School Research Paper
Student:
Jakoubson Julia
Grade: 9 “A”
School №9
Teacher Gorbacheva M.V.
Kolomna 2003.
Contents
Pages
Introduction…………………………………………………………….3
I. Old English…………………………………………………………...3-17
a). Celtic Tribes…………………………………………………………3-4
b). The Romans…………………………………………………………4-10
c). Germanic Tribes…………………………………………………….10-15
d). The Norman French………………………………………………..15-16
II. Middle English……………………………………………………....16-19
III. Mordent English…………………………………………………...20-22
Conclusion……………………………………………………………....22-24
List of Literature………………………………………………………..26
Supplement……………………………………………………………...27
Introduction.
Why do people all over the world learn foreign languages? Perhaps because
the world is getting smaller, in a way: nations are more closely linked
with each other than ever before, companies operate world-wide, scientists
of different nationalities co-operate, and tourists travel practically
everywhere. The ability to communicate with people from other countries is
getting more and more important. And learning foreign languages broadens
your horizons, too!
Before learners of a foreign language are able to communicate, they have to
acquire many skills. They must learn to produce unfamiliar sounds. They
must build up a vocabulary. They must learn grammar rules and how to use
them. And, last but not least, they must develop listening, speaking,
reading and writing skills and learn how to react in a variety of
situations.
All people like to travel. Some travel around their own country, others
travel abroad. Some like to travel into the future, others prefer to travel
into the past. While I was working out my research paper and reading many
books on English history, I had an exciting trip into a remote past. It was
a fantastical journey our Imaginary Time Machine and a Magic Wand. The Time
Machine took me into the depth of the centuries, into the very early
history of Britain. I waved the Magic Wand and the words began to talk,
they disclosed to me their mysteries, I discovered secrets hidden in
familiar things. In other words, you will be a witness of making of
English.
I. Old English. (450-1100)
a). Celtic tribes.
Make a first turn of the Time Machine and you will find yourself on the
British Isles in the time of the ancient inhabitants, the Celts. The Celts
were natives of the British Isles long before the English. The Celts had
their language, which is still spoken by the people living in the part of
Britain known as Wales. And though many changes happened on the British
Isles, some Celtic words are still used in the English language.
Two thousand years ago there was an Iron Age Celtic culture throughout the
British Isles. It seems that the Celts, who had been arriving from Europe
from the eighth century BC onwards, intermingled with the peoples who were
already there. We know that religious sites that had been built long before
the arrival of the Celts continued to be used in the Celtic period.
For people in Britain today, the chief significance of the prehistoric
period (for which no written records exist) is its sense of mystery. This
sense finds its focus most easily in the astonishing monumental
architecture of this period, the remains of which exist throughout the
country. Wiltshire, in south-western England, has two spectacular examples:
Silbury Hill, the largest burial mound in Europe, and Stonehenge. Such
places have a special importance for anyone interested in the cultural and
religious practices of prehistoric Britain. We know very little about these
practices, but there are some organizations today (for example, the Order
of Bards, Ovates and Druids – a small group of eccentric intellectuals and
mystics) who base their beliefs on them.
The Celts preserved their language in some parts of Britain, but they did
not add many words to the English vocabulary. Those, that are in use now,
are mostly place-names: names of regions, towns, rivers. The Celts had a
number of similar words to name rivers, like: Exe, Esk, Usk. All of them
come from a word meaning water (uisge). Later this word was used to name a
strong alcoholic drink made from barley or rye. It was first called “water
of life”. The word changed its from and pronunciation, and today at
restaurants in the West one can see on the menu among other spirits whisky,
a Celtic word formerly meaning water.
b). The Romans.
One more turn of our Time Machine and it took me into the 1st century of
our era. At that time Romans came into Britain, they ruled the country for
400 years. So, you can guess that many Latin words came later into the
English language through Celts, because, as you know, Romans spoke Latin.
The Roman province of Britannia most of present-day England and Wales. The
Romans imposed their own way of life and culture, making use of the
existing Celtic aristocracy to govern and encouraging this ruling class to
adopt Roman dress and Roman language. The Romans never went to Ireland and
exerted an influence, without actually governing there, over only the
southern part of Scotland. It was during this time that a Celtic tribe
called the Scots migrated from Ireland to Scotland, where they became
allies of the Picts (another Celtic tribe) and opponents of the Romans.
This division of the Celts into those who experienced Roman rule (the
Britons in England and Wales) and those who did not (the Gaels in Ireland
and Scotland) may help to explain the development of two distinct branches
of the Celtic group of languages.
The remarkable thing about the Romans is that, despite their long
occupation of Britain, they left very little behind. To many other parts of
Europe they bequeathed a system of law and administration which forms the
basis of the modern system and a language which developed into the modern
Romance family of languages. In Britain, they left neither. Moreover, most
of their villas, baths and temples, their impressive network of roads, and
the cities they founded, including Londinium (London), were soon destroyed
or fell into disrepair. Almost the only lasting reminder of their presence
are place-names like Chester, Lancaster and Gloucester, which include
variants of the Roman word castra (a military camp).
Roman rule lasted for 4 centuries. There are many things in Britain today
to remind of the Romans: wells, roads, walls.
To defend their province the Romans stationed their legions in Britain.
Straight roads were built so that the legions might march quickly. Whenever
they were needed, to any part of the country. These roads were made of
several layers of stones, lime, mortar and gravel. They were made so well
that they lasted a long time and still exist today. Thomas Hardy dedicated
his poem to Roman roads. Here is the beginning.
THE ROMAN ROAD
The Roman road runs straight and bare
As the pale parting line in hair
Across the health. And thoughtful men
Contrast its days of now and then,
And delve, and measure, and compare,
Visioning on the vacant air
Helmed legionaries who proudly rear
The eagle as they pace again the Roman road…
One of the roads has a name – “KATLING STREET”. It is a great Roman road
extending east and west across Britain. Beginning at Dover, it ran through
Canterbury to London, thence through St.Albans, Dunstable, along the
boundary of Leicester and Warwick to Wroxeter on the Severn. The origin of
the name is not known and there are several other sections of the road so
called. In the late 9th century it became the boundary between English and
Danish territory.
To guard their province against the Picts and Scots who lived in the hills
of Scotland the Romans built a high wall, a military barrier seventy-three
miles long. It was called “Hadrian’s Wall” because it was built by command
of the Emperor Hadrian. Long stretches of “HADRIAN’S WALL” have remained to
this day.
In the capital of Britain you can see the fragments of the old London wall
built by the Romans.
What really happened in AD 61? In AD 61 the king of the Celtic tribe Iceni
died. Before he died he had named Roman Emperor Nero as his heir. He hoped
that this would put his family and kingdom under the Emperor’s protection.
But the result was the exact opposite of his hopes. His kingdom was
plundered by centurions, his private property was taken away, his widow
Boadicea was flogged, his daughters were deprived of any rights, his
relatives were turned into slaves. Boadicea’s tribe rose to rebellion.
Boadicea stood at the head of a numerous army. More than 70,000 Romans were
killed during the revolt. But the Britons had little chance against an
experienced, well-armed Roman army. The rising was crushed, Boadicea took
poison to avoid capture.
Her monument on the Thames Embankment opposite Big Ben remind people of her
harsh cry: ”Liberty of death” which has echoed down the ages.
Some of the English words relating to meals are of Latin origin, they were
borrowed from the Romans in ancient times. The Romans in the period of
their flourishing and expansion came into contact with the Germanic tribes,
or the Teutons, who later moved to Britain and formed there the English
nation. The Romans were a race with higher civilization than the Teutons
whom they considered barbarians. They taught the Teutons many useful things
and gave them very important words that the forefathers of the English
brought with them to Britain and that remained in the English language up
to now. Kitchen and table are Latin words borrowed in those far-off days,
that show a revolution in culinary arrangements; dish, kettle and cup also
became known to the Teutons at that time.
The early words of Latin origin give us a dim picture of Roman trades
traveling with their mules and asses the paved roads or the German
provinces, their chests and boxes and wine-sacks full of goods that they
profitably bargained with the primitive ancestors of the nowadays English.
Wine was one of the first items of trade between the Romans and the
Teutons. That’s how this word came into use.
The Teutons knew only one fruit – apple, they did not grow fruit trees or
cultivated gardens, but they seem to have been eager to learn, for they
borrowed pear, plum, cherry.
The Teutons were an agricultural people, under the influence of the Romans
they began to grow beet, onion.
Milk was one of the main kinds of food with the Teutons, but the Romans
taught them methods of making cheese and butter for milk.
Among other culinary refinements that came to the Teutons from the Romans
are spices: pepper, mint.
Judging by the Latin borrowings of that period the ancestors of English
were very much impressed by Roman food, weren’t they?
The word “calendar” came to us from Latin. In the Latin there was a word
“calendarium”. It meant “a record-book”. Money-lenders kept a special book,
in which they recorded to whom they lent money and how much interest they
will get. This book was called “calendarium” because interest was paid on
the “Calends”. By the Calends the Romans named the first day of each month.
Time passed, the old meaning was forgotten. “Calendar” began to mean the
record of days, weeks, months within a year.
This is a story of the word “calendar”. But the story of how a calendar was
made is still more interesting indeed. We know that a calendar provides an
easy way to place a day within the week, month or year. But it is not easy
to make a calendar. The trouble is that the length of a year is determined
by the length of time the earth takes to revolve once on its own axis. But
the earth does not take an equal number of days to complete its year. It
needs 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. Obviously you cannot
divide a day of 24 hours into that. And the problem is further complicated
because the month is determined by the length of time it takes the moon to
go around the earth, which is 29 Ѕ days into 365 ј days, minus 11 minutes
and 14 seconds. The result is that most calendars were messes.
The English got their calendar from the Romans. But at first the Romans had
a very bad calendar. They had ten month of varying length, and then they
added enough days at the end to make the year right. Besides the
politicians changed the length of the months as they wished. They could
change the length of the month to keep themselves in office longer and to
leave less time for their opponents. I can’t imagine that somebody will
reduce June, July, August to two weeks each, and will take away more than
half my summer vacation? Will you like that? Of course, not.
The calendar varied so much that by the time of Julius Caesar January came
in August.
Meanwhile a very good calendar had been worked out in Asia Minor and was in
use in Egypt. Julius Caesar, a great Roman emperor, changed it a little to
fit the Roman customs and introduced it in Rome. This calendar was called
after him “the Julian Calendar”. As a matter of fact, Caesar only gave the
orders; he had the advice of a Greek astronomer named Sosigenes. This
calendar worked well for hundred years. But it provided only for exact
figure of 365 days a year and an extra day in every four years, it did not
count minutes and seconds. So, once more, the calendar year was getting
farther and farther from the year of the earth’s revolution around the sun.
Then in 1582 another change of calendar took place. The Roman Pope Gregory
XII suppressed ten days in 1582 and started new calendar. The English
people adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752. And for a time all dates
were given two ways: one for the New Style, one for the Old Style.
Now nobody uses the Old Style any more, but of course the calendar is not
quite accurate yet. Still it will be a long time before we have to add or
subtract another day.
The year is divided into months and every month has its own name. Now we’d
like to investigate how the names of months appeared. But first, let’s
think of the word “month” itself.
A month is a measure of time. It is a very old word. It goes back to Indo-
European base. Long time ago people probably- had only three measures of
time - year, which was the four seasons; a day which was the period from
one sunrise to the next; and a month, which had the period from one moon to
the next.
So, the Indo-European base “me-“ came into Old English, and became “mona”.
The word meant "a measure of time". Then it began to mean “moon”, since the
moon measured time. Later suffix "-th" was added to the end of the word;
the word "monath" meant the period of time which the moon measured. Still
later the English people dropped the "a" and called it "month”.
And now, stories of the names of months. The Modem English names for the
months of the year all come from the Latin. But before the English people
adopted the Latin names they had their native names. And, in fact, in some
cases the native names are more interesting than the Latin ones.
The first month of the year is January. January is the month of Janus.
Janus was a Roman God of the beginning of things. Janus had two faces: on
the front and the back of the head. He could look backwards into the past
and forward to the beginning year. January is a right name for the first
month of the New Year, isn't it? On the New Year eve we always think of
what we have done in the past year and we are planning to do better in the
New Year.
Now, the Old English had its own name for January. It was “Wulf-
Monath", which means “month of wolves". To-day England is thickly
populated and a very civilized country and it is hard, to imagine that
their was a time when wolves roamed the island. In the cold of the deep
winter they would get so hungry they would come into the towns to look for
food, and so January was called “the month of the wolves".
The name of February comes from the Latin “februa” - "purification". It
was a month when the ancient Romans had a festival of purification.
Before the English adopted the Latin name, they called this month
“Sprate-Kale-Month”. “Kale” is a cabbage plant, "sprote" means to sprout.
So, it was “the month when cabbages sprout”
March is a month of Mar's, the Roman God of war. March was the earliest
warm time of the year when the Romans could start a war. Before the time of
Julius Caesar the Roman year began with March which was then the first
month of the year.
The Old English name for March was "Hlyd-Monath", which means "the month
of noisy winds". March in Britain often comes with strong winds. By the
way, this explains the saying: "If March comes in like a lion, it will go
out like a lamb".
There are a few stories about the meaning of the name “April”! The most
spread one is a pretty story that the month was named from a Latin word
“aperire" – “to open”. It is a month when buds of trees and flowers begin
to open.
The English before they adopted the Latin names, called April "Easter-
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