October 2010

26 October

Miguel (C1):

Where do English words come from?

The latest entry by Antonio about the history of the English language inspired me to write this bit, in which I will try to show you some of the languages that deeply influenced the English language and I will try to exemplify it with English words.

First of all, one of the main influences English had was French. In the 11th Century, Edward the Conqueror – who was French - became king. As a result, many French words started to appear in English language. We as speakers use these words without realizing they have a French origin. Here is a list for you to see what I mean more clearly.

English words English words derived from French
PIG PORK
DEER VENISON
BUY PURCHASE
DEALER MERCHANT
MOTION MOVEMENT
PRIDE PROUD

There are more examples of these. The usage of these pairs of words is different. For instance, you tend to say ‘pig’ when you refer to the animal, but ‘pork’ when you refer to the meat of the animal to be eaten. The same happens to ‘deer’ and ‘venison’

Moreover, Latin, as Antonio suggested, has also influenced English. This can be seen in words like ‘data’ – the Latin plural form of datum-, ‘bacteria’ – Latin plural form of ‘bacterium’- or the widely known word curriculum. From Latin come other words which are rarely used or more appropriately used in formal contexts. See this list:

English words English words derived from Latin
MARRIAGE MATRIMONY
SELLER VENDOR
ANSWER RESPOND
BUILD CONSTRUCT
WIFE SPOUSE
FAST RAPID
FEATURE CHARACTERISTIC

Latin words are easier for us Spanish speakers to remember but they are less used in natural English so my advise is try to use English words as much as possible, that is, words that are not familiar to us, Spanish speakers. Besides, there are still Latin expressions persisting in English such as “ad hoc” or “ basis”.

Obviously, English evolved from Old English, which helps us explain the patterns of the current language. What is the plural of ‘ox’? It’s not ‘oxes’ but ‘oxen’. This –en ending indicated plural in the past. Another example of that rule is the word ‘brethren’. Can you guess its meaning without looking it up in a dictionary? The lengthening of a vowel was another indicator of a plural form and for that reason we have ‘feet’ and ‘teeth’. Furthermore, have you ever wondered why there is a list of “irregular” verbs? Irregular verbs were in the past called “strong verbs”. If you look closer you may observe that there are irregular verbs that are really alike. See the past tense of sing, swing, and ring; bend and lend, or cut, shut and put. There are patterns to identify and learn irregular verbs, which exist because of Old English. The rest of verbs, the so-called “regular” verbs, were called “weak” verbs and were characterized by the addition of the ending –ed. Does this sound familiar?

Last but not least –as Jose Luis often says- I would like to point out that English is also influenced by Spanish. Yes, it is indeed!

English words English words derived by Spanish
NAP SIESTA
PARTY FIESTA
CANTEEN CAFETERIA, CAFÉ
WATCHER VIGILANTE

I know that there are many other languages that have influenced English, like for instance German (I know the word ‘dog’ comes from German); but this is all I know so if any of you can expand this information, feel free to do it.

To sum up, this is probably boring, but I have demonstrated English is a language that has evolved from loans of many different languages. I assume that you may have used some of the words that I have written down on the lists, but had you ever wondered their origin or why there are two words for saying the same thing? I hope that from now on you start to realize these things so that you can add more words to my list. Please comment!!

OK, thanks Miguel. I guess if you and Antonio continue like this you'll end up making your mates into fully-fledged philologists, ha ha! Anyway, to illustrate the influence of Latin and French this is yet again a clip featuring Melvyn Bragg, where he teaches us how English lost its prestige and became "a poor third, bottom of the pile" and how it took 300 years to emerge and then changed dramatically into the language we more or less know today.

Antonio (C1):

Hi everyone!

I’ve just seen a new entry about English language usage, which you can read down below. What I see is that English is bound to change over the years. Anyway, are we aware of what the origins of English are? I’ve selected and summarized parts of a text in the Wikipedia about the “origins of the English language”:

English is a Germanic language from north-west Germany (currently) and the Netherlands. The peoples who lived at that time in what is nowadays called “The British Isles” were the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and, to a lesser extent, the Frisians. They fought the Roman Empire. Some Latin words entered the vocabulary of these peoples before their arrival in Britain and the subsequent formation of England.

The original Old English language was influenced by both the Scandinavians and the Normans. Due to this cohabitation English resulted in a significant grammatical simplification.

Then, I add an excerpt that I consider remarkable for what I’m going to explain next:

… The Germanic language of these Old English-speaking inhabitants was influenced by the contact with Norse invaders, which might have been responsible for some of the morphological simplification of Old English, including the loss of grammatical gender…

As a kind of analysis, my considerations are:

1) The verb tenses are much simpler than in other languages:

For example, when conjugating the Present Simple of the verb “to eat”, it hardly changes. We are only concerned that the 3^rd person (He, she, it) takes an “s”. It eases things a lot!

2) There is no difference between masculine and feminine (as a general rule). What a simplification!

3) Many words look the same in Spanish or are very similar:

Chocolate, tea, fundamental, aspects, to commence, to elaborate, rapid, grotesque … They just come from Latin or French. (Thanks, Roman Empire!)

Dear classmates, see that we are somewhat fortunate to study this precious language, English.

It has some features which make it easy. Keep practising it!

Thanks Antonio, very enlightening indeed. Now, you asked me to embed a YouTube clip which illustrates this topic you've dealt with of The History of the English Language. I just hope you don't mind I took the liberty of selecting a different one, featuring a renowned English author called Melvyn Bragg (a perfect standard English he has!), which I'm sure both you and your mates will like too:

22 October

Morning folks!
Well, Francis completed his first week with both my groups yesterday (hope you enjoyed his presentation, did you?) so it's time to embed the quick guide to Liverpool we saw in class, featuring the main sights of the Merseyside capital. This was shot prior to the year 2008, when the city was about to show off its "European city of Culture" status, but it's fresh enough to give you a very good idea of what Liverpool is like right now. Hopefully we can go there (or to Edinburgh) next year, sometime in Carnival or Easter!

Then, I should also post the small excerpt from the 1990 film Dancing thru' de dark, which shows some lovely Scouse accent as it is set in the Merseyside area . Not the finest example of British cinema, but a funny film anyway, it portrays a group of "lads and lasses" on their stag/hen night. Linda, the fiancé, has major doubts about the wedding when a band fronted by her ex-boyfriend - of course, the love of her life - arrives in town. You can guess the rest ...
In this particular scene, you can see both the boys and the girls in action, just about to start their frenzy day and well into the night. We barely saw the first minute, when two of the fiance's mates, on their way to the billiards club where the leader of the pack, Eddie, is waiting, are trying to chat up two local girls unsuccessfully (classical music, it seems, is not their main expertise!). Listen, I know the accent may be difficult to understand at times, but keep watching the scene till the end, and I'm sure you'll pick up plenty of it.

Well, this is all for now, but let me tell you something. Apart from Antonio's (C1) John Lennon thing and my own stuff, there's nothing else on this blog. What are you waiting for?

20 October

These days in the 2NA class we're dealing with the subject of English as a "global" language
David Crystal, a renowned British linguist, explains here how the 20th-century lingua franca achieved the status that it has today:

Then, Crystal poses a fascinating question (at least to me as a teacher): Should English be taught, accordingly, as a global language? The main impact, he says, is in the teaching of comprehension. In fact he claims that you students should be exposed to as many "non-standard variations as possible". Wow, that's a big statement. Listen to his considerations:

So would you like to be "exposed" to many varieties of English? Now, you can't possibly imagine the hundreds of videos available on YouTube which reflect this diversity of accents and dialects across the world, not only in English-speaking countries but indeed in places like Italy, France, Russia ... sadly, not Spain it seems, I wonder why! These are just two examples. Maria, one of my C1 students, sent me this one a few days ago. This happy-go-lucky chap from London can apparently produce as many as 24 different varieties! You don't believe me? See for yourselves...

If you find his accents (and telephone conversations) too daunting (let alone the coarse words he uses too often!)this is another "lighter" sample (21 accents this time) churned out by a funny English girl, Amy Walker:

OK, I'll give you a break. See now what David Crystal meant? He wasn't exaggerating the slightest bit, was he?

15 October

Hello everyone, and a warm welcome to the third "edition" of My EOI Blog!

It's taken me a bit to make up my mind and start blogging again, I guess it was because I didn't find the right time to do so. Or probably because, since this year I have another advanced level group as well as the brand new C1, I wondered if I should have two separate branches, so to speak. But I've decided that would be too much work so I'll just make a clear distinction what level each entry is aimed at or where the students publishing whichever thing belong to (C1 / 2NA)

Anyway, I do hope as in the previous two years that this otherwise unambitious, low-key blog will be an excuse for you to collaborate with me, little by little, in extending this tiny thing and indeed to read, listen and watch lots of stuff in English. Will you mates help me do so?

My students from last year will probably have noticed by now some new features: a different template (you have to change with the times!) and a more eccentric, tongue-in-cheek photo for my personal profile: instead of the boring toast at the Cambridge pub you can now see me wearing some tacky glasses with the US flag while holding a Union jack. Very appropriate, don't you think? I guess it suits my often clownish personality better!

Whatever, the main purpose of this blog of OURS is basically to give you the chance to write your own comments, reviews, ideas, you name it, as well as sharing with the rest of your classmates - and the students from my other group - songs, videos, film clips, articles ... in English, of course. If you simply want to post a comment, write your stuff on the box provided at the end of the monthly entry and click on the "publicar un comentario" button. Sometimes you wish to publish a song, Youtube clip, etc. and a more elaborate text so you may want to forward the lot to me by mail and I'll get the job done for you. I'll show you all this procedure in class shortly, OK?

But let me assure it's piece of cake. As an example, one of my enthusiastic students from the C1 group, Antonio, emailed me about 10 days ago with some ideas about John Lennon on the occasion of his 70th birthday (if he were still alive, that is!), which I'm publishing here and now to open this blog. This is what he had to say:

Antonio (C1):

JOHN LENNON’S 70th BIRTHDAY!!

Rather unfortunately, he is no longer among us, because of that fateful day, way back on the 8th December 1980 ... , do you all remember?

I will do my bit by speaking briefly about John Lennon’s life by heart:

John Lennon was born on 9th October 1940, and soon became an orphan who his auntie Mimy took in her care. Quite rebellious by nature, he started playing the guitar and, putting many details aside, eventually joined “The Beatles” with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey). They officially released their first album on 12th October 1962, called “Love me do”, a title which grammatically isn’t that correct, but sounded more “catchy” (it would be “Do love me”). They became extremely famous all over the world and in the history of music (together with “The Rolling Stones”). They broke up in 1970 and began their solo careers.

As regards John Lennon, he was married to Yoko Ono and they were involved in some unorthodox situations (like being in bed for 7 days, semi-naked, etc).

On the day of his death, he was staying in a hotel in New York and a fan, whose name was Mark David Chapman, asked for an autograph. Lennon agreed to it and, hours later, he was shot dead at point-blank range. He didn’t die on the spot but hours later, in hospital.

As a piece of curiosity, he uttered a controversial saying which went down in history: “We are more famous than Jesus Christ”

He was really aware that # “9” dominated his life, according to many experts in paranormal events.

I don’t know if I leave out something. Anyway, thanks for giving us the chance of practising our English to the ones who voluntarity do so.

See you!

Next, I reckon I have to embed my first audio-visual stuff, so these are a couple of JL-related clips: The first is a feature by the Associated Press which deals with the controversy around John's figure in the USA and how the CIA stills seems interested in him.

The second is just a clip with dozens of snapshots of John, a heartfelt tribute to the man and his music (the song on the background is one of his most famous, Hold on):

Well, this is all for now. Let me just finish this first entry by sending regards to some of my students last year, who might be reading this. Apparently, they can't live without my blogs, ha ha! FOND GREETINGS TO YOU ALL, FOLKS!

As I always say, KEEP CLICKING!