Hi,
It appears that most of the English language has it’s roots in either Latin, Greek and to some degree Arabic. But where does Latin, Greek and Arabic have it’s roots. And before that? Does it really all go back to prehistorical grunting?
Thanks
Peps
Peppy,
Welcome to the wild world of linguistics! To start answering your questions, I’ll explain what English is.
English is a Germanic language, related to German, Dutch, and, more distantly, the Scandinavian languages like Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. The proto-form of English was carried to England by the Angles and the Saxons, German tribes who invaded the British Isles and rousted the native Celts. The Anglo-Saxons had it good for a few centuries until the Norman Conquest, when the French-speaking army of William the Conqueror arrived from Normandy, France and took over the country.
Over many centuries, English absorbed a great deal of the French vocabulary, which is why if you look at a French newspaper you can pick out words and sometimes even get the gist of a sentence. Greek and Latin were prestigious languages in the medieval age and over time many of their words filtered into English as well. Its structure is still Germanic, however, as is the bulk of its vocabulary.
As England rose to prominence, English was carried to every corner of the globe. It picked up what are called loan-words from many different languages, including Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Quechua, and many others. Hence we find alcohol (Arabic), shampoo (Hindi), tornado (Spanish), and llama (Quechua), among many other loan-words in the English language.
English is, as I said before, part of the Germanic family of languages, which is itself part of the Indo-European family of languages. There are many other branches in I-E, including the Romance languages (Latin, French, Spanish, etc.), the Slavic languages (Russian, etc.), and the Indian languages (Hindi, Punjabi, etc.). All of these languages derive from Proto-Indo-European, which was spoken about 2500 B.C.
You might want to check out the sci.lang. FAQ for answers to some other common questions about linguistics.
.:Nichol:.
…for the terrific info.
But just to dig a little further back…
you made reference to Proto-Indo-European dating back to 2500 BC. Where would P-I-E find it’s roots? Would if be the language of the fertile crescent civs?
and of course the next question would be where did the Sumerians derive their language from. and so on.
The Sino languages are also markedly different.
Question is, assuming the out of africa theory is correct, can it be safely said that at one period in time, h. sapiens shared one language. if such a collective concept even existed back in the day.
from my university days, if was said that linguistics and language accumulation was possible in humans due to the chance occurence of a slightly larger brain in concurrence with an appropriate mechanical means of enunciation. proper sized nasal cavity, palate and so forth.
As language families go, English is a derivative of West Germanic, which is derived from Germanic, which is derived from 7,000 year-old Proto Indo-European (which is basically a desparate grasp for a common ancestral language).
Now, English is not “pure” by any means. It is a bastard language that is heavily influenced by Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish & Breton (which are completely unrelated to Germanic except at the Proto Indo-European level); French (modern English is something like 20% French-derived as I recall), which is a Latin derivative; Arabic, which comes from Mars, I think; and of course Spanish got a seed or two thrown in. A quick look at English history will easily explain much of the above.
You Brits out there can help me out with this one, but you have these island natives spinning sonnets out of any of a half-dozen Celtic/Gaelic languages (unrelated to Germanic). Then there’s some heavy Viking activity bringing “Anglish” or “Anglo” as a dominant language of the regions they decided were pleasant enough to colonize. The languages mix. The Roman’s owned the rock for a period of time until about 200 AD, so now we have some Latin influence. The French (admittedly, before they were Modern French) have claimed/ceded the islands for upwards of 1,000 years so there’s a further Latin influence. I think Spain made a pretty good attempt at claiming the island, but with limited success. Also Islam went on the move and brought a bunch of learning to Europe through Arabic (pretty much any cool words starting with “al-” like “alcohol,” algebra," “zero” (which desn’t start with “al” but warrants mention because Europe didn’t have zero until “those heathens” gave it to us).
And let’s not forget the British Empire which, along with tea and cotton imported bits of local dialect infusing it with a bit o this and a bit o that.
And then we get to Australian, U.S. English and U.K. English (which certainly gets broken down further into Scotish, Irish and…Welsh?) which are heavily influenced by the languages indigenous peoples they “displaced” giving us such gems as “raccoon” and “kangaroo.”
The closest extant language we know to prehistoric grunting is Armenian which is derived from nothing other than the afore-mentioned, much-hoped-for, Proto Indo-European of about 5,000 BC. I have no Idea what they were talking about in the Far East at 5K BC, but I think there’s good money to anyone who bets that Proto Indo-European derived from something over there. (it ain’t Sanskrit either–That, I believe, is simply the oldest “written” langauge.
Most linguists would probably agree that trying to reconstruct ancient languages further back than 5-10k yrs is not possible with the tools we have today. A small number, though, have asserted that they can connect all the languages of the world back to the first language spoken by H. sapiens some 100k yrs ago. This is very controversial, to say the least, and was championed by the late Stanford professor Joseph Greenberg. You can also find some interesting theories in the book Genes, Peoples and Languages by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza.
As for P-I-E, it’s not certain where it originated, but it appears to have been in Eurasia, not the fertile cresent area.
As for the evolution of language, the truth is we simply don’t know much about whether non-sapiens species of Homo did or did not have language, and if they did, to what degree that language would be comparable to our own in complexity.
Matchka:
That is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever seen posted in a GQ thread. I suggest you pick up a book on the history of languages if you have some interest in the subject. Per your post, you are grossly misinformed on the subject.
Nichol forgets to mention that the Vikings came over with a fair mix of Scandanavian words for us in the 8th-10th centuries.
And Matchka gets is quite confused - the Celtic languages mentioned (Gaelic --> Breton) were not at all heavy influences. Although words have come from those languages into English, they were effectively separated from developing English to a larger degree due to the cultural isolation of those peoples (usually forced).
English is based upon “Anglish” which was a variant of the Germnaic languages of the Angles and Saxons (two distinct groups from upper and lower Germany).
The Vikings brought in strong Scandanavian elements.
The Normans brought the French in, which was the official language of Britain for centuries. A lot of French terms made their way into “Anglish” as it began to form as early English.
Also, the language of education - namely through religion - was always Latin, so Latin also became a notable influence.
Through the Renaissance a resurgence in all things classical helped bring a string of Greek terms into Middle English - not to mention various other aspect of the Romance languages.
And as the East India Company and co trading before our navies, we took on board words from a vast range of peoples. Effectively, if it was an important trading partner, we took words from them.
Note that often these words entered English through slang use - something that has happened even throughout the 20th century, usually as a result of not actually understanding the words and therefore “Anglicizing” them.
Actually, those two were both from ‘Upper Germany’ ( Germania Superior ), if we’re using the Roman sense of the term. The Saxons’ close relatives the Frisians were from ‘Lower Germany’ ( Germania Inferior - the Low Countries and lower Rhineland ), but the Saxons themselves lived just north and east of that divide. The Angles were further north still, in the general vicinity of southern Jutland/Schleswig-Holstein ( apparently taking their name from the region, Angeln, rather than the other way around - they may have originally been a splinter of the Suebians along the Elbe who then migrated into the region ). The Jutes who settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight, were yet even farther north, deeper into Jutland.
Matchka is indeed confused; there are very few Celtic loans into English, and of those most have entered the language only after about 1600. I can think of bog, cairn, and plaid from Scots Gaelic and brogue, galore, and banshee from Irish Gaelic. Welsh contributed crag. All are very recent borrowings. The original Celtic inhabitants of England were thoroughly wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons and left little besides some genes.
Latin’s influence on English came in long after the Roman occupation, though there are a few words stemming from that time – London is one, derived from ‘Londinium’, the Latin word for the town. But it wasn’t until the medieval age that Latin (and its daughter language, French) truly gained a foothold in English. Parliament decreed in 1332 that children receiving education should be taught French and Latin; already in 1325 Oxford had instituted those as the official languages of the city. It wasn’t until 1349 that English was taught in the schools again, so an entire generation of educated men had already had exposure to French. By 1413 English became the official language of the royal court but already the French influence was showing.
The Vikings can perhaps be credited with simplifying English grammar. The Norse had a great deal of influence over Anglo-Saxon England, and English and Norse were still close enough at that time to be almost mutually intelligible. There were just a few problems, like those pesky Germanic cases, but they dropped those happily enough in exchange for speaking to one another.
To get an idea of how English changed over time, check out these works of literature:
Beowulf – written circa 550 through to 750 A.D.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – written between 1387-1400.
Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet – written circa 1595.
.:Nichol:.
Proto-Indo European has been associated with ‘Kurgan’ culture which IIRC correctly orginated in Asian Russia. The reason for this identification is firstly due to what is historically known about the spread of Indo-European languages and secondly and most importantly due to the flora and fauna that must of been known to Kurgan culture and the commonailty of these words in various geographically remote Indo-European languages.
IANALinguist, but AFAIK, though the origins of proto-Indo-European has been traditionnally associated with the Kurgan civilization, it seems to me that a new theory appeared, stating that it actually originated in Eastern Anatolia (Turkey) and that its spreading is related to agricultural development.
As for the fertile crescent, wasn’t it rather the birthplace of the afro-semitic family of languages?
A common misconception. Arabic comes from one of the Martian moons.
Arabic is one of the South Semitic Languages. It’s root language is Canaanite and Ancient Hebrew.
It certainly was influanced by both Aramaic and Syriac. Jesus spoke Aramaic, and it still exists in remote villages of Lebanon.
Arabic is interesting in that much of the language has been pinned downin history by the unchangable Koran. We can say with a great deal of certainty what words were used 1,400 and something years ago.
The modern language has fragmented geogrpahically, but still a modern Syrian can understand any educated Egyptian for example.
Here’s the entry in Ethnologue for the Indo-European language family:
My high school English Lit. teacher felt it was VERY important that we all know this event took place in 1066. That, if nothing else, this one fact alone we should remember from her course. I have respected her wishes 
I know this isn’t on quite the same topic, but I found a really cool site a while ago, http://www.omniglot.com, which shows how different writing systems developed and it shows how different languages evolved from others. It should give you some more info…
Matchka:
As a Linguistics major, I must say that I really got a good laugh out of your posting above. I really needed it after the grueling class this afternoon!
What? He’s serious?!?! Good grief.
I challenge you to name seven pure languages. Document your claims.
Really? You should publish this finding, it will completely revise all understanding of English in formal linguistics. You could become world-reknowned for your scholarship–unless you’re just pulling nonsense out of your hat, of course.
What is this nonsense? The sonnet is a poetic form developed in the Renaissance, found in Italian and English, at the very least. There are no examples that I have ever found of ANY “Celtic/Gaelic” sonnets. I challenge you to point me to the vast number you claim existed.
You’re just making up anything that sounds silly, aren’t you? The Angles were from the area we now know as part of “Germany”, likewise, the Saxons, all from the area around modern Frisia and Saxony.
Sorry, you lose again. Direct Roman influence on English is pretty darn close to nothing, except for a few place-names. The vast majority of Latin that got into English came either from the Church of Rome in the “Dark” Ages and High Feudal period and from scholarship during the Renaissance.
The rest of your post is even more ludicrous and doesn’t bear further answer, with one exception…
[QUIT]
The closest extant language we know to prehistoric grunting is Armenian which is derived from nothing other than the afore-mentioned, much-hoped-for, Proto Indo-European of about 5,000 BC.
[/QUOTE]
Now this takes the prize. This is, without a doubt, the most utterly ignorant “linguistic” statement I have ever come across. Can you back up your daft claim? Of course you can’t.
Here is a very good link,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/storysofar/series1.shtml
If you have a fast enough connection, then try out the sound clips of the radio series.
I won’t mention Sino-Caucasian Amerind Nostratic, if you are going to get snippy 
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
And the award goes to Dogface, for successfully executing a legal flame in GQ.
Remember, kids: Attack the claims, not the person.