谁能告诉我详细的英语语言的发展史

Posted 2023-03-18

从In-European language the parent language(其中分为Anglo-Saxon word by German tribes 和Greek and Latin words by Christian religion) 到old English (分为Old Norse by Vikings 和French words by Norman Conquest)到Middle English (分为Printing press 和Eurpean Renaissance)到Morden English
一楼的给的是一本书的简介 我已经看过了 没有太多的信息 我想要详细的 最好是中文的 谢谢

History of the English language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from History of the English Language)

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. Initially, Old English was simply a group of dialects reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. One of these dialects, West Saxon, eventually came to dominate. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it was never a truly mixed language in the linguistic sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication.) Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary.

Proto-English
The Germanic tribes who would later give rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes and perhaps even the Franks) traded and fought with the Latin-speaking Roman Empire. Many Latin words for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people even before the tribes reached Britain: camp, cheese, cook, dragon, fork, giant, gem, inch, kettle, kitchen, linen, mile, mill, mint (coin), noon, oil, pillow, pin, pound, punt (boat), soap, street, table, wall, and wine. The Romans also gave English words which they had borrowed from other languages: anchor, butter, cat, chest, devil, dish, and sack.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by Hengest and Horsa) to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes). The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated, and the identification of the tribes with the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes is no longer accepted as an accurate description (Myres, 1986, p. 46ff), especially since the Anglo-Saxon language is more similar to Frisian.

Old English
Main article: Old English language
The invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what is now called Old English. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jórvík). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain was influenced by the contact with Norse invaders, which may have been responsible for some of the morphological simplification of Old English, including loss of grammatical gender and explicitly marked case (with the notable exception of the pronouns). The most famous work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet.

The introduction of Christianity added the first wave of Latin and Greek words to the language.

It has been argued that the Danish contribution continued into the early Middle Ages.

The Old English period ended with the Norman conquest, when the language was influenced, to an even greater extent, by the Norman French-speaking Normans.

The use of Anglo-Saxon to describe a merging of Anglian and Saxon languages and cultures is a relatively modern development. According to Lois Fundis, (Stumpers-L, Fri, 14 Dec 2001) "The first citation for the second definition of 'Anglo-Saxon', referring to early English language or a certain dialect thereof, comes during the reign of Elizabeth I, from a historian named Camden, who seems to be the person most responsible for the term becoming well-known in modern times
Middle English
Main article: Middle English
For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of French called Anglo-Norman. English continued to be the language of the common people. While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continued until AD 1154, most other literature from this period was in Old French or Latin. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance, ox/beef, sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". English spelling was also influenced by French in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being spelled th rather than with the letters þ and ð, which did not exist in French. During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Various contemporary sources suggest that within fifty years most of the Normans outside the royal court had switched to English, with French remaining the prestige language largely out of social inertia. For example, Orderic Vitalis, a historian born in 1075 and the son of a Norman knight, said that he only learned French as a second language.

English literature starts to reappear circa AD 1200, when a changing political climate, and the decline in Anglo-Norman, made it more respectable. By the end of that century, even the royal court had switched back to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in specialised circles for a while longer, but it had ceased to be a living language
Early Modern English
Main article: Early Modern English
From the late 15th century, the language changed into Modern English, often dated from the Great Vowel Shift.

English is continuously assimilating foreign words, especially Latin and Greek, causing English to have the largest vocabulary of any language in the world. As there are many words from different languages the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, notably in the West Country.

In 1755 Samuel Johnson published the first significant English dictionary
Historic English text samples
[edit]
Old English
Beowulf lines 1 to 11, approximately AD 900

Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning!
Which can be translated as:

Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
(translation by Francis Gummere)

[edit]
Middle English
From The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, 14th century

Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
Glossary:

soote: sweet
swich licour: such liquid
Zephirus: the west wind (Zephyrus)
eek: also
holt: wood
the Ram: Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac
yronne: run
priketh hem Nature: Nature pricks them
hir corages: their hearts
[edit]
Early Modern English
From Paradise Lost by John Milton, 1667

Of man's disobedience, and the fruit
of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst ispire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of chaos: or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventures song,
That with no middle Flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, whyle it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose of rhyme.
[edit]
Modern English
From the United States Declaration of Independence, 1776, by Thomas Jefferson

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which
the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation

英语属于印欧语系当中的日耳曼语文。印欧语系是全世界最大的语系之一，属于这个语系的语言地理分布最广，说这些语言的人数最多。早在1786年英国焚文学者咸廉·琼斯爵士(55T william J。nes)发表了他在语言学领域里的惊人的发现：梵文和希腊语、的拉丁语是同源的。这三种语言都是从原始的印欧语演变来的。

打开英语词典来看，大约百分之八十的词都是从其它语言借来的，绝大多数的外来语来自拉丁语，其中一半以上是通过法语借来的，另外省大量的词直接或间接来自希腊语。相当多的词来自斯堪的纳维亚语。还有一些词来自意大利语、的西班牙语、的葡萄牙语和荷兰语。少数词来自世界各地的其它语种。古英语的词汇约有五万到六万个词，而现代英语大词典收的词条足有六十五万到七十五万之多。但是英语最常用的词仍是英语的本族语，其中最常用的词有九个，它们是：and，have、的of，the，to，will和you。大量的外来语丰富了英语词汇，使英语变得极端灵活，变化多端。

英语的句子结构比较简单、的自然，合乎逻辑思维的自然顺序，也就是说，英语的词序word order比较自然。英语不象德语或俄语，句子结构没有那么复杂，词序没有那么多的倒装现象(inversion)。英语的“语法”性别和“天然”性别相一致，不象俄语、的拉丁语那样把所有的名词，按照“语法”性别，都分为阳性、的阴性和中性。这样，现代英语就免去了名词和形容词的复杂的格的变化，而德语和俄语仍大量地保存着这些变化。所以说，英语的第一个持点就是它的结构比较简单，因此比较明白、的易学。

英语词缀体系的历史演变
英语词缀体系的形成可以追溯到古英语时期。当时最重要的构词方法是复合法（compounding），据统计，在史诗《贝奥伍尔夫》（Beowulf）三千行诗句中，竟有一千零六十九个复合词。有些复合词中不重读的部分，渐渐失去独立地位，而演变为词缀，当时共有二十四个名词后缀和十五个形容词后缀，如：-dom, -hood, -ship, -ness, -th, -ful, -ish等。到了中古英语时期，发生了诺曼征服，诺曼法语一度成为英国统治阶级的语言，大批法语词涌入英语，改变了英语运用复合法作为创造新词的主要手段。随着众多的法语词被借入英语，一批法语和拉丁语的词缀被英语化，成为英语中构词的重要素材，如前缀dis-, en-, inter-, mal-, non-, pre-, semi-, sub-等，后缀-able, -acy, -age, -ician, -ise/-ize等。但与此同时，有些英语本族语的词缀反而废弃不用了。这一时期的英语词缀体系得到极大的发展和完善，派生构词的地位也得到进一步的确立。及至现代英语时期，文艺复兴运动、工业革命、英帝国向外扩张又使得英语大量借用法语、拉丁语、希腊语、意大利语以及几乎世界各地语言中的词汇，尤其是希腊语中的词根和词缀逐渐产生出与英语本族语的词根和词缀相结合的孳生力。至此，英语基本完成了词缀体系的全部工作。

从上述历史的演变我们可以看出，英语大量借入或同化其它语言的词缀以丰富自身的词汇，这固然是一件好事，但由于历史发展的迅疾和缺乏借词的规范化，导致泥沙俱下，其它语言中不合理的成分也随着借词渗入英语词汇。这是民族语历史发展的必然，是不以人们意志为转移的。 参考技术A 英语属于印欧语系当中的日耳曼语文。印欧语系是全世界最大的语系之一，属于这个语系的语言地理分布最广，说这些语言的人数最多。早在1786年英国焚文学者咸廉·琼斯爵士(55T william J。nes)发表了他在语言学领域里的惊人的发现：梵文和希腊语、的拉丁语是同源的。这三种语言都是从原始的印欧语演变来的。

打开英语词典来看，大约百分之八十的词都是从其它语言借来的，绝大多数的外来语来自拉丁语，其中一半以上是通过法语借来的，另外省大量的词直接或间接来自希腊语。相当多的词来自斯堪的纳维亚语。还有一些词来自意大利语、的西班牙语、的葡萄牙语和荷兰语。少数词来自世界各地的其它语种。古英语的词汇约有五万到六万个词，而现代英语大词典收的词条足有六十五万到七十五万之多。但是英语最常用的词仍是英语的本族语，其中最常用的词有九个，它们是：and，have、的of，the，to，will和you。大量的外来语丰富了英语词汇，使英语变得极端灵活，变化多端。

英语的句子结构比较简单、的自然，合乎逻辑思维的自然顺序，也就是说，英语的词序word order比较自然。英语不象德语或俄语，句子结构没有那么复杂，词序没有那么多的倒装现象(inversion)。英语的“语法”性别和“天然”性别相一致，不象俄语、的拉丁语那样把所有的名词，按照“语法”性别，都分为阳性、的阴性和中性。这样，现代英语就免去了名词和形容词的复杂的格的变化，而德语和俄语仍大量地保存着这些变化。所以说，英语的第一个持点就是它的结构比较简单，因此比较明白、的易学。

英语词缀体系的历史演变
英语词缀体系的形成可以追溯到古英语时期。当时最重要的构词方法是复合法（compounding），据统计，在史诗《贝奥伍尔夫》（Beowulf）三千行诗句中，竟有一千零六十九个复合词。有些复合词中不重读的部分，渐渐失去独立地位，而演变为词缀，当时共有二十四个名词后缀和十五个形容词后缀，如：-dom, -hood, -ship, -ness, -th, -ful, -ish等。到了中古英语时期，发生了诺曼征服，诺曼法语一度成为英国统治阶级的语言，大批法语词涌入英语，改变了英语运用复合法作为创造新词的主要手段。随着众多的法语词被借入英语，一批法语和拉丁语的词缀被英语化，成为英语中构词的重要素材，如前缀dis-, en-, inter-, mal-, non-, pre-, semi-, sub-等，后缀-able, -acy, -age, -ician, -ise/-ize等。但与此同时，有些英语本族语的词缀反而废弃不用了。这一时期的英语词缀体系得到极大的发展和完善，派生构词的地位也得到进一步的确立。及至现代英语时期，文艺复兴运动、工业革命、英帝国向外扩张又使得英语大量借用法语、拉丁语、希腊语、意大利语以及几乎世界各地语言中的词汇，尤其是希腊语中的词根和词缀逐渐产生出与英语本族语的词根和词缀相结合的孳生力。至此，英语基本完成了词缀体系的全部工作。

从上述历史的演变我们可以看出，英语大量借入或同化其它语言的词缀以丰富自身的词汇，这固然是一件好事，但由于历史发展的迅疾和缺乏借词的规范化，导致泥沙俱下，其它语言中不合理的成分也随着借词渗入英语词汇。这是民族语历史发展的必然，是不以人们意志为转移的。

或者可以看这里：（关于英语的发展）
http://hot.xywin.com/fengqing/Print.asp?ArticleID=725 参考技术B 对不起,我找不到中文的.

History of the English language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from History of the English Language)

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. Initially, Old English was simply a group of dialects reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. One of these dialects, West Saxon, eventually came to dominate. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it was never a truly mixed language in the linguistic sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication.) Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary.

Proto-English
The Germanic tribes who would later give rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes and perhaps even the Franks) traded and fought with the Latin-speaking Roman Empire. Many Latin words for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people even before the tribes reached Britain: camp, cheese, cook, dragon, fork, giant, gem, inch, kettle, kitchen, linen, mile, mill, mint (coin), noon, oil, pillow, pin, pound, punt (boat), soap, street, table, wall, and wine. The Romans also gave English words which they had borrowed from other languages: anchor, butter, cat, chest, devil, dish, and sack.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by Hengest and Horsa) to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes). The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated, and the identification of the tribes with the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes is no longer accepted as an accurate description (Myres, 1986, p. 46ff), especially since the Anglo-Saxon language is more similar to Frisian.

Old English
Main article: Old English language
The invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what is now called Old English. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jórvík). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain was influenced by the contact with Norse invaders, which may have been responsible for some of the morphological simplification of Old English, including loss of grammatical gender and explicitly marked case (with the notable exception of the pronouns). The most famous work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet.

The introduction of Christianity added the first wave of Latin and Greek words to the language.

It has been argued that the Danish contribution continued into the early Middle Ages.

The Old English period ended with the Norman conquest, when the language was influenced, to an even greater extent, by the Norman French-speaking Normans.

The use of Anglo-Saxon to describe a merging of Anglian and Saxon languages and cultures is a relatively modern development. According to Lois Fundis, (Stumpers-L, Fri, 14 Dec 2001) "The first citation for the second definition of 'Anglo-Saxon', referring to early English language or a certain dialect thereof, comes during the reign of Elizabeth I, from a historian named Camden, who seems to be the person most responsible for the term becoming well-known in modern times
Middle English
Main article: Middle English
For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of French called Anglo-Norman. English continued to be the language of the common people. While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continued until AD 1154, most other literature from this period was in Old French or Latin. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance, ox/beef, sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". English spelling was also influenced by French in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being spelled th rather than with the letters þ and ð, which did not exist in French. During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Various contemporary sources suggest that within fifty years most of the Normans outside the royal court had switched to English, with French remaining the prestige language largely out of social inertia. For example, Orderic Vitalis, a historian born in 1075 and the son of a Norman knight, said that he only learned French as a second language.

English literature starts to reappear circa AD 1200, when a changing political climate, and the decline in Anglo-Norman, made it more respectable. By the end of that century, even the royal court had switched back to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in specialised circles for a while longer, but it had ceased to be a living language
Early Modern English
Main article: Early Modern English
From the late 15th century, the language changed into Modern English, often dated from the Great Vowel Shift.

English is continuously assimilating foreign words, especially Latin and Greek, causing English to have the largest vocabulary of any language in the world. As there are many words from different languages the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, notably in the West Country.

In 1755 Samuel Johnson published the first significant English dictionary
Historic English text samples
[edit]
Old English
Beowulf lines 1 to 11, approximately AD 900

Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning!
Which can be translated as:

Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
(translation by Francis Gummere)

[edit]
Middle English
From The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, 14th century

Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
Glossary:

soote: sweet
swich licour: such liquid
Zephirus: the west wind (Zephyrus)
eek: also
holt: wood
the Ram: Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac
yronne: run
priketh hem Nature: Nature pricks them
hir corages: their hearts
[edit]
Early Modern English
From Paradise Lost by John Milton, 1667

Of man's disobedience, and the fruit
of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst ispire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of chaos: or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventures song,
That with no middle Flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, whyle it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose of rhyme.
[edit]
Modern English
From the United States Declaration of Independence, 1776, by Thomas Jefferson

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which
the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_Language 参考技术C http://cache.baidu.com/c?word=%AD%5E%BBy%3B%B5o%AEi%3B%A5v&url=http%3A//www%2Ecc%2Enctu%2Eedu%2Etw/%7Esheen/job2%2Ehtml&b=0&a=11&user=baidu

看看这个地址,说的挺详细的