The origins of English
A Speller’s Companion by Brown and Brown
My son bought me a book in York called A Speller’s Companion published by Brown and Brown. What a fascinating little book this has proved to be. It provides information about the origins of the spelling of many of the places in the UK and also of many words that have been incorporated into modern English over time.
The contributors to the English language and names off UK cities, towns and villages are as follows:
- Celtic British who spoke a dialect called Brythonic and were known as Brythons (now spelt Britons). The Celtic British lived in the UK (excluding Ireland) about 400 years BC.
- In about 350 BC, Celts from Southern France settled in Ireland and their dialect was Goidelic (now spelt Gaelic). These Gaelic Celts later crossed to Scotland and the Isle of Man. Scotland derives its name from the Gaelic Scotti. A few towns that contain Celtic words are Stratford-on-Avon and Aberdeen.
- From AD 43 to 410, the British Isles formed part of the Roman Empire. While the Romans occupied Britain for nearly 400 years and left behind a lot of roads and buildings, their language, Latin, did not make much impact on the language spoken by the Britons.
- The Angles, Jutes and Saxons (who became known as the Anglo-Saxons) attacked Britain in AD 449 and introduced their language which was called Englisc (English). The names of Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Northumbria, Sussex, Kent, Northumbria and Mercia all came from the Anglo-Saxons. They did not have their own words for certain things so they used the Celtic or Roman word and these became incorporated into their language. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Manchester and Edinburgh are all examples of names derived from Old English.
- Latin words such as altar, temple and master were introduced into English by the monks who translated the Bible into English from Latin. When they found no English word to substitute for the Latin word, they just retained the Latin.
- The next group of invaders were the Vikings who came from Scandinavia. Their language was Old Norse and mixed well with English as they both had Germanic roots. Examples of towns with Old Norse names are Rugby and Cleethorpes.
- The last contributer was the Normans from France who ruled England for 200 years from AD 1066. Over the 440 years after AD 1066, 10 000 French words were incorporated into English and the language evolved into something much closer to what we have today.
This book doesn’t only provide information with regards to the origins of English but also a lot of detail about the evolution of writing and even printing.
Here are some photographs from our recent trip to Edinburgh:
View from Edinburgh Castle
Holyrood Palace
Michael and Terence in the ruins of Holyrood Abbey
The roots of our language have always fascinated me… and it has seeds from so many that we can often understand more of other languages than we might think.
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Hi Sue, yes, I was surprised at how many French words are in English.
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A bit of thought and you can easily find the French, German and latin roots of many words.
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Sounds like a fascinating book. English has so much borrowed from other languages!
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It does, I was amazed at how much French there is in English. Thanks for reading, Ritu.
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🥰
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What a fascinating book Robbie. A precious gem.
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Thank you, Brigid.
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The roots of English is pretty fascinating. Also fascinating how it spread all over the world, so some in the Americas can talk to someone in Africa about her experiences traveling somewhere in Europe, with people from somewhere in Australia and Asia understanding all that was said…
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You are right, Trent, it is quite incredible how multinational English has become. It is great that we can all communicate.
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It is amazing to see all of the nations that pop up on my stats page. Of course a lot of people are using English as a second or third language, but they are still using it.
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What an interesting book, Robbie! And I really like what Trent said about the spread of the English language. Truly fascinating.
Thanks for this share, and the photos were great!
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Thank you, Mae. I am glad this interested you. I thought it was fascinating and I am amazed at how many French words were incorporated into English.
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What a great family adventure! I love that book – th history of these places is so important, to help us understand where we came from – hopefully to guide us going forward…terrific photos as well!
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Thank you, John. I didn’t know about the British Celts so that was a surprise to me although I should have guessed because of the name Britain. I found this little book to be most interesting.
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A magical book. xxx
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I thought so, Adele. Greg and I both read it.
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What great gift to get. I love the history in the language. It is such a mixture.
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It is, a real hodge podge, and then it traveled to the US, Australia and other places and new variations were added.
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Fascinating, Robbie! How thoughtful of your son to gift you with this little gem. 🙂
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My son read this book too, Bette. We are both interesting in history and literature. He is my “mini me”.
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I love that… ❤ xoxo
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A fascinating book you got, Robbie. I’m interested in languages. I used to have a book analyses the English words and gives the root words and the origin of the words. I’m amazed of many English words originated from Latin. Here in the US, I can see some Spanish words add the different endings to the English words such as Americano from American, etc.
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Yes, in the US Spanish would be a big influencer. In South AFrica, African and Afrikaans words and expressions have crept into local English. I am not good at languages, Miriam. It is not one of my talents.
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Yes, Robbie, I can see the languages influence each other. I thought I would be a missionary when I was younger, so I studied Spanish. Then I taught Chinese as a second language in universities, it forced me to analyze the language structure in order to teach. When I took voice lessons, I sang in Italian and French. Oh, when I sang in the oratorio, we sang many ancient music in Latin. I probably can pronounce the words and recognize the meanings of a few. That’s the extend of my languages!!
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The book sounds very interesting Robbie. And the photos are gorgeous! 🙂
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Thank you, Debby. It was a wonderful trip.
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🙂
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How fascinating, Robbie!
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Thank you, Jennie. I found it quite fascinating.
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You’re welcome, Robbie.
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Sounds like a great little book, Robbie. My son is taking Latin this year, so he’s learning about word origins.
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How lovely, Barbara. I am not good at picking up other languages. It is not one of my talents, sadly. So interesting though.
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You have many others! 🙂
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Reblogged this on Where Genres Collide Traci Kenworth YA Author & Book Blogger.
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Thank you for sharing, Traci.
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You’re welcome, Robbie!
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The English language is amazing and speaking English means it’s easier for us to learn Italian than the other way around.
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I am not particularly good at learning other languages, Tandy. Although I always excelled at, and loved, English. I do enjoy investigating the interesting origins.
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Sounds like a very interesting book, Robbie. Awesome 👍 👍👍 pictures and new knew so much history of English. Right now my family and me we r seeing the Vikings on Netflix.
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Netflix is a great way to learn about them, Kamal. I really enjoyed this fascinating little book.
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Yes absolutely, Robbie we r seeing so many serials from those times. Completed seeing Merlin.
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I love this kind of thing, Robbie, origins of words and names. It fascinates me. It was fun to see some of your vacation photos too. Hugs on the wing!
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Thank you, Teagan. I enjoyed this book, origins of language are so interesting.
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I love discovering the roots of languages and one of the interesting things about learning new languages is how many words from are own are included in theirs.. such as over 1000 words in Spanish.. Shared roots can really help with communication.. Excellent post Robbie..hugs
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Thank you, Sally, I am glad you found this interesting. I am interested that there are 1000 English words in Spanish. Its a real mishmash.
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I got a head start with Afrikaans too Robbie and then when we lived in Brussels it was French and Dutch so came in handy again.. xxx
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I enjoyed these glimpses into that wild and wooly thing we call the English language. (I liked the Scotland pics, too.)
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Thank you, Liz. It is really fascinating. I loved Scotland, so pretty and nice people too.
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Great to read. I always try to get the meaning of many words thinking back to my Greek and Latin lessions. LoL Have a nice weekend! Michael
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Greek and Latin are both complex languages so I salute you Michael on learning them.
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Thank you Robbie! I had loearned them at school over years, in the past. 😉 But i loose more and more knowlege too.
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Love the history lesson.
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Thank you.
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What a great gift, Robbie – he knows you well. The pics are beautiful!
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Thank you, Teri. Greg is a most sensitive young man and always thinks of things that will please me.
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I liked your breakdown of English influences and the timeline you applied. Thank you. Very well written. For a word count of Anglo Saxon in today’s English, see the post Anglo Saxon Words on 15 Sep 2019 published at https://thethinkingwasp.wordpress.com/. You’ll also see an intriguing example of Anglo Saxon in action …
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Thank you for your comment and the link
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Here’s another list of Anglo Saxon words to make one smile. See “Mr Bean, Hleahtor-Smiþ”, 6 November 2019 at https://thethinkingwasp.wordpress.com/. It’s fascinating stuff. Enjoy!
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