英语发展史论文

英国人很早就通过意大利，西班牙和葡萄牙购得中国的丝绸，瓷器,茶等商品. 中国商品有很大的需求，以往的利润被地中海和中亚国家垄断盘剥. 地圆学说激发了哥伦布向西航行到中国的欲望,但他只到了美洲.后来英国海上霸权超过了葡萄牙西班牙荷兰,于1600年在印度建立东印度公司,以此为大本营与中国和其它亚洲国家交往. 英语是在商务和传教士的交往中逐步传到中国,大量频繁的交流出现于门户开放的洋务运动之后。英语（English），属于印欧语系中日耳曼语族下的西日耳曼语支，是由古代从德国、荷兰及斯堪的纳维亚半岛周边移民至不列颠群岛的盎格鲁、撒克逊和朱特部落的日耳曼人所说的语言演变而来，并通过英国的殖民活动传播到了世界各地.由于在历史上曾和多种民族语言接触，它的词汇从一元变为多元，语法从“多屈折”变为“少屈折”，语音也发生了规律性的变化.

一、19世纪中叶英语开始在中国社会出现19世纪中叶，随着航海的发展和地理大发现时期的到来，西方英语国家也开始逐步进入中国社会，随之而来的当然也包括他们的语言——英语。特别是自鸦片战争以来，英国将中国作为其商品市场和原料产地，英国商人不断来华进行商品贸易，英语开始在中国的商界、上流社会及高等教育界开始流行。二、两次世界大战期间中国英语的发展在两次世界大战期间，西方英语国家和美国与中国的接触更加频繁、往来更加密切。英语在中国的发展已不仅仅局限在小范围内，而是进一步推广至文化教育界、军事、政治等各个领域。在这期间还有大量的留学生被送往海外，留学生归国后也为英语在中国的发展起了巨大的推动作用。三、改革开放后中国英语的发展改革开放后，中国与西方英语国家及美国的交往更加密切。对外贸易开始发展，外资企业也开始在中国市场上出现。为更好的适应改革开放后中国的经济、社会发展，越来越多的人开始学习英语。1980年葛传规先生首先提出“中国英语”的概念。且在2001年中国加入世界贸易组织后，中国与国际间的交往更加密切。

我的资料都是在Wikipedia上找到，那上面有很多条目都是和英语的历史有关的。因为篇幅所限我这只能先贴一点，你要是自已能上Wikipedia（）就自己去查English language等条目。要是上不了就跟我说，我可以发E-mail给你。English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers and Roman auxiliary troops from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Northern Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to dominate. The original Old English language was then influenced by two waves of invasion. The first was by language speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family; they conquered and colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old French and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman. These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it was never a truly mixed language in the strict linguistic sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication).Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary.Proto-EnglishThe Germanic tribes who gave rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes and perhaps even the Franks), traded with and fought with the Latin-speaking Roman Empire in the process of the Germanic invasion of Europe from the East. Many Latin words for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people even before any of these tribes reached Britain; examples include camp, cheese, cook, fork, inch, kettle, kitchen, linen, mile, mill, mint (coin), noon, pillow, pin, pound, punt (boat), street, and wall. The Romans also gave English words which they had themselves borrowed from other languages: anchor, butter, chest, devil, dish, sack and wine.According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the Britons, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by Hengest and Horsa) to help him in conflicts with the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the southeast of England. Further aid was sought and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles and Jutes). The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated and the identification of the tribes with the Angles, Saxons and Jutes is no longer accepted as an accurate description (Myres, 1986, p. 46ff), especially since the Anglo-Saxon language is more similar to the Frisian languages than any single one of the others.Old EnglishThe invaders' Germanic language displaced the indigenous Brythonic languages of what became England. The Celtic languages remained in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. The dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons formed what is now called Old English. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who invaded and settled mainly in the northeast of England (see Jórvík and Danelaw). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distinct, including the prefix, suffix and inflection patterns for many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English speaking inhabitants of Britain was influenced by contact with Norse invaders, which might have been responsible for some of the morphological simplification of Old English, including loss of grammatical gender and explicitly marked case (with the notable exception of the pronouns). The most famous surviving work from the Old English period is a fragment of the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet, though substantially modified, likely by one or more Christian clerics long after its composition.The period when England was ruled by Anglo-Saxon kings, with the assistance of Anglo-Saxon clergy, was a period when the Old English language was alive and growing. Since it was used for legal, political, religious and other intellectual purposes, Old English coined new words from native Anglo-Saxon roots, rather than "borrowing" foreign words. (This point is made in a standard text, The History of the English Language, by Baugh.)The introduction of Christianity added another wave of Latin and some Greek words.The Old English period formally ended with the Norman conquest, when the language was influenced, to an even greater extent, by the Norman French-speaking Normans.The use of Anglo-Saxon to describe a merging of Anglian and Saxon languages and cultures is a relatively modern development. According to Lois Fundis, (Stumpers-L, Fri, 14 Dec 2001) "The first citation for the second definition of 'Anglo-Saxon', referring to early English language or a certain dialect thereof, comes during the reign of Elizabeth I, from a historian named Camden, who seems to be the person most responsible for the term becoming well-known in modern times."Middle EnglishFor about 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and their high nobility spoke only a variety of French called Anglo-Norman. English continued to be the language of the common people. Various contemporary sources suggest that within fifty years of the invasion most of the Normans outside the royal court had switched to English, with French remaining the prestige language of government and law largely out of social inertia. For example, Orderic Vitalis, a historian born in 1075 and the son of a Norman knight, said that he learned French only as a second language. A tendency for French-derived words to have more formal connotations has continued to the present day; most modern English speakers would consider a "cordial reception" (from French) to be more formal than a "hearty welcome" (Germanic). Another homely example is that of the names for meats, such as beef and pork from French boeuf and porc. The animals from which the meats come are called by Anglo Saxon words, such as cow and pig. This might be because Anglo-Saxon peasants raised the animals; Norman-French lords ate the meat.While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continued until 1154, most other literature from this period was in Old French or Latin. A large number of Norman words were taken into Old English, with many doubling for Old English words (examples include, ox/beef, sheep/mutton and so on). The Norman influence reinforced the continued changes in the language over the following centuries, producing what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was an increase in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". English spelling was also influenced by French in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being spelled th rather than with the Old English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth), which did not exist in French. The most famous writer from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer and of his works, The Canterbury Tales is the best known.English literature started to reappear ca 1200, when a changing political climate and the decline in Anglo-Norman made it more respectable. By the end of that century, even the royal court had switched to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in limited circles somewhat longer, but it had ceased to be a living language.Early Modern EnglishModern English is often dated from the Great Vowel Shift, which took place mainly during the 15th century. English was further transformed by the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration and by the standardising effect of printing. By the time of William Shakespeare (mid-late 16th century) the language had become clearly recognizable as Modern English.English has continuously adopted foreign words, especially from Latin and Greek, since the Renaissance. (In the 17th century, Latin words were often used with the original inflections, but these eventually disappeared.) As there are many words from different languages and English spelling is variable, the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, most notably in the West Country.In 1755 Samuel Johnson published the first significant English dictionary, his Dictionary of the English Language.