WEBVTT 00:00:12.789 --> 00:00:23.726 [♪ choral music] 00:00:23.726 --> 00:00:25.703 Narrator: This is the South Bank in London. 00:00:27.697 --> 00:00:29.511 2,000 years ago, 00:00:29.511 --> 00:00:31.565 if you'd heard a human voice around here, 00:00:31.565 --> 00:00:35.721 the language would have been incomprehensible. 00:00:36.361 --> 00:00:37.943 1,000 years ago, 00:00:37.943 --> 00:00:42.206 the English language has established it's first base camp. 00:00:43.016 --> 00:00:45.671 Today, English circles the globe. 00:00:45.671 --> 00:00:48.057 It inhabits the air we breathe. 00:00:48.428 --> 00:00:50.706 What started as a guttural, tribal dialect, 00:00:50.706 --> 00:00:53.032 seemingly isolated in a small island, 00:00:53.032 --> 00:00:56.633 is now the language of well over a 1,000 million people, 00:00:56.633 --> 00:00:57.752 around the world. 00:00:58.001 --> 00:01:25.101 [♪ instrumental] 00:01:25.101 --> 00:01:26.480 The story of the English language 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:28.181 is an extraordinary one. 00:01:28.181 --> 00:01:29.452 It has the characteristics 00:01:29.452 --> 00:01:32.985 of a bold and successful adventure, 00:01:32.985 --> 00:01:36.935 tenacity, luck, near extinction on more than one occasion, 00:01:36.935 --> 00:01:38.347 dazzling flexibility, 00:01:38.347 --> 00:01:40.832 and an extraordinary power to absorb, 00:01:40.832 --> 00:01:42.792 and it's still going on. 00:01:42.792 --> 00:01:45.094 New dialects, new Englishes, 00:01:45.094 --> 00:01:46.619 are evolving all the time, 00:01:46.619 --> 00:01:47.826 all over the world. 00:01:47.826 --> 00:01:50.992 [♪ instrumental] 00:01:50.992 --> 00:01:52.582 Successive invasions introduced, 00:01:52.582 --> 00:01:55.087 then threatened to destroy our language. 00:01:56.236 --> 00:01:58.982 Our first program tells that story. 00:02:01.595 --> 00:02:02.479 For 300 years, 00:02:02.479 --> 00:02:04.762 English was forced underground. 00:02:04.762 --> 00:02:06.982 Our second program tells how it survived, 00:02:06.982 --> 00:02:08.102 and how it fought back. 00:02:08.102 --> 00:02:13.008 [♪ instrumental] 00:02:13.008 --> 00:02:14.200 Our third program will tell 00:02:14.200 --> 00:02:15.622 how the English language took on 00:02:15.622 --> 00:02:18.068 the power blocks of church and state. 00:02:19.903 --> 00:02:22.519 Our fourth, how it became the language of Shakespeare. 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:25.006 In later programs, 00:02:25.006 --> 00:02:26.280 we're going to leave these shores 00:02:26.280 --> 00:02:29.424 as English did, to tell the story of how in America, 00:02:29.424 --> 00:02:31.293 the language of one great empire, 00:02:31.293 --> 00:02:32.846 became that of another. 00:02:34.424 --> 00:02:35.827 We'll go to the Caribbean, 00:02:35.827 --> 00:02:39.278 where a variety of new part-English dialects took root. 00:02:41.175 --> 00:02:42.544 India, where English became 00:02:42.544 --> 00:02:44.506 a commanding, unifying language, 00:02:44.506 --> 00:02:46.400 in a country of a 1,000 tongues. 00:02:48.518 --> 00:02:49.578 And Australia, 00:02:49.578 --> 00:02:50.943 where a confident new English 00:02:50.943 --> 00:02:52.591 was invented by a people, 00:02:52.591 --> 00:02:55.576 many of whom had been expelled from their mother country. 00:02:59.457 --> 00:03:01.045 We'll travel through time too, 00:03:01.045 --> 00:03:03.318 to explore how English in the 21st century 00:03:03.318 --> 00:03:06.356 has become the international language of business. 00:03:06.356 --> 00:03:09.300 The language in which the world's citizens communicate. 00:03:09.300 --> 00:03:14.391 [♪ instrumental] 00:03:14.391 --> 00:03:15.949 Over the last 1,500 years, 00:03:15.949 --> 00:03:19.865 these small islands have achieved much that is remarkable. 00:03:20.545 --> 00:03:21.662 But, in my view, 00:03:21.662 --> 00:03:23.998 England's greatest success story of all, 00:03:23.998 --> 00:03:25.852 is the English language. 00:03:27.614 --> 00:03:29.918 These programs are about the words we think in, 00:03:29.918 --> 00:03:32.489 talk in, write in, sing in. 00:03:32.489 --> 00:03:35.427 The words that describe the life we live. 00:03:35.427 --> 00:03:48.711 [♪ soft, ethereal music] 00:03:48.711 --> 00:03:50.679 This is where we can begin. 00:03:50.679 --> 00:03:51.539 Just after dawn, 00:03:51.539 --> 00:03:52.786 in a foreign country, 00:03:52.786 --> 00:03:53.871 on a flat shore, 00:03:53.871 --> 00:03:55.354 by the North Sea. 00:03:56.132 --> 00:03:58.865 In what we now call, The Netherlands. 00:04:00.888 --> 00:04:02.253 This is Friesland, 00:04:02.253 --> 00:04:03.799 and it's in this part of the world, 00:04:03.799 --> 00:04:05.544 that we can still hear, 00:04:05.544 --> 00:04:07.507 the modern language that we believe, 00:04:07.507 --> 00:04:09.711 sounds closest to what the ancestor 00:04:09.711 --> 00:04:10.932 of the English sounded like, 00:04:10.932 --> 00:04:12.735 1,500 years ago. 00:04:14.177 --> 00:04:22.982 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:04:22.982 --> 00:04:23.792 Narrator: In Friesland, 00:04:23.792 --> 00:04:25.163 many people start their day, 00:04:25.163 --> 00:04:26.748 listening to the weather forecast, 00:04:26.748 --> 00:04:27.679 from popular weatherman, 00:04:27.679 --> 00:04:29.465 Piet Paulusma. 00:04:29.465 --> 00:04:33.214 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:04:33.214 --> 00:04:34.719 Narrator: Some of his words might sound familiar, 00:04:34.719 --> 00:04:35.897 like three and four, 00:04:35.897 --> 00:04:37.792 frost and freeze. 00:04:37.792 --> 00:04:43.240 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:04:43.240 --> 00:04:44.562 Narrator: Mist and blue. 00:04:44.562 --> 00:04:50.829 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:04:50.829 --> 00:04:53.044 The reason we can recognize these words, 00:04:53.044 --> 00:04:53.952 is that modern Frisian, 00:04:53.952 --> 00:04:54.943 and modern English, 00:04:54.943 --> 00:04:58.230 can both be traced back to the same family, 00:04:58.230 --> 00:05:00.373 the Germanic family of languages. 00:05:00.373 --> 00:05:00.991 And some words, 00:05:00.991 --> 00:05:02.263 have stayed more or less the same 00:05:02.263 --> 00:05:03.573 down the centuries. 00:05:06.032 --> 00:05:07.233 Butter. 00:05:07.233 --> 00:05:08.203 Bread. 00:05:08.381 --> 00:05:09.211 Cheese. 00:05:09.703 --> 00:05:10.643 Meal. 00:05:11.031 --> 00:05:11.962 Sleep. 00:05:12.325 --> 00:05:13.030 Boat. 00:05:13.727 --> 00:05:14.241 Snow. 00:05:15.037 --> 00:05:15.432 Sea. 00:05:16.182 --> 00:05:16.647 Storm. 00:05:17.568 --> 00:05:22.327 [♪ ethereal music] 00:05:22.327 --> 00:05:23.753 The west Germanic tribes 00:05:23.753 --> 00:05:24.949 who invented these words 00:05:24.949 --> 00:05:27.374 were a war-like, adventurous people. 00:05:28.616 --> 00:05:30.232 They'd been on the move through Europe 00:05:30.232 --> 00:05:31.757 for the best part of a 1,000 years, 00:05:31.757 --> 00:05:33.626 and now has settlements in what we would call 00:05:33.626 --> 00:05:35.779 the lowlands of Northern Europe, 00:05:35.779 --> 00:05:37.420 Holland, Germany, and Denmark. 00:05:37.950 --> 00:05:41.285 But they were still greedy for land, ready to move on. 00:05:42.272 --> 00:05:44.233 This is the island of Terschelling. 00:05:44.973 --> 00:05:48.984 The English coast is about 250 miles to the southwest behind me. 00:05:49.330 --> 00:05:50.575 It is from these islands, 00:05:50.575 --> 00:05:52.840 and the low lying Frisian mainland, 00:05:52.840 --> 00:05:54.117 that in the 5th century, 00:05:54.117 --> 00:05:55.340 a Germanic tribe, 00:05:55.340 --> 00:05:57.016 part of the family that also contained 00:05:57.016 --> 00:05:58.814 Jutes, Angles and Saxon's, 00:05:58.814 --> 00:06:01.022 made sail to look for a better life. 00:06:01.498 --> 00:06:02.486 And they took their language, 00:06:02.486 --> 00:06:04.912 our language, with them. 00:06:04.912 --> 00:06:07.965 [♪ adventurous music] 00:06:07.965 --> 00:06:28.634 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:06:29.192 --> 00:06:31.774 The Germanic tribes weren't the first to invade our shores. 00:06:32.303 --> 00:06:33.889 More than 500 years before, 00:06:33.889 --> 00:06:36.828 the Romans had also come by sea to impose their will. 00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:39.311 Now, their empire had crumbled, 00:06:39.311 --> 00:06:40.991 and they'd abandoned these islands, 00:06:40.991 --> 00:06:42.585 leaving the native tribes, 00:06:42.585 --> 00:06:45.074 the Britains, or Celts to their fate. 00:06:48.706 --> 00:06:50.105 This is Pevensey Castle. 00:06:50.105 --> 00:06:51.728 An ancient Roman fort that used to stand 00:06:51.728 --> 00:06:55.233 on the very shoreline of the south coast. 00:06:55.608 --> 00:06:56.943 The chronicle of the period, 00:06:56.943 --> 00:06:59.109 reported that in the year 491, 00:06:59.109 --> 00:07:01.171 Germanic invaders laid siege 00:07:01.171 --> 00:07:03.964 and slaughtered the Celts who had taken refuge here. 00:07:03.964 --> 00:07:06.040 Not one of them was left alive. 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:08.200 Other Celts did survive the invasion, 00:07:08.200 --> 00:07:09.774 a million or more of them in England, 00:07:09.774 --> 00:07:11.486 but they were a broken people. 00:07:11.486 --> 00:07:12.854 The clue to their fate, 00:07:12.854 --> 00:07:14.944 lies in the word the Germanic tribe 00:07:14.944 --> 00:07:16.375 used to describe them. 00:07:16.375 --> 00:07:17.781 It was "walhaz,' 00:07:17.781 --> 00:07:20.511 a name that lives on in our modern language as Welsh, 00:07:20.511 --> 00:07:24.295 1500 years ago, it meant both foreigner and slave. 00:07:25.140 --> 00:07:27.225 The Celts became servants and followers, 00:07:27.225 --> 00:07:28.185 second-class citizens, 00:07:28.185 --> 00:07:29.028 the only way up, 00:07:29.028 --> 00:07:31.638 was to become part of the invader's tribes. 00:07:31.638 --> 00:07:34.958 To adopt their culture, and their language. 00:07:34.958 --> 00:07:37.683 [♪ meditative music] 00:07:37.683 --> 00:07:40.251 The Celt's and their language were pushed to the margins. 00:07:44.511 --> 00:07:46.876 Only a handful of words from the Celtic language 00:07:46.876 --> 00:07:48.717 has survived into modern English. 00:07:50.357 --> 00:07:51.795 In the north, where I come from, 00:07:51.795 --> 00:07:54.521 we have crag, meaning rock, 00:07:55.670 --> 00:07:57.535 combe, meaning deep valley, 00:07:57.973 --> 00:08:01.218 and dialect words like brat and brock for badger. 00:08:01.218 --> 00:08:10.347 [♪ meditative music] 00:08:10.347 --> 00:08:12.098 There are traces in place names, 00:08:12.518 --> 00:08:14.799 the "tor" in Torpenhow, 00:08:14.799 --> 00:08:16.508 spelled as tor-pen-how, 00:08:16.508 --> 00:08:17.783 a neighboring village to my own, 00:08:17.783 --> 00:08:20.272 that comes from the Celtic for peak. 00:08:23.903 --> 00:08:27.078 The "caer" of Carlisle, means a fortified place. 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:33.113 In the south, they left us the names of 00:08:33.113 --> 00:08:36.414 Thames and Haven, Dover and London, 00:08:36.847 --> 00:08:38.558 but these were fragments, 00:08:38.558 --> 00:08:39.799 the language that prevailed 00:08:39.799 --> 00:08:41.293 was that of the victors. 00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:47.986 By the end of the 6th century, 00:08:47.986 --> 00:08:51.412 these Germanic tribes occupied half of mainland Britain. 00:08:52.922 --> 00:08:55.231 They had divided into a number of kingdoms, 00:08:55.231 --> 00:08:59.183 Kent, Sussex, Essex, and Wessex, 00:08:59.183 --> 00:09:00.303 denoting the settlements of 00:09:00.303 --> 00:09:03.693 southern, eastern, and western Saxon tribes. 00:09:04.711 --> 00:09:07.235 East Anglia, names after the Angles 00:09:07.235 --> 00:09:08.311 who gave England it's name. 00:09:09.351 --> 00:09:11.536 Mercia in the midlands, 00:09:11.536 --> 00:09:13.392 Northumbria in the North. 00:09:15.232 --> 00:09:16.380 Throughout these areas, 00:09:16.380 --> 00:09:19.365 many modern place names come from that settlement, 00:09:19.365 --> 00:09:21.172 or use the words they brought, 00:09:21.172 --> 00:09:24.097 we live with them, we live in them, everyday. 00:09:24.097 --> 00:09:29.095 [♪ pop music] 00:09:29.095 --> 00:09:30.920 The "-ing" in modern place names 00:09:30.920 --> 00:09:32.550 means the people of. 00:09:32.550 --> 00:09:35.467 [♪] 00:09:35.467 --> 00:09:38.080 "'Ton" as in Wigton where I come from, 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:39.816 means enclosure, or village. 00:09:44.626 --> 00:09:47.120 "Ham" means farm, 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:50.480 which might surprise one or two Tottenham supporters. 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:52.271 [♪] 00:09:52.271 --> 00:10:10.791 [♪ Battle Hymn of the Republic tune] 00:10:10.791 --> 00:10:13.090 The Germanic tribes now settled around the country, 00:10:13.090 --> 00:10:14.884 all spoke their own dialects, 00:10:14.884 --> 00:10:16.231 from among them, 00:10:16.231 --> 00:10:17.035 would emerge one language, 00:10:17.035 --> 00:10:19.384 Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, 00:10:19.384 --> 00:10:21.591 and we all speak it every day. 00:10:21.591 --> 00:10:22.749 Man: They've got five strikers, 00:10:22.749 --> 00:10:23.927 none of them can really finish 00:10:23.927 --> 00:10:25.921 (mens voices overlapping) 00:10:25.921 --> 00:10:27.878 Man: We just need some youth from (overlapping voices) really. 00:10:27.878 --> 00:10:30.179 Narrator: Examine the language you use today, 00:10:30.179 --> 00:10:32.160 and you'll still find hundreds of words 00:10:32.160 --> 00:10:35.195 from a language over 1500 years old. 00:10:35.195 --> 00:10:38.119 Keywords, ranging from the names we give family members, 00:10:38.119 --> 00:10:39.143 to numbers. 00:10:39.143 --> 00:10:41.320 (male voices overlapping) 00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:42.752 Man: I think we'll win 2-1 today. 00:10:42.752 --> 00:10:43.906 Man: I'll drink to that. 00:10:45.366 --> 00:10:47.393 Man: I live in like a Westham area, 00:10:47.393 --> 00:10:48.946 and I've got a lot of Westham friends, 00:10:48.946 --> 00:10:51.013 but for this game, we'll be enemies. 00:10:51.013 --> 00:10:52.023 Man: The home games, 00:10:52.023 --> 00:10:53.794 I would go with the guys, 00:10:53.794 --> 00:10:56.007 we meet up from the (indecipherable) website, 00:10:56.007 --> 00:10:58.304 or with my daughter, to other games, 00:10:58.304 --> 00:10:59.327 she's five at the moment, 00:10:59.327 --> 00:11:02.095 she loves it, she loves singing the songs, 00:11:02.095 --> 00:11:03.378 the nice ones anyway. 00:11:03.378 --> 00:11:04.615 Man: I was coming with my son, 00:11:04.615 --> 00:11:06.823 so we just go in to get something to eat first, 00:11:07.573 --> 00:11:09.760 go into the grounds, stay with the atmosphere, 00:11:09.760 --> 00:11:10.778 and watch the game. 00:11:11.183 --> 00:11:13.078 There has been a few high scoring games over the years, 00:11:13.078 --> 00:11:15.534 I think the highest we ever beat them was 6-1. 00:11:15.534 --> 00:11:17.868 A repeat today wouldn't go amiss. 00:11:18.546 --> 00:11:20.287 Narrator: Most of those words were from Old English, 00:11:20.287 --> 00:11:23.668 nouns like "youth, son, daughter," 00:11:23.668 --> 00:11:26.661 "field, friend, home," and "ground." 00:11:26.661 --> 00:11:30.577 Prepositions like "in, and on, into, by and from," 00:11:30.577 --> 00:11:33.685 "and" and "the" are from Old English, 00:11:33.685 --> 00:11:34.715 all the numbers, 00:11:34.715 --> 00:11:38.093 and verbs like "drink, come, and go" 00:11:38.093 --> 00:11:40.494 "sing, like, and love." 00:11:41.194 --> 00:11:43.983 But would these words have sounded different all those years ago? 00:11:43.983 --> 00:11:45.828 In a slightly quieter pub, 00:11:45.828 --> 00:11:48.621 I ask language expert Katie Lowe. 00:11:48.621 --> 00:11:49.867 Katie: They sound a little different, 00:11:49.867 --> 00:11:51.357 I mean the Old English for "son" 00:11:51.357 --> 00:11:52.827 is (pronunciation) "sunu." 00:11:52.827 --> 00:11:54.097 That's not so very different. 00:11:54.097 --> 00:11:55.896 "Game" is (pronunciation) "gamen," 00:11:55.896 --> 00:11:58.542 "ground" is (pronunciation) "grund." 00:11:58.542 --> 00:12:00.414 And I notice that Steve says that 00:12:00.414 --> 00:12:03.057 his daughter loves singing songs, 00:12:03.057 --> 00:12:04.580 if you said that in Old English, 00:12:04.580 --> 00:12:05.088 it would be 00:12:05.088 --> 00:12:08.824 [speaks sentence in Old English] 00:12:08.824 --> 00:12:12.256 and you can see that sounds pretty much like modern English. 00:12:12.256 --> 00:12:14.186 Narrator: So in fact, you can have a good conversation in Old English. 00:12:14.186 --> 00:12:15.614 Katie: Oh, yes you can indeed. 00:12:15.614 --> 00:12:18.446 I mean, each word I'm saying now, 00:12:18.446 --> 00:12:20.032 is from Old English. 00:12:20.032 --> 00:12:21.475 Narrator: Do you have any estimate of how many words 00:12:21.475 --> 00:12:23.113 there were swirling around, 00:12:23.113 --> 00:12:24.543 compared with how many words we have now? 00:12:24.543 --> 00:12:27.559 Katie: We think it was in the region of around 25,000 words. 00:12:27.559 --> 00:12:29.542 Compare that with an average desk dictionary, 00:12:29.542 --> 00:12:31.846 which maybe contains something like 100,000 words, 00:12:31.846 --> 00:12:33.400 it sounds pretty small. 00:12:33.400 --> 00:12:34.647 But if you think about the fact that 00:12:34.647 --> 00:12:36.547 an average educated person 00:12:36.547 --> 00:12:38.440 would probably have about 10,000 words 00:12:38.440 --> 00:12:39.654 in their active vocabulary, 00:12:39.654 --> 00:12:41.088 there are plenty of words to go round. 00:12:41.088 --> 00:12:46.189 [♪ choral music] 00:12:46.189 --> 00:12:48.745 Narrator: English took it's first steps away from it's tribal roots 00:12:48.745 --> 00:12:51.032 with the revival of Christianity. 00:12:51.968 --> 00:13:00.941 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:13:00.941 --> 00:13:02.930 Man: Let us praise the King of Heaven, 00:13:03.670 --> 00:13:05.135 the power of the Creator, 00:13:05.135 --> 00:13:06.908 and his conception. 00:13:07.184 --> 00:13:08.702 The work of the Glorious Father, 00:13:08.702 --> 00:13:11.258 who created every wonder, 00:13:11.258 --> 00:13:13.337 the Eternal Lord. 00:13:13.337 --> 00:13:27.142 [♪] 00:13:27.142 --> 00:13:30.130 Narrator: In 597, the monk and prior Augustine, 00:13:30.130 --> 00:13:32.276 led a mission from Rome to Kent. 00:13:33.352 --> 00:13:34.345 Around the same time, 00:13:34.345 --> 00:13:36.187 Irish monks of the Celtic church, 00:13:36.187 --> 00:13:38.303 were establishing a presence in the North. 00:13:40.940 --> 00:13:41.933 Within a century, 00:13:41.933 --> 00:13:44.703 Christians built churches and monasteries. 00:13:44.703 --> 00:13:46.281 This is St. Paul's in Jarrow, 00:13:46.281 --> 00:13:49.680 parts of which, date from the 7th century. 00:13:56.837 --> 00:13:59.511 Faith and stone weren't the only things 00:13:59.511 --> 00:14:01.440 the Christian missionaries brought to the country. 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:04.688 They brought the international language of the Christian religion. 00:14:04.688 --> 00:14:05.811 Latin. 00:14:05.811 --> 00:14:08.920 Latin terms became part of the English word hoard, 00:14:08.920 --> 00:14:10.714 Altare became alter, 00:14:10.714 --> 00:14:12.393 apostulus became apostle, 00:14:12.393 --> 00:14:13.953 mass, monk, and verse, 00:14:13.953 --> 00:14:16.064 and many others, all come from the Latin. 00:14:16.064 --> 00:14:17.991 This would become a pattern of English, 00:14:17.991 --> 00:14:19.553 the layering of words, 00:14:19.553 --> 00:14:21.686 taken from different source languages, 00:14:21.686 --> 00:14:23.336 and from Latin too, 00:14:23.336 --> 00:14:25.855 the English took their script. 00:14:25.855 --> 00:14:30.733 [♪ choral music] 00:14:30.733 --> 00:14:32.952 The Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and Jutes, 00:14:32.952 --> 00:14:34.001 who would become the English, 00:14:34.001 --> 00:14:36.114 hadn't brought script as we know it, 00:14:36.114 --> 00:14:38.384 with them, but Runes. 00:14:46.160 --> 00:14:47.161 The Runic alphabet, 00:14:47.161 --> 00:14:48.671 was made up of symbols, 00:14:48.671 --> 00:14:50.451 formed mainly of straight lines, 00:14:50.451 --> 00:14:52.928 so that the letters could be carved into stone or wood. 00:14:54.518 --> 00:14:55.735 Those were their media, 00:14:55.735 --> 00:14:57.760 rather than parchment or paper. 00:15:00.170 --> 00:15:01.743 Though this is a short poem, 00:15:01.743 --> 00:15:04.112 most examples of Runic writing that survived, 00:15:04.112 --> 00:15:05.880 suggests Runes were mainly used for 00:15:05.880 --> 00:15:08.568 short, practical messages, or grafiti. 00:15:11.297 --> 00:15:21.801 (Gregorian monk chanting) 00:15:21.801 --> 00:15:23.303 The Latin alphabet was different, 00:15:23.303 --> 00:15:24.515 with it's curves and bows, 00:15:24.515 --> 00:15:27.920 it allowed words to be easily written using pen and ink 00:15:27.920 --> 00:15:30.095 onto pages of parchment or velum, 00:15:30.095 --> 00:15:31.937 which gathered together, into a book, 00:15:31.937 --> 00:15:33.747 could be widely circulated. 00:15:33.747 --> 00:15:49.164 [♪] 00:15:49.164 --> 00:15:52.464 Christianity brought the book to the east shores. 00:15:54.512 --> 00:15:56.387 Verbum, the word. 00:16:05.242 --> 00:16:08.014 Soon a native culture of scholarship began to flower, 00:16:08.014 --> 00:16:10.467 a culture based on Latin and on writing. 00:16:11.088 --> 00:16:15.849 [♪ chanting continues] 00:16:15.849 --> 00:16:17.655 The magnificent Lindisfarne Gospels 00:16:17.655 --> 00:16:19.026 were created in the 8th century, 00:16:19.026 --> 00:16:22.588 on the island of Lindisfarne, just off the northeast coast. 00:16:24.918 --> 00:16:26.135 A few miles south, 00:16:26.135 --> 00:16:28.411 at the monastery of St. Paul's in Jarrow, 00:16:28.411 --> 00:16:31.280 the great English monk and scholar, Bede, 00:16:31.280 --> 00:16:33.213 born and educated in Northumbria, 00:16:33.213 --> 00:16:37.087 began writing the first ever history of the English speaking people. 00:16:37.087 --> 00:16:40.454 [♪ chanting continues] 00:16:40.454 --> 00:16:41.918 He wrote, of course in Latin, 00:16:41.918 --> 00:16:43.776 the language of scholarship. 00:16:45.291 --> 00:16:47.025 The prevailing language among the people, 00:16:47.025 --> 00:16:48.426 was still Old English. 00:16:48.773 --> 00:16:50.579 But Latin, this powerful medium, 00:16:50.579 --> 00:16:51.784 was now amongst them. 00:16:52.311 --> 00:16:54.680 Now, Old English was written down, 00:16:54.680 --> 00:16:56.479 using the Latin alphabet, 00:16:56.479 --> 00:16:59.437 while retaining some of the old Runes as letters. 00:16:59.437 --> 00:17:00.711 From the 7th century, 00:17:00.711 --> 00:17:03.266 we find English itself written on parchment, 00:17:03.266 --> 00:17:04.470 in a language and a script, 00:17:04.470 --> 00:17:07.744 we can just about recognize as our own. 00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:11.540 [♪ chanting continues] 00:17:11.540 --> 00:17:39.210 (man speaking in foreign language: The Lord's Prayer] 00:17:39.210 --> 00:17:40.220 With writing, 00:17:40.220 --> 00:17:41.661 Old English stole a march 00:17:41.661 --> 00:17:44.248 on other languages spoken in Europe at the time. 00:17:44.248 --> 00:17:47.494 Prayers were recorded, and books of the Bible translated, 00:17:47.494 --> 00:17:49.274 the laws of the land were written down, 00:17:49.274 --> 00:17:51.382 and the language soon became capable 00:17:51.382 --> 00:17:52.888 of recording and expressing 00:17:52.888 --> 00:17:56.768 and increasingly wide and subtle range of human experience. 00:17:56.768 --> 00:17:59.110 [♪ intense music] 00:17:59.110 --> 00:18:00.200 And in the right hands, 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:02.856 Old English was now powerful and supple enough 00:18:02.856 --> 00:18:06.976 to take you to imaginary worlds, fire the blood, be poetry. 00:18:07.606 --> 00:18:15.495 (man speaking in foreign language: Beowulf) 00:18:15.495 --> 00:18:19.249 Man: So, the Spear-Danes, and days gone by, 00:18:19.249 --> 00:18:22.824 and the kings who rule them have courage and greatness. 00:18:22.824 --> 00:18:26.497 We have heard of those prince's heroic campaigns. 00:18:26.497 --> 00:18:30.061 [♪ death-like music] 00:18:30.061 --> 00:18:31.290 No one knows who composed 00:18:31.290 --> 00:18:32.888 the epic Beowulf, sometime between the 00:18:32.888 --> 00:18:35.147 mid 7th and the 10th century. 00:18:35.147 --> 00:18:38.005 It's the first great poem in the English Language. 00:18:38.005 --> 00:18:39.688 The beginning of a glorious tradition 00:18:39.688 --> 00:18:40.752 which would lead to Chaucer, 00:18:40.752 --> 00:18:42.835 Shakespeare and beyond. 00:18:43.745 --> 00:18:45.465 The poem celebrates the glory days 00:18:45.465 --> 00:18:47.207 of the Germanic tribes, 00:18:47.207 --> 00:18:50.986 optimizing the heroic warrior who gives the poem it's name. 00:18:52.456 --> 00:18:55.042 The power of a language can be heard in this passage, 00:18:55.042 --> 00:18:57.247 which introduces Beowulf's archenemy, 00:18:57.247 --> 00:18:59.112 the monster Grendel. 00:19:01.102 --> 00:19:08.861 (man speaking in foreign language: Beowulf) 00:19:08.861 --> 00:19:12.661 Man: In off the moors, down through the mist-bands, 00:19:12.661 --> 00:19:16.040 God cursed Grendel came greedily loping. 00:19:16.040 --> 00:19:19.290 (man speaking in foreign language: Beowulf) 00:19:19.290 --> 00:19:21.601 Man: The bane of the race of men roamed forth, 00:19:21.601 --> 00:19:24.745 hunting for a prey in the high hall. 00:19:24.745 --> 00:19:27.431 (man speaking in foreign language: Beowulf) 00:19:27.431 --> 00:19:29.664 Man: Spurned and joyless, he journeyed on ahead, 00:19:29.664 --> 00:19:32.095 and arrived at the bawn. 00:19:32.095 --> 00:19:35.519 (man speaking in foreign language: Beowulf) 00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:37.122 Man: Then his rage boiled over, 00:19:37.122 --> 00:19:39.117 he ripped open the mouth of the building, 00:19:39.117 --> 00:19:40.913 maddening for blood. 00:19:40.913 --> 00:19:43.810 [♪ dramatic music] 00:19:43.810 --> 00:19:46.544 He grabbed and mauled a man on his bench, 00:19:46.544 --> 00:19:48.847 bit into his bone lappings, 00:19:48.847 --> 00:19:50.490 bolted down his blood, 00:19:50.490 --> 00:19:53.006 and gorged on him in lumps, 00:19:53.006 --> 00:19:56.198 leaving the body utterly lifeless, 00:19:56.198 --> 00:19:58.503 eaten up, hand and foot. 00:19:59.192 --> 00:20:01.987 Narrator: What does that tell us about English at that time, Seamus? 00:20:01.987 --> 00:20:03.881 What kind of language was it when you came to it? 00:20:03.881 --> 00:20:05.992 Do you think this is a fully developed poetic language? 00:20:05.992 --> 00:20:08.679 Seamus: It's certainly a fully developed poetic language. 00:20:08.679 --> 00:20:12.596 It's capable of great elaboration. 00:20:12.596 --> 00:20:16.298 But what struck me generally about Old English 00:20:16.298 --> 00:20:18.786 from the moment I read the bits of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 00:20:18.786 --> 00:20:19.840 right through to Beowulf, 00:20:19.840 --> 00:20:23.107 is it's terrific for telling what happened. 00:20:23.107 --> 00:20:26.712 It's a wonderful sense of the indicative mood all through it. 00:20:26.712 --> 00:20:30.228 It's terrific for action, terrific for description. 00:20:30.228 --> 00:20:32.866 [♪ light chords] 00:20:32.866 --> 00:20:35.769 There's a wonderful forthright capacity to make up 00:20:35.769 --> 00:20:38.755 extra language in Anglo-Saxon. 00:20:42.489 --> 00:20:45.223 The words are very clear and direct, 00:20:45.223 --> 00:20:47.664 "ban and hus" for example, bone-house, 00:20:47.664 --> 00:20:49.713 there you have the house for the body, 00:20:49.713 --> 00:20:50.832 the word for the body. 00:20:53.462 --> 00:20:55.756 Beautiful words for instruments, 00:20:55.756 --> 00:21:01.512 the harp is called "gleo-bem", the glee-beam. 00:21:01.512 --> 00:21:05.960 The happy wood, or else the joy wood, 00:21:05.960 --> 00:21:08.985 "gomen-wudu." 00:21:13.832 --> 00:21:19.207 Swords, or shield, a shield is the war-board, wig-bord." 00:21:21.227 --> 00:21:23.482 That is a specific poetic energy 00:21:23.482 --> 00:21:24.816 that's in the language. 00:21:24.816 --> 00:21:29.049 The ability to make compounds, 00:21:29.049 --> 00:21:30.914 which is still in German I guess, 00:21:30.914 --> 00:21:33.036 it gives it a great beauty. 00:21:33.036 --> 00:21:34.824 Narrator: How extensive is the vocabulary? 00:21:34.824 --> 00:21:39.407 Seamus: I think there are 40,000 words recorded in Beowulf. 00:21:39.407 --> 00:21:41.536 But, a lot of the words repeat themselves, 00:21:41.536 --> 00:21:45.946 in this is more in the poetry than in the prose, 00:21:45.946 --> 00:21:48.844 if we heard an Anglo-Saxon speaker speaking, 00:21:48.844 --> 00:21:52.880 under his roof to his companion, 00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:55.218 we'd probably hear a very quicker, 00:21:55.218 --> 00:21:58.440 a different less elaborate language from Beowulf. 00:21:58.440 --> 00:22:01.340 Narrator: Would you say it is very clearly written to be read aloud? 00:22:01.340 --> 00:22:04.861 Seamus: It's certainly written to be read aloud, 00:22:04.861 --> 00:22:07.848 the question that agitates some scholars 00:22:07.848 --> 00:22:09.739 is whether it was written, you know? 00:22:09.739 --> 00:22:13.935 But, I think the general consensus now is that 00:22:13.935 --> 00:22:15.472 by the time you get to Beowulf, 00:22:15.472 --> 00:22:20.788 you have a writer, dealing with a traditional oral language. 00:22:20.788 --> 00:22:32.384 (man speaking in foreign language: Beowulf) 00:22:32.384 --> 00:22:34.167 Seamus: Certainly, you open the book, 00:22:34.167 --> 00:22:36.511 [speaks the first lines of Beowulf] 00:22:36.511 --> 00:22:37.668 asks to be uttered, 00:22:37.668 --> 00:22:39.168 there are many speeches in it, 00:22:39.168 --> 00:22:43.752 and it comes off the tongue with terrific directness. 00:22:43.752 --> 00:22:51.693 [♪ dramatic music] 00:22:51.693 --> 00:22:54.640 Narrator: Latin and Greek had created great bodies of literatiure 00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:56.352 in the classical past. 00:22:56.352 --> 00:22:58.408 In the East, Arabic and Chinese, 00:22:58.408 --> 00:23:00.669 were being used in the 8th and 9th century, 00:23:00.669 --> 00:23:02.160 as languages of poetry. 00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:03.228 But, at that time, 00:23:03.228 --> 00:23:05.653 no other language in the Christian world 00:23:05.653 --> 00:23:08.416 could match the achievement of the Beowulf poet, 00:23:08.416 --> 00:23:10.725 and his anonymous contemporaries. 00:23:10.725 --> 00:23:12.646 Old English was flourishing. 00:23:12.646 --> 00:23:14.739 The adventure was underway, 00:23:14.739 --> 00:23:16.916 but while the siege of English 00:23:16.916 --> 00:23:19.848 had come from these Frisian shores in the 5th century, 00:23:19.848 --> 00:23:22.480 so now in the late 8th century, 00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:25.625 a potential destroyer was preparing his battle fleet, 00:23:25.625 --> 00:23:28.456 500 miles or so to the North. 00:23:28.456 --> 00:23:50.664 [♪ ominous music] 00:23:50.664 --> 00:23:59.784 [♪ music becomes motivated] 00:23:59.784 --> 00:24:01.381 In the late 8th century, 00:24:01.381 --> 00:24:03.026 the Latin based culture of scholarship 00:24:03.026 --> 00:24:05.419 which had grown up in places like Lindisfarne, 00:24:05.419 --> 00:24:07.692 and which had also been the cradle of Old English 00:24:07.692 --> 00:24:10.889 faced extinction from across the sea. 00:24:10.889 --> 00:24:21.312 [♪] 00:24:21.312 --> 00:24:23.686 These ruins are of the Medieval monastery 00:24:23.686 --> 00:24:26.980 that stood on the island of Lindisfarne. 00:24:30.032 --> 00:24:32.143 It was the vikings who sacked and burned 00:24:32.143 --> 00:24:34.743 the religious center that stood here before. 00:24:36.736 --> 00:24:38.107 To these Pagan pirates, 00:24:38.107 --> 00:24:41.163 rampaging out of their longships in 793, 00:24:41.163 --> 00:24:45.064 this great center of Christian piety and scholarship, 00:24:45.064 --> 00:24:48.547 a pivotal place in the survival of the Word and the Gospels, 00:24:48.547 --> 00:24:51.103 was no more than an undefended treasure house. 00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:53.565 The jewels that graced the books of the church 00:24:53.565 --> 00:24:56.547 became barbells around a viking's neck. 00:24:56.547 --> 00:25:02.897 [♪ intense, motivated music] 00:25:02.897 --> 00:25:04.983 Today, the vikings may seem romantic, 00:25:04.983 --> 00:25:07.285 reenacting their rituals a good day out. 00:25:08.345 --> 00:25:09.495 Over 12 centuries ago, 00:25:09.495 --> 00:25:11.866 their arrival was not so cheerful. 00:25:11.866 --> 00:25:14.160 (bell ringing) 00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:17.770 To many, it seemed the signal to the end for civilization. 00:25:17.770 --> 00:25:21.785 (fire crackling) 00:25:22.157 --> 00:25:24.263 A year after raising Lindisfarne, 00:25:24.263 --> 00:25:27.280 the vikings returned, and sacked Jarrow, 00:25:27.280 --> 00:25:29.677 the abbey where Bede had been the greatest scholar, 00:25:29.677 --> 00:25:32.712 in one of the finest libraries in Christendom. 00:25:36.385 --> 00:25:38.121 This stronghold of the Latin word, 00:25:38.121 --> 00:25:40.595 where English was also being written down, 00:25:40.595 --> 00:25:42.665 uniquely among European dialects, 00:25:42.665 --> 00:25:44.618 was burned to the ground, 00:25:44.618 --> 00:25:45.706 it's books with it. 00:25:45.706 --> 00:25:49.199 (fire crackling) 00:25:49.199 --> 00:26:01.311 [♪ haunting voices] 00:26:01.969 --> 00:26:03.929 It was a start of 70 years of attack, 00:26:03.929 --> 00:26:08.280 during which the vikings savaged this easten half of the country. 00:26:08.280 --> 00:26:11.769 Few stories survive of exactly where and when they attacked, 00:26:11.769 --> 00:26:15.520 perhaps chillingly because few were left to tell the tale. 00:26:15.520 --> 00:26:18.831 At first, the raiders went home with their plunder, 00:26:18.831 --> 00:26:21.431 then they decided to take the land itself. 00:26:21.431 --> 00:26:24.296 In 865, the vikings landed a great army 00:26:24.296 --> 00:26:26.819 south of here, in East Anglia. 00:26:26.819 --> 00:26:31.680 [♪] 00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:34.760 Within 5 years, the viking invaders who are now called Danes, 00:26:34.760 --> 00:26:37.720 controlled the North and East of the country. 00:26:39.024 --> 00:26:40.735 Of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, 00:26:40.735 --> 00:26:43.105 only Wessex still held out. 00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:45.883 Old Norse, the language of the conquerors, 00:26:45.883 --> 00:26:47.952 was spreading throughout the land. 00:26:48.330 --> 00:26:51.690 Old English, potentially faced the same fate of the Celtic language 00:26:51.690 --> 00:26:53.120 it had supplanted, 00:26:53.120 --> 00:26:54.703 virtual oblivion. 00:26:56.136 --> 00:26:58.300 English, was in need of a champion. 00:26:59.390 --> 00:27:01.028 And it found one. 00:27:01.028 --> 00:27:13.303 [♪ triumphant music] 00:27:13.303 --> 00:27:15.628 King Alfred's statue stands here in Winchester, 00:27:15.628 --> 00:27:17.865 the capital of his aged kingdom of Wessex. 00:27:18.200 --> 00:27:20.985 He's the only monarch in our history to be known as "the Great" 00:27:20.985 --> 00:27:23.753 and he's often been hailed as the savior of England, 00:27:23.753 --> 00:27:27.788 that may be debatable as the idea of a single unified England, 00:27:27.788 --> 00:27:30.126 didn't really exist in Alfred's day. 00:27:30.126 --> 00:27:34.561 What is certain, is that he was a great defender of the English language. 00:27:34.561 --> 00:27:37.699 [♪ somber music] 00:27:37.699 --> 00:27:40.768 It was the Victorians who dubbed Alfred, the Great. 00:27:41.208 --> 00:27:42.827 He was one of their darlings, 00:27:42.827 --> 00:27:44.357 an English hero, whose exploits 00:27:44.357 --> 00:27:47.826 were enthusiastically woven into the fabric of national myth. 00:27:49.602 --> 00:27:51.560 But, he very nearly didn't make it. 00:27:53.800 --> 00:27:55.146 He'd come to the throne of Wessex, 00:27:55.146 --> 00:27:58.398 within a year of the first Danish attacks in the Southeast, 00:27:58.398 --> 00:28:01.065 and at first, he could hardly hold them back. 00:28:01.911 --> 00:28:04.217 In 878, the Danes won what appeared 00:28:04.217 --> 00:28:06.986 to be a decisive battle at Chippenham in Wiltshire. 00:28:06.986 --> 00:28:14.892 [♪ mischievous music] 00:28:14.892 --> 00:28:16.783 Alfred, with only a few followers, 00:28:16.783 --> 00:28:19.708 went on the run into the marshes of Somerset. 00:28:19.708 --> 00:28:21.575 Moving as a contemporary wrote, 00:28:21.575 --> 00:28:24.032 "Under difficulties, through wood, 00:28:24.032 --> 00:28:26.304 and into inaccessible places." 00:28:28.511 --> 00:28:30.914 Legend has Alfred, unrecognized, 00:28:30.914 --> 00:28:33.186 taking shelter in a poor woman's cottage, 00:28:33.186 --> 00:28:37.246 and being scolded for burning the wheaten cakes he'd been set to mind. 00:28:39.845 --> 00:28:42.155 But, the reality was less cozy. 00:28:42.155 --> 00:28:44.068 His situation was desperate, 00:28:44.068 --> 00:28:45.962 and if Alfred's kingdom fell, 00:28:45.962 --> 00:28:48.451 the whole country would be controlled and settled 00:28:48.451 --> 00:28:52.520 by conquerors whose language would inevitably crush English. 00:28:57.786 --> 00:29:01.107 But, Alfred proved to be an enterprising warrior and strategist, 00:29:01.107 --> 00:29:03.278 running free in the Somerset levels 00:29:03.278 --> 00:29:05.835 he discovered the arts of irregular warfare, 00:29:05.835 --> 00:29:08.460 and mounted guerrilla attacks against the occupying 00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:11.341 forces of Guthrum, the Danish invader. 00:29:11.341 --> 00:29:13.158 But he knew that wasn't going to be enough. 00:29:13.158 --> 00:29:14.982 For Wessex to be regained, 00:29:14.982 --> 00:29:17.681 the Danes had to be brought to battle and defeated. 00:29:17.681 --> 00:29:20.468 The fighting men of Wessex had been scattered, 00:29:20.468 --> 00:29:22.007 but in the spring of 878, 00:29:22.007 --> 00:29:24.587 Alfred sent out a call for the men of the Shirefords, 00:29:24.587 --> 00:29:26.779 the county armies, to join him. 00:29:26.779 --> 00:29:29.975 Around 4,000 men, many from Wiltshire and Somerset, 00:29:29.975 --> 00:29:32.757 armed only with battle axes and throwing spears, 00:29:32.757 --> 00:29:34.357 responded to the call. 00:29:34.357 --> 00:29:36.153 They mustered at Egbert's Stone, 00:29:36.153 --> 00:29:38.444 where trackways and rigdeways met. 00:29:38.444 --> 00:29:40.717 48 hours later, they advanced, 00:29:40.717 --> 00:29:44.439 shields drumming against the Danish army of 5,000, 00:29:44.439 --> 00:29:46.734 holding high ground at Ethandune, 00:29:46.734 --> 00:29:48.600 on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. 00:29:49.332 --> 00:29:50.686 Contemporary English accounts 00:29:50.686 --> 00:29:52.353 describe the battle that followed 00:29:52.353 --> 00:29:54.613 as a slaughter, and a route of the Danes, 00:29:54.613 --> 00:29:55.979 by the West Saxons. 00:29:55.979 --> 00:29:57.794 Modern historians question that, 00:29:57.794 --> 00:30:00.770 but there is no doubt that Alfred prevailed. 00:30:01.274 --> 00:30:03.320 His crown, and his kingdom were secure, 00:30:03.320 --> 00:30:05.499 and more importantly for our story, 00:30:05.499 --> 00:30:07.211 so was the English language. 00:30:07.211 --> 00:30:14.480 [♪ triumphant music] 00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:15.913 The Danes surrendered, 00:30:15.913 --> 00:30:17.785 their leader was baptized as a Chrisitan, 00:30:17.785 --> 00:30:19.651 and Alfred's crucial victory 00:30:19.651 --> 00:30:21.461 was memorialized here in Wiltshire, 00:30:21.461 --> 00:30:24.187 in an earlier version of a great white horse, 00:30:24.187 --> 00:30:26.600 carved into the land he'd saved. 00:30:26.600 --> 00:30:36.238 [♪] 00:30:36.238 --> 00:30:39.657 Alfred left an even more significant mark on the country, 00:30:39.657 --> 00:30:41.436 he signed a peace treaty with the Danes, 00:30:41.436 --> 00:30:42.600 which established a border 00:30:42.600 --> 00:30:43.784 running up through the country, 00:30:43.784 --> 00:30:47.440 from the Thames, to the old Roman road of Watling Street. 00:30:48.183 --> 00:30:49.493 The land to the north and the east 00:30:49.493 --> 00:30:51.135 to be known as the Danelaw, 00:30:51.135 --> 00:30:52.380 would be under Danish rule, 00:30:52.380 --> 00:30:54.431 the land to the south and west, 00:30:54.431 --> 00:30:55.893 would be for the English. 00:30:55.893 --> 00:30:57.907 No one was to cross the line, 00:30:57.907 --> 00:31:00.090 unless to trade. 00:31:01.592 --> 00:31:05.883 (street life sounds) 00:31:05.883 --> 00:31:06.700 In the course of time, 00:31:06.700 --> 00:31:08.520 because of Alfred's peace treaty, 00:31:08.520 --> 00:31:10.101 when Danes and English met, 00:31:10.101 --> 00:31:13.415 they didn't do so to fight, but to do business. 00:31:13.415 --> 00:31:14.726 Even to intermarry. 00:31:17.536 --> 00:31:18.616 Communities mixed, 00:31:18.616 --> 00:31:20.634 and so did the languages, 00:31:20.634 --> 00:31:23.927 English, rather than being engulfed by the Dane's language, 00:31:23.927 --> 00:31:25.779 began to absorb it. 00:31:29.785 --> 00:31:31.756 I'm in the market town of Hexum, 00:31:31.756 --> 00:31:33.520 in the Northeast of England. 00:31:33.520 --> 00:31:34.599 Maps of the area, 00:31:34.599 --> 00:31:37.960 show just how widespread the Danish settlement was. 00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:41.007 [♪ pompous music] 00:31:41.007 --> 00:31:42.444 Place names ending in "-by" 00:31:42.444 --> 00:31:44.440 reveal the Danish name for farm, 00:31:47.280 --> 00:31:49.326 "-thorpe" denotes a village, 00:31:49.495 --> 00:31:51.631 "-thwaite" a portion of land. 00:31:51.631 --> 00:31:58.416 [♪] 00:31:58.416 --> 00:32:00.825 The births, marriages, and deaths pages of the local paper, 00:32:00.825 --> 00:32:03.440 feature lots of names ending in "-son." 00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:05.487 That was a Danish was of making a name. 00:32:05.487 --> 00:32:07.384 By adding to the name of the Father. 00:32:07.384 --> 00:32:08.471 Just on this page, 00:32:08.471 --> 00:32:13.160 I can see, Harrison, Gibson-Hudson, 00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:14.438 Robson, 00:32:14.438 --> 00:32:15.391 Sanderson, 00:32:15.391 --> 00:32:16.916 Dickinson, 00:32:16.916 --> 00:32:17.944 Simpson, 00:32:17.944 --> 00:32:19.190 Dickinson again, 00:32:19.190 --> 00:32:20.580 and Watson. 00:32:21.070 --> 00:32:21.916 In the school where I was, 00:32:21.916 --> 00:32:22.911 just across the country, 00:32:22.911 --> 00:32:24.387 there was a Patterson, a Johnson, 00:32:24.387 --> 00:32:26.262 a Rolandson, and another Dickinson. 00:32:26.852 --> 00:32:28.244 Outside of the street, 00:32:28.244 --> 00:32:31.583 you can see the same thing on shop signs everywhere. 00:32:34.443 --> 00:32:37.230 Even given centuries of people moving around the country, 00:32:37.230 --> 00:32:40.320 names ending in "-son" are still far more common, 00:32:40.320 --> 00:32:42.144 in what were the Danish territories in the 00:32:42.144 --> 00:32:45.238 North and West in area, and the South and the East. 00:32:45.238 --> 00:32:46.760 Above all, you can hear the echos of the 00:32:46.760 --> 00:32:48.472 Danes old Norse language, 00:32:48.472 --> 00:32:50.549 in the way people speak. 00:32:50.549 --> 00:32:57.000 (man speaking indecipherable) 00:32:57.000 --> 00:32:58.520 Man: It's a little field on it's own, 00:32:58.520 --> 00:33:00.280 Willy says there's a deck down by the side of it, 00:33:00.280 --> 00:33:02.329 goes down through a little wood. 00:33:02.329 --> 00:33:06.774 Man: ...down by, down in that little guard thing is it... 00:33:06.774 --> 00:33:08.321 Man: It's like a little isolation, 00:33:08.321 --> 00:33:12.024 feel it's only, it's only a couple of acres the whole thing. 00:33:12.024 --> 00:33:13.874 Man: Interesting to see if your sheep sort of.. 00:33:13.874 --> 00:33:16.261 [indecipherable] 00:33:16.261 --> 00:33:18.443 Narrator: Some old Norse words stayed 00:33:18.443 --> 00:33:20.297 in the local dialects of the North, 00:33:20.677 --> 00:33:22.604 words like beck for stream, 00:33:22.604 --> 00:33:24.547 and garth for paddock. 00:33:25.165 --> 00:33:26.134 As a boy in Wickham, 00:33:26.134 --> 00:33:28.160 I remember hearing amusing dialect words like, 00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:31.175 slattery for shower, slape for slippery, 00:33:31.175 --> 00:33:35.280 yet for gate, lub for leap, yeck for oak, and yam for home, 00:33:35.280 --> 00:33:37.144 as in "I's going yam." 00:33:37.144 --> 00:33:40.224 Pure Norse, heard in Wickham, every night of the week. 00:33:40.224 --> 00:33:41.784 And there were many others. 00:33:44.087 --> 00:33:46.846 But the influence of old Norse wasn't just local, 00:33:46.846 --> 00:33:48.260 all around the country, over time, 00:33:48.260 --> 00:33:51.585 hundreds of Norse words entered the mainstream of English. 00:33:51.585 --> 00:33:53.667 And we still use them everyday. 00:33:55.534 --> 00:33:58.085 The 'sk' sounds are characteristic of old Norse, 00:33:58.085 --> 00:33:59.610 and English borrowed words like, 00:33:59.610 --> 00:34:02.708 skor, and sky, and skifa, 00:34:02.708 --> 00:34:04.657 as well as perhaps a thousand others, 00:34:04.657 --> 00:34:12.803 including anger, bowl, freckle, knife, neck, root, scowl, and window. 00:34:19.384 --> 00:34:21.998 Sometimes, where both old Norse and old English 00:34:21.998 --> 00:34:23.514 had a word for the same thing, 00:34:23.514 --> 00:34:25.373 both words lived on in English, 00:34:25.373 --> 00:34:28.083 each taking on a slightly different meaning. 00:34:28.398 --> 00:34:29.840 Where old English said craft, 00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:31.871 old Norse said skill. 00:34:32.190 --> 00:34:35.194 For an English hyde, the Norse said skin. 00:34:35.194 --> 00:34:36.710 In old English you were sick, 00:34:36.710 --> 00:34:38.547 in Norse you were ill. 00:34:42.447 --> 00:34:44.792 Here was another example of English's extraordinary 00:34:44.792 --> 00:34:46.005 ability to absorb 00:34:46.005 --> 00:34:48.036 to take in words from other languages, 00:34:48.036 --> 00:34:50.206 adding them to its word hoard, 00:34:50.206 --> 00:34:53.485 increasing the richness and flexibility of the vocabulary. 00:34:54.313 --> 00:34:56.400 Katie: I think that the point about vocabulary, 00:34:56.400 --> 00:34:59.670 is how much it astonishes by its ordinary nature, 00:34:59.670 --> 00:35:07.063 words like, lore, egg, husband, leg, ill, die, ugly, 00:35:07.063 --> 00:35:08.942 all these words are from old Norse, 00:35:08.942 --> 00:35:12.149 and yet you wouldn't necessarily think they were foreign at all. 00:35:12.149 --> 00:35:13.234 Most astounding of all, 00:35:13.234 --> 00:35:16.272 I think are the pronouns: they, there, and then. 00:35:16.272 --> 00:35:18.875 Those are also from old Norse. 00:35:18.875 --> 00:35:20.329 Narrator: And in terms of grammar, 00:35:20.329 --> 00:35:22.632 in a way, they simplified English, didn't they? 00:35:22.632 --> 00:35:24.610 They took it away from its Germanic roots. 00:35:24.610 --> 00:35:26.222 Katie: I think it's probably true to say that 00:35:26.222 --> 00:35:28.026 old Norse effects the English language 00:35:28.026 --> 00:35:29.521 more than any other. 00:35:29.521 --> 00:35:32.476 Because it actually leads to a restructuring of the language. 00:35:32.476 --> 00:35:34.780 Old English forms sentences, 00:35:34.780 --> 00:35:36.454 not by word order, 00:35:36.454 --> 00:35:37.547 as we do, 00:35:37.547 --> 00:35:40.520 but by tacking on endings to the ends of things like, 00:35:40.520 --> 00:35:43.269 articles and pronouns, and nouns, 00:35:43.269 --> 00:35:45.483 and what happens is, 00:35:45.483 --> 00:35:48.207 through contact with a pretty similar language, 00:35:48.207 --> 00:35:50.088 a lot of these inflectional endings 00:35:50.088 --> 00:35:52.316 start to lose their distinctive nature. 00:35:52.316 --> 00:35:53.411 And actually this is a process, 00:35:53.411 --> 00:35:55.175 we can see happening fairly early on 00:35:55.175 --> 00:35:56.512 in the Anglo-Saxon period, 00:35:56.512 --> 00:35:58.814 so the language is prone to do that. 00:35:58.814 --> 00:36:00.152 But, contact with Norse languages, 00:36:00.152 --> 00:36:04.145 speeded it up, gave it a shove towards modernity. 00:36:04.145 --> 00:36:06.235 Narrator: Can you give us a very simple example of that? 00:36:06.235 --> 00:36:08.400 Katie: Yes. Let's take a simple sentence like, 00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:11.566 The king gave horses to his men. 00:36:11.566 --> 00:36:12.880 That would be something like in old English, 00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:17.697 (speaking in Old English). 00:36:17.697 --> 00:36:18.651 Now in old English, 00:36:18.651 --> 00:36:21.545 you didn't tend to have a preposition like "to" 00:36:21.545 --> 00:36:23.570 instead you could use a special ending, 00:36:23.570 --> 00:36:26.625 which kind of meant "to his men." 00:36:26.625 --> 00:36:30.395 And that would be a "-um" ending. 00:36:30.395 --> 00:36:33.602 And you just tack that onto the end of the noun for man. 00:36:33.602 --> 00:36:35.332 So you'd have "gumum." 00:36:35.332 --> 00:36:37.120 "-um" ending. 00:36:37.120 --> 00:36:39.559 Now, the plural for the word for horse, 00:36:39.559 --> 00:36:41.640 if you want to say "gave horses to his men," 00:36:41.640 --> 00:36:43.201 would be have an "an" on it, 00:36:43.201 --> 00:36:45.595 so it would be "blancan." 00:36:45.595 --> 00:36:47.694 Now fortunately, towards the end of the old English period, 00:36:47.694 --> 00:36:50.199 we start to see that "-um" ending 00:36:50.199 --> 00:36:52.999 becoming more and more indistinct. 00:36:52.999 --> 00:36:57.176 And we see spellings like "guman," "an." 00:36:57.176 --> 00:37:00.704 Just the same as blancan, an. 00:37:01.224 --> 00:37:03.926 It's obvious that the king is more likely to give 00:37:03.926 --> 00:37:07.325 more horses to his men, than men to his horses, 00:37:07.325 --> 00:37:10.565 but you can see that there is a potential there for difficulties. 00:37:10.565 --> 00:37:14.608 And so we start to see prepositions being used, 00:37:14.608 --> 00:37:18.184 in place of those endings which had become indistinct. 00:37:22.674 --> 00:37:25.391 Narrator: Spoken English survived the Danish invasion, 00:37:26.851 --> 00:37:28.777 but as the 9th century drew to a close, 00:37:28.777 --> 00:37:31.539 the written culture was in a ruinous state, 00:37:31.539 --> 00:37:33.681 and King Alfred was concerned. 00:37:36.003 --> 00:37:37.944 When Alfred looked at the state of his kingdom, 00:37:37.944 --> 00:37:39.231 he was appalled. 00:37:39.231 --> 00:37:40.600 The scholars in the monasteries 00:37:40.600 --> 00:37:42.750 had once made England the greatest powerhouse 00:37:42.750 --> 00:37:44.460 of Christian teaching in Europe, 00:37:44.460 --> 00:37:47.623 but 150 years had passed since the high days of Bede, 00:37:47.623 --> 00:37:50.392 and the scholarly tradition had declined, 00:37:50.392 --> 00:37:54.001 hastened on its way by a century of Viking reign. 00:37:54.001 --> 00:37:54.967 In all the country, 00:37:54.967 --> 00:37:57.019 Alfred could barely find a handful of priests 00:37:57.019 --> 00:37:59.375 who could read and understand Latin. 00:37:59.375 --> 00:38:00.842 And if they couldn't understand Latin, 00:38:00.842 --> 00:38:03.602 they couldn't pass on the teachings of the religious books, 00:38:03.602 --> 00:38:06.701 that told people how to lead virtuous lives. 00:38:06.701 --> 00:38:08.232 They couldn't save souls. 00:38:08.232 --> 00:38:10.539 Where the written word has once flourished, 00:38:10.539 --> 00:38:14.021 Alfred now found only chronic spiritual sickness, 00:38:14.021 --> 00:38:16.328 he looked for a cure. 00:38:16.328 --> 00:38:19.214 One way was to educate more clergy in Latin, 00:38:19.214 --> 00:38:20.764 but that wasn't enough. 00:38:20.764 --> 00:38:22.720 He needed a more radical solution, 00:38:22.720 --> 00:38:24.679 a solution that hinged not on Latin, 00:38:24.679 --> 00:38:26.176 but on English. 00:38:26.176 --> 00:38:29.468 And he took English to new heights of achievement. 00:38:29.468 --> 00:38:32.312 [♪ choral music] 00:38:32.312 --> 00:38:33.984 In the preface to his own translation of 00:38:33.984 --> 00:38:35.912 Pope Gregory's pastoral care, 00:38:35.912 --> 00:38:36.678 Alfred wrote, 00:38:36.678 --> 00:38:40.911 "I remembered how, before it was all ravaged and burned," 00:38:40.911 --> 00:38:43.192 "I'd seen how the churches throughout all Englands,' 00:38:43.192 --> 00:38:45.401 "stood filled with treasures and books." 00:38:45.401 --> 00:38:48.160 "And there was also a multitude of God's servants," 00:38:48.160 --> 00:38:50.080 "who had very little benefit from those books," 00:38:50.080 --> 00:38:52.727 "because they couldn't understand anything of them, " 00:38:52.727 --> 00:38:55.423 "since they were not written in their own language." 00:38:55.423 --> 00:39:00.383 [♪] 00:39:00.383 --> 00:39:02.360 Narrator: Their own language was of course English. 00:39:02.360 --> 00:39:04.510 Alfred didn't want to do away with Latin, 00:39:04.510 --> 00:39:06.737 but he realized that it would be far easier 00:39:06.737 --> 00:39:10.033 to teach people to read books written in the language that they spoke. 00:39:10.033 --> 00:39:11.266 The best scholars, 00:39:11.266 --> 00:39:12.912 could then go on to learn Latin, 00:39:12.912 --> 00:39:14.592 an join Holy orders. 00:39:14.592 --> 00:39:17.205 The rest, would still have access to scholarship 00:39:17.205 --> 00:39:18.402 and spiritual guidance, 00:39:18.402 --> 00:39:20.711 but it would be written in English. 00:39:20.711 --> 00:39:27.959 [♪ triumphant music] 00:39:27.959 --> 00:39:30.119 Here, in his capital city of Winchester, 00:39:30.119 --> 00:39:32.315 Alfred drew up a plan. 00:39:33.285 --> 00:39:35.862 It was an extraordinarily imaginative project, 00:39:35.862 --> 00:39:38.824 to promote literacy, and restore the English language. 00:39:38.824 --> 00:39:50.933 [♪] 00:39:50.933 --> 00:39:53.947 " We should," he wrote, "translate certain books," 00:39:53.947 --> 00:39:56.208 "which are most necessary for all men to know," 00:39:56.208 --> 00:39:58.783 "into the language that we can all understand." 00:39:58.783 --> 00:40:01.296 "And also arrange it, as with God's help," 00:40:01.296 --> 00:40:02.977 "we very easily can, if we have peace," 00:40:02.977 --> 00:40:05.056 "so that all the youth of free men," 00:40:05.056 --> 00:40:06.488 "now among the English people," 00:40:06.488 --> 00:40:09.381 "will have the means to be able to devote themselves to it," 00:40:09.381 --> 00:40:14.089 "maybe set to study, for as long as they are of no other use," 00:40:14.089 --> 00:40:17.848 "until a time, they're able to read English writing well." 00:40:19.851 --> 00:40:22.292 Narrator: Alfred had 5 books of religious instruction, 00:40:22.292 --> 00:40:23.496 philosophy, and history, 00:40:23.496 --> 00:40:25.502 translated from Latin into English. 00:40:25.502 --> 00:40:27.752 A laborious and costly undertaking. 00:40:30.973 --> 00:40:33.792 Copies were sent out to the 12 bishops of his kingdom, 00:40:33.792 --> 00:40:36.280 for their wisdom to be spread as widely as possible. 00:40:39.813 --> 00:40:40.573 To each bishop, 00:40:40.573 --> 00:40:43.200 to emphasize the importance and value of the project, 00:40:43.200 --> 00:40:45.137 Alfred sent a costly pointer, 00:40:45.137 --> 00:40:47.568 used to underline the text. 00:40:49.424 --> 00:40:51.804 This is the Alfred Jewel, 00:40:51.814 --> 00:40:55.751 many historians believe that it formed the head of one of those pointers. 00:40:56.688 --> 00:40:58.959 Crafted in crystal, and enameled in gold, 00:40:58.959 --> 00:41:01.662 it was discovered in 1693, in Somerset, 00:41:01.662 --> 00:41:05.110 and is now on show at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. 00:41:05.438 --> 00:41:08.150 It's inscribed, "Alfred had me made," 00:41:08.150 --> 00:41:09.342 in English. 00:41:11.962 --> 00:41:14.430 Alfred the great, had made the English language 00:41:14.430 --> 00:41:16.670 the jewel in his crown. 00:41:17.480 --> 00:41:23.801 (church bells ringing) 00:41:23.801 --> 00:41:24.866 Here in Winchester, 00:41:24.866 --> 00:41:26.841 Alfred had established what was effectively 00:41:26.841 --> 00:41:28.575 a publishing house. 00:41:28.575 --> 00:41:30.480 Other projects he undertook included, 00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:33.065 the commissioning of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, 00:41:33.065 --> 00:41:35.800 detailing hundreds of years of history. 00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:37.854 Alfred died in 899, 00:41:37.854 --> 00:41:40.095 one of his legacies was an English language 00:41:40.095 --> 00:41:42.303 which was more prestigious and widely read, 00:41:42.303 --> 00:41:44.015 than ever before. 00:41:44.015 --> 00:41:45.663 There was nothing to compare 00:41:45.663 --> 00:41:47.776 with this range of written vernacular, 00:41:47.776 --> 00:41:49.108 history, philosophy, poetry, 00:41:49.108 --> 00:41:51.339 anywhere else in mainland Europe. 00:41:51.339 --> 00:41:53.767 English was out on its own. 00:41:53.767 --> 00:41:55.350 By the middle of the 11th century, 00:41:55.350 --> 00:41:57.216 English seemed secure, 00:41:57.216 --> 00:41:59.908 but now, other invaders were waiting in the wings, 00:41:59.908 --> 00:42:04.296 and English was about to face its greatest threat ever. 00:42:04.296 --> 00:42:21.489 [♪] 00:42:21.489 --> 00:42:24.154 This place, the old Roman fort at Pevensey, 00:42:24.154 --> 00:42:26.269 was a fateful one for the English language, 00:42:26.269 --> 00:42:28.086 it was here, among other places, 00:42:28.086 --> 00:42:30.032 that the Frisians, and other Germanic tribes, 00:42:30.032 --> 00:42:32.027 had made land form in the 5th century, 00:42:32.027 --> 00:42:34.048 and introduced their own language. 00:42:34.048 --> 00:42:38.124 Now, in 1066, another wave of invaders was landing 00:42:38.124 --> 00:42:39.594 the Normans. 00:42:41.120 --> 00:42:43.178 When in 1066, William, Duke of Normandy 00:42:43.178 --> 00:42:45.751 sailed with his army to claim the English throne, 00:42:45.751 --> 00:42:49.040 he was sure he had right on his side. 00:42:50.122 --> 00:42:52.188 The English king, Edward the Confessor, 00:42:52.188 --> 00:42:53.896 has spent many years in Normandy, 00:42:53.896 --> 00:42:56.009 and in that time, contemporary sources say, 00:42:56.009 --> 00:42:58.743 had come to regard William as a brother, 00:42:58.743 --> 00:43:02.360 or even a son, and had named him as his successor. 00:43:04.477 --> 00:43:06.145 Sensing his impending death, 00:43:06.145 --> 00:43:07.832 and fearing rebellion at home, 00:43:07.832 --> 00:43:09.677 the childless Edward had dispatched 00:43:09.677 --> 00:43:11.761 Harold Godwinson, his wife's brother, 00:43:11.761 --> 00:43:13.188 and his Earl of Essex, 00:43:13.188 --> 00:43:15.515 the richest and most powerful of the English lords. 00:43:15.515 --> 00:43:18.606 to Normandy, to pledge loyalty to William. 00:43:21.087 --> 00:43:25.120 This Harold did, swearing on two caskets of Holy relics. 00:43:29.017 --> 00:43:30.555 But, when Edward did die, 00:43:30.555 --> 00:43:32.827 Harold, supported by the English nobility, 00:43:32.827 --> 00:43:35.050 had himself crowned in Westminster Abbey, 00:43:35.050 --> 00:43:38.017 on the very day that Edward was laid to rest there. 00:43:41.230 --> 00:43:43.097 To the truculent and ruthless William, 00:43:43.097 --> 00:43:45.064 this was an affront. 00:43:45.301 --> 00:43:48.751 Invasion with maximum force, the only possible response. 00:43:48.751 --> 00:44:04.180 [♪ battle music] 00:44:04.180 --> 00:44:06.912 The armies met here, near Hastings. 00:44:11.615 --> 00:44:13.118 This is the spot, where traditionally, 00:44:13.118 --> 00:44:16.864 Harold fell, fatally pierced through the eye with an arrow. 00:44:16.864 --> 00:44:22.412 [♪ somber] 00:44:22.412 --> 00:44:25.202 The site was later named after the engagement. 00:44:25.865 --> 00:44:28.976 But, it's name, not with an English word, like fight, 00:44:28.976 --> 00:44:32.079 but with a word from the language of the Norman victors, 00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:32.824 Battle. 00:44:37.640 --> 00:44:38.548 Harold would be the last 00:44:38.548 --> 00:44:41.571 English speaking king of England for 3 centuries. 00:44:42.434 --> 00:44:44.463 On Christmas day, 1066, 00:44:44.463 --> 00:44:46.607 William was crowned in Westminster Abbey, 00:44:46.607 --> 00:44:49.280 in a service conducted in English and Latin. 00:44:49.280 --> 00:44:51.903 William, spoke French throughout. 00:44:56.086 --> 00:44:57.921 A new king, and a new language, 00:44:57.921 --> 00:44:59.483 were in authority in England. 00:45:02.350 --> 00:45:03.478 Enemy. 00:45:04.771 --> 00:45:06.021 Castle. 00:45:07.925 --> 00:45:09.992 Castle, was one of the first French words 00:45:09.992 --> 00:45:11.981 to enter the English language. 00:45:11.981 --> 00:45:13.152 The Normans built a chain of them, 00:45:13.152 --> 00:45:15.316 to impose their rule on the country. 00:45:16.184 --> 00:45:17.703 This magnificent castle at Rochester, 00:45:17.703 --> 00:45:20.520 was one of the first to be fortified in stone. 00:45:20.520 --> 00:45:26.794 [♪ dramatic music] 00:45:26.794 --> 00:45:29.160 By blood, the Normans were from the same stock 00:45:29.160 --> 00:45:32.236 as the Norse men, who'd invaded in earlier centuries. 00:45:32.236 --> 00:45:34.665 But, they no longer spoke a Germanic language, 00:45:34.665 --> 00:45:37.200 rather what we call old French, 00:45:37.200 --> 00:45:39.258 which had grown from Latin roots. 00:45:39.917 --> 00:45:40.904 Many of the words they spoke 00:45:40.904 --> 00:45:43.392 would have been very strange to the native English, 00:45:43.392 --> 00:45:46.565 but would quickly become unpleasantly familiar. 00:45:47.355 --> 00:45:52.234 Our words, army, archer, soldier, garrison, and guard, 00:45:52.234 --> 00:45:55.112 all come from the conquering Norman French. 00:45:55.928 --> 00:45:58.280 French was the language that spelled out 00:45:58.280 --> 00:46:00.670 the architecture of the new social order. 00:46:00.670 --> 00:46:05.512 Crown, throne, and court, duke, baron, and nobility, 00:46:05.512 --> 00:46:07.752 peasant, vessel, servant. 00:46:07.752 --> 00:46:09.400 The word govern comes from French, 00:46:09.400 --> 00:46:13.246 as do liberty, authority, obedience, and traitor. 00:46:13.886 --> 00:46:16.002 The Normans took the law into their own hands. 00:46:16.002 --> 00:46:19.424 Felony, arrest, warrant, justice, judge, jury, 00:46:19.424 --> 00:46:20.904 all come from French. 00:46:22.884 --> 00:46:28.241 And so do accuse, acquit, sentence, condemn, prison, and jail. 00:46:30.200 --> 00:46:31.247 It's been estimated, 00:46:31.247 --> 00:46:33.056 that in the 3 centuries after the conquest, 00:46:33.056 --> 00:46:36.944 about 10,000 French words colonized the English language. 00:46:36.944 --> 00:46:38.759 They didn't all come in immediately. 00:46:38.759 --> 00:46:41.672 But, the conquest opened a conduit of French vocabulary, 00:46:41.672 --> 00:46:44.317 that should remain open, on and off, ever since. 00:46:44.317 --> 00:46:46.835 Today, French words are all around us. 00:46:46.835 --> 00:46:48.489 [♪ Parisian music] 00:46:48.489 --> 00:46:51.937 City, market, porter, 00:46:52.167 --> 00:46:54.077 Man: Here we are, we've got one fabulous salmon. 00:46:54.077 --> 00:46:55.823 Weighs about 14 pounds. 00:46:55.823 --> 00:46:56.982 He's a fabulous fish. 00:46:56.982 --> 00:46:58.072 We've got some fabulous mackerel, 00:46:58.072 --> 00:46:59.589 they've come out from Aberdeen. 00:46:59.589 --> 00:47:01.697 Next, over to the oysters, they come from the Essex coast, 00:47:01.697 --> 00:47:02.732 Sole. 00:47:02.732 --> 00:47:04.298 [♪] 00:47:04.298 --> 00:47:07.538 Narrator: Pork, sausage, bacon. 00:47:07.538 --> 00:47:10.982 Man: Fruit, oranges, the juicy lemons. 00:47:10.982 --> 00:47:15.062 Narrator: Grape, tart, biscuit, sugar. 00:47:15.062 --> 00:47:16.334 Man: Creme. 00:47:18.164 --> 00:47:18.999 Narrator: Fry. 00:47:21.739 --> 00:47:22.859 Vinegar. 00:47:23.749 --> 00:47:25.645 Nearly 500 words dealing with food, 00:47:25.645 --> 00:47:27.760 cooking, and eating alone entered English 00:47:27.760 --> 00:47:29.993 from French, just a fraction of the imports 00:47:29.993 --> 00:47:32.440 which would enrich the English word hoard, 00:47:32.440 --> 00:47:34.245 in the centuries after the Norman conquest. 00:47:34.245 --> 00:47:38.730 [♪ Parisian music continues] 00:47:42.510 --> 00:47:44.804 When in 20 years of taking control of the country, 00:47:44.804 --> 00:47:47.974 William sent his officers out to take stock of his kingdom. 00:47:50.133 --> 00:47:51.209 The monks of Peterborough, 00:47:51.209 --> 00:47:53.177 who were still recording the events of history, 00:47:53.177 --> 00:47:55.153 in English in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, 00:47:55.153 --> 00:47:56.907 noted disapprovingly, 00:47:56.907 --> 00:47:59.797 that not one piece of land escaped the survey, 00:47:59.797 --> 00:48:03.239 not even an ox, or a cow, or a pig. 00:48:03.239 --> 00:48:17.720 [♪ somber music] 00:48:17.720 --> 00:48:19.907 The Doomsday book, there are in fact 2 volumes, 00:48:19.907 --> 00:48:22.653 show us how complete the Norman takeover 00:48:22.653 --> 00:48:24.375 of the English land was, 00:48:24.375 --> 00:48:27.326 and how widespread their influence and their language. 00:48:29.986 --> 00:48:31.015 The Norman settlement 00:48:31.015 --> 00:48:32.753 had concentrated the wealth of England 00:48:32.753 --> 00:48:34.952 more than ever before or since. 00:48:34.952 --> 00:48:36.912 The native ruling class from before the conquest, 00:48:36.912 --> 00:48:39.743 had been slaughtered, banished, or disinherited, 00:48:39.743 --> 00:48:41.861 in favor of William's followers. 00:48:41.861 --> 00:48:45.351 Half of the country was in the hands of just 190 men, 00:48:45.351 --> 00:48:49.196 half of that was held by just 11 men. 00:48:50.575 --> 00:48:53.254 And not one of these great land owners spoke English. 00:48:56.084 --> 00:49:01.935 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:49:01.935 --> 00:49:03.569 When this record of the country was drawn up, 00:49:03.569 --> 00:49:04.663 it was written in Latin, 00:49:04.663 --> 00:49:06.145 not Norman French, 00:49:08.385 --> 00:49:10.288 and certainly not English. 00:49:11.064 --> 00:49:13.303 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:49:13.303 --> 00:49:14.631 Between them, French and Latin 00:49:14.631 --> 00:49:15.752 had become the languages 00:49:15.752 --> 00:49:19.812 of state, law, the church, and history itself, in England. 00:49:19.812 --> 00:49:25.539 [♪] 00:49:25.539 --> 00:49:27.836 The writing of English became increasingly rare, 00:49:27.836 --> 00:49:30.258 even the Anglo-Saxon chronicle 00:49:30.258 --> 00:49:31.624 gutted into silence. 00:49:33.424 --> 00:49:39.554 (man speaking in foreign language) 00:49:39.554 --> 00:49:41.826 The language of Alfred and the Beowulf poet, 00:49:41.826 --> 00:49:45.624 had lost all prestige that it had slowly built up. 00:49:45.624 --> 00:49:47.039 In a country of 3 languages, 00:49:47.039 --> 00:49:51.559 English was now a poor third, bottom of the pile. 00:49:59.704 --> 00:50:02.472 The English language had been forced underground. 00:50:02.752 --> 00:50:05.360 It would take 300 years for it to re-emerge, 00:50:05.360 --> 00:50:08.579 and when it did, it would have changed dramtically. 00:50:09.102 --> 00:50:42.554 [♪]