HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF ENGLISH, Lesson 1
1
The Syllables of Time: Language Change
• All languages change with time. – Historical changes (wars, population mixing, culture domination, politics, technological progress, etc.) – Different social groups use their own “specific” languages (for example: slang) – Languages in contact – ...
• These changes are slow and gradual if compared to human life span. • Otherwise, we would have to ‘re-learn’ our mother tongue (and/or other languages that we speak) about every 20 years or so.
• Words may change both meaning and function over time. • Grammar changes as well.
Examples of ‘nonsentences’ • Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. • A ship-shipping ship shipping shipping ships.
What kinds of Changes? • • • •
Changes in spelling and pronunciation Changes in the lexicon, semantic changes Changes in grammar Changes in the ways of langauge use (situational changes, sociolonguistics, pragmatics, etc.)
• We know quite a bit about the periods in history of English, since about a thousand years of its history is preserved in writing. • English belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.
• Its development is divided into three main periods: 1.Old English ( or Anglo-Saxon ), c450AD – c1100 AD 2.Middle English, c1100-c1500 AD 3.Modern English, c1500***For additional discussion and examples consult the Woorkbook pp 15-25
Old English Period • Old English was spoken in the period from the time of settlement of the Anglo-Saxon tribes (the Angles, Saxons and Jutes) on the British isles ( c450AD ) till the Norman Conquest in 1066 ( c1100 ).
Some distinguishing features of Old English • In grammar, Old English is chiefly distinguished from later stages in the history of English by greater use of a larger set of inflections in verbs, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, and also (connected with this) by a rather less fixed word order; it also preserves grammatical gender in nouns and adjectives.
• In vocabulary, Old English is much more homogeneous than later stages in the history of English. • Some borrowings from Latin date back to before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain (i.e. they were borrowed on the continent), while many others date from the period of the conversion to Christianity and later.
• However, words borrowed from Latin or from other languages make up only a tiny percentage of the vocabulary of Old English, and the major influx of words from French and from Latin belongs to the Middle English period and later. • There are also numerous loan translations and semantic loans from Latin in Old English, reflecting the influence of Latin on the language of religion and learning.
• Some Old English words of Latin origin that have survived into modern English include belt, butter, chalk, chest, cup, fan, fork, mile, mint, monk, pepper, school, sock, wine.
Middle English Period • Middle English began to develop some time after the Norman Conquest ( c1100 ) and lasted approximately to 1500.
Historical period • Middle English is framed at its beginning by the after-effects of the Norman Conquest of 1066, and at its end by the arrival of printing in Britai (in 1476) and by the important social and cultural impacts of the English Reformation (from the 1530s onwards) and of the ideas of the continental Renaissance.
http://www.britishbattles.com/normanconquest/battle-hastings.htm
http://www.normanconquest.co.uk/
• The Battle of Hastings which took place on October 14, 1066 is considered to be the decisive battle resulting in the Norman conquest of England.
The Battle • The Norman strategy for the battle relied on the archers attacking the enemy with arrows, the infantry which would engage the enemy in combat and a final charge by the cavalry. • However, the English army formed a shield wall to protect themselves, so the arrows had little effect on them. The Norman infantry then charged up the hill, but were faced by a barrage of stones, javelins and other weapons. The cavalry charge also was ineffective, as the horses shied away from the axes, swords and other weapons.
• After an hour of battle, the Norman army suffered heavy casualties. • Seeing this, the undisciplined English army were tempted to pursue the enemy. They broke their formations and dispersed. • As they were no longer protected by the shield wall, the Norman invaders led by William, could easily attack and kill the Englishmen. By the time, the English army realised that it was counter-attacked, it was too late.
• The archers in the Norman army launched an attack over the shield wall, targetting the fighters at the rear of the army. • One of the arrows hit King Harold in the eye and he was killed. With their leader and many nobles killed, the soldiers scattered and many fled the battlefield, resulting in a victory for the Norman army.
After the Conquest, William the Conqueror added the Kingdom of England to his realm. This created a problematic situation where William and his descendants were rulling in England but were subdued to the king in France.
• In grammar, English came to rely less on inflectional endings and more on word order to convey grammatical information. (If we put this in more technical terms, it became less ‘synthetic’ and more ‘analytic’.) • Change was gradual, but the ultimate effects were huge: the grammar of English c.1500 was radically different from that of Old English. Grammatical gender was lost early in Middle English.
• The range of inflections, particularly in the noun, was reduced drastically (partly as a result of reduction of vowels in unstressed final syllables), as was the number of distinct paradigms. • In most early Middle English texts most nouns have distinctive forms only for singular vs. plural, genitive, and occasional traces of the old dative
• In some other parts of the system some distinctions were more persistent, but by late Middle English the range of endings and their use among London writers shows relatively few differences from the sixteenth-century language of, for example, Shakespeare. • Probably the most prominent morphological difference from Shakespeare’s language is that verb plurals and infinitives still generally ended in –en (at least in writing).
• In vocabulary, English became much more heterogeneous, showing many borrowings from French, Latin, and also Scandinavian languages. • Large-scale borrowing of new words often had serious consequences for the meanings and the stylistic register of those words which survived from Old English. • Eventually, various new stylistic layers emerged in the lexicon, which could be employed for a variety of different purposes.
• By 1500, over 40 per cent of all of the words that English has borrowed from French had made a first appearance in the language, including a very high proportion of those French words which have come to play a central part in the vocabulary of modern English. • By contrast, the greatest peak of borrowing from Latin was still to come, in the early modern period; by 1500, under 20 per cent of the Latin borrowings found in modern English had yet entered the language.
Modern English Period • ... Modern English started to emerge. • Modern English is usually divided into Early Modern English ( c1500-c1700 ) and Modern English (c1700- ).
• The early modern English period follows the Middle English period towards the end of the fifteenth century and coincides closely with the Tudor (1485–1603) and Stuart (1603-1714) dynasties.
Vocabulary expansion • The vocabulary of English expanded greatly during the early modern period.
• Writers were well aware of this and argued about it. Some were in favour of loanwords to express new concepts, especially from Latin. • Others advocated the use of existing English words, while others advocated the revival of obsolete words and the adoption of regional dialects.
If a language is, say SVO, this does not mean that SVO is the only possible word order. Yoda, the Jedi Master, from the motion picture Return of the Jedi, speaks a strange but perfectly understandable style of English that achieves its eccentricity by using a different word order. Which ? 1. 2. 3. 4.
Sick, I've become. Strong with the force you are. Your father he is. When nine hundred years you reach, look as good you will not ( Fromkin&Rodman, An Introduction to Language, p.315)
Here's how to count to five in a dozen of languages. Six of these languages are IndoEuropean and six are not. Circle the Indo-European ones: L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 en jedyn i eka ichi echad twene dwaj liang dvau ni shanayim thria tri san trayas san shlosha fiuwar styri ssu catur shi arbasa fif pjec wu panca go chamisasa L7 mot hai ba bon nam
L8 un duos trais quatter tschinch
L9 hana tul set net tasot
L10 yaw daw dree tsaloor pindze
L11 uno dos tres cuatro cinco
(Fromkin&Rodman, An Introduction to Language, p. 360)
L12 nigen khoyar ghorban durben tabon
Below is a passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act IV, scene iii: HAMLET:A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. KING: What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. KING: Where's Polonius? HAMLET: In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this month you shall nose him as you go up the stairs in the lobby. Study these lines and identify every difference in expression between Elizabethan and Modern English that is evident. Translate the text into Modern English (Fromkin&Rodman, An Introduction to Language, p. 361)
Ego-Crushing Shakespearean Insults https://www.thereadingroom.com/article/ego-crushing-shakespearean-insults/1031
• Each of William Shakespeare's tragic, comedic, romantic, dramatic, and confusing plays is filled with rich dialogue. There is no shortage of witty come-backs and thoughtful remarks. • His work is constantly being performed or reimagined because of how veracious his portrayal of humanity is. • Shakespeare lovers have often commented on his humorous, highly offensive, if not perplexing, insults. While much of Shakespeare's language is outdated, these insults are far from dead. • Use them at your own discretion; some of the perpetrators of these remarks did not make it out alive.