2. the history of foreign language absorption in English
In the 5th and 6th centuries, groups of Germanic warriors, including the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, landed in Britain. Then the language of the Angles replaced the original old Celtic language as the dominant language in the Isles, which is now called Old English.
In the late 600, Pope Gregory I dispatched some missionaries to Britain on the purpose for enhancing the control of it. From then on, Roman Christianity was introduced to Britain and became the principal religion in Britain by the late 7th century. With the Christianity, came also the Latin. During this time, Latin made a big difference in English, and constituted large part of the foreign language words in English vocabulary. Majority of these words are on religion, business trades, military activities and so forth. Although many of the early borrowing words faded away as time went by, some remained, such as disciple(门徒), nun(修女), hymn(圣歌), martyr(殉教者), abbot(男修道院院长), altar(圣坛), priest(牧师), pope(教皇),， shrine(圣地). In fact, before that time, Latin had spread to the Isles as the Roman Emperor Claudius I invaded and dominated Britain in 43AD, and it played an important role as the official language, the court language and even the commercial language. In the late eighth century, the Vikings attacked England, fighting continued for almost 200 years. In this period, many Latin, Danish and Norse words entered English language, Latin gave English words like “kitchen” and “cup”, Danish gave words like “skin”, “leg”, ”sky” , “window”, “egg” and the pronouns “them”, “their”, “they”, and Norse language many synonyms, for example, “anger”( wrath in English), “ill”(sick in English.
In 1066, William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy invaded and conquered England and the Anglo-Saxons with a formidable army, and established the feudalism in England. As William the Conqueror became king of England, French, spoken by Normans, took over as the language of the court, administration and culture, and stayed there for 300 years. It was also the time that the Old English segued into Middle English
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