This outline history covers the main events in the historical development of the English language: the history of its phonetic structure and spelling, the evolution of its grammatical system, the growth of its vocabulary, and also the changing historical conditions of English-speaking communities relevant to language history. A language can be considered from different angles. In studying Modern English we regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level-phonetics, grammar or lexis-synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features or their tendencies to change.
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«HISTORY OF ENGLISH »
«Үшқоңыр ауылындағы орта мектеп
мектепке дейінгі шағын орталықпен» к.м.м.
ағылшын тілі пәні мұғалімі
Исаева З. А
HISTORY OF ENGLISH
INTRODUCTION
Subject and Aims of the History of English
This outline history covers the main events in the historical development of the English language: the history of its phonetic structure and spelling, the evolution of its grammatical system, the growth of its vocabulary, and also the changing historical conditions of English-speaking communities relevant to language history. A language can be considered from different angles. In studying Modern English we regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level-phonetics, grammar or lexis-synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features or their tendencies to change. The synchronic approach can be contrasted to the diachronic. When considered diachronically, every linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or step in the never-ending evolution of language. In practice, however, the contrast between diachronic and synchronic study is not so marked as in theory: we commonly resort to history to explain current phenomena in Mod. E Likewise in describing the evolution of language we can present it as a series of synchronic cross-sections, e.g. the English language of the age of Shakespeare (16th-17th c.)or the age of Chaucer (14th c.)
Through learning the history of the English language we achieve a variety of aims, both theoretical and practical. The history of the language is of considerable interest to all students of English, since the English language of today reflects many centuries of development. This is no less true of a foreign language. Therefore one of the aims of this course is to provide is to provide the student with a knowledge of linguistic history sufficient to account for the principal features of present –day English. A few illustrations given below show how modern linguistic features can be explained by resorting to history.
Any student of English is well aware of the difficulties of reading and spelling English. The written form of the English word is conventional rather than phonetic. The values of Latin letters as used in English differ greatly from their respective in other languages, e.g. French, German or Latin. Cf.: Full correspondence between Latin letters and English sounds no correspondence between the vowels and their graphic representation: the final e is not pronounced, but conventionally serves show that the preceding letter i has its English alphabetic value which is [ai], not [i] as in other languages the letters R and gh do not stand for any sounds but gh evidently shows that i stands for [ai]. The history of English sounds and spelling accounts for these and similar peculiarities . Without going into details it will suffice to say that at the time when Latin characters were first used in Britain (7th c.) writing has phonetic: the letters stood , roughly, for the same sounds as in Latin. Later , especially after the introduction of printing in the 15th c., the written form of the word became fixed, while the sounds continued to change. This resulted in a growing discrepancy between letter and sound and in the modern peculiar use of Latin letters in English. Many modern spellings show how the words were pronounced some four or five hundred years ago, e.g. in the 14th c. knight sounded as [knix’t], root as [ro:t], tale as [’ta:ә]. Another illustration may be drawn from the vocabulary. Since English belongs to the Germanic group of languages, it world be natural to expect that it has many words or roots in common with cognate Germanic languages: German, Swedish, Danish and others. Instead, we find many more words in Mod E having exact parallels in the Romance languages: French, Latin, Spanish. Cf.:
English Other Germanic languages Romance languages
give G geben
Sw giva -
Peace G Frieden Fr paix
(OE friр) Sw fred L pace
Dutch vrede It pace
Sp paz
Army G Heer Fr armйe
(OE here) Sw hдr It ar mata
Old English written records
Runic Inscriptions
The records of OE writing embrace a variety of matter: they are dated in different centuries, represent various local dialects, belong to diverse genres and are written in different scripts. The earliest written records of English are inscriptions on hard material made in a special alphabet known as the runes. The word rune originally meant ‘secret’, ‘mystery’ and hence came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. Later the word “rune” was applied to the characters used in writing these inscriptions. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate a separate sound. The rune ρ denoting the sound [θ] and [р] was called “thorn” and could stand for OE юorn (NE thorn); the runes stood for [w] and [f ]and were called wynn ‘joy’ and feoh ‘cattle’ (NE fee).In some inscriptions the runes were found arranged in a fixed order making a sort of alphabet. After the first six letters this alphabet is called furthark
Linguistic features of Germanic languages: vowels
Germanic languages also have some peculiarities in the sphere of vowel sounds, which distinguish them from other Indo-European languages.
Their main characteristic feature in this sphere is the treatment of the Indo-European short vowels o and a and the long vowels o and a.
Indo-European short oand a appear as short a languages. E.g.:in
IE Germanic
Kaz. Алма germ. Apfel
Lat. Noctem goth. Nahts
Каz. Түн. germ. Nacht
Indo-European long o and a appear as long o in Germanic languages :
IE Germanic IE Germanic
Lat. Frater goth. Broar lat. Flos OE bloma
Greek. Phrator rOE bro
Thus, as a result of these changes, there was neither a short o nor a long a in Germanic languages. Later on these sounds appeared from different sources.
Another phenomenon common for Germanic languages is gradation or ablaut- root vowel change in strong verbs etc.
Another common phenomenon is Germanic Fracture that concerns 2 pairs of vowels: the pair E and I and the pair U and O.
Spelling changes in ME and NE. Rules of reading
The most conspicuous feature of Late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms of the words in ME texts resemble their modern forms, though the pronunciation of the words was different. In ME many new devices were introduced into the system of spelling; some of them reflected the sound changes which had been completed or were still in progress in ME; others were graphic replacements of OE letters by new letters and digraphs.In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn – ? – and the crossed d – р, ? – were replaced by the digraph th, which retained the same sound value: [Ө] and [?]; the rune “wynn” was displaced by “double u” – w – ; the ligatures ? and њ fell into disuse. After the period of Anglo-Norman dominance (11th–13th c.) English regained its prestige as the language of writing. Though for a long time writing was in the hands of those who had a good knowledge of French. Therefore many innovations in ME spelling reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie, and ch which occurred in many French borrowings and were regularly used in Anglo-Norman texts were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:], and [t∫]. other alterations in spelling cannot be traced directly to French influence though they testify to a similar tendency: a wider use of digraphs. In addition to ch, ou, ie, and th Late ME notaries introduced sh (also ssh and sch) to indicate the new sibilant [∫], e.g. ME ship (from OE scip), dg to indicate [dз] alongside j and g; the digraph wh replaced the OE sequence of letters hw as in OE hw?t, ME what [hwat]. Long sounds were shown by double letters, e.g. ME book [bo:k], though long [e:] could be indicated by ie and ee, and also by e. Some replacements were probably made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: thus o was employed not only for [o] but also to indicate short [u] alongside the letter u; it happened when u stood close to n, m, or v, e.g. OE lufu became ME love [luvə]. The letter y came to be used as an equivalent of i and was evidently preferred when i could be confused with the surrounding letters m, n and others. Sometimes, y, as well w, were put at the end of a word, so as to finish the word with a curve, e.g. ME very [veri], my [mi:]; w was interchangeable with u in the digraphs ou, au, e.g. ME doun, down [du:n], and was often preferred finally, e.g. ME how [hu:], now [nu:]. For letters indicating two sounds the rules of reading are as follows. G and с stand for [dз] and [s] before front vowels and for [g] and [k] before back vowels respectively. Y stands for [j] at the beginning of words, otherwise, it is an equivalent of the letter i, e.g. ME yet [jet], knyght [knix’t]. The letters th and s indicate voiced sounds between vowels, and voiceless sounds – initially, finally and next to other voiceless consonants, e.g. ME worthy [wurрi]. To determine the sound value of o one can look up the origin of the sound in OE or the pronunciation of the word in NE: the sound [u] did not change in the transition from OE to ME (the OE for some was sum); in NE it changed to [Λ]. It follows that the letter o stood for [u] in those ME words which contain [Λ] today, otherwise it indicates [o].
Linguistic features of Germanic languages: consonants
The consonants in Germanic languages are characterized by a number of specific traits which constitute what is perhaps the most remarkable feature of the group. At first sight it may appear that Germanic consonants are similar to those of other Indo-European languages. Yet, comparison of Germanic and non-Germanic words going back to the same Indo-European root shows that Germanic consonants do not correspond to the same consonants in other languages. Thus whenever we have the sound (p) in Latin or Russian, we find (f) in its place in parallel words from Germanic languages. On the other hand, wherever Germanic has (p), non-Germanic have (b) ex. Sleep and слабеть.
It appears that Germanic languages display regular correspondences of consonants with non-Germanic languages: voiceless consonants occur instead of voiced, ex. (p), (b), fricatives instead of plosives (f), (p).
These correspondences appeared as a result of specifically Germanic tendencies in the development of consonants. Sometimes the alterations were independent, at other times they were caused by phonetics conditions and took place only in certain positions. The most remarkable change, which affected the greatest number of consonants, refers to the Common Germanic period, its results are therefore to be found in all the languages of the group.
The Earliest Period of Germanic History
The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of what is known as the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. It is supposed to have split from related IE tongues sometime between the 15th and 10th с B.C. The would-be Germanic tribes belonged to the western division of the IE speech community.
As the Indo-Europeans extended over a larger territory, the ancient Germans or Teutons x moved further north than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the region of the Elbe. This place is regarded as the most probable original home of the Teutons. It is here that they developed their first specifically Germanic linguistic features which made them a separate group in the IE family.
PG was never recorded in written form.
It is believed that at the earliest stages of history PG was fundamentally one language, though dialectally coloured. In its later stages dialectal differences grew, so that towards the beginning of our era Germanic appears divided into dialectal groups and tribal dialects. Dialectal differentiation increased with the migrations and geographical expansion of the Teutons caused by overpopulation, poor agricultural technique and scanty natural resources in the areas of their original settlement.
Towards the beginning of our era the common period of Germanic history came to an end. The Teutons had extended over a larger territory and the PG language broke into parts. PG split into three branches: East Germanic (Vindili in Pliny's classification), North Germanic (Hilleviones) and West Germanic (which embraces Ingveones, Istsevones and Hermino-nes in Pliny's list). In due course these branches split into separate Germanic languages.
The East Germanic subgroup. was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them were the Goths.
The Gothic language, now dead, has been preserved in written records of the 4th—6th с The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christian.
The other East Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written traces. Some of their tribal names have survived in placenames, which reveal the directions of their migrations: Bornholm and Burgundy go back to the East Germanic tribe of Burgundians; Andalusia is derived from the tribal name Vandals; Lombardy got its name from the Langobards, who made part of the population of the Ostrogothic kingdom in North Italy.
North Germanic
The Teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths gave rise to the North Germanic subgroup of languages. The speech of the North Germanic tribes showed little dialectal variation until the 9th c. and is regarded as a sort of common North Germanic parent-language called Old Norse or Old Scandinavian. It has come down to us in runic inscriptions dated from the 3rd to the 9th c. Runic inscriptions were carved on objects made of hard material in an original Germanic alphabet known as the runic alphabet or the runes. The runes were used by North and West Germanic tribes. The disintegration of Old Norse into separate dialects and languages began after the 9th c., when the Scandinavians started out on their sea voyages.
The earliest written records in Old Danish, Old Norwegian and Old Swedish date from the 13th c. In the later Middle Ages Danish and then Swedish developed into national literary languages. Nowadays Swedish is spoken not only by the population of Sweden; the language has extended over Finnish territory and is the second state language in Finland.
Norwegian was the last to develop into an independent national language. During the period of Danish dominance Norwegian intermixed with Danish. As a result in the 19th с there emerged two varieties of the Norwegian tongue: the state or bookish tongue riksmal (later called bokmal)and landsmal. At the present time the two varieties tend to fuse into a single form of language nynorsk ("New Norwegian").
In addition to the three languages on the mainland, the North Germanic subgroup includes two more languages: Icelandic and Faroese, whose origin goes back to the Viking Age.
Faroese is spoken nowadays by about 30,000 people. For many centuries all writing was done in Danish; it was not until the 18th с that the first Faroese records were made.
At present Icelandic is spoken by over 200 000 people.
Old Icelandic written records date from the 12th and 13th c, an age of literary flourishing. The most important records are: the ELDER EDDA (also called the POETIC EDDA) — a collection of heroic songs of the 12th c, the YOUNGER (PROSE) EDDA (a text-book for poets compiled by Snorri Sturluson in the early 13th c.) and the Old Icelandic sagas.
West Germanic
The dialectal differentiation of West Germanic was quite distinct even at the beginning of our era since Pliny and Tacitus described them under three tribal names On the eve of their "great migrations" of the 4th and 5th c. the West Germans included several tribes. The Franconians (or Franks) subdivided into Low, Middle and High Franconians. The Angles and the Frisians (known as the Anglo-Frisian group), the Jutes and the Saxons inhabited the coastal area of the modern Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany and the southern part of Denmark. A group of tribes known as High Germans lived in the mountainous southern regions of the Federal Republic of Germany (High Germans , Low Germans ) The High Germans included a number of tribes whose names are known since the early Middle Ages: the Alemanians, the Swabians, the Bavarians, the Thuringians and others.The Franconian dialects were spoken in the extreme North of the Empire; in the later Middle Ages they developed into Dutch - the language of the Low Countries (the Netherlands) and Flemish - the language of Flanders. The earliest texts in Low Franconian date from the 10th c; 12th с records represent the earliest Old Dutch.The modern language of the Netherlands, formerly called Dutch, and Its variant m Belgium, known as the Flemish dialect, are now treated as a single language, Netherlandish. Netherlandish is spoken by almost 20 million people.About three hundred years ago the Dutch Language was brought to South Africa. Their dialects in Africa eventually grew into a separate West Germanic language, Afrikaans. Today Afrikaans is the mother-tongue of over four million Afrikaners and coloured people and one of the state languages in the South African Republic.The High German dialects consolidated into a common language known as Old High German (OHG). The first written records in OHG date from the 8th and 9th c. (glosses to Latin texts, translations from Latin. and religious poems). Towards the 12th c. High German (known as Middle High Germarn had intermixed with neighbouring tongues, especially Middle and High Franconian, and eventually developed into the Literary German language. The total number of German-speaking people approaches 100 million.The first English written records have come down from the 7th c., which is the earliest date in the history of writing in the West Germanic subgroup (see relevant chapters below). The Frisians and the Saxons who did not take part in the invasion of Britain stayed on the continent. Frisian has survived as a local dialect in Friesland (in the Netherlands) and Ostfriesland (the Federal Republic of Germany). It has both an oral and written form, the earliest records dating from the 13th c. In the Early Middle Ages the continental Saxons formed a powerful tribe. Together with High German tribes they took part in the eastward drive and the colonization of the former Slavonic territories. Old Saxon known in written form from the records of the 9th c. has survived as one of the Low German dialects.
Development of Old English diphthongs inМ.English
One of the most important sound changes of the Early ME period was the loss of OE diphthongs and the growth of new diphthongs, with new qualitative and quantitative distinctions. OE possessed a well developed system of diphthongs: falling diphthopgs with a closer nucleus and more open glide arranged in two symmetrical sets long and short: [ea:, eo:, ie:] and [ea, eo, ie]. Towards the end of the OE period some of the diphthongs merged with monophthongs: all diphthongs were monophthongised. In Early ME the remaining diphthongs were also contracted to monophthongs: the long [ea:] coalesced with the reflex of OE [ ж:] ME[ ]; the short [ea] ceased to be distinguished from OE [ж] and became [a] in ME; the diphthongs [eo:, eo] -- as well as their dialectal variants [io:, io] - fell together with the monophthongs [e:, e, i:, i ]. Later they shared in the development of respective monophthongs. As a result of these changes e vowel system lost two sets of diphthongs, long and short. In the meantime a new set of diphthongs developed from some sequences of vowels and consonants due to the vocalisation of OE [j] and [y], that is to their change into vowels.
In Early ME the sounds [j] and [y] between and after vowels changed into [i] and [u 1 and formed diphthongs together with the preceding vowels. These changes gave rise to two sets of diphthongs: with i-glides and u-glides.
The formation of new diphthongs in ME was an important event in the history of the language.
Basic grammatical features of Germanic languages
Strong evidence for the unity of all the modern Germanic languages can be found in the phenomenon known as the first Germanic sound shift or consonant shift (also called Grimm's law), which set the Germanic subfamily apart from the other members of the Indo-European family. Consisting of a regular shifting of consonants in groups, the sound shift had already occurred by the time adequate records of the various Germanic languages began to be made in the 7th to 9th cent. According to Grimm's law, certain consonant sounds found in the ancient Indo-European languages (such as Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit) underwent a change in the Germanic tongue. For example, the sounds p, d, t, and k in the former became f, t, th, and h respectively in the latter, as in Latin pater, English father; Latin dent, English tooth; and Latin cornu, English horn(рог).
Before the 8th cent. a second shift of consonants took place in some of the West German dialects. For instance, under certain circumstances, d became t, and t became ss or z, as in English bread, Dutch brood, but German Brot; English foot, Dutch voet, but German Fuss; and English ten, Dutch tien, but German zehn. The dialects in which this second consonant shift took place were the High German dialects, so called because they were spoken in more mountainous areas. Standard modern German arose from these dialects. The West Germanic dialects not affected by the second shift were the Low German dialects of the lowlands, from which Dutch and English evolved.Also peculiar to the Germanic languages is the recessive accent, whereby the stress usually falls on the first or root syllable of a word, especially a word of Germanic origin. Another distinctive characteristic shared by the Germanic languages is the umlaut, which is a type of vowel change in the root of a word. It is demonstrated in the pairs foot (singular), feet (plural) in English; fot (singular), fцtter (plural) in Swedish; and Kampf (singular), Kдmpfe (plural) in German.All Germanic languages have strong and weak verbs; that is, they form the past tense and past participle either by changing the root vowel in the case of strong verbs (as in English lie, lay, lain or ring, rang, rung; German ringen, rang, gerungen) or by adding as an ending -d (or -t) or -ed in the case of weak verbs (as in English care, cared, cared or look, looked, looked; German fragen, fragte, gefragt). Also typically Germanic is the formation of the genitive singular by the addition of -s or -es. Examples are English man, man's; Swedish hund, hunds; German Lehrer, Lehrers or Mann, Mannes. Moreover, the comparison of adjectives in the Germanic languages follows a parallel pattern, as in English: rich, richer, richest; German reich, reicher, reichst; and Swedish rik, rikare, rikast. Lastly, vocabulary furnished evidence of a common origin for the Germanic languages in that a number of the basic words in these languages are similar in form; however, while word similarity may indicate the same original source for a group of languages, it can also be a sign of borrowing.
The Germanic languages have two adjective declensions, a strong and a weak. The weak forms are used generally after articles, demonstrative pronouns, and possessive adjectives; the strong are used independently. The number of these forms is reduced greatly in Danish, Swedish, and Netherlandic. The comparison of adjectives and adverbs in Germanic differs from that in the Romance languages. Generally, -r and -st endings are added: long, longer, longest; Swedish, lang, langre, langst.
The eight cases of Indo-European nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were reduced to four, and sometimes even fewer, in Germanic. Free stress (accent) became recessive, and precise accent rules became dominant, with the first root syllable in Germanic carrying the stress. Umlauting, a process of modifying vowel sounds, took place extensively (man, men; foot, feet). A system of strong verbs developed as the result of vowel alternation (ablaut), as in sing, sang, sung, and a unique way of forming the past tense using weak verbs (jump, jumped) was created, probably by adding a form of did to the verb (I jump - did = I jumped). The number of strong verbs in Germanic is steadily being reduced, and the system does not seem to permit the creation of new strong verbs. Conversely, the number of weak verbs is increasing.
The Great vowel shift
Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of Germanic languages, generally accomplished in the 15th century and early 16th century, both in Europe and England. It represented a change in the long vowels (i.e. a vowel shift). In English, the shift began toward the end of the 15th century and was mostly completed in the 16th century, although it continued for some time after that, spreading toward the non-metropolitan and non-port areas.The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English and Modern English, and the Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical events marking the separation of Middle and Modern English. Originally, these vowels had "continental" values much like those remaining in liturgical Latin. However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels became diphthongs, and the other five underwent an increase in tongue height and one of them came to the front.
The principal changes are roughly the following — though exceptions occur, the transitions were not always complete, and there were sometimes accompanying changes in orthography:
/a:/ - /e:/ (in e.g. make)
/E:/ - /e:/ or /i:/ (in e.g. break, beak)
/e:/ - /i:/ (in e.g. feet)
/i:/ - /ai/ (in e.g. mice)
/O:/ - /o:/ (in e.g. boat)
/o:/ - /u:/ (in e.g. boot)
/u:/ - /au/ (in e.g. mouse)
This means that the vowel in the English word make was originally pronounced as in modern English father, but has now become a diphthong, as it is today in standard pronunciations of British English (see Received Pronunciation); the vowel in feet was originally pronounced as a long Latin-like e sound; the vowel in mice was originally what the vowel in feet is now; the vowel in boot was originally a long Latin-like o sound; and the vowel in mouse was originally what the vowel in moose is now, but has now become a diphthong.
The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860 - 1943), who coined the term. The shift was remarkable for how widespread it was (going through most of Europe and then Great Britain), as well as its rapidity. The effects of the shift were not entirely uniform, and differences in degree of vowel shifting can sometimes be detected in regional dialects, both in written and spoken English. The surprising speed and the exact cause of the shift are continuing mysteries in linguistics and cultural history.
Because English spelling was becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling. Spellings that made sense according to Middle English pronunciation were retained in Modern English.
Chronological division in the history of English. Short survey of periods.
The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from England and their language was called English - from which the words England and English are derived.
Old English (450-1100 AD) The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, 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.
Middle English(1100-1500) In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy conquered England The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today.
Early Modern English (1500-1800) Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with many people from around the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published.
Late Modern English (1800-Present) The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.
A brief chronology of English
BC 55
Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar.
436
Roman withdrawal from Britain complete.
449
Settlement of Britain by Germanic invaders begins
450-480
Earliest known Old English inscriptions.
1066
William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invades and conquers England.
1348
English replaces Latin as the language of instruction in most schools.
1362
English replaces French as the language of law. English is used in Parliament for the first time.
c1388
Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales.
c1400
The Great Vowel Shift begins.
1475
William Caxton establishes the first English printing press.
1604
Table Alphabetically, the first English dictionary, is published.
New English Phonetics: loss of unstressed –e, the change of –er into –ar, a into ǽ. Rise of new phonemes.
At the outset of of the MnE period the vowel eof unstressed endings was lost. This vowel was on the verge of loss in th 14th c already, in the 15th c it disappeared. The vowel e was lost when it was final and also when it was followed by a consonant, as in the plural forms of substantitives(tables, hats, books), in the 3d person sing present indicative(likes, sits, begs), and in the past tense 2d participle in –ed(lived, filled). But the e was preserved and later changed inyo I in some adjectives and adjectivized participle in –ed (learned, wicked, ragged).The letter e was also preserved in words with long root-vowel, in this way the so-called ‘mute’ e arose, which denotes length of the preseding vowel( house, stone, wrote).
The change –er into -ar began in the 14th c and was completed in the 15th. Spelling in most cases reflected the change. Steorra- sterra- star, heorte – herte – heart. In some cases the spelling doesn’t reflects the change(clerk, sergeant, Derby). The ME substantive person has yielded 2 variants in MnE: parson and person. In some words -er didn’t developed in –ar(certain, University).
The change a into ǽ affected all words containing [a]except those where it was preceded by w(ѣǽt- that – that).
The rise of new phonemes α:, o:, έ: took place in the 16th c. 1)[ α: ǽ ǽ: α: ] before fricatives and th 9[Ѳ]:father, rather, aftermath; [s]: glass, gruss, but lass, mass[ǽ]; [st]: last, cast, but elastic, plastic[ǽ]; [sk]: ask, mask but masculine[ǽ]. 2) from [aυ] + l+consonant: calm, palm.
But in the 16th c [aυ o] but the spelling remained unchanged – au, aw: cause, p draw.
In tthe 16th c a new vowel appears [έ:]. It rises in the following cases: i+r – sir, u+r – fur, e+r –lern, o+r after w – word, worse
Old English. Historical background
Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon,[1] English by its speakers) is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old Frisian. It also experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages.
Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of approximately 700 years[2] – from the Anglo-Saxon migrations that created England in the 5th century to some time after the Norman Conquest of 1066, when the language underwent a dramatic transition. During this early period it assimilated some aspects of the languages with which it came in contact, such as the Celtic languages and the two dialects of Old Norse from the invading Vikings, who occupied and controlled large tracts of land in northern and eastern England, which came to be known as the Dane law.The most important force in shaping Old English was its Germanic heritage in its vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, which it shared with its sister languages in continental Europe. Some of these features are shared with the other West Germanic languages with which Old English is grouped, while some other features are traceable to the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language from which all Germanic languages are believed to have derived.Like other Germanic languages of the period, Old English was fully inflected with five grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental, though the instrumental was very rare), which had dual plural forms for referring to groups of two objects (but only in the personal pronouns) in addition to the usual singular and plural forms. It also assigned gender to all nouns, including those that describe inanimate objects: for example, sēo sunne (the Sun) was feminine, while se mōna (the Moon) was masculine (cf. modern German die Sonne and der Mond).One of the ways the influence of Latin can be seen is that many Latin words for activities came to also be used to refer to the people engaged in those activities, an idiom carried over from Anglo-Saxon but using Latin words. This can be seen in words like militia, assembly, movement, and service.The language was further altered by the transition away from the runic alphabet (also known as futhorc or fuюorc) to the Latin alphabet, which was also a significant factor in the developmental pressures brought to bear on the language. Old English words were spelt as they were pronounced. The "silent" letters in many Modern English words were pronounced in Old English: for example, the c in cniht, the Old English ancestor of the modern knight, was pronounced. Another side-effect of spelling words phonetically was that spelling was extremely variable – the spelling of a word would reflect differences in the phonetics of the writer's regional dialect, and also idiosyncratic spelling choices which varied from author to author, and even from work to work by the same author. Thus, for example, the word and could be spelt either and or ond.The second major source of loanwords to Old English was the Scandinavian words introduced during the Viking invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries. In addition to a great many place names, these consist mainly of items of basic vocabulary, and words concerned with particular administrative aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land under Viking control, which included extensive holdings all along the eastern coast of England and Scotland). The Vikings spoke Old Norse, a language related to Old English in that both derived from the same ancestral Proto-Germanic language. It is very common for the intermixing of speakers of different dialects, such as those that occur during times of political unrest, to result in a mixed language, and one theory holds that exactly such a mixture of Old Norse and Old English helped accelerate the decline of case endings in Old English. Apparent confirmation of this is the fact that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the North and latest in the Southwest, the area farthest away from Viking influence. Regardless of the truth of this theory, the influence of Old Norse on the English language has been profound: responsible for such basic vocabulary items as sky, leg, the pronoun they, the verb form are, and hundreds of other words.
Old English should not be regarded as a single monolithic entity just as Modern English is also not monolithic. Within Old English, there was language variation. Thus, it is misleading, for example, to consider Old English as having a single sound system. Rather, there were multiple Old English sound systems. Old English has variation along regional lines as well as variation across different times. For example, the language attested in Wessex during the time of Жthelwold of Winchester, which is named Late West Saxon (or Жthelwoldian Saxon), is considerably different from the language attested in Wessex during the time of Alfred the Great's court, which is named Early West Saxon (or Classical West Saxon or Alfredian Saxon). Furthermore, the difference between Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon is of such a nature that Late West Saxon is not directly descended from Early West Saxon (despite what the similarity in name implies).The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon. Each of those dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia and all of Kent that were successfully defended were then integrated into Wessex.Old English was first written in runes (futhorc) but shifted to a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by insular script, a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline) replaced the insular.The letter yogh was adapted from Irish ecclesiastical forms of Latin ; the letter ржt р (called eth or edh in modern English) was an alteration of Latin , and the runic letters thorn and wynn are borrowings from futhorc. Also used was a symbol for the conjunction and, a character similar to the number seven (⁊ , called a Tironian note), and a symbol for the relative pronoun ??t, a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender (ꝥ ). Macrons over vowels were rarely used to indicate long vowels. Also used occasionally were abbreviations for following m’s or n’s. All of the sound descriptions below are given using IPA symbols.
Great Vowel Shift – the change that happened in the 14th – 16th c. and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au]. As a result these vowels were: diphthongized;narrowed (became more closed);both diphthongized and narrowed.
ME Sounds
NE Sounds
ME
NE
[i:]
[ai]
time [‘ti:mə]
time [taim]
[e:]
[i:]
kepen [‘ke:pən]
keep [ki:p]
[a:]
[ei]
maken [‘ma:kən]
make [meik]
[o:]
[ou]
[u:]
stone [‘sto:nə]
moon [mo:n]
stone [stoun]
moon [mu:n]
[u:]
[au]
mous [mu:s]
mouse [maus]
[au]
[o:]
cause [‘kauzə]
cause [ko:z]
This shift was not followed by spelling changes, i.e. it was not reflected in written form. Thus the Great Vowel Shift explains many modern rules of reading.
Short Vowels
ME Sounds
NE Sounds
ME
NE
[a]
[?]
[o] after [w]!!
that [at]
man [man]
was [was]
water [‘watə]
that [??t]
man [m?n]
was [woz]
water [‘wotə]
[u]
[Λ]
hut [hut]
comen [cumen]
hut [hΛt]
come [cΛm]
There were exceptions though, e.g. put, pull, etc.
Vocalisation of [r]
It occurred in the 16th – 17th c. Sound [r] became vocalised (changed to [ə] (schwa)) when stood after vowels at the end of the word.
Consequences:
new diphthongs appeared: [εə], [iə], [uə];
the vowels before [r] were lengthened (e.g. arm [a:m], for [fo:], etc.);
Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon,[1]Englisc by its speakers) is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old Frisian. It also experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages.
The Germanic languages today are conventionally divided into three linguistic groups: East Germanic, North Germanic, and West Germanic. This division had begun by the 4th cent. A.D. The East Germanic group, to which such dead languages as Burgundian, Gothic, and Vandalic belong, is now extinct. However, the oldest surviving literary text of any Germanic language is in Gothic (seeGothic language).
The North Germanic languages, also called Scandinavian languages or Norse, include Danish, Faeroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish. They are spoken by about 20 million people, chiefly in Denmark, the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
The West Germanic languages are English, Frisian, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, German, and Yiddish. They are spoken as a primary language by about 450 million people throughout the world. Among the dead West Germanic languages are Old Franconian, Old High German, and Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) from which Dutch, German, and English respectively developed.
Modern Germanic languages
Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the I-E linguistic family. The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:
English – in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies;
German – in the Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, part of Switzerland;
Netherlandish – in the Netherlands and Belgium (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively);
Afrikaans – in the South African Republic;
Danish – in Denmark;
Swedish – in Sweden and Finland;
Norwegian – in Norway;
Icelandic – in Iceland;
Frisian – in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany;
Faroese – in the Faroe Islands;
Yiddish – in different countries.
Middle and New English noun: morphological classification, grammatical categories.
The OE noun had the gr. cat. of Number and Case. The Southern dialects simplified and rearranged the noun declensions on the basis of stem and gender distinctions. In Early ME they employed only four markers - -es, -en, -e, and the root-vowel interchange – plus the bare stem ( the zero- inflection) - but distinguished several paradigms. Masc and Neuter nouns had two declensions, weak and strong, with certain differences between the genders. Masc nouns took the ending -es in the Nom., Acc pl, while Neuter nouns had variant forms:
e.g. Masc fishes –Neut land/lande/landes
Most Fem nouns belonged to the weak declensions and were declined like weak Masc and Neuter nouns. The root-stem declention had mutated vowels in some forms and that vowel interchange was becoming a marker of number rather than case.
In the Midlands and Northern dialects the system of declension was much simplier. There was only one major type of declension and a few traces of other types. The majority of nouns took the endings of Oemasc a-stems: -(e)s in the gen sg, -(e)s in the pl irrespective of case.
Most nouns distinguished two forms: the basic form with the zero ending and the form in –(e)s .
The OE Gender disappeared together with other distinctive features of the noun declensions
The gr category of Case was preserved but underwent profound changes in Early ME. The number of cases in the noun paradigm was reduced from four to two in Late ME. In the 14th century the ending –es of the Gen sg had become almost universal. In the pl the Gen case had no special marker- it was not distinguished from the common case. Several nouns with a weak plural form in –en or a vowel interchange (oxen, men) added the marker of the Gen case to these forms.
Number is the most stable of all the nominal categories. The number preserved the formal distinction of two numbers. –es was the prevalent marker of nouns in the plural.
Construction With its simplified case-ending system, Middle English is much closer to modern English than its pre-Conquest equivalent. Nouns Despite losing the slightly more complex system of inflectional endings, Middle English retains two separate noun-ending patterns from Old English. Compare, for example, the early Modern English words "engel" (angel) and "nome" (name): First and second pronouns survive largely unchanged, with only minor spelling variations. In the third person, the masculine accusative singular became 'him'. The feminine form was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into 'she', but unsteadily—'ho' remains in some areas for a long time. The lack of a strong standard written form between the eleventh and the fifteenth century makes these changes hard to map.
Simplification of noun morphology affected the grammatical categories of the noun in different ways and to a varying degree.
The grammatical category of Case was preserved but underwent profound changes.
2) after a voiceless consonant, e.g. ME bookes [΄bo:kəs] [bu:ks] [buks], NE books;
3) after sibilants and affricates [s, z, ∫, t∫, dз] ME dishes [΄di∫əs] [΄di∫iz], NE dishes.
The ME pl ending –en, used as a variant marker with some nouns lost its former productivity, so that in Standard Mod E it is found only in oxen, brethren, and children. The small group of ME nouns with homonymous forms of number has been further reduced to three exceptions in Mod E: deer, sheep, and swine. The group of former root-stems has survived also only as exceptions: man, tooth and the like.
Old English Dialects and Written Records
Ruthwell Cross, a religions poem on a tall stone cross near the village of Ruthwell in South-East Scotland.
Runic Casket, made of whalebone, and found in France near the town Clermond-Ferrand, now in the British Muscum in London. The Runic text is a short poem about whalebone( of the 9th century.)
After the Anglo-Saxon came into contact with the Roman culture the Runic alphabet was superseded by the Latin. Since the very earliest times there were four dialects in OE:
Nourthumbrian (1) , spoken by Angles living north of the Humber. MercianWest-Saxon(2), spoken by Angles between the Humber and Thames. The Mercian dialect: Translation of the Psalter (9 th c.) and hymns.The Runic texts of the Ruthwell Cross and Frank’s Casket (Runic), translation of the gospels, Caedmon’s Humn and Bede’s Dying Song.
Kentish, the language of the Jutes and Frisians. The West dialect is represented by the works of kind Alfred (lived 849-900), both original compositions of translations of Latin texts, also by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (till 891), works of the abbot Aelfric (10 century) and sermons of Wultstan (early 11thcentury).: Translations of Psalms L-LXX and old charters .(псалма,
The superiority of the West - Saxon dialect both in quantity and importance of the documents using it contirms its dominating position as the literary language of the period.
The epic poems of the OE period: Beowulf, Genesis, Exodus, Judith, and poems by the monk Gynewulf: Eleng Andreas, Juliana and other were written in Anglian dialect but have been kept in West-Saxon dialect.
All over the country in the Kingdoms of England, all kinds of legal documents were written and copied. At first they were made in Latin, with English names and place names spelt by means of Latin letters, later they were also written in the local dialects.
There is a great variety of prose texts, part of them translations from the Latin. Among the prose works we should first of all note the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, (VII-IX centuries), the year book of the events in English history, starting at 787, writtenlater in West- Saxon.
King Alfred’s Orosius is a long text based on the Historia adversus paganos (a History against the Heathens by the Spanish monk Paulus Orosius, 5th century).
Translation made either by Alfred himself or on his orders is that of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. We mention among Alfred’s translations that of the Pastoral Care by Pope Gregory I.(ab.540-604) and others.
As we know OE scribes used two kinds of letters: the runes and the letters of the Latin alphabet. Like any alphabetic writing, OE writing was based on a phonetic principle: every letter indicated a separate sound. Some of OE letters indicated two or more sounds, according to their positional variants in the word.
Changes of stressed vowels in Early Old English
The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together.
Independent changes. Development of monophthongs
The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] [?] and [a:] [?:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.
Development of diphthongs
The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].
Assimilative vowel changes: Breaking and Diphthongization
The tendency to assimilative vowel change, characteristic of later PG and of the OG languages, accounts for many modifications of vowels in Early OE. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong. The front vowels [i], [e] and the newly developed [ж], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] plus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: [e] [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fracture. Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo]; they could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:], [eo:], which had developed from PG prototypes. Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects. Diphthongisation of vowels could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after palatal consonants as a sort of transition to the succeeding vowel. After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [ж] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scжmu sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”.
Palatal mutation
Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as “i-Umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of [i]. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is [i] or [j], had disappeared in most words by the age of writing; these sounds were weakened to [e] or were altogether lost. The labialized front vowels [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mutation from [u] and [u:], respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared (cf. mūs and mўs). The diphthongs [ie, ie:] were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with [y, y:]. Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. We find variants of morphemes with an interchange of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mūs, mўs (NE mouse, mice), bōc, bēc (NE book, books), since the plural was originally built by adding –iz. (Traces of palatal mutation are preserved in many modern words and forms, e.g. mouse – mice, foot – feet, blood – bleed; despite later phonetic changes, the original cause of the inner change is i-umlaut).
Verbal Paradigms:As in every other Gmc. language, the Old English verbal system had two principle divisions: the strong verbs (whose past-tense forms were formed via vowel gradation) and the weak verbs (whose past-tense forms were built by means of a suffix). In the Old English verbal system, moreover, there are only two tenses: past and non-past (i.e. present and future), there was no inflected passive voice (except the past passive hatte 'was called' h'tan), three moods (indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. Verbs are inflected for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular and plural) in addition to tense. Dual subjects are treated as plurals. There are two participles, a present and a past.
4."Weak" Verb classes: In contrast to the strong verbs and their ablaut, the weak verbs are primarily identified by the fact that they form the past tense by means of a suffix. The weak verbs, however, are further divided into three classes, depending on the relation ship between the infinitive and the past tense forms. In Wk. Class I, the infinitive ends in either -an or -ian, and always has an umlauted stem vowel, and the preterite suffix is either -ed- or -d-. Wk. Class II verbs, on the other hand, have infinitives which always end in -ian, but do not have umlauted stem vowels, and the preterite suffix is always -od-. The third class of weak verbs contains only four verbs: habban 'to have', libban 'to live', secgan 'to say', and hycgan 'to think'.
5. The verb 'to be' in Old English. Among all the anomolous verbs in OE, the most necessary, and most anomolous is 'to be', owing to the fact that it reflects three different PIE roots: *es- 'to be', *bh+- 'to become', and *wes- 'to remain, dwell'. The forms from *es- and the forms from *bh+- are distinguished from one another in that the b- forms can have a sense of futurity to them.
Strong verbs
Verbs are known as "strong" which form their preterite tenses by means of a change in the stem-vowel, i.e. by "ablaut". Many of these changes still exist in modern English, reflected in verbs such as sing (past tense sang, past participle sung).
There are seven classes of strong verb in Old English, denoted on Wiktionary with Roman numerals. Each class has a different ablaut-series (though confusingly, there are three types of Class III).
Class I
ī‧ā‧ i ‧ i eg scīnan, 1st pretscān, pret plscinon, past pplscinen
Class II
ēo ‧ēa ‧ u ‧ o eg ċēosan, 1st pretċēas, pret plcuron, past pplcoren
Class III
IIIa: i ‧ a ‧ u ‧ u eg bindan, 1st pretband, pret plbundon, past pplbunden
IIIb: e/eo ‧ ea ‧ u ‧ o eg helpan, 1st prethealp, pret plhulpon, past pplholpen
IIIc: e ‧ ? ‧ u ‧ o eg bregdan, 1st pretbrжgd, pret plbrugdon, past pplbrogden
Class IV
e ‧ ? ‧ ǣ ‧ o eg beran, 1st pretb?r, pret plbǣron, past pplboren
Class V
e ‧ ? ‧ ǣ ‧ e eg cwe?an, 1st pretcw??, pret plcwǣdon, past pplcweden
Class VI
a ‧ō‧ō‧ a eg standan, 1st pretstōd, pret plstōdon, past pplstanden
Class VII
ea ‧ēo ‧ēo ‧ ea eg healdan, 1st prethēold, pret plhēoldon, past pplhealden
Latin borrowings in the epoch of Renaissance
The mixed character of the English vocabulary facilitated an easy adoption of words from Latin. Many of these belong to certain derivational types. The most easily recognizable are the following:
verbs in –ate, derived from the past participle of Latin verbs of the 1st conjugation in -are: aggravate, irritate, abbreviate, narrate.
verbs in –ute, derived from the past participle of a group of Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation in –uere: attribute, constitute, pollute, and from the Latin deponent verb sequi with various prefixes: persecute, execute, prosecute.
verbs derived from the past participle of other Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation: dismiss, collect, affect, correct, collapse, contradict.
verbs derived from the infinitive of Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation: permit, admit, compel, expel, produce, also introduce, reproduce, conclude, also include, exclude.
adjectives derived from Latin present participles in –ant and –ent. verbs of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th conjugation: arrogant, evident, patient.
adjectives derived from the comparative degree of Latin adj. with the –ior suffix: superior, junior, minor.
It is often hard or even impossible to tell whether a word was adopted into English from Latin or from French. Thus, many substantives in –tion are doubtful in this respect.
French Loan-word
Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language.
volunteerCooking :beef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast,salmon, stew, veal.Culture and luxury goods:art, bracelet, claret, clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur, jewel,oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture.Other:adventure, change, charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity, enamor,feign, fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror,pilgrimage, proud, question, regard, specialAlso Middle English French loans: a huge number of words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ity, -ment, -tion, con-, de-, and pre-.
Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a given word came from French or whether it was taken straight from Latin. Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which there were no special sound and/or spelling changes of the sort that distinguished French from Latin.
Early Modern English Period (1500-1650)
The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginnings of a huge influx of Latin, Greek French words, many of them learned words imported by scholars well versed in those languages.
Modern English (1650-present)
Period of major colonial expansion, industrial/technological revolution, and American immigration.
Words from European languages.French: French continues to be the largest single source of new words outside of very specialized vocabulary domains (scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical borrowings).High culture :ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne,chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet,sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire.War and Military :bastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry, pallisade, rebuff, bayonetOther :bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock.French Canadian: chowder
Louisiana French (Cajun) :jambalaya
OE vocabulary. Etymological survey
Modern estimates of the total OE vocabulary range from about 30.000-100.000 words. The last digit is probably too high, but it depends on the treatment of polysemy and homonymy. Word etymology throws light on the history of the speaking community. The OE vocab. was almost purely Germanic; except for a small number of borrowings, it consisted of native words, inherited from Proto-Germanic or formed from native roots and affixes.
Native words can be subdivided into some etymological layers coming from different historical periods: 3 main layers in the native words:1)common Indo-European words. They constitute the oldest part of the OE vocab. Among these words: natural phenomena, plants, animals, agricultural terms, verbs denoting men’s activities, pronouns, numerals. E.g. ђ?t, bēon, mōna, mōdor, ic.
2) Common Germanic words include words, which are shared by most Germanic languages, but do not occur outside the group. These words constitute an important distinctive mark of the Germanic lang. at the lexical level. Semantically these words are connected with nature, sea and everyday life. E.g. OE sand, OHG sant, O Icel sandr, NE sand. OE findan, OHG findan, GT finђan, O Icel finna, NE find.OE fox, OHG fuhs, GT -, O Icel -, NE fox.3) Specifically OE words do not occur in other Germanic or non-Germanic languages. These words are few, if we include here only the words whose roots have not been found outside English: OE clipian(“call”), brid(“bird”), swapian(“swathe”).But we can also put into consideration OE compounds and derived words formed from Germanic roots in England. E.g.hlāford, made of hlāf(NE loaf, R хлеб).O Icel deigja “knead” – lit. “bread-kneading”, NE lady.
Scandinavian influence
The greater part of lexical borrowings from O Scand were not recorded until the 13th c. The presence of the Scandinavians in the English population is indicated by a large number of place-names in the northern and eastern areas: more frequent are with such components: thorp- e.g. Woodthorp; toft e.g.Brimtoft; nesse.g.Inverness.
The total number of Scandinavian borrowings in E. is estimated at about 900 words. It is difficult to define the spheres of Scand. borrowings: they mostly pertain to everyday life and don’t differ from native words.Only the earliest loan-words deal with military and legal matters: Late OE barda, cnearr,(different types if ships), cnif(NE knife), orrest(battle), lazu –law, hūsbonda-husband, the verb tacan – take. Everyday words: nouns: bag, band, cake, egg, seat, sky, window. abject.: happy, ill, odd, ugly, weak. verbs: call, die, hit, lift, take, want.
It is difficult to distinguish Scand. loans from native words, the only criteria-phonetic features: the consonant cluster [sk]:sky, skill; [k]&[g]: before front-vowels: kid, girth. But, still, these criteria are not always reliable. The intimate relations of the languages resulted also in phonetic modification of native words: give, gift.
OE vocabulary. Ways of word-formation
Modern estimates of the total OE vocabulary range from about 30.000-100.000 words. The last digit is probably too high, but it depends on the treatment of polysemy and homonymy. The bulk of the OE vocab. were native words. In the course of the OE period it grew; it was mainly replenished from native sources, by means of word-formation. According to their morphological structure OE words fell into 3 main types:1) simple words (“root-words”), containing a root-morpheme and no derivational affixes:e.g.land, sinzan, zōd.(NE land, sing, good).2) derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes:e.g. be-zinnan, un-scyld-iz(NE begin, innocent)3) compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one root-morpheme:e.g.mann-cynn, scir-ze-refa(NE mankind, sheriff).The system of OE word-formation is quite similar to the Modern one. One of the most unusual examples of the OE w-f was the ability of a single root to be either among simple, derived and compound words. E.g. OE mōd(NE mood) produced about 50 words: derived: mōdiz(proud), compound: mōd-caru(care)OE employed 2 ways of word-formation: derivation & word-composition. Derived words in OE were built with the help of affixes: prefixes & suffixes; but also words were distinguished with the help of sound interchanges and word stress. Sound interchanges in the roots of related words were frequent, and nevertheless they were used more as an additional feature which helped to distinguish between words built from the same root. Sound interchanges were never used alone; they were combined with suffixation: Vowel gradation was used in OE as a distinctive feature between verbs and nouns, between verbs derived from a single root:rīdan v – rād n [i: - a:]- NE ride, raid.
The use of consonant interchanges was far more restricted. They arose due to phonetic changes: rhotacism, Varner’s Law..e.g.Talu-tellan (NE tale, tell) – germination of the consonants. The shifting of word stress also helped to differentiate between ;parts of speech. The verb had unaccented prefixes while the corresponding nouns had stressed prefixes: e.g. ond-‘swarian v – ‘ond-swaru n. Prefixation was a productive way of building new words. They were used widely with verbs; e.g. zān – go; ā-zān – go away. The most productive: ā-, be-, for-, ze-, ofer-, un-.Suffixation-the most productive. Suffixes not only modified the lexical meaning of the word, but could refer it to another part of speech. Mostly applied in forming nouns, adjectives, rarely with verbs: zōd-nis (NE goodness), zrжd-iz(NE greedy).Word composition: nouns, adjectives: e.g. hām-cyme(NE home-coming).
Borrowings from contemporary lang. in NE
The influx of French words reached new peaks in the late 15th and 17th c. They mainly pertain to diplomatic relations, social life, art, fashions:e.g. attachй, dossier; hotel, restaurant, cortege; ballet, genre; manoeuvre, police, brigade; cravat, menu, soup, blouse; detail, machine, ticket, progress. Most of them have not been completely assimilated and have retained a foreign appearance to the present day. Besides Greek, Latin, French, English speakers of the NE period borrowed freely from no less than 50 foreign tongues:1.Italian (art, music, literature):14th c. ducato, million, florin, pistol, cartridge, aria, bass, cello, concerto, duet, piano, sonata, violin.Some retained their Italian appearance, others assumed a French shape:intrigue, campaign.2.Spanish came as a result of contacts with Spain in the military, commercial and polit. fields.: armada, barricade, cannibal, embargo, cargo.Many loan-words indicated new objects and concepts encountered in the colonies: banana, canoe, colibri, potato, tobacco, mosquito.3.Dutch made abundant contribution to E., particularly in the 15th, 16th c., when the commercial relations between England and the Netherlands were at their peak. Trade, wool-weaving: pack, spool, stripe, tub. Nautical terminology: cruise, deck, keel, skipper.4.German loan-words reflect the scientific and cultural achievements of Germany. Mineralogical terms: cobalt, nickel. Philosophical: dynamics, transcendental. More; kindergarten, halt, stroll, plunder. The most peculiar feature of German influence is the creation of translation-loans on German models from native English components: superman was naturalized by B.Shaw as a translation of Nietzsche’s Ыbermensch; masterpiece from Meisterstuck.5.Russian. The earliest entered in the 16th c., when the English trade company established the 1st trade relations with Russia. They indicate articles of trade and specific features of life in Russia: beluga, muzhik, samovar, tsar, vodka. After 1917: komsomol, Bolshevik
Historical background of ME
The Scandinavian Conquest of England was a great military and political event, which also influenced the English language. Scandinavian inroads into England had began as early as the 8th century. The Anglo-Saxons offered the invaders a stubborn resistance, which is seen in the narrations of Chronicle. In the late 9th century the Scandinavian had occupied the whole of English territory north of Thames. In 878 king Alfred made peace with the invaders. The territory occupied by the Scandinavian was to remain in their power. The northern and eastern parts of England were most thickly settled by Scandinavians. In the late 10th century war in England was resumed, and in 1013 the whole country fell to the invaders. England became part of a vast Scandinavian empire in Northern Europe. The Scandinavian conquest had far-reaching consequences for the English language. The Scandinavian dialects spoken by the invaders belonged to the North Germanic languages and their phonetic and grammatical structure was similar to that of OE. They had the same morphological categories, strong and weak declension of substantives, of adjectives, of verbes. Close relationship between English and Scandinavian dialects made mutual understanding without translation quite possible.The Norman conquest of England began in 1066. It proved to be the turning-point in English history and had a considerable influence on the English language. The Normans were by origin a Scandinavian tribe. In 9th century they began inroads on the northern coast of France and occupied the territory on both shores of the Seine estuary. Mixing with the local population and adopting the French language and in the mid-11 century, in spite of their Scandinavian origin, they were bearers of French feudal culture and of the French language. In 1066 king Edward the Confessor died. William, Duke of Normandy, who had long claimed the English throne, assembled an army with the help of Norman barons, landed in England, and rooted the English troops. William confiscated the estates of the Anglo-Saxon nobility and distributed them among the Norman barons. All posts in the church, from abbots upwards, were giving to persons of French culture. Frenchmen arrived in England in great numbers. During the reign of William the Conqueror about 200 000 Frenchmen settled in England.During several centuries the ruling language in England was French. It was the language of the court, the Government, the courts of laws, the English language was reduced to a lower social sphere. The relation between French and English was different from that between Scandinavian and English: French was the language of the ruling class. Under the circumstances, with two languages spoken in the country, they were bound to struggle with each other, and also influenced each other. This process lasted for three centuries the 12th – 14th. Its results were twofold: the struggle for supremacy between French and English ended in favour of English, but its vocabulary was enriched by a great number of French words.
History of word-formation, 15th-17th c
The growth of the E. vocabulary from internal sources – through word-formation and semantic change – can be observed in all periods of history. In the 15-17th c. its role became more important though the influx of borrowings from other languages continued. Word formation fell into 2 types:
Word derivation and word composition
The means of derivation used in OE continued to be employed in later periods: Suffixation, the most productive way: most of the OE product. Suffixes have survived, many – added from internal and external sources.
Prefixation was less productive in ME, but later, in Early NE its productivity grew again.
Many OE prefixes dropped out of use: a-,tō-,on-,of-,ze-,or-. In some words the prefix fused with the root:OE on-zinna ME ginnen NE begin. The negative prefixes mis- & un- produced a great number of new words:ME mislayen, misdemen(NE mislay, misjudge). OE un- was mainly used with nouns and adjectives: Early NE: unhook, unload.Also, foreign prefixes were adopted by the English lang. as component parts of loan-words:re-, de-, dis-. Sound interchanges and the shifting of word stress were mainly employed as a means of word differentiation, rather than as a word-building means.
Spelling changes in ME and NE. Rules of reading
The most conspicuous feature of Late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms in ME resemble modern forms, though the pronunciation was different.
- In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn “ђ” and the crossed d: “р” were replaced by the digraph –th-, which retained the same sound value: [Ө] & [?]; the rune “wynn” was displaced by “double u”: -w-;the ligatures ? & њ fell into disuse.
- Many innovations reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie & ch were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:] & [t∫] : e.g. OE ūt, ME out [u:t]; O Fr double, ME double [duble].
- The letters j,k,v,q were first used in imitation of French manuscripts.
- The two-fold use of –g- & -c- owes its origin to French: these letters usually stood for [dz] & [s] before front vowels & for [g]&[k] before back vowels: ME gentil [dzen’til], mercy [mer’si] & good[go:d].
- A wider use of digraphs: -sh- is introduced to indicate the new sibilant [∫]: ME ship(from OE scip); -dz- to indicate [dz]: ME edge [‘edze], joye [‘dzoiə]; the digraph –wh- replaced –hw-: OE hw?t, ME what [hwat].
- Long sounds were shown by double letters: ME book [bo:k]
- The introduction of the digraph –gh- for [x]& [x’]: ME knight [knix’t] & ME he [he:].
- Some replacements were made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: “o” was employed to indicate “u”: OE munuc ME monk; lufu love. The letter “y” – an equivalent og “i” : very, my [mi:].
Development of the syntactic system in ME and early NE
The evolution of English syntax was tied up with profound changes in morphology: the decline of the inflectional system was accompanied by the growth of the functional load of syntactic means of word connection. The most obvious difference between OE syntax and the syntax of ME and NE periods is that the word order became more strict and the use of prepositions more extensive. The growth of the literary forms of the language, the literary flourishing in Late ME and especially in the age of the Renaissance the differentiation of literary styles and the efforts made by 18th c. scholars to develop a logical, elegant style - all contributed to the improvement and perfection of English syntax. The structure of the sentence and word phrase, on the one hand, became more complicated , on the other hand- were stabilized and standardized.
Conclusion
In conclusion I’d like to say that in those days, when few people know how to read or write, the Old English and Norman French tongues spoken by the people gradually mixed to form what is called Middle English, which consisted of many dialects. Studying Modern English I regarded the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level-phonetics, grammar or lexis-synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features or their tendencies to change. The synchronic approach can be contrasted to the diachronic. When considered diachronically, every linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or step in the never-ending evolution of language. In practice, however, the contrast between diachronic and synchronic study is not so marked as in theory: we commonly resort to history to explain current phenomena in Mod. E Likewise in describing the evolution of language I could present it as a series of synchronic cross-sections. Through learning the history of the English language I achieved a variety of aims, both theoretical and practical. The history of the language is of considerable interest to all students of English, since the English language of today reflects many centuries of development. Therefore one of the aims of this course is to provide the student with knowledge of linguistic history sufficient to account for the principal features of present –day English.
