Was the English language Created, or, Evolved???

[opihimoimoi]

[ixion]

1. it all started with 'Ugh', and moved forward from there...

so I would have to answer the latter, that it evolved.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. from "ugh" to "you know" took 24 centuries.

It is hard to prove evolution with such developments.
But I agree, it has evolved, for the most part.

[jmm]

2. Evolved, only a few languages such as esperanto

have been created.

[ClintonTyree]

3. Intelligent design..........

don't forget intelligent design.
I'll have to consult the Flying Spaghetti Monster on this, only he/she/it has the wisdom to answer such a question.

[opihimoimoi]

5. LOL.....

[iamahaingttta]

8. I love the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

A beer volcano and stripper factory in heaven!
Religions don't get any better than that!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. English was touched by his noodly apendage? n/t

[Alamom]

4. Evolved, borrowed from others and adds words as they become

acceptable and in common use. (2 good sites)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

English is a West Germanic language that originated from languages brought to Britain during the first half of the first millennium by Germanic settlers from various parts of north-west Germany. The original Germanic language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become highly 'creolised'; creolisation arises 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-Friesian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a 'borrowing' language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary.




http://www.krysstal.com/english.html

[opihimoimoi]

7. English is a Bastard??? Barely know our Daddy? I luv it....

[Igel]

22. The creolisation view was popular in the '60s and

'70s, when all kinds of languages were viewed as creolised.

Most of the traits attributed to creolisation with Norman French started before French influence were possible, and are common enough processes given the conditions that were present: strong accent and a reduced nominal morphology.

Some linguists, mostly older, and outliers in the field, still buy into the view. Few historical linguists (rather like Whorf is dominant among some literary scholars, but fewer linguists).

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Evolved...

from the Germanic Saxon dialect (c. 500 AD) that was the precursor of Old English (c. 800-1000 AD), into Middle English (c. 1200-1400AD) after Norman French and Latin influence, and thence into Modern English (c. 1600's-1700's or so).

[Ravenseye]

28. Just Look at the evidence....Beowulf, Chaucer, etc

first few lines of Beowulf, in Old English

"HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum, þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon! oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah, oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!"


and centuries pass and the first few lines of 'The Knights Tale' from 'The Canterbury Tales' by Chaucer

"Whilom, as olde stories tellen us, Ther was a duc that highte Theseus; Of Atthenes he was lord and governour, And in his tyme swich a conquerour, That gretter was ther noon under the sonne. Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne, What with his wysdom and his chivalrie; He conquered al the regne of Femenye, That whilom was ycleped Scithia, And weddede the queene Ypolita, And broghte hir hoom with hym in his contree, With muchel glorie and greet solempnytee, And eek hir yonge suster Emelye."

Just a tad better...a few centuries later and we have Sir Thomas More and his first lines of Utopia

"HENRY VIII, the unconquered King of England, a prince adorned with
all the virtues that become a great monarch, having some
differences of no small consequence with Charles, the most serene
Prince of Castile, sent me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for
treating and composing matters between them."

Gets easier with each century doesn't it.

[HamdenRice]

11. chicken-poulty, swine-pork, deer-venison, cow-beef

This is one of the interesting quirks of English. In 1066 after the Norman Conquest, England was a land of Germanic-Scandanavian peasants and serfs ruled by a French speaking aristocracy.

Hence, unlike in other languages, the word for the animal, tended by the Germanic peasants was a Germanic word; but the word for the meat as served at the local lord's table was a French word. Chicken (like Dutch kuiken) vs. poultry (like French poulet); swine and pig are germanic, but pork is French; etc., etc.

We also have two words for many concepts: Love (Germanic) vs amorous (latinate), etc.

[opihimoimoi]

13. Even got Hawaiian in the ENG Dictionary, Lanai, Lava, lei, luau etc

[Gildor Inglorion]

12. Tough, though, through, thorough - isn't this evidence of evolution?

No sensible creator would create a language wherein lay, set, and fast have numerous, unrelated, and sometimes contradictory meanings. English is the best and most nearly perfect product of the evolving genius of the human race.

[opihimoimoi]

14. Nature at work, Bingo, luv it....

[Canuckistanian]

15. Evolved

If someone had proposed a language like modern-day English turned out to be, they would have been laughed at.

Germanic roots, Norman French and Norse influenced, Latin and Greek structures and major borrowings from over a dozen other languages.

In it's time, English has been alternately praised and condemned as the "common people's" language. At one point, English almost disappeared, except for a group of fiercely proud speakers.

Nope, just plain evolution.

[tocqueville]

16. How French Has Influenced English

http://french.about.com/library/bl-frenchinenglish.htm

Les influences de la langue française dans la langue anglaise

The English language has been shaped by a number of other languages over the centuries, and many English speakers know that Latin and German were two of the most important. What many people don't realize is how much the French language has influenced English.

Without going into too much detail, I want to give a little bit of background about the other languages which shaped English. It was born out of the dialects of three German tribes (Angles, Jutes, and Saxons) who settled in Britain in about 450 A.D. This group of dialects forms what linguists refer to as Anglo-Saxon, and at some point this language developed into what we know as Old English. This Germanic base was influenced in varying degrees by Celtic, Latin, and Scandinavian (Old Norse) - the languages spoken by invading armies.

During the Norman occupation, about 10,000 French words were adopted into English, some three-fourths of which are still in use today. This French vocabulary is found in every domain, from government and law to art and literature - learn some. More than a third of all English words are derived directly or indirectly from French, and it's estimated that English speakers who have never studied French already know 15,000 French words. (2)

[opihimoimoi]

17. Voila, fermez moi bouche

LOL

[TalkingDog]

18. English was intelligently designed.

It's always been spoken the exact way it is now.

Look at the homonyms...do you think that chance or evolution could create a homonym? That is patently ridiculous.

Any discussion you hear about words or language or "lingo" changing over time is false. Dictionaries (especially the OED, which has the words history) are a "joke" created by the designer to test our faith.

edited because misspellings are a grave and mortal sin.

[opihimoimoi]

34. and the dictionary is 6000 years old too. LOL

[Art_from_Ark]

41. Yes that's right

English and all the other languages began at the Tower of Babel, and haven't changed at all since! :crazy:

[lateo]

19. It is still evolving.

Just like we are still evolving...

[PurityOfEssence]

25. Well, IT is; I don't know about us...

Another fun word is "mansion"; the locals lived in more humble abodes, but the Norman Lords lived in "maisons", french for "house".

[KharmaTrain]

20. It Is Beyond Us Mere Mortals To Ponder...

Opi...I'm gonna have to try this argument on the next religious nut I run into.

Yep...English is Darwinism in action. :bounce:

Now is there a way of tracing things back to a chimp, or does that connect into this tree when Rush Limbo was born? :rofl:

Actually, the etemology of the English language is a fascinating study in many cultures. So few understand the richness of the language we speak.

Cheers...

[opihimoimoi]

35. Cheers to you .....Darwinism in action since the ole australopithicus daze

:beer: :toast:

[KharmaTrain]

38. Now We Can Etemologize Further

There's the variation that became the Aussie

The variation that became the Canadian

The variation that became the Hawaiian

And the mutation that went bad that became the Freeper :rofl:

:hi:

[opihimoimoi]

39. Convincing evidence abounds....

:laugh: :rotflmao: :smoke: :beer:

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. Language is a virus...

;-)

[highplainsdem]

23. Evolved. Read "The Story of English," or rent or buy the PBS series,

for a great history of the language.

[MsTryska]

24. evolved......

started with german roots and branched into french and latin.

[Igel]

26. Languages evolve (although it's a horrible

way of putting it, since languages are only what people speak,
and don't so much 'evolve' as 'are changed').

Nostratic to Indo-European to Germanic to Anglo-Saxon to
English.  English includes Southern English, Indian English,
Wessex, and Scots.  Some have [r], some have a retroflex
continuant, some have length in the place of *r.  Some have a
viable subjunctive, some lack robust number/person agreement
on verbs.  English is a mix of hundreds of dialects.

Literary (or standard) languages are largely created, with a
norm typically imposed by educated elites.  With English, the
standard was based on London English, with a few imported
features (like the borrowed word 'they', and verbs ending in
-s).  Why?  Because of printing: they needed to sell their
books, London was the biggest market, but not the only market.
 It was also the center of government, and a large city.  But
English is flexible, the lexical and grammatical base dictated
by market forces and popular opinion, and it's continued to be
so.  It makes the written language sort of a
middle-of-the-road dialect; London was a good choice of
dialect base.

The language has continued to change, unsupervised by all but
the occasional purist and wannabe planner, with local and
regional variants developing their own standard forms.  The
American standard is based on the Midlands dialect, minus some
of its dialectal features; it used to be called "NBC
English", half jokingly, and is the language of media;
some older 'educated' and 'prestige' features didn't maintain
their status.  Few speak standard English as their native
language; many, but not most, speak something close to it.  

[opihimoimoi]

40. Thanks for a most enlightening post.....sending beer and ribs....

[CBGLuthier]

27. And then there is the great vowel shift

http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/vowels.html


The main difference between Chaucer's language and our own is in the pronunciation of the "long" vowels. The consonants remain generally the same, though Chaucer rolled his r's, sometimes dropped his aitches, and pronounced both elements of consonant combinations, such as "kn," that were later simplified. And the short vowels are very similar in Middle and Modern English. But the "long" vowels are regularly and strikingly different. This is due to what is called The Great Vowel Shift.

Beginning in the twelfth century and continuing until the eighteenth century (but with its main effects in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries) the sounds of the long stressed vowels in English changed their places of articulation (i.e., how the sounds are made).

Old and Middle English were written in the Latin alphabet and the vowels were represented by the letters assigned to the sounds in Latin. For example, Middle English "long e" in Chaucer's "sheep" had the value of Latin "e" (and sounded like Modern English "shape" in the International Phonetic Alphabet ). It had much the same value as written long e has in most modern European languages. Consequently, one can read Chaucer's long vowels with the same values as in Latin or any continental European language and come pretty close to the Middle English values.

[rfrrfrrfr]

29. The History Channel international

has an excellent documentary series running right now on the English Language.

[Davis_X_Machina]

32. Great Vowel Shift...

...is the second version of the phenomenon's name.

The 'Great Vowel Movement' wasn't all that popular.

[derby378]

30. Definitely evolved

And still evolving today. America is the new Petri dish for English because of our increasingly multicultural blend.

[RedCloud]

31. English was for stark raving lunatics!

The Roman Legion went in there and resistance was futile. So much of "English" is imposed latin words due to roman occupation (or civilization).

Look at how stupid the English language is:

I (most common subject pronoun)
to be (most common verb)

I am (Good so far!)
Contraction: I'm

Now make a negative contraction of it!

I ain't. The masses rule! They tried to fix that cockeyed language.

[StellaBlue]

33. Read the introduction to your dictionary, if you've never done it.

Always provides a great overview of this fascinating topic.

[Ioo]

36. Jesus did it, Tower of Bable and so on

[opihimoimoi]

37. All living languages seem to evolve....taking in new words and phrases

over time and becomes accepted as part of.

The Japanese have many words taken from English and fused with theirs: Biru/Beer, Tabaru/table, knifu/knife, tobak/tobacco, etc

It is Nature at work or is it....always looking for a better way?

[ikri]

42. Gif eow geliefan

þæt Engliscgereorde næfre frod awendan ofer first, eow abreoðan asmeagan

Or..If you believe that English Language never experienced change over time, you fail understand.

Ok, so the translation is a little literal but you get the idea. It's a translation of Modern to Old English using a dictionary from here. Old English was probably closer to Modern Danish than it is to Modern English. All living languages evolve, constantly.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

43. You forgot! "Designed Intelligence" ;) nt