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Cow – Beef Script
Hi. Good morning. How are you? I’m excellent. Thanks for coming. Today, I want to talk to you for five minutes about why English has a different word for the animal than it does for the meat. Here we go. Not sure if I can finish this in five minutes, but let’s try.
OK, most countries, they have the same word for the animal as they do for the meat. For example, cow, the meat word is cow meat. Pig – the meat word is pig meat. Something like that. But, in English, of course, we don’t. We have two different words. Cow – the meat is beef. Pig – the meat is pork. Sheep – the meat is mutton. Calf, which is a young cow, – the meat is veal. Deer – the meat is venison, and chicken – the meat is poultry. Why is that, well, basically, there’s a simple reason.
In 1066, William the Conqueror came from Normandy, part of France, and he basically conquered England, as it was. Don’t think of the U.K. now. England was much smaller back then. He conquered England. At the time, people spoke Old English. When William the Conqueror came, he only spoke French of course. He brought French with him. However, he didn’t impose French on the people. He imposed French on the government, the educated, and the wealthy. So, basically, government and wealthy people, they spoke French. Regular people, they still spoke Old English. Now, if you think about meat. Think about beef and cows for example. Who eats the meat? Well, it’s the rich people, the wealthy people. Who grows the meat? It’s the poor people, the farmers. So, because the farmers grow the animal, they use the old English word for it, which is cow, and because the French people … or the French speaking upperclass eat the meat, they used the French word for the meat. And, of course, in French cow is boeuf. So, boeuf became beef. In French pig is porc, sheep is mouton, calf is veal, chicken is poulet, poultry. Deer is a little bit different. Deer comes from the Latin word veneer, which mean … er, sorry, venor, which means to hunt. So, basically, anything you hunt is venison, but, because deer was the most hunted animal, venison stuck to that. So, that’s why we have a different word for the animal and for the meat, because the poor people grew the animal speaking English, the rich people ate the animal speaking French. OK?
After 1066, for about three hundred years, the British government … the English Government was … was a French speaking government. However, after that, French started to fade away. If you think of most colonies these days, back in the 1800s, France and England colonized large parts of the world. A terrible part of our history, I know. No time to talk about that now. And, generally, we impose our language on those people. Many people in Africa speak English or French because of our colonization. And why is that? Well, that’s because we basically control the government. We also control the schools and the systems of education, and we force those people to learn our language. However, when the French colonized England, there were no schools. There was no system of education. The only people you could educate were the wealthy people, and they ended up speaking French. The poor people you could not educate and there was no way to enforce French upon these people. That’s why they continued speaking English.
However, of course, you cannot have one group of people speaking French and one group of people speaking English. There must be some overlay. At some point, these two languages must come together, and, if you look at English today, we do … we have a lot of French loanwords. Now, many people, many of my students, they complain about learning English. They say, “there are too many words. There are too many words to learn. Every week they have word tests. We have to learn more and more words.” Yes, there are many words, but part of the reason for that is because of the history of England. Now, when French and English started to meld, started to mix, in … from 1066 onwards, over the next few hundred years, we took on some of the French words, but we didn’t lose our English words. So, now we have two words that are almost indistinguishable, that come from different roots. For example, freedom / liberty. What do they mean? They mean almost the same thing. The nuance is slightly different, but they mean almost the same thing. Freedom comes from Anglo-Saxon, old English, liberty comes from the French, of course. We have many words like this. Thinking / pensive. Thinking comes from Old English, pensive comes from French. Kingly / royal. Kingly comes from Old English king, royal, royale comes from French. Brotherly / fraternal. Brotherly comes from Old English, fraternal comes from French. Weapon / arm. Weapon comes from Old English, arm comes from French. So, we have many words like this that almost have the same meaning, the nuance is slightly different, but they almost have the same meaning and that’s because one has a root in Old English and one has a root in old French.
After about the 1300s, French and English, they start to come together a little bit. English overtakes the French but evolves into what we call Middle English. And, for the next three hundred years or so, English is Middle English and stays the same. Then, of course, we move into the great vowel shift, which comes on a little bit later. So, if I was …aaargh … So, if I was to go back a thousand years in my own country, I probably couldn’t talk to people. Not probably, I definitely couldn’t talk to people. It’s almost like a completely different language.
Anyway, thanks for listening. Sorry, I went over my five minutes there. If you want to read the script while you listen to this, click on the link in the description down here. You can find the script for this, you can find some questions, and you can find sample answers. If you want more of these, please subscribe. The subscribe button is over here somewhere. It looks like my head. If you liked it click like. If you think anybody else would like it, please share it with them. Thank you. See you next time. Goodbye.
Cow – Beef Questions
- What is veal the meat of?
A: A pig
B: A deer
C: A young cow
D: A chicken
- Why was deer meat called venison?
A: Because it is the meat of a calf.
B: Because it was a hunted animal.
C: Because it was farmed in France.
D: Because only poor people could eat it.
- Why do many people in Africa speak English or French?
A: Because it is useful for them.
B: Because they all want to live in Europe.
C: Because they don’t have a language of their own.
D: Because they were colonized by those two countries.
- How long did the English government use French for?
A: 200 years
B: 300 years
C: 400 years
D: 500 years
- Why does English have so many French words?
A: Because French is a very important language.
B: Because the French government controlled English.
C: Because the poor people in England wanted to speak French.
D: Because French and English mixed.
- Many of the current problems in the world stem from colonization. Discuss.
- Explain the evolution of the language in your country.
- English should cut all of the words that have similar meaning. Discuss.
9. Powerful countries have colonized and controlled the less powerful since the beginning of human history. Do you think this trend has stopped?
Cow – Beef Answers
- C 2. B 3. D 4. B 5. D
- Many of the current problems in the world stem from colonization. Discuss.
There are many reasons to colonize a country. Obviously, wealth and resources would come high on the list. However, wishing to spread your culture or your religion is also an equally important reason. The arrogant assumption is that the culture in Europe (England, France, Spain, Holland – and later Germany) was far superior to that of other countries. By introducing this superior culture, Europeans thought they were improving the lives of the “savages”. Usually, instead of improvements, they brought death by disease, war, slavery, destruction of culture and civilization. Once the local people had been subjugated it became a game of ‘who can take the most land’ among the European governments. If France took a section then England needed to take the section next to it, and so on. So, country boundaries were drawn up by men sitting over a map with rulers. If you look at a map of Africa, you can see how straight the border lines are. Compare them to European countries whose borders evolved over time.
So, what impact is this still having? That is a huge question that would deserve a book to answer it. I’ll try to be brief. In short, every problem that now exists in Africa comes from European colonization.
Wars. Many African countries are at war or have recently been at war. When the borders were drawn up, the Europeans cut up tribes and pushed together other tribes. Groups of the same tribes suddenly found themselves labeled as different countries and opposing tribes became one country. The Europeans supplied and militarized war lords who would help them, then changed loyalties when they felt it suited their needs. And then the Europeans left. They left alienated groups of people who had to form countries. They left war lords. They left armies. They left war.
Slavery. Tens of millions of people were ripped out of Africa and sent to the Americas. Families destroyed. The apartheid system used across Africa can be traced to the end of slavery. Apartheid has gone (technically) but the majority of Africans (in many countries) are still controlled by a small white minority.
Resources. The Europeans took what they could. Diamonds are a good example. De Boers managed to take control of all the diamond mines in Africa. They, and companies like them, employed slaves and encouraged apartheid so as to keep control of the resources. Recently there have been attempts to return control of these resources to the local people, but it is not always successful. There is huge poverty and discrimination that has been created.
An indentured system of corruption. For hundreds of years the European colonizers taught that service to them would be rewarded with money or power. Local war lords fought over each other to be that person. And that ideology has continued.
And so on.
- Explain the evolution of the language in your country.
I am from England, but I have talked somewhat about the history of English. I live in Japan, so I’ll try to explain the evolution of Japanese. Nobody knows where the Japanese language first came from. Settlers from surrounding islands probably brought their own languages, but no evidence of these languages remains. At that time in its history, Japan didn’t have a written language. By about 500 AD, Buddhism spreads to Japan and brings the Chinese writing system with it. Japanese adopts this system but has to adapt it to fit the Japanese language. Many Chinese words enter into Japanese. There are far more sounds in Old Japanese that there are now. The language evolves over the next few centuries and, as Japan unifies, it starts to unify as well. It is at a point where a modern speaker of Japanese could probably understand it. The first loanwords from European languages start to enter with the appearance of Portuguese missionaries. The number of loanwords increased after the Meiji Restoration with the introduction of foreign advisors. In the Second World War, foreign words were banned and there was a surge in the number of Japanese words. Then, following the American occupation after the war, up until modern times, the number of foreign words has skyrocketed. The future of the Japanese language will be very interesting indeed.
- English should cut all of the words that have similar meaning. Discuss.
I don’t think it is necessary to hack the English language to pieces. I think this question depends very much on how you view the language. From the point of someone studying English, yes, fewer words would make it much easier to learn. However, the point of any language is the communication of ideas and it is obviously necessary to have sufficient words to express a concept in detail. Do you need to cut words that have similar meanings? No. Do you need to learn them. No. If you can explain the things you need to say clearly, then your vocabulary is sufficient. If you interchange “freedom” and “liberty”, people will understand you.
There is another point to this question. Languages evolve, and while the overall number of words in the English dictionary is increasing (technical words, chemical words etc.), the number of words that your average person uses is probably dropping. People have a habit of using simple vocabulary when they speak, and the prevalence of email and texting is only making that worse. To the chagrin of language lovers, the average person’s active vocabulary is shrinking and, given a hundred years or so, many of these words that bother studiers of English may very well have disappeared.
9. Powerful countries have colonized and controlled the less powerful since the beginning of human history. Do you think this trend has stopped?
I don’t think it has stopped, but it has lessened. After the Second World War, England was financially unable to continue in its role as a colonizer. Britain was forced to borrow $4 billion from America and Canada (about $67 billion of today’s money). The British Empire was no longer financially viable, and independence was granted to its colonies. I’m not sure that this was willingly given. France actively pursued its colonies after the war. The French – Indochina war was an attempt to get Vietnam back. The resultant loss of that war was one of the causes of the later Vietnam War. The Algerian War was fought from 1954 and again ended in defeat. Neither country wanted to give up its empire, but it became impossible to keep it. Since then, a few countries have been colonized: Tibet by China, Crimea by Russia. I don’t think the trend has stopped, but it has become more difficult due to public opinion. The countries that still colonize are those that appear not to care about public opinion: Russia and China.
However, the obvious next step in the process will be the colonization of worlds. Now that we are starting to explore our solar system, and as we become able to travel further and further, the logical next step will be the colonization of worlds. Whether or not there will be living beings on those planets remains to be seen.