Ten Minutes To Go

Once the examination has started very few of the children will have the time to be able to look at some words and wonder where the words came from. We know that English has developed over many years. The Ancient Britains mostly used spoken language – with many words derived from the Anglo-Saxon invaders.

Latin was important and the Norman Conquest brought French. So then we had a three tier system.

Latin was used by scholars and academics, lawyers and philosophers.

French was used by the aristocracy.

English was used by the rest of the people.

Schools, however, started teaching English around 1300 AD.

Our `Modern’ English probably developed around the 1500s. Since then there have many new words, influences and idioms added by different languages.

So our children will be meeting words in their verbal reasoning excises from the Ancient Britains, the Anglo-Saxons, the Romans, the French and many different languages.

At some stage the teacher in charge will say: “Ten minutes to go!”

`Ten' comes from Arabic

`minutes' from English

`to' from Old English

`go' from German

There will be time for a few more marks. Just be thankful that your child does not need to know the roots of the words!

Good Luck!