The Adventures of English

             Honestly, I don’t have a background of the development of English. My undergrad course is BS Development Communication. I just took 18 units of Professional Education to be qualified to take the LET.  Watching this series really gave me an idea about the development of English.

            Thank God for holiday, I was able to do a marathon of this series. I’m not a fan of history but I swear, I tried my best not to sleep to understand the documentary. I know that it will really help me to understand the structure of English.

            The series explained that the development of English is influenced by the historical events. Romans invaded the Britain. The Goths kick out Romans. Picts and Scots from Ireland attacked the Britons. Angles, Saxons, and other German settlers arrive in Britain to assist the Britons and claim the territory. The invaders who speak West Germanic dialect established many of the essential characteristics of the English language. Studying the literary text would really help us in order to understand how the language has been developed. At the same time, knowing the history can also help us understand the literary texts better.   

 There was also discrimination among the languages. Like for example, they say that French is the language of the elite; Old English is the language of the common people; and Latin is the language of the people in academe or church.

            I am also fascinated about the difference of American and British English. Besides some spelling discrepancies, they also have different terms for a certain thing. British use lift instead of elevator. They live in a flat instead of apartment. It’s amazing that they use different terms for things yet they understand each other.

            For the past years, many dictionaries were published. English is now a worldwide language. The native speakers, the second language users and the foreign language users may have some differences in the way they use the English language but what important is that they are able to communicate with each other.

            There are different kinds of English language. For me, fluency is more important than the accuracy of using the language. Using the English language will make it more dynamic. I believe that the English language will continue developing and it will not end up like Latin.