The word snoop - Ursula Dubosarsky 2009

The english alphabet
How it all began

One of the first things I discovered is that English, as far as languages go, is not actually very old. It only began about 1,500 years ago (just a baby!). English began in a country called—you guessed it—England.

England is part of the islands known as Britain, which are just northwest of Europe. In the beginning, before English was even thought of, the local people in England and the surrounding countries of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland mostly spoke Celtic languages, which are completely different from English. But then, in about the fifth century AD, some noisy tribes from Germany paid England a visit. Quite a long visit, actually, and they brought their own language with them. (At least they remembered to bring something!)

Some of these Germans were called Saxons, some were called Jutes and others Angles, which is where the word English eventually came from (think “angle-ish”). The German language they brought along is known as “Anglo-Saxon” or “Old English.” But not only did they bring their own language, they remembered to pack their own alphabet as well. (Who would travel without one?) This alphabet was called runes and is what early Old English is written in. Have a look and see what you think:

So why don’t we use runes to write English? Well, the Germans weren’t the only ones to come and live in England. A whole lot of Christian monks from Europe and Ireland also turned up. They mainly spoke and wrote in Latin, using the Roman alphabet. After a while, naturally enough, they began to speak Anglo-Saxon/Old English too, but they wrote it in the Roman alphabet because it was easier for them than remembering all those runes. They did keep a few of the runic letters for a while, though, with lovely names like Eth, Thorn, Yogh, and Wynn. (Hmm, they sound a bit like some of the Word Snoop’s relatives . . .)

So for a while Old English was written in a mixed-up Roman-and-runic sort of alphabet. When the Vikings turned up in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Old Norse they spoke used runes as well. But the monks, who did most of the writing, preferred to use the Roman alphabet to write Old English. Finally, William the Conqueror came across the sea from France in 1066 and conquered everyone. He and his fellow conquerors spoke and wrote in French, which also used the Roman alphabet. Those runes didn’t stand a chance!

By the sixteenth century the English alphabet had more or less become the one we use today, with a few extra letters thrown in that the Romans didn’t have, like J, V, and W. Admittedly Thorn (remember him?) was still hanging around, although by this time it looked like the letter Y. That’s why if you ever get to see a book printed around that time, the word the is often written “ye.” (Thorn stood for the sound th.) But as time passed, even Thorn finally withered away and we were left with the alphabet we use in English now.

Phew! That was a lot of snooping! I’m worn out, aren’t you? Although I suppose it did take thousands of years to make our alphabet, so it was bound to be a long story. And probably it will go on changing as even more thousands of years pass. Just imagine what it might look like in the year AD 4000 . . .