HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE OVERVIEW
HISTORY OF EL • Crystal, D. (1996), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge: CUP (6-77) • Fromkin. V. and R. Rodman (1993), An Introduction to Language, Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace (320-362) • Yule, G. (2000), The Study of Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
HISTORY OF EL • • • • • • • •
1. Introduction Proto Indo-European I-E family Germanic branch Grimm’s law: sound changes p-f, t-th, k-h b-p, d-t, g-k Piscis – fish decem – ten Tres – three Centum – hundred
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Germanic: east, west, north Sound changes: Verner’s law Brother – Bruder Book – Buch Good – gut
• English
I-E, West Germanic
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British islands - inhabitants Prehistoric times The Celts The Romans, Claudius 43 AD, 407 AD Attacks of the barbarians from the north Germanic mercenaries 449 AD Three tribes; the Saxons, the Angles, the Jutes
HISTORY OF EL • These tribes defeated the barbarians and began the settlement • Englaland, Englisc • a monk, the Venerable Bede, 8th century • Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) • Latin - Old English
HISTORY OF EL • • • • •
OE German hund Hund lyft Luft fugol Vogel steorfan sterben
Modern English dog air bird die
HISTORY OF EL • 2. Periods • a) Old English (mid 5th century to c1100 ), sometimes called Anglo-Saxon • b) Middle English (c1100 to c1500) • c) Modern English (c1500 - )
HISTORY OF EL • • • • • •
2.1. OLD ENGLISH SPELLING: runic signs first, then alphabet th, the letter called thorn long poem Beowulf, poems The Seafarer etc. translations from Latin Several small kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, Kent and Wessex; dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish, West Saxon
HISTORY OF EL • SOUNDS AND ORTHOGRAPHY: long/short vowels (god – God, gōd – good), diphthongs (e.g. leaf) • Consonant clusters: kn, wr, gn (cnawan, writan, gnawan) • c - k (cniht, deorc, cuman) • č (cirice, cild) • sc – š (sceap, scip) • cg – dž (brycge, ecg)
HISTORY OF EL • • • • • • • •
SOUND CHANGES A) i- mutation a/o + i = e u+ i =y fōt, sg fōt+iz, pl = fōtiz - fētiz = fēt – feet mus +iz = mys mice tooth - teeth gos – ges (goose – geese)
HISTORY OF EL • old + ira = eldira • old + ista = eldista • strong + ira = strengira strong strength • B) Gradation • singan – sang – sungen (gradation i-a-u) • writan – wrat – writen
HISTORY OF EL • C) Palatalization • c + i/e š, č • Scip, cild, cirice • OE GRAMMAR • Highly inflected, nouns with 4 cases , sg and pl, 5 basic declensions • Gender: grammatical (bōc, f)
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sg N hund Ac hund G hundes D hunde
• N sceap • N oxa
pl hundas hundas hunda hundum N sceap N oxan
HISTORY OF EL • • • • • • • •
Personal pronouns: 1st person N ic we Ac me us 2nd person N þu 3rd person N he, heo, hit
ge / ye hie
HISTORY OF EL • Verbs: infinitive ended in –an ( singan, beatan=beat ) • Present participle had the ending –end(e), eg: drifende (driving) • Present tense • ic lufie lufiaþ • þu lufast lufiaþ • he/heo/hit lufaþ lufiaþ
HISTORY OF EL • Adverbs, suffix –lice was typically used, • glaed – lice = glaedlice gladly • Word Order • OE ferde he (travelled he), he hine geseah (he him saw ) • Multiple negation • ne hadden nan more to gyven (no had none more to give).
HISTORY OF EL • INFLUENCES ON THE LEXICON • a) Celtic influence (about 25 words, Thames, Avon, Dover, Kent etc.) • b) Latin influence, words for food, drink, clothing, religion etc. • Discus – disc – dish, vallum - weall – wall munuc – monk, vinum – vine • school, plant, history, temple
HISTORY OF EL • c) Old Norse: Scandinavian/Danish influence: the Viking raids on Britain at the end of the 8th century, continued for about 200 years • Danelaw, north-east part of England, late 9th century • end of 10th century, the Danes seized the English throne and ruled for about 25 years • related languages, significant influence
HISTORY OF EL • Geographical names (Grimsby etc. ), words skin, sky, skill etc; sick – ill, skill – craft, skin – hide (ON – OE) • MIDDLE ENGLISH (ME), c.1100-c1500 • 1066, the Norman Conquest, William of Normandy • Norman French – schools, court, Parliament,
HISTORY OF EL • public proceedings; • English did not disappear, it survived (well established, written literature and strong oral tradition); texts in West Saxon dialect; • English was reintroduced in the Parliament (mid-14th century) and was widely used by the early 15th century; • Features of ME
HISTORY OF EL • OE – highly inflected; ME – gradual decay of the inflectional system; • Stress: the Proto Indo-European had a free (shifting) stress system in accentuation, but in Germanic languages most words had stress fixed to the root; difficult to hear last syllables; • Words of Greek origin: photograph, photography, photographic;
HISTORY OF EL • ME Texts • Texts in Latin and French, but from the 13th century also literature in English; • The Bible, (translantion from the 14th century), Piers Plowman, epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (14th century), poetry, eg Pearl, and Chaucer’s works; • letters of the Paston family (15th century);
HISTORY OF EL • SPELLING • Significant changes, Norman influence, Norman scribes; • qu for cw (queen – cwen), gh instead of h in night, enough, ch instead of c in church; • sc replaced by sh (scip – ship), cg by dg (bridge); long vowels were marked as two vowels (see – OE sē, book – OE bōc ),
HISTORY OF EL • ou for u as in house; • short vowels - consonant doubling in cases where there might be confusion (sitting); • the final –e was written, but gradually disappeared; • Beginning of the 15th century, mixture of OE and French spelling;
HISTORY OF EL • PRONUNCIATION • restructuring of the OE vowel system; • H before a consonant at the beginning of many OE words was lost (h dropping), hring – ring; • fundamental change - the Great Vowel Shif; • long vowels into other vowels or diphthongs; (end of ME, continued in MdE, till early 16th c.);
HISTORY OF EL • ME Mde • o: hoom home • e: deed deed • u: hous house • i: lyf life • a: name name • difference between English pronunciation and spelling;
HISTORY OF EL • GRAMMAR • gradual loss of inflections, more fixed word order; • prepositions; • postmodifying genitive (back of the house), rarely used in OE; • TO for infinitive instead of –an; • do as an operator;
HISTORY OF EL • LEXICON • French influence; • French words replaced OE (people – leod), sometimes both words survived (cordial – hearty, mansion – house); • Norman French was a northern dialect, but by the 12th century, Paris became the centre of influence – Parisian French;
HISTORY OF EL • Norman French: warrant – Parisian French: guarrantee; warden – guardian, gaol – jail; • authority, court, government, parliament; crime, evidence, jury, abbey, cathedral, divine prayer, religion; defend, peace; dinner, fruit, herb, pidgeon, pork, sausage, sugar; fashion; beauty, dance, literature, courage, honour, joy, marriage, cruel, foreign, honest, natural, advise, arrange, receive etc.;
HISTORY OF EL • ox – beef, sheep – mutton, calf – veal; • begin – commence, child – infant, freedom – liberty, help – aid, hide – conceal, holy – saintly, wedding – marriage, wish – desire; • OE – F - Latin: kingly – royal – regal, rise – mount – ascend; • Portuguese (marmelade), Arabic (algebra, zenith) and other languages.
HISTORY OF EL • ME DIALECTS • several dialects: Kentish, Southern (OE West Saxon), Northern (Northumbrian), Mercian was split into eastern and western; • Standard Modern English developed from the London area from the mid-14th century.
HISTORY OF EL • MODERN ENGLISH (MdE) c1500• Early Modern English (c1500-c1700) Shakespeare, King James Bible (1611); • Lack of uniformity in spelling; booke – boke, hadde- had, fellow-fallow-fallowe; • standardization of spelling; • the great vowel shift continued;
HISTORY OF EL • • • •
Grammar a) ‘’My life is run his compass’’ (Shakespeare); b) double negation: I cannot go no further; c) DO in questions and negations, but not obligatory; ‘’Says she so?’’ (Shakespeare); • d) thou/thee, thine, thy, thyself vs. you (ye); OE thu/thou (sg) vs ye (pl). • during ME, ye/you came to be used as a polite
HISTORY OF EL • singular alongside thou (possibly influenced by French tu/vous); during early MdE you became the general form. • Modern English (c1700-) • standardization; publication of dictionaries: Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language from 1755, about 40 000 words;
HISTORY OF EL • Prescriptive grammar – “correct” grammatical use; the debate if grammars and dictionaries should reflect or evaluate usage; • for example, the rules about two negatives: two negatives destroy one another and are equal to an affirmative; • also - whom, instead of who in Who do you speak to?.
HISTORY OF EL • Noah Webster (1758-1843), American lexicographer, A Compedious Dictionary of the English Language (1806); • he advocated spelling reforms, eg: • omission of all superfluous or silent letters (bred for bread, fether/feather);
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- or instead of –our (favor); -er (theater); -se instead of –ce (defense); single l before a suffix (traveling); dropping of final –e (definit, examin); nabor/neighbour;
HISTORY OF EL • hed/head, • hiz, giv; • in 1828, he published a larger dictionary – An American Dictionary of the English Language. • In the contemporary world several varieties of English
BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH • Differences in pronunciation, spelling, words and grammar • Pronunciation • fast • brother • Spelling
BrE and AmE • BrE AmE • theatre, centre theater, center • (-re) (-er) • colour, behaviour color, behavior • (-our) (-or) • travelling, travelled traveling, traveled • (ll) (l) •
BrE and AmE • • • • • • • •
authorise (-ise) defence, offence (-ce) Specific words: catalogue plough tyre
authorize (-ize) defense, offense (-se) catalog plow tire
BrE and AmE • cheque
check
• • • • • •
fall sidewalk line subway gas(oline)
Different words autumn pavement queue underground petrol
BrE and AmE • • • • •
lorry lift flat floor rubbish
truck elevator apartment storey garbage
• Grammar • different tendencies, not real differences
BrE and AmE • A) present perfect - present perfect/simple past • e.g. I’ve lost my key - I lost my key. • B) shall for future, 1st person - will, shall • C) should
-
subjunctive
BrE and AmE • e.g. I demanded that he should apologise/that •
he apologize.
• D) option: collective plural/singular singular • e.g. The team is/are playing well.