History of English

Prescriptivism

Suggests that there is a right and a wrong way to communicate through language and it places a quasi-moral value on Standard (Australian) English (SAE). People who do not speak/write in SAE are inferior.

Descriptivism

Reflects the idea that there are many ways to communicate and none are greater than others, though some may be more widely spoken/written. These ways are neither right nor wrong, or they are all right-depending on context.

Sociolect

Specific version of a language used by a particular societal group

Codification

The process by which rules and conventions of a language are organised in a systematic way and written down, covering elements of spelling, grammar and vocabulary.

Etymology

The study of word origins within a language

Proto-Indo-European

The language believed to be the ancestral language of many modern languages in Europe and Asia, as well as of dead languages like Sanskrit, Latin and Ancient Greek. Believed to have been spoken around 3000 BCE, however there are no records

Standardisation

The process by which one particular variety of language is established as the popular variety. The standard is the variety used by those with most class and power. There are lots of non-standard Englishes spoken

The 4 historical periods of English

• Old English - 450-1150 CE

• Middle English - 1150-1500 CE

• Early Modern English - 1500-1750 CE

• Modern English - 1750CE-Today

Protolanguage

Parent language from which similar languages evolve

Cognate

Words in different languages with the same linguistic derivation as another

Who argues that classical languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Latin) could be traced back to a single parent langauge?

Sir William Jones

Grimm’s Law

Time + Geographical separation + processes of language change = evolution of a different language

William Caxton

Introduced Gutenburg’s printing press to England in 1476, which aided codification through allowing mass documentation and distribution

Forms of codification

Dictionaries, style guides, grammar books

Standard Australian English (SAE)

The standardised form of Australian English that emerged through codification. Anything else is considered to be non-Standard Australian English. SAE has standardised vocab, spelling and grammar but not pronunciation.

Codification Regulation

Academie Francaise in France regulates codification of French. In Australia, no regulatory body exists.

Who inhabited England in 450CE?

Until 450 CE, the Celtic Britons, who spoke Celtic languages, inhabited England

Which groups came to England after the Celts?

From 450-500 CE, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians settled in England, bringing similar Germanic languages that facilitated communication and the mixing of dialects

Gregorian mission

6th century mission converts Anglo-Saxon kings to Christianity, meaning that Latin becomes the language of the rulers.

Viking Invasions

8th-11th centuries, Vikings invaded and settled, leading to Germanic Old Norse blending with Old English through intermarriage.

Alfred the Great

9th century - unified England into Danelaw, Britons, Anglo-Saxons

Norman conquest

1066 - William the Conqueror leads the Normans, Harold II dies in the battle of Hastings

Synthetic vs Analytican languages

Synthetic (e.g. Old English) relies on inflections in order to convey grammatical features, while analytic (Modern English) relies on word order.

Norman rule

1100 - 1362: English outlawed but used in vernacular, Old Norse was the language of the ruling class, Latin was the legal system, and various borrowings occurred.

Great famine

1315-1317 - Regional variations of English converged in cities

Black death

1348-1358: Lead to greater standardisation of the language through losing some dialects to lost populations

Hundred Years War

1337 - 1453: Fighting back against Norman Rule, English reinstated as the official language

What the prevailing dialect of English in the Middle to Early Modern period?

The Mercian dialect, spread by the publication of the Canterbury Tales in this dialect by William Caxton and by various other historical events.

Translation of religious texts

1539 - The Great English Bible

1549 - The common book of prayer

Lead to greater standardisation

Poets

Christopher Marlow and Shakespeare in Elizabethan Era introduced new words and sayings

Renaissance

During the 15th-16th centuries, advancements in academics led to greek and latin borrowings

Jonathan Swift

In 1712, published ‘A proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining in the English Language’, which started the process of coordinated standardisation by academics

First dictionary

1755 - Samuel Johnson’s ‘A dictionary of the English Language’. Johnson acknowledges that you can’t stop language change

Webster’s dictionary

1828 - ‘An American Dictionary of the English Language’ changed spellings of various words to what Webster believed they should be spelt like.