History of the English Language Final

Comparative Philosophy

The study of language and how it changes over time and space

What year did Old English emerge?

449

What is Proto-Indo-European?

the unrecorded language from which all Indo-European languages are hypothesized to derive.

Where did the Indo-Europeans come from? How do we know this?

Kurga, near Ukraine between the North and Caspian sea
We know this because of comparative philosophers who studied the Indo-Eurpopeans languages and found common words which helped narrow down where they could be located based on what words their language had and didn't have.

How did the idea of Proto-Indo-European come about?

Sir Williams Jones was in India and notices similarities between the different European languages. He started as amateur but was soon knighted for his linguistic work

Grimms Law

a set of consonant shifts that took place between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic that helped linguistics reconstruct sound and meaning

What two groups are made based on geography based on their concepts of 100

Centum: Western like cent
Satem: Eastern

cognate words

a word that is shared by different languages whose relationship can be explained by precise sound laws

Phonetic reconstruction

reconstructing sounds

Where did Old English originate from?

Anglo/Saxon and German influence (from Angles, Saxons, Jutes) who migrated to the British Isles in 449 . They kicked out the Romans and Celtics living in Britannia. Soon Britannia became Angle-land (England) and they spoke Angle-ish (English)

What is a pidgin language? Was Old English one?

It's a language that is developed to fill a need when people don't speak the same language need to communicate for commercial reasons.
Yes

Name the four Old English Dialects

Northumbrian, Mercia, Kentish, West Saxon

Describe Northumbrian dialect.

North of the Humber River
Initially dialect for literature and religion
first English translation of the bible
Venerable Bede spoke this

Describe Mercia dialect.

Between the Humber River to the north and south of Thens River

Describe the Kentish Dialect

Southeast of Canterbury

Describe the West Saxons dialect.

Southwest
King Alfred in 899 started teaching in West Saxon and put their country on the map
Soon everything important was written in this dialect including Beowulf

What are the four ways English can be described?

Geographically, Historically, Genetically, and Typologically

How can English be describes Geographically?

Old English was spoken by Germanic settlers in the British Isles

How can Old English be described Historically?

Old English was spoken by from the time of settlement in 499 to and for about 6 to 7 hundred years after that

How can English be described Genetically?

Old English was a lowlands branch of the West Germanic groups of languages

How can Old English be describes Typologically?

Old English was a language with a particular sound system (phonology) with grammatical ending (morphology), word patterns (syntax), and vocabulary (lexis)

Endemic

native or confined to a particular region or people; characteristic of or prevalent in a field

loan words

words that are taken from other languages

What were the two borrowing periods?

Continental and Insular periods

Describe the Continental Period

Words borrowed almost always from Latin before Old English split off during the first couple centuries AD. All Germanic languages will have similar words.
Some words borrowed were:
architecture and civic phenomena: mercantile, street (German strot)
War: camp, wall, mile, pit
trade: wine, mint, pound, momenta
food: cheese, pepper, plum, butter, prune
rulership: Ceaser, Keiser, tsar

Describe the Insular Period

Words borrowed into Old English after the Angleo-Saxon split off
borrowed words:
religious: cross, priest, shrine, school, apostle, demon, synagogue
Ancient Keltic and Latin terms
Scandinavian languages: shirt (sk to sh), church (k to ch), double g sounds (muggy),

List 4 ways Old English made new words

Determinative compounding, Repetitive compounding, Noun Adjective formations, and Prefix formations

Describe Determinative compounding

Combining two nouns or an adjective and a noun to create a new word
Example: Middungeard the combination of middle and earth to create middle earth

Describe Repetitive Compounding

Combining two nearly identical word for literary affect
Example: Holtwudv is the combination of holt meaning group of trees and wudv also meaning group of trees. Together they mean forest or really big group of trees

Describe Noun Adjective formation.

The combination of a noun and adjective
Example: Graesgrene which is the combination of graes or grass and grene or green. Graesgrene literally means green grass.

Describe Prefix formations

Adding prefixes to a word to create a new word
Example: moral, immoral, amoral, unmoral

How was English changing before The Norman French arrived?

1. They were changing from a highly inflected language to a relatively uninflected language (lots of inflections and case endings to word order replacing case endings)
2. From synthetic to analytic: case endings were being replaced by word order
3. noun and adjective endings were being simplified or lost
4. Prepositions were being added

What is Syntacticism?

A simplification of various linguistic elements

In what ways does the Peterborough Chronicle offer us evidence of linguistic change during the late Old English period?

The Peterborough Chronicle was a monastery that records of what happened each year, eventually see some small changes that are happening in Old English
Example: It went from on pissume geare in 1083 to on pis gear by 1154 all the endings were slowly being dropped

What were the consonant cluster reductions?

hl to h
fn to sn
hw to wh
hla to la

What are two reasons that words get borrowed?

1. The donor language is of greater prestige in the field
2. if there's a vacant slot in the receiving language

Describe the first Norman French shift in the 11th and 12th century

English required lots of words related to religion (prophets, saints, sacraments, miracles, Baptists, paradise) social (poor, rich) and Political infrastructures (Prince, dame, master, court, rent, prison, crown, purple)

Describe the second shift French 14th century

French loan words include:
any words spelled with ei, ey, or oy
Any words ending ion, ioun, ment, encen, aunce, or, or our

Difference between Norman French and French

Normans were actually Germans who invaded Scandinavia in the 9th century so they learned the romance language but kept some of their Germanic patterns pronunciation
Examples: Norman words with a k sound (c) correspond to central French words with ch sound (sh)
Norman w corresponds with French gu

How is Middle English seen as a trilingual culture

It's a combination of French, Latin, and English
1. French had become the language of administration, culture, and courtiership
2. Latin had become the language of church, education and philosophy
3. English had become the language of popular expression, regional dialect, and personal reflection

Rules to reading Middle English

Pronounce everything
if it ends in e say "uh"
Phonetic version of the alphabet

Middle English vowels vs Modern English vowels

Modern: a:e/e:i/i:aI/o:o/u:ju
Middle: a:a/e:e/i:i/o:o/u:u

What were the 5 Middle English dialects

Northern dialect, East Midland dialect, West Midland dialect, South Midland dialect, and Kentish

Describe Northern Dialect

North of the Humburg River, has lots of Scandanavian influence

Describe the East Midland Dialect

East of the Old Roman road, Chaucer's dialect

Describe the Westland Dialect

West of the Old Roman Road, Dialect of the Wales

Describe South Midland Dialect

Southwest part of England

Describe the Kentish Dialect

Southeastern England

What were the roles of Chancery and the printing press to the return of English as the prestige dialect of England after the Norman conquest

In 1490 Caxton was the first publisher of England's first great printing press and made Chancer's rules for English (Chancery inauguration) the standard for things being published so everyone could read it and understand it the same spelling, punctuation, usage, and vocabulary
(first to publish Chaucer's work)

What is the Great Vowel Shift?

The transition of Middle English to Modern English between 1200 - 1600. A systematic change in the pronunciation in the long-stressed monophthongs of English
In Old and Middle English depending on how long you hold the monophthongs could change the meaning of the word
Example Modern English mice: from misa to mais

What are the 5 words that were not affected by the Great Vowel Shift?

Steak, Break, Great, Yeah, and Reagan

What are neologisms?

New words

The New World of Words in English During the Rennaissance

A dictionary that lists the new words in areas of science, contact with new cultures and new speakers, health, astronomy, and anatomy.

What Inkhorn terms and how are they classified?

Polysyllabic
Coined/based on Latin or Greek
Always refer to heightened concepts

What are the two arguments about English

Is it a Germanic language and should stay that way?
Or is it amalgam of lots of languages, and should be opened up to external words coming in?

What is lexicography

A discipline that developed in response to the influx of new words that characterizes the English vocabulary in the Renaissance and after or the compiling of dictionaries.

What dictionaries proceeded Samuel Johnsons?

The Expositor by A.W. Bullokar, The Dictionairre by B. Cockeram, The New World of Word by Phillips, and The Dictionary by Bailey

Describe The Expositor by A.W. Bullokar,

1616 the first "dictionary" On the title page says that it contains words taken from "logic, law, physics, and astronomy." So the new words here are what we call "hard words"—words from the new disciplines of learning

Describe The Dictionairre by B. Cockeram

In 1623 on the title page says it lists over 60 things he'll include: "birds, beasts, boys, cities, destinies, devils, dogs, fairies, fishes, giants, etc."

Describe The New World of Word by Phillips

In 1658 on its title page 41 arts and sciences from which its words are taken.

The Dictionary by Bailey

In 1736, actually called a dictionary its title page states "hard and technical words, or terms of art" taken from 62 listed "arts, sciences, and mysteries."

How are these dictionaries that proceed Johnson's different from today's dictionaries?

They are lists of scientific or unusual words. They are NOT really descriptions of the language as it is spoken or written by most people

How did Samuel Johnson A Dictionary of the English Language revolutionize dictionaries? What were some key features of it?

1. Johnson synthesizes previous work in dictionary making and he provides for later readers, and for us, a template for understanding language change, language variation, and language use
2. He wrote a descriptive dictionary for the regular person not a specialist
3. only 40,000 words and only put in the essential and prevalent words
4. His definitions of words were more complicated than the word
5. Wrote down what he considered proper pronunciations of words
6. He drew upon Shakespeare, Spenser, and Chaucer, but also very heavily on Scottish writers, like David Hume to illustrate or describe these words

What were Johnson's dictionary's 7 firsts?

1. A full-fledges dictionary/actually defined things
2. Used illustrative quotations from famous writers
3. First descriptive dictionary instead of prescriptive
4. First dictionary with workable meaning like come and go have 50 different definitions
5. First to regularize spelling
6. First to codify certain pronunciations
7. First to be used as how people use dictionaries today: answer questions about spelling, pronunciation, and grammatical usage

What happened at the meeting of the philological society of London in 1857?

These three men Herbert Coleridge, Dean Trench and F.J Furnivall (his suggestion to do this project) decided to create a new dictionary

When was the idea of Oxford dictionary issued?

1857

What was their new dictionary called? Why was it called this?

A new English dictionary by the philological society. Johnson's was the old dictionary

What was the 2 initial principle aims for this New dictionary?

1. To record every English word from 1740 to present
2. And to exhibit the history of each word/ show usage and tenses using quotations

Why was Jamess Aah Murry important to the OED?

Murray was the editor of the OED and got it published with the Oxford press. Murray was knighted for his word on the OED he did not live to see the completing of the project but he was the genius behind and it was his scholarship and judgment that made the whole project successful

What are some of the OED's impressive numbers?

First volume was 15,487 pages and it had 240, 165 main words it was 10 huge volumes
Second edition in 1989 had 5,000 more new words and was 20 volumes
It takes 540 mega bites to store this thing electronically
November 2005 the OED had 301,000 main entries
616,500 word forms in total
137,000 pronunciations
249,300 etymologies
2 million 412 thousand quotations
The longest definition was for the word set in the second definition. You can use the word set in 400 different ways
In the works now is the 3rd edition the word make took over and then put which is now the longest definition in the dictionary
September 18th 600 new words have been added
Every word is being reexamined to improve it 300 scholars are working on it going to cost about $500 million to put out. The result is going t0 double the length of the old one.
About 4000 new words each year and it's supposed to be out in 2037
The OED website gets about 2.5 million hits a month

What were the 7 original settlements in America where different dialects where spoken?

1. Early 17th century Massachusetts bay colony and Boston
2. Early 18th century New London, Connecticut
3. Taken by the Dutch in 1684 New York City, New York
4. Found by William Penn in 1681 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
5. 1607 Jamestown colony in Virgina
6. Late 17th century Charleston South Carolina
7. 1730s Savannah Georgia

What are 4 phonological differences between British English and American English?

The Aesch sound (æ): American æ = British ɔ
Example: American: bæt vs bɔt

r sound: British add an r sound or drop it after vowels
Example: American butter: bʌtər British Butter: bʌtə

Short o sound: American has unrounded vowels, British has rounded vowels. British English will have long or short vowels American English they are all the same.
Example: American: bæθ vs British: bɑːθ (the two dots mean long vowel)

Syllabification: British has less syllables in their words
Example: American: lit-ter-a-ture British: lit-i-ture

What are the 4 grammatical and morphological differences between British English and American English?

Strong vs weak verbs: some strong and weak verbs are switched
Examples: American strong: slide/slud British weak: slide/slid

Americans try to distinguish between second person singular and second person plural pronoun: you, you
Example: youz, y'all, yins

Difference in word choice
Example: American: elevator vs British: lift

America uses colloquialisms
Example: "I reckon" and "Fixing dinner"

How is Noah Webster American English's Samuel Johnson?

His dictionary became the standard for American English and influenced/impacted the language greatly

What did Noah Webster's dictionary accomplish that other dictionaries had not?

First to distinguish at an official level the differences between the British and American English. He does this by recording particularities of spelling, pronunciation, and idiomatic expressions or any phrase that doesn't make sense based on its words
The word congress, court, senate means something different for us than British English

What is the importance of Websters dictionary for American English and how did Webster's choices reflect the burgeoning (just about starting) consciousness of the newly formed United States?

Webstarian Innovation. He wants to preserve our identities of Americans by preserving our language: from individual colonies to United States
American English was something unique, British English would no longer due to describe our experience and what we do over here.

What differences did Noah make between American and British English?

1. Advocate for moderate spelling reform to reflect speech and not incumber the language with superfluous letters
Example:
ou to u: colour to color
ck to c: musick to music
From re to er: centre to center
Ce to se: defence to defense
Ise to ize: organise to organize

2. Provide a pronunciation guide with syllabic count
Example: Literature American (4 syllables) vs British (3 syllables)

What are 6 American regional dialects?

1. Eastern New England
2. Around New York city
3. Upper North
4. Lower North
5. Upper South
6. Lower South

Describe the Eastern New England Dialect

Tends not to retain the historical r sound. Like orange they'd say oange

Aesch sound: dance vs daunce/Creek vs crik/ greasy vs greazy

Describe the around New York City Dialect

Confuse oi and er: first vs foist

Instability of the r after a vowel: word vs woid

Au sound: cabs vs cyabs

Z instead of s: Youz guyz

Other examples: Cabs r here vs cyabs ar hea

Describe the Upper North Dialect

Stronger than the New England dialect:

Tends not to retain the historical r sound. Like orange they'd say oange

Aesch sound: dance vs daunce/Creek vs crik/ greasy vs greazy

Describe the Lower North Dialect

Distinct pronunciation of the o sound: forest vs faurest/ hot vs hat

Conflation between cot and caught almost sound the same in the lower north

Describe the Upper and Lower South Dialects

The long i sound becomes a long broad a sound almost like a diphthong: shiny vs shainy
Vowels in the words like gem and pin sound the same sound like i sounds
Crik and greazy

What are the origins of The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE)?

In 1889 the American dialect society was founded as an organ for studying speech in the United States
When the society was about 17 years old a scholar names Wiliam E Mead said that all of the work had gone into the project so far is a fragment of what they want it to be and said they needed a dictionary, so they created D.A.R.E

What are the major differences between DARE and other Dictionaries?

1. It uses mostly spoken examples
Earlier editors sent out questionnaires to responders and conducted polls to develop statistical norms and create maps in order to determine how people from different areas spoke in response to certain questions

2. Defined the language actually spoken in a region and not making any judgements

3. Contained "any word or phrase whose form or meaning is not used generally throughout the United States but only in part or parts of it or by a particular social group"

4. The dare has its in line of sight "any word of phrase whose form of meaning is distinctively a folk usage

Who is John 3-like cheke

John didn't want English contaminated by other languages and equiangular triangle was very Latin so instead he called the triangle 3-likes to make it very English

What are were the Grimm's Law consonant change?

Indo European to Germanic English
p to f
t to voiceless th
k to h
b to p
d to t
g to k
bh to b
gh to g
dh to d

What date did Samuel Johnson finish his dictionary?

1755

When did the first American dictionary come out?

1828

Neologist

A person who creates new words

lingua franca

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages

John Gower

Wrote three poems one in English, one in Latin, and one in French. To demonstrate this trilingual culture of Middle English

King Henrey 5th

Established English as the official language

Why does Shakespeare and Chaucer sound so different?

Shakespeare spoke the English after the GVS, the pronounce their vowels differently

John Milton

A great coiner of words
Came up with pandemonium

Aureate diction

Golden language
Another name for inkhorn terms

What are some other ways words were brought into English?

Colonial and economic expansion

What was Johnson's original goal for his dictionary before he realized it was impossible?

He wanted to "register usage" so he could actually "fix" the language according to the best usage possible. A prescriptive dictionary

What was the most important thing that happened at the philological society meeting in 1857, that gathered to fill in the missing words that the dictionaries lacked?

A paper given by Dean Trench that was about the deficiencies in our English dictionaries. IN that paper Trench laid out the principles in how he thought the dictionary should be complied

How long did it take to complete the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary?

70 years, from 1858 to 1928