CHAPTER TWO THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE TWO LANGUAGES 2.1
The English Language
2.1.1
General
It takes no great insight to recognize that even a casual comparison of English with some other languages reveals degrees of similarity among them. It is exactly these resemblances and parallels that force us to look for some explanation and make us believe that some languages are closely related to each other. It is therefore usual to speak of various families of languages. Just as the individual members of a family are all different, yet all possess to some degree the same characteristics, so also related languages, though different appreciably from each other today, possess sufficient characteristics common for us to be sure that they have sprung from the same parent language. As we shall need to mention, in very general terms, some of the other languages which have influenced English at one time or another, it will be worthwhile at the outset to consider these languages, their relationship with one another, and particularly their relationship with English, and also how these relationships may have been established. We may, for example, easily show the connection of English, a Germanic language, with Latin, a non-Germanic language, but both members of the Indo-European family. Such kinds of genetic classification of languages was made on the basis of correspondences of sound and structure and indicate relationship through common origin, as the painstaking investigation of nineteenth century linguistic scholars has shown.
14
The Greek Influence on the English Language
Such investigation indicated that practically all of the languages of Europe and some of Asia have in common certain characteristics of sound and structure and to some extent a stock of words. Thus, it is perfectly obvious that they have all developed out of a single language spoken in prehistoric times which we call IndoEuropean. In fact, "Indo-European" is a linguistic term, and we have no evidence as yet for the existence of a pure race speaking the language. The three branches of most importance in the development of English are, in ascending order, Hellenic (Greek); Italic, which includes Latin and its Romance descendants; and Germanic. From the first two is derived well over half of the total English vocabulary. From the third come most of the everyday words and almost all of the structural devices by which we combine them into sentences. The first group of words to come to mind shows us at once that these people had already developed a strong family sense, for the common words of relationship, "father", "mother", "son", "daughter", are found in most of the languages. To take another example, the Old English word for "am" is "eom", and the Latin word is "sum". There is absolutely no reason to suspect a common origin. If we add the Greek equivalent "ειμι" (eimi), we see that it might be related to the English word. The Sanskrit equivalent "asmi" comes to add to the whole picture. (L M Myers, 1966, p 51) We get an even stronger confirmation for the verb "is": Old English "is", Latin "est", Greek "εστι" (esti), and Sanskrit "asti". If we had time and space we could examine many other sets of related words, but here we need only say that the evidence for a "family" of languages is overwhelming. All these words of similar structure and, many times, of identical meanings may be recognized as cognate - that is, of common origin. (Latin: coand gnatus -> `born together'.) (T Pyles and J Algeo, 1993, p 76) On the basis of cognate words, we can infer a good deal about the state of culture attained by the Indo-Europeans before the various migrations began. The Germanic group merits a somewhat fuller treatment, because English belongs to it.
Chapter Two. The Historical Background of the two Languages
15
In fact, some Germanic words bear more resemblance to Latin and Greek ones for example, if we compare the English "mother", "father" and "broher" to Latin "mater", "pater" and "frater", it seems clear that the two sets have something in common. (Dr J A Sheard, 1954, p 125) All in all, the basic grammatical patterns and most of its commonest words have developed from three interweaving strands of Old English, but it has also borrowed a good deal from Scandinavian, Latin, French, and Greek, and odds and ends from many other languages. 2.1.2
Old English
Until the middle of the fifth centure the part of Britain which is now called England was inhabited by the Britons, who spoke a variety of Celtic rather than the Germanic branch of Indo-European. They inhabited the island for many centuries before Julius Caesar's invasion in 55 BC and its subsequent occupation until the time of Emperor Claudius, one century later. After the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain in the early fifth century (by 410 AD), raiders, whom the Romans called Saxons, Angles and Jutes, and who were Germanic tribes coming from the northern part of Germany and Denmark, savagely attacked the unprotected British Celts, who, after generations of foreign domination, had neither the heart nor the skill in weapons to put up much resistance. The date that Bede gives for the first landing - 449 AD - cannot be far out of the way, if at all. With it the Old English period begins. The very tiny Celtic influence on English is really an amazing fact, especially when we consider how enormously English has borrowed from other languages. Myers' (1966) explanation of this is that the English were converted to Christianity by missionaries steeped in the Graeco-Roman tradition, which was reinforced by their education for centuries. They were invaded, oppressed and sometimes ruled by the Danes, conquered and administered by the French. Their borrowings from these sources can be attributed to both pressure and need. Some words were literally
16
The Greek Influence on the English Language
forced into their language, and others were needed to fill out gaps in English. Still others were internationally current, and thus often seemed preferable to purely local words. Probably some were adopted out of simple snobbery. Neither necessity, international currency, nor snobbery gave the English any reason to borrow much from their Celtic neighbours, so they did not. The vocabulary of Old English differed from that of later historical stages of the English language in two important respects. First, there were relatively few loanwords, most of the word stock being of native Germanic origin. And second, the gender of nouns was more or less arbitrary rather than determined by the sex or sexlessness of the thing names. (T Pules and J Algeo, 1993, p 107) The word stock of Old English was more thoroughly Germanic than the presentday vocabulary. To be sure, many Old English words of Germanic origin were identical, or at least very similar, in both form and meaning to the corresponding Modern English words -for example, "god", "gold", "hand", "word", etc. Others, although their Modern English forms continue to be similar in shape, have changed drastically in meaning. Thus, Old English "bread" meant "bit, piece" rather than "bread". (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989, 2nd ed, Oxford: Clarendon) For more details about "Word Meaning Change" see the respective heading in Section B, chapter three of the main analysis. In 1066 England was conquered by the Normans under William, and the effect on the language was as great as on other sides of life. Perhaps the simplest way to explain what happened is to say that with Frenchmen in control of almost everything, nothing written in English could be very important or effective. Apparently very little was written in English, and certainly very little has survived between the conquest and the beginning of the twelfth century. When the English began to find again a considerable body of native material, the language has changed so much that we call it Middle rather than Old English. Another language which had an important influence on Old English was Scandinavian. The Danes and Norwegians who first raided and then settled in
Chapter Two. The Historical Background of the two Languages
17
England during the latter half of the Old English period spoke North Germanic dialects which had much the basic vocabulary as the West Germanic dialects of the Angles and Saxons. In general, it is often impossible to tell whether a form is the result of early or late borrowing and usually lexicographers can date the earliest appearance of a word in a surviving manuscript. At any rate, if the English language had followed the same attitude as the Old English (not to have borrowed the very great number of foreign words that it has in fact adopted), English today would be very different. 2.1.3
The Middle English Period and the Renaissance
After the Norman conquest many of the French really expected their language to become general throughout the country. But such a thing could simply not happen, since it never reached the ordinary people. There can, however, be no question about the influence of the French vocabulary. Many of the borrowings seem natural enough. A good deal of the words borrowed might be called "technical" terms in those areas where the French influence was particularly strong, such as government, law, religion, and military affairs. These French borrowings were so extensive that they changed the whole balance of the language and prepared the way for the incomparable hospitality to words from other languages that English has shown ever since. (Albert Baugh, 1957, p 132) Direct borrowings from Latin not only continued but increased during the Middle English period. The greater part of them came in by way of translations of Latin books. They were usually somewhat modified to seem legitimately English, as by changings the endings -abilis and -atus to -able and -ate. After the Middle English period, the English Renaissance took place (1500 1650), and the language of this period is known as Early Modern English. The general effect of the Renaissance in the progress of the English language was twofold: a temporary neglect of the vernacular by those whose classical studies
18
The Greek Influence on the English Language
made them almost contemptuous of modern tongues, but a later recognition of the possibility of giving to modern languages something of the grace and sonorous quality that scholars found in the classics. On the other hand, the development of nationalistic feeling under the later Tudors gave a new incentive to the literary use of the vernacular. (S Robertson and F Cassidy, 1954, p 328) During this period the changes in inflections were comparatively slight, but the changes in pronunciation were considerable, and the enlargement of the vocabulary was enormous. What is more, as English became a more responsible language, the habit of using more sophisticated and better articulated sentences became fairly general. Moreover, after the end of the Middle English period there are but few changes of importance in the grammatical structure of the language. One may safely say that the results of the adventurous voyages of the people of these times, mainly into unexplored continents, and their mental journeys into the treasure-houses of Greek and Roman literature, would not have been so great nor so permanent had there been no invention of printing. Works which before had been laboriously copied by hand could now be reproduced accurately in great numbers and were available not only for the wealthy classes but for most of the people. There can be little doubt that, as these books became more easily available, there would arise conditions favourable to the spread of ideas and the consequent stimulation of the language to express these ideas. Too many words of the English vocabulary during the Renaissance period can be traced back into Latin and Greek. As Pearsall Smith has said, "they represent, indeed, the wrecks and fragments of Greek learning which had been absorbed into Roman civilization". Among early Greek words, introduced usually through French or Latin, we find "theology" and "philosophy" in the fourteenth century, "comedy" and "tragedy" are both in Chaucer, "astronomy" and "astrology" had both been used earlier, and "microcosm" is recorded in the twelfth century. (J A Sheard, 1954, p 245)