Text 1

Invented Words

    New words appear in English every day. Do you know how these words are born? Read the following passage to find various ways English words are invented. 

    Scholars guess that English has about 600 000 words, but there are probably more. New words continue to come into the language at such a rate that no dictionary could possibly keep up with them. The old words which were born centuries ago in the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and French languages make up four fifths of the English language. The other one fifth is made up partly of borrowed words and partly of three other kinds of words: words from the names of peoples and places; imitative words; and invented words. 

    Ampere, volt and watt are all units of electricity, and they are named for the men who discovered them; Andre M. Ampere, a French physicist; Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist; and James Watt, a Scottish engineer and inventor. Nowadays we all drink pasteurized milk, that is, milk which is clean and purified. Pasteurized gets its name from Louis Pasteur, a French doctor who invented the process for purifying milk. There are many words like this in the English language. 

    Imitative words are words that sound like the thing or action they stand for. Here are some examples:

    buzz click bang mumble chirp bawl 

    crash clap mutter giggle hum gulp
    There is no need to say anything else about these words, for they speak for themselves. You can probably think of many more. 

    Then there are the invented words. English-speaking people have always made up words as it suited them, and they continue to do so every day. One kind of invented word is one which is made up of two other words. Dictionaries call this kind of word a compound. If you put "play" and "thing" together, you get the compound, "plaything". How many can you add to this list? 

    raincoat milkshake upstairs standstill headlight

    shutout sailboat downstairs income headline 

    As well as putting two whole words together, we also add parts of words called prefixes and suffixes to the whole words. Most prefixes and suffixes come from Latin or Greek, and each has a special meaning of its own. When we add a prefix before a word or a suffix at the end of it, we change its meaning. For example, the prefix re- means "again". If we add re- to "do" or "paint", we get two new words meaning "do again" and "paint again". Un- means "the opposite of" or "not". By adding un- to "happy" or "kind", we get "unhappy" or "unkind", meaning "not happy" and "not kind". The suffix -ness means "the condition of". "Happiness" and "kindness" are the conditions of being happy and kind. It is easy to see the meanings of unhappiness and unkindness. The word to which we attach the prefixes and suffixes is called the root word. In a word like unkindness the root word is kind. 

    Some words, like astronaut, are made up entirely of Greek or Latin prefixes and suffixes. Astro- is a Greek prefix meaning "having to do with the stars"; naut- means "having to do with sailing". So, an astronaut is a "star-sailor". Other words can be root words, prefixes or suffixes, depending on where they come in the word. Remember, the prefix comes first, the root word second, and the suffix last. As an example, let's take the word "graph" and build several different invented words with it by adding prefixes and suffixes to it or using it as a prefix or suffix. Graph by itself means anything which is shown to us in pictures or writing. For instance, your teacher might want to keep track of your reading progress by drawing a graph of your reading test scores, or a businessman might draw graphs which show the ups and downs of his company's sales records. Now, by adding the prefixes and suffixes listed below to graph, we can make several new words. Notice that graph is part of a longer suffix as well as a suffix by itself. 

Prefixes 

auto-          self 

bio-           life 

phono-         sound 

photo-         light 

tele-          distant 

Suffixes

-graphy        study of ; art of

-graph         something written

-ic            similar to; like

-ology         study of

-phone         sound

   Here are some words made with "graph". 

autograph ─ signature; a person's name written in his or her handwriting 

biography ─ story of a person's life 

autobiography ─ study of a person's life written by himself or herself 

graphology ─ study of handwriting 

telegraph ─ distant writing 

phonograph ─ writing or a picture in sound 

photograph ─ writing or a picture in light 

photography ─ art of taking pictures
graphic ─ clearly written or drawn 

    You may have noticed that you can make even other words using some of these prefixes and suffixes without graph. "Biology" is the study of life. What do you think is the meaning of "biologic"? If the prefix anti- means "against," what does "antibiotic" really mean? There are hundreds of Latin and Greek prefixes in the English language, and the possibilities for inventing new words are endless. Every day, as we make new discoveries in science and technology, we invent new words to describe them. Many of these new words are combinations of root words and prefixes and suffixes which have already existed in English for centuries.

    Another kind of invented word is the nonsense word. Some nonsense words are used for a while by only a few people and then disappear completely from the language, never to be used again. Others, when they become popular enough and are used over a period of time, become a permanent part of the language. If enough people decide and agree on the meaning of an invented word, it is here to stay. Some examples of everyday modern words which probably began as nonsense words centuries ago are: bad, big, lad, lass, chat, job and fun. Linguists guess that these are nonsense words because they have not been able to trace them back to any of the ancestor languages. Just who invented them, and when or where remains a puzzle. Puzzle itself is one of these mystery words. No one knows where it came from. 

    Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, was a great inventor of nonsense words. As a matter of fact, he created a whole language of nonsense. Most of Carroll's nonsense words are not used in English, except for "chortle". Chortle, Carroll tells us, is a cross between a chuckle and a snort. The word is formed by packing two different meanings together in it. The dictionary calls such words blends. A fairly recent blend, which, unfortunately, we hear almost every day, is "smog," a combination of smoke and fog.

    People invent nonsense words by combining certain sounds that just seem to fit the things or actions they describe. Often we make up words for anything which is basically rather silly. Spoof was invented by an English comedian some fifty years ago. It means "to poke fun at". Hornswoggle was used a great deal in the United States during the nineteenth century, and it means "to cheat". If a dishonest politician wants to hornswoggle the taxpayers, he invents a "boondoggle," which is a useless, expensive project which does nobody any good. Fairly recently someone invented the word "gobbledygook". When people talk or write using long, fancy words that really mean nothing, we call it gobbledygook. Unfortunately, many people use gobbledygook because they want to seem more important than they are, or because they don't really want people to understand what they mean or what they are doing. So, when the dishonest politician wants to hornswoggle the public with a boondoggle, he usually explains things in gobbledygook. 

    When Lewis Carroll was writing his books the word gobbledygook had not been invented yet, but Carroll would have known exactly what it meant. Carroll loved to spoof or poke fun at people who used fancy, important-sounding words when simple language would have done better. In one part of Through the Looking Glass, Alice has a conversation with Humpty Dumpty in which Humpty Dumpty insists words can mean whatever he wants them to mean. Alice insists that this is impossible. If everyone did that no one would understand anyone else. The conversation goes like this: 

    "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knockdown argument'," Alice objected. 

    "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean ─ neither more nor less." 

    "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." 

    "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be the master ─ that's all."

    The question is, just as Humpty Dumpty said, which is to be master. But Humpty Dumpty used words in an odd way, and that made him a master of gobbledygook, not a master of language. A master of language knows what words really mean, and where they come from; knows when to use big, important ones and when to use the shorter, equally important simple ones. Winston Churchill was a great British prime minister. He was also a great writer, truly a master of language. He said once, "Short words are best, and old words when they are short, are best of all."

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课文一

新造词

    英语中每天都有新词出现。你知道这些词是怎么产生的吗？阅读下文你就能找到造英语单词的各种方法。

    学者们估计英语大约有600 000个单词，不过也许更多。新的词语不断进入英语，其速度之快，大概没有一本字典能跟得上。几个世纪以前 ，源于盎格鲁－撒克逊语、日尔曼语以及法语的原有词汇，占英语的五分之四。余下的五分之一，一部分由外来词组成，另外的部分由其它三种词组成，它们是：表示人名、地名的专有名词；象声词以及新造的词。

    安培、伏特和瓦特都是电学的计量单位，它们都是用发现者的名字命名的，他们分别是是法国物理学家安德烈•M•安培、意大利物理学家阿勒森德罗•伏特、苏格兰工程师兼发明家詹姆士•瓦特。今天我们都喝用巴氏灭菌法消毒的牛奶，这种奶即清又纯。巴氏灭菌法便得名于法国医生路易斯•巴斯德，是他发明了消毒牛奶的制作方法。在英语中像这样的词有许多。

    象声词代表它们模仿的事物或行为的声音。现举例如下：

    嗡嗡 滴答 砰砰 咕哝 喳喳 嚎啕
    扑通 啪啪 嘀咕 咯咯 嘤嘤 呼哧
    对于上述单词无需再作任何解释，因为它们不言自明。或许你还可以想出更多类似的单词来。

    接下来是新造的词。讲英语的人总是根据需要创造词汇，而且现在每天仍在这样做。一种新造的词是由另外两个词构成的。字典里将这种词称为复合词。如果把“玩耍”和“物品”放在一起，我们就可以得到复合词“玩具”。你还能为下表添加多少类似的词呢？

    雨衣 奶昔 楼上 停顿 前灯

    关闭 帆船 楼下 收入 标题

    除了把两个词放在一起之外，我们还可以给单词添加一些成分，即前缀和后缀。大多数前缀和后缀来自拉丁语和希腊语，而且它们都有自己特别的意义。当我们在词的前面加前缀或在其后面加后缀时，我们就改变了它的意思。例如，前缀re-意思为“再”。如果把re-加到“作”或者“画”的前面，我们就得到了两个新词，意思为“再作一次”和“再画一次”。Un-意思为“相反的”或者“不”。把un-加到“快乐的”或者“和蔼的”前边，我们就得到了“不快乐”和“不和蔼”。后缀-ness意思为“……状态”。“happiness”和“kindness”指快乐和仁慈的状态。这样就很容易理解“unhappiness”和“unkindness”两个词的意思了。被加上前缀和后缀的词称为词根。像“unkindness”一词的词根是“kind”。

　

    有些词，如宇航员，完全是由希腊语或者拉丁语的前缀和后缀构成的。Astro-是希腊语前缀，意思为“与星星有关”；naut-意思为“与航行有关”。所以，宇航员就是“星球航行者”。其它的词也可以成为词根、前缀或者后缀，这取决于它们在单词里所处的位置。切记，前缀在最前面，词根其次，最后是后缀。现以“图表”一词为例，通过添加前缀和后缀，或者将它本身作为一个前缀或者后缀，可以用它造出许多不同的新词来。图表本身是指通过图画或者文字呈现出来的事物。例如，你的老师可能想通过绘制一份阅读测试分数图表来了解你的读书过程，或者一个商人想通过绘制图表来显示他的公司销售纪录的变化。现在，给图表这个词增加下表中列出的前缀和后缀，我们可以造出许多新词。注意，图表一词除了本身是个后缀以外，还是另一个更长的后缀中的一部分。

前缀 

auto-         自己－ 

bio-          生物，生平－ 

phono-        声－ 

photo-        光－ 

tele-         远－ 

后缀

-graphy      －学，－术

-graph       －书，写

-ic          －似的

-ology       －学

-phone       －声

    以下是由“graph”构成的词：

autograph—签名；人们用手写的自己的名字
biography—某人生平故事
autobiography—个人撰写的自己生平的故事
graphology—书法研究
telegraph—远距离写作（电报）
phonograph—用声音记录的文字和图片

photograph—用光记录的文字和图片
photography-拍摄照片的艺术

graphic—清晰的书写或画的

   你可能已经注意到，没有graph一词，你也可以利用上面的某些前缀和后缀构成其它单词。“biology”意思为对生命的研究，那你认为“biologic”是什么意思呢？如果前缀anti-意思为“反”，那么“antibiotic”究竟是什么意思呢？在英语中有大量的拉丁语和希腊语前缀，造新词的可能性是无止境的。每天，我们都有科学和技术的新发现，所以人们创造新的词汇去描述它们。许多新词都是由已经在英语中存在了几个世纪的词根、前缀和后缀组合而成的。
　

    另一种新造的词没有实际意义。有些无实际意义的词只是被一些人使用一段时间，然后就从英语中彻底消失，再也不用了。另外一些词被人们普遍接受，并且经过一段时间的使用之后，永远成为英语的一部分。如果有相当多的人选择并赞同新造出的词的意思，这个词就被保留下来。一些日常用的现代词，如：坏、大、少年、少女、聊天、工作和有趣，可能就是几个世纪前从无实际意义的词开始的。语言学家猜测上述单词为无实际意义的词，因为他们无法从任何古代语言中对它们追根溯源。谁发明的这些词？何时何地发明的？这些至今仍是个谜。“迷惑”这词本身就是这些神秘词语中的一个。没人知道这个词的出处是什么。

  《爱丽丝漫游奇境》和《爱丽丝漫游镜中世界》的作者刘易斯•卡罗尔，是无实际意义词的伟大的发明家。实际上，他造了一整套无实际意义的语言。除了“咯咯地笑”这个词之外，卡罗尔发明的大多数无意义词并没有在英语中使用。卡罗尔告诉我们：Chortle是吃吃地笑声和喷鼻息两个行为交叉在一起时发出的声音。这个词把两个不同意义的词并在了一起。字典中把这样的词称为混合词。不幸的是，最近我们几乎天天听到的一个新的复合词是“烟雾”，这是烟和雾两种意思的组合。

    某些声音似乎与所描述的事物或行为相吻合，人们将它们组合起来创造出无意义的词。我们常常造词来代表很愚蠢的事情。Spoof(傻话、哄骗)一词是五十多年前由一个英国喜剧演员造出来的。它的意思是“用恶作剧的方式来取笑”。Hornswoggle(隐瞒)一词十九世纪在美国被广泛使用，表示“欺骗”的意思。如果一个不诚实的政客想对纳税人进行隐瞒，他就制造boondoggle(无价值的琐事)，这是一个对任何人都没有好处的、无用的、昂贵的工程。不久前，有人造出了gobbledygook(“官样文章”)一词。当人们用冗长而无意义的词进行交谈或书写时，我们称之为官样文章。不幸的是，许多人使用官样文章，是因为他们想让自己显得比实际更重要，或者是因为他们不想让人们了解他们的真正意图和他们的所作所为。所以，当不诚实的政客想用“无价值的琐事”去“哄骗”群众时，他通常会用“官样文章”来敷衍。

    在刘易斯•卡罗尔写书的年代，“官样文章”一词还没有造出来，但是如果当时已经有这个词的话，卡罗尔会知道它的确切含义的。卡罗尔喜欢戏弄或嘲笑那些不喜欢用效果更好的简单词汇，而偏爱使用花哨的、大而不当的词的人。《爱丽丝漫游镜中世界》的一个章节中，爱丽丝有一段与矮座椅沙发的对话，其中矮座椅沙发坚持认为：它想让词汇是什么意思词汇就是什么意思。爱丽丝则坚持说这不可能。如果每个人都这样做的话，那么没有人可以理解其他人了。他们的对话如下：

  “但是‘荣誉’一词不是指‘一个恰当、有力的论点’，”爱丽丝反对道。

  “我要用一个词的时候，”矮座椅沙发用一种相当轻蔑的口吻说，“我想让它是什么意思它就是什么意思——恰如其分。”

  “但问题在于，”爱丽丝说，“你能不能让词代表那么多不同的事物。”

  “问题是，”矮座椅沙发说，“谁是主人——仅此而已。”

    正如矮座椅沙发所说，问题在于谁是主人。矮座椅沙发以一种奇怪的方式来使用词汇，这使它成为一个“官样文章”大师，而不是语言大师。一名语言大师知道词汇的真正含意及其出处；知道何时使用大的重要的词，何时使用短小但同样重要的简单的词。温斯顿•邱吉尔是英国一位伟大的首相，他同时也是一位伟大的作家，一个真正的语言大师。他曾经说道：“短小的词为佳；而既古老又短小的词为最佳。”

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Text 2

History of English

    The English language we speak today went through three stages called Old English, Middle English and Modern English. But ages before even Old English came into being, many other languages had to arise and develop. The oldest of these, as far as we know, was the Indo-European family of languages, which were beginning to be spoken clear back during the Stone Age. During the Stone Age, some Indo-European people lived on the islands of Britain.

    The earliest known of these British Indo-Europeans split into two groups called the Scots and the Celts. There was another group, who were not Indo-European, called Picts. Together these three peoples are known as Britons. The Britons were a fierce, Stone Age people constantly making war on each other. They dressed in animal skins, lived in caves or rude wooden huts. These people had their own languages.

    At the same time that the Stone Age Britons were living their warlike life, the Greeks, far to the east of them, were building a great civilization in Europe. Many of our ideas of art, literature, science, philosophy and government today come from the genius of these ancient people. As the Greek civilization reached a high point, another great civilization was being built in Italy by the Romans, whose language was Latin. When the Romans conquered Greece and made it part of their empire, they found a culture much older and far superior to their own. So they borrowed it.

    After conquering all of Europe, Rome invaded Britain and made it part of the empire, in 43 A.D. Romans brought their advanced culture to the Britons. Not only did they bring their art, literature, law and the Latin language, they established schools, built buildings and roads and provided an army to protect themselves against invaders.

    Meanwhile, the Germanic peoples of northern Europe, known as "Norsemen" or "Northmen," were developing another, separate European culture. Some groups of Norsemen came to be known as Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Goths. They were warriors, but also sailors and traders. In very early times the Angles and Saxons began to trade with the Celts in England. This was probably the first time the Britons came into contact with other peoples.

    During the four hundred years Britain was part of the Roman Empire, Rome was getting weaker and weaker, and the Norsemen were getting stronger and stronger. Finally they thundered through the Roman defenses along the northern boundaries of the empire. In addition to the attack from the north, Rome was invaded from the east by Mongols, from the south by the Moslems. Being attacked on all sides, Rome had to call back her armies to protect what was left of the empire. By AD 409, Rome had lost all control of Britain.

    As soon as the Roman armies pulled out of Britain, the Picts and Scots began to destroy the Celts. The Celts turned for help to the Angles and Saxons across the sea in Sweden and Denmark. The latter were quick to respond, because they loved war. They saved the Celts; they also destroyed practically all the culture which had been brought by the Romans: literature, sculpture, schools and roads. The Germanic languages of the Angles and Saxons combined to become Anglo-Saxon. Since the Angles and Saxons had become the power in England, the Anglo-Saxon language became the very early beginning of English.

    While the Anglo-Saxons were establishing their power in England and making their language the main language of that country, the Roman Empire was sinking deeper and deeper into trouble. By AD 476 the western empire had ceased to exist. And since the Germanic peoples had no interest in preserving Roman culture, it just died. The Church was all that was left of Roman civilization. But Latin survived as the language of churchmen and the wealthy, educated classes, and was to have a profound effect on the development of the languages of southern Europe and England.

    Gradually, between the sixth and eleventh centuries, the feudal estates of Europe grew into powerful kingdoms. Of these, the French kingdom of Normandy became very important to the development of English.

    The various peoples in England were coming together as a nation also, under the rule of more powerful kings such as Alfred the Great, who ruled between 871 and 899. Alfred was not only an efficient ruler and a great defender of his people, he was also an eager scholar. He was able to preserve some of the learning which had been left behind when the Romans left England. In Anglo-Saxon he began a detailed diary of events in his own time known as The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Although Alfred encouraged reading and writing in Anglo-Saxon as well as in Latin, most works continued to be written in Latin.

    Alfred's efforts to unify England and establish a national language apart from Latin were interrupted by an invasion of yet another group of Norsemen, the Vikings. The Vikings who invaded England were called Danes, and those who invaded France were known as the Normans.

    Gradually, as all invaders do eventually, the Danes settled down and became peaceful farmers. Their language mixed with Anglo-Saxon and became what we know as Old English. Old English was established as the language of the land by the tenth century. For the next hundred years or so after the Danish invasions, the English people lived in peace. If they had continued that way the English language today might be quite different from what it is; it would be something similar to Dutch, Danish and German. But about nine hundred years ago, England was invaded again, and another, very different language was brought to the country. When this language arrived, English moved away from Danish and Anglo-Saxon and passed from Old English into Middle English.

    The new foreign language which was to have such an important influence on the development of Middle English was French. In 1066, the Norman French people invaded England. The invasion is known as the Norman Conquest, and it is very important for two reasons. First, it was the last time England was ever to be invaded. Second, Old French became as important an influence as Danish and Anglo-Saxon to the development of English as it is today.

    The Normans brought their law, customs and literature to England. Since there was still so much Latin in their own language, Latin again began to have an influence on English. But this time, the English people did not allow their language to be swallowed up by a foreign language in the way their Celtic and early Anglo-Saxon ancestors had. Although the invading Norman French became the rulers of the land, and French became the language of government and law in England, the English people stubbornly refused to give up their own language. English remained the spoken language of the people. And when they did accept French words, they mispronounced them so badly that no one could recognize them as French.

    So, for a time, England was a land where there were two languages ─ the French of the ruling class, and the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, of the servant class, the English people. Smart people of both classes learned both languages, and eventually the two languages came together to form what we know today as Middle English. Middle English was neither French nor Anglo-Saxon; it was a completely different language combined of both. The change from Old English to Middle English took place gradually over a period of about three hundred years.

    Middle English was a very disorganized language. But in Europe and in the Middle East, many changes were taking place which would have an important effect on the future of the English language. Let's look back for a moment to see what these changes were.

    As western Europe split into feudal estates the Moslems of the Middle East were pushing farther west and threatening the Christian rulers of the eastern empire. In 638 the Moslems had captured Jerusalem. European kings wanted it back, because they felt it belonged to Christians. They broke through the Moslem defenses and began a long series of wars called the Crusades. For two hundred years, from 1095 to 1291, European Christians joined forces with Middle Eastern Christians against the Moslems.

    Europe lost the wars of the Crusades. But the Crusades had brought the Europeans back into contact with the superior ancient Greek and Roman cultures, and those cultures had been enriched by the Moslem's advance knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, geography and medicine.

    This renewed contact with all the knowledge marks the beginning of a period in Europe known as the Renaissance, which means "re-birth of learning." The lost works of ancient Greek and Roman writers were rediscovered in Europe, inspiring countless new works of literature, art and science. The Renaissance began in Italy, but eventually the new learning spread north, to France, Germany and England.

    Geoffrey Chaucer was born some hundred years after the last war of the Crusades, in the early part of the Renaissance. About one hundred fifty years after Chaucer's death William Shakespeare was born in the last part of the Renaissance. During the lifetimes of these two great writers and over all the years between, the English language was sorting itself out from the chaos of Middle English. By the time of Shakespeare's death in 1616, the English history and language had entered the modern period.

    The English of Shakespeare's time is considered modern English because, except for some different spellings and a few words we no longer use, the language is quite similar to the English we speak today. Many of the old sayings we use every day come right out of Shakespeare's writings. When we think something is unimportant we "laugh it off." Describing something which is strong and in good condition, we say it is "sound as a bell." When we are disgusted with something, we say it is "lousy." If you know or use these expressions you are quoting Shakespeare.

    After Shakespeare's time English was to change a great deal more, but the changes were gradual. The changes came as a result of the growth of the English Empire, advancements in transportation and communication and a continuing contact between English-speaking peoples and peoples from all parts of the world.

    Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries England built an empire which included north America, some Caribbean islands, Australia, New Zealand, parts of Asia and parts of Africa. About nine or ten years before Shakespeare's death, England had established her first American colony, Virginia. Three hundred years later, England no longer had an empire, but the lands which she had conquered still spoke the English language. Today, English is the native or official language of not only the United States but also Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Kenya, South Africa, Trinidad, Jamaica and more—lands on every continent of this planet.

(1816 words)  TOP

课文二

英语史

    我们现在所讲的英语曾经经历了三个阶段：古英语、中世纪英语和现代英语。但是，早在古英语出现之前，许多其他语言已经产生，并得到发展。据我们所知，其中最古老的语言是印欧语系。远在石器时代人们就开始使用印欧语了。在这个时期，一些印欧人就居住生活在英伦三岛上了。

英国最早的印欧人分为两族：苏格兰人和凯尔特人。此外，还有一族叫做皮克特人，但他们不属于印欧语族。以上三个民族便是今日所说的不列颠人。石器时代的不列颠人骁勇好斗，连年互相发动战争。他们用兽皮遮体，住在洞穴或原始的小木屋里。他们有自己的语言。

石器时代的不列颠人以作战为生，与此同时，远在东部的希腊人却在创建欧洲伟大的文明。当今艺术、文学、科学、哲学和政治学的许多思想都源于古代希腊人民的智慧。当希腊文明达到了颠峰的时候，讲拉丁语的罗马人正在意大利创建着另一个伟大的文明。罗马人征服了希腊，并将它划归罗马帝国的版图。这时，他们发现了一个更为悠久的文化，一个比罗马文化希腊文化更为辉煌灿烂的文化。于是，罗马人将它借 鉴了过来。

在征服整个欧洲之后，罗马人开始对不列颠发动侵略战争，公元43年，使之成为罗马帝国的一部分。罗马人给不列颠人带来了自己先进的文化，他们不仅带来了艺术、文学、法律和拉丁语，还创建学校，造房修路 ，供养一支军队保卫自己免遭外来侵略。

与此同时，位于北欧的日耳曼族人，又称“古代斯堪的纳维亚人”或“北方人”，正在发展自己独特的欧洲文化。他们中的一些族落成为后来人们熟知的盎格鲁人、撒克逊人、朱特人和哥特人。他们是战士，但也是水手和商人。很早以前，盎格鲁人和撒克逊人就开始同英格兰的凯尔特人做生意了。这或许是不列颠人第一次同外族人进行交往。

在不列颠作为罗马帝国一部分的四百年间，罗马日渐式微，而古代斯堪的纳维亚人则日益强大。最后，他们终于以势如破竹之势，冲破罗马帝国北部边界的防线。除了来自北方的入侵，蒙古人又从东部发起进攻，穆斯林人也从南部入侵。罗马四面受敌，只得调遣军队来保卫帝国仅存的部分。到了公元409年，罗马完全丧失了对不列颠的统治权。

罗马军队刚刚撤离不列颠，皮克特人和苏格兰人便着手消灭凯尔特人。凯尔特人只得向隔着大海居住在挪威和丹麦的盎格鲁人和撒克逊人求助。后者热衷于战争，迅速做出反应。他们解救了凯尔特人，实际上也摧毁了罗马人带来的文化：包括文学、雕塑、学校和道路。盎格鲁人和撒克逊人的日尔曼语混合在一起就成了盎格鲁－撒克逊语。自从盎格鲁人和撒克逊人成为英格兰的统治者，盎格鲁－撒克逊语便成为最早的英语。

盎格鲁-撒克逊人在英格兰建立了他们的政权，他们的语言也随之成为这个国家的主要语言；而与此同时，罗马帝国陷入越来越深的困境。到公元476年，西罗马便不复存在了。日尔曼人无意保留罗马文化，因而罗马文化自此消亡。教堂是罗马文明仅存之物。不过，拉丁语作为宗教人士、上层阶级和知识阶层的语言，仍被继续使用，并将对南欧国家和英国的语言发展产生深远的影响。

渐渐地，在公元6世纪至11世纪，欧洲的封建等级集团发展成为强大的诸侯王国。其中，法国诺曼第王国对英语的发展起了极为重要的作用。

公元871-899年，在诸如阿尔弗雷德国王等较为强有力的国王的统治时期，英格兰各个民族逐渐融合并发展成为一个民族。阿尔弗雷德国王不仅是一位杰出的统治者 ，人民的伟大捍卫者，他还是一位求知若渴的学者。他设法将罗马人撤离英国时遗留下的一些学问研究保留下来。他还开始了用盎格鲁－撒克逊语编写当时大事记的工作，即著名的《盎格鲁•撒克逊编年史》。尽管阿尔弗雷德提倡人们不仅用拉丁文，也用盎格鲁－撒克逊语读书、写作，但大多数著作仍然是用拉丁文书写。

阿尔弗雷德试图统一英国，并创立拉丁文以外的一种民族语言，但他的努力被北欧海盗—另一支斯堪的纳维亚人—的入侵中断。侵略英格兰的斯堪的纳维亚人是丹麦人，侵略法国的则是诺曼人。

渐渐地，与所有入侵者最终做的一样，丹麦人最后也定居下来，成为平和的农民。他们的语言与盎格鲁－撒克逊语结合在一起，形成了今天我们所说的古英语。到了10世纪，古英语作为这个国家的语言被确立下来。在丹麦人入侵以后的约百年间，英国人生活在平静安宁的环境中。如果他们继续那样生活下去，今天的英语就会大不相同了；可能它会与荷兰语、丹麦语或德语十分接近。然而，大约在900年前，英格兰再次遭受侵略，另一种截然不同的语言也被带到这个国家。由于这种语言的到来，英语与先前的丹麦语和盎格鲁－撒克逊语渐离渐远，并从古英语过渡到中世纪英语。

对中世纪英语产生如此深远影响的新的外来语就是法语。1066年，诺曼法国人入侵英格兰。这就是英国历史上著名的诺曼征服。这一事件意义重大，原因有二：首先，这是英国最后一次遭受外族入侵；其次，同丹麦语、盎格鲁－撒克逊语一样，古代法语对当今英语的发展产生了重要的影响。

诺曼人将自己的法律、习俗和文学带到了英国。由于诺曼人自己的语言中仍保留很多拉丁语，所以拉丁语再次开始影响了当时的英语。不过这一次，英国人没有像当年的凯尔特和盎格鲁•撒克逊祖先们那样听任外族语言将自己的语言吞噬。尽管入侵的诺曼法国人成为这个国家的统治者，且法语也跃升为英国政府和法律界的专用语言，英国人却执拗地不肯放弃他们自己的语言。英语仍是老百姓的日常用语。而且 ，就是他们使用法语时，他们差之千里的发音，往往没人能听得出他们讲的是法语。

于是，英国一度成为两种语言并存的国家：统治阶级使用的法语，仆佣阶级、英国人讲的是盎格鲁－撒克逊语或者古英语。两个阶级中聪明的人学会使用这两种语言，最后，这两种语言合二为一，形成了今天我们所说的中世纪英语。中世纪英语既不是法语，也不是盎格鲁－撒克逊语，它是两种语言结合后形成的一个全然不同的语言。古英语逐渐向中世纪英语演变的过程大约经历了三百年的时间。

中世纪英语是一种杂然无序的语言。不过，当时的欧洲和中东地区正在经历着许多变化，这些变化对后来的英语产生了重大影响。让我们先来回顾一下当时经历了哪些变化。

随着西欧分裂为诸多的封建领地，中东的穆斯林人正在进一步向西推进，严重威胁着东部帝国的基督教统治者。公元638年穆斯林人占领了耶路撒冷。欧洲的君主们意欲将它夺回，因为他们认为耶路撒冷是属于基督徒的。他们冲破穆斯林人的防线，发动了一系列的战争，人们称之为十字军东征。在1095年到1291年的两百年间，欧洲的基督教徒与中东的基督教徒联手，合力打击穆斯林人。

欧洲人发动的十字军东征以失败告终。但是，十字军东征使欧洲人有机会再次接触卓越的古希腊和古罗马文化，而且，穆斯林人先进的数学、天文学、地理学和医学知识又丰富了这些文化。

重新接触所有的知识，标志着欧洲一个崭新的历史时期——著名的文艺复兴时期——的开始。文艺复兴意即“学问的再生”。散失的古希腊、罗马作家的作品在欧洲被重新发现，激发了无数新的文学、艺术和科学作品。文艺复兴运动始于意大利，但新的学问向北方传播 ，到了法国、德国和英国。

十字军东征最后的一场战争之后几百年，杰弗里•乔叟出生，那时正是文艺复兴的早期。乔叟去世150年之后，威廉•莎士比亚出世，此时正是文艺复兴的后期。在这两位伟大作家的有生之年以及二人相隔的一百多年间，英语逐渐从中世纪英语的杂乱无序状态中剥离出来。1616年莎士比亚去世之时，英国人的历史和语言都已进入了现代阶段。

人们将莎士比亚时期的英语视为现代英语的开端，因为除了某些拼写有所不同以及一些今天我们不再使用的词汇外，当时的英语与我们今天所使用的英语非常接近。现在我们日常使用的很多俗语，都出自莎士比亚的作品。当我们认为某事不足为道时，我们会“一笑置之”。形容某物强壮完好时，我们称之为“健全”。当我们厌恶某事时，我们说它“蹩脚”。如果你知道或者使用上述表达方式，那么，你所引用的正是莎士比亚的语言。

在莎士比亚时代以后，英语继续经历了许多变化。不过，这些变化都是渐进的。伴随着英帝国的成长、交通运输的发展以及英语民族与世界各地其他民族的不断交往，英语也在演变。

在16世纪至19世纪的几百年间，英国建立了包括北美、部分加勒比群岛、澳大利亚、新西兰、部分亚洲和非洲在内的帝国。在莎士比亚去世之前的九或十年，英国已经建立了它在美国的第一个殖民地——弗吉尼亚。三百年后，英国不在有一个帝国，但是，它曾征服的这些国家和地区仍在使用英语。今天，英语不仅是美国的，也是加拿大、澳大利亚、新西兰、印度、肯尼亚、南非、特立尼达、牙买加等等国家的母语或官方语言。英语，在这个星球的每一个大洲上都能被听到。

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