《a brief history of english》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《a brief history of english（5页珍藏版）》请在金锄头文库上搜索。
1、A Brief History of English No 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
2、们只能做到略有所知。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 tri
3、bes. 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 An
4、glo-Saxons 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 fi
5、rmly established. 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 E
6、nglish. Old English 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 Englan
7、d came into history, it was 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 le
8、ading power. The most famous 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
9、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 wa
10、s a considerable injection of Norse 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 con
11、siderable interchange and word borrowing. 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
12、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 Engli
13、sh is. That is, there were mote case endings 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
14、 case besides. Present-day English has only 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
15、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 borrowe
16、d from other languages but which have been a part 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, oyster, purple, school, spend, and so on. But the great n1ajority of Old English words were native English.Now on
