Name ______Period _____ Date ______

A Brief History of the English Language,

or Why English is Hard to Spell!

Notes on the PowerPoint Presentation

(Slide 3) How did the English language get to North America?

English immigrants came to Jamestown and Plymouth in the early ______

(Slides 4-5) English is a member of the ______subfamily of the

Indo-European family of languages.

(6) English is the official language of ______nations.

(7) English is spoken by about ______people.

(8) English is one of two working languages of the United Nations. The other one is ______.

(9) English is the mother tongue of the ______Isles.

(10) English spread because of British ______, colonization, and empire building during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

(12) In the middle of the fifth century, Mr. Dean (oops), I mean ______invaders brought their languages to the British Isles.

(13) Christian missionaries brought the ______language.

Invaders from ______also brought their languages.

(14) By the ninth century ______had become standard English.

(15) Today ______of the English words we use come from this Ango-Saxon English.

(16) In the eleventh century, Ms. Fry (oops, again!), I mean Norman conquerors brought the ______language to Britain. The rulers, and the wealthy and upper-class people mainly spoke this language.

(17) ______was the official language of England for more than ______years.

(18) So ______of our vocabulary is from French/Romantic origins.

(19) In the fourteenth century, ______again became the language of the English upper classes.

(20) There are three periods of the English language:

1) Old English or Anglo-Saxon to about ______

2) Middle English to about ______

3) Modern English to ______

English words come from all over! (list two or more for each):

(23) From Anglo-Saxon we get ______

(24) From Latin Christianity we get ______

(25) From Scandinavian Settlers we get ______

(26) From Norman French and Vulgar Latin we get ______

(27) From Latin and Greek we get ______

(28) From other places over the past ______years we get ______

(29) The origins of a word is called its ______

(38) One of the best ways to increase your vocabulary is to learn ______.