A Brief History of English.doc
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1、A Brief History of EnglishNo understanding of the English language can be very satisfactory without a notion of the history of the language. But we shall have to make do with just a notion. The history of English is long and complicated, and we can only hit the higl1 spots.不了解英语的历史很难真正掌握这门语言,然而对此我们只
2、能做到略有所知。因为英语的历史既漫长又复杂,我们只能抓住其发展过程中的几个关键时期。At the time of the Ro1nan Empire, the speakers of what was to become English were scattered along the northern coast of Europe. They spoke a dialect of Low German. More exactly, they spoke several different dialects, since they were several different tribes.
3、 The names given to the tribes who got to England are Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who are referred to collectively as Anglo-Saxons4.在罗马帝国时期,散居在欧洲北部沿海的居民说一种西部德语的方言,这就是英语的前身。更确切地说,由于隶属于不同的部落,他们说的是几种不同的方言。这些后来迁移到英格兰的部落被称为盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人,现在则被统称为盎格鲁-撒克逊人。Not much is known about the arrival of the Anglo-Saxo
4、ns in England. We do know, however, that the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were a long time securing themselves in England. Fighting went on for as long as a hundred years before the Celts in England were all killed, driven into Wales, or reduced to slavery. By 550 or so the Anglo-Saxons were firmly est
5、ablished. English was in England.这些部落何时迁移到英格兰的,我们没有掌握确切信息。但是据我们所知,在很长一段时间内他们为自卫而战。与凯尔特人的战争持续了一百多年,直到英格兰境内的凯尔特人不是被杀,就是被迫流亡到威尔士或沦为奴隶。到了公元550年前后,盎格鲁-撒克逊人才定居下来。英语从此来到了英格兰。It is customary to divide the history of the English, language into three periods: Old English, Middle English, Modern English. Old E
6、nglish runs from the earliest records -i. e. seventh century - to about 1100; Middle English from 1100 to 1450 or 1500; Modern English from 1500 to the present day.我们习惯上把英语的发展分为三个时期:古英语,中世纪英语和现代英语。古英语时期从最早的历史记载即公元七世纪到1100年;中世纪英语时期从1100年到1450或1500年;现代英语时期从1500年至今。When England came into history, it wa
7、s divided into several more or less autonomous kingdoms, some of which at times exercised a certain amount of control over the others. In the sixth century the most advanced kingdom was Northurnbria. Two centuries later, Wessex, the country of the West Saxons, became the leading power. The most famo
8、us king of the West Saxons was Alfred the Great, who was famous not only as a military man and adm1n1strator but also as a champion of learning. He founded and supported schools ar1d translated or caused to be translated many books from Latin into English.根据最早的历史记载,当时的英格兰被分裂为几个享有一定自治权利的王国。在一定时期,其中的某
9、一个王国对其他王国实行一定的统治。公元六世纪,最强大的王国是诺森伯里亚。两个世纪之后,由西撒克逊人建立的威塞克斯王国成为了领袖,其最富盛名的国王叫阿尔弗烈德大帝,他不仅是一个卓越的军事家和管理者,还是个大学问家。他出资建校,而且亲自动笔或请人将许多拉丁语的书籍翻译成英语。In the military sphere, Alfreds great accomplishment was his successful opposition to the Viking invasions. The linguistic result was a considerable injection of No
10、rse into the English language. Norse was at this time not so different from English as Norwegian or Danish is now. Probably speakers of English could understand, more or less, the language of the newcomers who had moved into eastern England. At any rate, there was considerable interchange and word b
11、orrowing. Examples of Norse words in the English language are sky, give, law, egg, outlaw, leg, ugly, scant, sly, crawl, scowl, take, and thrust. There are hundreds more. We have even borrowed some pronouns from Norse - they, their, and them.在军事领域,阿尔弗烈德大帝最大的成就是成功抵抗了北欧海盗的入侵,结果造成了古挪威语大量进入英语。当时的挪威语与英语比
12、较接近,就像今天的挪威语和丹麦语一样。以英语为母语的人或多或少能听懂来到英格兰东部定居的新邻居使用的语言。来自古挪威语的英语单词多达几百个,包括sky, give, law, egg, outlaw, leg, ugly, scant, sky, crawl, scowl, take, thrust。甚至有些代词也是来源于古挪威语的,如they, their和them。In grammar, Old English was, much more highly inflected than modern English is. That is, there were mote case endi
13、ngs for nouns, more person and number endings for verbs, a more complicated pronoun system, various endings for adjectives, and so on. Old English nouns had four cases-nominative, gen1tive, dative, accusative .Adjectives had five all these and an instrumental case besides. Present-day English has on
14、ly two cases for nouns common case and possessive case. Adjectives now have no case system at all. On the other hand, we now use a more rigid, word order and more structure words to express relationships than Old English did.在语法上,古英语的曲折变化远远多于现代英语。古英语的名词有四种格变化,即主格,所有格,与格和宾语;形容词有五种格变化,除了以上四种还有工具格。而现代英
15、语中,名词只有两种格变化,即普通格和所有格;形容词不再有格的变化。而另一方面,与古英语相比,现代英语使用更为严格的语序和丰富的结构词来表示句子成分之间的关系。In vocabulary old English is quite different from Modern English. Most of the Old English words are what we may call native English: that is, words which have not been borrowed from other languages but which have been a p
16、art of English ever since English was a part of Indo-European1. Old English did certainly contain borrowed words. We have seen that many borrowings were coming in from Norse. Rather large numbers had been borrowed from Latin: cheese, butter, bishop, kettle, angel, candle, priest, martyr, radish, oys
17、ter, purple, school, spend, and so on. But the great n1ajority of Old English words were native English.Now only about 14 percent are native. 在词汇上,古英语也与现代英语有诸多不同之处。古英语中的绝大多数单词如今被称为英语本土词,即自英语作为印欧语言的一部分起就存在的,而不是从其他语言引入的词汇。虽然古英语中也有一些外来词,除了古挪威语之外,还有不少词来自于拉丁语,如cheese, butter, bishop, kettle, angel, candl
18、e, priest, martyr, radish, oyster, purple, school, spend等。但是古英语的主体是英语本土词,而这些词只占现代英语词汇的百分之十四。Sometime between the years 1000 and 1200 various important changes took place in the structure of English, and Old English became Middle English. The political event which facilitated these changes was the No
19、rman Conquest. In 1066, led by Duke William, the Normans crossed the Channel and made themselves masters of England. For the next several hundred years, England was ruled by kings whose first language was French.大约在公元1000年和1200年之间,英语的结构发生了重大变化。这些变化是由一个历史上称为诺曼底征服的政治事件造成的。1066年,威廉公爵带领诺曼人渡过英吉利海峡,占领了英格兰
20、。在此后的几个世纪中,英格兰一直处于法兰西国王的统治下。Great numbers of Normans came to England, but they came as rulers and landlords. French became the language of the court, the language of the nobility, the language of polite society, the language of literature. But it did not replace English as the language of the people
21、. There must always have been hundreds of towns and villages in which French was never heard except when visitors of high station passed through.大量的诺曼人以统治者和地主的身份进入了英格兰。法语成为了宫廷语言,贵族语言,政治语言和文学语言,但是并没有取代英语成为普通民众日常使用的语言。在许多乡村小镇,除了上流社会的客人经过,法语闻所未闻。But English, though it survived as the national language,
22、 was profoundly changed after the Norman Conquest. It is in vocabulary that the effects of the Conquest are 1nost obvious. French ceased, after a hundred years or so, to be the native language of very many people in England, but it continued - and continues still to be a zealously cultivated second
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