When we speak English, we could say that we speak the language of Samuel Johnson, the man who wrote his first dictionary. Or we could say that we speak the language of Shakespeare, which invented more English terms than any other person in history. It would be just as logical to describe to us that speaking the language of the King James Bible, whose mass impression has done so much to standardize English, flat steam of many innumerable local variations which existed at the beginning of the 17th century. But like many English (and more than a few Americans) are reluctant to admit that when we speak English, we are, most of the time, speaking French.
“In 1066, the Normans appeared and seized the English throne of the Anglo-Saxons says that Youtuber Robwords The new video aboveDescribing the most important event in the whole history of the English language, which he tells in just 22 minutes. “William the conqueror becomes king, and Norman French becomes the language of the elite of England.”
Under his new sovereign, the country countys,, thanesAnd atheling would be called barons,, dukeAnd princes. “The Anglo -Saxons now heard should learn French words if they wanted to get out of it, therefore English absorbs a whole multitude of French terms associated with power, justice, art, government, law and culture – as power,, justice,, art,, government,, lawAnd cultureTo name just a few.
This in -depth franchification gave birth to what we now call central English, as opposed to the old English spoken before. As Robwords noted, around 85% of the vocabulary of the old English is no longer used today, but we “always use old English in each sentence that we say”, especially when we move such irregular plurals like plurals like irregular plurals like mouse,, oxenAnd wolves. Tuesday,, Wednesday,, THURSDAYAnd Friday Make refer to “Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian gods”. And even in evolving singing, wooded slang, influenced by Internet and – for better or for worse – a very “globalized” English that we are talking about today, we can still hear dark echoes of ancient ancient linguists call proto -American. This may be why, despite being so widely spoken, English is still as difficult to learn: when we talk about it, we are talking not only a language, but a lot of languages at the same time.
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Based in Seoul, Colin MArshall Written and broadcastTS on cities, language and culture. His projects include the substack newsletter Books on cities And the book The stateless city: a walk through Los Angeles from the 21st century. Follow it on the social network formerly known as Twitter in @ColinmArshall.
At Learnopoly, Finn has championed a mission to deliver unbiased, in-depth reviews of online courses that empower learners to make well-informed decisions. With over a decade of experience in financial services, he has honed his expertise in strategic partnerships and business development, cultivating both a sharp analytical perspective and a collaborative spirit. A lifelong learner, Finn’s commitment to creating a trusted guide for online education was ignited by a frustrating encounter with biased course reviews.