Subject and Aims of The History of English. Chronological Divisions in The History of English

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Lecture 1

Subject and Aims of the


History of English.
Chronological divisions in the
History of English
Every living language is
subjected to growth and decay.
Its modern state is the result of
manifold changes and
transformations, which it
underwent in the course of its
history, in the course of its
development.
In the structure of every
language: both diachronic
elements (remnants of old
conjugations, declensions),
and new elements reflecting
the latest trends in its
development.
Old words die out, fall out of the
vocabulary, new words are added,
often due to external influences,
borrowings or to the development
of science and culture.
 telephone + –ed - a new
element
 write, fight, take - a
diachronic element
The history of the language
is that branch of linguistic
science
- which gives you an insight
into the origin of modern
English,
 which explains to you the history
of its phonological structure,
 the difficulties of its spelling,

 the composition of its vocabulary,

 the peculiarities of its grammatical


structure.
 A language can be considered from
different angles.
 In studying Modern English (Mod E) 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.
 The English language of today reflects
many centuries of development => one
of the aims of this course is to provide
the student with a knowledge of
linguistic history sufficient to account
for the principal features of present-day
English and to 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.
 bit [bit] – (three letters – three sounds) full
correspondence between Latin letters and
English sounds
 bite [bait] – ( four letters – three sounds)
no correspondence between the vowels
and their graphic representation
 knight [nait] – (six letters – three sounds)
the letters k and gh do not stand for any
sounds but gh evidently shows that i
stands for [ai].
The illustration from the
vocabulary

English belongs to the Germanic


group of languages => it has many
words or roots in common with
cognate Germanic languages:
 English give
 Other Germanic languages
G geben Sw giva
 Romance languages — no
 English peace (OE frið)
 Other Germanic languages
G Frieden Sw fred Dutch
vrede
 Romance languages Fr paix
L pace It pace Sp paza
 English army (OE (OE
here)
 Other Germanic languages
G Heer Sw har
 Romance languages Fr
armee It armata
History of Grammar

 explanations both for the general,


regular features of the grammatical
structure and for its specific peculiarities
and exceptions
 why English has so few inflections;

 how its "analytical" structure arose – with


an abundance of compound forms and a
fixed word order;
 why modal verbs, unlike other
verbs, take no ending -s in the 3rd
p. sg.;
 why some nouns add -en or change
the root-vowel in the plural instead
of adding -s (e.g. oxen, feet) and so
on and so forth.
Theoretical nature of the history
of English

a number of theoretical questions


such as
 the relationship between statics
and dynamics in language,
 the role of linguistic and
extralinguistic factors,
 the interdependence of different
processes in language history.
A wider philological outlook

 The history of the English language


shows the place of English in the
linguistic world;
 it reveals its ties and contacts with
other related and unrelated
tongues.
Sources of Language History

 Every living language as a means of


human communication is a social and
historical phenomenon and it changes
through time: especially subjected to
change in the older periods of its history
until it became fixed by the rapid spread
of literature, press, radio and constant
human intercourse.
 norecords of linguistic
changes have ever been kept,
as most changes pass
unnoticed by contemporaries.
The history of the English language
has been reconstructed on the basis
of written records of different periods
 The earliest extant written texts in
English are dated in the 7th c;
 the earliest records in other
Germanic languages go back to the
3rd or 4th с A. D.
 The development of English,
however, began a long time before it
was first recorded.
 where the English language came
from, to what languages it is related,
when and how it has acquired its
specific features <= some facts of
the pre-written history of the
Germanic group.
 Certain information about the early
stages of English and Germanic
history <= the works of ancient
historians and geographers,
especially Roman: descriptions of
Germanic tribes, personal names
and place-names.
 Some data are also provided by
early borrowings from Germanic
made by other languages, e.g. the
Finnish and the Baltic languages.
 But the bulk of our knowledge comes
from scientific study of extant texts.
The pre-written history of English
and cognate languages

 firststudied by methods of comparative


linguistics evolved in the 19th с.:
linguists discovered the kinship of what
is now known as the Indo-European
(IE) family of languages and grouped
them into Germanic, Slavonic,
Romance, Celtic, and others.
 Itis one of the intentions of this
course to show how comparison of
existing and reconstructed forms can
demonstrate differences and
similarities in languages, and how
reconstructed forms help to
understand later developments.
Modern linguistics

 has improved on the methods of


comparative linguistic research
applied in the 19th c.
 external reconstruction based on
comparing different languages +
the recently formulated method of
internal reconstruction
The evolution or historical
development of language:

 is made up of diverse facts and


processes.
 In the first place it includes the
internal or structural development of
the language system, its various sub-
systems and component parts.
The description of internal linguistic
history
 is usually presented in accordance
with the division of language into
linguistic levels.
 The main, commonly accepted levels
are:
 the phonetic and phonological
levels,
 the morphological level,

 the syntactic level,

 and the lexical level.


 Accordingly, the history of the
language can be subdivided into
historical phonetics (phonology),
historical morphology, historical
syntax and historical lexicology.
 The evolution of language includes also
many facts which pertain to the
functioning of language in the speech
community.
 These functional aspects constitute what
is known as the "external" (or “outer”)
history of the language and embrace a
large number of diverse matters:
 the spread of the language in
geographical and social space,
 the differentiation of language into
functional varieties (geographical
variants, dialects, standard and sub-
standard forms, etc.),
 contacts with other languages.
 The concept of language space
the geographical and social space
occupied by the language (known
as its horizontal and vertical
dimensions);
 theconcept of linguistic situation
= the functional differentiation of
language and the relationships
between the functional varieties.
 Most of these features are
connected with the history of the
speech community, e.g. with the
structure of society, the migration
of tribes, economic and political
events, the growth of culture and
literature.
Statics and Dynamics in Language
History

 Although certain changes


constantly occur at one or another
linguistic level, the historical
development of language cannot
be regarded as permanent
instability.
 Many features of the language
remain static in diachrony: these
constant features do not alter
through time or may be subject to
very slight alteration.
Universal properties
 Certain permanent, universal
properties to be found in all languages
at any period of time, such as
 e.g. the division of sounds into vowels
and consonants,
 the distinction between the main parts
of speech
 and the parts of the sentence
Many stable characteristics
 For instance, some parts of the
English vocabulary have been
preserved through ages;
 to this stable part belong most of the
pronouns, many form-words and
words indicating the basic concepts
of life.
 Many ways of word-formation have
remained historically stable.
 Some grammatical categories, e.g.
number in nouns, degrees of
comparison in adjectives, have
suffered little alteration while other
categories, such as case or gender,
have undergone profound changes.
 The proportion of stable and changeable
features varies at different historical
periods and at different linguistic levels
but there is no doubt that we can find
statics and dynamics both in
synchrony and in diachrony.
Dynamics in diachrony =
linguistic change

 Linguistic
changes are usually
slow and gradual. They proceed in
minor, imperceptible steps
unnoticed by the speakers.
 Unlike human society, language
undergoes no revolutions or
sudden breaks. The slow rate of
linguistic change is seen in the
gradual spread of new features in
language space.
Different parts or levels of
language develop at different
rates
 vocabulary of a language can change
very rapidly.
 This is true only if we compare lexical
changes with changes at other
linguistic levels, e.g. grammatical
 Lexical changes are easy to observe
The system of phonemes

 cannot be subjected to sudden or


rapid changes since it must
preserve the oppositions between
the phonemes required for the
distinction of morphemes.
 Sometimes phonetic changes
affect a whole set of sounds – a
group of vowels or a group of
consonants, – but as a rule they do
not impair the differentiation of
phonemes.
The grammatical system is very
slow to change
 Being the most abstract of linguistic
levels it must provide stable formal
devices for arranging words into
classes and for connecting them
into phrases and sentences.
ENGLISH AMONG OTHER
LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD

 Languages can be classified


according to different principles.
The historical, or genealogical
classification, groups languages
in accordance with their origin
from a common linguistic
ancestor.
 Genetically, English belongs
to the Germanic or Teutonic
group of languages, which is
one of the twelve groups of
the IE linguistic family
The Germanic Group of Languages
The Germanic languages as a
uniform group possess some
important characteristic features
that distinguish them (single them
out) from other IE languages:
 1) a fixed stress accent,
 2) a regular shifting of IE
consonants,
 3) a regular shifting of IE
vowels,
 4) a twofold conjugation
(strong and weak),
 5) a two-fold declension of
nouns and adjectives,
 6) the presence of a
Germanic layer in the
vocabulary.
The Germanic languages in the modern
world

 English – in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA,


Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South
African Republic, and many other former British
colonies and dominions;
 German – in the Federal Republic of Germany,
Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of
Switzerland;
 Netherlandish – in the Netherlands and
Flanders (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 the Federal Republic of
Germany;
 Faroese – in the Faroe Islands;

 Yiddish – in different countries.


The number of people speaking Germanic
languages
 It is difficult to estimate the number of people
speaking Germanic languages, especially on
account of English, which in many countries is
one of two languages in a bilingual community,
e.g. in Canada.
 The estimates for English range from 250 to 300
million people who have it as their mother tongue.
 The total number of people speaking Germanic
languages approaches 440 million.
 To this rough estimate we could add an indefinite
number of bilingual people in the countries where
English is used as an official language (over 50
countries).
CHRONOLOGICAL DIVISIONS IN THE
HISTORY OF ENGLISH.
 The historical development of a
language is a continuous
uninterrupted process without sudden
breaks or rapid transformations =>
any periodisation imposed on
language history by linguists, with
precise dates, might appear artificial,
if not arbitrary.
 Yet in all language histories
divisions into periods and
cross-sections of a certain
length, are used for teaching
and research purposes.
The commonly accepted, traditional
periodisation of English history
 Three periods:
 Old English (OE), Middle English
(ME) and New English (NE), with
boundaries attached to definite
dates and historical events affecting
the language. Each period preserves
some infirmity of language.
 OE begins with the Germanic
settlement of Britain (5th c.) or
with the beginning of writing
(7th c.) and ends with the
Norman Conquest (1066);
 ME begins with the Norman
Conquest and ends on the
introduction of printing (1475),
 which is the start of the Modern or
New English period (Mod E or NE);
the New period lasts to the present
day.
A brief chronology of English

Local inhabitants speak Celtish (Prewritten OE):


 BC 55 Roman invasion of Britain by Julius
Caesar.
 BC 43 Roman invasion and occupation.
Beginning of Roman rule of Britain.
 436 Roman withdrawal from Britain complete.

 449 Settlement of Britain by Germanic


invaders begins.
450-1066 Old English

 450-480 Earliest known Old English


inscriptions.
 1066 William the Conqueror, Duke
of Normandy, invades and conquers
England.
1066 - 1660 Middle English

 1150 Earliest surviving manuscripts in


Middle English.
 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.
 1388 Chaucer starts writing The
Canterbury Tales.
 1400 The Great Vowel Shift begins.
Modern English 1660 -

Early Modern English:


 1476 William Caxton establishes the
first English printing press
 1564 Shakespeare is born.
 1604 Table Alphabeticall, the first English
dictionary, is published.
 1607 The first permanent English
settlement in the New World (Jamestown)
is established.
 1616 Shakespeare dies.

 1623 Shakespeare's First Folio is published


1660- 1880 Normalisation Period
(also: Age of Correctness)

 1755 Samuel Johnson publishes his


English dictionary.
 1776 Thomas Jefferson writes the
American Declaration of
Independence.
 1782 Britain abandons its American
colonies.
 1828 Webster publishes his American
English dictionary.
Late Modern English 1800 -

 1922 The British Broadcasting


Corporation is founded.
 1928 The Oxford English Dictionary
is published.
 Since 1945 - Present-Day English
SHORT SURVEY OF PERIODS

 The invading Germanic tribes


spoke similar languages, which in
Britain developed into what we
now call OE.
 OE did not sound or look like E
today.
 Interms of the general history of
Germanic languages OE represents the
stage of Old Germanic dialects in the
history of English = the initial period of
its separated history, when common
Germanic features still prevailed over its
newly-developed individual
characteristics.
Old English (450-1066 AD)
 The earliest surviving written documents (the
8th century).
 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.
Part of Beowulf, a poem written in OE
Middle English (1066 -1500)

 In1066 William the Conqueror, the


Duke of Normandy (part of modern
France), invaded and conquered
England.
 The new conquerors (the Normans)
brought with them a kind of French:
the language of the Royal Court, and
the ruling and business classes.
 For a period a kind of linguistic class
division, where the lower classes spoke
English and the upper classes spoke
French.
 In the 14th century - English dominant in
Britain again, but with many French
words added.
 Middle English was the language of the
great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but
difficult for native English speakers to
understand today
An example of Middle English by
Chaucer
Modern English
Early Modern English (1500-1800)
 Towards the end of MidE, a sudden
and distinct change in pronunciation
(the Great Vowel Shift) started
 From the 16th century contact with
many peoples from around the world
+ the Renaissance of Classical
learning => many new words and
phrases entered the language.
 The invention of printing = 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.
Hamlet's famous "To be, or not to be"
lines, written in Early Modern English by
Shakespeare.
Late Modern English (1800-
Present)

 The main difference between Early


ModE and Late ModE is vocabulary.
 Late ModEhas 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.
Henry Sweet, an outstanding
English linguist

has characterized these periods from the


phonological and grammatical point of view
in the following way:
 OE – the period of full endings
 ME – the period of leveled endings

 MnE – the period of lost endings.

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