The History of the English Language by Sammy Stein

It’s right to say that now, when you are traveling around any country you might like, the first question that may come to your mind won’t be, do you speak French? Because, now we know that technology, business, and media are in terms related to English. That means that it would be easier to find help looking for some English speaker than any other language speaker in the world.

But, how did it happen? The answer is simple, Imperialism from the United Kingdom, but more specific from England. When in the second era of Imperialism, English became the elite language in India, and also the second one in schools, the spread of this method all around the world began.

However, Sammy Stein wants to persuade about the greatness of English above other Languages. He says that English, is not a pure language, but it’s the second common language in the world. Actually, he gives examples of how English is mixed with almost all the other important languages nowadays.

The firsts that arrived to England and imposed their dialect were the Vikings, with words like “ocean, and boat”. Then comes the invasion of Romans, from the ones all swear words derived. Finally, members of French courts and Spanish rules contributed to create this mixture of derived words that actually change in spelling, and that’s why they are considered as part of English.

Actually, I think that, as Stein said, even when you can find signals almost everywhere written in their mother language but also in English, in United States, for example, that is considered an economic and technological power, not all its habitants speak in the same way. Also, even a person from the south and one from the north would find that words that are familiar for one, are completely opposite in meaning to the other.

That leaves English learners again in disadvantage for trying to follow a basic and proper language, and of course, make that at least in other countries; people can understand what they are just trying to say. But as Stein says “The history of English is still being written”. That means that more technological and colloquial words would appear in later dictionaries. Hopefully, it would benefit in terms of using words common for everyone to understand (technological terms), but in the other hand, how many colloquial words could appear that we would have to learn? Maybe is just a matter of getting the right idea. 

The History of the English Language by Risa

Just think that you’re reading the poem of Mio Cid, written in Old Spanish. Would you understand every single word? Maybe just a few words similar of those you use every day in a modern era.  Well, that case it’s similar with Old English and how words shifted in the meaning and even in the stress when pronounced.

Even though English had changed a lot through centuries, it’s not old at all. Actually, Risa wants to demonstrate this getting deep into the origin and evolution of the language in different regions, but also emphasizing on the specific changes related to the pronunciation of syllables and the meaning of certain words in certain phrases.

And actually, this is the main topic of her article, with no more purpose but to inform English learners, and also native speakers about origin and evolution of English. She makes a statement that is interesting “Only dead languages do not change”, and that let us to think that not just English but every living language changes in a certain amount of time, but of course, the core still would be the same.

Modern English derived from the dialect spoken in Mercia, but the origin of old English remains to the late seventh century, with documents written in Common Germanic Futharc. But a couple centuries before, English arrived to England and was spoken for Angels and Saxons that called this dialect “englisc”, because in that time, England was considered the land of the Angels, an interesting cultural knowledge that explain why English is called in that way.

But talking more about the specific shifts and changes in the grammar and spelling, Risa mentions two of them. One is related to the tendency to move stress back the pronunciation of a word through years, and actually I agree with her in the example of the word “folk’s”, what if in the future, the apostrophe of ownership disappears? It’s a living language, so it’s a possibility. It would be a huge change but we would get understand it and apply it, just as the “great vowel shift”.

Finally, I agree with her in the point of several but normal changes in living languages, but as an English learner, the point is that is easier to understand how word had changed when you are acquainted with it for being part of your mother tongue than one that you are actually learning. It’s difficult, because the vocabulary is extensive and we can’t know how had change all the words, and also how would them change in a future. 

The History of the English Language by Lucy Rucker

English is a complex language, even for those who were born with it as a mother tongue. We can see that many experts try to explain and create a concept of what is “proper English”. But nowadays, who knows it? Globalization makes the spread of English come so fast, and also, new variations and idioms comes even faster every day that trying to organize how English is spoken and used in certain areas is almost impossible.

Most of the experts say that this problem comes from changes in history and improvements that modified grammar and spelling. Words coming and going makes us think that made this language as difficult as it is. But actually, those words were made to make it a little bit easy, and that’s what Lucy Racker covers in her article.   

In this article we can see that the main topic is shown in the beginning of the text: “How did the English Language begin? But Racker didn’t just want to talk about the history of Old, Middle, and Modern English. She also wanted to criticize the ways this language is challenging and always changing, making it difficult to non-native speakers to learn it.

Is just like she said, if even in the United States, people of different parts of the country can’t understand each other, though both are English native-speakers, what can expect other people that want to learn this language?  As an example, Racker uses the difference of pronunciation between UK and United States, but even the difference in the meaning that people in the north, south or any other area in EUA gives to some words.

Also, she wants to emphasize some key words to support her ideas and make English learners notice that the main reason of why English is difficult for them to learn comes from several changes in the history of the language. Beginning with old English, coming from Anglo-Norman-France, many of words changed a lot from this era to Middle English, and even the order in the sentences were modified. However, improvements were more significant in the transition from the Middle to the Modern era.

In my opinion, even when the author is proud of her language and explicitly says that loves it the most, she is aware of its complexity that represent to us as English learners to carry on with a language that I think has not just a single proper way to speak it. 

What should we learn, English as a lingua franca or "formal" English?

In my opinion, I think we should still learning English as a lingua franca because as we try so hard to learn a language that is not our mother tongue, we are overlooking what is related to speak and use our own language better. Also, I think that as we are getting so deep into English language world, we are losing our own cultural diversity; we are turning ourselves into an English native-speaker way, with all their traditions and customs.

 Moreover, if we get to that point, we would lose a principal feature of our world in general, that is related to cultural diversity. Finally, I think that as speak English is a trend in population these days, in a decade or two, maybe French will be the global language, or maybe German, we don’t know but we’ll have to be prepared and not only focus in one language.