Roots of English-Etymological Study

Roots of English-Etymological Study

Benjamin Martin stipulates that no language can ever be permanently the same, but will always be in a variable and fluctuating state. Every existing language undergoes change with time. To the advantage of human beings, these changes occur gradually. Had this not been the case, people would be faced with the task of relearning their native language almost every twenty years. As a result of these changes occurring moderately and gradually, it change is hardly noticeable. Several English language changes are revealed in written records (Fasold & Connor-Linton, 2006).

A wealth of knowledge about of the history of English is available, because it has been written for approximately one thousand years. Changes in a language are the changes in the grammars of those who speak the language. These are disseminated when new generations of children learn the language by acquiring the grammar that has been altered (Fasold & Connor-Linton, 2006). Observations of the past one thousand years of the English language, reveal changes in the phonological, morphological, syntactic, as well as semantic and lexical components of the grammar. No level of the English language has remained unchanged during the course of history. If English speakers today were to hear the English spoken three hundred years ago, it would sound like a completely foreign language.

Three main stages are usually recognized in the history of the development of the English language. Old English, formerly known as Anglo-Saxon, dates from the period 449 to 1066. Middle English dates from 1066 or 1100 to 1500. Modern English dates from about 1500, and is subdivided into Early Modern English, from the period 1500 to 1660, and Late Modern English, from 1660 to the present time (MacSwan & Rolstad, 2003). The fist period of the English Language, Old English, is the ...