Indoeuropean and Indoeuropeans

            -->Who are they? They migrated to Europe, India, Iran

            -->Where did they live? Russia  --> towards India. Persia -- > westward

            All this happened about 4000 yrs ago.

 

What is Indoeuropean?

-It is now extinct: we are its grandchildren.

-Includes most of the  languages of Europe, past and present, as well as those found in a vast area extending across Iran, Afghanistan to the northern half of the Indian subcontinent.

-Sir William Jones [ amateur philologist( philology meaning the historical study of diachronic linguistics)] discovered the link between Sanskrit (sacred language) Latin and Greek. He discovered similarities that could not be accidental.

 

INDOEUROPEAN LANGUAGE TREE

                                               Chart 1

                                       

 

Its difficult to find out when, where and why Celtic languages influence English --> inherited or borrowed.

Lots of words are common in English and Welsh --> not by borrowing but inherited from Indoeuropean. Then there are similar words because they come through from Latin by Celtic and Germanic, making it difficult to identify.

                                                                                               Chart 2

                                                

 

                                                                       Chart 3

                                                                    

                                                          ** important because of the VIKINGS: rape and steal and conquer (part of England)

 

                                                                      Chart 4

                                                       

 English belongs to the west Germanic brach [paradoxical]. 80% of the Old English vocabulary has been lost and English has borrowed from Germanic and romance neighbours and from Latin and Greek. The inherited vocababulary, a small portion of the total, remains the genuine core of the language.

·        all of the most frequent words in English are directly from Old English. [Corpus of Present Day American English also known as the Brown Corpus  are native words] 83 of the most important words are native.

·        Over 50% of English vocabulary comes from Indoeuropean, inherited or borrowed

 

-we’ve lost most of the original vocabulary but the one left is by far the most used.

 

EXTERNAL HISTORY OF ENGLISH

--> From Romans to Normans

            -Celts and Romans: the first inhabitants of Great Britain were the Iberians from the north of Spain –builders of Stonehenge

            -Then the Celts occupied France (Gaul) northern Italy, Netherlands, Spain, North-Western Germany, Great Britain and Ireland in early
             western european history.

--> Celts

            -There seems to have been no code mixing between Celts and AngloSaxon (English has little Celtic influence).

No evidence of pidgin between them because they had completely different languages and because of superiority. No new words were needed as continental europe and Britain were similar.

                         --> pidgin language (african-french..invented language to communicate)

 

--> Britannia and Roman Domination

            -Julius Cesar invaded in 55 & 54 BC intending to secure an area in the south east of Britain so insular Celts could not help Celts on the
             continent in their fight against Rome.

            -43 AD Britannia was finnall incorporated into the Roman Empire through the campaigns of Claudius general Aulus Platinus

            - No attempt to conquer the whole island or Ireland. Only south and east Britain were romanized.

            -Large areas in Cornwall, Scotland & Wales left unromanized

                        --> Roman influence felt:
                                    Hadrian’s Wall (in north england 120-130 AD)

                                    Antoine Wall (scotland 142-144 AD)

 

-->Traces of Roman Influences

            - Place names: -cester or –chester (from Latin castra)

            -Bath: place of leisure (aqua solis)

            -London (Lugdinium: Londonium)

 

--> De excidio Britanniae

            -407/410 AD Romans left Britain to defend from Germanic raids.

            -The Roman Brits were left alone to face attacks by the Picti (Scotland) and the Scotti ( Ireland)

            -Eventually the inhabitants of Britain has to ask other Germanic tribes for help, mainly the Saxons (sign of cowerdness) and Jutes
             (Bede)

            -Germanic mercenaries landed in Kent in 456 AD.