Well, good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. to see you again. The title this talk is "English: Its making its modes."

It's a talk language. And languages don't just crop ; they develop in response to forms life, people's circumstances. And they develop, course, over a very long period time, unlike computer languages. So this really is about the history, aspects the history, simplified a bit, of English language. And we'll see that people and the history are will up a complex whole. And that's English itself is a rather complex .

First, just a note on meaning of the key terms. By making I mean the business of history of the people who brought various elements of the language with , to England and to Britain. What might think of as the roots the language. And by modes I what are often call registers, the or different styles of English and 'll come on to that. So the are different ways of speaking or English according to the circumstances.

let me just say again by of introduction something about the structure this talk. We'll have a look the various roots, origins, of the language, and the different cultures that contributed to it. And we'll see these are Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, Norman , by way of ethnic groups, linguistic , and of course things like the culture which was a great transformation the way in which many people , behaved, spoke and so on. As the registers of the language, the of the language, I'm going to it and just talk about two registers, as we'll see in due . I then raise the question in third part, it's a question often raised, which register is better, the , so to speak, or the lower I'll suggest perhaps that it's the question to ask. There can be unqualified answer to it, no unqualified to it, each register has uses appropriate to itself. And finally, I'll up a bit and we'll see we've got to.

OK. The part of the talk then on roots of the language, the making English. Where shall we start? One well wonder why English is, in , a world language to the extent it is. It's a very important in the world today, quite obviously. yet it's a very complex language. of the use of prepositions. Nobody his right mind, or her right , would invent the use of prepositions we have inherited them; they seem lack logic. One simply has to prepositional expressions. As you know very , as you learn English more and perfectly, you still make mistakes with use of prepositions. It's perfectly natural it's hard to pattern them or any overall logic. Or again the , the figures of speech, the idioms English, they run around the place like football fans, out of order. know. There are very many of , they are rather complex and again 's a matter of picking them up, than responding to any logic beyond certain point. Again you might wonder does English have so many words? has more words than it needs, . It has an immense vocabulary as say with Norwegian. Now, why can't say what we want to say write what we want to write bit more simply using fewer words? again we'll see I think part the explanation for the large vocabulary English. Again, the grammar of English might think appears to be infuriatingly , illogical. Why do we have some verbs, some irregular verbs? How could work out how and why the of English is as it is? you had to do that at point of a gun and knew little about the history of the you'd be at a loss to much overall logic or so it seems. And yet English is very used, it has its richnesses and can be used very well.

how can we explain all this? let's go back to history and 'll start with the Celts. Now the were the, whoever the original human of this country, the Celts were for a long time, for very centuries, before and after the Christian . It might be as well, by way, just to have a look some of the terminology past and of geography, basic geography. The shaded on this little sketch map is Britain, as we now say, and it consists of the England, of , Scotland, Wales. The whole lot, including island of Ireland is the British , which is a geographical expression. The name of the state of which 'm a citizen, for example, within the , even the British must remember to that, is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. OK. Well are modern usages. Just bear in that many English people in particular, British but English people, use the "England" and "English" to refer to more than England and the English. often use it in place of meaning Greta Britain or indeed the Kingdom, as it has been since or whatever. But you'll find that or Scots people become understandably rather by this, especially since they have own assemblies now. They are not assemblies; they are Scots and Welsh. of course the Republic of Ireland, Eire, since 1923, has been an state, again of course now within EU.

Well, so much for aside on terminology. Let's get back the Celts. The Celts moved in centuries before the Christian era from continent of Europe, as we say, occupied much of England certainly and 's now Wales and Scotland and Ireland. so they're often thought of as indigenous people and they had the language. So Celtic languages, the Celtic of languages, were spoken in various , various dialects, for very many centuries the British Isles. And indeed it today. It survives as Welsh in , as Gaelic in Scotland, as Irish Ireland, especially in the west of and the west of Scotland and course large parts of Wales. Now, was some contribution of the Celtic to the modern English language. For , we can still find Celtic names the names of mountains. The highest in the British Isles, and it's a lot less high than Everest, Ben Nevis in Scotland at 4404 , as I remember learning, at school. , Ben, this prefix, or not so a prefix a noun, Ben stands mountain or hill. And of course names of all those Scots mountains to begin with Ben. Even in north of England we have a called Penyghent, for example. P E , which is the same root and name has survived within England itself. , the names of rivers sometimes have roots. Everybody knows about Avon, the Avon, because Stratford on Avon is the Avon. Well, the river Avon means the river river, because Avon the Celtic word for river. So , later on the Anglo-Saxons were to this over from the people they replacing and referred to a number rivers as the river Avon. There's in Bristol, for example, and one Stratford. So mountains, rivers and other features, natural features, tend to have, of them, Celtic names, or Celtic in their names. Again many personal still have Celtic roots. The prefix , M A C or M little , that is a Celtic prefix. We've heard, for good or ill, of 's. Well, MacDonald means, literally, the son Donald. And so for all the Macs you see in the London directory. That's the origin of the .

However, as they say, however, main point here as to the is that Celtic did not contribute, not contribute very much to the language. Now, why was that? The had been here for many centuries. were well established throughout the British . Well, the explanation is simple. The suffered a terrible invasion. I'm not speaking here of the Roman invasion, was a sort of army of , an administrative superstructure. Romano-British times lasted, course, from approximately the beginning of Christian era for several hundred years. I'm referring to a later invasion, invasion of the Anglo-Saxons.

So situation is something like this. Here Celts had occupied the British Isles effect, but now the Anglo-Saxons came , driving them and their language westwards northwards, especially to the mountains, the of Wales, for example, and Scotland beyond the sea to Ireland. And general view that I've always shared that there was in effect a of extermination over a long period time so that the Celts were driven westwards or slaughtered. Now, it's interesting that in 1998 some DNA showed that the bulk of the of England still has Celtic DNA, has Celtic genes. So there was a lot of intermingling and absorption the Celtic stock in Britain. It's interesting example of how medical research aid such things as linguistic study anthropology.

OK. So, let's about the Anglo-Saxons then. The Anglo-Saxons with them their own customs, and patterns, and their own Germanic language. was a Germanic language. So, Anglo-Saxon, it is represented in modern English to be represented by short simple , the sorts of words that children understand and which children use. So sentence like: "The boat is on shore." is basically still a modern of an old Anglo-Saxon language or " takes twelve oxen to draw the ." "It takes twelve oxen to draw plough." These are simple sentences about objects and human activities of a everyday sort. So they are plain for plain things. There are many . Monosyllable itself is not a monosyllable, 's a pretty horrible long word but 's put it in a more basic : there are many words of only sound.

Now Old English, as said, sometimes referred to as Old came from Germanic dialects. But it itself subject to change. For example, I've said, there was a cultural , a cultural revolution. And that was coming of Christianity. Now, Saint Augustine to Canterbury with a group of in the year 597 A.D. There 50 monks there, and later also monks in northern monasteries. And there a great flowering of the Christian in Anglo-Saxon England.

Now, what this mean linguistically? Well, words from began to appear, such as the "disciple" from a Latin root, the of Jesus, the followers of Jesus. "" is not an Anglo-Saxon term, it's Latin term. Words from Greek such "pope" appeared. Words from Hebrew such "Sabbath," the English "Sabbath," appeared and absorbed into Old English. Well, this that the language was now more to express abstract thought, abstract thought, well as more homely ideas.

, we come next to the story another invasion. And this is that the Vikings, or Danes as they known from the late 18th century, better correct that, from the late century onwards. Now, this was really series of raids which led more more to permanent settlement, especially in near the coasts, in the north the west. Now these Vikings, Norsemen Danes as they were called, Danes the Anglo-Saxons knew them, they spoke , Old Norse language. And for a years or more, the invasions went . They were pretty violent. There's an Anglo-Saxon prayer, the Anglo-Saxons who themselves subjected, had subjected the Celts to were themselves subjected to terror. And old prayer runs: "From the fury the north men, good Lord deliver ." And this prayer was prayed with emphasis, for example, in churches on east coast of England.

So Anglo-Saxons and the Anglo-Saxon language were great danger. However, a Saxon king, Alfred, defeated the Danes in battle they withdrew northwards. And on this sketch map, the pet line here the boundary between Anglo-Saxon England proper it then was and an area the north and east known as Danelaw. Now within the Danelaw, the , or Vikings, had a certain amount autonomy. And indeed they settled side side with the Anglo-Saxons and gradually, it were, peace broke out. There no war of extermination here and the Danelaw the Anglo-Saxon language and Norse language fused, they came together. that still in the north of , many dialects have a very strong of Norse. They say that people the northeast coast, still, who sail sailed to Norway, fishermen and so , could communicate pretty well with Norwegians. intonation, many of the dialect words similar.

So King Alfred now the English language in two ways: as the medium of education, which always a powerful way for a to be installed and for unity be got, so first as the of education. And secondly to create sense of national identity, to create sense of national identity, a sense Englishness, and I do mean here . The Celts were still living their in Wales, Ireland, Scotland.

Now, 's a final episode of incursion, which very simple. In 1066, as most school children learn, the Norman French . The battle of Hastings was fought 1066. William the Conqueror, as his suggests, was the conqueror. The Anglo-Saxon was shot in the eye at battle and the Normans became an force. Now, it's a bit confusing, 't it? These are French-speaking people. They originally been Norsemen but they'd settle Normandy, named after them, in northwestern . So they had become Christians, they adopted the French language, they no spoke Norse, and they invaded England a ruling class, they settled in a ruling class under the feudal . So the kings of England were speak French for 300 years. And was the language of social prestige. became, increasingly, the language of learning. of course was confined largely to aristocrats, the scholars, the clergy. So became the language of learning. Nevertheless, survived as the language of ordinary . It adopted and adapted many French Latin words. It slowly became the of educated people also. Indeed, in fourteenth century, a great work was be written, not in French or , but in English, a great literary . Now this was the epic poem, Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer lived between 1340 and 1400 , I repeat, he wrote the Canterbury in English. It's a record of told by a mixed group of travelling to Canterbury, to the shrine St Thomas-a-Beckett.

So by fourteenth century, the main elements of were now in place. Anglo-Saxon, enriched Norse, Latin and French, in particular.

's come now to discuss registers of the English language. They many. As I said, I'll simplify and talk about two registers only, broad registers or styles of English I'll refer to them as the register and the higher register.

, first the lower register. Well, I suggested, when talking to a or informally with friends, one tends use simple English. And this simple has much in common with the English, which sprang from Anglo-Saxon. So use words with a child such "cat", physical objects, living things; you 't talk to one year old children transubstantiation or philosophy, unless you want do them quite a lot of .

On the other hand, and the same goes for the important institutions such as the pub. Am falling into this trap of using "" in place of "British"? I don't , but the pub perhaps is a English institution. And there one tends talk, unless one is showing off, simple terms among little groups of . So the lower register is at , so to speak, at home or young children, with one's pet dog cat, dogs and cats speak only lower register, and in the pub. higher register on the other hand, formal register as you might call , the lower is the informal, the the formal. The formal register is , for example, in academic English in like this, in formal situations.

, there's a connection between the roots origins of the language and these broad registers and I'll try to it by reference to too short . I'll take one from a poem Seamus Heaney, recently made a poet . I'm sorry, that's an interesting slip. refused to be considered as a poet laureate. What I was trying say is that he was a Prize winner in literature. Seamus Heaney, Roman Catholic, Northern Irish poet. And other passage I'll take is very . It's from a textbook in moral .

OK. Here we go. Here's extract from a poem by Seamus in memoriam to his mother. I'll read it:

"She taught me her uncle once taught her:
How the biggest coal block split
If got the grain and hammer angled ."

It's from a poem called "."

Well, now, let's look at . There are 25 words here, I . 20 of them, as you see, only of one syllable. It includes words like "got". Simple words for objects like "grain" and "hammer" and " of coal". Simple verbs like "split". so on. There are only 3 here from a French and ultimately from a Latin root. They are "", "easily" and "angled". So, we've done bit of very sophisticated linguistic analysis this little extract from a poem.

's turn next to an example the higher register. This, as I , is an extract from a book moral philosophy. In fact it's a good introductory text on some of classic moral philosophers. And this is first sentence in the book. I'll it.

"The area of philosophy known as ethics or moral philosophy the attempt to arrive at an of the nature of human values."

that's Richard Norman, who's a of philosophy, writing the first bit a book on such people as , and Kant, John Stuart Mill and on. Now notice here, again as happens, happy coincidence, 25 words. But are only 13 words of only sound, only 13 monosyllables, "as", "of", "", for example. 8 words are from or Latin. 3 from Greek. Let's take one example: "Philosophy" itself of means literally the love of wisdom, Greek roots.

So there are differences then in the style that am referring to as the lower higher registers. And notice the corresponding in the setting of each, the of each, the social engagement of . I mean, just to point out obvious yet again. Heaney is writing a child and a mother, a simple situation, a child being taught traditional skill, to do with how split a block of coal. So are intimate relationships between human beings, physical objects, simple manual skill. On other hand it would be hard express in the second quotation what quotation does express succinctly in relation , simply with the help of with type words. We need the abstract to express abstract ideas.

Right more briefly, I'll simply raise the : "Which register is better?" The point this: that there are certain reasons thinking the higher register is better the lower register. For example, while speakers of English can use the register, only the educated can use higher register effectively. Again, the higher is associated with elegance, with social , and, as we've seen, with abstract , abstract thought. It's not surprising then , given all this, the higher should thought by many to be the register and one at which we all aim. But there are very reasons also for thinking the lower better. Plain English saves time and saves words, it saves effort, and can understand it. Now for people good sense, and good will, these advantages not disadvantages.

So what we going to conclude? We'd better it quickly. I think things are as simple as this and it be better to consider the appropriateness each style of English to its , the appropriateness of each style of , each register, to its setting. Again would ask you: Is not Heaney's English just right for the job does? On the other hand, are Richard Norman's abstract ideas more easily in a diction which includes many of Latin and Greek origin. Conversely, it would be simply a mistake use the lower register of English a PhD thesis, for example. You , half way through, you write: "Oh, , I'm fed up with this. I go for a beer." or something that. You don't do that without into serious trouble. On the other , it's equally a mistake, I would , to use the higher register of , for example, to chat about the on the television with your friends. 'd think you were somehow wrong in head if you did that. It's a mistake to use a strange of registers, you know, to go one to the other without warning without proper reason.

Let's now and sum up. I've tried to things, for this purpose. Where have got to? Well. Some elements of English language, then, I've suggested, spring episodes of great ethnic, social and change. And secondly, what we have higher and lower registers of English be related to the roots or of the language. And I've suggested that each register is appropriate to settings, situations, purposes, and inappropriate to .

Well, thank you for attention. If you have any comments questions, I'd be very interested and you've been thinking, for example, about origins of your own first languages. would like to begin?