1.The history of the greatest foreign influences upon English : Celtic, Latin, Scandinavian and French . explain the evolution of continuous and perfect form of the verbs. Explain the evolution of the verbs

The history of English language is usually divided up into four major periods that can be justified both on the basis of linguistic differences and on the basis of historical events that influenced the later development of English language [1] . These periods are Old English (450-1066), Middle English (1066-1500), Early Modern English (1500-1700) and Modern English (1700-present). These years are not strict boundaries but rough approximations.

• Celtic words are almost absent, except for dialectal words, such as the Yan Tan Tethera system of counting sheep. However, English syntax was influenced by Celtic languages, starting from the Middle English; for example, the system of continuous tenses(absent in other Germanic languages) was a cliché of similar Celtic phrasal structures.

• French legal, military, and political terminology; words for the meat of an animal; noble words; words referring to food — e.g., au gratin. Nearly 30% of English words (in an 80,000 word dictionary) may be of French origin.

• Latin scientific and technical words, medical terminology, academic and legal terminology. See also: Latin influence in English.

• Scandinavian languages such as Old Norse - words such as sky and troll or, more recently, geysir.

Celtic . The first mention in the ancient chronicles of the populations which inhabited the British Isles, refer to the year 800 BC At this time, the island tribe moved Indo-European peoples - the Celts. Those tribes who lived on the islands before the arrival of the Celtic people have left no trace in history.

From 800 BC begins the era of the British Celts and, accordingly, the Celtic language in Britain. Many linguists are of the opinion that the word "Britain" is derived from the word with Celtic roots - brith "painted". In the annals of references can be found that the Celts really painted their faces and bodies when going to war or hunting. There is mention in the annals and that the British Celts already at the time of the conquest of the British Isles great Caesar had developed culture. In the tribes flourished patriarchy. Males had a 8-10 wives. The children were brought up by women of a certain age, and then the boys passed the custody of the men who taught them to hunt, and the use of arms.

Also mentioned in the annals of the British Celts spoke a special dialect.

And words such as whiskey, plaid, slogan came into English much later from the Celtic languages, which were common in that period: whiskey (ирлан. Uisce beathadh "water of life"), slogan (from the Scottish sluagh-ghairm "battle cry ").

The ancestors of today's British - Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes - moved to the British Isles in the middle of the V century. In this era of their language was close to the Low German and Frisian, but later its development it is far departed from the other Germanic languages. During the period of the Old Anglo-Saxon language (as many researchers call Old English) varies little, without departing from the lines of the Germanic languages, except for the expansion of the dictionary.

Migrated to the UK Anglo-Saxons entered into a fierce struggle with the indigenous local population - the Celts. This contact with the Celts almost no effect on the structure or Old English, or his dictionary. Not more than eighty Celtic words preserved in the monuments of Old English. Among them:

• words associated with the cult: cromlech - cromlech (construction of the Druids), coronach - an ancient Scottish funeral lamentation;

• words of a military nature: javelin - javelin, pibroch - military song;

• the names of animals: hog - a pig.

Some of these words are firmly entrenched in the language and are used today, such as: tory «member of the Conservative Party" - Irish meant "thief», clan - tribe, whisky - vodka. Some of these words have become the international domain, such as whiskey, plaid, clan. Such a weak influence on the Celtic Old English can be explained by the weakness of the Celtic culture compared with the winners of the Anglo-Saxons. In the 4^th century B.C. Britain was inhabited by Celtic tries (Britons and Gaels), who spoke various Celtic languages. Celtic languages are divided into two main groups: The Gallo – Breton and the Gaelic. Celtic languages had but a marginal influence on the English vocabulary. Among Celtic loan – words we may mention dün (MnE down) ‘dune’, dun ‘dun’, binn ‘bin’. Some Celtic elements have been preserved in geographical names: Gaelic amhuin ‘river’ in Avon, Evan; Gaelic cothair ‘fortress’ in Carnarvon ; Gaelic uisge ‘water’ in Exe, Usk, Esk; etc.

English has been influenced by many languages and one of them is Scandinavian (in the period of OE and ME). Scandinavian loans differ from other loans from the same period because they refer to common, everyday events and objects. Because of its extent, it is one of the most interesting of the foreign influences on the English language. The greater part of lexical borrowings from O Scand were not recorded until the 13^th c. The presence of the Scandinavians in the English population is indicated by a large number of place-names in the northern and eastern areas: more frequent are with such components:thorp-<village> e.g.Woodthorp; toft <piece of land>e.g.Brimtoft; ness<cape>e.g.Inverness. The total number of Scandinavian borrowings in E. is estimated at about 900 words. It is difficult to define the spheres of Scand. borrowings: they mostly pertain to everyday life and don’t differ from native words.Only the earliest loan-words deal with military and legal matters: Late OE barda, cnearr,(different types if ships), cnif(NE knife), orrest(battle), lazu –law, hūsbonda-husband, the verb tacan – take. Everyday words: nouns: bag, band, cake, egg, seat, sky, window.adject.: happy, ill, odd, ugly, weak.verbs: call, die, hit, lift, take, want. It is difficult to distinguish Scand. loans from native words, the only criteria-phonetic features: the consonant cluster [sk]:sky, skill; [k]&[g]: before front-vowels:kid, girth. But,still, these criteria are not always reliable. The intimate relations of the languages resulted also in phonetic modification of native words: give, gift.

Latin. A large percentage of the educated and literate population of the time were competent in Latin, which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Western Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for the entry of individual Latin words into Old English based on which patterns of linguistic change they have undergone. There were at least three notable periods of Latin influence. The first occurred before the ancestral Angles and Saxons left continental Europe for Britain.^[when?] The second began when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became widespread.^[when?] See Latin influence in English: Early Middle Ages for details.

The third and largest single transfer of Latin-based words happened after the Norman Conquest of 1066, when an enormous number of Norman (Old French) words began to influence the language. Most of these Oïl language words were themselves derived from Old French and ultimately from classical Latin, although a notable stock of Norse words were introduced or re-introduced in Norman form. The Norman Conquest approximately marks the end of Old English and the advent of Middle English.

One of the ways the influence of Latin can be seen is that many Latin words for activities also came to be used to refer to the people engaged in those activities, an idiom carried over from Anglo-Saxon but using Latin words.^{[citation needed]} This can be seen in words like militia, assembly, movement, and service.

The language was further altered by the transition away from the runic alphabet (also known as futhorc or fuþorc) to the Latin alphabet, which was also a significant factor in the developmental pressures brought to bear on the language. Old English words were spelled, more or less, as they were pronounced. Often, the Latin alphabet fell short of being able to adequately represent Anglo-Saxon phonetics. Spellings, therefore, can be thought of as best-attempt approximations of how the language actually sounded.

The "silent" letters in many Modern English words were pronounced in Old English: for example, the c and h in cniht, the Old English ancestor of the modern knight, were pronounced. Another side-effect of spelling Old English words phonetically using the Latin alphabet was that spelling was extremely variable. A word's spelling could also reflect differences in the phonetics of the writer's regional dialect. Words also endured idiosyncratic spelling choices of individual authors, some of whom varied spellings between works. Thus, for example, the word and could be spelt either and or ond.

Early Middle Ages[edit]

The Germanic tribes who would later give rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxon and Jutes) traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire. Many words (some originally from Greek) for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people via Latin even before the tribes reached Britain (what is known as the Continental or Zero Period): anchor, butter, camp, cheese, chest, cook, copper, devil, dish, fork, gem, inch, kitchen, mile, mill, mint (coin), noon, pillow, pound (unit of weight),punt (boat), sack, street, wall, wine. Cognates of virtually all of these English words exist in the other Germanic languages.

Christian missionaries coming to Britain in the 6th century and 7th century brought with them Latin religious terms which entered the English language: abbot, altar, apostle,candle, clerk, mass, minister, monk, nun, pope, priest, school, shrive. Some of these words are ultimately of Greek origin, as much of the technical language of Christianity developed from the Greek of the New Testament and the works of those Fathers of the Church who wrote in Greek.

During this time, the Catholic Church had great influence on the development and expansion of the Old English language. Catholic monks mainly wrote or copied text in Latin, the prevalent Medieval lingua franca of Europe. However, when monks occasionally wrote in the vernacular, Latin words were translated by finding suitable Old English equivalents. Often, a Germanic word was adapted and given a new shade of meaning in the process. Such was the case with Old English gōdspell ("gospel") for Latin evangelium. Previously, the Old English word simply meant "good news," but its meaning was extended in Old English to fit a religious context. The same occurred for the Old Germanic pagan wordblētsian, which meant "to sacrifice, consecrate by shedding blood". It was adapted by Old English scribes and christened to become the word bless. Similarly fullwiht (literally, "full-being") and the verb fullian came to mean "baptism" and "to baptize" respectively, but probably originally referred to some kind of rite of passage.

Whenever a suitable Old English substitute could not be found, a Latin word could be chosen instead, and many Latin words entered the Old English lexicon in this way. Such words include: biscop "bishop" from Latin episcopus, Old English teped "carpet" from Latin tapetum, and Old English sigel "brooch" from Latin sigillum. Other words came in, even though an adequate Old English term already existed, and this caused enrichment of the Old English vocabulary: culcer and læfel "spoon" from Latin coclearium and labellumbeside Old English spōn and hlædel (Modern English ladle); Old English forca from Latin furca "fork" next to Old English gafol; Old English scamol "chair, stool" from Latinscamellum beside native stōl, benc and setl. All told, approximately 600 words were borrowed from Latin during the Old English period.^[4] Often, the Latin word was severely restricted in sense, and was not widespread in use among the general populace. Latin words tended to be literary or scholarly terms and were not very common. The majority of them did not survive into the Middle English Period.