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© Joy Goodwin

‘How to be Top’
English Work Book

CHAPTER 9

The origins of English.

 The origins of English (comprehension)

 newly coined words, changes in meaning

 etymology, roots, prefixes, suffixes

 pronunciation

 diminutive

 gender
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How did English, as we know it, come into being? (A very brief account of the
development of English until Shakespeare’s time.)

[My source: The Adventure of English: Melvin Bragg.]

The native inhabitants of Britain were the Celts or Britons. They spoke Celtic, forms of which can still
be heard in some parts of Scotland and Ireland (Gaelic), in Wales (Welsh) and in Cornwall (Cornish).
When the Romans conquered England and ruled it for the 1st four centuries AD, Latin became the
official language which everyone was required to speak. When the Romans departed in the 5thC, England
was invaded by warlike Germanic tribes, which the Celts called Barbarians. They were fearless, pagan,
fighting men riding along the whales’ way (the sea route) on their wave-steeds (boats) and they brought
with them the language which was to develop into the English we know today. Many different tribes came
over at different times but the main ones were the Jutes, Angles and Saxons. In Friesland (Northern
Netherlands) today we can hear what experts believe are the sounds closest to what became our
ancestral language: laam (lamb), goes (goose), buter (butter) brea (bread) tsis (cheese), see (sea), stoarm
(storm), boat (boat), rein (rain), snie (snow) etc. Most, not all, European languages, however, came
originally from the Indian Sanskrit 4000 years ago e.g. pitar (Sanskrit), pater (Latin & Greek), vater
(German), father (English).

Old English (O.E.), the language of the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, absorbed very little Celtic or Latin.
The masses (the Celts) were enslaved and their language rejected. Of our everyday conversation today,
all the following are O.E.: is, your, man, son, daughter, friend, house, drink, here, there, the, in, on, into,
by, from, come, go, sheep, shepherd, ox, earth, home, horse, ground, swine, plough, mouse, dog, wood,
mirth, laughter, night, day, sun, word. In Winston Churchill’s famous speech of 1940 – We shall fight
them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the
streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. – only surrender is not Old English.

In 597 Rome returned, this time bringing Christianity (Catholicism). The English clerics used Latin only
in their services– angel, mass, bishop, altar, minister, abbess, monk, nun, verse et al - and Latin brought
with it some Greek: alms, psalm, apostle, pope, school et al. [et al is Latin for and others.] The Angles,
Jutes and Saxons had not brought a written language with them, having no alphabet. They used runes
(symbols mainly consisting of straight lines). Rich bishops went to Rome and brought back the Roman
alphabet, writing and manuscripts which advanced the use of Latin. English had no written language and
without one it could not survive. Only writing preserves a language. A written language brings precision,
forces ideas into steady shapes, secures against loss. Once the words are on the page they are there to
be challenged and embellished by those who come across them later … written words stimulate the
imagination, express hope… philosophy… mood… Writing helps us to see fully what it means to be human.

In the 8th C, the great scholar Bede, who had gone into a monastery aged 7years, believing that books
should be written in the language of the people, wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation in
O.E. The greatest O.E. poem is Beowulf (poet unknown) about a Scandinavian hero who went to the aid of
Hrothgar, the Danish King, to defend him against the monster Grendel. Here is an example of O.E.
Our Father Faeder ure
Who art in heaven pup pe eart on heofonnum
Hallowed be thy name si pin nama gehalgod
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Then for 3 centuries the Vikings (Scandinavians) raided Britain until Alfred (the only English monarch
ever to be called The Great) defeated the ruling Danes by sending out a loyalty call in English which
4000 men answered. He was the first to use the word Englisc. He set out to teach the English, English,
be proud of it and prepared to fight for it. The Danes left their mark on English. They made names by
adding –son so we have Johnson, Williamson, Clarkson, Harrison, Robinson etc. Other Norse words
incorporated into English are, for example, they, their, them, steersman, get, both, same, gap, take,
want, weak, birth, dirt, cake, call, dregs, egg, freckle, guess, happy, law, by, ransack, score, sister, skill,
smile, thrift, trust.

Alfred found that there was virtually nothing written in English so began translating books from Latin to
English and established a publishing house. 100 years later the Danes invaded again but English remained
entrenched and when the Danes were again overthrown and Harold became king, English seemed secure.
BUT at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, Harold was defeated and the Norman (Frenchman), William the
Conquerer, was crowned in Westminster Abbey. For the next 3 centuries, French became the language
of rule, authority and superiority. French had a huge impact on English. armee (army), archer (archer),
soudier (soldier), garde (guard), felonie (felony), arrester (arrest), warrant (warrant), juge (judge), juree
(jury), accuser(accuse), aquiter (acquit), prisun (prison), gaiole (gaol), oistre (oysters), oranges (oranges),
limons (lemons), grappes (grapes), tarte (tart) etc. So French was the language of authority, commerce,
court. Latin was the language of the Church and English was a poor third.

English speaking peasants lived in small one-roomed mud-and-wattle huts – their French masters in stone
castles. The English tended the livestock – the French ate it. So, O.E = 0x; French = beef
O.E = sheep; French = mutton, O.E. = calf; French = veal, O.E. = deer; French = venison, O.E = pig; French
= pork. English was the animal – French the meat. The English laboured, the French feasted. The English
language survived partly because English women married into French households, took with them their
English servants and wet-nurses and brought their children up bilingual. Here is part of an O.E. lullaby:
Merry it is while summer lasts Mirre it is while summer ilast
Amid the song of the birds Wid fughles song

French was the language of international trade and so words were imported from other languages. e.g
Arabic = safran (saffron), materas (mattress), hasard (hazard), camphre (camphor) etc. However, rather
than replace English, French merely enriched it.
A young swan is the French cygnet; a small axe is the French hatchet. The word ask in English is demand
in French. Thus French helped English to develop a glorious range of synonyms.

The Bubonic Plague (Black Death brought by rats in 1348) ironically had a role in the survival of English
as a language. One third of England’s population of 4 million died. Only the dregs of the people – the
English peasantry – survived. The Latin speaking clergy were all but wiped out and their replacements
were English speaking laymen. Wages rose as labour was in short supply, property prices fell and many
peasants and working class people could occupy plague emptied farms and superior houses. 13 yr old
Richard II became the first king to use English since the Norman conquest and English replaced French
in schools. As education and literature spread, so did the demand for English books. In 1362, Parliament
was addressed in English rather than French for the first time.

Geoffrey Chaucer was the first writer of the newly emerged English. In The Canterbury Tales he
describes his fellow travellers – a party of pilgrims making their way to Canterbury and tells us the
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stories they each told to while away the long hours of their journey. This new English we call Middle
English [M.E.] He is known as the Father of English Poetry. Here are the first lines of his Prologue:

When April with his sweet showers Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
Has pierced the drought of March to the root The droghte of march hath perced to the roots
And bathed every vein in such moisture and bathed every veyne in swich lycour
Which has the power to bring forth the flower… of which vertu engendered is the flour…

However, he was anxious that everyone could read or understand his work when it was read aloud as he
was worried by the variety and confusion of languages in the land. At the end of his poem ‘Troilus and
Criseyde’ he writes:
Go litel book
And for ther is so gret diversite
In English and in writing of oure tongue
So prey I God than non miswryte the (thee)
…
that thow be understonde, God I biseche!

The Bible was first translated into English by John Wycliffe but his work was banned by Henry VIII.
However, after his break from the Catholic Church and Rome because of his divorce, he approved it and
set about getting the English Bible to as many people as possible. After 1588 England’s navy made it a
strong trading country and 10 – 12 thousand new words entered English from other parts of the world.
Scholars, artists, aristocrats travelled to Europe, Italy and Greece in particular and this cultural
explosion brought a further increase in vocabulary: balcony, opera, villa, violin, solo, trill, cameo, volcano,
soprano etc. Advances in medicine and scientific philosophy added thousands of Latin and Greek words:
excavate, horrid, radius, frugal, sunmerge, lexicon, encyclopedia, skeleton, tendon, larynx, glottis,
pancreas etc.

The first English book was printed in 1477 by Caxton. Dictes or Sayenges of the Philosophres.
The first English dictionary was published in 1604 by Robert Cawdrey. It was called The Table
Alphabeticall and had 2543 words, intended to assist people in understanding the scriptures.
Queen Elizabeth I was the best educated monarch to sit on the English throne. She spoke six languages,
translated French and Latin texts and enjoyed writing poetry.
I grieve and dare not show my discontent
I love and yet am forc’d to seem to hate
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant;
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
However, there was a wide gulf between the language of her Court and the educated and the language of
the people. Shakespeare changed that by using a mixture of courtly language, street slang and local
dialects to please local audiences.
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QUESTIONS Write all your answers on this chapter in your hard-covered
notebook.

1. Name the first language spoken in Britain. /1/

2. Is it still spoken today? Explain your answer. /1/
3. Which invading tribes brought the foundations of English to Britain? /1/
4. Identify and explain the figure of speech in: Fearless pagan, fighting men
came riding along the whales’ way on their wave-steeds. /3/
5. Which language is believed to be the mother of most European languages? /1/
6. What do the following abbreviations mean? O.E. M.E. /2/
7. What do the examples of O.E in par.2 reveal about the lifestyles of its speakers?
Substantiate by quoting 3 words. /2/
8. What does a) et al mean? b) What is its etymology? (Root language) /2/
9. Explain in your own words why a language must be written down before it can survive and grow.
/3/
10. Who wrote: a) The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation?
b) Beowulf?
c) The first English dictionary?
d) In which language were the first two written? /4/
11. Why do you think King Alfred was known as The Great? /1/
12. What did Alfred call English? /1/
13 After the Norman Conquest, which language dominated:
a) trade?
b) the Church?
c) the Court? /3/
14 a) Write down the O.E. word for birds.
b) What other English word does it sound like? /2/
15 Explain how the O.E. vocabulary reflects the French status as masters in
England. /2/
16. Write down one O.E word that shows the French dominance in war. /1/
17. Explain how French words enriched the English language. /2/
18. Explain how the Black Death assisted the survival of English. /3/
19. a) Who was the Father of English Poetry?
b) In which language did he write?
c) Name his best known poem. /3/
20. Give two ways in which foreign words entered the English language after
1588. /2/
[40]
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William Shakespeare - Facts we should know. (Source is Melvin Bragg)

 He wrote 154 sonnets and other poems; 38 plays (The Tempest was the last).
 He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564
 His father John was a glover (made gloves). His mother Mary Arden came from a
farming family.
 He was the oldest of 3 sons and 4 daughters.
 In 1582 he married Ann Hathaway. He was 18 and she was 27. They had 3 children.
 In 1591 he left his family and went to London and earned his living as an actor/writer.
 The Italian sonnet was popular in London at that time (Elizabeth I was on the throne).
He lacked an Oxbridge education (he had not been to either Oxford or Cambridge
university) but sonnets were his duelling ground, his language laboratory and his
visiting cards.
 The rhyming couplet in his sonnet Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? …
So long as men can breathe and eyes can see
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
shows that he is very confident of his own talent. He is writing eternal lines.
 He was in London for only 10 years.
 John Weaver wrote of the honey-tongued Shakespeare…When I saw thine issue, I
swore Apollo got them, and none other.
 Shakespeare claimed himself a man on fire for new words. In Henry V Henry says:
O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention.
 Over 2000 words are first recorded by him. (obscene, accommodation, barefaced,
leap-frog, lack-lustre are a few.) Shakespeare had a vocabulary of more than 21 000
words 400 years ago. Even with the thousands of new words that have come into the
language since then, the average person today has a vocabulary of less than half of
Shakespeare’s. He out-Heroded Herod; would dog them at the heels, formed puppy
dog and baby-eyes. Shakespeare used almost every word for any part of speech – his
English ran riot. To be or not to be, that is the question. (Hamlet) is the best known
quotation in any language, ever.
 Shakespeare’s words stand for ideas; an expression of and report on the human
condition. Hamlet’s: To thy own self be true - explored the notion of personal identity
for the first time and led to the study of psychology today. His soliloquies – for the
first time ever – turned the mind into itself. He took on thought as a subject.
 A man’s worth is best seen in the opinion of others. Emerson said: What point of
novels, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of religion, of taste, of the conduct of
life, has he not settled? What mystery has he not knowledge of? What office, or
function, or district of man’s work, has he not remembered? What maiden has not
found him finer than her delicacy? What sage (wise man) has he not outseen?
Bloom said: The whole of English Society sensibility has been moulded by him.
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Etymology roots, prefixes, suffixes

The etymology of a word reveals its history. Words may be grown at home, derived from other
languages, taken from the names of noteworthy people –cardigan- or places –Waterloo- or
invented (neologisms sexsational and scientific/technical terms blogger)

Roots are the unchanging, basic parts of words, taken from other older languages such as Latin,
Greek, French German.

Prefixes are attachments at the beginning of a word. e.g. foreword

Suffixes change the part of speech when they are attached to the end of a word. e.g. wordy,
wordless. Both of these suffixes change the noun word into an adjective.

Exercise 1 Use your dictionaries. All work must be done in your hard-covered English notebook.

Root word Meaning Examples

(Latin) Supply a second example
scribere to write script
aqua water aquarium
carnis flesh carnage
dexter right-hand side dexterity
exculpate (clear of
culpare to blame
blame)
dignis worthy dignity
frater brother fraternize
pater father patriot
pes foot pedal
tangere tactum to touch tactile

(Greek)
algos pain neuralgia
pan all pantomime
okto eight octopus
tele far telescope
pathos feeling sympathy
thermos warm thermometer
sphaira ball sphere
khoros band of singers/dancers chorus
deka ten decade
naus ship naval
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Exercise 2

Prefixes meaning 2 examples - supply your own

ante- before
anti- against
auto- self
circum- around
e- ex- out of
equi- equal
fore- in front
inter- between
mal- bad
mid- middle
mis- wrong
post- after
pre- before
semi- half, partly
sub- under
super- over, above
trans- across
ultra- beyond
under- below
vice- instead of, deputy
multi- many
omni- all
homo- same
hemi- half
contra- against
hydro- water
[50]

Exercise 3 By adding a prefix to each root, make a word that means the same as the expression
given.

Root meaning expression word

-tract draw take away from
-pel drive drive forward
-dict say deny someone’s words
-tort twist pull out of shape
-ject throw throw out
-fer carry hand over
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-practice behaviour wrongful behaviour
-gamos marriage having two wives
-phone sound carries sound far
-thesis placing placing of opposites
-skopein observe makes minute observation
-kroma colour one colour

Suffixes
The list of suffixes is endless. How many do you know?

Exercise 4 Use suffixes to make the following into NOUNS.

1. innocent 4. appreciate 7. exasperate

2. determine 5. suppose 8. anonymous
3. allowed 6. criticize

Use suffixes to make the following into ADJECTIVES

9. scene 14. suggest 19. guilt

10. approach 15. tragedy 20. praise
11. theatre 16. poetry 21. loss
12. profit 17. coincidence
13. practice 18. silence

Use suffixes to make the following into VERBS

22. rehearsal 28. character 34. humility

23. argument 29. analysis 35. indulgent
24. coincidence 30. reconciliation
25. violation 31. industrial
26. serial 32. hindrance
27. appeasement 33. excellent
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Use suffixes to make the following into ADVERBS
[To help with spelling check rules later in this chapter]

36. criticize 39. conscious 42. amazement

37. argument 40. similarity 43. earnest
38. appreciate 41. deceive 44. pervade

Use suffixes to make the following into PEOPLE (noun agents)

45. industrial 47. beginning 49. poetry

46. island 48. criticize 50. announce

Newly coined words

Neologisms and portmanteau words

These are often created by:

* combining existing words
* using suffixes or prefixes
* They can be acronyms, examples of metonymy or taken from the names of people or places.
* They can be imitative words such as buzz, hiss, quack.
* They can be borrowed or derived from other languages – Latin minus, Greek crisis, French
hotel, Dutch yacht, Afrikaans kloof, Arabic algebra, Chinese tea, Hindustani bungalow etc.
* They generally arrive through the mass media or by word of mouth because they are needed
to accommodate developments in science, technology, society etc. When a word is no longer new,
it is no longer a neologism but it takes decades to become old. Portmanteau words are combined
(hyphenated) neologisms that have begun to be used commonly.

black-hole wardrobe malfunction meritocracy

cyberspace blog political correctness
nymphet plus-size hyperspace
waitron internet buzz (v.t.)
x-ray prequel deep-freeze
buzzword googling contact lens
daffynition photoshopping count-down
newspeak soccer-mom i-pod
doublespeak pro-life
brain-wash unfriend
blood-count
flying saucer
baby-sitter
facebook
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Words coined from Literature:

bowdlerize coined from Thomas Bowdler who removed all objectionable matter from
Shakespeare’s work – thus means to expurgate /remove from
quixotic coined form Don Quixote de la Mancha by Cervantes meaning to show absurd
chivalry/courtesy
slithy from Jabberwocky a poem of invented words in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland,
combining slimy and lithe.
a scrooge a miserly, mean person. From Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
catch-22 from the title of J Heller’s novel meaning a no-win situation
malapropism Mrs Malaprop – character in Sheridan’s play – The Rivals.

Words that are really acronyms:

radar radio detecting and ranging
Aids acquired immune deficiency syndrome
laser light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

Words that are examples of metonymy – refer to all products using one well-known brand
name.

kleenex refers to all paper tissues

band-aid refers to all plasters
hoover refers to all vacuum cleaners
aspirin refers to all analgesics

An article in the Cape Times (31-12-09) said that the following words had been added to
the Oxford English Corpus (a two billion database of contemporary language). They
encapsulated the preoccupations and lifestyles of 2009 in Britain.

simples (something easy to achieve)

defriend
staycation (having a holiday at home rather than abroad and reflecting the Great Recession –
probably the word of the year – coined to fit a new cash-strapped environment)
zombie bank (a bank that can only operate through government support)
jeggings (leggings made of denim-look fabric)
tweet, twitterati, twitterverse, tweet-ups
facebook

Of course, many of these words will not last. AVOID using neolgisms that have not been
generally accepted. e.g. burglarize (burgle)
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Exercise 5

a) Write down 10 neologisms not included in this list. Include 2 acronyms.

b) What is a twitcher? [12]

Changes in meaning Over time some words lose their original meaning.
Here are a few examples. Can you think of others?

pantomime meant all mime. Now it means a dramatic entertainment based on a fairy tale
such as Cinderella, with singing, dancing and jokes.
gay meant happy, carefree. Now it means homosexual.
queer meant peculiar/strange. Now it means homosexual.
artificial meant full of artistic or technical skill. Now it means not real.
nice meant someone ignorant or unaware. It then came to mean dainty, refined, precise
or exact. Now it means pleasant.
awful meant full of awe – something wonderful, delightful, amazing. Now it means the
opposite.
brave meant cowardice. It lives on in the word bravado meaning a show/pretence of
bravery.
manufacture meant make by hand (Latin root = manus a hand) Now it means make by machinery.
counterfeit meant a perfect copy. Now it means anything but.
prove meant to test. It lives on in proving ground. Now it means demonstrate to be
so/true.
tell meant count. That is why we have bank tellers.
twitter now also means internet usage.
mettle meant forearm now means courage. A stone cutter had to show a miller whose mill
stone he wished to sharpen, his mettle, to see how marked it was and thus how
much experience he had.
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Pronunciation Examples of commonly mispronounced words. Stress on syllable is
shown in bold.

Word Pronunciation

pronunciation not pronounciation buoy boy (Americans say

advertisement booee)
amicable mischievous mis-che-fis not mis-
often offen - silent ‘t’ chee vi-us
lieutenant liftenant (lootenant picturesque picture-esk
is American) quay key
women we-min queue cue
medicine med-sin - first ‘i’ soliloquy so-lil-o-quee
silent prejudiced pre-ju-dist do not
Italian E-talian drop the ‘d’
italics eye-talics macabre ma-kar-b
lamentable chocolate chocolate
orgy awjy thyme time
clerk clark mistletoe missal-toe
anemone ptomaine ‘p’ is silent
is not eez victuals vitals (food)
what not wat handsome ‘d’ is silent
who not oo asthma asma
where not wear archives arkives
why not wye dinghy ding-ee
whether not weather dingy din-jee
when not wen twelfth twel-th
really three syllables forehead for-ed
reputable breeches britches
satiate say-she-ate bow swain bo-sun
usurp u-zurp rowlock rollock
vehicle vee-i-cal ‘h’ is silent jewellery jool-ry
hyena high-ee-na not jewels jools
hyhena jeweller jool-er
aswell extraordinary ex-straw-din-ary

The English have some vagaries of name pronunciation:

Magdalen College Maudlin College (Oxford) Dalziel Dee-ell

Caius College Keys College (Cambridge) Warwick War-ick
Worcester Wooster Chiswick Chis-ick
Edinburgh E-din-be-ra Fortesque For-te-skew
St John Sin-jin Thames Tems
Cholmondley Chum-ley Colquhoun Col-hoon
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Diminutives
Suffix example

-cle corpuscle, particle

-el kernel
-elle bagatelle
-le castle
-en kitten
-et / ette /ulet pocket, hatchet, baguette, marionette, amulet
-ie / -y lassie, puppy, mummy
-kin ramekin,
-let hamlet
-ling seedling
-ock paddock, fetlock
-on crouton

Exercise 6 By adding a suffix, form the diminutives of: (some letter changes
must be made)

1. leaf 16. cock

2. prince 17. owl
3. river 18. nest
4. novel 19. hill
5. bull 20. pig
6. kitchen 21. cigar
7. node 22. lamb
8. disk 23. eye
9. crown 24. isle
10. drop 25. eagle
11. wave 26. maid
12. circle 27. man
13. handkerchief 28. goose
14. statue 29. book
15. cake 30. spark
[30]
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Exercise 7 give the diminutive form of:

1. a small tree
2. a small frozen sucker
3. Margaret
4. James
5. William
6. ice [6]

GENDER
masculine – the male sex (man, boy, uncle, grandfather, bull)
feminine – the female sex (woman, girl, lady, maiden, sow, cow)
common – could be both sexes (baby, artist, artiste, teacher, teenager, scholar)
neuter - no gender (book, desk, pen match etc.)

Gender is indicated by:

* different words: uncle – aunt; mother – father; swan - pen

* prefixes: jackass – jenny-ass; manservant – maidservant
* suffixes: peacock – peahen; milord – milady; administrator –
administratrix
viceroy – vicereine, marquis – marchioness; sultan – sultana;
chauffeur – chauffeuse.

Exercise 8
Supply the missing gender:

1. masseur 11. hero

2. tigress 12. queen
3. traitor 13. mare
4. mistress 14. goose
5. vixen 15. sow
6. groom 16. stag
7. heiress 17. nanny goat
8. prophet 18. tom cat
9. bachelor 19. buck
10. witch 20. duck
[20]