HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Language development over time: Factors

-Intralinguistic factors (e.g. change in pronunciation > alteration of word structure…)

-Extralinguistic factors or external events (advent of printing press > standardisationof spelling; revival of learning > adoption of words of Latinate origin…)

Genetic origin of English?

Origin rests on patterns of inheritance (through linguistic reconstructionand archaeological findings)

Genetic relations are represented through family trees

Linguistic reconstruction:

hypotheses about paths of development

COGNATE VOCABULARY (correspondences)

ex. Grimm’s law (first millennium BC): IE pbecame f in Germanic

Origin and pre-history of English: Germanic languages

*Proto (or Common)-Germanic as ancestor (Elbe river area about 3,000 years ago)

Around the second century BC > three distinct sub groups

English Indo-European family of languages, subgroup of West Germanic

The British Isles before the arrival of Anglo Saxons:

-Speakers of Celtic dialects in Europe (from around 2000 BC)

-the Romans, speakers of Latin (nearly half a millennium –43 AD –410 AD) 7 Origin and pre-history of English

-Since 55 BC, Celtic-speaking inhabitants > Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland

-Celtic survives: Irish (i.e. western parts of Ireland), Scottish Gaelic (western and northern Scotland), Manx (isle of Man), Welsh, Cornish

the Roman dominion in Britain:

Emperor Claudius settled the Roman dominion in Britain (43 AD –410 AD) > considerable influence

-Latin (language of officialdom –prestige value)

-Christianity (then reintroduced to Britain in 597 AD by missionaries who founded monasteries to spread the faith > direct contact between Latin and OE)

-Organised architecture (roads, towns, theatres, places of worship…)

Latin (first stage of influence)

-ceaster/-caster (cf. Roman castra‘military camp’; cf. ‘fortified settlement/town’)

cf. Manchester, Chester, Winchester, Lancaster Cf. AquaeSulis(Bath), Cantabrigia (Cambridge), Oxonium/Oxon (Oxford)

Old English: (c. 450 –1066)

Pagan tribes, tolerant towards Christianity, who spoke mutually intelligible dialects

Cf. weekdays after the names of pagan gods,

Tuesday: Day of Tiw/Twi, brave and valiant, ‘aligned with’ Mars (Roman ‘God of war’)

Wednesday: Day of Wotan/Woden‘Father of gods’, ‘God of wisdom’

Thursday: Thor, ‘God of thunder and storm’ (cf. Jupiter) Friday: Freya/Frieg, ‘Goddessof beauty and love’ (cf. Venus

Old English: the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy

Seven kingdoms continually at war with one another:

Wessex (West Saxons)

Sussex (South Saxons)

Essex (East Saxons)

Mercia (Midlands area)

Northumbria (North of river Humber)

East Anglia

Kent

Old English corpus:

Most of the OE corpusis written in the Wessex dialect

Wessex > leading political and cultural force (end of 9th c.); Winchester as capital

However, modern Standard English derives from Mercian

The OE corpus works:

-The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (c. 871-1154)

-Beowulf

-Caedmon’s Hymn

Much of the OE prose was translated from Latin (religion),

Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (673-735)

The Lindisfarne Gospels (around 700) [first OE transl. as word-for-word gloss]

Old English: The runes

OE originally written in the runic alphabet (used by the people of Northern Europe)

Rune: whisper, mystery, secret (also used for magic and divination)

However, the Roman alphabet became the preferred alphabet (due to Christianisation from 6thc.)

Old English: Germanic vocabulary

The ‘Germanic’ language replaced Latin (esp. in everyday communication)

E.g. ‘be’, ‘water’, ‘fire’, ‘strong’, ‘heart’, ‘tooth’, ‘day’, ‘night’, ‘yes’, ‘cold’, ‘rain’, ‘he’, ‘she’… derive from Anglo-Saxon roots

Latin: Second stage of influence

Latin loan words in OE: catte(cat), plante(plant), win (wine), cyse (cheese), disc (dish), belt (belt), weall(wall), ceaster(town), camp (battle), straet(road, street), diht(saying), ceapian(buy)… maesse(mass), munuc(monk), alter (altar), apostal (apostle), capitol (chapter)…

Second stage of influence: Christianisation up to and after 1000, –prestige borrowings –focusing on the ‘next world’, e.g. Heaven, Gospel, sin, Easter...

OE: Scandinavian influences

Viking raids

destructive impact (from around 800-850 and continued for some 200 years)

Norsemen/Danes raided England, occupied Northumbria and established at York so Danish (Old Norse) began to influence English (North Germanic group)

By the end of the ninth century > political domination over a significant territory

Scandinavian influences: ‘North Germanic’ words

-‘dream’ (which had meant ‘joy/melody/music’ before)

-[sk]-words: sky, skin, skill, scrub, skirt-

[g]-words: get, give, egg-[k] kid

Scandinavian influences OE place name + Scandinavian termination

, cf.-by (farm/town)

> Grimsby, Whitby, Kirkby, Darby-thorpe (village, farm, estate)

> Althorpe, Linthorpe-thwaite (piece of wild land reclaimed for cultivation)

> Applethwaite, Braithwaite-kirk (church) > Kirkby, Oswaldkirk

Other:-son Stevenson, Johnson pronouns/adj. they, them, their verb ‘to be’ are –s for third person prepositions ‘to’ and ‘fro

More Scandinavian loan words:

Technical terms for ships, warfare (cnearr> small ship; haefene> haven/port) …take, die, wrong, call, law, bag, bank, birth, cake, crawl, fog, gap, happy, husband, knife, neck,race, scare, sister, smile, steak, window...

OE spoken by Angles, Saxons, Jutes, with Scandinavian influences

OE: Structural development

Word-buildingin OE: affixation and compounding

godspel> god ‘good’ + spel ‘tidings’: gospel

frumweorc> frum‘beginning’ + weorc‘work’: creation

sunnandæg> sunna‘sun’s’ + dæg‘day’: Sunday

Mynstermann> mynster‘monastery’ + mann‘man’: monk

dœgred> dœg‘day’ + ‘red’: dawn

eorÞcraft> eorÞ‘earth’ + ‘craft’:geometry

leorningcild> leorning‘learning’ + child: student

domboc> dom‘doom’ (judgement) + book: book of law

Kennings (Old English Poetry)

A kenning is a metaphorical compound word used in Old English poetry.

Examples:

• Hronrad = “whale road” → the sea

• Anpaðas = “one path” → a narrow path for one person

• Banhus = “bone house” → the human body

• Modcrœft = “mind craft” → intelligence

• Heofon-candel = “sky candle” → the sun

Purpose:
To create vivid, imaginative descriptions.

Old english grammar:

synthetic language (inflectional affixation)

Typical kinds of word order in OE: SVO

Stylistic variation OVS/XVS Questions with subject-verb inversion Negative sentences with the particle ‘ne’ at the beginning of the clause + V + S

From a synthetic to an analytic type of language:

Changes in the sound system led to the progressive erosion of most endings –by the end of OE period, unstressed vowels were being reduced to ə (‘schwa’) (inflections lost their distinctness!)

Crystal (2003): a pidgin-like variety emerged with the arrival of the Vikings (similar roots > getting rid of inflections enhanced comprehension

Middle English: 1066 –1500

The Norman conquest:

William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy (1066 A.D.)

Middle English: The High Middle Ages (about 814-1300)

Strong influence of French, BUT English survived:

-Written literature and oral tradition of OE

-Hundred Years War (1336-1453)

-Black death (1348-1350) > shortage of labour forces + campaign for better wages and working conditions of poor people

Middle English: 1362 and 1476 events

-Statute of Pleading (1362): lawsuits in English

-advent of printing (1476): W. Caxton’s press in Westminster, books were published in English (legitimacy as a language of learning)

Standard Middle English (end of ME period):

the East Midland dialect:

-Geographical reasons

-Cultural and political reasons (London as capital of England)

-Since 1250 > increase in the body of literature in English, government documents in Chancery Standard (from around 1430)

-W. Caxton (late 14thc.) adopted Chancery Standard > the basis of Mod. Standard English (Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales were written in Chancery

Middle english: Lexical influences

Large number of French loan words Two French varieties:

-Anglo-Norman

-Central France (mid 12th c.)

> Abstract terms with new French affixes (-age, -ance/ence, -ment… trans-, pre-…)

Middle english: french prestige borrowings

Tradesmen and artisans: apprentice, mason, draper, butcher, barber, carpenter, tailor, painter, grocer, merchant, surgeon, physician …

Non-nuclear family relationships: uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, niece…

Religion: abbey, abbot, baptism, cathedral, charity, chastity, confessor, communion, friar, heresy, mercy, saint, sermon, preacher, virtue…

Administration: agreement, crown, ruler, council, court, power, liberty, government, mayor, minister, nation, noble, parliament, prince, royal…

Food and drink: boil, fry, roast, beef, biscuit, salad, appetite, bacon, cream, toast, mustard, vinegar, salmon, cabbage, cucumber, juice…

Fashion: coat, button, blouse, embroidery, dress, cloak, gown, garment, chemise, pearl, satin, jewel, diamond, robe…

Learning and art: image, music, noun, painting, dance, paper, romance, sculpture

Middle english: Dichotomy

Dichotomy between

‘low Saxon’ and privileged French (‘luxury’ loans)

-Culinary lexical pairs ox beef sheep mutton pig/swine pork deer venison calf veal

Middle english: simultaneous borrowings

simultaneous borrowings of Latin and French words (cf. ‘triplets’)

English Latin French

ask interrogate question

kingly regal royal

rise ascend mount

time epoch age

holy consecrated sacred

fast secure firm

Middle engleish: Structural development

Reduction of inflections and introduction of prepositions, and of future, continuous and passive forms

By the end of the ME period > word order not remarkably different from that of Modern English

Early Modern English: 1500-1700/1800

Political, economic, technological, social changes

-Political and religious separation from the Catholic powers on the Continent and from the Church of Rome > Protestant country (1530s) /prɒtɪstənt/

> first authorised translation of the Bible into English > King James Bible (1611)

cf. idiomatic phrases still in use today,

The apple of his eye

In the twinkling of an eye

Early Modern English: Renaissance (1500-1650)

-rebirth of culture-transl. of classical Latin and Greek texts

-inkhornterms debate (c. 1560) >

Neologisers> from French: industry, elegant, decision, intuition, pioneer, envelope, brochure… from Latin: dismiss, celebrate, encyclopaedia, genius, stimulus, data, bonus…

Purists > e.g. prefixation: unfit, uncomfortable, non user, inanimate, dissimilar, asymmetric…foresayer? (prophet), yeartide?(anniversary)

Shakespeare 1564-1616 (live performances, neologisms, cf. assassination, cold-blooded, manager, uncomfortable)

England began to explore the world by sea and colonise (since the late 1500s and early 1600s)> overseas commerce and search for new ocean routes

> defeat of Spanish Armada (1588)(supremacy of English navy and allowing for worldwide expansion)

> first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown, Virginia (1607)

Early Modern English: 1700s

-By the mid of the 1700s, England had become the largest colonial power in the world > new forms of English

-American Revolution (1775-1783)

-1776 Declaration of Independence (the gap btw BE and American E became more evident since then; AE was influenced by indigenous languages; BE continued to evolve on its own)

-Expansion into Canada, Indian subcontinent, Africa and Australasia

Early Modern English: Language expansion

(language contact > pyjamas, yoga from India, ketchup from China, zombie from Africa, boomerang, kangaroo from Australia…)

and standardisation (spelling and style of written English)

-1604 Cawdrey’s Table Alphabetical

-Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language(several years, 43,000 words) (published in 1755, revised ed. 1773)

-The printing press

EME: The Great Vowel Shift

Began around 1400 and mainly occurred 1400-1750

-Separation of Middle and Modern English

-The process accelerated in the EME period divergence between sounds and spelling

-Causes> greater social mobility brought about by urbanisation

The GVS all long (duration) vowels pronounced with a greater elevation of the tongue and closing of the mouth

Each non-high vowel rose one height; the high vowels became diphthongs (eye = ai)

EME: Renaissance loan words (late 16th c.)

From Latin and Greek (or Greek via Latin):

crisis, criterion, temperature, thermometer, emphasis, enthusiasm, anachronism, climax, pathetic, system, antithesis, nucleus, diagnosis, virus, anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe, pneumonia, critic, data, skeleton, phenomena, democracy, species …

EME: Structural development

More and more analytic in type

Further loss of inflections

Negation > I doubt it not (Romeo and Juliet, III 52), I do not doubt you(Henry IV, IVii -77)

Multiple negation > taboo in the 18th c.

Questions > either by subject-verb inversion, or by subject-auxiliary inversion

Use of progressive and passive forms

Distinction between thou/thee and ye/you is lost at the end of this period

Late Modern English: 1800 –up to the present

-Several revolutions (American, Industrial)

-World wars (blitz, radar, blackout, machine gun, trench foot…)

-Continued expansion of the British Empire, but in the first halfof the 20th c. the Empire beganto decline; after World War II the British involvement overseas > on an economic and then cultural basis

-the spread of E continued (becauseof politics, economy and technology)> dominanceof the US and of US English terminology

LME up to the present:

-19thand 20thc. > boom in technological innovation, new means of communication > telegraph cable (1868), telephone (1876), radio (early years of the 19thc.), television (1920s), internet (1960s –as a resource for the US military) and WWW (1990s)

(interconnectedness of different economic systems and cultures thanks to improved communication)

-E is now responsible for ‘Cultural imperialism’ > ELF used by speakers who do not share other languages

LME up to the present: Structural development

Increase in the use of nominalizations (e.g. legalisationfrom legalise)

More analytic type, with a rather rigid SVO order

Only some inflections:

-s 3d person singular present tense

-s plural of nouns

-’s for Saxon Genitive

-ed simple past and past participle of regular

-verbs

-ing form

-er, -es

LME up to the present: Lexical influences from all over the world

-OED (1882-1928; second edition 1989, electronic version 1992) multiple volumes, over 400,000 words > etymology and quotations from published sources-LME has many more words than EME

-the British Empire > at its height, Britain ruled over one quarter of the Earth’s surface > English adopted many foreign words!... (at the same time, E also spread to those colonies and new dialects began to take shape in those places)

-Industrial, scientific and technological revolutions

> neologisms

LME: Neologisms

Via combination of existing words (blends)

-netrepreneur (Internet entrepreneur)-Euroskeptic, Brexit (political terms)

Affixation: cf. the prefix ‘un-’ as in ‘un-freedom’ and suffixes such as ‘-ee’ and ‘-ise’/ ‘ize’, contract-ee, hospital-ise

Compounding: Crowdsourcing:getting a large group of people to contribute resource to a project, especially by using a website

Use of initialisms(EU, YMCA…)

Functional shift: E.g., from the noun ‘parent’ > the verb ‘to parent’ and the new noun ‘parenting’, as in ‘she is very knowledgeable about parenting’(genitorialità)