History of English Language

History of the English Language

Notes
*These notes are supplemental. They do not replace our textbook or class sessions.

Language is a conventional, arbitrary system of sounds used for communication in a human linguistic community.

I. Language is a system at many levels, including the following:

      A. Phonemic: Phonemes are the smallest meaningless components that constitute the sound system of a language.
     B. Morphemic: Morphemes are the smallest meaningful components of a language. For example, the word cats consists of two morphemes, {cat} and {-s}. Morphemes can be grammatical (having dictionary definitions) or lexical (affixes and function words). They can be free (able to stand alone) or bound (complete only when combined with other morphemes.    Bound lexical morphemes (or affixes) can be either derivational (used to create new words) or inflectional (used to signal grammatical relationships).
     C. Syntactic: Syntax governs the way words come together to create sentences. The syntax of English has become less synthetic (grammatical structures are signaled primarily by inflectional endings) and more analytic (grammatical structures are signaled primarily by word order and function words).
     D. Semantic: Semantics concerns the meaning of words, including but not limited to etymologies.
     E. Lexical: Lexicology includes spelling, the formation and use of words.
     F. Stylistic: Linguistic choice and options.

II. Language is a human activity. Though animals can communicate in a primal way, they do not have innate language abilities that allow for an unlimited number of novel utterances. Though some apes have been taught to use sign language ( a paralanguage, or parallel system of communication), the breadth of ideas that they express are limited.

III. Language is arbitrary. Aside from echoic words, there is no intrinsic relationship between words and the objects or concepts that they represent.

IV. Language is conventional. Language is passed down from one generation to the next. It is the nature of language to change. Notions of absolute correctness are imposed by writers, linguists, scholars, etc. and may slow down but do not prevent the natural process of language evolution.

V. Language is sound. Linguists are primarily concerned with speech. Writing is a secondary activity.

(All notes are loosely drawn from Pyles and Algeo's The Origins and Development of the English Language, 5th edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, New York, 2005. Please see Sources, which can be accessed from the main lobby, for a complete list of references.)

Chapter 2: The Sounds of English

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is "an alphabet in which there exists a one-to-one correspondence between speech sounds and symbols; the IPA is used in transcription by [those] who study language" (glossary from Thomas Murray's The Structure of English, Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995). We will be using a simplified version of the IPA to do broad phonetic transcriptions that will show the gross characteristics of speech, or distinctive sounds. We will not distinguish nondistinct sounds, which include off-glides (or drawls) and sounds such as [t] in stone, without aspiration, as opposed to tone, in which the [t] is aspirated.

Remember the following rules when doing phonetic transcriptions:
1. Phonetic symbols should be printed, not written in cursive.
2. Always enclose transcriptions in square brackets.
3. If transcribing a sentence, paragraph, etc., use one bracket at the beginning and one at the end. Do not use separate brackets for each word.

CHAPTER 4: The Backgrounds of English
(These notes are taken from our text and my own notes with supplementary material from Baugh and Cable's A History of the English Language, 4th edition, Prentice Hall.)

I. Two definitions of Indo-European:
A. Indo-European refers to the hypothetical language spoken by a society that probably lived around the Ural Mountains between 5000 and 3500 B.C. Be sure you are familiar with the textual information about the culture of this society. When referring to this (or any) hypothetical language, linguists use the prefix "proto"; hence, the technical term for the language is "proto Indo-European." The theory is that many of our languages today were once dialects of this "mother tongue." The existence of Indo-European accounts for the similarity of words in such languages as French, German, Czech, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Persian, etc.
B. Indo-European refers also to those languages which once were dialects of the language described above and which cover a large part of Europe and part of Asia.

II. How do we get from proto Indo-European to English? We will be taking this journey this semester. The first separation that led to variation in Indo-European society is known as the Satem-Centum split, a sound change in the Eastern Indo-European languages affecting palatal and velar [k]. The Centum languages are Hellenic, Italic, Germanic, and Celtic.

III. The Indo-European Family Tree
(Here, I will be outlining only the most salient features of each language as pertaining to a study of the evolution of English. Again, this information is gleaned directly from our text. You will need to use the workbook, read the chapter, and listen to class lectures to complete this outline, particularly regarding geographical location and distinguishing linguistic features of each language.)
     A. Indian: In this language, we find the Veda (1500 B.C.), the oldest literature in any I-E language. The Veda consists of four groups of texts, the Rig-Veda oldest. Vedic Sanskrit is fully declined and thus is important in reconstruction the original I-E language. Panini, a fourth century grammarian, gave Sanskrit a fixed literary form.
     B. Iranian: Because speakers of this group probably traveled with speakers of Indian, the two languages bear strong similarities and are sometimes grouped as one. Iranian is not as pure an example of I-E because it contains elements from other, non I-E languages. This language has two main branches:   Avestan, the language of the Avesta, the sacred text of the Zorastrians (1000 B.C. for the oldest of two parts, the Gathas), and Old Persian, which has a large Arabic mixture today.
     C. Armenian: Not closely linked to any other I-E language, Armenian is important to us because it shows a certain shifting of consonants analogous to Grimm's Law (about which you'll learn later) and lacks grammatical gender. The earliest example of this language is a 5th century translation of the Bible.
     D. Albanian: Formerly grouped with Hellenic, this language was recognized as an independent I-E language only in the 20th century. Our knowledge of this language , which dates back only to 1500 A.D., is hampered by the fact that it contains a mixture of many other languages.
     E. Hellenic: The earliest Greek literary works are the heroic Odyssey and Illiad (8th century A.D.). Though there were five principal dialect groups, Ionic became the most important. Attic, a subdialect of Ionic and the dialect of Athens, became dominant by the 5th century B.C. It became the basis of a koine, or common Greek dialect. The language of the New Testament, it is the basis of Byzantine literature. Today, two varieties of Greek are in existence, the Pure, which attempts to restore the ancient vocabulary and inflections, and demotic, the popular, natural language.
     F. Italic: Latin became the dominant language of this branch. The languages that derive from Latin are known as Romanic or Romance languages. Vulgar Latin is the variety spoken in the streets of Rome, which is represented today by Italian. Classical Latin is a literary language with an elaborate and artificial vocabulary. The Romance languages as we know them descend not from Classical, but from Vulgar Latin. In addition to Italian, four other Romanic languages are dominant: French, which originally consisted of a number of dialects. The Parisian, or Ile-de-France dialect, became the official and literary language and, since the 13th century, has been standard French.    Two main dialects named for the pronunciation of the word yes divide North and South France: langue d'oc (the language of the Troubadours, today known as Provencal) and langue d'oil. The other three are Spanish, Portugese, and Romanian. Spanish and Portuguese are quite similar, while Romanian is the Eastern most of the Romance languages.
     G. Balto-Slavic: These two language groups have enough similarities to merit their consideration as one classification and were probably nearly identical until the 7th or 8th century.   The Baltic branch includes Prussian (now extinct), Lettish (the language of about 2 million in Latvia), and Lithuanian. Of these, Lithuanian is most important to a study of I-E languages because it preserves very old features. Three main divisions are West (Slovak, Czech, and Polish, which is the largest), South (Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, and Bulgarian), and East (Great Russian is the largest, the official and literary language of Russia).
     H. Tocharian: A wrinkle in the Satem-Centum split theory, Tocharian is a Centum (West) language which is located in Asia. This language exists only in a few fragmentary texts and is a twentieth-century addition to the I-E family.
     I. Celtic: Various social forces have greatly diminished this once extensive language so that today it is spoken only by a small minority in France and the British Isles. This language consists of three main groups: Gallic, which is the language of the Celts in Gaul who were conquered by Caesar; Gaelic, spoken by the earliest Celtic settlers in England and represented by Irish, Scottish-Gaelic, and Manx (extinct since WWII); and Britannic, represented by modern Cornish (extinct in the 18th century), Welsh, and Breton.
     J. Germanic: No documents record the earliest form of this language. It has been reconstructed by philologists and is thus termed proto-Germanic. Grimm's Law, though it has been refined by Karl Verner and others and though it is still debated, accounts for certain differences and connects Germanic to the other I-E languages. Three languages descend from proto-Germanic: The East branch includes Danish and Swedish. The earliest remnants of the Germanic branch are in this language, a translation of the Gospels and parts of the New Testament by Ulfilas (311-383). The North branch is subdivided into a North West (Icelandic and Norwegian) and North East (Danish and Swedish) branch due to dialectical changes apparent by the 11th century. Old Icelandic is the most literary offshoot of this branch, as a body of heroic poetry is preserved by settlers from Norway around 874. Prominent are the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda compiled in the 12th century by Snorri Sturluson.
     The West branch is of most significance to us, for it is from this branch that English descends. The West branch is subdivided into two branches due to a Second (or High German) Sound Shift. Analogous to Grimm's Law, this sound change entailed [p,t,k,d], which were changed to other sounds in the mountainous Southern regions, but not in the lowlands. High German, popularized by Luther's translation of the Bible, became the literary language of Germany.   Low German included Old English, Old Frisian (closely related to Old English), Old Franconian (the basis of modern Dutch, Flemish, and Afrikaans), and Old Saxon (modern Low German).

CHAPTER 5: The Old English Period

Perhaps England has been inhabited for 50,000 years, yet English has been spoken for only 1,500.

Time Line
up to 5000 B.C. --> Paleolithic Man

2000 B.C. - 1500 B.C. --> Neolithic Man (may have been the Basques)

1500 B.C. - 500 B.C. --> Bronze Age (Celts are the first Indo European speakers in England that we know of).

55 B.C. --> Julius Caesar attacks England after conquering the Celts in Gaul. He doesn't succeed in conquering the Celts in England.

43 A.D. --> Emperor Claudius gradually conquers the Celts in England.

61 A.D. --> Celtic uprising led by Bodicae, widow of a Celtic chief.

75-85 A.D. --> Conquest was said to have been completed under the Roman governor Agricola.

410 A.D. --> Approximate date of Roman withdrawal.

449 A.D. --> Approximate date of the Germanic invasions coming from continental Denmark and the low countries. The tribes included the Angles, Jutes, Saxons and Frisians. We have this date and know a little about their culture through Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. The entries in the Chronicle indicate only in a general way the succession of settlements which extended over a century. We know that the nature of the Germanic invasion was different from the Roman one, as the former displaced the Celts, while the latter ruled them.

Anglo-Saxon Civilization
This civilization was founded on comitatus relationship between lord and theign, and it was organized according to earls and ceorls. In times, various tribes combined and allied in small kingdoms, seven of which were eventually recognized as the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. The Heptarchy included Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria, Kent, Essex, Sussex and Wessex. Of these, Wessex became the dominant, first under the Egbert (800-839) and more prominently under King Alfred (871-889).

Language
The various dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes are known as Pre-Old English. The term England developed later from the tribal name Angles, possibly because this kingdom was dominant. The term Anglo-Saxon referred to the West Germanic tribes generally. Old English was not entirely uniform and four main dialects were predominant: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. Nearly all of Old English literature is preserved in the West Saxon dialect.

Periods in History of English
Old English: 449-1066
Middle English: 1100-1500
Modern English: 1500 on

Characteristics of Old English
Spelling and Pronunciation:
1. the long vowels have undergone extensive change due to the Great Vowel Shift.
2. different letters.
3. there were no unstressed syllables; primary stress usually occurred on the first syllable.

Wordstock
Nearly 85% of Old English words are no longer in use. Those that remain are basic elements of our vocabulary. Also absent are many borrowings from Latin and French. However, language was still poetic mainly through the use of compounds called kennings.

Grammar
Old English was primarily a synthetic language whereas Modern English is primarily analytic. As a result, Old English is a highly inflected language.

There were three: Celtic, Latin & Scandinavian.

I. Celtic
Very meager. Celtic words are preserved primarily in place names. There are two main groups of words:
1. Popular words that the Anglo-Saxons learned through everyday contact with Celtic natives, and
2. those that were introduced through Irish missionaries in the North.

II. Latin Influence (three main period in Old English)
Influence of the 0 Period: occurred on the continent before Germanic tribes penetrated into England. Borrowing reflect early contact between Germanic tribes and Roman Empire.

Influence of the First Period: acquired via the Celts after invading England.

Influence of the Second Period: when Roman missionaries introduced Christianity. Can be broken into two periods: early and late.
EARLY: 597, St. Augustine sent to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons. The conversion was gradual and lots of churches and monasteries were built.
LATE: Benedictine Reform because of Danish invasions at the end of the 8th century.

How do linguists determine when a Latin word entered the language?
1. Frequency in Old English texts.
2. the character of the word.
3. phonetic form of the word:
          A. i-umlaut
          B. palatal diphthongization
          C. sound changes of vulgar Latin
          D. breaking

III. Scandinavian Influence
Three main attack periods:
1. The period of the early raids: recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 787 and continuing intermittently until 850.
2. The work of large armies; widespread plundering. In 850, a Danish fleet arrives, captures Canterbury and London, and ravages the countryside. A West Saxon army defeats them, but soon they resume attacks. Short after Alfred's accession to throne, Wessex is attacked. At one point, Alfred has to hide in the marshes. He regathers troops and later attacks and defeats Guthrum and the Danish army. After this defeat, the Danes agree to sign the Treaty of Wedmore (878), which defined the line to the east of which the foreigners were to remain. Their designated land was known as the Danelaw.
3. The period of political adjustment and assimilation from 878-1042. Guthrum frequently broke faith, but situations improved under the reign of Alfred's son, Edgar (900-25) and grandson Athelstan (925-39).

Toward the end of the century, new invasions begin. A Viking fleet arrives in 991 and is recorded in the Battle of Maldon. In 994, Olaf became King of Norway and was joined by the Danish King Svein in a new attack on London. Svein succeeds in conquering England, as they can no longer buy him off. In 1014, he seizes the English throne and becomes king, driving off Aethelred the Unready. The OE period ends with Svein's son, Cnut, as King of England.

The blending of the Danish and the English was not so difficult because:
1. The Danish were adaptable,
2. The Danish were not really foreigners, and
3. Many of them accepted Christianity early and readily.

We must infer the relation of the two languages because we don't know much. Their similarity makes it difficult to date many words.
1. OE [sh]>Danish [sk] shirt > skirt
2. Scandinavian had hard pronunciation of [k] and [g]
3. Vowels may be a sign of borrowing [o] OE > [e] Danish
4.We can look to meanings of words.
5. Scandinavian place names.

Words were borrowed gradually. During the first attacks, borrowings were meager and were associated with sea-roving people. Later, after Danelaw, words relate to law and government.
Scandinavian and English coexisted. Which words survived?
1. where words coexisted and were similar, the modern word stands for both the OE and the Scandinavian.
2. where there are differences, the OE most often survives.
3. sometimes the Scandinavian word replaces the OE.
4. occasionally, both words survive but with different meaning or use.
5. a native word not in common use was sometimes reinforced by Scandinavian.
6. An OE word might be modified, taking on some character of the corresponding Scandinavian word.

CHAPTER SIX: THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
I. Historical Background of Normandy
     A. Origins of Normandy and etmology of name
     B. 912 pact between Rollo and Charles the Simple
     C. Adaptability of Scandinavians

II. Events Leading up to the Battle of Hastings
     A. Danish line of Cnut dies out in 1042
     B. Edward restored to throne
     C. Edward dies childless
     D. Harold, son of Godwin, is elected King of England
     E. William's claim to the throne

III. The Battle of Hastings
     A. Harold fights King of Norway
     B. Harold's and William's battle strategies
       C. Harold's death
     D. Depiction in Bayeux Tapestry
     E. William takes England by force

IV. Effects on the English Language
     A. Attitude towards English
          1. a matter of social distinction
          2. the fate of England at William's death
          3. division of England with William's successors and continued foreign influence
          4. attitude of indifference for church and nobility
          5. ultimate fusion
          6. French as language of court; English as language of masses

V. Is Middle English a creole?

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I. The loss of Normandy in 1204
A. King John Lackland angers King Phillip of France
B. King John loses title as Duke of Normandy

II. Repurcussions for aristocrats with landholdings in England and France
     A. voluntary relinquishment and divisions as two options
     B. King Louis' decree of 1244
     C. consequences: after 1250, nobility of England consider themselves "English"

III. Continued French influence:
     A. under King John
     B. three waves under Henry III
          1. under Peter des Roches
          2. Henry III's marriage to Eleanor of Provence
          3. death of Henry III's mother

IV. English reaction to foreigners:
     A. resentment
     B. patriotism
          1. Huber de Burgh's policy
          2. Bishop Grossteste and the church's new attitude
     C. Provisions of Oxford (1258) and Baron's War (1258-65)
     D. pride in English language reemerges under Edward I

V. The Thirteenth Century:
     A. Shifting emphasis of French and English
     B. French becomes cultivated tongue:
          1. used in law courts and parliaments
          2. used by educated and in universities
          3. used by polite society as second language
     C. many French words enter the language during this time

VI. The Fourteenth Century:
French is in decline because
      A. Anglo-French is seen as inferior
     B. the Hundred Year's War
     C. Rise of the Middle Class
          1. the Black Death
          2. the Peasant's Revolt
          3. rise of the bourgeois class

V. General Adoption of English
     A. Statute of Pleading-- 1362
     B. English in schools
     C. English as choice in writing

VI. Periods of Literature
     A. 1150-1250: Period of Religious Record
     B. 1250- 1350:   Period of Religious and Secular Literature
     C. 1350-1400: Period of Great Individual Writers
     D. 15th Century: Imitative

I. Leveling of Inflections

II. Effects of the Norman Conquest
     A. Grammatical: the Conquest allows the language to evolve as spoken by the lower classes.
     B. Vocabulary
          1. prior to 1250: reflects lower class in contact with ruling Norman aristocracy and clergy
          2. after 1250: much borrowing as French speakers learn English
          3. 15th century borrowings: primarily literary as French becomes a "foreign" language
     C.   Why doesn't modern English more closely resemble French?
     D. The Infiltration of French Words into English
          1. assimilation
          2. duplication
          3. methods of Old English word formation in decline

III. Latin Influence of the Third Period
     A. the Norman Conquest
     B. direct borrowings
     C. aureate terms
     D. synonyms at three levels

IV. Influence from the Low Countries

V. Middle English Dialects
     A. four principal dialects
     B. rise of Standard English
          1. location
          2. population
          3. Oxford and Cambridge
          4. imporance of London English
          5. Caxton

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Chapter Seven: The Early Modern English Period

I. Renaissance defined (effect on grammar and vocabulary)
     A. printing press
     B. education
     C. communication
     D. social and class consciousness

II. problems of vernacular languages throughout Europe
     A. recognition over Latin
          1. Revival of Learning
          2. translations
          3. Ciceronianisms
          4. Protestant Reformation
     B. orthography
     C. enrichment of vocabulary

III. sixteenth-century purists object to three classes of words
     A. inkhorn terms
     B. overseas language
     C. Chaucerisms

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Chapter Eight: Early Modern Forms, Syntax, Usage

Forms and Usage

I. Attitude towards the Language
     A. Standardize (ascertain): According to Johnson, ascertain means "a settled matter, an established rule."   The term is used in this sense in Swifts's Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue.
     B. Refine: fallacious notion that contemporary language was corrupt and must by rid of "imprefections," such as the following noted by Swift:
          1. recent innovations, especially shortened words
          2. tendency to contract verbs
          3. words in vogue, especially those used by fops
     C. Fix: establish a permanent form

II.   Attempts to form an Academy:
     A. Examples of French and Italian Academies
     B. earliest suggestions for an English Academy
     C. Important Voices for the Academy
          1. Dryden, 1664
          2. Defoe, 1697
          3. Swift's Proposal
     D. Increasing scepticism in the 18th century
     E. Substituions for an Academy
          1.   dictionary
          2. grammar

III. Johnson's Dictionary

IV. 18th Century Grammarians and Rhetoricians
     A. Grammarians (Cooke, Sheridan, Priestley, Lowth)
     B. Rhetoricians (Sheridan, Campbell, Baker)
     C. The aims and goals of grammarians and rhetoricians attempting to ascertain English
          1. Codified principles of language
          2. Reduced language to rule
          3. Settled disputed points and decided on usage
          4. Pointed out and corrected common errors
     D. How did they settle rules?
          1. reason
          2. etymology
          3. example of the Classics
          4. doctrine of usage (late 18th century, Priesley and Campbell)

CHAPTER NINE: LATE MODERN ENGLISH

CLICK HERE TO VIEW POWERPOINT PRESENTATION PREPARED BY STUDENT JOANNE MUELLER.

I. Three Periods of European Immigration
     A. Jamestown in 1607 to the end of Colonal times (@1787)
     B. Expansion of 13 colonies west of Appalachains to Civil War (1860)
     C. post Civil War

II. Hispanic and Aisan Immigration

III. English Immigration from the time of the 13 colonies

IV. Characteristics of American English
     A. high degree of uniformity
     B. archaism
     C. distinct vocabulary

V. National Consciousness (Webster, Cooper, Franklin)

VI. Controversy over Americanisms

VII. American Dialects
A. Hans Kurath's World Geography (1949)
B. the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada

VIII. American Contributions to Linguistics
     A. H. L. Mencken's 1919 American Language
     B. Leonard Bloomfield's 1933 Language
     C. Noam Chomsky's 1957 Grammar
     C. recent contributions

CHAPTERS TEN AND ELEVEN: WORD MEANINGS

I. A. Modern Influences

II.    How is vocabulary increased?
          1. borrowings
          2. self-explaining compounds
          3. compounds from Greek and Latin elements
          4. prefixes and suffixes
          5. coinages
          6. common words from proper nouns
          7. old words with new meanings
          8. influence of journalism

III.. Semantics
          1. generalization
          2. restriction
          3. degeneration
          4. regeneration

IV.   Types of Speech
          1. Spoken Standard
          2. Written Standard
          3. Vulgar or Illiterate Speech

V. English in the Empire

VI. Spelling Reform (late 19th century)
          1. 1840' Phonetypic Journal (Pittman and Ellis)
          2. 1870, English Philological Society
          3. 1898, the National Education Association
          4. 1930, R. E. Zachirisson's ANGLIC
          5. 1940, New Spelling by the British Simplified Spelling Society
          6. Axel Wijk

VII. Purist Efforts and the Oxford English Dictionary

Dr. Carol Jamison
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Armstrong Atlantic State University
11935 Abercorn St.
Savannah, GA 31419
Phone: 912.927.5237