britain and a lot of Germanic tribes start flooding in, tribes such as the Angles and the Saxons – who together gave us the term Anglo-Saxon, and the Jutes – who didn’t.。

英语以这句话开头，去你的凯撒!当罗马人离开英国，大量日耳曼部落开始涌入例如盎格鲁和撒克逊人他们留下这个盎格鲁撒克逊人的叫法以及没留下痕迹的朱特人The Romans left some very straight roads behind, but not much of their Latin language. The Anglo-Saxon vocab was much more useful as it was mainly words for simple everyday things like ‘house’, ‘woman’, ‘loaf’ and ‘werewolf’.。

罗马人留下了一些笔直的道路，但是关于拉丁语的不多盎格鲁撒克逊的语汇更有帮助因为他们都是关于简单的日常用语，像房子，女人，面包，狼人Four of our days of the week - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were named in honour of Anglo-Saxon gods, but they didn’t bother with Saturday, Sunday and Monday as they had all gone off for a long weekend.。

我们一周的四天，周二，周三，周四和周五提名为祭拜盎格鲁撒克逊的上帝的日子但是周六，周日和周一并不打扰人们的正常生活，因为人们都出去度假了While they were away, Christian missionaries stole in bringing with them leaflets about jumble sales and more Latin. Christianity was a hit with the locals and made them much happier to take on funky new words like ‘martyr’, ‘bishop’ and ‘font’.。

当他们离开的时候，基督教传教士潜进了，带着传单小册子为了慈善汇款和更多的拉丁语基督教给当地人带来震动，让他们乐于接受极具表现力的新词，比如殉道者，主教，洗礼盆Along came the Vikings, with their action-man words like ‘drag’, ‘ransack’, ‘thrust’ and ‘die’, and a love of pickled herring. They may have raped and pillaged but there were also into ‘give’ and ‘take’ – two of around 2000 words that they gave English, as well as the phrase ‘watch out for that man with the enormous axe.’。

同时到来的还有北欧海盗说着的话，比如拖，彻底搜索，刺，死亡，喜欢腌制鲱鱼他们可能强奸或抢劫，但是也会喜欢给予和索取这是他们带来的2000个词汇中的两个，还有句话，他们挥舞着巨大的斧头说，小心一点!No.2 诺曼人入侵No.2 The Norman Conquest

The History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter Two, The Norman Conquest or Excuse My English.十分钟了解英语历史。

第二章，诺曼人入侵或原谅我的英语1066. True to his name, William the Conqueror invades England, bringing new concepts from across the channel, like the French language, the Doomsday Book and the duty-free Galoiss multipack. French was ‘de rigueur’ for all official business, with words like ‘judge’, ‘jury’, ‘evidence’ and ‘justice’ coming in and giving John Grishams career a kick-start. Latin was still used ‘ad nauseam’ in church, but the common man spoke English, able to communicate only by speaking more slowly and loudly until the others understood him. Words like ‘cow’, ‘sheep’ and ‘swine’ come from the English-speaking farmers. While the ‘a la carte’ versions ‘beef’, ‘mutton’ and ‘pork’ come from the French-speaking toffs, beginning a long-running trend of restaurants having completely indecipherable menus.

1066年，名副其实的征服者William入侵英国，从海峡对岸带来了新的概念，诸如法语，末日裁判书， 伽罗瓦万用箱法语是官方商用语言，带来外来词例如法官，陪审团，证据和正义，使得约翰-格里姆森的事业起飞。

拉丁语依然令人生厌的应用于各个教堂普通人讲英语，只能通过放慢语速和提高音量来让人听懂有些词如公牛，羊和猪，源自说英语的农民而菜单上的版本牛肉，羊肉和猪肉则源自说法语的有钱阶层，餐馆制定让人读不懂的菜单的风气源远流长，就是从那时候开始的。

All in all, the English absorbed about 10,000 new words from the Normans, though they still couldnt grasp the rules of cheek kissing. The ‘bon-ami’ all ended when the English nation took their new warlike lingo of ‘armies’, ‘navies’ and ‘soldiers’ and began the Hundred Years War against France. It actually lasted 116 years but by that point, no one could count any higher in French and English took over as the language of power.

总的来说，英语从诺曼人那里吸收了差不多10,000个词汇，但依然无法描述自己的君主这种亲切彻底结束于英国运用新的军事行话，如军队，海军，士兵英法之间的百年战争开始了其实进行了116年但早已无人能计算出到底是英语还是法语是最有力的语言。

No.3 莎士比亚No.3 ShakespeareThe history of English in ten minutes. Chapter three, Shakespeare, or a plaque on both his houses.

十分钟内了解英国历史第三章，莎士比亚，或两个家的纪念匾As the dictionary tells us about 2,000 new words and phrases were invented by William Shakespeare.。

就如字典告诉我们的，大约2000个新单词和短语是莎士比亚造出的He gave us handy words like eyeball, puppydog and anchovy and more show-offy words like dauntless, besmirch and lacklustre. He came up with the word alligator soon after he ran out of the things to rhyme with crocodile. And the nation of tea drinkers finally took into their hearts when he invented the hob-nob.。

他留给我们灵巧的词语，如eyeball, puppydog和anchovy，以及很多更炫的词如dauntless, besmirch 和 lacklustre他造出了这个词，短吻鳄，不久他就才思用尽想不出跟鳄鱼押韵的词。

一个全国和茶的民族最终特别喜欢他，当他创造出“对酌”这个词Shakespeare knew the power of catchphrases as well as biscuits. Without him, we would never eat our flesh and blood out of house and home. We would have to say good riddance to the green-eyed monster and breaking the ice would be as dead as a doornail.

莎士比亚知道引人注目的话语和饼干一样有吸引力，没有他我们从不会吃肉喝血，不会倾家荡产，我们不得不说可喜的摆脱了绿眼怪，打破僵局将会是一命呜呼If you tried to get your moneys worth, youd be given short shrift and anyone who laid it on with a trowel could be hoised with his own petard. Of course its possible other people used these words first. But the dictionary writers like looking them up in Shakespeare because there was more cross dressing and people poking each others eyes out.。

如果你想要使物有所值，你会被忽视任何想要用铲子挖地的人会是作茧自缚当然有可能其他人首先用了这些词，但是字典编纂者喜欢在莎士比亚书里查找，因为这里有更多奇装异服的人，人们彼此伤害Shakespeares poetry showed the world that English was a rich vibrant language with limitless expressive and emotional power and he still had time to open all those tea rooms in Stratford.。

莎士比亚展示了一个世界，英语在这里丰富多彩，极具特色和表现力，情感不会被限制，他依旧保持威力进入斯特拉特福德的茶馆No.4 钦定版《圣经》No.4 The King James BibleThe History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter four. The King James Bible or light there be.。

十分钟了解英语历史第四章，钦定版《圣经》或消遣读物In 1611 ‘the powers that be’ ‘turned the world upside down’ with a ‘labour of love’ – a new translation of the bible. A team of scribes with the ‘wisdom of Solomon’ – ‘went the extra mile’ to make King James’s translation ‘all things to all men’, whether from their ‘heart’s desire’ ‘to fight the good fight’ or just for the ‘filthy lucre’.。

1611年，统治者用义务劳动颠覆了世界即一本《圣经》新版本，一群抄写员用所罗门的智慧，加倍努力，使得詹姆士国王的译本成为所有人的一切不论是尊崇他们内心的欲望，为了信仰和原则而战，或只是为了不义之财This sexy new Bible went ‘from strength to strength’, getting to ‘the root of the matter’ in a language even ‘the salt of the earth’ could understand. ‘The writing wasn’t on the wall, it was in handy little books and with ‘fire and brimstone’ preachers reading from it in every church, its words and phrases ‘took root’ ‘to the ends of the earth’ – well at least the ends of Britain.

这本性感的新《圣经》不断壮大，用一种触及到问题实质的语言，使社会中坚都能理解著作并不是刻在墙上，它是灵巧方便的小书，还有非常热心的教士在每一个教堂读着它它的词语在世界的尽头生根，或者至少在全英国The King James Bible is the book that taught us that ‘a leopard can’t change its spots’, that ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, that ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ is harder to spot than you would imagine, and how annoying it is to have ‘a fly in your ointment’.

詹姆士国王《圣经》教给我们积习难改，双鸟在林不如一鸟在手披着羊皮的狼比你想象得更难发现药膏里面的苍蝇确实让人讨厌In fact, just as ‘Jonathan begat Meribbaal; and Meribbaal begat Micah. And Micah begat Pithon’, the King James Bible begat a whole glossary of metaphor and morality that still shapes the way English is spoken today. Amen.。

实际上就如Jonathan生下Meribbaal，Meribbaal生下Micah，Micah又生下Pithon，詹姆士国王《圣经》创造整套的词组和品行，如今这些还在影响现在的英语，阿门No.5 科学英语。

No.5 The English of Science or how to speak with gravity.No.5 The English of Science or how to speak with gravity.

十分钟了解英语历史第五章科学英语或怎样讲重力Before the 17th Century scientists weren’t really recognised – possibly because lab-coats had yet to catch on.。

在17世界以前科学家不被认可，也许因为实验室服装赶不上潮流But suddenly Britain was full of physicists – there was Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle – and even some people not called Robert, like Isaac Newton. The Royal Society was formed out of the Invisible College – after they put it down somewhere and couldn’t find it again.。

但是英国立马聚满了物理学家，有罗伯特•虎克，有罗伯特•波伊尔，即使是一些不叫罗伯特的人，譬如牛顿皇家协会是由来自隐形学院的人，他们在某个地方写下之后再没找到了At first they worked in Latin. After sitting through Newton’s story about the ‘pomum’ falling to the ‘terra’ from the ‘arbor’ for the umpteenth time, the bright sparks realised they all spoke English and could transform our understanding of the universe much quicker by talking in their own language.。

最开始他们用拉丁语工作在耐着性子看完牛顿的故事，关于苹果从树上掉下来，掉过无数次后，这聪明的火花使得他们全都讲英语，也能把我们的理解用他们的语言转化的比较方便But science was discovering things faster than they could name them. Words like ‘acid’, ‘gravity’, ‘electricity’ and ‘pendulum’ had to be invented just to stop their meetings turning into an endless game of charades.。

但是科学比他们可以命名的速度发展的要快，像酸，重力，电，钟摆不得不发明来阻止他们的会议变得无止尽的字谜游戏Like teenage boys, the scientists suddenly became aware of the human body – coining new words like ‘cardiac’ and ‘tonsil’, ‘ovary’, and ‘sternum’ - and the invention of ‘penis’ (1693), ‘vagina’ (1682) made sex education classes a bit easier to follow. Though and ‘clitoris’ was still a source of confusion.。

就像青年人，科学家突然意识到人的身体，发明新词如心脏，扁桃体，卵巢和胸骨，还有1963年发明的阴茎1682年的词阴道让性教育变得更加容易教，虽然阴蒂还是带来困惑No.6 英语和帝国No.6 English and Empire。

The History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter six. English and Empire or the sun never set on the English language.

十分钟了解英语历史第六章，英语和帝国或英语的太阳永不落With English making its name as the language of science, the Bible and Shakespeare, Britain decided to take it on tour.。

随着英语被大量用于科学，圣经，和莎士比亚作品，英国决定让它发扬光大Asking only for land, wealth, natural resources, total obedience to the crown and a few local words in return.。

寻找土地，财富，自然资源，完全忠于国王，带回了一些外来词They went to the Caribbean looking for gold and a chance to really unwind – discovering the ‘barbeque’, the ‘canoe’ and a pretty good recipe for rum punch. They also brought back the word ‘cannibal’ to make their trip sound more exciting.。

他们去加勒比寻找黄金，有机会真正自由的发掘出一些词汇，例如烧烤，木舟和很多朗姆潘趣酒的菜谱他们还带回食人者这类词汇让旅行更加刺激In India there was something for everyone. ‘Yoga’ – to help you stay in shape, while pretending to be spiritual. If that didn’t work there was the ‘cummerbund’ to hide a paunch and - if you couldn’t even make it up the stairs without turning ‘crimson’ – they had the ‘bungalow’.。

在印度英国人发明了一些词汇跟每个人的生活都有点儿关系瑜伽让人保持身材，也试图使人精神，如果那个没有效，还有腹带来隐藏大肚子如果你上台阶会红脸，他们有平房Meanwhile in Africa they picked up words like ‘voodoo’ and ‘zombie’ – kicking off the teen horror film – and even more terrifying, they brought home the world’s two most annoying musical instruments – the ‘bongo’ and the ‘banjo’.。

同时在非洲，他们使用伏都教和僵尸，击败青年人的恐怖电影，更加恐怖的是他们带回世界上最吵闹的乐器，小鼓，班卓琴From Australia, English took the words ‘nugget’, ‘boomerang’ and ‘walkabout’ - and in fact the whole concept of chain pubs.。

英国人从澳洲带来词汇，金属，回力棒，随身听，实际上还有连锁酒吧的概念Between toppling Napoleon (1815) and the first World War (1914), the British Empire gobbled up around 10 millions square miles, 400 million people and nearly a hundred thousand gin and tonics, leaving new varieties of English to develop all over the globe.。

在拿破仑失败的那年即1815年和一战之间即1914年，英国吞没了大约1千万平方英里的土地，4亿人口，近10万的杜松烧酒和补品，使得英语在全球拓展No.7 The age of dictionary or the definition of a hopeless task.。

With English expanding in all directions, along came a new breed of man called lexicographers, who wanted to put an end to this anarchy a word they defined as what happens when people spell words slightly differently from each other.

One of the greatest was Doctor Johnson, whose Dictionary of English Language which took him 9 years to write. It was 18 inches tall and contained 42,773 entries meaning that even if you couldn’t read it’s still pretty useful if you want to reach a high shelf. For the first time when people were calling you a “pickleherring”, a ”jobbernowl ” or a “fopdoodle” you could understand exactly what they meant and you’d have the consolation of knowing they all used the standard spelling. Try as he might to stop them, words kept being invented and in 1857 a new book was started that would become the Oxford English dictionary.

It took another 70 years to be finished after the first editor resigned to be an archbishop, the second died of TB and the third was so boring that half his volunteers quit and one of them ended up in an Asylum. It eventually appeared in 1928 and has continued to be revised ever since proving the whole idea that you can stop people making up word is complete snuffbumble.

No.8 American English or not English but somewhere in the ballparkFrom the moment Brits landed in American they needed names for all the plants and animals, so they borrowed words like “raccoon” “squash” and “moose” from the Native Americans, as well as most of their territory. Waves of immigrants fed American’s hunger for words. The Dutch came sharing “coleslaw” and “cookies”, probably as a result of their relaxed attitude to drugs. Later, the Germans arrived selling ”pretzels” from ”delicatessens” and the Italians arrived with their pizza, their “pasta” and their “mafie” just like mamma used to make. America spread a new language of capitalism getting everyone worried about the “breakeven” and “the bottom line”, and whether they were “blue chip” or "white collar". The commuter needed a whole new system of “freeway”. ”subways” and “parking lot” and quickly, before words like “merger” and “downsizing” could be invented. American English drifted back across the pond as Brits “got the hang of” their “cool movies” and their groovy “jazz”. There were even some old forgotten English words lived on in American. So they carried on using “fall” “faucets” “diapers” and “candy”, while the Brits moved on to ”autumn”, “taps”, “nappies” and NHS dental care.

No.9 Internet English or language reverts to typeIn 1972, the first e-mail was sent. Soon the Internet arrived a free global space to share information, ideas, and amusing pictures of cats. Before then English changed through people speaking it but the net brought typing back into fashion and hundreds of cases of repetitive strain injuries. Nobody had ever had to “download” anything before. Let alone use a “toolbar”. And the only time someone set up a “firewall”, it ended with a massive insurance claim and a huge piles of charred wallpaper. Conversations were getting shorter than the average attention span why bother writing a sentence when an abbreviation would do and leave you more time to “blog”, ”poke ”and ”reboot” when your “hard drive” crashed? ”In my humble opinion” became ”IMHO”, ”By the way” became “BTW” and if we’re honest that life-threatening accident was pretty hilarious simply became “fail”. Some changes even passed into spoken English. For your information people frequently ask question like ”how can LOL” mean “laugh out loud” and “lots of love”? But if you’re going to complain about that then UG2BK (you’ve got 2 be kidding).

No.10 Global English or whose language is it anywayIn the 1500 years since the Roman’s left Britain, English has shown an unique ability to absorb, evolve, invade and, if we’re honest, steal. After foreign settlers got it started, it grew into a fully-fledged language all of its own, before leaving home and travelling the world, first via the high seas, then via the high speed broadband connection, pilfering words from over 350 languages and establishing itself as a global institution. All this despite a written alphabet that bears no correlation to how it sounds and a system of spelling that even Dan Brown couldn’t decipher. Right now around 1.5 billion people now speak English. Of these about a quarter are native speakers, a quarter speak it as their second language, and half are able to ask for directions to a swimming pool. Modern hybrids of English have really caught on. There’s a Hinlish which is Hindi-English, Chinglish which is Chinese-English and Singlish which is Singaporean English and not that bit when they speak in musicals. So in conclusion, the language has got so little to do with England these days it may well be time to stop calling it ”English”. But if someone does think of a new name for it, it probably be in Chinese.

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