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The Adventure Of English - Episode 1 Birth of a Language - BBC Documentary — Transcript

by Robin C. Carter · 6,100 words · 1,048 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:13[music]
0:18[music]
0:23This is the South Bank in London.
0:272,000 years ago, if you'd heard a human
0:30voice around here, the language would
0:33have been incomprehensible.
0:36A thousand years ago, the English
0:38language had established its first base
0:41camp. Today, English circles the globe.
0:46It inhabits the air we breathe. What
0:48started as a gutal tribal dialect
0:50seemingly isolated in a small island is
0:53now the language of well over a thousand
0:55million people [music] around the world.
1:09[music]
1:14[music]
1:21[music]
1:24The story of the English language is an
1:26extraordinary one. It has the
1:28characteristics of a bold and successful
1:31adventure, tenacity, luck, near
1:34extinction on more than one occasion,
1:36dazzling flexibility, and an
1:39extraordinary power to absorb. And it's
1:41still going on. New dialects, new
1:44Englishes are evolving all the time, all
1:47over the world.
1:50Successive invasions introduced [music]
1:52then threatened to destroy our language.
1:56Our first program tells that story.
2:01For 300 years, English was forced
2:03underground. Our second program tells
2:06how it survived and how it fought back.
2:09Our [music]
2:13third program will tell how the English
2:14language took on [music] the power
2:16blocks of church and state.
2:19Our fourth, how it became the language
2:21of Shakespeare.
2:23In later programs, we're going to leave
2:25these shores as English did to tell the
2:28story of how in America the language
2:30[music] of one great empire became that
2:32of another.
2:34We'll go to the Caribbean where a
2:36variety of new part [music] English
2:37dialects took root.
2:41India where English became a commanding
2:43unifying language in a country of a
2:45thousand tongues.
2:48And Australia where a confident new
2:50English was invented by a people many of
2:52whom had been expelled from [music]
2:54their mother country.
2:59We'll travel through time too to explore
3:01how English in the 21st century [music]
3:03has become the international language of
3:05business, the language in which the
3:07world's citizens communicate.
3:13[music]
3:14Over the last 1500 years, these small
3:17islands have achieved much that is
3:18remarkable.
3:20But in my view, England's greatest
3:22success story of all is the English
3:25language.
3:27These programs are about the words we
3:29think in, talk in, write in, sing in.
3:32The words that describe the life we
3:35live.
3:43[music]
3:48This is where we can begin. Just after
3:51dawn in a foreign country on a flat
3:53shore by the North Sea in what we now
3:56call the Netherlands.
4:00This is Freezeland. And it's in this
4:03part of the world that we can still hear
4:05the modern language that we believe
4:07sounds closest to what the ancestor of
4:09English sounded like 1500 years ago.
4:22In Freezland, many people start their
4:24day listening to the weather forecast
4:26from popular weatherman Pete Palma.
4:33Some of his words might sound familiar
4:34like three and four, frost and freeze.
4:43mist and blue.
4:50The reason we can recognize these words
4:52is that modern friian and modern English
4:55can both be traced back to the same
4:57family, the Germanic family of
4:59languages. And some words have stayed
5:01more or less the same down the
5:02centuries.
5:06Butter, bread, cheese, meal, sleep.
5:12boat, snow, sea, storm.
5:20[music]
5:22The West Germanic tribes who invented
5:24these words were a warlike, adventurous
5:26people.
5:28They'd been on the move through Europe
5:29for the best part of a thousand years
5:31and now had settlements in what we would
5:33call the lands of Northern Europe,
5:35Holland, Germany, and Denmark. But they
5:38were still greedy for land, ready to
5:40move on.
5:42This is the island of Tashelli.
5:44The English coast is about 250 mi to the
5:47southwest behind me. It was from these
5:50islands and the low-lying Friszzian
5:52mainland that in the fifth century a
5:54Germanic tribe part of the family that
5:56also contained jutes, angles and Saxons
5:58made sail to look for a better life and
6:01they took their language our language
6:03with them.
6:19with this land
6:22war
6:25for
6:28the Germanic tribes weren't the first to
6:30invade our shores. More than 500 years
6:33before the Romans had also come by sea
6:35to impose their will. Now their empire
6:38had crumbled and [music] they'd
6:39abandoned these islands, leaving the
6:41native tribes, the Britons or Kelts to
6:44their fate.
6:46[music]
6:48This is Pevena Castle, an ancient Roman
6:51fort that used to stand on the very
6:53shoreline of the south coast. The
6:55Chronicle of the period reports that in
6:57the year 491, Germanic invaders laid
7:00siege and slaughtered the Kelts who had
7:02taken refuge here. Not one of them was
7:04left alive. Other cults did survive the
7:07invasion, a million or more of them in
7:09England, but they were a broken people.
7:11The clue to their fate lies in the word
7:13the Germanic tribes used to describe
7:15them. It was wheelas, a name that lives
7:18on in our modern language as Welsh. 1500
7:21years ago, it meant both foreigner and
7:23slave. The Kelts became servants and
7:26followers, secondclass citizens. The
7:28only way up was to become part of the
7:30invader's tribes, to adopt their culture
7:33and their language.
7:37The Kelts and their language were pushed
7:39to the margins.
7:43[music]
7:44Only a handful of words from the Celtic
7:46languages survive into modern English.
7:50In the north where I come from, we have
7:52crag meaning rock, [music]
7:55kum meaning deep valley and dialect
7:58words like brat and brock for badger.
8:02[music]
8:07[music]
8:10There are traces in place names. [music]
8:12The to inpa spelled as torpenhau, a
8:16neighboring village to my own that comes
8:18from the Celtic for peak.
8:22[music]
8:23The car of Carlile means a fortified
8:26place.
8:28[music]
8:31In the south they left us the names of
8:33Tames and Aan, Dober and London. But
8:36these were fragments. The language that
8:39prevailed was that of the victors.
8:44[music]
8:46By the end of the sixth century, these
8:48Germanic tribes occupied half of
8:50mainland Britain.
8:52They had divided into a number of
8:54kingdoms. Kent, Sussex, Essex and
8:58Wessex, denoting the settlements of
9:00southern, eastern and western Saxon
9:02[music] tribes.
9:04East Anglia named after the Angles who
9:06gave England its name.
9:09Mercia in the Midlands, North Umbrea in
9:12the north.
9:14[music]
9:15Throughout these areas, many modern
9:17place names come from that settlement or
9:19use the words they brought. We live with
9:21them. We live in them every day.
9:28The ing in modern place names [music]
9:31means the people of
9:35ton as in wicking where I come from
9:37means enclosure or village.
9:44Ham means farm which might surprise one
9:47or two Tottenham supporters.
9:53Glories [music]
9:59[music]
10:00right now.
10:10The Germanic tribes now settled around
10:12the country all spoke their own
10:14dialects. From among them would emerge
10:16one language, Anglo-Saxon or old
10:18English. And we all speak it every day.
10:21Without power strikers, none of them can
10:23really finish. Armstrong even
10:25we just need some youth from really.
10:28Examine the language you use today and
10:30you'll still find hundreds of words from
10:32a language over 1500 years old. Keywords
10:35ranging from the names we give family
10:37members to numbers. Also, what you
10:40reckon today? I think we'll win two
10:42months though. So,
10:43I'll drink to that.
10:45I live in like a West Ham sort of area
10:47and I've got a lot of West Ham friends.
10:49Um, but for this game, we'll be enemies.
10:50For the home games, I would go with kind
10:53of the guys we meet up from the Tops
10:54Birds website or with my daughter to
10:57other games and she's five at the
10:58moment. Um, loves it. She loves singing
11:01the songs, the nice ones. Anyway,
11:03I was coming with my son, so we just go
11:05and get something to eat first. Um, go
11:08into the ground, savor the atmosphere
11:10and watch the game. There has been a few
11:11highscoring games over the years. I
11:13think the highest we ever beat them was
11:146-1. Um, a repeat today wouldn't go and
11:16miss. Most of those words were from old
11:19English. Nouns like youth, son,
11:22daughter, field, friend, home, and
11:25ground. Prepositions like in and on,
11:28into, by and from, and the are from old
11:33English. All the numbers and verbs like
11:35drink, come and go, sing, like, and
11:39love.
11:41But would these words have sounded
11:42different all those years ago in a
11:44slightly quieter pub? I asked language
11:46expert Katy Low.
11:48They sound a little different. I mean,
11:49the old English for sun is sunnu. That's
11:52not so very different. Game is gar. Uh
11:56ground is grunt. Um and I noticed that
11:59Steve says his his daughter loves uh
12:02singing songs. If you said that in old
12:04English, it would be his doctor.
12:08And you can see that that sounds pretty
12:10much like modern English.
12:12So, in fact, you can have a good
12:13conversation in old English.
12:14Oh, yes, you can indeed. I mean each
12:16each word I'm saying now is from old
12:19English.
12:20Any estimate how many words there were
12:21swirling around compared with how many
12:23words we have now?
12:24We think it was in the region of 25,000
12:27words. And compare that with an average
12:28desk dictionary which maybe contains
12:30something like 100,000 words. It sounds
12:32pretty small. But if you think about the
12:34fact that an averely educated person
12:36will probably have about 10,000 words in
12:38their active vocabulary. There are
12:39plenty of words to go round.
12:45English took its first steps away from
12:47its tribal roots with the revival of
12:49Christianity.
12:54He often reaches [music]
12:56me and his mankal
13:12lord.
13:26In 597, the monk and prior Augustine led
13:30a mission from Rome to Kent.
13:33Around the same time, Irish monks of the
13:35Celtic church were establishing a
13:36presence in the north.
13:39[music]
13:40Within a century, Christians built
13:42churches and monasteries. This is St. PS
13:45in Jerro, parts of which date from the
13:487th century. [music]
13:56Faith and stone weren't the only things
13:59the Christian missionaries brought to
14:00the country. They brought the
14:02international language of the Christian
14:03religion, Latin. Latin terms became part
14:07of the English word horde. Altar became
14:09altar. Apostilus became apostle. Mass,
14:12monk and verse and many others all come
14:14from the Latin. This would become a
14:17pattern of English. The layering of
14:18words taken from different source
14:21languages and from Latin too. The
14:23English took their script.
14:29[music] The Angles, Saxons, Friians and
14:32Judes who had become the English hadn't
14:34brought script as we know it with them
14:36but runes.
14:39[music]
14:45The runic alphabet was made up of
14:47symbols formed mainly of straight lines
14:50so that the letters could be carved into
14:52stone or wood.
14:54Those with their media rather than
14:56parchment or paper.
15:00Though this is a short poem, most
15:02examples of runic writing that survive
15:04suggest runes were mainly used for short
15:06practical messages or graffiti.
15:16[chanting]
15:21The Latin alphabet was different with
15:23its curves and bows. It allowed words to
15:25be easily written using pen and ink onto
15:28pages of parchment or vellum which
15:30gathered together into a book could be
15:32widely circulated.
15:49Christianity brought the book to these
15:50shores. [music]
15:54Verbom the word.
15:59[music]
16:05Soon a native culture of scholarship
16:06began to flower. A culture based on
16:09Latin and on writing. [music]
16:15The magnificent Lindisvan Gospels were
16:17created in the 8th century on the island
16:19of Lindesvan just off the [music]
16:21northeast coast.
16:24A few miles south at the monastery of
16:27St. Paul's injury, the great English
16:29monk and scholar bead, born and educated
16:32in North Umbrea, began writing the first
16:34ever history of the English-speaking
16:36people.
16:40He wrote, of course, in Latin, the
16:41language of scholarship.
16:45The prevailing language among the people
16:46was still old English, but Latin, this
16:49powerful medium, was now amongst them.
16:52Now, old English was written down using
16:55the Latin alphabet while retaining some
16:57of the old runes as letters. From the
16:597th century, we find English itself
17:02written on parchment in a language and a
17:04script which we can just about recognize
17:06as our own.
17:10[music]
17:17to reach
17:23and
17:25fluff [music]
17:28today and forgi
17:39with writing. Old English stole a march
17:41on other languages spoken in Europe at
17:43the time. Prayers were recorded and
17:45books of the Bible translated. The laws
17:47of the land were written down and the
17:49language soon became capable of
17:51recording and expressing an increasingly
17:53wide and subtle range of human
17:55experience.
17:58And in the right hands, old English was
18:00now powerful and supple enough to take
18:02you to imaginary worlds. Fire the blood
18:05be poetry. [music]
18:15So
18:16the spear danes and days gone by and the
18:19kings who ruled them had courage and
18:21greatness. We have heard of those
18:24princes [music] heroic campaigns.
18:29No one knows who composed the epic
18:31bearwolf sometime between the mid-7th
18:33and end of the 10th century. It's the
18:35first great poem in the English
18:37language. the beginning of a glorious
18:39tradition which will lead to Chaucser,
18:40Shakespeare and beyond.
18:43The poem celebrates the glory days of
18:45the Germanic tribes epitomized in the
18:48heroic warrior who gives the poem its
18:50name.
18:52The power of the language can be heard
18:54in this passage which introduces
18:55Beaolf's archeneemy, [music] the monster
18:58Grenle.
19:01The com of Mais
19:04Leam
19:05Grenel Gongan
19:08Gorders
19:08in off the moors down through the mist
19:11bands god cursed Grenle came greedily
19:14loping
19:18the bane of the race of men roamed forth
19:21hunting for a prey in the high hallink
19:27spurned and joyless he journeyied on
19:29ahead and arrived at The bone unbreig
19:33the higorgan was in his rage boiled
19:36over. He ripped open the mouth of the
19:38building maddening for blood.
19:43He grabbed and mauled a man on his
19:45bench, bit into his bone lappings,
19:48bolted down his blood, and gorged on him
19:51in lumps, leaving the body utterly
19:55lifeless, eaten up hand and foot. What
19:59does that tell us about English at that
20:00time, Sheamus? What sort of language was
20:02it when you came to it? Do you think
20:03this is a fully developed poetic
20:05language?
20:06It's certainly a fully developed poetic
20:08language. Uh it's it's very it's capable
20:11of great elaboration. But what uh struck
20:14me generally about old English from the
20:16moment I read the bits of the
20:17Anglo-Saxon Chronicle right through to
20:19Beaolf is it's terrific for telling what
20:22happened. It's a a wonderful sense of
20:24the indicative mood all through it. is
20:27terrific for action, terrific for
20:29description.
20:32There's a wonderful forthright capacity
20:35to make up extra language in
20:37Anglo-Saxon.
20:42The words are are very clear and direct.
20:45Bone and house, for example, bone house.
20:47There you have the house for the body, a
20:49word for the body.
20:53Beautiful words for instruments. Uh the
20:56harp is called uh gloo bam the glee beam
21:01the happy the happy wood or else um the
21:04joywood uh I think so woodoo
21:13swords uh or shield the shield is the
21:16warboard we board
21:21that is a specific poetic energy that's
21:23in the language
21:25uh the the ability to make compounds
21:29which is still in German I guess gives
21:31it great beauty.
21:32How extensive is the vocabulary?
21:34I think there are 40,000 uh words
21:37recorded in in Beaywolf but a lot of the
21:40words repeat themselves in probably this
21:43is in poetry more than in the pros. If
21:46we heard an Anglo-Saxon speaker speaking
21:49uh under his roof to his companion, we'd
21:53probably hear a very a quicker a
21:55different less elaborate language from
21:57Beaolf.
21:58Would you say it was it is very clearly
22:00written to be read aloud?
22:01It's certainly written to be read aloud.
22:05The question that that agitates some
22:07scholars is whether it was written, you
22:09know, but I think the general uh
22:12consensus now is that by the time you
22:14get to Beayolf, you have a a writer um
22:18dealing with a traditional oral
22:20language.
22:32Certainly you you open the book what way
22:35and yagment asks to be uttered and there
22:37are many speeches in it and it comes off
22:40the tongue with with terrific
22:42directness.
22:45[music]
22:51Latin and Greek had created great bodies
22:54of literature in the classical past in
22:56the east. Arabic and Chinese were being
22:58used in the 8th and 9th century as
23:00languages of poetry. But at that time,
23:03no other language in the Christian world
23:06could match the achievement of the
23:07Beaolf poet and his anonymous
23:09contemporaries. Old English was
23:11flourishing. The adventure was underway.
23:15But while the seeds of English had come
23:17from these Frisian shores in the fifth
23:19century, so now in the late 8th century,
23:22a potential destroyer was preparing his
23:24battle fleet 500 miles or so to the
23:27north.
23:30[music]
23:59In the late 8th century, the Latin-based
24:02culture of scholarship which had grown
24:03up in places like Lindesvan and which
24:05had also been the cradle of old English
24:08faced extinction from across the sea.
24:15[music]
24:21These ruins are of the medieval
24:22monastery that stood on the island of
24:24Lindisvan.
24:29It was the Vikings who sacked and burned
24:32the religious center that stood here
24:34before.
24:36To these pagan pirates rampaging out of
24:39their longships in 793, this great
24:42center of Christian piety and
24:43scholarship, a pivotal place in the
24:46survival of the word and the gospels was
24:48no more than an undefended treasure
24:50house. The jewels that graced the books
24:52of the church became bbles around a
24:55Vikings's neck.
24:59[music]
25:02Today, the Vikings may seem romantic.
25:04reenacting their rituals, a good day
25:06out.
25:08Over 12 centuries ago, their arrival was
25:10not so cheerful.
25:13To many, it seemed to signal the end for
25:16civilization.
25:21A year after raising Lindesvarn, the
25:24Vikings returned and sacked Jarro, the
25:27abbey, where bead had been the greatest
25:29scholar in one of the finest libraries
25:31in Christrysendom.
25:36This stronghold of the Latin word where
25:38English was also being written down
25:40uniquely among European dialects was
25:43burned to the ground, its books with it.
25:53[music]
26:00[music]
26:01It was the start of 70 years of attack
26:03during which the Vikings savaged this
26:06eastern half of the country. Few stories
26:09survive of exactly where and when they
26:11attacked, perhaps chillingly because few
26:13were left to tell the tale. At first,
26:16the raiders went home with their
26:18plunder. Then they decided to take the
26:20land itself. In 865, the Vikings landed
26:23a great army south of here in East
26:26Anglia.
26:31Within 5 years, the Viking invaders, who
26:33were now called Danes, controlled the
26:35north and east of the country.
26:38Of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, only
26:41Wessex still held out. Old Norse, the
26:44language of the conquerors, was
26:46spreading throughout the land. Old
26:48English potentially [music] faced the
26:50same fate as the Celtic language it had
26:52supplanted, virtual oblivion. [music]
26:55English was in need of a champion.
26:59And it found one.
27:01[music]
27:07[music]
27:12King Alfred's statue stands here in
27:14Winchester, the capital of his ancient
27:16kingdom of Wessex. He's the only monarch
27:18in our history to be known as the Great,
27:20and he's often been hailed as the savior
27:23of England. That may be debatable, as
27:25the idea of a single unified England
27:27didn't really exist in Alfred's day.
27:30What is certain is that he was a great
27:32defender of the English language.
27:35[music]
27:37It was the Victorians who dubbed Alfred
27:39the Great. He was one of their darlings,
27:42an English hero whose exploits were
27:44enthusiastically woven into the fabric
27:46of national myth.
27:49But he very nearly didn't make it.
27:53He'd come to the throne of Wessex within
27:55a year of the first Danish attacks in
27:57the southeast, and at first he could
27:59hardly hold them back. In 878, the Danes
28:02won what appeared to be a decisive
28:04battle at Chippenham in Wiltshire.
28:14Alfred with only a few followers went on
28:17the run into the marshes of Somerset,
28:19moving as a contemporary wrote, "Under
28:22difficulties, through woods and into
28:24inaccessible places."
28:28Legend has Alfred, unrecognized, taking
28:31shelter in a poor woman's cottage and
28:33being scolded for burning the wheat and
28:35cakes he'd been set to mind.
28:39But the reality was less cozy. His
28:42situation was [music] desperate. And if
28:44Alfred's kingdom fell, the whole country
28:46would be controlled and settled by
28:48conquerors [music] whose language would
28:50inevitably crush English.
28:55[music]
28:57But Alfred proved to be an enterprising
28:59warrior and strategist. Running free in
29:02the Somerset Levels, he discovered the
29:04arts of irregular warfare and mounted
29:06guerrilla attacks against the occupying
29:08forces of Guthrun, the Danish invader.
29:11But he knew that wasn't going to be
29:12enough. For Wessex to be regained, the
29:15Danes had to be brought to battle and
29:17defeated. The fighting men of Wessex had
29:19been scattered. But in the spring of
29:21878, Alfred sent out a call for the men
29:23of the Shias, the county armies, to join
29:26him. Around 4,000 men, mainly from
29:28Wilshire and Somerset, armed only with
29:30battle axes and throwing spears,
29:32responded to the call. They mustered at
29:35Eggbert Stone, where trackways and
29:37ridgeways met. 48 hours later, they
29:40advanced, shields drumming, against the
29:42Danish army of 5,000, holding high
29:45ground at Ethanjune on the western edge
29:47of Sors reply. Contemporary English
29:50accounts describe the battle that
29:51followed as a slaughter and a route of
29:54the Danes by the West Saxons. Modern
29:56historians question that, but there's no
29:58doubt that Alfred prevailed. His crown
30:01and his kingdom were secured. And more
30:04importantly for our story, so was the
30:06English language.
30:10[music]
30:14The Dan surrendered. The leader was
30:16baptized as a Christian. And Alfred's
30:18crucial victory was memorialized here in
30:20Wiltshire in an earlier version of a
30:22great white horse carved into [music]
30:24the land he'd saved.
30:36Alfred left an even more significant
30:38mark on the country. He signed a peace
30:40treaty with the Danes which established
30:41[music] a border running up through the
30:43country from the tempames to the old
30:45Roman road of Wattling Street.
30:48The land to the north and east to be
30:49known [music] as the Dane law would be
30:51under Danish rule. The land to the south
30:53and west would be for the English.
30:56No one was [music] to cross the line
30:58unless to trade.
31:05In the course of time because of
31:07Alfred's peace treaty when Danes and
31:09English met they didn't do so to fight
31:11but to do business even to intermar.
31:16Oh yes,
31:17communities mixed and so did the
31:19languages and English rather than being
31:22engulfed by the Danes language began to
31:24absorb it.
31:30I'm in the market town of Hexom in the
31:32northeast of England. Maps of the area
31:34show just how widespread the Danish
31:36settlement was.
31:40Place names ending in by reveal the
31:43Danish name for farm.
31:46[music]
31:47Thorp denotes a village. Thuait a
31:50portion of land.
31:58The births, marriages, and deaths pages
32:00of the local paper feature lots of names
32:02ending in son. That was a Danish way of
32:04making a name by adding to the name of
32:06the father. Just on this page I can see
32:10Harrison, Gibson, Hudson, Robson,
32:14Sanderson, Dickinson, Simpson, Dickinson
32:18again, and Watson. In the school where I
32:21was just across the country, there was a
32:23Patterson, a Johnson, a Rollinsson, and
32:25another Dixon. Outside of the street,
32:28you can see the same thing on shop signs
32:30everywhere.
32:32[music]
32:34Even given centuries of people moving
32:36around the country, names ending in sun
32:39are still far more common in what were
32:40the Danish territories of the north and
32:42west than they are in the south and
32:44east. Above all, you can hear the echoes
32:46of the Dane's old Norse language in the
32:49way people speak.
32:51The char
32:53of sailor and lim.
32:56It's a little field on its own. As
32:58Willie says, there's a back down by the
33:00side of it. Runs down through a little
33:01wood. Well, it's such a lovely setting
33:03down by the uh you know down by in that
33:05garlic, isn't it?
33:06It's like a little isolation
33:09field. It's only it's only a couple of
33:10acres the whole time. Be
33:12interesting to see a few sheep sold with
33:13lambs.
33:15Are they allowed to be sold tonight?
33:16Some old Norse words stayed in the local
33:18dialects of the north. Words like beck
33:21for stream and g for paddock. As a boy
33:25in Wikon, I remember hearing and using
33:27dialect words like slattery for shower,
33:29slip for slippery, yet for gate, lap for
33:32leap, yak for oak, and yam for home, as
33:35in gang and yam. Pure Norse heard in
33:38Wikon every night of the week. And there
33:40were many others.
33:43But the influence of old Norse wasn't
33:45just local. All around the country over
33:48time, hundreds of Norse words entered
33:50the mainstream of English, and we still
33:52use them every day.
33:55The sk sound sound is a characteristic
33:57of old Norse and English borrowed words
33:59like score and sky and sky as well as
34:03perhaps a thousand others including
34:04anger, bull, freckle, knife, neck, root,
34:10skull, and window.
34:19Sometimes where both old Norse and old
34:21English had a word for the same thing,
34:23both words lived on in English, each
34:25taking on a slightly different meaning.
34:28Where old English said craft, old Norse
34:30said skill. For in English hide, the
34:33north said skin. In old English you were
34:36sick. In Norse you were ill.
34:40Here
34:42was another example of English's
34:44extraordinary ability to absorb to take
34:46in words from other languages adding
34:48them to its word horde increasing the
34:50richness and flexibility of the
34:52vocabulary.
34:54I think the the point about vocabulary
34:56is how much it astonishes by its
34:58ordinary nature. Words like law, egg,
35:02husband, leg, ill, die, ugly, all these
35:07words are from old Norse. And yet you
35:09wouldn't necessarily think that they
35:10were foreign at all. Most astounding of
35:12all I think are the pronouns they, their
35:16also from Old Norse.
35:18And in terms of grammar, in a way they
35:21simplified English, isn't they? They
35:22took it away from its Germanic roots.
35:24I think it's probably true to say that
35:26Old Norse affects the English language
35:28more than any other because it actually
35:30leads to a restructuring of the
35:32language. Old English uh forms sentences
35:35and not by word order as we do but by
35:38tacking on endings onto the ends of
35:40things like articles and pronouns and
35:42nouns. Um what happens is through
35:45contact with a a pretty similar
35:47language. Um a lot of these inflectional
35:49endings start to lose their distinctive
35:51nature and actually this is a process
35:53that we we can see happening fairly
35:54early on in the Anglo-Saxon period. So
35:56the language is prone to do that but
35:59contact with north languages speeded it
36:00up gave it a shove towards modernity.
36:03Can you give us a very simple example of
36:05that?
36:06Yes. Let's take a simple sentence like
36:08um the king gave horses to his men. That
36:11would be something like in old English.
36:17Now in old English you didn't tend to
36:19have a preposition like to. Instead, you
36:22could use a special ending which kind of
36:24meant to his men and that would be um a
36:29um ending and you just tack that onto
36:31the end of the noun for man. So you'd
36:34have gum
36:36um m ending. Now the plural for the word
36:38for horse you want to say gave horses to
36:40his men would be have an n on it. So it'
36:43be blancan.
36:45Unfortunately, towards the end of the
36:46Old English period, we start to see that
36:49um ending becoming more and more
36:52indistinct. And we see spellings like
36:54guman a just the same as blancan a
37:01and it's obvious that the king is more
37:03likely to give um uh horses to his men
37:05and men to his horses. But you can see
37:07that there's a potential there uh for
37:09difficulties. And so we start to see um
37:13prepositions being used in place of
37:15those endings which had become
37:16indistinct.
37:22Spoken English survived the Danish
37:24invasion.
37:26But as the 9th century drew to a close,
37:28the written culture was in a ruinous
37:30state and King Alfred was concerned.
37:35When Alfred looked at the state of his
37:37kingdom, he was appalled. The scholars
37:39in the monasteries had once made England
37:41the greatest powerhouse of Christian
37:43teaching in Europe. But 150 years had
37:46passed since the high days of bead and
37:48the scholarly tradition had declined
37:50hastened on its way by a century of
37:52Viking raids. In all the country art
37:55could barely find a handful of priests
37:56who could read and understand Latin. And
37:59if they couldn't understand Latin, they
38:01couldn't pass on the teachings of the
38:02religious books that told people how to
38:04lead virtuous lives. They couldn't save
38:07souls. Where the written word had once
38:10flourished, Alfred now found only
38:12chronic spiritual sickness. He looked
38:15for a cure. One way was to educate more
38:18clergy in Latin. But that wasn't enough.
38:20He hit on a more radical solution, a
38:23solution that hinged not on Latin, but
38:25on English. And he took English to new
38:28heights of achievement.
38:30[music]
38:31In the preface to his own translation of
38:33Pope Gregory's pastoral care, [music]
38:35Alfred wrote, "I remembered how before
38:38it was all ravaged and burned, I'd seen
38:41how the churches throughout all England
38:42stood filled with treasures and books,
38:45and there was also a multitude of God's
38:47servants who had very little benefit
38:49from those books because they couldn't
38:51understand anything of them since they
38:53[music] were not written in their own
38:54language.
39:00Their own language was of course
39:01English. Alfred didn't want to do away
39:03with Latin, but he realized that it
39:05would be far easier to teach people to
39:07read books written in the language they
39:09spoke. The best scholars could then go
39:12on to learn Latin and join holy orders.
39:14The rest would still have access to
39:16scholarship and spiritual guidance, but
39:18it would be written in English.
39:21[music]
39:23Here
39:28in his capital city [music] of
39:29Winchester, Alfred drew up a plan.
39:33It was an extraordinarily imaginative
39:35project [music] to promote literacy and
39:37restore the English language.
39:44[music]
39:51We should, he wrote, translate certain
39:53books which [music] are most necessary
39:55for all men to know into the language
39:57that we can all understand and also
39:59arrange it as with God's help we very
40:01easily can if we have peace so that all
40:04the youth of free men now among the
40:05English people who have the means to be
40:08able to devote themselves to it may be
40:10set to study for as long as they're of
40:12no other use until the time they're able
40:15to read English writing well.
40:19Alfred had five books of religious
40:21instruction, philosophy, and history
40:23translated from Latin into English, a
40:25laborious and costly undertaking.
40:28[music]
40:30Copies were sent out to the 12 bishops
40:32of his kingdom [music] for their wisdom
40:34to be spread as widely as possible.
40:39to each bishop. To emphasize the
40:41importance and value of the project,
40:43Alfred sent a costly pointer [music]
40:45used to underline the text.
40:49This is the Alfred jewel. Many
40:52historians believe that it formed the
40:53head of one of those pointers. Crafted
40:56in crystal, enamel and gold, it was
40:59discovered in [music] 1693 in Somerset
41:01and is now on show at the Asholian
41:03Museum in Oxford. It's inscribed Alfred
41:06[music] had me made in English.
41:11Alfred the Great had made the English
41:13language the jewel in his crown.
41:23Here in Winchester, Alfred had
41:25established what was effectively a
41:27publishing house. Other projects he
41:29undertook included the commissioning of
41:31the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle detailing
41:33hundreds of years of history. Alfred
41:36died in 899. One of his legacies was an
41:39English language which was more
41:40prestigious and widely read than ever
41:43before. There was nothing to compare
41:45with this range of written vernacular,
41:47history, philosophy, poetry anywhere
41:49else in mainland Europe. English was out
41:52on its own. By the middle of the 11th
41:54century, English seemed secure. But now
41:57other invaders were waiting in the wings
41:59and English was about to face its
42:02greatest threat ever.
42:05[music]
42:12[music]
42:21This place the old Roman fort of Peveny
42:23was a fateful one for the English
42:25language. It was here among other places
42:27that the Friszzians and other Germanic
42:29tribes had made landfall in the fifth
42:31century and introduced their own
42:33language. Now in 1066 another wave of
42:36invaders was landing, the Normans.
42:40When in 1066 William Duke of Normandy
42:43sailed with his army to claim the
42:44English throne, he was sure he had right
42:47on his side.
42:49The English king Edward the Confessor
42:52had spent many years in Normandy and in
42:54that time contemporary sources say had
42:56come to regard William as a brother or
42:58even a son and had named him as his
43:01successor.
43:04Sensing his impending death and fearing
43:06rebellion at home, the childless Edward
43:09had dispatched Harold Godwinson, his
43:11wife's brother, and his ear of Essex,
43:13the richest and most powerful of the
43:14English lords, to Normandy to pledge
43:17loyalty to [music] William.
43:20This Harold did, swearing on two caskets
43:23of holy relics.
43:28But when Edward did die, Harold, [music]
43:30supported by the English nobility, had
43:33himself crowned in Westminster Abbey on
43:35the very day that Edward was laid to
43:37rest there.
43:41To the truckulent and ruthless William,
43:43this was an affront. Invasion with
43:45maximum [music] force, the only possible
43:48response.
43:51[music]
43:58[music]
44:03The armies met here near Hastings.
44:11This is the spot where traditionally
44:13Harold fell fatally pierced through the
44:15eye with an arrow.
44:19[music]
44:22The site was later named after the
44:24engagement, but it's named not with an
44:26English word like fight, but with a word
44:29from the language of the Norman victors,
44:31battle.
44:37Harold would be the last
44:38English-speaking king of England for
44:40three centuries. On Christmas Day 1066,
44:44William was crowned in Westminster Abbey
44:46in a service [music] conducted in
44:47English and Latin. William spoke French
44:50throughout.
44:55A new king and a new language were in
44:58authority [music] in England.
45:02Enemy
45:04castle.
45:07Castle was one of the first French words
45:10to enter the English language. The
45:11Normans built a chain of them to impose
45:13their rule on the country. This
45:16magnificent castle at Rochester was one
45:18of the first to be fortified in stone.
45:24[music]
45:26By blood, the Normans were from the same
45:28stock as the Norsemen who had invaded in
45:31earlier centuries, but they no longer
45:33spoke a Germanic language, rather what
45:35we'd call old French, which had grown
45:38from Latin roots. Many of the words they
45:40spoke would have been very strange to
45:42the native English, but would quickly
45:44become unpleasantly familiar. Our words,
45:48army, archer, soldier, garrison, and
45:51guard, all come from the conquering
45:54Norman French.
45:56French was the language that spelled out
45:58the architecture of the new social
46:00order. Crown, throne, and court, duke,
46:04baron, and nobility, peasant, vassel,
46:06servant. The word govern comes from
46:08French as do liberty, authority,
46:11obedience, and traitor. The Normans took
46:14the law into their own hands. Felony,
46:16arrest, warrant, justice, judge, and
46:19jury all come from French.
46:22And so do accuse, acquit, sentence,
46:25condemn, prison, and jail.
46:30It's been estimated that in the three
46:31centuries after the conquest, about
46:3310,000 French words colonized the
46:35English language. They didn't all come
46:37in immediately, but the conquest opened
46:40a conduit of French vocabulary that's
46:42remained open on and off ever since.
46:44Today, French words are all around us.
46:48City market porter.
46:52Here we are. Look, one fabulous salmon
46:53weighs about 14 lb. It is a fabulous
46:56fish. We got some fabulous mackel.
46:58They've come up from Abedine. Next to
46:59them are the oysters. They come from the
47:00Essex [music] coast. Soul
47:03pork, sausage, bacon,
47:07nasty fruit, the oranges, the juicy
47:10lemons, grape, tart, biscuit, sugar,
47:15cream,
47:18fry,
47:21vinegar.
47:23Nearly 500 words dealing with food,
47:25cooking, and eating alone entered
47:27[music] English from French. just a
47:29fraction of the imports which would
47:30enrich the English word horde in the
47:32centuries after the [music] Norman
47:33conquest.
47:42Within 20 years of taking control of the
47:44country, William sent his officers out
47:46to take stock of his kingdom.
47:49The monks of Peterbrra, who were still
47:51recording the events of history in
47:53English in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
47:55noted disapprovingly that not one piece
47:58of land escaped the survey. Not even an
48:00ox or a cow or a pig,
48:09[music]
48:17the Doomsday Book. There are in fact two
48:19volumes show us how complete the Norman
48:22takeover of English land was and how
48:24widespread their influence and their
48:26language.
48:30The Norman settlement had concentrated
48:31the wealth of England more than ever
48:33before or since. The native ruling class
48:36from before the conquest had been
48:37slaughtered, banished or disinherited in
48:40favor of Williams followers. Half of the
48:42country was in the hands of just 190
48:44men. Half of that was held. The English
48:47language had been [music] forced
48:49underground. It would take 300 years for
48:51it to reemerge. And when it did, it
48:54would have changed dramatically. [music]
49:08[music]
49:16[music]
49:22[music]
49:28[music]

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