Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Neil.

  • And I’m Georgina.

  • dne mergen! Mé lícap pé tó métanne!

  • I beg your pardon, Neil? Is something stuck in your throat?! 

  • Are you speaking a foreign language?

  • Ha! Well, actually Georgina, I was saying, ‘Good morning, pleased to meet youin English

  • but not the English you and I speak. That was Anglo-Saxon, or Old English

  • the earliest form of English, spoken in the 

  • Middle Agesso, between  the 5th and 15th century.

  • It doesn’t sound anything like the way people talk nowadays.

  • No, but it’s surprising how many of the words we use today have survived 

  • from Old Englishbeer, wine, drink, fish, bread, butter, eye, ear, mouth

  • head, hand, foot, life, love, laughter

  • mother, daughter, sister, brother, son, fatherall Anglo-Saxon words!

  • Wow, so many everyday words! But what about the classics - Latin and Greek

  • I thought a lot of English

  • vocabulary came from there.

  • That’s also true, but the history of English is the history of invasionsyou know

  • when the army of one country fights to enter and control another country.

  • Like the Roman invasion of Britain?

  • Right, and later invasions too, by Norse- speaking Vikings and Germanic Saxons

  • In fact, Georgina, that reminds me of my quiz question.

  • Go on then, but in modern  English if you don’t mind

  • OK. Well, the year 1066 is remembered for a famous battle when the French-speaking 

  • Norman king, William the

  • Conqueror, invaded England

  • but what is the name of the famous battle? Is it:

  • a) The Battle of Waterloo?,

  • b) The Battle of Hastings?, or, c) The Battle of Trafalgar?

  • Hmm, my history’s not great, Neil, but I think

  • it’s b) The Battle of Hastings.

  • OK, Georgina, well find outlater’ - another Old English word there

  • But it’s not just words that survive from Anglo-Saxon, it’s word endings too – 

  • the suffix, or letters added to the end of a word to modify its meaning.

  • Right, like adding ‘s’ to make something plural,

  • as in: one bird, two birds. Or theness

  • ingoodnessandhappiness’. Anddom’,

  • as in, ‘freedomand kingdom’.

  • Poet Michael Rosen is fascinated by Old English.

  • Here he is talking about word suffixes to Oxford University

  • professor Andy Orchard for BBC Radio 4’s programme,

  • Word of Mouth.

  • Listen out for the proportion of modern English that comes from Anglo-Saxon.

  • ‘I walked’ – thatwalked’,  theetbit on the end.

  • Yeah, theedending. Most modern verbsif we were to

  • say, you know, ‘I texted my daughter’, I mean text is,

  • obviously - comes from Latin … 'I tweeted' - we still lapse

  • to the Anglo-Saxon.

  • And, generally, when I’m speaking, just  let’s do it in mathematical terms,

  • what proportion can we say is 

  • Old English? Can we say, like, about 80% in common

  • parlance, sorry to use a French word there?

  • In speech it would be something like that

  • in the written language, less. Theyre the basic building

  • blocks of who we are and what we think.

  • Professor Orchard estimates that 80 percent of spoken

  • English in common parlance comes from Anglo-Saxon.

  • 'In common parlance' means the words and vocabulary that most people

  • use in ordinary, everyday conversation.

  • So Anglo-Saxon words are the building blocks of English -

  • the basic parts that are put together to make something.

  • He also thinks that the languages we speak shape the way we see the world.

  • Here’s Michael Rosen and Professor Andy Orchard discussing this idea

  • on BBC Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth:

  • Can we say that English speakers today, as I’m speaking

  • to you now, view the world through Anglo-Saxon eyes, through

  • Anglo-Saxon words? Can we say that?

  • Well, in Old English poetry it's always raining and I suppose it’s always raining today.

  • There is a retrospective element, that were still inhabiting that worldview, those ideas;

  • the same words, the same simple ideas that they inhabited.

  • And what’s extraordinary if you think about the history of English is despite the

  • invasions by the Norse and by the Norman, and then despite the years of empire when were bringing

  • things back, the English that were speaking today is still at its

  • root, Old English word, at its heart, Old English word, still very much English.

  • Michael Rosen asks if English speakers see

  • the world through Anglo-Saxon eyes.

  • When we see something through someone’s eyes, we see it from their

  • perspectivetheir point of view.

  • And Professor Orchard replies by saying that despite all the history of invasion and

  • empire, the English we speak today is still Old English 'at heart' –

  • a phrase used to say what something is really like.

  • Wow! So much history crammed into six minutes!

  • And now, time for one more history fact.

  • Do you mean your quiz question, Neil? What’s the name of the famous battle of 1066?

  • What did you say, Georgina?

  • I said b) The Battle of Hastings.

  • Which wasthe correct answer! The Battle of Hastings in

  • 1066 played a big part in the Norman Conquest and mixing

  • French words into the language.

  • And I also know how the English ruler, King Harold, died

  • shot through the eye with an arrow!

  • Ouch! OK, let’s recap the vocabulary, some of which

  • exists because of 'invasions' – when one country enters and controls another.

  • A suffix is added to the end of a word to make a new word.

  • The phrase 'in common parlance' means using ordinary, everyday words.

  • 'Building blocks' are the basic parts used to make something.

  • 'To see things through someone’s eyes' means, from their point of view.

  • And finally, 'at heart' is used to say what something is really like.

  • That’s all for this programme. Join us again soon at 6 Minute English but  

  • for now, ‘far gesund!’ – that’s Old English forgoodbye’!

  • Far gesund!

  • Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Neil.

  • And I’m Rob.

  • Bonjour, Rob! Konnichiwa!

  • Excuse me?

  • ¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?

  • Oh, OK, I think Neil’s sayinghelloin different languagesFrench, was it

  • And then.. Japanese? AndSpanish? Is that right?

  • ¡Si, muy bien!

  • The English are famously slow to learn other 

  • languages. But it seems that Rob and I -

  • and of course you - our global audience here at 6 Minute English -

  • are good examples of polyglotspeople who speak more than one language,

  • sometimes known as 'superlinguists'.

  • People who speak multiple languages benefit from many advantages, as well

  • be hearing in this programme.

  • That word 'polyglot' sounds familiar, Neil.

  • Doesn't the prefix 'poly' meanmany’?

  • That’s right, like 'polygon' – a shape with many sides.

  • Or 'polymath' – someone who knows many things.

  • And speaking of knowing things, it’s time for my quiz question.

  • The word 'polyglot' comes from Greek and is made up of two parts:

  • 'poly', which as Rob says, meansmany’, andglot’. But what doesglotmean?

  • What is the meaning of the word 'polyglot'?

  • Is it: a) many words, b) many sounds or c) many tongues?

  • Well, there’s three syllables inpolyglot’, Neil, so I reckon it’s b), many sounds.

  • OK, Rob, well find out if that’s right at the end of the programme. But leaving aside 

  • the origins of the word, what exactly does being a polyglot involve?

  • British-born polyglot, Richard Simcot speaks eleven languages

  • Listen to his definition as he speaks to BBC World Service programme,

  • The Documentary:

  • A polyglot for me can be anyone who identifies with that term

  • it’s somebody who learns languages that they don’t necessarily need

  • for their lives, but just out of sheer enjoyment, pleasure or fascination with

  • another language or culture.

  • For Richard, being a polyglot simply means 

  • identifying with the idea - feeling that you are similar or closely connected to it.

  • He says polyglots learn languages not because they have to,

  • but for the sheer enjoyment, which means, ‘nothing exceptenjoyment

  • Richard uses the word sheer to emphasise how strong and pure this enjoyment is.

  • As well as the pleasure of speaking other languages, polyglots are also better at 

  • communicating with others. My favourite quote by South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, is:

  • "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.

  • If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."

  • How inspiring, Rob – I’m lost for words! Here’s another: ‘To have another language 

  • is to possess a second soul’.

  • So, language learning is good for the head, heart and soul

  • a person’s spirit or the part of them which is believed to continue existing

  • after death.

  • Yesand what’s more, language learning is good for the brain too.

  • That’s according to Harvard neuroscientist, Eve Fedorenko.

  • She’s researched the effects of speaking multiple languages

  • on the brains of growing children.

  • Eve predicted that multilingual children would have hyperactive

  • language brains. But what she actually found surprised her, as she

  • explains here to BBC World Service’s The Documentary:

  • What we foundthis is now people who already have proficiency in multiple

  • languages - what we found is that their language regions

  • appear to be smaller, and that was surprisingand as people get better

  • and better, more automatic at performing the task, the activations

  • shrink, so to speak, over time, so they become... it becomes so that you don’t have to use

  • as much brain tissue to do the task as well, so you become more efficient.

  • Eve was testing children who already have 

  • language proficiencythe skill and ability to do something,

  • such as speak a language.

  • Her surprising discovery was that the language 

  • regions of these children’s brains were shrinking