Approximately one third of Anglo-Saxon vocabulary survives into modern English, including many of our most basic, everyday words: earth, house, food, sing, night and sleep. By the 7th century Latin speakers refer to this country as Anglia – the land of the Angles – a name that will later develop into England.
Christian missionaries, led by St. Augustine, move through the land, converting the Anglo-Saxons from their Pagan beliefs to a Catholic Christian faith. Throughout Europe, the language of the Church is Latin, and the missionaries inject hundreds of new Latin words into the English language. English is spoken differently in different counties, but four main dialects exist and resemble the English we know today. These dialects are Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish.
For a hundred years the Vikings control most of Eastern England, before being pushed back into the North East of the country by King Alfred the Great. They remain in power in the North East until the late 900s, in an area then known as Danelaw. During this time King Alfred uses the English language to develop a sense of national identity amongst the English.
Then after that, the French cam along and diluted it a bit more, but that’s the roots of English. Alfred would have spoken West Saxon, from roughly the Winchester area, but he spread the language north and it gradually combined with the Norse languages (“CAKE” is a Norse word, BTW! 🙂 ) as he moved North from Wessex. He’s not the only English King called “The Great” for nothing. He’s called that because he basically created and unified England, and made peace with the Danes.
That aside, my point is that “the Queen’s English” is not unaccented. It’s derived from the aristocracy speaking French for 300 years, until the 100 Years War, when we decided the French were the enemy, and stopped all that nonsense! 🙂
‘Bath’ pronounced Baath is not correct. ‘A’ is pronounced ‘ah’ not ‘ahh’
An accent is the way we say words, not the words we say (That’s a dialect)
There’s nothing wrong with any accent. I love them all, but the “Queen’s English” is not necessarily correct…..
🙂
Anyroad, were worrah? Ahh, mekkin me snap for tmorra an then ah gotta gi that yoth ovver there a borra o me gadda, but only if he gis ore scrattin!
