English Past Present Future History of

English Past Present Future

History of English Once upon a time, in the days of King Alfred the Great, there was a language that looked like this: He cwæð, Soðlice sum man hæfde twegen suna. Þa cwæð se gingra to his fæder, Fæder, syle me minne dæl minre æhte þe me to gebyreð. And its speakers called it ‘English’.

History of English Centuries later, the language had changed substantially, and the same sentence now looked like this: And he seide, A man hadde twei sones; and the onger of hem seide to the fadir, Fadir, ʒ yue me the porcioun of catel, that fallith to ʒ me. The speakers of this variety also called their language ‘English’.

History of English Today, centuries later again, the same sentence looks like this: And he said, ‘There was a man who had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that falls to me. ’

The periods in the History of English Old English 450 -1150 (the period of full inflections) Middle English 1150 -1500 (the period of leveled inflections) Modern English 1500 (the period of lost inflections)

The periods in the History of English Old English 449 -1066 (the period of full inflections) Middle English 1066 -1475 (the period of leveled inflections) Modern English 15 th century onwards (the period of lost inflections)

The periods in the History of English Old English : Beowulf, chronicles, puzzles, prayers Early Middle English: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Peterborough Chronicle, Ormulum Late Middle English : The Canterbury Tales ( ? ? ? understood by average reader without linguistic training)

The periods in the History of English Early New English — Shakespearean English The New English — since mid 17 th century ( major phonetic changes, ability to pick any lexeme) Post-modern period of English – 1876 -1877: invention of the telephone by Alexander Bell and of the phonograph by Thomas Alva Edison Late English we study and speak now

The periods in the History of English Language Stage Beginning Ending OE Old English 450 1150 EOE Early Old English 450 1000 LOE Late Old English 1000 1150 ME Middle English 1150 1500 EME Early Middle English 1150 1300 LME Late Middle English 1370 1500 EMd. E Early Modern English 1500 1770 Md. E Modern English 1770 1970 PDE Present Day English 1970 present

German Legacy English belongs to the Germanic family of languages, whose other members include High German, Low German, Dutch, Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, as well as the oldest attested but now extinct Germanic language, Gothic.

English as an Indo-European language Sanscrit pitar Latin pater English father Dutch vader Gothic fadar German vater Greek pat ē r Old Irish athir

English as an Indo-European language Sanscrit asmi asti Old Eng. eom (am) is Gothic sum ist Latin sum est Greek eimi esti

English as an Indo-European language Grimm’ s Law In 1822 Jacob Grimm following suggestion of Rasmus Rask, Danish philologist, formulated an explanation of systematic correspondences between certain consonants in the Germanic languages The pronunciation of Proto-Germanic had undergone a series of startling but highly regular changes. One of the most famous of these is the First Germanic Consonant Shift, otherwise known as Grimm’s Law

Grimm’ s Law The cause of sound shift ( occurring as far as 5 th century B. C. ) is unknown, but most often attributed to contact with non-German population. The contact could have resulted from migration of German tribes or from penetration of a foreign population into Germanic territory

Grimm’ s Law Whatever its cause, the Germanic sound shift is the most distinctive feature marking off the Germanic languages from the languages to which they are related.

Grimm’ s Law Some Grimm’s Law changes (IE (and Latin) /p t k/ > Germanic /f θ h/ Latin English pater father piscis fish ped- foot tres three tenuis thin cornu horn cord- heart collis hill

Grimm’ s Law IE (and Latin) /b d g/ > Germanic /p t k/ decem ten dent- tooth duo two granum corn genu knee (whose /k/ used to be pronounced) gelidus cold

Grimm’ s Law Karl Verner’ Law In 1875 Karl Verner proved that when the Indo-European accent was not on the vowel immediately preceding, such voiceless fricatives became voiced in Germanic.

PRE — Old English period English was introduced into the island in 5 th A. D. 50000 — 250000 people inhabited the area then. The first people in England about whose language we have evidence were Celts.

The Celts The native Celts were civilized, law-abiding, accustomed to administration, government and police, central heating, running water. The conveniences appeared in London again 1500 years later.

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon Celtic Names Kent < Canti, Cantion Cornwall < Cornubian Welsh Thames is a Celtic river name Avon, Dover etc. Outside place-names, the influence of Celtic on English is negligible.

Celtic impact on English The Celtic Language puzzle : Why are there so few Celtic loanwords in Old English? How can the Anglo-Saxons have failed to be influenced by the majority Celtic language around them?

Celtic legacy The Celts, those who did not assimilate to Germanic ways, moved west and south into Cornwall and Wales; Scotland with its hills, wild terrain, and rain remained untamed by both Roman and Saxon. The languages of the Celts survive today in the forms of Irish (the preferred designation today for what still is often called Gaelic), Welsh, and Scots Gaelic.

Early Old English – pre-written functioning of the language Formation of kingdoms transformed tribal dialects into regional (local) dialects and resulted into Written Old English (Anglo-Saxon period)

Early Old English In the country inns of a small corner in Northern Germany connecting Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark one might hear the phrases like ‘veather ist cold ’ or ‘ what ist de clock ? ’ which make sense. Prof. Menke states that they are very close to the language people spoke in England 1000 years ago.

The Roman Conquest The language spoken widely before coming of English was Latin which came with Roman invasion. The Roman Christinizing of England – first contact with Roman civilization and considerable increase of vocabulary

The Roman Conquest In the summer of 55 B. C. Caesar having completed the conquest of Gaul, planned the an invasion of England. Celts’ resistance was spirited, he exacted tribute from them and returned to Gaul. Since then Roman legions did not trouble England for nearly 100 years.

The Roman Conquest In 43 A. D. the Emperor Claudius attacked the island with the knowledge of Caesar’s experience. Romans progressed northwards but never penetrated into the mountains of Wales and Scotland. The Celts had a number of uprisings.

The Roman Conquest Under the Governor Agricola (AD 78 -85) they erected stone northern frontier. The district to the south of the stone wall stretching across England was under Roman control for 300 years.

Romanization of England Numerous inscriptions found in Latin do not indicate a widespread use of Latin by native population. Romans did not replace the Celtic language with Latin as they did in Gaul. Latin was restricted to upper classes and was familiar to residents of towns. But Latin was not sufficiently widespread to survive as Celtic survived Germanic invasions.

Latin words – the Continental period Old English Modern English Latin Butere butter butyurum Candel candle candela Catt cat cattus Cyse cheese caseus Draca dragon draco Munuc monk monacus Sacc sack, bag saccus Ynce inch uncia

The Roman Conquest Borrowing from Latin continued during the Old English period, but their nature changed as there were lots of religious terms. Earlier the words entered English via oral speech, later via writing.

Latin words – c. 450 c. 650 Old English Modern English Latin Forca fork furca Pere pear pirum Segn signum Torr tower turris

Latin words – c. 650 — 1100 Old English Modern English Latin Alter altar Cucumer cucumber cucumer Diacon deacon diaconus Mamma breast mamma Orgel organum Philosoph philosopher philosophus Sabbat sabbath sabbatum Scol school scola

12 –Latin? 12 — Germanic? Belt, bin, cook, craft, cup, day, earth, good, god, gold, home, light, pan, pin, post, pot, red, sack, sock, stop, sun, wall, wife, work

12 — Latin Belt, bin, cook, cup, pan, pit, post, pot, sack, sock, stop, wall

The Roman Conquest Latin in England probably declined after 410 when Roman legions were officially withdrawn from the island.

The Scandinavian invasions. Vikings The Scandinavian invasions resulted into considerable mixture of 2 nations and 2 languages

Scandinavian impact In Yorkshire & North Lincolnshire 60% of the names recorded in Middle English sources are of Scandinavian origin. -by in Old Norse ‘town’ – Burnby, Westerby -thorpe ‘village’ – Althorp, Milthorpe…

Scandinavian impact The everyday flavor of the Scandinavian loans can be seen in the two dozen words which survived into modern Standard English: anger, awkward, bond, cake, crooked, dirt, egg, fog, freckle, get, kid, leg, lurk, meek, muggy, neck, seem, skill, skirt, smile, window

Scandinavian impact Some words changed their meaning coming from the same source. Doublets: Craft & skill, Wish & want Skirt VS shirt Stick VS stitch Wake VS watch Break VS breach

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon Scandinavian impact Sky, skin, skill, skirt, scrape, scrub, scream husband get, give, gild, leg take, lift, trust, crawl, dazzle they, them, their Place-names: Derby, Rugby

Old Norse Also from Old Norse is leg. The Old English word was sceanca, which has become our word shank , remembered now largely in the nickname of Edward I of England, called Langshanks because of his long legs. But shank has now become specialised to denoting the lower part of the leg and to certain metaphorical uses, and the Old Norse word has taken over as the ordinary anatomical term.

Scandinavian impact Scandinavian they, them, their replaced Old English inflected forms ( hi, hie, hira, heom). Pronouns do not change very often in the history of a language, and to see one set of forms replaced by another is noteworthy. It took 300 years for the substitution to work through the language.

Germanic invasion The beginnings of English can be traced back to 449, when two German leaders, Hengist and Horsa, helping their Celtic ally brought their tribes to the Isles.

Old English The Germanic Invasion Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Bede in Ecclesiastical History of the English People : The Jutes, Saxons, Angles invaded the island after 449 Angles occupied the eastern coast and in 547 established the Anglian kingdom

Old English The Germanic Invasion When the invaders arrived in England, they did not bring with them three ‘pure’ Germanic dialects – Anglian, Saxon, Jutish – but a whole range of spoken varieties, displaying different kinds of mutual influence. They had a common oral literary heritage and a common set of religious beliefs, probably the dialects were mutually comprehensible, for the most part, with some difficulty in pronunciation and vocabulary.

German Legacy The Germanic tribes – Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Frisians – were a roving, restless, aggressive lot like their Indo-European forebears before them, always seeing the other side of rivers, of valleys, of bodies of water as greener, more fertile, more suited to their idea of a proper home than where they were living.

Old English The Germanic Invasion Anglo-Saxons were relatively uncultured, they were pagan and preserved the names of their gods for weekdays: Tiw, Woden, Thor, Woden ‘s wife –Frig → Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Saturday, Sunday and Monday take their names from Saturn, the Sun and the Moon.

Old English The Germanic Invasion West Saxon Kings were able to maintain their claim to be the kings of all the English, under Alfred (871 -889). Wessex attained a high degree of prosperity though the formation could be hardly called a united kingdom.

Old English The Germanic Invasion Why England, not Saxonland, Saxland? Latin writers used the words Saxones and Saxonia referring to all Germanic tribes. But soon Angli / Anglia appeared with reference to all West Germanic tribes. Angli Saxones to mean English Saxons (Britain, since the 8 th century) opposed the Old Saxons (of the Continent)

Old English VS England The name English is older than England. Englisc is used to define the language <<< derived from OE. Engle ( Angles)

Old English VS England AEthelbert, king of Kent, is styled as rex Anglorum by Pope Gregory in 601 Possibly a desire to avoid confusion with Saxons and predominance of early Anglian kingdoms were predominant in usage.

Old English VS England The land the people are called Angelcynn (Angle-kin or race of Angles) From about 1000 Englaland ( the land of Angles) begins to appear in the texts.

Old English VS England The spelling England no longer represents the pronunciation of the word. Under the influence of nasal –ng the e has undergone the regular change to i. The spelling Ingland occurs in Middle English and the vowel is acurately represented in Spanish Inglaterra and Italian Inghilterra.

Old English dialects Northumbrian Mercian West Saxon Kentish

Old English dialects West Saxon is represented in texts of the period. Nearly all Old English literature survived in manuscripts written in that area. With the ascendancy of West-Saxon kingdom and due to abundance of texts West –Saxon dialect was becoming a literary standard – the progress was interrupted by the Norman conquest. When standard English began to arise in the LATE Middle English period it was on the basis of another dialect – that of the East Midlands.

Old English The English of today resulted from interaction of dialects spoken by Germanic tribes. There was slight difference between the speech of the Angles, Jutes or Saxons. Stress was dynamic and then shifted to the first syllable → LOSS OF INFLECTIONS

Old English Adoption of the strong stress accent on the first root syllable what is responsible for the progressive decay of inflections English did not experience modification of consonants known as The Second or High German sound-shift.

Characteristics of Old English In general the differences between Old and Modern English concern Spelling Pronunciation The lexicon Grammar

Characteristics of Old English A page of Old English is less familiar to our contemporaries than a page of French or Italian as some letters are not a part of current alphabet. 300000 Frisians in the north of Holland whose language has been slightly altered can read Beowulf at sight, as Charlton Laird, linguistic historian claims

Characteristics of Old English Pronunciation Long vowels have undergone considerable changes: Old English Modern English st ā n — stone h ā lig — holy g ā n — go hl ā f — loaf c ū — cow hū — how

Characteristics of Old English Pronunciation Other vowels have changed considerably too: fōt — foot fŷr — fire riht — right

Characteristics of Old English Pronunciation Besides these genuine changes in pronunciation there are words incomprehensible to our contemporaries due to changes in spelling: sc ē ap — sheep nacod – naked spr æ c — speech benc — bench sceotan – shoot cynn – kin

Characteristics of Old English Pronunciation Old English was much simpler and more reliable as every letter was distinctively related to a single sound.

The Chaos by Gerald Nolst Trenit é 800 worst irregularities in English spelling and pronunciation Shoes, goes, does Real, zeal Marriage, foliage, mirage, age War, far Done, lone, gone, none, tone Put, nut Maria, malaria

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon The Vocabulary of Old English is almost purely Germanic. A large part of the vocabulary has disappeared from the language as a result of the Norman Conquest. 85% of 30. 000 Old English words died out under impact of Danes and Normans.

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon 4500 Old English words survived making 1% of Oxford English Dictionary including fundamental ones: man, wife, child, brother, sister, live, fight, love, drink, eat, sleep, house etc. including most function words – in, for, but, and, at, to, on

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon Old English words that survived are frequently used and denote fundamental concepts: mann — man, w ī f — wife cild — child, h ū s- house l ē af- leaf, gōd — good, strang — strong, libban –live, etan -eat

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon Despite its complexity Old English is not remote from current English: scip →ship , bricg → bridge have not altered within 1000 years.

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon If lexical resources are limited any language develops flexibility in bending old words to new uses and developing derivation: The word m ō d (mental state) meant also heart, spirit, mind. mōdig (spirited, bold), mōdiglīce (boldy, proudly) mōdignes (pride) mōdigin (to rage)

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon m ō dlufu — affection m ō dcaru — sorrow m ō dlēof — beloved etc.

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon Compounds F ōtādl ( gout) foot disease Ealohūs ale house Dægred (dawn) day+red

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon Derivation cyning-dom, earldom Cildh ād Un-, under-, a-, be-, mis-, ofer-, on-, out-

Characteristics of Old English Grammar The Noun : Singular Plural Hunt-a hunt-an G. hunt-an hunt-ena D. hunt-an hunt-um A. hunt-an hunt-an

Characteristics of Old English Grammar The Noun: N. gief-u (gift) gief-a G. gief-e gief-a D. gief-e gief-um A. gief-e gief-a

Characteristics of Old English Grammar The Noun. Gender in Old English was quite illogical: W ī f ( wife), bearn ( son, child), m æ gden (girl) which are expected to be masculine or feminine, are neuter in fact. W īfmann (woman) is masculine because the 2 nd component is masculine.

Characteristics of Old English Grammar The Adjective had strong and weak declension. Singular Plural N. G ō d g ō d-e G. g ō d-es g ō d-ra D. g ō d-um g ō d-um A. g ō d-e g ō d-e (Strong Declension, Masculine)

Characteristics of Old English Grammar The Adjective Such complexity was unnecessary as English has demonstrated by getting along without it.

Characteristics of Old English Grammar The Definite Article Like German of today, Old English had a fully inflected definite article.

Characteristics of Old English Grammar The Verb The inflection of the verb is much simpler than of I-E Verbs. Comparison of Old English and Latin and Greek proves that Old English lost lots of its inflections.

Characteristics of Old English Grammar In Present English word order controls everything: SVO the man saw the woman In Old English there were 5 other ways SOV the man the woman saw OSV the woman the man saw OVS the woman saw the man VOS saw the woman the man VSO saw the man the woman

Metaphor in Old English Human body is described as a banhus or bancofa ‘bone-house’, ‘bone-chamber’, a sword as a beadoleoma ‘battle-light’, thunder as wolcna sweg ‘sound of clouds’; the eye as a heafodgrim ‘head-gem’

Characteristics of Old English The Lexicon In Beowulf alone as Otto Jespersen claimed there are 36 words for hero, 12 for battle, 11 for ship — more than exist today. In Beowulf we find phonological structuring, rhyming, rhythmical patterns

Poetic riddles I saw a creature in the towns of men which feeds the cattle. It has many teeth, its beak is useful, it points downward.

Poetic riddles Sometimes I plunge through the press of waves, surprising men, delving to the earth, the ocean bed. The waters ferment, sea-horses foaming. . . The whale-mere roars, fiercely rages, waves beat upon the shore; stones and sand, seaweed and salt spray, are flung against the dunes when, wrestling far beneath the waves, I disturb the earth, the vast depths of the sea. Nor can I escape my ocean bed before he permits me who is my pilot on every journey. Tell me, wise man: who separates me from the sea’s embrace, when the waters become quiet once more, the waves calm which before had covered me?

Poetic riddles Christ, the true giver of victories, created me for combat. When my lord urges me to fight, I often scorch mortals; I approach the earth and, without a touch, afflict a huge host of people. At times I gladden the minds of men, keeping my distance I console those whom I fought before; they feel my kindness as they once felt my fire when, after such suffering, I soothe their lives.

Poetic riddles I saw a strange creature, a bright ship of the air subtly adorned, bearing away plunder between her horns, fetching it home from a foray. She wanted to build a bower in the stronghold, construct it with cunning if she could do so. Then a mighty creature appeared over the mountain — his face is known to all dwellers on earth; he seized the treasure and sent home the wanderer against her will; she went westward, vowing revenge, hastening forth. Dust lifted to heaven; dew fell on the earth, Night fled hence; and no one knew Thereafter, where that creature went.

The Norman Conquest, the subjection of English 1066 -1200 Battle of Hastings 1066 William the Conqueror

Battle of Hastings

Battle of Hastings

The Norman Conquest The Normans were Frenchmen descended from Nordic invaders who had snatched control of pieces of the French coast during the Viking era, much as their cousins had done in England. In 912 the Northmen gained by right of treaty with the king of France the part of France known still today as Normandy.

The Norman Conquest Normans threw themselves into absorbing French culture, military know-how, cuisine, law, and – most importantly for the future history of English – the French language. By the eve of the Norman Conquest Normans were French through and through.

The Norman Conquest Coronation of William the Great in London Introduction of new nobility (old English nobility died at Hastings) In 1072 only one of 12 earls was an Englishman, he was executed 4 years later All positions in the state were held by Normans or foreigners of high blood.

The Norman Conquest 1066 Norman Conquest made English the language of lower classes as Nobles used mainly French For 200 years after Norman conquest French was the language of daily intercourse among upper classes

The Norman Conquest The pressure on the French to learn English was much greater. Baronial staff would have to learn English in order to mediate between their lords and local communities. French-speaking clergy found it essential to acquire English to carry out their mission.

The Norman Conquest English survived in monasteries Considerable number of bilinguals There are facts of mutual respect and intermarriage between 2 peoples: whatever the difficulties in communication with the spouses the children grew bilingual.

The Norman Conquest Making English the language of uneducated people the Norman conquest made it easier for grammatical changes to go forward unchecked

The Norman Conquest Thanks to proliferation of English dialects during the Norman conquest mutual understanding of people in different areas of England became possible.

List of Literature Albert C. Baugh & Thomas Cable History of the English Language. — London, Routledge. — 1996. — 444 p. Bill Bryson Mother Tongue. — Penguin Books, 1990. — 269 p. Crystal, David The Stories of English. — Penguin Books. 2005 — 585 p. Verba, Lydia History of the English Language. — Vynnitsa, Hova Kniga, 2004. — 303 p.