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Nascent Drama

At about 3000 BCE, a language called Indo-European was evolving in eastern Europe. By 1000 BCE, various branches had spread out and developed into their own languages. Among them were Celtic, Latin, Greek, Iranian, Slavic, Armenian, and Germanic. The Germanic branch found its home in the cold lands of Scandinavia and northern Germany, from whence the Germanic peoples traded and warred with the Romans. Around the second century, BCE, the branches of the Germanic language split. East Germanic was spoken by the Goths who had moved into southeastern Europe, and is now extinct. North Germanic was spoken in Scandinavia, and can be called Norse. West Germanic was spoken in Germania and the lands bordering the Rhine. It was from the latter that English would evolve (Wilton).
 
Three tribes, the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, lived in what is today Denmark, northern Germany, and the Netherlands. Trade with the Romans lead to a few minor Romance influences being added to their Germanic lexicon. As linguist Paul Roberts reports, "Such words as kettle, wine, cheese, butter, cheap, plum, gem, bishop, church were borrowed at this time" (39). The nature of these words, many relating to commodities that would have been traded or to the Christian church, reveal that the Proto-English tribes were quite active in trade with Rome. This contact lead to the Germanic tribes solidifying as the Roman Empire was collapsing.
 
In Rome's collapse, one of the first provinces to be abandoned was Britain, in 410 CE. The weak Celts were left nearly defenseless as the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons took over the land that is now England, driving the unlucky Celts into Wales throughout the next century (Kemmer). Despite the conquest of a large Celtic population base, the English language remained relatively unaffected. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain during World War II, offers this explanation: "They had to learn the language of their masters: there was no need for their masters to learn theirs. Thus it came about that both Latin and British yielded to the speech of the newcomers so completely that hardly a trace of either is to be found. . ." (Churchill 64).
 
At this point, the dialect spoken by the Anglo-Saxon rulers of England was what we call Old English. Old English sounded almost nothing like the English we speak today; however, according to one group, "about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English. Old English was spoken until around 1100" (English Club). These Anglo-Saxons, the early English, formed three major kingdoms: Northumbria in the north, Mercia in the middle, and Wessex in the south and west. Each spoke their own dialect (Kemmer). All of these kingdoms were still pagan. In the seventh century, setting out from Rome in 596, St. Augustine (not to be confused with the earlier St. Augustine of philosophical fame) came to Mercia and converted the Anglo-Saxons, becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury and initiating the once-pagan nation in the Latin rites of Catholicism (Churchill 74-76).
 
Around the start of the ninth century, the Vikings, Norse raiders from the north-Germanic group began to ravage the kingdoms of England. Over the course of the next seventy years, the Norse would go on to conquer all of England except for Wessex. Finally, in 871, Alfred, called The Great, became king of Wessex, and later managed to defeat the combined Viking forces, along with the forces of Norway and Denmark, the continental homes of the Norse. In the ensuing peace treaty, Alfred's Wessex took control of the south and west of England, while the Norse, under the Danelaw, became the lords of the north and east (Kemmer). As linguist David Wilton reveals, ". . . [the Vikings] brought many North Germanic words into the language, particularly in the north of England. Some examples are dream, which had meant joy until the Vikings imparted its current meaning on it from the Scandinavian cognate draumr, and skirt, which continues to live alongside its native English cognate shirt."
 
Over the next century, the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex made gains against the Norse, and many of the Norse settlers became assimilated (Kemmer). A number of Nordic words were added to the language: sky, law, ugly, egg, even pronouns such as they, their, and them (Roberts 41). Over the following century, first the Danes conquered England, but later lost it back to the house of Wessex after a generation. The restored house of Wessex, under Edward the Confessor, would only rule for Edward's life, as he was to die without an heir in 1066 (Kemmer). This would precipitate the event that would have perhaps the greatest effect on the evolution of English, the Norman Conquest.
 
Edward's death in early 1066 created a power vacuum in the Kingdom of England. A native English claimant, Harold Godwinson, seized power and crushed a Norwegian attempt to claim England, lead by King Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge. Shortly afterward, Duke William of Normandy, the ruler of a Romanised Viking duchy in northern France, invaded and crushed Harold at Hastings in 1066. The Normans, speaking a variety of French influenced by Norse Germanic, consolidated control of England and became its new nobility. This would be the last time a foreign invasion of Britain would succeed (Kemmer).
 
William, hereafter known as William the Conqueror, battled the native Anglo-Saxon earls for much of the next decade, eliminating the old nobility of England. The Anglo-Norman dialect of French became the language of the elite, and would remain so for centuries. As one linguist has observed,
 
The influence of the Normans can be illustrated by looking at two words, beef and cow. Beef, commonly eaten by the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, while the Anglo-Saxon commoners, who tended the cattle, retained the Germanic cow. Many legal terms, such as indict, jury, and verdict have Anglo-Norman roots because the Normans ran the courts. This split, where words commonly used by the aristocracy have Romantic roots and words frequently used by the Anglo-Saxon commoners have Germanic roots, can be seen in many instances (Wilton).
 
French dominance would not continue forever, of course. In 1204, the kings of France seized the duchy of Normandy away from the Norman kings of England, and soon after Anglo-Norman's influence began to wane. Kemmer notes that merely a year later, in 1205, the first book written in English since Hastings appeared, and fifty-three after that, in 1258, the first royal decree in English since Hastings was issued. The Norman influence was clearly declining with the loss of the nobility's French estates. In the fourteenth century, during the Hundred Years War, English finally supplanted French as the language of England, but it had left its mark: Old English was dead; it had been replaced by Middle English, which had been heavily influenced by the Francophonic Norman rule. Such words as government, story, tax, and conversation were added to English at this time. This was the language of Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the first great English poets (English Club). David Wilton explains that, although some Germanic words had been simply replaced by French alternatives, the Latin and Germanic bases of the two languages had merged together to create new words:
 
Sometimes French words replaced Old English words; crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam. Other times, French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French gentle and the Germanic man formed gentleman. Other times, two different words with roughly the same meaning survive into modern English. Thus we have the Germanic doom and the French judgment, or wish and desire (Wilton).
 
Radiation poisoning, also called "radiation sickness" or a "creeping dose", is a form of damage to organ tissue due to excessive exposure to ionizing radiation. The term is generally used to refer to acute problems caused by a large dosage of radiation in a short period, though this also has occurred with long term exposure. The clinical name for "radiation sickness" is acute radiation syndrome (ARS) as described by the CDC.[1][2][3] A chronic radiation syndrome does exist but is very uncommon; this has been observed among workers in early radium source production sites and in the early days of the Soviet nuclear program. A short exposure can result in acute radiation syndrome; chronic radiation syndrome requires a prolonged high level of exposure.

Radiation exposure can also increase the probability of contracting some other diseases, mainly cancer, tumors, and genetic damage. These are referred to as the stochastic effects of radiation, and are not included in the term radiation sickness.

The use of radionuclides in science and industry is strictly regulated in most countries (in the U.S. by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission). In the event of an accidental or deliberate release of radioactive material, either evacuation or sheltering in place will be the recommended measures.
 
Measuring radiation dosage

The rad is a unit of absorbed radiation dose defined in terms of the energy actually deposited in the tissue. One rad is an absorbed dose of 0.01 joules of energy per kilogram of tissue (or 100 ergs per gram[4]). The more recent SI unit is the gray (Gy), which is defined as 1 joule of deposited energy per kilogram of tissue. Thus one gray is equal to 100 rad.

To accurately assess the risk of radiation, the absorbed dose energy in rad is multiplied by the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of the radiation to get the biological dose equivalent in rems. Rem stands for "Röntgen equivalent in man." In SI units, the absorbed dose energy in grays is multiplied by the same RBE to get a biological dose equivalent in sieverts (Sv). The sievert is equal to 100 rem.

The RBE is a "quality factor," often denoted by the letter Q, which assesses the damage to tissue caused by a particular type and energy of radiation. For alpha particles Q may be as high as 20, so that one rad of alpha radiation is equivalent to 20 rem. The Q of neutron radiation depends on their energy. However, for beta particles, x-rays, and gamma rays, Q is taken as one, so that the rad and rem are equivalent for those radiation sources, as are the gray and sievert. See the sievert article for a more complete list of Q values.
 
England came out of the Hundred Years War with France as, for perhaps the first time, a unified nation. It was politically united and culturally united; everybody spoke English and the nobility had finally been assimilated. 1362's Statute of Pleading had effectively made English the official language of England, making it the language of law and the court (Wilton). The Renaissance was about to hit northern Europe, and England would be a major beneficiary.
 
Acute (short-term) vs chronic (long-term) effects

Radiation sickness is generally associated with acute (a single large) exposure.[5][6] Nausea and vomiting are usually the main symptoms.[6] The amount of time between exposure to radiation and the onset of the initial symptoms may be an indicator of how much radiation was absorbed.[6] Symptoms appear sooner with higher doses of exposure.[7] The symptoms of radiation sickness become more serious (and the chance of survival decreases) as the dosage of radiation increases. A few symptom-free days may pass between the appearance of the initial symptoms and the onset of symptoms of more severe illness associated with higher doses of radiation.[6] Nausea and vomiting generally occur within 24-48 hours after exposure to mild (1-2 Gy) doses of radiation. Headache, fatigue, and weakness are also seen with mild exposure.[6] Moderate (2-3.5 Gy of radiation) exposure is associated with nausea and vomiting beginning within 12-24 hours after exposure.[6] In addition to the symptoms of mild exposure, fever, hair loss, infections, bloody vomit and stools, and poor wound healing are seen with moderate exposure.[6] Nausea and vomiting occur in less than 1 hour after exposure to severe (3.5-5.5 Gy) doses of radiation, followed by diarrhea and high fever in addition to the symptoms of lower levels of exposure.[6] Very severe (5.5-8 Gy of radiation) exposure is followed by the onset of nausea and vomiting in less than 30 minutes followed by the appearance of dizziness, disorientation, and low blood pressure in addition to the symptoms of lower levels of exposure.[6] Severe exposure is fatal about 50% of the time.[6]

Longer term exposure to radiation, at doses less than that which produces serious radiation sickness, can induce cancer as cell-cycle genes are mutated. If a cancer is radiation-induced, then the disease, the speed at which the condition advances, the prognosis, the degree of pain, and every other feature of the disease are not functions of the radiation dose to which the sufferer is exposed. In this case, function of dose is the probability chronic effects will develop.

Since tumors grow by abnormally rapid cell division, the ability of radiation to disturb cell division is also used to treat cancer (see radiotherapy), and low levels of ionizing radiation have been claimed to lower one's risk of cancer (see hormesis).
 
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