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The History of English

The History of English . Most of the major work that has been done on the history of the English language was done by 19 th Century scholars.

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The History of English

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  1. The History of English Most of the major work that has been done on the history of the English language was done by 19th Century scholars. By studying manuscripts from different time periods, and comparing the symbols used within the language—and across languages from the same time period—they were able to provide a reasonable reconstruction and explanation for developments in the language

  2. Proto-German Stage English’s roots begin with Proto-Indo-European. Because of some shifts within one of the dialects of Proto-IE, Proto-Germanic language developed Grimm's Law, developed by German Philogist Jakob Grimm, explains the changes between the Germanic Language family and other Indo-European Language families.

  3. Grimm’s Law Proto-IE: bh dh gh b d g p t k  Proto-Ger: b d g p t k f Ө x/h P-IESanskritLatinEnglish p,t pitar- pater father p,d pad- ped- foot t trayas trēs three d dva- duo two

  4. Stages in English Development Pre-English ??? –450 C. E. Old English 450—1066 C. E. Middle English 1066—1450 C. E Modern English 1450—present Early Modern 1450—1700 C. E. Modern 1750—present

  5. Old English Phonological [f] & [v] are allophones /hr/ and /wl/ common sound sequences Syntax Highly Inflected: gender, tense, and grammatical role SVO sentence order; however, since grammatical role was marked, often topicalization occurs Lexicon Mostly Germanic stock, some Latin influences, but very little Celtic influence

  6. OE Grapholect

  7. Remnants of OE in Modern English NounsAdjPronouns mann norðan ic wif lytel me toþ twa we us VerbsPrep/Conjge eom ofer he feallan wið his sprecan ond him ær hiere hit

  8. OE Inflections MasculineFeminineNeuter nom. se cyning seo guð þæt sweord gen. þæs cyninges þære guðe þæs sweordes dat. þæm cyninge þære guðe þæm sweorde acc. þone cyning þa guðe þæt sweord Plurals nom. þa cyningas þa guðas þa sweordas gen. þara cyninga þara guða þara sweorda dat. þæm cyningum þæm guðum þæm sweordum acc. þa cyningas þa guðas þa sweordas

  9. Northern GermanicInfluence on OE Inflectional morphemes start to drop, facilitating communication between the two language speaking groups “Th-” plural pronouns they, them, their More vestiges in Scots English and N. Dialects, work as dialect markers of these varieties of English

  10. Middle English Class-based division in language use Aristocracy –French (maybe a bit of English) Tradesmen and Servants –English and French Peasants –English, touch of French Clergy and “Scholars” –Latin, English, and French Results in a system of class-based synonyms English ox, pig, sheep French beef, pork, mutton Also gain a large number of Latinate words into lexicon: government, crown, prince, nations, judge, crime, sue, attorney, miracle, religion, money, royal, society

  11. Middle English Gain [ž] and [f] & [v] become distinct phonemes Majority of inflections drop out of language Causes “regular” and “irregular” words The feminine pronoun “she” mysteriously appears and gain wide usage Many OE afixes become unproductive Prefixes: for-, with-; Suffixes: -th, lock, -red, -ship The grapholect takes on modern appearance pronunciation of consonants

  12. Modern English • Between 1400 and 1600, English goes through the great vowel shift. No one is sure why.

  13. Modern English Lose the 2nd person singular pronouns Replaced with 2nd person plural pronouns For a while “thou,thee, thy, thine” are used as familiarity markers, but eventually are dropped out of common usage completely Rigid syntactic order is established Colonialism leads to English having one of the most expansive lexicon among world languages

  14. Varieties of Global English English becomes a Global Language Second most widely spoken language in world Of L1 speakers, it comes in 4th Language of choice for international business, science, technology, and air traffic control Key lingua franca, language of greater communication, and official state language in many former European colonies Growing mutual unintelligibility of English varieties Growing variety of languages used in trade, business, technology, politics in 1996, 80% of web users L1 was English; in 2005, 30%

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