A History of The English Lexicon: Which Period in History Has Had the Most Significant Impact on Modern English Vocabulary?

The history of the English language is a fascinating journey through time, shaped by numerous invasions, cultural shifts, and technological advancements, shaping the division of English into three major periods: Old English (c. 450–1150), Middle English (c. 1150–1500), and Modern English (1500–present). From its earliest roots in the dialects of the Germanic tribes who migrated to Britain, English has evolved into a rich tapestry of influences, drawing on Latin, Old Norse, French, and countless other sources. While each period witnessed fundamental changes in grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, it is the development of vocabulary that will be the focus here. In order to determine which of these periods had the most extensive impact on this aspect of the language, we must first examine the significant events and changes that have shaped the language, and assess the extent to which they have influenced its lexicon.

OLD ENGLISH 

Baugh and Cable assert that ‘the English language of today is the language that has resulted from the history of the dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes who came to England’ (Baugh and Cable, 2002, p. 51), so it makes sense to begin there. Sometime around AD 449 an invasion of Britain by the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes began, lasting over one hundred years and, inevitably, bringing with it its own grammar and vocabulary. These tribes are thought of as the ‘founders of the English nation’ (Baugh and Cable, 2002, p. 47), and as such, are also the founders of the English language [from the West Germanic branch of Indo-European]. Naturally, the vocabulary of Old English is far more Germanic than that of Modern English. The majority of the word-stock, which, we are told, was around thirty thousand, consisted of shorter words than those which later entered the language, such as folc [‘people’] and mod [‘heart’] (Gelderen, 2008, p. 73), or else, were compounds composed of such words, as in lar+hus [‘school’] and dim+hus [‘prison’] (Fennell, 2001, p. 77). However, despite the grammatical structure and considerable lexical and phonetic properties with which these tribes furnished the English language, an estimated eighty per cent of the vocabulary - our primary focus - has either not survived into modern English (Gelderen, 2008, p. 73), or else, has left English with cognates of modern German words, such as hound [German hund], house [German haus], and boat [German boot]. 

Around AD 597, the English nation began its conversion to Roman Christianity, pioneered by zealous missionaries from Ireland and Rome under the influence of St. Augustine; an event which supplied English with an influx of Latin loanwords that would continue for the next few hundred years. Given the nature of the event, it is unsurprising that those Latin words brought into English via Christianity, were mostly of an ecclesiastic and theological nature, including abbot from Latin abbas, altar from altare, angel from angelus, disciple from discipulus, pope from papa [‘governor’ or ‘tutor’], sacred from sacerdos [‘priest’ or ‘priestess’], and temple from templum, to name but a small few. Unlike many of the words introduced into English from the Anglo-Saxon tribes, a large amount of the words introduced by Christianity are, today, still part of the English ecclesiastic lexicon, thanks to the long-term establishment of Christianity in Britain. 

According to David Crystal (2003), the ‘second big linguistic invasion’ undergone by the language in the Old English Period, and arguably, the one of most significance where vocabulary is concerned, were the Viking raids, which began in AD 787. They lasted around two hundred years and by the mid-ninth century, regular settlement of the Danish and Norwegian Viking tribes had begun. With them, they brought over two thousand words from the Old Norse language [from the North Germanic branch of Indo-European], which were integrated into English. Although around one hundred and fifty of these cannot actually be found in Old English manuscripts, almost a thousand of them are still used in English today, such as bank, cake, law and window; as well as those English words which employ the [sk-] sound, a feature of Old Norse, such as skin, skill and sky (Crystal, 2003, p. 25). It is, at this point, important to note the evident similarities between Old English and Old Norse, both derivatives of German: man, wife, summer and winter are among some of the words held in common by the two languages. Such similarities, undoubtedly, had a large effect on vocabulary. Scandinavian, unlike English, did not undergo palatalisation, which made it possible to borrow non-palatalised words, to be used in addition to the palatalised ones already in use in English. As a result, phonetic word pairs like shirt and skirt, or shatter and scatter, which are not too dissimilar in meaning, can be found alongside each other in Modern English. This also led to the semantic shifting or, in some cases, complete disappearance of many other words, as new Scandinavian words replaced the Old English ones. Although, here, the primary focus is vocabulary, it is also important to note some of the grammatical effects of the Scandinavian dialects, which lead to changes in English vocabulary, such as the introduction of are, the present plural and present second person singular form of the verb to be, as well as the pronouns they, their, and them.

While the events of this period were foundational to the English language, it is difficult to argue that their impact rivals the extensive and fundamental changes to English vocabulary that took place during the Middle English period and marked the next major phase in the evolution of the language.

An excerpt from the opening lines of the epic poem Beowulf, written in Old English.

MIDDLE ENGLISH 

On 14th October 1066, the forces of Duke William II of Normandy defeated those of King Harold II of England at the Battle of Hastings, an event which marked a significant turning point in English history and the beginnings of a new lexical era. However, while the Battle of Hastings and subsequent Norman Conquest took place in 1066, the English vocabulary did not see the effects of this until considerably later, with over forty per cent of French loanwords arriving during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 

During this time, the English language was bestowed with an abundance of French words; some ten thousand were adopted into English (Crystal, 2003, p. 25), in such areas as the Church [cathedral, sacrament], the military [besiege, garrison], arts and leisure [paint, music], and food and cookery [appetite, dinner], to name a few. As French was the new language of the aristocracy, it is no surprise that these new loanwords were applied to the interests and activities of the upper class, such as restaurant, fashion and art. Similarly, words which were mostly associated with the activities of the lower classes retained their original Germanic forms, such as ox, sheep and swine. Fennell argues that ‘the fact that we can determine semantic fields of borrowing suggests that contact between the French and the English is of a completely different nature from that between the Scandinavian and the English’ (Fennell, 2001, p. 107). The Scandinavian invasion of Britain ended with the settlement of Vikings in Britain, whereas the Norman invasion resulted in, what can only be described as, conquest. After his victory, William I replaced the entire English nobility with French speaking Normans, as well as those Britons who held high positions in the Church and military, inevitably leading to the lexical domination of these areas by the French language. In addition to the many complete French words introduced into English, were the numerous hybrid forms which arose. For example, while the names of the members of the family nucleus kept their Germanic names [mother, father, son, daughter], many of the words for the more distant relations were either replaced by French ones [aunt, uncle], or else new hybrids were formed such as grandmother, grandfather, grandson and granddaughter, all of which combine the French adjective grande with an English noun of Germanic origin. 

In addition to the high number of Norman French words introduced into English, the Norman Conquest also saw the reintroduction of Latin words, particularly in such areas as medicine, law, religion and literature, including doctor, justice, and the words medicine, religion and literature, themselves. As well as lexemes, many affixes and derivational morphemes were brought into the English language from Latin via French, such as ex-, sub-, intra- and inter-. Crystal states that ‘the simultaneous borrowing of French and Latin words led to a highly distinctive feature of Modern English vocabulary’ (Crystal, 2003, p. 48): that is to say, a set of words, which occupy the same semantic space, with varying degrees of meaning, style or formality. An example of this phenomenon is the three words ask, question and interrogate: the first, an Old English word, and the more popular; the second, a French word, and more literary; and the third, a Latin word, more learned (Crystal, 2003, p. 48). In addition to Latin, the arrival of the French also saw words from other languages make their way into English, albeit, to a lesser extent. A considerable number of words from Arabic, in particular, with which the Normans had had prior contact [algebra, alkali], was introduced, as well as Spanish [cork] and Portuguese [marmalade]. Crystal also gives the example of the vocabulary of chess [chess, check, rook, mate], which came into English from French, but is ultimately Persian (2003, p. 48).

The borrowing of all these words had an undeniable effect on the balance of the English vocabulary. At the beginning of the Middle English period, over ninety per cent of lexemes were of Native English or Germanic origin. However, this percentage had decreased to around seventy-five per cent by the end of the Middle English period, with the size of the English lexicon doubling to over one hundred thousand words (Crystal, 2003, p. 126). 

MODERN ENGLISH 

The end of the Middle English period is generally considered to have taken place in the mid- to late-fifteenth century. During this time, the Renaissance, which had begun in the thirteen-hundreds, in Florence, Italy, was spreading through Europe, made possible by the invention of the Gutenburg printing press in 1440. However, it did not arrive in Britain until sometime later, during the reign of Elizabeth I. The Renaissance, a revived interest in the Classics, and in the rapidly developing fields of science, medicine and the arts, no doubt, contributed to the number of loanwords brought into English from Latin [transcribe, lunar], Ancient Greek [parenthesis, anonymous, thermometer] and the Romance languages [Italian stanza, Spanish guitar, Portuguese cocoa], as English writers found the vocabulary of English increasingly insufficient as a means of expressing many of the new concepts, techniques and inventions coming from the continent. 

However, it was not until the exploration of new, non-European territories, the beginning of which coincided with the Renaissance and was pioneered by such privateers as Christopher Columbus and Sir Walter Raleigh, that the greatest change in the Middle English vocabulary can be observed. Fennell specifically names ‘the lexicon’ as an ‘area of significant change in the language over this period’ (2001, p. 147). During this time, Britain, along with other European countries, began the Age of Discovery, and the subsequent large-scale colonisation of the Americas, Africa, parts of Asia, and many other island nations, culminating in the beginnings of a British Empire that would last until the twentieth century. With the beginning of the British Empire, which, by the 1700s, included parts of north America [until the War of Independence in 1783], Africa and the Caribbean, as well as India, in the East, the English lexicon began absorbing lexemes from all corners the globe, and continues to do so. Words such as Persian bazaar and caravan, Turkish coffee and kiosk, Malaysian ketchup and bamboo, Arabic zero and assassin, Urdu pyjamas, Hindi jungle, Swahili safari, plus a number of thousands more, for which there often was no English equivalent, all entered the English language as a direct result of the widespread colonisation of foreign territories, and consequent contact and communication with their inhabitants, that took place during the early Modern English period. 

In regards to vocabulary, the only event of the Modern English period, which seems to rival the impact of the British Empire on the English language, the effects of which are still being felt, is the dawn of the Age of Technology, the date of which is difficult to determine with absolute certainty. However, sometime during the nineteenth century, the English language saw, what Crystal describes as, ‘an unprecedented growth’ in its vocabulary (2003, p. 87). The Industrial Revolution and accompanying period of scientific exploration, which led to such theories as Darwin’s on evolution and Faraday’s on electricity, not to mention countless advances in medicine, once again left the English language in need of terminology specific to such practices. As a result, many scientific words were coined or adopted into English, such as watt, electron, Jurassic, Triassic, chromosome, sodium, caffeine, cocaine and kleptomania. The twentieth century saw an even greater influx of neologisms, as technology advanced at an incredible rate, with the invention of motorised vehicles, aviation travel, space exploration, television, the computer and subsequent World Wide Web, as well as the rapid expansion of broadcasting, world media and social networks. Words such as spaceship, aeroplane, movie, cinema[-tograph], e-mail, website, meme, selfie, byte and click [previously no more than an onomatopoeic item], were coined, while words such as film, short, reel, news, monitor, mouse, drive and post adopted new or second meanings. However, it is not, at this point, entirely possible to determine the full extent of the effects of this period on English vocabulary, as we do not yet possess the benefit of hindsight. Still, it is obvious enough that the amount of words introduced into the English language during this most recent period, far exceeds that of any period prior. 

CONCLUSION 

To summarise, the Old English period can hardly be said to have facilitated momentous change in the vocabulary of the English Language, as the language was only just being established at the beginning of the period and the lexical effects of the Viking invasion nearer the end of the period, were largely eclipsed by the subsequent Norman invasion.  

In contrast, the changes that took place during the Middle English period were, indeed, fundamental and extensive. However, these changes seemed to occur to a greater degree in the area of grammar than that of vocabulary. And while the period of Middle English had an impact with lasting effects on the English language, Baugh and Cable admit that with the exception of the Norman Conquest, changes in vocabulary were not so great during that time (2002, p. 203). 

The modern English period, on the other hand, ushered in many events, all of which had massive and, more importantly, lasting effects on the vocabulary of English, with colonisation and the advent of modern technology at the forefront. While an estimated ten thousand words joined the English lexicon during the Middle English period as a result of the Norman Conquest, the Oxford English Dictionary lists over ninety thousand words which have entered English since the seventeenth century, a number which continues to grow. 

So, though it can be argued that the ‘most significant change of direction in the history of English’ – that is to say, a direction away from its Germanic roots – occurred during the Middle English period (Crystal, 2003, p. 125), it is clear that the Modern English period, from 1500 to the present day, has had a far more substantial and transformative impact on the English language where vocabulary is concerned. 

References

• Baugh, C and Cable. (2002) A History of The English Language. London: Routledge.

• Crystal, D. (2003) The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of The English Language. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

• Fennel, B. (2001) A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.