A Brief History of English

1
A Brief History of English

• Class 25
• LING 2301 11-18-08

2
History of English Timeline (from Fennell, B.
2001. A History of English. Blackwell)

• General Outline (p. 1, 15)
• Pre-History before 500 AD (or CE)
• Old English CE 500 1100
• Middle English 1100 1500
• Early Modern English 1500 1800
• Modern English 1800 present

3
Selected Dates from Prehistory of English (pp.
15 17)

• see time line handout.
• 5200 BC First farmers of central Europe spread NW
  as far as the Netherlands
• 3250 BC Earliest writing from W. Mesopotamia
  Pictographic clay used for commercial accounts
• 1900 BC Cretan hieroglyphic writing
• 2300 BC Beginning of full European Bronze Age
• 1650 BC Linear A script (Crete and the Cyclades)
• 1400 BC Linear B script (mainland and islands of
  Greece)
• 750 BC First Greek Alphabetic inscription
• 690 BC Etruscan script developed from Greek
• 600 BC Latin script
• First Greek Coins
• 460 BC Parchment replaces clay tablets for
  Aramaic administrative documents
• CE 125 Hadrian's Wall built
• CE 449 Angles, Saxons and Jutes invade Britain
• Things to look up if you want to know more
• Proto-Indo European (PIE) Grimm's Law,
  Verner's Law (Consonant shifts in Germanic from
  PIE)

4
Old English Period (p. 55).

• 55 BC Julius Caesar attempts to invade Britain
• CE 43-50 Emperor Claudius invades Britain
• CE 410 Romans withdraw from Britain
• CE 449 Angles, Saxons and Jutes invade Britain
• 597 St. Augustine of Canterbury
  re-introduces Christianity to the English
• 787 Scandinavian invasion begins (Vikings)
• 878 King Alfred defeats the Danes at
  Eddington (Ethandun)
• Treaty of Wedmore (allows a truce b/t
  Scandinavians who settle on outskirts and the
  Anglo-Saxons in Alfreds territory which
  established a line between Anglo-Saxons and Danes
  Danish side referred to as Danelaw.
• 899 King Alfred dies
• 1014 King Æthelred driven out by a new wave
  of Danish (political) aggression
• 1016 Danish King Cnut rules England
• 1042 Accession of Edward the Confessor
  (Æthelred's son) to the throne (died w/o an heir
  in 1066)
• ( see http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine_
  of_Canterbury for more detail)

5
General OE properties

• When Anglo-Saxons move in the land was inhabited
  by Celts/Scots/Picts
• OE synthetic/fusional rather than
  analytic/isolating
• N, V, Adj, Det, ProN were highly inflected
  meaning word order would not be very ridged
• Strong and weak declensions of nouns and
  adjectives
• Strong and weak conjugations of verbs
• Word formation by compounding, prefixing and
  suffixing rather than borrowing
• Gender (like other Indo-European languages) was
  a grammatical feature (based on formal linguistic
  criteria, not logical or "natural" classes)

6
OE Consonants (very similar to modern day English)

• voiced fricatives were allophones predictable
  by rules in context of voiceless segments (no
  contrast as in present day fan van)
• It also included some clusters that no longer
  exist phonetically /kn/ /gn/ (knee, gnaw)

7
Vowels in OE

• A major feature of vowels in OE from Germanic is
  called "front mutation" or "i-umlaut"
• If a stressed syllable was followed by an
  unstressed syllable containing i or j,
• the vowel sound of the stressed syllable was
  fronted or raised (or partly assimilated to the
  following high front i or j).
• The vowel that caused the mutation would then be
  dropped out of the changed forms (so it does not
  occur itself in the new forms)
• Example
• The plural for mus 'mouse' would have been
  musiz. The vowel of /-iz/ raised and fronted
  the /u/
• Then the /iz/ would be dropped
• Thus changed to mys 'mice'
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_Umlaut
• Also produced vowel mutation plurals forms such
  as 'foot' ? 'feet'
• And adjectives strang, strengra, strengest old,
  elder, eldest
• And some verb forms lie/lay, sit/set

8
OE syntax

• also used case inflections for grammatical
  function of nouns (different suffixes on nouns
  showing the following relations within the
  sentence)
• An example of Cases that would be inflected
• Nominative case ? subjects
• the DOG put the bone on the pillow.
• Accusitive case ? direct objects
• the dog put THE BONE on the pillow.
• Genitive case ? Possessives
• the dog put HIS bone on the pillow.
• Dative case ? for indirect objects
• the dog put the bone on THE PILLOW.
• Instrumental case ? "with/or by means of" phrase
  (rare in OE)
• the dog chewed the bone WITH HIS TEETH.

9
Words from Latin in OE

• Some probably from regular Roman life
• street, wine, butter, pepper, cheese, silk,
  copper, pound, inch, mile.
• Some came in with the Church
• (St. Augustine 597)
• bishop, candle, creed, mass, monk, priest

10
Words Borrowed from Scandinavian (the Danes) into
OE

• /sk/ shall, fish, shirt, skirt, sky, scale
• birth, egg, guess, root, seat, sister, tidings
• Other factors from Scandinavian pronouns (they,
  them, their) replaced 3rd Pl inflected forms
• prepositions (till, fro as in to and fro),
• infinitives (att do as in 'ado')
• and parts of the verb 'to be' (are)

11
Middle English (p. 94).

• 1066 Battle of Hastings Norman Conquest
  (William, Duke of Normandy 2nd cousin to Edward
  takes throne by force as William the Conqueror
  whose son William Rufus succeeded him)
• 1100 William II Rufus dies suspiciously in a
  hunting accident and his younger brother Henry
  takes the throne as Henry I.
• 1189 Richard I (the Lionheart of Robin Hood fame
  spoke little or no English and only spent 6
  months in England) succeeds Henry II (Henry Is
  Grandson)
• 1199 Richard died w/o heirs and his brother John
  was crowned King
• 1204 King John looses lands in Normandy (his own
  and that of the Barons)
• 1205 John looses war with France and Norman
  Lands belonging to Norman rulers in Britain given
  up
• 1215 The Magna Carta signed (forced upon King
  John by the Barons to limit the king's will to
  the rule of law)

12
Middle English (p. 94).

• 1216 Henry III acquires the throne
• Thus marking the end of Northern French
  domination and began Southern French domination
• 1272 Edward I (Henry IIIs son) takes the throne
  (as the "first King for generations to have a
  good command of English")
• 1362 Parliament opened in English
• (Time of Chaucer 13401400)
• 1381 Peasants' Revolt (increased the importance
  of English to give the lower persons a voice in
  the affairs of the country)
• 1476 Caxton introduces the printing press (by
  1500 35,000 books have been printed most in
  Latin)
• 1489 French no longer used as the language of
  Parliament

13
General Changes

• During the Middle English period saw changes such
  as the loss of inflections, the development of
  more fixed word ordering and a great deal more
  borrowing.
• While many consonants did not change some did.
  For instance
• Loss of w between Consonants and /o/ Vowel swa
  ? so hwa ? ha ('who')
• Loss of some final consonants drivan ? drive
• Simplification of /sw/ cluster swuster ? suster
  'sister'
• Loss of initial /h/ in words hring ? ring
  hrof ? rof ('roof'')
• Loss of inflections (suffixes on the ends of
  words to indicate case)
• Gaps in inflection system gave space for new
  prepositions
• conversion of other forms along (OE adj ? prep)
• compound prep out of, in to ? into,
• borrowed except from Latin, till from ONorse,
  
• according to, around, during from French

14
ME Vowels

• Long vowels raised and rounded of /a/
• so /a/ ? /o/ ban ? bon 'bone' bat ? bot
  'boat'
• unrounding of /y/ to /i/ bryd ? /brid/ 'bride'
• One of the most significant changes in ME was the
  "general obscuring of unstressed syllables" which
  is one of the fundamental causes of the loss of
  inflection.
• Many unstressed vowels ? schwa /? and many
  unstressed final vowels were eventually lost
• OE oxa ? ME ox? 'ox' OE foda ? ME fod? 'food'
• Other vowels were lengthened before /ld/, /mb/,
  /nd/ such as
• ??ld ? ?ild 'child' (but not if a 3rd syll as
  in ??ldr?n)
• a, e, and o also got longer in "open syllables of
  disyllabic words (meaning those syllables in a
  word that are CV rather than CVC) nam? ? nam?
• Or shortened in some context like before double
  consonants and clusters
• cepte kept? ? cept kept
• Also diphthongs started to develop where vowels
  were followed by glides (/w/ /j/) and the velar
  fricative /?/, and as in claw, day, new, grow,
  bow, owe, joy.

15
Social Status of French and Borrowed Words

• With William I's conquest much of the nobility in
  both church and state was now made of Normans
  rather than English.
• Thus "French" was associated with higher status
  while English was the language of "the masses".
  THUS, many of the native terms for livestock
  remained
• ox, sheep, swine, deer, calf
• The French words were used for the flesh of these
  however, as it was probably more commonly eaten
  by the upper classes (the lower class diet
  consisting of more grains and such).
• beef, mutton, pork, bacon, venison, veal

16
Words from French (cont)

• Similarly the power dichotomy is seen in the
  French origin of
• master, servant, bottle, dinner, supper, banquet
• (smith baker remained from OE origin)
• while butcher, barber, carpenter, draper, grocer,
  mason tailor are all French.
• The core of family life remained English
  (possibly used more regularly)
• Mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter
• But extended family was influenced by French
• uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, niece
• or hybrids grandmother, grand father, son,
  daughter, etc.
• Numbers and body parts generally kept their
  English names except for the word face.

17
Other French semantic fields of borrowed words

• Government Administration
• parliament, bill, act, council, county, tax,
  custom
• Law Property
• court, assize, judge, jury, justice, prison,
  chattel, money, rent
• Titles
• Prince, duke, marquis, viscount, baron
• War
• battle, assault, siege, standard, banner,
  fortress, tower

18
Early Modern English (p. 135).

• 1509 Henry VIII
• 1534 Act of Supremacy (Henrys succession from
  the Catholic Church and influence of Latin)
• 1536 Monasteries dissolved and England becomes a
  Protestant country
• Statutes incorporates all of Wales with England
• 1539 English translation of the Bible in every
  church
• 1574 First company of Actors and the building of
  theatres
• (time period of William Shakespeare 1564 1616)
• 1584 Colonist at Roanoke
• 1600 English E. India Co. Formed

19
Early Modern English (p. 135).

• 1603 James I in Power
• 1607 Colony planted by London Co. at Jamestown
• 1611 King James Bible published
• "To provide a politically more acceptable
  alternative to the Geneva Bible and to shore up
  the position of the king, while at the same time
  criticizing the clergy and casting aspersions on
  'Popish persons'." Later became "the Authorized
  Version" used overwhelmingly in Britain until
  1960's
• 1616 John Bullokar publishes An English
  Exposition (English dictionary)
• 1640 approximately 20,000 book titles available
  in English
• 1755 Samuel Johnson publishes a 2 volume set
  comprising of 2300 pages and 40,000 entries A
  Dictionary of the English Language (The original
  purpose was to 'fix' the language and establish
  a standard for the use of words and their
  spellings)
• 1775-1783 American war of Independence
• 1788 Penal Colonies established in Australia

20
EME Change in Consonants

• Loss of /l/ after low back vowels and before
  labial or velar consonants
• almond, folk, palm but not after other vowels
  film, hulk
• Loss of /t/ or /d/ in consonant clusters with /s/
• castle, hasten, handsome, landscape
• loss of initial /k/ and /g/ before /n/
• knock, knee, knight, gnome,
• Loss of /w/ before /r/
• wreak, wrong
• Loss of /r/ before /s/
• ME bares ? bass (a type of fish)
• In 18th century /r/ was lost in standard English
  before a consonant and word finally.

21
EME Changes in Vowels

• Unstressed vowels were reduced to ? or ? in
  ME and continued in EME
• The Great Vowel Shift
• http//facweb.furman.edu/mmenzer/gvs/seehear.htm
  
• http//facweb.furman.edu/mmenzer/gvs/what.htm
• http//courses.fas.harvard.edu/7Echaucer/vowels.h
  tml
• (see other ppt and handout on language change
• Clark Language p 250, 337

22
EME Pronouns

• Main Significant change in Early Modern English
  was the shift to using you for 2nd person over
  other choices of 2nd person pronouns

23
EME Verbs

• 100 of around 300 previously strong verbs those
  irregular forms like ride/rode/(has) ridden or
  sink/sank/(has) sunk
• have been made weak jump/jumped. For Example
• help, brew, climb, bide (from bide/bided instead
  of bode/bided/bidden), crow, flay, mow (mow mowed
  mowed/mown), dread, wade
• verbs that are still irregular (http//en.wikipedi
  a.org/wiki/List_of_English_irregular_verbs)

24
EME Nouns

• Possessives based on a contraction of the
  possessive pronoun (e.g. his)
• The King his crown ? the King's crown
• But was attached to the head noun as in
• "The King's Crown of England" (maybe would have
  been like The King his Majesty of England)
• Rather than our modern day "The King of
  England's crown".

25
EME Vocabulary

• Due to increased communication and the expansion
  and new experience due to colonialism English
  speakers were coming into contact with ideas and
  phenomena that they had not encountered before.
• The vocabulary had to adjust to this.
• Many new words (in many cases illustrated by the
  vocabulary of Shakespeare) are coming into the
  lexicon.
• agile, critical, demonstrate, emphasis, horrid,
  impertinency, modest, prodigious, accommodation,
  apostrophe, assassination, dexterously, frugal,
  obscene, pedant, premeditated, reliance, vast
• Other words at this time coming in via the
  Renaissance
• Ambuscade, armada, barricade, bastinado,
  cavalier, mutiny, palisade, pell-mell, renegade

26
Latin and Greek (the Renaissance)

• Again Latin and Greek were seen as scholarly
  languages
• as the crusaders started to learn about the
  science of the Arabs who had translated many of
  the works from Latin and Greek. Many modern
  languages were being advocated as a medium of
  learning.
• While English eventually became accepted by the
  academe many of the Science and Literary authors
  such as Sir Francis Bacon, John Milton, and Sir
  Isaac Newton wrote their major works in Latin.
• Eventually the use of Latin declined, but the
  vocabulary was brought into English to "fill the
  gaps"
• Some words were borrowed from Greek via Latin or
  French anachronism, climax, pathetic, system,
  antithesis

27
Dictionaries

• A popular time for dictionaries to be printed to
  help standardize the large influx of words or to
  "help fix" the language.
• Johnson "The chief intent is to preserve the
  purity and ascertain the meaning of our English
  idiom"

28
Present-Day English (pp. 167 168)

• 1844 First Telegraph line used b/t Washington
  and Baltimore
• 1865 Atlantic cable completed
• 1870 Compulsory Education in Britain
• (led to leveling of dialects and slowed down the
  pace of linguistic change)
• 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
• 1877 Edison invents the phonograph
• 1899 First magnetic sound recordings
• 1903 Orville and Wilber Wright make the first
  successful flight
• 19141918 WWI
• 1921 British Broadcasting Corporation founded
  (BBC)
• 1925 John Logi Baird transmits a picture of a
  human face via television
• 1927 Charles Lindberg first nonstop
  transatlantic flight
• 1929 First use of teleprinters and
  teletypewrighters
• First scheduled TV broadcast in NY
• 1936 BBC London television service begins
• 19391945 WWII
• 1942 First computer developed in the US
• 1947 Transistor invented at Bell Labs
• 1951 Color TV introduced into USA

29
PDE varies very little from EME.

• Remnants of the previous case system are limited
  to the pronouns (I, me, he, him, she, her the
  shift from whom to who is currently underway as
  in "To whom did you send the letter?" vs. "To who
  did you send the letter")
• Currently uses more comparatives and superlatives
  than inflectional ones (for instance shift to
  more most over er est) or even double forms
  the most coolest .

30
New words in PDE

• New words (neologisms) or uses of old words for
  a new idea are formed for all kinds of reasons
• kingon an unexplained icon that appears on a
  computer screen
• mickey the unit of measuring a computer mouse
  distance .005 inch
• shareware
• crippleware demo software that lacks the full
  features
• netpreneur internet entrepreneur
• Others?

31
PDE affixation

• using affixes in more productive manner
• un un-American, un-English, un-freedom
• ee franchis-ee, contract-ee
• ize burglarize
• (From the verb to burgle which was a
  backformation of the older noun burglar by
  analogy with the er (one who does) suffix)
• regularize, hospitalize

32
PDE Borrowing

• Current changes between EMW and PDE are mostly in
  the lexicon. Much of this is due to developments
  of scientifictechnological vocabulary and the
  rapid progress of computer/communications
  technology.
• Some borrowing from Japanese (e.g. karaoke,
  hibachi, etc.)

33
More focused on Global society

• In late 1800s and early 1900 in Britain, the
  Agricultural Revolution as well as Technological
  Revolution brought people off the farms and out
  of rural life into the cities (as few as 22
  lived in rural areas by 1911).
• The new call was for factory workers and prompted
  urbanization.
• While urbanization "promotes diversity" it also
  brings cultures and language varieties in to
  contact leading to "uniformity".
• As people come together they tend to accommodate
  to one another, developing compromise forms of
  behavior (including language) in order to
  maximize intelligibility and to achieve the
  greatest amount of social acceptance by those to
  whom they are speaking.
• Increased communications and social mobility
  also have the impact of helping to standardize
  the language and development of rules of English
  grammar and usage.

34
On to become a World Language

• Two major forms of English today are American
  English, and British English. However there are
  also many others. Some 1st language speakers
  (e.g. Australia, possibly India, Singapore) some
  2nd (or more) e.g. Parts of Europe, Countries in
  the South, East and West of Africa, China, Korea,
  Japan, etc.
• (More on that when we get to the Global language
  section).

35
for more on History of English

• http//ebbs.english.vt.edu/hel/hel.html