The History of the English Language by Sammy Stein

'Do you speak English?'


The article is talking about how tourists now ask the question “Do you speak English?” instead of do you speak French or Spanish in countries such as Canada, England and America, and also some of the history of English and how it has changed through times.

Now English has become a global language, and this doesn’t means that all people know perfectly the English, but maybe people just know a few words of it, and may be able to communicate with other people. Words have been changed through times, especially since the Vikings conquered England words like home or fish came from their language, but we are still asking how the words where before they came into England, because there is not some written history about English language. English language is not as pure as it may sound, because also the Romans brought a set of words derived from the Latin origins, poor people had their own dialect and you could differentiate them from a distinguished person. English is unique because the words have also changed and become more “English” by their usage and meanings, for example garden, and in French is jardin. Although it has words from many other languages, the English is the second most common language used in the world and in business. The author’s viewpoint is that she thinks that English is a language that is expanding a lot through time, because it is spoken in almost all places in the world and for at least to know some words of the language. The purpose of the article is to inform about the language and its history and how it has changed through time, it is written for teachers, young adults and native speakers to know about their language history. It has a formal tone because it is explaining each thing, but also giving her examples or opinions about the language and mixing facts of the history.

It was a great article because it let me knew that English is a language that it is always changing through time, even 25 years ago many words were different from now or now they have disappeared because people stop using some of the old words. I think the author didn’t omit anything, because she was really specific in each thing she said, and I agree that English it’s the language used in almost all the world to communicate by business or any other way.