History of the English Language featuring Patrick Star

History of the English Language

Surprisingly I found the history of the English language interesting. Usually the first reaction of an average student on learning that they will be stu(dying) the history of the English language is a feeling of dread, terrible boredom and surprise. Which all around comes to a look like this:

The English language was influenced by many other languages through historical events. Which are divided into four different time periods. Other peoples invaded and took over forcing their languages to mix with English, creating a strange mix of all of these languages which people whose first language is not English find very difficult to learn.

Old English 450-1100

I found old English the most interesting because of Beowulf. Beowulf is a 3000 line poem written about a warroir and the amplified tales of his adventures. I was amazed that our present day English evolved from that almost eligable writting.

I was even more surprised when our class came to the conclusion that there has not been an original story written in over 2000 years!(Archetypes). Almost every story we have follows the same plot of a hero, villain and treasure.

Middle English 1100-1500

During the middle English period the languge is becomes a bit more readable and understandable. Middle English was dominated by Chaucer. He wrote for the common man, more believable stories and more humour. I found Chaucer compelling because his stories were the first with no violence which was strange at that time. He wrote comedy and used word play. "Bawdy" using very crude humour.

Doesn't Chaucer look like a funny guy?

Early Modern 1500-1800:

I did not find early modern to be extremly stimulating but it was the introduction of the printing press and this standardized the spelling of words. This was the era of the sonnet craze, which might be a great and interesting thing to learn about for some people but I do not enjoy poetry very much. I would rather someone just tell me what the heck they want or what their thinking instead of reading me a poem. Although poems can very romantic and such I dont quite see the allure of writting, reading and analysing them but I do enjoy the play on words that poems often use.

Boring and baldish

Present Day English 1800- today:

There isn't much of a history of present day English if its the present day but many new words have been introduced and are continually added to the language because of the darastic change in technology. I  personally feel like our generation is ruining the English language with new slang. "rachet" " swerve" "swag". Although I don't enjoy poetry it is a refreshing change from present day English.

P.S Lil Wayne is horrible.