Part Eight: Historical Linguistics

Languages that evolve from a common source are genetically related. These languages were
once dialects of the same language. Earlier forms of Germanic languages, such as German,
English, and Swedish were dialects of Proto-Germanic, while earlier forms of Romance
languages, such as Spanish, French, and Italian were dialects of Latin. Furthermore, earlier forms
of Proto-Germanic and Latin were once dialects of Indo-European.
Linguistic changes like sound shift is found in the history of all languages, as evidenced by the
regular sound correspondences that exist between different stages of the same language,
different dialects, and different languages. Words, morphemes, and phonemes may be altered,
added or lost. The meaning of words may broaden, narrow or shift. New words may be introduced
into a language by borrowing, or by coinage, blends and acronyms. The lexicon may also shrink
as older words become obsolete.
Change comes about as a result of the restructuring of grammar by children learning the
language. Grammars seem to become simple and regular, but these simplifications may be
compensated for by more complexities. Sound changes can occur because of assimilation, a
process of ease of articulation. Some grammatical changes are analogic changes,
generalizations that lead to more regularity, such as sweeped instead of swept.
The study of linguistic change is called historical and comparative linguistics. Linguists identify
regular sound correspondences using the comparative method among the cognates (words that
developed from the same ancestral language) of related languages. They can restructure an
earlier protolanguage and this allows linguists to determine the history of a language family.
Old English, Middle English, Modern English
Old English 499-1066 CE Beowulf
Middle English 1066-1500 CE Canterbury Tales
Modern English 1500-present Shakespeare
Phonological change: Between 1400 and 1600 CE, the Great Vowel Shift took place. The seven
long vowels of Middle English underwent changes. The high vowels [i] and [u] became the
diphthongs [aj] and [aw]. The long vowels increased tongue height and shifted upward, and [a]
was fronted. Many of the spelling inconsistencies of English are because of the Great Vowel Shift.
Our spelling system still reflects the way words were pronounced before the shift took place.
Morphological change: Many Indo-European languages had extensive case endings that
governed word order, but these are no longer found in Romance languages or English. Although
pronouns still show a trace of the case system (he vs. him), English uses prepositions to show the
case. Instead of the dative case (indirect objects), English usually the words to or for. Instead of
the genitive case, English uses the wordof or 's after a noun to show possession. Other cases
include the nominative (subject pronouns), accusative (direct objects), and vocative.
Syntactic change: Because of the lack of the case system, word order has become more rigid and
strict in Modern English. Now it is strictly Subject - Verb - Object order.
Orthographic change: Consonant clusters have become simplified, such as hlaf becoming loaf and
hnecca becoming neck. However, some of these clusters are still written, but are no longer
pronounced, such as gnaw, write, and dumb.
Lexical change: Old English borrowed place names from Celtic, army, religious and educational
words from Latin, and everyday words from Scandinavian. Angle and Saxon (German dialects)
form the basis of Old English phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. Middle English
borrowed many words from French in the areas of government, law, religion, literature and
education because of the Norman Conquest in 1066 CE. Modern English borrowed words from
Latin and Greek because of the influence of the classics, with much scientific terminology.
For more information, read the History of English page.
History of English

(Source: A History of English by Barbara A. Fennell)

The English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the officiallanguage of
a nation, a second language, or in a mixture with other languages (such as pidgins and creoles.)
English is the (or an) official language in England, Canada,Australia and New Zealand;
however, the United States has no official language.
Indo-European language and people
English is classified genetically as a Low West Germanic language of the Indo-European family
of languages. The early history of the Germanic languages is based on reconstruction of a Proto-
Germanic language that evolved into German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and the
Scandinavian languages.

Old English (449 - 1066 CE)

The Old English language (also called Anglo-Saxon) dates back to 449 CE. The Celts had been
living in England when the Romans invaded. Although they invaded twice, they did not conquer
the Celts until 43 CE and Latin never overtook the Celticlanguage. The Romans finally left
England in 410 CE as the Roman Empire was collapsing, leaving the Celts defenseless. Then the
Germanic tribes from the present-day area of Denmark arrived. The four main tribes were the
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians. These tribes set up seven kingdoms called the Anglo-Saxon
Heptarchy that included: Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, and East Anglia.
Four dialects were spoken in these kingdoms: West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian.
The Celts moved north to Scotland, west to Ireland and south to France, leaving the main area of
Britain.
In 731 CE, Bede wrote the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" in Latin. It detailed the
sophisticated society of the Germanic tribes. They had destroyed the Roman civilization in
England and built their own, while dominance shifted among the kingdoms beginning with Kent
and Northumbria. They aligned with the Celtic clergy and converted to Christianity. Laws and
contracts were written down for a sense of permanence and control. The Tribal Hidage, a list of
subjects who owed tribute to the king, was written during the Mercian period of power.
Alfred the Great was the king of Wessex from 871-899 while Wessex was the dominant kingdom.
During his reign, he united the kingdoms together and commissioned the Anglo-Saxon chronicles,
a historical record of important events in England that continued 200 years after his death. Alfred
also settled a truce with the Vikings who repeatedly invaded the area. The Treaty of Wedmore
was signed in 878 CE and this "Danelaw" gave the northeast half of England to the Danes for
settlement. However, because the languages were so similar, the Danes quickly assimilated and
intermarried into the English society.
Although the Danes brought their own writing system with them, called the Futhorc, it was not
used in England. It is commonly referred to as Runes. The Insular Hand was the name of the
writing system used in England, and it contained many symbols that are no longer found in
Modern English: the aesc, thorn, edh, yogh and wynn, as well the macron for distinguishing long
vowels.
Characteristics of the Old English language
The Germanic tribes were exposed to Latin before they invaded England, so the languages they
spoke did have some Latin influence. After converting to Christianity, Latin had more influence, as
evidenced in words pertaining to the church. Celtic did not have a large impact on English, as only
a few place names are of Celtic origin, but Danish (Old Scandinavian) did contribute many
vocabulary words.
Nouns could be of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter; but these were assigned
arbitrarily. Numbers could be either singular or plural, and there were four cases: nominative,
accusative, dative, and genitive. In all, there were seven groups of declensions for nouns.
The infinitive of verbs ended in -an. In the present tense, all verbs had markers for number and
person. The weak past tense added -de, while the strong past tense usually involved a vowel
change. Old English also had many more strong verbs than modern English.
Adjectives could be weak or strong. If preceded by a determiner, the weak ending was added to
the adjective. If no determiner preceded the adjective, then the strong endings were used. They
also agreed in gender, case and number with the nouns they described. The comparative was
formed by adding -ra to the adjective, while the superlative had many endings: -ost, -ist, -est, and -
m. Eventually the -ost and -m endings combined to form the word "most" which is still used before
adjectives in the superlative today.
Adverbs were formed by adding -e to the adjective, or -lic, the latter which still remains in modern
English as -like.
The syntax of Old English was much more flexible than modern English because of the
declensions of the nouns. The case endings told the function of the word in the sentence, so word
order was not very important. But as the stress began to move to the first syllable of words, the
endings were not pronounced as clearly and began to diminish from the language. So in modern
English, word order is very important because we no longer have declensions to show case
distinctions. Instead we use prepositions. The general word order was subject - verb - object, but
it did vary in a few instances:
1. When an object is a pronoun, it often precedes the verb.
2. When a sentence begins with an adverb, the subject often follows the verb.
3. The verb often comes at the end of a subordinate clause.
Pronunciation was characterized by a predictable stress pattern on the first syllable. The length of
the vowels was phonemic as there were 7 long and 7 short vowels. There were also two front
rounded vowels that are no longer used in modern English, [i:] and [ɪ:]. The i-mutation occurred if
there was a front vowel in the ending, then the root vowel became fronted. For
example, fot becomes fot+i = fet (This helps to explain why feet is the plural of foot.)

Middle English (1066 - 1500 CE)

The period of Middle English begins with the Norman invasion of 1066 CE. King Edward the
Confessor had died without heirs, and William, Duke of Normandy, believed that he would become
the next king. However, upon learning that Harold was crowned king, William invaded England,
killed Harold and crowned himself king during the famous Battle of Hastings. Yet William spoke
only French. As a result, the upper class in England began to speak French while the lower
classes spoke English.
But by 1250 CE, French began to lose its prestige. King John had lost Normandy to the French in
1204 CE, and after him, King Edward I spoke only English. At this time, many foreigners entered
England which made the nobility feel more "English" and so encouraged more use of the English
language. The upper class tried to learn English, but they did still use French words sometimes,
which was considered somewhat snobbish. French still maintained its prestige elsewhere, and the
upper class did not want to lose it completely. Nevertheless, the Hundred Year's War (1337-1453
CE) intensified hatred of all things French. The Black Death also played a role in increasing
English use with the emergence of the middle class. Several of the workers had been killed by the
plague, which increased the status of the peasants, who only spoke English. By 1362 CE, the
Statute of Pleading (although written in French) declared English as the official spoken language
of the courts. By 1385 CE, English was the language of instruction in schools. 1350 to 1400 CE is
known as the Period of Great Individual Writers (most famously, Chaucer), but their works
included an apology for writing in English.
Although the popularity of French was decreasing, several words (around 10,000) were borrowed
into English between 1250 and 1500 CE (though most of these words were Parisian rather than
Norman French). Many of the words were related to government (sovereign, empire), law (judge,
jury, justice, attorney, felony, larceny), social life (fashion, embroidery, cuisine, appetite) and
learning (poet, logic, physician). Furthermore, the legal system retained parts of French word
order (the adjective following the noun) in such terms as fee simple, attorney general and
accounts payable.
Characteristics of Middle English
The writing system changed dramatically in Middle English:

 þ and ð were replaced by th (and sometimes y, as in ye meaning the)

 c before i or e became ch
 sc became sh
 an internal h was added after g
 hw became wh
 cw became qu
 the new symbols v and u were added; v was used word initially, and u was used everywhere
else
 k was used much more often (cyning became king)
 new values were given to old symbols too; g before i or e was pronounced ǰ; ʒ became j, and
c before i and e became s in some cases
 a historical h (usually not pronounced) was added to some words (it was assumed that these
words had once begun with an h): honor, heir, honest, herb, habit
 sometimes words were written with o but pronounced as [ʊ] but later were pronounced [ʌ]:
son, come, ton, some, from, money, honey, front, won, one, wonder, of

Because of the stress shift to the beginning of the word, Middle English lost the case suffixes at
the ends of nouns. Phonological erosion also occurred because of this, and some consonants
dropped off while some vowels became əand dropped off too. The generalized plural marker
became -s, but it still competed with -n.
Verb infinitives dropped the -an ending, and used "to" before the verb to signify the infinitival form.
The third person singular and plural was marked with -(e)th; but the singular also competed with -
(e)s from the Northern dialect. More strong (irregular) verbs became weak (regular) as well.
Adjectives lost agreement with the noun, but the weak ending -e still remained. The comparative
form became -er and the superlative became -est. Vowels tended to be long in the adjective form,
but short in the comparative form (late - latter). The demonstratives these and those were added
during this period. And the adverb ending -lič became -ly; however, some "flat" adverbs did not
add the -ly: fast, late, hard.
The dual number disappeared in the pronouns, and the dative and accusative became the object
forms of the pronouns. The third person plural pronouns replaced the old pronouns with th- words
(they, them, their) borrowed from Scandinavian. She started being used for the feminine singular
subject pronoun and you (plural form) was used in the singular as a status marker for the formal.
Syntax was stricter and more prepositions were used. New compound tenses were used, such as
the perfect tenses, and there was more use of the progressive and passive voice. The use of
double negation also increased as did impersonal constructions. The use of the verbs will and
shall for the future tense were first used too. Formerly, will meant want and shall meant obliged to.
Pronunciation changes:

 Loss of initial h in a cluster (hleapan - to leap; hnutu - hut)

 [w] lost between consonant and back vowel (w is silent in two, sword, answer)
 [č] lost in unstressed syllable (ič - I)
 [v] lost in middle of words (heofod - head; hæfde - had)
 Loss of final -n in possessive pronouns (min fæder - mi fæder) and the addition of -n to some
words beginning with a vowel (a napron - an apron, a nuncle - an uncle)
 Voiced fricatives became phonemic with their voiceless counterparts
 [ž] phoneme was borrowed from French as the voiced counterpart for [š]
 Front rounded vowels merged with their unrounded counterparts
  Vowel length became predictable (lost phonemic status); an open syllable with no consonant
following it contained a long vowel, while a closed syllable with at least one consonant
following it contained a short vowel

In addition, there were dialectal differences in the north and south. The north used -(e)s for the
plural marker as well as for the third person singular; and the third person plural pronouns began
with th- (borrowed from Scandinavian). The south used -(e)n for the plural, -(e)th for the third
person singular, and h- for the third person plural pronouns. The north used [a] and [k] while the
south used [o] and [č] for certain words. Eventually, the northern dialect would become the
standard for modern English regarding the grammatical endings, but the southern pronunciation of
[o] and [č] would also remain.

Early Modern English (1500 - 1650/1700 CE)

William Caxton introduced the printing press to England in 1476 and the East Midland dialect
became the literary standard of English. Ten thousand words were added to English as writers
created new words by using Greek and Latin affixes. Some words, such as devulgate, attemptate
and dispraise, are no longer used in English, but several words were also borrowed from other
languages as well as from Chaucer's works. In 1582, Richard Mulcaster proposed in his treatise
"Elementaire" a compromise on spelling and by 1623, Henry Cockrum published his English
dictionary.
Characteristics of Early Modern English
Adjectives lost all endings except for in the comparative and superlative forms. The neuter
pronoun it was first used as well as who as a relative pronoun. The class distinctions between
formal and informal you were decreasing, so that today there is no difference between them. More
strong verbs became weak and the third person singular form became -(e)s instead of -(e)th.
There was a more limited use of the progressive and auxiliary verbs than there is now, however.
Negatives followed the verb and multiple negatives were still used.
The Great Vowel Shift (1400-1600) changed the pronunciation of all the vowels. The tongue was
placed higher in the mouth, and all the verbs moved up. Vowels that were already high ([i] and [u])
added the dipthongs [aj] and [aw] to the vowels of English.
Several consonants were no longer pronounced, but the spelling system was in place before the
consonant loss, so they are still written in English today. The consonants lost include:

 Voiceless velar fricative lost in night; pronounced as f in laugh

 [b] in final -mb cluster (dumb, comb)
 [l] between a or o and consonant (half, walk, talk, folk)
 [r] sometimes before s (Worcestershire)
 initial clusters beginning with k and g (knee, knight, gnat)
 [g] in -ing endings (more commonly pronounced [ɪn])

Finally, assibilation occurred when the alveolars [s], [d], [t], and [z] preceded the palatal glide [j],
producing the palatal consonants: [š], [ǰ], [č], [ž]

Early Grammarians (18th Century)

A proposal for an Academy of the English Language was first brought forth by Jonathan Swift in
1712, but the Parliament voted against it. Nevertheless, several grammarians wrote dictionaries
and grammar books in a prescriptive manner - telling people what to do or not to do with the
language. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 and
Robert Lowth's Introduction to English Grammar appeared in 1762. Early grammarians felt that
language should be logical, therefore, the double negative was considered incorrect (two
negatives equal one positive) and should not be used. They also didn't like shortened or
redundant words, borrowing words from other languages (except Latin and Greek), split infinitives,
or prepositions at the end of the sentence.
A more scientifically minded attitude took hold by the 19th century when the Oxford English
Dictionary was proposed in 1859. It was to be a factual account of every word in the English
language since 1000 including its main form, pronunciation, spelling variations, part of speech,
etymology, meanings in chronological order and illustrative quotations. The project was begun in
1879 under its first editor, James AH Murray. The first edition was published in 1928, with
supplements in 1933 and 1972-6. The second edition was published in 1989 and it recognized
American and Australian English, as the International Phonetic Alphabet for pronunciation.
Beginnings of Modern English
In England, several changes to English had occurred since 1700. These include a loss of the post-
vocalic r (so that the r is only pronounced before a vowel and not after); an increase in the use of
the progressive tenses; and a rise in class consciousness about speech (Received Pronunciation.)
Since 1900, a very large amount of vocabulary words has been added to English in a relatively
short period. The majority of these words are related to science and technology, and use Greek
and Latin roots.

American English
Immigrants from Southeastern England began arriving on the North American continent in the
early 1600's. By the mid-1800's, 3.5 million immigrants left the British Isles for the United States.
The American English language is characterized by archaisms (words that changed meaning in
Britain, but remained in the colonies) and innovations in vocabulary (borrowing from the French
and Spanish who were also settling in North America). Noah Webster was the most vocal about
the need for an American national identity with regards to the American English language. He
wrote an American spelling book, The Blueback Speller, in 1788 and changed several spellings
from British English (colour became color, theatre became theater, etc.) In 1828, he published his
famous American Dictionary of the English Language.
Dialects in the United States resulted from different waves of immigration of English speakers,
contact with other languages, and the slave trade, which had a profound impact on African
American English. A dialectal study was done in 1920 and the findings are published in
the Linguistics Atlas of the U.S. and Canada.
English around the World
Although the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have English as an
official language, the United States does not have an official language. This is how it's possible to
become a US citizen without speaking English. Canada also has French as an official language,
though it is mostly spoken in the province of Quebec. Because many of the English speakers who
originally inhabited Canada came from the US, there is little difference in the American and
Canadian dialects of English. Similarly, Australian and New Zealand English have few differences,
except Australia was originally settled as a penal colony and New Zealand was not. New
Zealanders were more attached to the Received Pronunciation of the upper class in England, so
their dialect is considered closer to British English.
British colonialism has spread English all over the world, and it still holds prestige in South Africa,
India, and Singapore, among other nations. In South Africa, English became an official language,
along with Afrikaans and 9 African languages, in the 1996 constitution. However, only 3% of the
country's 30 million people are native English speakers..
India became independent from Britain in 1947, and the English language was supposed to be
phased out by 1965. However, today English and Hindi are the official languages. Indian English
is characterized by treating mass nouns as count nouns, frequent use of the "isn't it?" tag, use of
more compounds, and a different use of prepositions. In Singapore, Chinese, Malay and Indian
languages have an impact on the form of English spoken. Everyone is taught English in the school
system, but there are a few differences from British English as well.

Taken from http://www.ielanguages.com/linguistics.html for academic purposes. August, 2013.