The Latin alphabet was adapted to English in the 6th century by Christian monks. The Norman conquerors brought changes in pronunciation, adding suffixes, spelling practices, and analogies. When The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the 15th century, it altered the character of English spelling. This left the English language with […]
History
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The English got their alphabet when Christian monks arrived in the 6th century CE with their Latin alphabet to replace the native runes. Near the end of the 9th century CE, Charlemagne—king of the Franks and Holy Roman emperor—ordered a monk named Alcuin to devise a unified alphabet of letters […]
Dictionary Day was October 16th and celebrates the birthday of Noah Webster, considered to be the father of the American dictionary. The Meriam-Webster website says this day celebrates language, emphasizes the importance of learning, and encourages readers to use the dictionary to improve vocabulary. The word “dictionary” was invented by […]
Christian Monks adapted the Latin alphabet to English in the 6th century. The Normans brought more changes in pronunciation and sounds, along with suffixes, spelling practices, and analogies. The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the 15th century and altered the character of English spelling forever and increased spelling irregularities. In […]
The Latin alphabet had been adapted to English by Christian Monks in the 6th century. The Norman arrival, with their French influence, brought more changes in pronunciation and sounds, along with suffixes, spelling practices, exceptions and analogies. In the 15th century, The Great Vowel Shift occurred and altered the character of […]
Punctuation Day is celebrated every year on September 24th. Punctuation hasn’t changed much since 1500 (except for the introduction of computers). With the publication of the Guttenberg bible, printing had arrived and required standardized punctuation. Within 50 years that was achieved. […]
With the arrival of Christian Christian monks in the 6th century England, they wrote down the Anglo-Saxon language, adapting the Latin alphabet to English, adding extra letters for all the sounds. The arrival of the Normans, with their French influence, affected pronunciation and spelling practices. In his book, SPELL IT […]
In writing down the Anglo-Saxon language, Christian monks adapted the Latin alphabet to English, adding extra letters for all the sounds. The arrival of the Normans and their French scribes with their spelling conventions introduced many changes in vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling. The French scribes opted to keep the spelling […]
(I’m posting this now because Thursday September 8th is also International Literacy Day. National Ampersand Day is celebrated on September 8th every year to acknowledge this terrific little symbol. Its creation has been attributed to individuals from Roman orator Cicero’s secretary Tiro to 19th century French physicist and mathematician Andre-Marie […]
With the arrival of Christian monks in England in the 6th century, they discovered several kingdoms speaking dialects of a Germanic language brought from the Continent a century before. In his book SPELL IT OUT: The Singular Story of English Spelling, David Crystal explains that in writing down the Anglo-Saxon […]