Transcript Presentation: History of the English Language
A History of the English Language
The Roman Empire 55BC 43AD Julius Caesar arrives in Britain Invasion of Britain under Emperor Claudius Building of Hadrian’s wall 436 AD End of the Roman withdrawal The Roman occupation left little influence upon the language, apart from place names such as those ending in
Chester/cester
from the Latin word
castrae
meaning camp
Anglo-Saxon Invasion
436 AD “Germanic/ northern European” tribes Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Saxons invaded first but it is the Angles who give us the name of the language
Englisc
(anglish) Today’s regional variations in accents and vocabulary can be traced to the arrival of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who brought with them different versions of the same language.
The Celts
Descendants of Indio-European tribes, who are believed to have originated in south east Europe. Arrived from c500 BC.
Displaced by the arrival of the Angle and Saxon tribes. They are driven in the mountains, islands and costal fringes of the far north and west Scots, Irish, Welsh, Manx, Cornish and Breton are all descended from Celtic The Scottish word “ sassenachs ” is the Celtic word for Saxons.
Very few Celtic words remain in modern English River names: Nene Dart Coombe (deep valley)as in Ilfracombe Some nouns: ass, bannock, brock binn Brittany (Breton) Taken to France by migrating Celts 5 – 6c
The Runic Alphabet
Old English was first written using the runic alphabet Each letter had a name The origins are unknown The common runic alphabet consisted of 24 letters but in its most developed form, in 9 th century Northumbria, it consisted of 31 letters Runic inscriptions are found on artefacts and stone monuments The earliest evidence dates back to 450-80 Ad
Old English Manuscripts
Main literary work of the period is a poem, Beowulf – transcribed around AD1000, but originally composed some 250 years earlier The story tells of a Scandinavian,hero who kills a monster in Denmark and later becomes the king of the Geats, in southern Sweden
597AD Christianity St Augustine landed at Thanet and introduced the Benedictine order in to England Christian monks brought a huge new vocabulary – mainly Latin but also some Greek, Hebrew and Arabic words The monks established churches, monasteries and schools, where education and culture thrived Within a century most Anglo-Saxons were converted 7 th & 8 th centuries the centre of religious and cultural learning was at Lindisfarne, in Northumberland 9th century Winchester became chief centre for learning. It was where Aelfric translated the bible and other major texts into English (Anglo-Saxon)
Some Latin borrowings in the Old English period
abbot, alms, alter, anchor, angel, apostle, ark, cancer candle, canon, cap, cedar cell, chalice, chest. cleric, creed, cucumber, deacon, demon, disciple, elephant, epistle, fever, font, giant, grammatical, history, hymn, idol, laurel, lentil, lily, litany, lobster, marshmallow, martyr, mass, master, mat, noon, nun, offer organ, oyster, paper, place, plant, pope, priest, prophet, psalm, purple, radish relic, rule. sabbath, school, scorpion, ;shrine, sock, temple, tiger, title, tunic, verse
Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation Written in Ad 731 by the Venerable Bede Written in Latin and translated into Anglo-Saxon in the 9 th Century
Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon
some differences - graphemes
Modern English Anglo-Saxon æ þ ð ρ ʒ ash thorn eth wyn yogh a th (that) th (this) w g
Old English 500-1050 AD
some similarities
Anglo-Saxon wæs fæder worold cwen cyning mon hus feld (a cleared area of woodland) Modern English was father world queen king man house field
Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon
some differences - vocabulary
Modern English gelimplice neata swefn frumseaft fitting/suitable cattle dream beginning/creation
Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon
some differences - grammar
Se
guma geseah
þ one
boda
n
The man saw the messenger
Se
boda geseah
þ one
guma
n
The messenger saw the man Therefore, the word
the
is
þ one
before the object of the sentence and the object noun takes the inflection
‘n’
Hence
Old English 500-1050 AD Anglo-Saxon
some differences - grammar
Se
guma geseah
þ one
boda
n
The man saw the messenger
means the same as þ one
boda
n
geseah
se
guma The messenger was seen by the man
Old English 500-1050 AD -
Summary of main points
•Anglo-Saxon derived from a Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages •Its alphabet differed from the Roman alphabet •There is no single spelling system at the time. So the word ‘evil’ can be found as yfel or efel •It was an ‘inflected’ language, so word order did not need to be fixed •There were punctuation marks or capital letters in Anglo-Saxon writings and many variations in the spaces between words •There were many compound words e.g. ‘banhus’ (bone-house), meaning a person’s body •There is a clear line of descent from Old English to present day English, in sounds, spelling vocabulary and grammar •1/3 of the words we use on any page have Old English origins
Old Norse 739AD First landing of Scandinavian invaders collectively known as the Vikings Old Norse is derived from the same language family as Anglo Saxon but most often the word endings (inflections) were different, so, for ease of understanding they dropped them.
This accelerated the loss of these inflections from English
Old Norse Words
-by (village) -thorpe Riding (settlement) (third part)
Danelaw During the 9 east th century Alfred the Great defeated the Norsemen and they withdrew to the north, behind an agreed line known as the DANELAW. Hence, their influence survives more strongly in the north and north e.g ‘gate’ Old Norse meaning ‘street’ Generally it was a matter of chance whether the Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse word survived. Sometimes both survived but one changed its meaning e.g. ‘to die’ and ‘to starve’ originally meant the same but the latter acquired a more specific meaning over time
Middle English 1050 - 1550
The Norman Conquest - 1066 After the Norman Conquest, land and power were taken by French noblemen. French, as the language of the dominant class, became the language of government, administration and high culture.
French was seen as the language of sophistication and so adopted by upper class English people English was submerged for nearly 300 years When it did re-emerge as the national language it was heavily influenced by French English - ox, sheep, swine, calf French - beef, mutton, pork, veal
Resurgence of English
Great deal of antagonism between France and England By the end of 12 th century the children of Norman noblemen were speaking English Black Death of 1384 made labour scarce and raised the status of the English speaker By middle of 14 th administration century, English again being used as language of government and 1356 – English used for court proceedings 1362 – English used to open Parliament 1399 – English used in the coronation of Henry IV
Middle English Grapheme changes After 1400, the Old English letters þ ð ρ and æ had fallen out of use And there were some inconsistencies ʒ or g was used for g u was used where we would now use V uu was used to represent w
Middle English Spelling changes The French ‘qu’ was adopted in place of the Anglo-Saxon ‘cw’ Irregular words were replaced by more regular forms e.g. the Old English ‘bok’ was ‘bek’ in the plural. This and other words adopted the regular –s ending. Very few irregular plurals exist now
Grammar
Middle English
Inflected noun endings died out The Anglo-saxon þ
æm scipum
had become
to the shippes
using a preposition and a regular plural ending New verbs constructions, such as
shal be
, and
hadde maked
are in use The infinitive form is now marked by ‘to’ rather than the inflected ‘an’
cuman
became
to come
Inflected
verb
endings remained I thou he/she we/you/they
Present tense
play(e) playest playeth playe(n)
Past tense
played(e) playedest played(e) played(en)
Old English
kingly ask fast rise Holy Vocabulary
French
royal question firm mount sacred
popular?
learned?
literary?
Latin
regal interrogate secure ascend consecrated
Chaucer By mid 14 th century English was being used in literature 1386 Geoffrey Chaucer began work on
The Canterbury tales
Middle English By the end of 15 th century the pronunciation of English had radically and rapidly changed – within the over the course of a couple of generations, in what is known as the
Great Vowel Shift
So the sentence
so it is time to see the shoes on the same feet now
Would sound like this in Middle English
saw it is team to say the shows on the sarm fate noo
The Great Vowel Shift marks the last major barrier between early English and the Standard English of today
The beginnings of Standard English Greatly influenced by the advent of printing, instigated by Caxton’s first printing press 1476 He bases his spellings on the phonetics of his own dialect - the English of London and the East Midlands Literacy is spreading and the demand for English books grows Caxton published around 100 titles - including Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales During the 15 th century, written English gradually became more uniform and English grammar simpler
Thou
,
thee
,
thy
and
ye
were starting to disappear - as was -
eth
as a verb ending It lives on however, in this famous quotation “cometh the hour, cometh the man”
The beginnings of Standard English Why did the East Midlands dialect become the ‘standard’?
Early Modern English The Renaissance (‘rebirth’) – late 15 th century Rediscovery of philosophy arts science astronomy chronology mathematics Navigation The Renaissance was a period of changing ideas about humanity and our place in the universe See Crystal page 193 for examples of classical and other vocabulary
Shakespeare
In his writings, William Shakespeare used more than 33,000 different words 3,000 of those words make their first appearance in his plays The estimated vocabulary of an average adult in Britain today is 15,000 Shakespeare is renowned for his ability to coin new words and phrases
bare-faced dislocate assassination thin air stark naked
Shakespeare
Changes in meaning Hamlet (1.II.
Shakespeare uses the word merely wants flushing galled dexterity in the sense of entirely lacks redness sore speed
The Authorised Version of the Bible
1604 a conference of leading churchmen, supported by King James I, called for a new translation of the Bible It took 47 scholars 7 years to finish it It introduced 8,000 new words to the lexicon The common people – still largely illiterate – could now listen to readings and sermons in their own tongue
Concern over the standard of English
1712 The massive influx of new ‘foreign’ was a cause of concern for many.
Jonathan Swift, in Dublin, proposes an English Academy, to ‘fix’ the language.
It was believed that the language was changing too rapidly and that it was being corrupted.
Latin was revered and purists tried to impose its rules on the English language.
Concern over the standard of English Prescriptivism
•You should never end a sentence with a preposition •You should never start a sentence with a conjunction •You should never split an infinitive
Dr Johnson’s Dictionary
Published in 1775 Written in two volumes Defined 43,500 words and offered 118,000 quotations of usage The dictionary is famous for the precision of its definitions. Johnson cites the verb ‘take’ as having 113 transitive meanings and 21 intransitive The dictionary also traces the history of the words, up to that date e.g. he gives 15 examples of the spelling of ‘good’: good godd god guid gode guide guod gud guode gwde godde guyd goed gewd gowd
Role of the Dictionary
Designed to record the language in use at a particular time in history The status of dictionaries Word becoming institutionalised How words are selected for entry into the dictionary Language change at word level
Modern English 1700 -Present
The growth of the English vocabulary
Dates
1750-99 1800-49 1850-99 1900-49 1950-
New words and senses
25,000 55,000 73,000 35,000 12,500
New words alone
10,500 25,000 33,000 15,000 5,000
Figures from the Oxford English Dictionary database
Modern English 1700 -Present
Other factors influencing the language?