Download al-Farabi Kazakh National University

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH
Lecture 1
Theme: Subject and aims of the history of English.
The earliest historical data about Germanic tribes.
Ancient Germanic languages. Evolution of East Germanic, North
Germanic and West Germanic subgroups.
A language can be considered from different angles.
Social variation
Human language is a specific unique system. First of all, a
language is a social phenomenon. It is inseparably connected with
the people who are its creators. It originates and develops in the
process of social interaction between the members of community.
Society affects a language in the sense that any important aspect of
social structure is likely to have a linguistic counterpart. People
belong to different social classes, perform different social roles and
carry on different occupations. Their use of language is affected by
their age, ethnic group and educational background.
Temporal variation
Language is a very variable social phenomenon in the sense that
it varies through time. Time affects a language both in the long term
and short term. Long term: English has changed through the
centuries; it has clearly distinguishable linguistic periods as Old
English, Middle English, and Elizabethian English. Short term:
English changes within the history of a single person. This is the
most noticeable while children are acquiring their mother tongue,
but it is also seen when people learn a foreign language develop their
style as adult speakers and writers.
Personal variation
People affect the language in the sense that an individual’s
conscious or unconscious choices and preferences can result in a
distinctive or even unique style. Such variations in self expression
are most noticeable in those areas of language use where great care
is being taken such as in literature and humor. But the uniqueness
of individuals, arising out of differences in their memory personality
intelligence social background makes distinctiveness of style
inevitable in everyone.
Regional variation
Geography affects language both within a country and between
countries, giving rise to regional accent and dialects. Intranational
regional varieties have been observed within English from the
earliest days we say Scottish English, London English.
International varieties are more recent in origin, as we say
American English, Australian English, Indian English, African
English and etc.
If we make a model of the uses of English so as to provide an
abstract representation of its central characteristics it becomes
easier to see how it is used. We will have the following model of the
use of English.
Temporal Variation
Long
term
Short
term
Social
variation
Regional
variation
Personal variation
Next model will be the model of the structure of any language
The language incorporates three constituent parts: phonology –the
pronunciation system of a language Phonological study has two
main aspects: the sound segments of the spoken language, which
takes the form of vowels and consonants; and various patterns of
intonation, rhythm, tone of voice. Lexicon is the vocabulary of a
language. Grammar is the system of rules governing the
construction of sentences. Grammatical study is divided into main
aspects: syntax, dealing with the structure and connection of
sentences; and morphology, dealing with the structure and
formation of words.
Lexicon
Phonology
Grammar
English is a Germanic language which belongs to the IndoEuropean languages. The Germanic languages in the modern world
are as follows: English, German, Netherlandish (known also as
Dutch and Flemish), Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic,
Frisian, Faroese, Afrikaans (in the South African Republic) and
Yiddish.
The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance
of what is known as the Proto-Germanic language (PG). PG is the
linguistic ancestor or the parent language of the Germanic group. It
is supposed to have split from related Indo-European languages
sometimes between the 15th and 10th century B.C.
PG is an entirely pre-historical language: it was never
recorded in written form. It is believed that at the earliest stages of
history PG was fundamentally one language, though dialectically
coloured. In its later stages dialectal differences grew, so that
towards the beginning of our era Germanic appears divided into
dialectical groups and tribal dialects.
The external history of the ancient Teutons around the
beginning of our era is known from classical writings. The first
mention of Germanic tribes was made by Pitheas, a Greek historian
and geographer of the 4th century B.C., in an account of a sea
voyage to the Baltic Sea. Julius Caesar described some militant
Germanic tribes – the Suevians – who bordered on the Celts of Gaul
in the North-East. In the 1st century A.D. Pliny the Elder, a
prominent Roman scientist and writer, in NATURAL HISTORY
(NATURALIS HISTORIA) made a classified list of Germanic tribes
grouping them under six headings.
Toward the beginning of our era the common period of
Germanic history came to an end. The Teutons has extended over a
larger territory and the PG language broke into parts. PG split into
three branches: East Germanic (Vindili among them were the
Goths, the Vandals and the Burgundians in Pliny’s classification),
North Germanic (Hilleviones) and West Germanic (which embraces
Ingveones, Istaveones and Herminones in Pliny’s list). Then these
branches split into separate Germanic languages: East Germanic,
North Germanic and West Germanic.
Germanic languages
Old
Germanic
languages
(with dates
of the
earliest
records)
Modern
Germanic
languages
East
North Germanic
Germanic
Gothic (4th c.)
Old Norse or Old
Vandalic
Scandinavian (2nd-3rd c.)
Burgundian
Old Icelandic (12th c.)
Old Norwegian (13th c.)
Old Danish (13th c.)
Old Swedish (13th c.)
No living
languages
Icelandic
Norwegian
Danish
Swedish
Faroese
West Germanic
Anglian, Frisian, Jutish,
Saxon, Franconian, High
German (Alemanic,
Thuringian, Swavian,
Bavarian)
Old English (7th c.)
Old Saxon (9th c.)
Old High German (8th c.)
Old Dutch (12th c.)
English
German
Netherlandish
Afrikaans
Yiddish
Frisian
All the Germanic languages of the past and present have common
linguistic features. They preserved many IE features in lexis as well
as at other levels. The most ancient etymological layer in the
Germanic vocabulary is made up of words shared by most IE
languages. They refer to a number of semantic spheres: natural
phenomena, plants, animals, terms of kinship, family relations,
parts of the human body, verbs, denoting basic activities of man,
some pronouns and numerals.
Lecture 2
Theme: The main historical events of the ancient period.
Celtic tribes and languages on the European continent and British Isles (1000
BC). Celtic languages in modern Britain.
The main historical events of the ancient period.
Modern man arrived in Britain before the last ice age but retreated to
Southern Europe when much of Britain was ice covered, with the remainder being
tundra. At this time the sea level was about 127 m (417 ft.) lower than it is today,
so Britain was joined to Ireland and by the area known as Doggerland to the
continent of Europe. After the end of the last Ice Age (around 9500 BC), Ireland
became separated from Britain; later (around 6500 BC), Britain was cut off from
the rest of Europe. By 12,000 BC Britain had been reoccupied, as shown by
archaeology. By around 4000 BC, the island was populated by people with a
Neolithic culture. However, none of the pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain have any
known surviving written language. No literature of pre-Roman Britain has
survived, so its history, culture and way of life are known mainly through
archaeological finds. The first significant written record of Britain and its
inhabitants was by the Greek navigator Pytheas, who explored the coastal region of
Britain around 325 BC. Ancient Britons were involved in extensive trade and
cultural links with the rest of Europe from the Neolithic onwards, especially in
exporting tin, which was in abundant supply. Located at the fringes of Europe,
Britain received foreign technological and cultural achievements much later than
mainland areas did during prehistory. The story of ancient Britain is traditionally
seen as one of successive waves of settlers from the continent. Prior to the
Germanic invasion the British Isles were inhabited for at least fifty thousand years.
Archeological research has uncovered many layers of prehistoric population.
Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) Britain is the period of the earliest known
occupation of Britain by man. This huge length of time saw many changes in the
environment, encompassing several glacial and interglacial periods that greatly
affected human settlement in the region. Lower Palaeolithic (up to 250,000 years
ago).There is evidence from bones and flint tools found in coastal deposits near
Happisburgh in Norfolk and Pakefield in Suffolk that a species of Homo was
present in what is now Britain around 700,000 years ago. At this time, southern
and eastern Britain was linked to continental Europe by a wide land bridge
allowing humans to move freely. The current position of the English Channel was
a large river flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that would later become the
Thames and Seine. Reconstructing this ancient environment has provided clues to
the route first visitors took to arrive at what was then a peninsula of the Eurasian
continent. Archaeologists have found a string of early sites located close to the
route of a now lost watercourse named the Bytham River which indicate that it was
exploited as the earliest route west into Britain.
Around 500,000 years ago early peoples made hand axes and hunted the
large native mammals of the period. They drove elephants, rhinoceroses and
hippopotamuses over the tops of cliffs or into bogs to more easily kill them.
The extreme cold of the following times is likely to have driven humans out
of Britain altogether and the region does not appear to have been occupied again
until the ice receded. This warmer time period lasted from around 300,000 until
200,000 years ago. This period saw flint tools introduced, possibly by humans
arriving from Africa. The more advanced flint technology permitted more efficient
hunting and therefore made Britain a more worthwhile place to remain until the
following period of cooling 352,000–130,000 years ago).
A final ice age covered Britain between around 70,000 and 10,000 years ago
with an extreme cold snap between 22,000 and 13,000 years ago (with the Last
Glacial Maximum at around 20,000 years ago). This may well have driven humans
south and out of Britain altogether, pushing them back across the land bridge that
had resurfaced at the beginning of the glaciation, possibly to a refuge in Southern
France and Iberia. Sites such as Gough's Cave in Somerset dated at 12,000 BC
provide evidence suggesting that humans returned to Britain towards the end of
this ice age, right before the final thaw may have caused them to leave again and
then return repeatedly. The environment during this ice age period would have
been a largely treeless tundra, eventually replaced by a gradually warmer climate.
Mesolithic (around 10,000 to 5,500 years ago).Around 10,000 years ago the ice
age finally ended. Temperatures rose, probably to levels similar to those today, and
forests expanded further. By 9,500 years ago, the rising sea levels caused by the
melting glaciers cut Britain off from Ireland and by around 6500 to 6000 BC
continental Europe was cut off for the last time. . Humans spread and reached the
far north of Scotland during this period. Farming of crops and domestic animals
was adopted in Britain around 4500 BC at least partly because of the need for
reliable food sources. Hunter-gathering ways of life would have persisted into the
Neolithic at first but the increasing sophistication of material culture with the
concomitant control of local resources by individual groups would have caused it
to be replaced by distinct territories occupied by different tribes. Other elements of
the Neolithic such as pottery, leaf-shaped arrowheads and polished stone axes
would have been adopted earlier.
The Neolithic (around 4000 – 2000 BC).The Neolithic was the period of
domestication of plants and animals, a more settled way of life which led to
societies becoming divided into differing groups of farmers, artisans and leaders.
Forest clearances were undertaken to provide room for cereal cultivation and
animal herds
The settlement of Britain began in New Stone Age (Neolitic times) with
tribal groups coming from the Iberian Peninsula. They came by sea from about
4000 B.C. settling near the coasts of south and west Britain as well as in Ireland.
They brought with them the agricultural methods which had been developed
around the Mediterranean coasts, the raising of cattle and planting of wheat. As the
lowlands of Britain were still covered with forests, these settlers lived on hills such
as the chalk uplands of southern England. These tribes did not use metals yet, but
they made axes and arrowheads from flint which was mined in the chalk of
Norfolk in East Anglia. In this period the large stone circles of Stonehenge on the
chalk plateau of Salisbure Plane were begun constructing. This stone monument
consists of concentric circles of stones. It was used as observatory for planning the
times of farming operations in a society with no calendar. The construction of the
earliest earthwork sites in Britain began during the early Neolithic (c. 4400 BC –
3300 BC) in the form of long barrows used for communal burial and the first
causewayed enclosures, sites which have parallels on the continent.
The Middle Neolithic (c. 3300 BC – c. 2900 BC) saw the development of
cursus monuments close to earlier barrows and the growth and abandonment of
causewayed enclosures as well as the building of impressive chamber tombs such
as the Maeshowe types. The earliest stone circles and individual burials also
appear.
The Bronze Age (around 2200 to 750 BC).This period can be sub-divided
into an earlier phase (2300 to 1200) and a later one (1200 – 700). From around
2,150 BC smiths had discovered how to make bronze (which was much harder
than copper) by mixing copper with a small amount of tin. With this discovery, the
Bronze Age arrived in Britain. Over the next thousand years, bronze gradually
replaced stone as the main material for tool and weapon making. Britain had large,
easily accessible reserves of tin in the modern areas of Cornwall and Devon in
what is now southwest England, and thus tin mining began. By around 1,600 BC
the southwest of Britain was experiencing a trade boom as British tin was exported
across Europe. After about 2,000 B.C. farming people came from the east and
south east, the present day France and Belgium. They brought the use of bronze
and a special kind of pottery. These people seem to have mixed peacefully with
the former settlers. After most of the British Isles had been populated by these
tribes, further settlers came from Rhine valley. They were successive tribes of
Celts. The earliest inhabitants whose linguistic affiliation has been established are
the Celts. The Celts came to Britain in the three waves and immediately preceded
the Teutons. Celtic tribes invaded Britain about 500 B.C. Economically and
socially the Celts were a tribal society made up of kins, kinship groups, clans and
tribes; they practised a primitive agriculture, and carried on trade with Celtic Gaul.
The first millennium B.C. was the period of Celtic migrations and expansion.
Traces of their civilization are still found all over Europe. Celtic languages were
spoken over extensive parts of Europe before our era; later they were absorbed by
other IE languages and left very few vestiges behind.
The Bronze Age people lived in round houses and divided up the landscape.
Stone rows are to be seen on, for example, Dartmoor. They ate cattle, sheep, pigs
and deer as well as shellfish and birds. They carried out salt manufacture. The
wetlands were a source of wildfowl and reeds.
The Iron Age (around 750 BC – 43 AD)
In around 750 BC iron working techniques reached Britain from southern
Europe. Iron was stronger and more plentiful than bronze, and its introduction
marks the beginning of the Iron Age. Iron working changed many aspects of life,
most importantly agriculture. Iron tipped ploughs could churn up land far more
quickly and deeply than older wooden or bronze ones, and iron axes could clear
forest land far more efficiently for agriculture. There was a landscape of arable,
pasture and managed woodland. There were many enclosed settlements and land
ownership was important. By 500 BC most people inhabiting the western British
Isles were speaking some form of Insular Celtic. Among these people were skilled
craftsmen who had begun producing gold jewellery, in addition to tools and
weapons of both bronze and iron. Place names and tribal names from the later part
of the period suggest that a Celtic language was spoken. Iron Age Britons lived in
organized tribal groups, ruled by a chieftain. As people became more numerous,
wars broke out between opposing tribes. This was traditionally interpreted as the
reason for the building of hill forts, first had been built about 1,500 BC, hill fort
building peaked during the later Iron Age. There are over 2000 Iron Age hill forts
known in Britain. By about 350 BC many hill forts went out of use and the
remaining ones were reinforced.
The Late pre-Roman Iron Age (LPRIA).The last centuries before the Roman
invasion saw an influx of mixed Germanic-Celtic speaking refugees from Gaul
(approximately modern day France and Belgium) known as the Belgae, who were
displaced as the Roman Empire expanded around 50 BC. They settled along most
of the coastline of Southern Britain between about 200 BC and AD 43.
From around 175 BC, the areas of Kent, Hertfordshire and Essex developed
especially advanced pottery-making skills. The tribes of south-east England
became partially Romanised and were responsible for creating the first settlements,
large enough to be called towns.
The last centuries before the Roman invasion saw increasing sophistication
in British life. About 100 BC, iron bars began to be used as currency, while
internal trade and trade with continental Europe flourished, largely due to Britain's
extensive mineral reserves. Coinage was developed, based on continental types but
bearing the names of local chieftains. This was used in south-east England. As the
Roman Empire expanded northwards, Rome began to take interest in Britain.
Celtic tribes and languages on the European continent and British Isles
(1000 BC).
The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather
Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture (ca. 800-450 BC), named
for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria. By the later La Tène period (ca. 450
BC up to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture had expanded over a wide range
of regions, whether by diffusion or migration: to the British Isles (Insular Celts),
the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici ), much of Central Europe, (Gauls) and
following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC as far east as central
Anatolia (Galatians).
The earliest directly attested examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic
inscriptions, beginning from the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are
attested only in inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic is attested from about
the 4th century AD in ogham inscriptions, although it is clearly much earlier.
Literary tradition begins with Old Irish from about the 8th century. Coherent texts
of Early Irish literature, such as The Cattle Raid of Cooley, survive in 12th-century
recensions. According to the theory of John T. Koch and others, the Tartessian
language may have been the earliest directly attested Celtic language with the
Tartessian written script used in the inscriptions based on a version of a Phoenician
script in use around 825 BC.
The Gaelic branch has survived as Irish (or Erse) in Ireland, has expanded to
Scotland as Scotch-Gaelic of the Highlands and is still spoken by a few hundred
people on the Isle of Man (the Manx language). The Britonnic branch is
represented by Kymric or Welsh in modern Wales and by Breton or Armorican
spoken by over a million people in modern France( in the area called Bretagne or
Britanny, where the Celts came as emigrants from Britain in the 5th c.); another
Britonic dialect in Great Britain, Cornish, was spoken in Cornwall until the end of
the 18th c.
By the early 1st millennium AD, following the expansion of the Roman
Empire and the Great Migrations (Migration Period) of Germanic peoples, Celtic
culture had become restricted to the British Isles (Insular Celtic), and the
Continental Celtic languages ceased to be widely used by the 6th century.
Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels, the Welsh and the
Bretons of the medieval and modern periods.
Latin "Gallus" might originally be from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name,
perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansions into Italy of the early 5th
century BC. Its root may be the Common Celtic "*galno", meaning power or
strength. Galli and Galatae most probably go with Old Irish gal 'boldness, ferocity'
and Welsh gallu 'to be able, power'. The Greek "Galatai" seems to be based on the
same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source which gave
us "Galli" (the suffix "-atai" is an Ancient Greek inflection).
Today, the term Celtic is generally used to describe the languages and
respective cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and
Brittany, also known as the Six Celtic Nations. These are the regions where four
Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent as mother tongues: Irish Gaelic,
Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton plus two recent revivals, Cornish (one of the
Brythonic languages) and Manx (one of the Goidelic languages). There are also
attempts to reconstruct the Cumbric language (a Brythonic language from
Northwest England and Southwest Scotland). 'Celtic' is also sometimes used to
describe regions of Continental Europe that claim a Celtic heritage, but where no
Celtic language has survived; these areas include the western Iberian Peninsula, i.e.
Portugal, and north-central Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León,
Extremadura). "Continental Celts" refers to the Celtic-speaking people of mainland
Europe. "Insular Celts" refers to the Celtic-speaking people of the British Isles and
their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating
insular Celts from west Britain and so are grouped accordingly.
The Celtic languages form a branch of the larger Indo-European family. By
the time speakers of Celtic languages enter history around 400 BC, they were
already split into several language groups, and spread over much of Western
continental Europe, the Iberian peninsula, Ireland and Britain.
Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is
considered to have been spoken in the early 1st millennium BC. The spread of the
Celtic languages to Iberia, Ireland and Britain would have occurred during the first
half of the 1st millennium BC, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to ca.
500 BC. Over the centuries they developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic
and Brythonic languages.
Celtic river-names are found in great numbers around the upper reaches of
the Danube and Rhine, which led many Celtic scholars to place the ethnogenesis of
the Celts in this area.
Diodorus Siculus and Strabo both suggest that the Celtic heartland was in
southern France. The former says that the Gauls were to the north of the Celts but
that the Romans referred to both as Gauls. It was generally considered that the
Celtic heartland was southern France.
Proto-Celtic language
The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the early European Iron Age.
The earliest records of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine
Gaul, the oldest of which still predate the La Tène period. Other early inscriptions
are Gaulish, appearing from the early La Tène period in inscriptions in the area of
Massilia, in the Greek alphabet. Celtiberian inscriptions appear comparatively late,
after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic is available only from about 400
AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions. Besides epigraphical
evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy. At the
dawn of history in Europe, the Celts then living in what is now France were known
as Gauls to the Romans. The territory of these peoples probably included the low
countries, the Alps and what is now northern Italy. Their descendants were
described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. Eastern Gaul was the centre of the
western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organization was
similar to that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the
Gauls adopted coinage, and texts with Greek characters are known in southern
Gaul from the 2nd century.
Greek traders founded Massalia in about 600 BC, with exchange up the
Rhone valley, but trade was disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the
Alps to the Po valley in Italy. The Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd
century BC and encountered a Gaul that was mostly Celtic-speaking. Rome needed
land communications with its Iberian provinces and fought a major battle with the
Saluvii at Entremont in 124-123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, and the
Roman Province of Gallia Transalpina was formed along the Mediterranean coast.
The remainder was known as Gallia Comata - "Hairy Gaul".
In 58 BC, the Helvetii planned to migrate westward but were forced back by
Julius Caesar. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and
by 55 BC, most of Gaul had been overrun. In 52 BC, Vercingetorix led a revolt
against the Roman occupation but was defeated at the siege of Alesia and
surrendered.
Following the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC, Caesar's Celtica formed the main
part of Roman Gaul. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by
the Garonne and on the north by the Seine and the Marne. Place and personal name
analysis and inscriptions suggest that the Gaulish Celtic language was spoken over
most of what is now France.
Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the
Celts acknowledged their presence in the Iberian Peninsula as a material culture
relatable to the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. Since according to the definition of
the Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic populations were rare in Iberia and did not
provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe.
Three divisions of the Celts of the Iberian Peninsula were assumed to have existed:
the Celtiberians in the mountains near the center of the peninsula, the Celtici in the
southwest, and the celts in the northwest.
Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and
influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps
the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central,
western and northern regions.The Celts in Iberia were divided into two main
archaeological and cultural groups. One group was spread out along Galicia and
the Iberian Atlantic shores. They were made up of the Lusitanians (in Portugal)
and the Celtic region that Strabo called Celtica in the southwestern Iberian
peninsula, including the Algarve, which was inhabited by the Celtici, the Vettones
and Vacceani peoples(of central-western Spain and Portugal), and the Gallaecian,
Astures and Cantabrian peoples of the Castro culture of northern and northwestern
Spain and Portugal.
The Celtiberian group of central Spain and the upper Ebro valley originated
when Celts (mainly Gauls and some Celtic-Germanic groups) migrated from what
is now France and integrated with the local Iberian people.
The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the
Celticization process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of celticization of the
southwestern area of the peninsula by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is,
however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent investigations about the
Callaici in northwestern Portugal are providing new approaches to understanding
Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.
In 391 BC Celts "who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the
passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Appennine
mountains and the Alps". The Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to
the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) were inhabited by Celtic-speakers who founded
cities such as Milan. Later the Roman army was routed at the battle of Allia and
Rome was sacked in 390 BC by the Senones.
At the battle of Telamon in 225 BC a large Celtic army was trapped between
two Roman forces and crushed.
The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the
Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic
domination in mainland Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies
conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.
The Celts also expanded down the Danube River and its tributaries. One of the
most influential tribes, the Scordisci, had established their capital at Singidunum in
3rd century BC, which is present-day Belgrade, Serbia. The concentration of hillforts and cemeteries shows a density of population in the Tisza valley of modernday Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine.
Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a
century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians (see also: Gallic Invasion
of Greece). Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world,
the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least 700 years. St Jerome,
who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that
of the Treveri of northern Gaul.
Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense celtic settlement.
The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia, Bologna and possibly Bavaria,
and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is
now Poland and Slovakia. A celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava's mint is
displayed on today's Slovak 5-crown coin. Celtic tribes inhabited land in what is
now southern Germany and Austria.Many scholars have associated the earliest
Celtic peoples with the Hallstatt culture. Boii, Scordisci and the Vindelici are some
of the tribes that inhabited Central Europe, including what is now Slovakia, Serbia,
Croatia, Poland and the Czech Republic as well as Germany and Austria.. Celts
also founded Singidunum present-day Belgrade, leaving many words in Serbian
language (over 5000).
As there is no archaeological evidence for large scale invasions in some of the
other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture
spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion. However, the Celtic
invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well
documented in Greek and Latin history.
There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies.
Thousands were employed in 283-246 BC and they were also in service around
186 BC. They attempted to overthrow Ptolemy II.
A large portion of the indigenous populations of Britain and Ireland today
may be partially descended from the ancient peoples that have long inhabited these
lands, before the coming of Celtic and later Germanic peoples, language and
culture. Little is known of their original culture and language, but remnants of the
latter may remain in the names of some geographical features, such as the rivers
Clyde, Tamar and Thames, whose etymology is unclear but possibly derive from a
pre-Celtic substrate (Gelling). By the Roman period, however, most of the
inhabitants of the isles of Ireland and Britain were speaking Goidelic or Brythonic
languages, close counterparts to the Celtic languages spoken on the European
mainland.
Historians explained this as the result of successive invasions from the
European continent by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several
centuries. The Book of Leinster, written in the 12th century, but drawing on a
much earlier Irish oral tradition, states that the first Celts to arrive in Ireland were
from Iberia. In 1946 the Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly published his extremely
influential model of the early history of Ireland which postulated four separate
waves of Celtic invaders. It is still not known what languages were spoken by the
peoples of Ireland and Britain before the arrival of the Celts.
Celtic languages in modern Britain.
The Celtic languages are a branch of the greater Indo-European language
family. During the 1st millennium BC, they were spoken across Europe, from the
Bay of Biscay and the North Sea, up the Rhine and down the Danube to the Black
Sea and the Upper Balkan Peninsula, and into Asia Minor (Galatia). Today, Celtic
languages are limited to a few areas on the western fringe of Europe, notably
Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the peninsula of Brittany in France, and Cornwall and the
Isle of Man. Celtic languages are also spoken on Cape Breton Island and in
Patagonia. The spread to Cape Breton and Patagonia occurred in modern times.
Celtic languages were spoken in Australia before federation in 1901. Some people
speak Celtic languages in the other Celtic diaspora areas of the United States,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In all these areas the Celtic languages are
now only spoken by minorities although there are continuing efforts at revival.
Six "living" Celtic languages, of which four have retained a substantial
number of native speakers are Welsh and Breton, descended from the British
language of the Roman era, and Irish and Scottish Gaelic, descended from the
common Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic of the Early Modern period.
The other two, Cornish and Manx, were extinct or near-extinct in the 20th
century, and are now "living" only as the result of language revival efforts, with a
small number of children brought up as bilingual speakers. Taken together, there
were roughly one million native speakers of Celtic languages.
Proto-Celtic divided into four sub-families:
1) Gaulish and its close relatives Lepontic, Noric, and Galatian. These
languages were once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and
from Belgium to northern Italy. They are now all extinct.
2) Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula in parts of modern
Aragón, Old Castile, and New Castile in Spain. Lusitanian, from
Southern Portugal, may also have been a Celtic language. These are now
also extinct.
3) Goidelic, including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. At one time there
were Irish on the coast of southwest England and on the coast of north
and south Wales.
4) Brythonic, including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, and possibly also
Pictish though this may be a sister language rather than a daughter of
British (Common Brythonic). Before the arrival of Scotti on the Isle of
Man in the 9th century there may have been a Brythonic language in the
Isle of Man.
Differences between the Goidelic and Brythonic languages arose after these split
off from the Continental Celtic languages. Other scholars (such as Schmidt 1988)
distinguish between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, putting most of the Gaulish and
Brythonic languages in the former group and the Goidelic and Celtiberian
languages in the latter. The P-Celtic languages (also called Gallo-Brittonic) are
sometimes seen (for example by Koch 1992) as a central innovating area as
opposed to the more conservative peripheral Q-Celtic languages.
The Breton language is Brythonic, not Gaulish. When the Anglo-Saxons
moved into Great Britain, several waves of the native Britons crossed the English
Channel and landed in Brittany. They brought with them their Brythonic language,
which evolved into Breton – still partially intelligible by modern Welsh and
Cornish speakers.
In the P/Q classification scheme the first language to split off from ProtoCeltic was Gaelic. It has characteristics that some scholars see as archaic but others
see as also being in the Brythonic languages (see Schmidt). With the
Insular/Continental classification scheme the split of the former into Gaelic and
Brythonic is seen as being late.
The distinction of Celtic into these four sub-families most likely occurred
about 900 BC
Celtic languages, since no Continental Celtic language has living
descendants, such as Q-Celtic" is equivalent to "Goidelic" and "P-Celtic" is
equivalent to "Brythonic".
The Celtic nations are territories in North-West Europe in which that area's
own Celtic languages and cultural traits have survived.
The six territories recognised as Celtic nations are Brittany (Breizh),
Cornwall (Kernow), Ireland (Éire), the Isle of Man (Mannin), Scotland (Alba), and
Wales (Cymru). Limitation to these six is sometimes disputed by people from
Asturias and Galicia (including Northern Portugal). Until the expansions of the
Roman Republic and Germanic tribes, a significant part of Western Europe was
mainly Celtic.
Each of the six nations has its own living Celtic language. In Wales,
Scotland, Britanny, and Ireland, these have been spoken continuously through
time, while Cornwall and the Isle of Man have languages that were spoken into
modern times but later died as spoken community languages. In both of the latter
regions, however, revitalization movements have led to the adoption of these
languages by adults and produced a number of native speakers.
Ireland, Wales, Brittany and Scotland contain areas where a Celtic language
is used on a daily basis – in Ireland the area is called the Gaeltacht, Y Fro Gymraeg
in Wales, and in Brittany Breizh-Izel. Generally these communities are in the west
of their countries and in upland or island areas. The term Gàidhealtachd
historically distinguished the Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland (the Highlands)
from the Lowland Scots-speaking areas. More recently, this term has also been
adopted as the Gaelic name of the Highland council area, which includes nonGaelic speaking areas. Hence, more specific terms such as sgìre Ghàidhlig
("Gaelic-speaking area") are now used.
In Wales, the Welsh language is a core curriculum (compulsory) subject,
which all pupils study.[ Additionally, 20% of school children in Wales go to Welsh
medium schools, where "they are taught entirely in the Welsh language". In
Ireland, 7.4% of primary school education is through Irish medium education.
Lecture 3
The theme: The Roman occupation of Britain and its influence on
different spheres of life in Britain.
In the first century B.C. Gaul was conquered by the Romans. Having
occupied Gaul, Julius Caesar made two raids on Britain in 55 and 54 B.C. The
British Isles had long been known to the Romans as a source of valuable tin ore;
Caesar attacked Britain for economic reasons – to obtain tin, pearls and corn, -and
also for strategic reasons, since rebels and refugees from Gaul found support
among their kinsmen. But these Caesar’s attacks failed. The Roman conquest of
Britain was a gradual process, beginning effectively in AD 43 under Emperor
Claudius, whose general Aulus Plautius served as first governor of Britannia.
However, Great Britain had already frequently been the target of invasions,
planned and actual, by forces of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. In
common with other regions on the edge of the empire, Britain had enjoyed
diplomatic and trading links with the Romans in the century since Julius Caesar's
expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, and Roman economic and cultural influence was a
significant part of the British late pre-Roman Iron Age, especially in the south.
Between 55 BC and the 40s AD, the status quo of tribute, hostages, and
client states without direct military occupation, begun by Caesar's invasions of
Britain, largely remained intact. Augustus prepared invasions in 34 BC, 27 BC and
25 BC. The first and third were called off due to revolts elsewhere in the empire,
the second because the Britons seemed ready to come to terms.
Caligula planned a campaign against the British in 40 AD, but its execution
was bizarre: according to Suetonius, he drew up his troops in battle formation
facing the English Channel and ordered them to attack the standing water.
Afterwards, he had the troops gather sea shells, referring to them as "plunder from
the ocean, due to the Capitol and the Palace", his invasion attempt readied the
troops and facilities that would make Claudius' invasion possible 3 years later (e.g.
a lighthouse was built by Caligula at Boulogne-sur-Mer, the model for the one
built soon after 43 at ancient Dover).
Three years later, in 43, possibly by re-collecting Caligula's troops, Claudius
mounted an invasion force to re-instate Verica, an exiled king of the Atrebates.
Aulus Plautius, a distinguished senator, was given overall charge of four legions,
totalling about 20,000 men, plus about the same number of auxiliaries.
The main invasion force under Aulus Plautius crossed in three divisions. The
port of departure is usually taken to have been Boulogne, and the main landing at
Rutupiae (Richborough, on the east coast of Kent). Richborough has a large natural
harbour which would have been suitable, and archaeology shows Roman military
occupation at about the right time.
British resistance was led by Togodumnus and Caratacus, sons of the late
king of the Catuvellauni, Cunobelinus. A substantial British force met the Romans
at a river crossing thought to be near Rochester on the River Medway. The battle
raged for two days. The British were pushed back to the Thames. The Romans
pursued them across the river causing them to lose men in the marshes of Essex;
one division of auxiliary Batavian troops swam across the river as a separate force.
Togodumnus died shortly after the battle on the Thames. Aulus Plautius
halted and sent a message for Claudius to join him for the final push. Cassius Dio
presents this as Plautius needing the emperor's assistance to defeat the resurgent
British, who were determined to avenge Togodumnus. However, Claudius was not
a military man. Claudius's arch says he received the surrender of eleven kings
without any loss, and Suetonius says that Claudius received the surrender of the
Britons without battle or bloodshed.It is likely that the Catuvellauni were already
as good as beaten, allowing the emperor to appear as conqueror on the final march
on Camulodunum. Cassius Dio relates that he brought war elephants and heavy
armaments which would have overawed any remaining native resistance. Eleven
tribes of South East Britain surrendered to Claudius and the Romans prepared to
move further west and north. The Romans established their new capital at
Camulodunum and Claudius returned to Rome to celebrate his victory. Caratacus
escaped and would continue the resistance further west. Campaigns under Aulus
Plautius focused on the commercially valuable southeast of Britain.
Late in 47 the new governor of Britain, Ostorius Scapula, began a campaign
against the tribes of modern day Wales, and the Cheshire Gap. The Silures of south
east Wales caused considerable problems to Ostorius and fiercely defended the
Welsh border country. Caratacus himself was defeated in the Battle of Caer
Caradoc and fled to the Roman client tribe of the Brigantes who occupied the
Pennines. Their queen, Cartimandua was unable or unwilling to protect him
however given her own truce with the Romans and handed him over to the
invaders. Ostorius died and was replaced by Aulus Gallus who brought the Welsh
borders under control but did not move further north or west, probably because
Claudius was keen to avoid what he considered a difficult and drawn-out war for
little material gain in the mountainous terrain of upland Britain. When Nero
became emperor in AD 54, he seems to have decided to continue the invasion and
appointed Quintus Veranius as governor, a man experienced in dealing with the
troublesome hill tribes of Asia Minor. Veranius and his successor Gaius Suetonius
Paulinus mounted a successful campaign across Wales, famously destroying the
druidical centre at Mona or Anglesey in AD 60. Final occupation of Wales was
postponed however when the rebellion of Boudica forced the Romans to return to
the south east. The Silures were not finally conquered until circa AD 76 when
Sextus Julius Frontinus' long campaign against them began to have success.
Following the successful suppression of Boudica, a number of new Roman
governors continued the conquest by edging north. Cartimandua was forced to ask
for Roman aid following a rebellion by her husband Venutius. Quintus Petillius
Cerialis took his legions from Lincoln as far as York and defeated Venutius near
Stanwick around 70. This resulted in the already Romanised Brigantes and Parisii
tribes being further assimilated into the empire proper. Frontinus was sent into
Roman Britain in 74 AD to succeed Quintus Petillius Cerialis as governor of that
island. He subdued the Silures and other hostile tribes of Wales, establishing a new
base at Caerleon for Legio II Augusta and a network of smaller forts fifteen to
twenty kilometres apart for his auxiliary units. During his tenure, he probably
established the fort at Pumsaint in west Wales, largely to exploit the gold deposits
at Dolaucothi. He retired in 78 AD, and later he was appointed water commissioner
in Rome. The new governor was Gnaeus Julius Agricola, made famous through the
highly laudatory biography of him written by his son-in-law, Tacitus.
Arriving in mid-summer of 78, Agricola found several previously defeated
peoples had re-established their independence. The first to be dealt with were the
Ordovices of north Wales, who had destroyed a cavalry ala of Roman auxiliaries
stationed in their territory. Knowing the terrain from his prior military service in
Britain, he was able to move quickly to defeat and virtually exterminate them. He
then invaded Anglesey, forcing the inhabitants to sue for peace. The following year
he moved against the Brigantes of northern England and the Selgovae along the
southern coast of Scotland, using overwhelming military power to re-establish
Roman control. Details of the early years of the Roman occupation in North
Britain are unclear but began no earlier than 71, as Tacitus says that in that year
Petillius Cerialis (governor 71 – 74) waged a successful war against the Brigantes
whose territory straddled Britain along the Solway-Tyne line. Tacitus praises both
Cerialis and his successor Julius Frontinus (governor 75 – 78), but provides no
additional information on events prior to 79 regarding the lands or peoples living
north of the Brigantes. However, the Romans certainly would have followed up
their initial victory over the Brigantes in some manner. In particular, archaeology
has shown that the Romans had campaigned and built military camps in the north
along Gask Ridge, controlling the glens that provided access to and from the
Scottish Highlands, and also throughout the Scottish Lowlands in northeastern
Scotland. In describing Agricola's campaigns, Tacitus does not explicitly state that
this is actually a return to lands previously occupied by Rome, where Roman
occupation either had been thrown off by the inhabitants, or had been abandoned
by the Romans.
Roman occupation was withdrawn to a line subsequently established as one
of the limes of the empire (i.e. a defensible frontier) by the construction of
Hadrian's Wall. An attempt was made to push this line north to the River ClydeRiver Forth area in 142 when the Antonine Wall was constructed. However, this
was once again abandoned after two decades and only subsequently re-occupied on
an occasional basis. The Romans retreated to the earlier and stronger Hadrian's
Wall in the River Tyne-Solway Firth frontier area, this having been constructed
around 122. Roman troops, however, penetrated far into the north of modern
Scotland several more times. Indeed, there is a greater density of Roman marching
camps in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe as a result of at least four major
attempts to subdue the area. The most notable was in 209 when the emperor
Septimus Severus, claiming to be provoked by the belligerence of the Maeatae
tribe, campaigned against the Caledonian Confederacy. He used the three legions
of the British garrison (augmented by the recently formed 2nd Parthica legion),
9000 imperial guards with cavalry support, and numerous auxiliaries supplied from
the sea by the British fleet, the Rhine fleet and two fleets transferred from the
Danube for the purpose. According to Dio Cassius, he inflicted genocidal
depredations on the natives and incurred the loss of 50,000 of his own men to the
attrition of guerrilla tactics before having to withdraw to Hadrian's Wall. He
repaired and reinforced the wall with a degree of thoroughness that led most
subsequent Roman authors to attribute the construction of the wall to him. It was
during the negotiations to purchase the truce necessary to secure the Roman retreat
to the wall that the first recorded utterance, attributable with any reasonable degree
of confidence, to a native of Scotland was made (as recorded by Dio Cassius).
When Septimus Severus' wife, Julia Domna, criticised the sexual morals of the
Caledonian women, the wife of a Caledonian chief, Argentocoxos, replied: "We
consort openly with the best of men while you allow yourselves to be debauched in
private by the worst". The emperor Septimus Severus died at York while planning
to renew hostilities, but these plans were abandoned by his son Caracalla.
Later excursions into Scotland by the Romans were generally limited to the
scouting expeditions of exploratores in the buffer zone that developed between the
walls, trading contacts, bribes to purchase truces from the natives, and eventually
the spread of Christianity. The degree to which the Romans interacted with the
island of Hibernia is still unresolved amongst archaeologists in Ireland. The
successes and failures of the Romans in subduing the peoples of Britain are still
represented in the political geography of the British Isles today, with the modern
border between Scotland and England running close to the line of Hadrian's Wall.
Druids oppose landing of Romans.
By Claudius’s time, no foreign territory was deemed immune to conquest.
The recently enthroned Claudius needed to consolidate his authority, and a massive
invasion force was mustered under the command of Aulus Plautius. The Romans
swept rapidly through south-east England, brutally eliminating whatever resistance
they encountered, which wasn’t much. A tribal chieftain, Caratacus, retreating
tactically from the early Roman capital Camulodunum (Colchester) to south
Wales, managed to put up enough of a fight for the Romans to spare his life after
he was captured and brought to Rome. There was also continued resistance in
Wales, largely led by Druid priests.
After Caratacus, the next spirited fightback was a decade later, when the
widowed tribal queen, Boudicca, spearheaded a combined rebel force of her own
Iceni people and the neighbouring Trinovantes. They burned down three major
southern towns, including the newly founded Londinium. When this coalition army
was annihilated, Boudicca swallowed poison to avoid the indignity of capture.
During the decades of the 70s and 80s, the Romans extended their sway over
the island, pushing north-westwards from their southern base. They caused panic
and terror wherever they arrived, but their presence also led to the founding of
many towns and cities, such as Bath, Lincoln, Chester and York, connected by
long, straight roads like Watling Street and Fosse Way. The push eventually
crossed into Scotland, but the further north the imperial forces penetrated, the less
appetite they appeared to have for hanging on to the new territories won.
After a prolonged general withdrawal from the Scottish outposts, the
emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of a defensive wall across the border in
AD 122, from Carlisle to Newcastle. Although the wall was never finished, it
marked the northern border of what was by then a continent-wide empire. In 138,
Hadrian’s successor Antonius Pius ordered a new wall to be built across Scotland,
pushing the boundary further north again, but in due course this too was
abandoned, and the wall Hadrian had ordered once again became the British
Rubicon.
The local nobility survived by reaching accommodations with Roman
power. Wholesale Romanisation of local culture and customs was the price paid
for a relatively peaceable coexistence with the occupying power. Despite the
popular image, most ordinary people probably remained fairly untouched by the
conquest. Life at the most primitive level continued unscathed, but by the third
century, Britain was booming under Roman tutelage. Wool and grain, animal
skins, and metals such as silver and tin, underpinned a flourishing export trade.
When the end came, Britain was far from being the ruthlessly oppressed
colony suddenly breaking the chains of its bondage. It had established its own
economic and political traditions within the Empire, even electing its own rulers,
either from within the Roman military ranks or not.
By AD 410, the date usually given for the end of the Roman era, the Empire
was riddled with internal conflicts and weakened by attacks in its own heartland.
As the British at last stood up to it, rejecting the idea of government from the heart
of the continent, they had sensed – correctly – that the Romans had neither the
resources nor the administrative will to hold on to Britain. A celebrated letter from
the Roman emperor Honorius gave the command to withdraw troops, warning the
British that they would have to look to their own defence.
Boudica (pronounced /ˈbuːdɨkə/; also spelled Boudicca), formerly known
as Boadicea /boʊdɨˈsiːə/ and known in Welsh as "Buddug" [ˈbɨ̞ðɨ̞ɡ][1] (d. AD 60
or 61) was a queen of a Celtic tribe who led an uprising against the occupying
forces of the Roman Empire.
Boudica's husband Prasutagus, ruler of the Iceni tribe who had ruled as a
nominally independent ally of Rome, left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and
the Roman Emperor in his will. However, when he died his will was ignored. The
kingdom was annexed as if conquered, Boudica was flogged and her daughters
raped, and Roman financiers called in their loans.
In AD 60 or 61, while the Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was
leading a campaign on the island of Anglesey in north Wales, Boudica led the Iceni
people, along with the Trinovantes and others, in revolt. They destroyed
Camulodunum (modern Colchester), formerly the capital of the Trinovantes, but
now a colonia (a settlement for discharged Roman soldiers) and the site of a temple
to the former emperor Claudius, which was built and maintained at local expense.
In A.D.43 Britain was again invaded by Roman legions under Emperor
Claudius and Britain became part of the Roman Empire. Britain was totally
conquered except for Scotland (and other parts beyond Hadrian’s Wall, a long
stone wall built about 121 A.D. during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian to protect
the province from the inroads of the Celtic Scots and non-Indo-European Picts, the
Celtic tribes of Caledonia. The Romans subdued the Britions and colonized the
country establishing a great number of military camps which eventually developed
into English cities. Under the emperor Domitian, about 80 A.D. they reached the
territory of the modern cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow.
The Roman occupation of Britain lasted nearly 400 years; the province was
carefully guarded: about 40,000 men were stationed there. Two fortified walls ran
across the country, a network of paved Roman roads connected the towns and
military camps. Scores of towns with a mixed population grew along the Roman
roads – inhabited by Roman legionaries, civilians and by the native Celts; among
the most important trading centres of Roman Britain was London. The Roman
occupation came to an end in the early 5th c. In A.D. 410, the Roman troops were
officially withdrawn to Rome by the emperor Constantine. This temporary
withdrawal turned out to be final, because the Empire was breaking up due to
internal and external causes, - particularly the attacks of barbarian tribes (including
the Teutons) when Rome itself was threatened by an incursion of the Goths under
king Alaric in this very year 410 the city of Rome was captured by the Goths. The
other cause was the growth of independent kingdoms on former Roman territories.
The expansion of Franks to Gaul in the 5th c. cut off Britain from the Roman world.
The Britons had to rely on their own forces in the coming struggle with Germanic
tribes.
Four centuries of Roman occupation had a profound effect on the country,
had meant far- reaching Romanization, or Latinization, of life in Great Britain,
including Christianization of its inhabitants and the establishment of Latin, besides
Brittonic( a sub-branch of Common Celtic from which Welsh, Cornish and Breton
are said to have been derived), as the language of administration and law as well as
of the Church and at least the second language of the upper strata among the
urban and rural population of Roman Britain. Romanization of distant Britain was
more superficial than that of continental provinces (e.g. Gaul and Iberia, where the
complete linguistic conquest resulted in the growth of new Romance languages,
French and Spanish.
After the departure of the Roman legions the richest and most civilized part
of the island, the south-east, was laid waste. Many towns were destroyed. Constant
feuds among local landlords as well as the increased assaults of the Celts from the
North and also the first Germanic raids from beyond the North Sea proved ruinous
to the civilization of Roman Britain.
Lecture 4
Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain and formation of English language.
The migration of Angles, Saxons Jutes, Frisians on the British island
and formation of Anglo-Saxon states. The Scandinavian conquest of
Britain and its role in the history of the English language.
The 5th century A.D. was the beginning of the period of the
migration of considerable numbers of Germanic tribesmen, the
beginning of large scale invasion of Britain from the east and south by
Germanic war-bands who, in course of time, established a number of
Germanic kingdoms in various parts of the conquered country. The
invaders from the 5th and the following centuries came from various
West Germanic tribes referred to as Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes.
About the middle of the century these West Germanic tribes overran
Britain and, for the most part colonized the island by the end of the
century, though the invasion lasted in the 6th c. A.D. too. The story of
the invasion was told by Bede (673-735), a monastic scholar who wrote
the first history of England, HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS
ANGLORIUM.
According to Bede the invaders came to Britain in A.D. 449 under
the leadership of two Germanic kings, Hengist and Horsa; they had been
invited by a British king, Vortigern, as assistants and allies in a local
war. The newcomers soon dispossessed their hosts, and other Germanic
bands followed. The invaders came in multitude, in families and clans,
to settle in the occupied territories; the conquest of Britain was not a
migration of entire continental Germanic tribes but a process which
involved numerous, and often probably, mixed bands of many
continental tribes. The Britons fought against the conquerors for about a
century and a half till about the year 600.
The conquerors settled in Britain in the following way:
The Angles occupied most of the territory north of the river the
Thames up to the Firth of Forth in Scotland. The Saxons, the territory
south of the Thames; the Jutes settled in Kent and in the Isle of Wight.
Since the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain their language ties
with the continent were broken, and its further development went its
own way. It is at this time, the 5th century A.D. that the history of the
English language begins. Its original territory was England in the strict
sense.
The direct evidence about the language of the early Germanic
settlers in Britain is almost non-existent before 700 A.D. However, the
great bulk of the writings that have survived from the Old English period
do not go back further than the tenth and eleventh centuries. The
England of the Old English period was not one kingdom. The country
was divided into seven separate kingdoms; Kent, Essex(East Saxons, the
capital - London), Sussex(South Saxons), Wessex(West Saxons),
Mercia(Angles), Nortumbria (Angles) and East Anglia, but only three,
namely Nortumbria, Mercia and Wessex, developed into powers of
major importance, which exercised supremacy over all England. The
conquest of Britain by Anglo-Saxons was completed by the end of the
seventh century. Members of various Germanic tribes were brought into
contact with Celtic –speaking Britons. The speech of the population,
living in the country, was a hybrid Anglo-British intermixture. The Old
English speech community was heterogeneous. The main point to note is
that these kingdoms actually spoke different languages based on the
grammars, vocabularies and pronunciations of the original Germanic
languages of the different tribes. The people who came across the sea to
conquer and settle in the country, brought their North-Sea Germanic
tribal dialects along with them. These dialects formed a kind of ‘natural
basis’ of the ‘insular dialects’. This partly explains the very great
dialectal differences that exist in the relatively small geographic area
represented by modern day England. In the ninth century Wessex, the
strongest among seven kingdoms, won the victory in their struggle for
supremacy. Winchester, the capital of Wessex, became the capital of
England. In 871 the King of Wessex, King Alfred, became the major
leader, the King, who ruled the whole country. West Saxon dialect, as a
regional dialect, developed primarily in the South West of England,
dominated at that period of the development of the English language.
The spread of this standardized form of West Saxon, its knowledge and
use in writing throughout England in the tenth and eleventh centuries
was greatly facilitated by the political and cultural supremacy of Wessex
during most of this period and the unification of England under a single
crown. There are a lot of texts, records, written in West Saxon dialect
found from that time.
A new language-contact situation arose when, in the last third of
the ninth century, Viking war-bands from Denmark and Norway began
the systematic occupation of English territory and the settlement of
occupied areas in various parts of the country. This resulted in a
Scandinavian-speaking community of some considerable size coming
into existence in the period of Viking dominions. It was only in the
battle at Edington (Wiltshire) in 878, when King Alfred won the Danes
that prevented the Danes or Norsemen from becoming lords over all
England and forced them to conclude a peace treaty. The Treaty of
Wedmore practically meant the division of England into two parts. The
Vikings promised to leave Wessex and to accept Christianity. The
northern and eastern territories already belonged to the Danes. This area
was called the Danelaw. The number of people of the Scandinavian
stock who became permanent occupants of the conquered territory was
considerable. Naturally, the massive settlement that the Scandinavians
undertook led to the extensive use of the Norse tongue in the area of the
Danelaw, and we can see evidence of it even today through its
influences on the English language. Scandinavian vocabulary penetrated
nearly every area of the English language. Most words of Scandinavian
origin in English are concrete everyday words. A few examples are
given here: nouns -bank, birth, booth, egg, gift, husband, law, leg, root,
score, sister, skin, sky, skirt, trust, wing, window; adjectives - awkward,
flat, happy, ill, loose, low, odd, sly, ugly, weak, wrong; verbs – to cast,
clip, crawl, cut, die, drown, gasp, give, lift, nag, scare, sprint, take,
want, the present plural of ‘to be’ are; pronouns both, same, they, them
and their.
The facts that even the Norse pronoun ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’
were accepted into English is remarkable; it is very unusual that
grammatical items are borrowed. This suggests that there was extensive
contact between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings and a gradual
integration of the two groups. It can be difficult to recognize the
Scandinavian words since the languages are so closely related. For
example, the Old English word for ‘take’ was niman, but in late Old
English tacan is found. The Old Norse word was taka, which shows that
it must have been borrowed from the Scandinavians. In the same way,
the word ‘law’ was originally oe but a later recording is lagu, which
comes from the Old Norse. In fact, judging by the large number of
Scandinavian words in the legal area, the Vikings had a considerable
impact upon the law and order of the Anglo-Saxons. The Scandinavian
peoples brought not only their laws and customs to the Danelaw, but
their view on law and legal custom was to a great extent acknowledged
by all of England.
Lecture 5
The problem of chronological division of the periods in the history
of the English language. The main three periods which are
distinguished in the history of the English language: Old English,
Middle English, Modern English.
Whenever we have to deal with a long stretch of time in the history
of the country, or of a culture, we naturally tend to divide this stretch of
time into some periods. This division must not be arbitrary: it must be
based on a set of features agreed in advance and serving to distinguish
one period from the other. With reference to the history of English
language which covers roughly 1300 years, different features might be
taken as aground for such division. The English scholar Henry Sweet
(1845-1912), the author of a number of works on the English language
and on its history, proposed the following division of the history of
English language according to the state of unstressed ending.
The first period –Old English – the period of full endings. This
means that any vowel may be found in an unstressed ending. For
example, the word singan means ‘sing’, we have at the end vowel a or
the word sunu means ‘son’ we have at the end vowel u.
The second period - Middle English is the period of leveled
endings.
Old English singan - singen Middle English, sunu - sune Middle
English.
The third period is Modern English period, the period of lost
endings. This means that ending is lost altogether, we have sing and son.
This division is based on a feature both phonetic (weakening and
loss of unstressed vowel sounds) and morphological (weakening and
loss of grammatical morphemes).
Now we must define the chronological limits of each period. These
are approximately the following: the Old English period begins about
700A.D. (the time to which the earliest writing in English belongs) and
lasts till about 1100 A.D.
The Middle English period lasts in the period between 1100 and
till 1500 (including the 15th century transitional period).
The Modern English period begins about 1500 and lasts till our
own times. Within Modern English period it is customary to distinguish
between Early Modern English (approximately 1500-1660), and Late
Modern English (approximately from 1660 till our times). These dates
are very close to important events in the social and political life of the
country: 1100 follows close upon 1066, the year of Norman Conquest at
the Battle of Hastings, when the Duke of Normandy, William the
Conqueror, defeated King Harold and became the king of England. The
Norman Invasion of England in 1066 brought French into England. This
led to the unusual situation, in which the common people spoke one
language (English), and the aristocrats spoke another (Norman
French).The two languages gradually began to mix into what we now
call Middle English
and the year 1500 is
close to 1485, the year when the war of Roses came to an end, which
marked the decay of feudalism and the rise of capitalism in England.
The end of the 15th century is also the time when the English nation
arises. The Early Modern English Period coincided with the
Renaissance, the time of discoveries and learning, the time of
introduction of printing. The loss of most inflectional endings in the 15th
c. was the main feature of the Modern English.
According to the famous author of the textbook “A History of the
English Language” T.A.Rastorguyeva, the history of the English
language is subdivided into seven periods differing in \linguistic
situation and the nature of linguistic changes.
I
Early OE (also: Pre450 - 700
written OE)
II
OE (also: Written OE)
700 - 1066
III
IV
Early ME
ME (also: Classical ME)
1066 - 1350
1350 - 1475
V
Early NE
1476 - 1660
VI
Normalisation
Period
(also:
Age
of
1660 - 1800
Correctness,
NeoClassical period)
VII
Late NE, or Mod E
(including Present-day 1800 - …
English)
} OLD ENGLISH
}
MIDDLE
ENGLISH
EARLY
NEW
ENGLISH
NEW ENGLISH
} (also: MODERN
ENGLISH)
Lecture 6
The main historical events of Middle Age period.
The Norman Conquest of England and its influence on all spheres of
life. The social structure of England in XII c. – XV c.
The colonization and the intermixture of the Scandinavians
with Anglo-Saxons continued from the 9th c. on, during two hundred
years, which witnessed diverse political events. After Canute’s death,
Denmark’s king, in1042, after the collapse of his empire, the new
English king, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), who had been reared
in France, brought over many Norman advisors. He paved the way for
Norman infiltration long before the Norman Conquest. The government
of the country at that time was in the hands of Anglo-Saxons lords,
headed by the powerful Earl Godwin of Wessex. In 1066, after
Edward’s Confessor death, the Elders of England proclaimed Harold
Godwin the king of England. As soon as the news reached William of
Normandy, he mustered a big army by promise of land and plunder ( one
third of his soldiers were Normans, others, mercenaries from all over
Europe) and, with the support of the Pope, landed in Britain.
The Normans were by origin a Scandinavian tribe (Norman Northman). In the 9th century they began inroads on the northern coast
of France and occupied the territory on the both shores of the Seine
estuary. Under a treaty concluded in 912 with the Norman chief Rollo,
the French king Charles the Simple ceded to the Normans this stretch of
the coast, which since then was called Normandy. During the century
and a half between the Normans’ settlement in France and their invasion
of England they had undergone a powerful influence of French culture.
Mixing with the local population, they adopted the French language and
in the middle of the11th.century, in spite of their Scandinavian origin,
they were bearers of French culture and of the French language
In 1066, on October14, William, Duke of Normandy, who had
long claimed the English throne, routed the English troops under king of
England Harold Godwin, who was killed in the battle of Hastings. The
English were defeated. The Norman Conquest of England began in
1066. It proved to be a turning point in English history and had a
considerable influence on the English language. In the course of a few
years military occupation was completed and the Normans became
masters of England. The ruling class of Anglo-Saxon nobility vanished
almost completely; some of them perished in battles, others were
executed. This nobility was replaced by Norman barons, who spoke
French, namely its Norman dialect. William the Conqueror (1066-1087)
conducted a relentless policy of subjugation, devastation and almost
depopulated Northumbria and Mercia, which tried to rise against the
conquerors. Most of the lands of Anglo-Saxon lords passed into the
hands of Norman barons. William’s own possession comprised about
one third of the country. All posts in the church, in the government, in
army were given to persons of French culture. About 200000 French
people crossed the Channel to make their home in Britain. Immigration
was easy, since the Norman kings of Britain were also dukes of
Normandy and about a hundred years later, took possession of the whole
western half of France, thus bringing England into still closer contact
with the continent. French monks, merchants, soldiers, teachers,
craftsmen flooded the south-western towns of England seeking for a new
field of activity. This influx lasted for about two centuries. During three
hundred years the ruling language of England was French. It was the
language of the administration, the court, the government, the church,
the army. The English language was reduced to lower social sphere: the
main mass of peasantry and townspeople spoke English. The intellectual
life, literature, education were in the hands of French speaking people.
French was the language of writing. But most of the English people
were illiterate, continued to speak English and looked upon French as
foreign and hostile. The struggle between two languages for supremacy
lasted all through three centuries as English was the living language of
the entire people and French was restricted to certain social spheres. As
a consequence of the Norman Conquest, political and economic power
became concentrated in the hands of a small group of great feudal
landlords, feudal aristocracy, which included the king himself, the
landlords among the clergy- the archbishops, bishops, and the superiors
of the more important abbeys.
Three hundred years of the domination of French affected English
more than any other foreign influence before and after. The Norman
Conquest put an end to the dominating position of the West Saxon
literary language.
Lecture 7
Formation of English as the Language of the State and Literature.
The struggle between English and French languages. The London
Dialect.
The domination of the French language in England came to an end in the
course of the 14th c. The victory of English was predetermined and prepared for by
previous events and historical conditions.
Little by little the Normans and English drew together and intermingled. In
the 14th c. Anglo-Norman was a dead language; it appeared as corrupt French to
those who had access to the French of Paris through books, education or direct
contacts. The number of people who knew French had fallen; Anglo-Norman and
French literary compositions had lost their audience and had to be translated into
English. Towards the end of the 14th c. the English language had taken the place of
French as the language of literature and administration. English was once more the
dominant speech of all social classes in all regions. It had ousted French since it
had always remained the mother tongue and only spoken language of the bulk of
the population.
It may be interesting to mention some facts showing how the transition came
about. In 1362 Edward III gave his consent to an act of Parliament ordaining that
English should be used in the law courts, since “French has become much
unknown in the realm”. This reform, however, was not carried out of years to
come: French, as well as Latin, continued to be used by lawyers alongside English
until the 16th c. Yet many legal documents which have survived from the late 14 th
and 15th c. are written in English: wills, municipal acts, petitions. In 1363, for the
first time in history, Parliament was opened by the king’s chancellor with an
address in English.
In 1399 King Henry IV used English in his official speech
when accepting the throne. In 1404 English diplomats refused to conduct
negotiations with France in French, claiming that the language was unknown to
them. All these events testify to the recognitions of English as the state language.
Slowly and inevitably English regained supremacy in the field of education.
As early as 1349 it was ruled that English should be used at schools in teaching
Latin, but it was not until 1385 that the practice became general, and even the
universities began to conduct their curricula in English. By the 15 th c. the ability to
speak French had come to be regarded as a special accomplishment, and French,
like Latin, was learnt as a foreign language. One might have expected that the
triumph of English would lead to a weakening of the French influence upon
English. In reality, however, the impact of French became more apparent. As seen
from the surviving written texts, French loan-words multiplied at the very time
when English became a medium of general communications. The large-scale influx
of French loans can be attributed to several causes. It is probable that many French
words had been in current use for quite a long time before they were first recorded.
We should recall that records in Early ME were scarce and came mostly from the
Northern and Western regions, which were least affected by French influence.
Later ME texts were produced in London and in the neighbouring areas, with a
mixed and largely bilingual population. In numerous translations from French –
which became necessary when the French language was going out of use – many
loan-words were employed for the sake of greater precision, for want of a suitable
native equivalent or due to the translator’s inefficiency. It is also important that in
the course of the 14th c. the local dialects were brought into closer contact; they
intermixed and influenced one another: therefore the infiltration of French
borrowings into all the local and social varieties of English progressed more
rapidly.
As with other foreign influences, the impact of French is to be found, first
and foremost, in the vocabulary. The layers and the semantic spheres of the French
borrowings reflect the relations between the Norman rulers and the English
populations, the dominance of the French language in literature and the contacts
with French culture. The prevalence of French as the language of writing led to
numerous changes in English spelling. The dialects of this Middle English, the 14 th
and 15th.c.period of time, were divided into the Southern group, including Kentish,
and the South-Western dialects, the Midland group with its minute subdivisions
and the Northern group. The most important event in the changing linguistic
situation was the rise of the London dialect as the prevalent written form of
language.
The history of the London dialect reveals the sources of the literary language
in Late ME and also the main source and basis of the Literary Standard, both in its
written and spoken forms. The history of London extends back to the Roman
period. Even in OE times London was by far the biggest town in Britain. The Early
ME records made in London – beginning with the PROCLAMATION of 1258 –
show that the dialect of London was fundamentally East Saxon; in terms of the ME
division, it belonged to the South-Western dialect group. Later records indicate that
the speech of London was becoming more mixed, with East Midland features
gradually prevailing over the Southern features. The change of the dialect type and
the mixed character of London English can be explained by the history of the
London population. In the 12th and 13th c. the inhabitants of London came from the
south-western districts. In the middle of the 14th c. London was practically
depopulated during the “Black Death” (1348) and later outbreaks of bubonic
plague. It has been estimated that about one third of the population of Britain died
in the epidemics, the highest proportion of deaths occurring in London. But in
1377 London had already over 35000 inhabitants.
Most of the new arrivals came from the East Midlands: Norfolk, Suffolk,
and other populous and wealthy counties of Medieval England, although not
bordering immediately on the capital. As a result the speech of Londoners was
brought much closer to the East Midland dialect. The official and literary papers
produced in London in the late 14th c. had east Midland features. The London
dialect became more Anglian than Saxon in character .This mixed dialect of
London, which had extended to the two universities in Oxford and Cambridge
ousted French from official spheres and from the sphere of writing.
By the middle of the thirteenth century Norman-French, which had been the
official language since the Norman Conquest in 1066, was almost completely
ousted by English. In 1362 Parliament was first opened in English, and a few years
later court proceedings were ordered to be carried on in English and not in French,
"which was too little known." The formation of the national literary English
language covers the Early NE period (c. 1475—1660). There were at least two
major external factors which favoured the rise of the national language and the
literary standards: the unification of the country and the progress of culture. The
end of the Middle English period and the beginning of New English is marked by
the following events in the life of the English people:
1) The end of the war between the White and the Red Rose — 1485 and the
establishment of an absolute monarchy on the British soil with Henry Tudor as the
first absolute monarch — the political expression of the English nation.
The War of the Roses (1455-—1485) was the most important event of the 15th
century which marked the decay of feudalism and the birth of a new social order. It
signified the rise of an absolute monarchy in England and a political centralisation,
and consequently a linguistic centralisation leading to a predominance of the
national language over local dialects.
2).the introduction of printing — 1477 by William Caxton (1422— 1490).
Printing was invented in Germany by Johann Gutenberg in 1438. It quickly spread
to other countries and England was among them. The first English printing office
was founded in 1476 by William Caxton. The appearance of a considerable
number of printed books contributed to the normalisation of spelling and grammar
forms fostering the choice of a single variant over others. Caxton, a native of Kent,
acquired the London dialect and made a conscious choice from among competing
variants.
Since that time — the end of the 15th century the English language began its
development as the language of the English nation, whereas up to that time,
beginning with the Germanic conquest of Britain in the 5th century and up to the
15th century, what we call the English language was no more than a conglomerate
of dialects, first tribal and then local. Indeed, a notable feature of the Middle
English period is the dialectical variety that finds expression in the written
documents. It was only late in the 14th century that the London dialect, itself a
mixture of the southern and south-eastern dialects, began to emerge as the
dominant type.
Thus, the English national language was formed on the basis of the London dialect
which was uppermost among Middle English dialects due to the political,
geographical, economic and «linguistic» position of London which became the
capital of England already in the 11th century — before the Norman conquest and
which was in the 15th century a thriving economic centre and port of England due
to its geographical position near the estuary of the largest river in England. The
geographical position of London as a large port and city in the centre of the
country where people of the North mingled with people of the South, on the one
hand, enabled the Londoners to acquire features of both southern and northern
dialects, and on the other hand, the people coming to London helped to spread the
London dialect all over the country.
Lecture № 8
The English vocabulary and its development from Old English till nowadays.
Old English was almost a purely Germanic language. The full extent of O.E.
vocabulary is not known. Modern estimates of the total vocabulary of O.E. range
from about thirty thousand words to almost one hundred thousand. It consisted of
native words inherited from Proto-Germanic or formed from native roots and
affixes. Native OE words can be subdivided into a number of etymological layers
coming from different historical periods. The three main historical layers in the
native OE words are: 1) common Indo-European words, 2) common Germanic
words, 3) specifically OE words.
1) Words belonging to the common Indo-European layer constitute the
oldest part of the OE vocabulary. They go back to the days of the IE parent
language before the extension over the wide territories of Europe and Asia and
before the appearance of the Germanic group. They were inherited by ProtoGermanic and passed into Germanic languages of various subgroups including
English. Among these names there are names of natural phenomena, plants,
animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship.
For example: modor –mother, fader-father, sunu-son,broder-brother, dohterdaughter; parts of the human body: fot-foot, heorte-heart, nose, lip, nazl-nail,
beard-beard; plants: treow-tree, birch, corn; animals: ealh-elk, sawan-sow, swine,
cow, goose; heavenly bodies sun, moon, star; time of the day; day, night;
numerous adjectives; neowe-new, long, riht-right, red, glad, sad; the numerals from
one to hundred; verbs: tear, sit, stand, eat, lie, bear, be, know; personal and
demonstrative pronouns.
2) The common Germanic words include words which are shared by most
Germanic languages but do not occur outside the group. Common Germanic words
originated in the common period of Germanic history, i. e. in PG when the
Teutonic tribes lived close together. Semantically these words are connected with
nature, with the sea, everyday’s life; ; parts of the human body; head, hand, arm,
finger, bone; animals: bear, sheep, fox, calf; plants: oak, fir, grass; names of
natural phenomena; rain, frost,; seasons of the year; winter, spring, summer;
landscape features; sea, land, sand, earth; human dwellings and furniture; house,
room, bench; sea-going vessels: boat, ship; adjectives; green, blue, grey, white,
small, thick, high, old, good; verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, sing, find, starve,
answer, make, give, drink.
3) Specifically OE words - the third etymological layer of native words can
be defined as words which do not occur in other Germanic or non - Germanic
languages. These words are few, stand alone in the vocabulary system of IndoEuropean languages: OE brid –NE bird, OE clippian-NE call, boy, girl, lord, lady,
man, woman, wife, child, daisy, always, live, meat, sleep and etc.
Foreign Element in the Old .English vocabulary.
Borrowed words constituted only a small portion of O.E. vocabulary – all in
all about six hundred words- they are of great importance for linguistic study. The
borrowings reflect contacts of English with other tongues. O.E. borrowings came
from two sources: Celtic and Latin.
Borrowings from Celtic.
The influence of Celtic upon Old English was slight. Abundant borrowings
from Celtic are found in place-names. The O.E kingdoms Kent, Deira, Bernicia
derive their names from the names of Celtic tribes. The names of York, the Downs
have been traced to Celtic sources. Various Celtic designations of river, water were
understood as proper names – Avon-Evan- in Celtic means water, The Thames,
meaning Dark River, The Dover also came from Celtic. Some elements frequently
occurring in Celtic place names can help to identify them: comb- deep valley in
Batcombe, Duncombe. London means the town of the wild one. Many Celtic
names with Celtic elements are hybrids. The Celtic component combined with a
Latin or a Germanic component make a compound place-name; e.g.
Celtic plus Latin: Man -chester, Win-chester, Lan-caster, Glow-cester, Worcester. Celtic plus Germanic: York - shire, Salis - bury, Devon-shire ,Canter-bury.
Outside of place names Celtic borrowings in OE were very few: no more than a
dozen. Examples of common nouns are OE binn (NE bin or crib), OE cradol
(NE cradle) , bratt –(NE cloak) , loch dial. lake
Latin influence on the Old English Vocabulary. Latin borrowings.
Latin was not the language of a conquered people. It was the language of a
higher civilization; a civilization from which the Anglo-Saxons had much to learn.
The contact with that civilization, at first commercial and military, later religious
and intellectual, extended over many centuries and was constantly renewed. It
began long before the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain and continued throughout the
Old English period. Chronologically they can be divided into two layers:
1)
the oldest layer words taken over either directly from the Romans
before the Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain; 2) The second layer: words concerning
religion and the church, taken over after the introduction of Christianity which
began in 597.
The first layer рere belongs, on the one hand, names of objects of material
culture, and on the other hand, names of products bought from Roman merchants,
for example: wine from Latin vinum, butter from Latin butyrum, plum from
prunus, cheese from Latin caseus, pipor-pepper from Latin piper. Roman
contribution to building can be perceived in words like O.E. cealk-chalk,
O.E.coper- NE copper, tile, wall, street. A group of words relating to domestic life
is exemplified by O.E. cytel-kettle, disc-dish, cuppe-cup, pyle -pillow. The second
layer consists of words which directly or indirectly belong to the sphere of religion
and church. They are O.E. biscop -bishop, cleric- churchman-clericus, apostolapostle- apostolus, devil, monk, candle, minster, angel, priest. The amount and
variety of the borrowings show the extent of Christianity’s impact on seventhcentury Anglo-Saxon society. The linguistic result of the Scandinavian’s
influence was threefold. Many general words entered the language; nearly 1,000
words became a part of Standard English. There are a lot of Scandinavian place
names in England. The most remarkable influence is the forms of the verb “to be”
and personal pronouns.
Lecture 9.The Development of the Phonetic structure of English.
Old English is so far removed from Modern English that one may take it for
entirely different language this is largely to the peculiarities of its pronunciation.
The system of vowel phonemes has undergone drastic changes in the course
of English linguistic history. The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of
the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of
vowels. The vocalic system in OE included 2 subsystems: monophthongs,
diphthongs. The major factor in OE was a category of quantity vowels. It means
that all OE vowels, including diphthongs, could be both long and short. Though the
total number of phonemes has practically remained the same, their distinctive
features and the principles of their opposition in the system have altered. The
system of OE vowels consisted of 7 short and long monophthongs and 4
diphthongs.
OLD ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM
Monophthongs a
e
i
o
u
y
æ
short
man
set
sit
God ful
wynn
joy
long
i:
wid
a:
e:
o:
u:
y:
æ:
ham
he
Mod.E.wide good hus
ryman
Mod
house
E.home
diphthongs
ea earm arm eo eorl earl
ie
io
ea: eare ear eo: beor beer
ie:
io:
The new system came with Anglo-Saxon tribes. In most cases these new
processes represent the result of influence of the next sounds and are called the
combinatory changes.
Phonetic Changes in OE.
1. OE Fracture of vowels (Breaking)преломление
OE fracture was the earliest phonetic process which took place in the first half of
the VI th century. OE fracture is the diphthongization of short vowels before
certain consonant clusters, namely short vowels were diphthongised before the
consonant. Short vowels æ and е were diphthongised: æ turns into ea before
combinations r + consonant, l + consonant, h + consonant, and before h at the end
of a word. The vowel [æ ] >[ ea] underwent fracture. For example: æ >ea before
r+ consonant ærm - earm, , before h + consonant æhta –eahta, before l +
consonant æld-eald, before h at the end of a word sæh-seah.
The vowel e turns into eo before combinations r+consonant, l + velar
consonant c and h, before h at the end of a word. For example: e > eo before r+
consonant herte – heorte –heart ; [e] > [eo] in OE derc – deorc, NE dark.
L+consonant melcan-meolcan-milk ; L+h selh -seolh –seal; feh –feoh. The
phonetic essence of fracture is that the front vowel is partially assimilated to the
following hard consonant by forming a glide, which combines with the vowel to
form a diphthong. Fracture was most consistently carried out in the West Saxon
dialect, in other dialects, such as Mercian, fracture in many cases did not occur. In
these dialects the vowel æ ] >[ a],there were the following variants of words arm,
ald, ahta, sah.
2. Palatalization
OE vowels also changed under the influence of the initial palatal
consonants: c, g and the cluster sc. For example: sc > sh O.E scort –sceort –short
. k,g’,sk,into sounds closed to affricates dz..ch,sh. After the palatal consonants
[k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more
front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scæmu > sceamu (NE shame). In
the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the
stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong,
to conform to the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as
“diphthongisation after palatal consonants”. It is observed in the Wessex dialect. æ
– ea: scæl >sceal>shall ; a > ea scacan>sceacan. o >eo: scort> ceort; e > ie :
зefan>зiefan
3. Contraction – (стяжение.
The vowels contracted into 1 when they were separated by h and h disappeared.
For example: eh+a=eo (sehan – seon); ih+a=eo (tihan- teon); ah+a=ea (slahan –
slean). oh+a=o: (fohan – fon)
4 . Mutation or i-Umlaut.
By mutation or i-Umlaut, we mean a change of vowel, sound alteration,
caused by partial assimilation to the following vowel. It is thought to have taken
place during the 7th century. I-mutation is the most important type of mutation.
Some English word pairs had the effects of a phonological change which took
place over 1,200 years ago. They are the following words: goose-geese; toothteeth; man - men; mouse-mice; hale- health; doom-deem; full-fill; whole-heal; fallfell; blood -bleed; foul-filth; long-length; food-feed; strong – strength; broadbreadth; old -elder. Not all forms affected by i-mutation have survived into modern
English. In Old English, the plural of book was bec, but this has not come into
Modern English as beek, we have in Modern English books.
Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a
vowel in the succeeding syllable. There were 2 types of mutation: i-Umlaut
mutation (palatal mutation) and Back mutation (guttural)-гортанный.
1) i-Umlaut - under its influence vowel moves ahead or narrowed.
æ > e: sætjan – settan, tælian – tellan; o>e ofstian – efstan, ō >ē dōmian –
dēman, u > y fullian - fyllan , u > y cuþ- cŷþþan. Changes in diphthongs: ea >
ie, ea > ie :, eo > ie, eo: > ie:.
2) Back mutation – U-Umlaut it is caused by back vowels (a, o, u). In
Wessex dialect it takes place only before consonants r, l, p, f, m. a>ea saru –
searu, i>io hira – hioru, e>eo herot – heorot. The words which begin with wi –
mutation occurred without dependence from the subsequent consonant: widu –
wiodu. U-umlaut was optional (facultative) and i-umlaut was the main
Development of monophthongs
The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North
Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the
process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction
of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] – is often referred to as the fronting or
palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be interpreted as positional
deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long
[a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a
back vowel in the next syllable.
Development of diphthongs
The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent
changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of
environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and
[a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:],
[eo:] and [ea:]. Towards the end of OE quantitative vowel changes occurred. Early
Middle English is mainly characterized by positional quantitative changes of
monophthongs; at the same time profound independent changes affected the
system of diphthongs: OE diphthongs were monophthongised and lost, and new
types of diphthongs developed from vowels and consonants.
Quantitative Vowel Changes in Late Old English and Early Middle English
Phonetic
Change
Old English
Middle English Modern
conditions
illustrated
English
Before
Vowels
cild
child[ t i: ld]
child
sonorant plus become long
findan
finden[fi:nd n] find
plosive(ld, nd,
climban
climben
climb
mb)
cold
cold
cold
feld
field[fe:ld]
field
fundon
founden
found(Past of
[fu:nden]
f goldind)
gold
gold[go:ld]
Before other
Vowels
fedde
fedde[fedde]
Fed
consonant
become short mette
mette[mette]
met
sequences
In open
Vowels
mete
mete[me:t ]
meat
syllables
become long
stelan
stelen
steal
and more open macian
maken[ma:ken] make
talu
tale[ta:le]
tale
nosu
nose[no:ze]
nose
The OE close labialized vowels [y] and [y:] disappeared in Early Middle
English.
Development of Old English Diphthongs in Early Middle English
Change
Examples
Examples
Examples
illustrated
Old English
Middle
OE
ME
Modern
ea:
eo:
ea
eo
ie
ie:
English (ME)
e:
e:
a
e
i
i:
East
Deop
Earm
Heorte
Nieht
hieran
east[e:st ]
deep[de:p]
arm [arm]
herte[ hert ]
night[nix;t]
heren[he:r n]
English
east
deep
arm
heart
night
hear
Middle English Vowels (the Age of Chaucer, Late 14 c.)
Monophthongs
Diphthongs
Short
i
u
a
o
e
[ai.] day, [oi] joye- joy
Examples
this but can oft
men
[ui] joinen – Mod.E join
Pin, bit, kin
[iu] newe
Long
i:
e: u:
a: o: e: [eu] fewe - Mod.E few
Examples
Ryden, sweete, houre, name, good
[au].lawe, [ou] growe
The study of Middle English phonology is made increasingly difficult by the
intricate dialect situation. There were 6 dialects in Middle English: Northern, West
Midland, East Midland, East Anglia, Southern and Kentish. Long vowels were the
most changeable and historically unstable group of English sounds. At all times
they displayed a strong tendency to become narrower and to diphthongize, whereas
short vowels displayed a reverse trend towards greater openness. Late Middle
English period is characterized by qualitative changes of all vowels. These changes
are known as the “Great Vowel Shift” which involved the change of all Middle
English long monophthongs, and some of the diphthongs. The Great Vowel Shift is
the name given to a series of changes of long vowels between the 14th and the 18th
centuries. During this period all the long vowels became closer or were
diphthongized.
The Great Vowel Shift
Changes Illustrated
Examples
Middle English - Modern Middle English
i:
ai
time[ti:m]
e:
i:
kepen
a:
ei
maken
o:
u:
moon
u:
au
mous
au
:
cause
Examples
Modern English
time [taim]
keep
make
moon
mouse
cause
The Great Vowel Shift did not add any new sounds to the vowel system of
the English language. The effect of the Great Vowel Shift may be seen very
clearly in the English names of many of the letters of the alphabet. A, B, C and D
are pronounced /eɪ, bi, si, di in today's English, but in contemporary French they
are /a, be, se, de/. The French names (which the English names are derived from)
preserve the English vowels from before the Great Vowel Shift. By contrast, the
names of F, L, M, N and S (/ɛf, ɛl, ɛm, ɛn, ɛs/) remain the same in both languages,
because "short" vowels were unaffected by the Shift.
Shortening of long vowels at various stages produced further complications.
ea is again a good example, shortening commonly before coronal consonants such
as d and th, thus: dead, head, threat, wealth etc. (This is known as the bred–bread
merger.) oo was shortened from [uː] to [ʊ] in many cases before k, d and less
commonly t, thus book, foot, good etc. Some cases occurred before the change of
[ʊ] to [ʌ]: blood, flood. Similar, yet older shortening occurred for some instances
of ou: country, could. Some theories attach the cause of the shift to the mass
migration to the south-east part of England after the Black Death, where the
difference in accents led to certain groups modifying their speech to allow for a
standard pronunciation of vowel sounds. The different dialects and the rise of a
standardised middle class in London led to changes in pronunciation, which
continued to spread out from the city. The sudden social mobility after the Black
Death may have caused the shift, with people from lower levels in society moving
to higher levels. Another explanation highlights the language of the ruling class:
the medieval aristocracy had spoken French, but, by the early fifteenth century,
they were using English. Because English spelling was becoming standardised in
the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the
peculiarities of English spelling.
The OE consonant system consisted of the following sounds:
Place of articulation
Labial,
labiodental
Forelingual
(dental)
Mediolingual
(palatal)
Back lingual
(velar)
Manner of articulation
Noise
consonants
plosive
fricative
Sonorants
p
b
f
v
m
w
p:
b:
f:
t
d
m:
n
r
t:
d:
s s:
z
n:
l
k’
x’
j
k’:
g’:
x’:
k
g
x
k:
g:
x: (h)
( )
The OE consonants were subdivided into Labial [p, b ,m, f, v], Dental [t, d.
n, s, z,r, l ], Velar[c, h, ] Sonorants [m, n, l], Plosives [p, b, t, d, k, g]
Some consonants letters denoted different sounds in different positions.
Letter C in OE for instance denoted two different phonemes, according to its
different environment. In some words it denoted the phoneme [k], which remained
[k] in Middle English and Modern English as well. For example,OE caru –cearu care; cyning –king. In other cases it denoted the phoneme [c] or even [ ] which
appears as [ ] denoted by the digraph ch in Modern English.
The letter f denoted both the voiceless [f] and the voiced [v]. Both
consonants were dependent on the environment: voiced [v] could only appear on
voiced environment. For example: afre[ever], fif [fife] in Modern English five.
The same holds true concerning the pairs[s]and [z].
Lecture 10. The development of the English Grammar from Old English till
nowadays. The parts of Speech. The Noun
Old English was a synthetic or inflected type of language; it showed the
relations between words mainly with the help of simple grammatical forms. The
distinguished parts of speech in OE were the following: the noun, the adjective, the
pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction and the
interjection. Inflected parts of speech possessed certain grammatical categories.
Grammatical categories were subdivided into nominal categories, found in nominal
parts of parts of speech and verbal categories found chiefly in the finite verb.
There were five nominal grammatical categories in OE: number, case,
gender, degrees of comparison and the category of definiteness/ indefiniteness.
Each part of speech had its own peculiarities.
The OE noun had two grammatical categories: number and case. Nouns
distinguished three genders, but gender was not a grammatical category; it was
merely a classifying feature accounting for the division of nouns into
morphological classes. The category of number consisted of two members:
singular and plural There were five major cases: nominative, genitive, dative,
accusative, and instrumental. The nominative case indicated the subject of the
sentence. It was also used for direct address or could serve as a predicative. The
accusative indicated the direct object of the sentence. It was never distinguished in
the plural, or in a neuter noun. The genitive case indicated possession. The
meanings of the Genitive case were very complex and can only be grouped under
the headings “Subjective” and “Objective” Genitive. Subjective Genitive is
associated with the possessive meaning and the meaning of origin. Objective
Genitive is associated with what is termed “partitive meaning” .The dative case
indicated the indirect object of the sentence. It was the chief case used with
prepositions, e.g. on morзenne ‘in the morning’. The instrumental case indicated
an instrument used to achieve something. During the Old English period, the
instrumental was falling out of use, having largely merged with the dative. Only
pronouns and strong adjectives retained separate forms for the instrumental.
Morphological classification of nouns. Declensions. Historically, the OE
system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: the stem-suffix, the
gender of nouns, the phonetic structure of the word, phonetic changes in the final
syllables. Stem-suffixes could consist of vowels (vocalic stems, e.g. a-stems, istems), of consonants (consonantal stems, e.g. n-stems), of sound sequences, e.g. ja-stems, -nd-stems. Some groups of nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had a
“zero-suffix”; they are usually termed “root-stems” and are grouped together with
consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants, e.g. OE man, bōc. OE nouns
distinguished three genders: Masc., Fem. and Neut. Sometimes a derivational
suffix referred a noun to a certain gender and placed it into a certain semantic
group, e.g. abstract nouns built with the help of the suffix –þu were Fem. – OE
lenзþu, hyhpu(NE length, height),suffix - ere were Masc. – OE fiscere, bocere(NE
fisher, “learned man”). The following nouns denoting human beings show,
however, that grammatical gender did not necessarily correspond to sex: alongside
Masculine and Feminine nouns denoting males and females there nouns with
“unjustified” gender, for example: OE wif,neutral gender(NE wife)OE maзden
Neutral gender(NE maiden, maid) OE wifman, wimman Masculine (NE woman,
originally a compound word consisting of two roots whose second component OE
man was Mascular + with. OE widuwa, Masculine (‘widower’) –OE widowe,
Feminine (NE widow). Masculine and neuter words generally share their endings.
Feminine words have their own subset of endings. The plural does not distinguish
between genders. The division into genders was in a certain way connected with
the division into stems, though there was no direct correspondence between them:
some stems were represented by nouns of one particular gender, e.g. ō-stems were
always Fem., and others embraced nouns of two or three genders. Other reasons
accounting for the division into declensions were structural and phonetic:
monosyllabic nouns had certain peculiarities as compared to polysyllabic;
monosyllables with a long root-syllable differed in some forms from nouns with a
short syllable. The majority of OE nouns belonged to the a-stems, ō-stems and nstems.
Old English nouns are divided as either strong or weak. Weak nouns have
their own endings. In general, weak nouns are easier than strong nouns, since they
had begun to lose their declensional system. Strong (a,o,i,u –stem). A-stem and its
variation ja&wa – m,n. O-stem – jo&wo –f noun. I-stem – m,f,n. U-stem – m,f. j,w
–appeare before inflexion. Weak decl – n –m,f,n. es –n. room-stem (Root-stem
formed some cases not by an inflexional ending, but by the chance of the root
vowel due to mutation)-no form suffixes. Sound of donation inner flexion.
Mutation was used to define number and gender of noun. Primary compound (both
parts in Nom. case) adj+noun. Secondary comp.noun (the 2-nd part in Gen
Case.)=noun+noun, verb+noun.
Middle English period. English Noun had no gender at that period of time. 2
groups exist in ME in plural form. The one is the former a-declension and ndeclension, which of former feminine noun (weak declension). The root-declension
had lost some words, but it continued to exist. The noun in Middle English period
had two cases: the Common and Possessive. The weak declension had no case
forms at all. Noun was rejected into reduction of their flexion. All vowels endings
–e-. OE a-stem, became the productive type. Grammatical gender was lost and
difference between Weak and Strong declension disappeared. (-n)/: -s- became for
Pl all nouns (for G). Some nouns retain Pl with o-inflexions. For root-stem nouns
their mutated forms were used only in Pl. Weak decl. –n- express the Pl.
The rise of the articles in English Causes: 1.loss of strong & weak
declensions of adjectives - articles were employed to show definiteness &
indefiniteness.
2.word order: It is a book. The book
is interesting. Definite articles -> mascul, singular "se" Indefinite article -> an (=
one)(numeral). It had 5 case declension -> in. Middle English cases were lost, 13th
century an > oon/one -> a/an
Lecture 11.The evolution of the adjective from Old English till nowadays
There were five nominal grammatical categories in OE: number, case,
gender, degrees of comparison, and the category of definiteness/indefiniteness. The
noun had only two grammatical categories proper: number and case. The adjective
had the maximum number of categories – five. The number of members in the
same grammatical categories in different parts of speech did not necessarily
coincide: thus the noun had four cases, Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and
Accusative, whereas the adjective had five (the same four cases plus the
Instrumental case).
The adjective in OE could change for number, gender and case. Those were
dependent grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the
noun it modified or with the subject of the sentence – if the adjective was a
predicative. Like nouns, adjectives had three genders and two numbers. The
category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition to the four
cases of nouns they had one more case, Instrumental. It was used when the
adjective served as an attribute to noun in the Dative case expressing an
instrumental meaning – e.g.: lytle werede ‘with (the help of) a small troop’.
Most adjectives in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the weak
and to the strong declension. The formal differences between the declensions, as
well as their origin, were similar to those of the noun declensions. The strong and
weak declensions arose due to the use of several stem-forming suffixes in PG:
vocalic a-, ō-, u- and i- and consonantal n-. Accordingly, there developed sets of
endings of the strong declension mainly coinciding with the endings of a-stems of
nouns for adjectives in the Masc. and Neut. and of ō-stems – in the Fem.
The difference between the strong and the weak declension of adjective was
not only formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun, an adjective did not belong to a
certain type of declension. Most adjectives could be declined on both ways. The
choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactical
function of the adjective, the degree of comparison and the presence of noun
determiners. The adjective had a strong form when used predicatively and when
used attributively without any determiners, e.g.: pā menn sindon
ōde ‘the
men are good’
mid hnescre beddin e ‘with soft bedding’
The weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a
demonstrative pronoun or the Gen. case pronouns.There existed a certain semantic
contrast between the strong and weak forms: the strong forms were associated with
the meaning of indefiniteness (roughly corresponding to the meaning of the
modern indefinite article), the weak forms – with the meaning of “definiteness”
(corresponding to the meaning of the definite article). Therefore the weak forms
were regularly used together with demonstrative pronouns.
Like adjective in other languages, most OE adjectives distinguished between
three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The regular
means used to form the comparative and the superlative from the positive were the
suffixes –ra and –est/ost. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an
interchange of the root-vowel. The root-vowel interchanges in long, eald,
go back to different sources. The variation [а~æ] is a purely phonetic phenomenon;
retraction of [æ] before the back vowel in the suffix –ost is not peculiar to the
adjective. The interchange in long and eald is of an entirely different nature: the
narrowed or fronted root-vowel is regularly employed as a marker of the
comparative and the superlative degrees, together with the suffixes. The mutation
of the root-vowel was caused by i-umlaut in Early OE. At that stage the suffixes
were either –ira, -ist or –ora, -ost. In the forms with –i- the root vowel was fronted
and/or made narrower; later –i- was lost or weakened to –e- - but the mutated rootvowel survived as an additional formal marker of the comparative and superlative
degrees.Some adjectives had parallel sets of forms: with and without a vowel
interchange. These sets could arise if the adjective had originally employed both
kinds of suffixes; or else the non-mutated vowel was restored on the analogy of the
positive degree and other adjectives without sound interchanges.
The adjective ōd had suppletive forms. Suppletion was a very old way of
building the degrees of comparison (it can be illustrated by the forms of adjectives
in other IE languages: G gut, besser, bester R хороший, лучше.
In the course of the Middle English period the adjective underwent greater
simplifying changes than any other part of speech. It lost all its grammatical
categories with the exception of the degrees of comparison. By the end of the OE
period the agreement of the adjective with the noun had become looser and in the
course of Early Middle English
it was practically lost. The decay of the
grammatical categories of the adjective proceeded in the following order. The first
category to disappear was gender, which ceased to be distinguished by the
adjective in the 11th c. In ME the degrees of comparison could be built in the same
way, only the suffixes had been weakened to –er, -est and sound interchange of the
root vowel was less common than before. Since most adjectives with sound
alternation had parallel forms without it, the forms with an interchange soon fell
into disuse. For example, ME long, lenger, longest and long, longer, longest. The
alternation of root-vowels in Early Modern English survived in the adjective old,
elder, eldest, where the difference in meaning from older, oldest made the formal
distinction essential. Other traces of the old alternation are found in the pairs
farther and further and also in the modern words nigh, near and next, which go
back to the old degrees of comparison of the OE adjective neah ‘near’, but have
split into separate words. The most important innovation in the adjective system in
the Middle English period was the growth of analytical forms of the degree of
comparison. The new system of comparisons emerged in Middle English, but the
ground for it had already been prepared by the use of the OE adverbs ma, bet,
betst, swipor – ‘more’, ‘better’, ‘to a greater degree’ with adjectives and
participles. It is noteworthy that in ME , when the phrases with ME more and most
became more and more common, they were used with all kinds of adjective,
regardless of the number of syllables and were even preferred with mono- and
disyllabic words. Double comparatives were banned as illogical and incorrect in
the 18th c. It appears that n the course of history the adjective has lost all the
dependent grammatical categories but has preserved the only specifically adjectival
category – the comparison. The adjective is the only nominal part of speech which
makes use of the new, analytical, way of form-building
The adjective in OE could change for number, gender and case. Those were
dependent grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the
noun it modified or with the subject of the sentence – if the adjective was a
predicative. Adjectives had three genders and two numbers. The category of case
in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition to the four cases of nouns they
had one more case, Instr. It was used when the adjective served as an attribute to a
noun in the Dat. case expressing an instrumental meaning.
Adjectives can be declined either strong/weak.
Historically adjective is a younger class of words as compared to noun & it
has borrowed many inflections from nouns & pronouns. Declensions (unlike nouns
adjectives could be declined both ways):1. strong A-stem, O-stem, when adjective
was used attributively without any determined (articles, demonstrative &
possessive pronouns) when used predicatively 2. weak N-stem, when an adjective
was preceded by demonstrative pronoun or genitive case. Some adjectives were
declined always strong.
The endings of adjectives showed agreement between noun and adjective.
There were a lot of anonymous forms -> inflections were lost & adjective became
an unchangeable part of speech. Gender- first category to disappear (11th century)
Cases: 1.instrumental case fell together with dative (end of OE)
2. all
other cases disappeared by the end of 13th century
The difference between the strong and weak declension of adjectives was
not only formal but also semantic. The choice of the declension was determined by
a number of factors: the syntactical function of the adjective, the degree of
comparison and the presence of noun determiners. The adjective had a strong form
when used predicatively and when used attributively without any determiners. The
weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative
pronoun or the Gen. case of personal pronouns.
Degrees of comparison Most OE adjectives distinguished between three
degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The regular means
used to form the comparative and the superlative from the positive were the
suffixes –ra and –est/-ost. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an
interchange of the root-vowel.
Lecture 12. The evolution of the pronoun
Pronouns in OE were subdivided into following categories: personal (Modern
English I, you), demonstrative (this, that), interrogative (who, which), possessive
(my, his), indefinite (one, some), negative (no+body).
OE pronoun fell under the same main classes as modern pronouns: personal,
demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. As for the other groups - relative,
reflexive – they were not fully developed and were not always distinctly separated
from the four main classes. The grammatical categories of the pronouns were
either similar to those of nouns (in “noun-pronouns”) or corresponded to those of
adjectives (in “adjective pronouns”).
Personal pronouns
Modern English system of personal pronouns has preserved most of the
inflectional complexity of Old English and Middle English. OE personal pronouns
had three persons, three numbers in the 1st and 2nd person (two numbers- in the 3rd)
and three genders in the 3rd person.
Declension of Personal pronouns
First person
Case
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
Singular
ic
min
me
mec, me
Dual
Plural
wit
uncer
unc
uncit
we
ūre, ūser
us
usic, us
Second person
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
pu
pin
pe
pec, pe
it
incer
inc
incit, inc
Third person
e
eower
eow
eowic, eow
Singular
M
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
he
his
him
hine
Plural
F
heo, hio
hire, hiere
hire, hiere
hie, hi, hy
N
hit
his
him
hit
All genders
hie, hi, hy, heo
hira, heora, hiera, hyra
him, heom
hie, hi, hy, heo
Demonstrative Pronouns
There were two demonstrative pronouns in OE: the prototype of NE that,
which distinguished three genders in the sg and had one form for all the genders in
the pl. (see next table) and the prototype of this with the same subdivisions: pes
Masc., peos Fem., pis Neut. and pas pl. They were declined like adjectives
according to a five-case system: Nom., Gen., Dat., Acc., and Instr. (the latter
having a special form only in the Masc. and Neut. sg).
Declension of se, seo, pæt
Case
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
Instr.
Singular
Plural
M
N
F
All genders
se, se
pæs
pæm, pam
pone
py, pon
pæt
pæs
pæm, pam
pæt
py, pon
seo
pære
pære
pa
pære
pa
para, pæra
pam, pæm
pa
pæm, pam
Interrogative pronouns
Interrogative pronouns - hwa, Masc. and Fem., and hwat, Neut., - had a
four case paradigm ( NE who, what). The instrumental case of hwat was used as a
separate interrogative word hwy ( NE why ). Some interrogative pronouns were
used as adjective pronouns, e.g. hwelc, hwæper.
Indefinite pronouns were a numerous class embracing several simple
pronouns and a large number of compounds: an and its derivative æniz (NE one,
any); nan, made up of an and the negative particle ne ( NE none); nanpinz, made
up of preceding and the noun ping (NE nothing); nawiht/nowiht/noht (‘nothing’ ,
NE not), hwæt – hwuzu ‘something’ and many others.
Pronouns of different classes – personal and demonstrative – could be used
in a relative function, as connectives. The demonstrative se in its various from and
the personal pronoun he, either alone or together with a special relative particle pe
could join attributive clauses, e.g.:
Se pe me zehælde se cwæð to me ‘he who healed me, he said to me’.
The development of grammatical categories in pronouns in Middle English
period
In Early Middle English period the OE Feminine pronoun of the third
person singular heo was replaced by she. The new Feminine pronoun, Late Middle
English she was first recorded in the North Eastern regions and gradually extended
to other areas. In the course of Middle English period another important lexical
replacement took place: the OE pronoun of the 3rd person plural hie was replaced
by the Scandinavian loan – word they. Like the pronoun she, it came from the
North-eastern areas and was adopted by the mixed London dialect. They ousted the
Nom. Case, OE hie, while them and their (coming from the same Scand. loan)
replaced the oblique case forms: OE hem and heora.
One more replacement was made in the set of personal pronouns at a later
date – in the 17th or 18th c. Beginning with the 15th c. the plural forms of the 2nd
person –ye, you, your – were applied more and more generally to individuals. The
forms thou, thee, thine became obsolete, thou can be found only in poetry, in
religious discourse.
The OE genitive case of pronouns turned into a new class of pronounspossessive. Some possessive pronouns had two variant forms in ME: myne/my,
our/ours.
The OE oblique case – forms of personal pronouns and the ME possessive
pronouns gave rise to one more type of pronouns- reflexive. Reflexive pronouns
developed from combination of some forms of personal pronouns with the
adjective self. Their origins are obvious from their modern structures: e.g. myself,
ourselves consist of the Genitive case or possessive pronoun and the component
self; himself, themselves contain the Objective case of personal pronouns as their
first components.
Demonstrative pronouns were adjective – pronouns; like other adjectives, in
OE they agreed with the noun in case, number and gender and had a welldeveloped morphological paradigm. In Early Middle English the OE demonstrative
pronouns se, seo, pat and pes, peos, pis – lost most of their inflected forms; out of
seventeen forms only two left. The ME descendants of these pronouns are that and
this, the former Nom. and Acc. Cases, Neutral Singular, which served now as the
sg of all cases and genders. Each pronoun has respective plural form, which made
up a balanced paradigm of forms opposed through number.
Sg this
Pl thise /these (NE this --- these)
that
tho/those
(NE that --- those)
Other Classes of Pronouns
(Interrogative, Indefinite, Relative)
The other classes of OE pronouns – interrogative and indefinite – were
subjected to the same simplifying changes as all nominal parts of speech. The
paradigm of the OE interrogative pronoun hwu was reduced to two forms – who,
Nom. case, and whom, the Obj. case. The Genitive case of OE hwa, hwat – hwasdeveloped into a separate interrogative pronoun, similarly with the Genitive Case
of personal pronouns --- Me and NE whose. OE hwi, the former Instrumental Case
of the same pronouns continued to be used as a separate pronoun why.
OE hwelc, ME which widened its application. It began to be used with relation not
only to persons but also to things. OE hw per, ME whether was used as an
interrogative pronoun in the meaning which of the two, but later was mainly used
as a conjunction.
Most Indefinite pronouns of the OE period simplified their morphological
structure and some pronouns fell out of use. The indefinite pronoun ān lost its
inflection and in the 13th c. its reduced forms an/a were firmly established in all
regions. In Modern English this form of the indefinite pronoun is used as the
indefinite article. OE nan-pin became nothing. New types of compound indefinite
pronouns came into use – with the component – thing, - body, -one, etc.
Lecture 13. The evolution of the English verb
The OE verb
The OE verb was characterized by many peculiar features. Though the verb
had few grammatical categories, its paradigm had a very complicated structure.
Verbs fell into numerous morphological classes. All the forms of the verb were
synthetic. Analytical forms appeared later. The non-finite firms had little in
common with the finite forms.
Grammatical categories of the Finite Verb in OE
The verb-predicate agreed with the subject of the sentence in two
grammatical categories: number and person. Its specifically verbal categories were
mood and tense. Finite forms regularly distinguished between two numbers:
singular and plural. The category of Person was made up of three forms: the 1st,
the 2nd and the 3rd person. The category of Mood was constituted by the
Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive. The category of Tense in OE consisted of
two categorical forms: Present and Past. The use of Subj. forms conveyed a very
general meaning of unreality or supposition. In addition to its use in conditional
sentences and other volitional, conjectural and hypothetical contexts Subjunctive
Mood was common in other types of construction: in clauses of time, clauses of
result and in clauses presenting reported speech. The meanings of the tense forms
were also very general, as compared with later ages and with present-day English.
The forms of the Present tense were used to indicate present and future actions.
The Past tense was used in a most general sense to indicate various events in the
past. There were no categories of Aspect and Voice. In OE the category of Aspect
was expressed by the regular contrast of verbs with and without the prefix зe-;
verbs with the prefix had a perfective meaning while the same verbs without the
prefix indicated a non-completed action, e.g. feohtan – зefeohtan ‘fight’ – ‘gain by
fighting’. it has been shown that the prefix зe- in OE can hardly be regarded as a
marker of aspect, it could change the aspective meaning of the verb by making it
perfective, but it could also change its lexical meaning, e.g. beran – зeberan ‘carry’
– ‘bear a child’. It follows that the prefix зe- should rather be regarded as an
element of word-building, a derivational prefix of general meaning. It is important
to note that in OE texts there were also other means of expressing aspective
meanings: the Past or Present Participle. The phrases with Participle I were used to
describe a prolonged state or action, the phrases with Participle II indicated a state
resulting from a previous, completed action. The passive meaning was frequently
indicated with the help of Participle II of transitive verbs used as predicatives with
the verbs beōn(NE ‘be’) and weorðan ‘become’.
Grammatical categories of the Verbals
In OE there were two non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and the
Participle. The Infinitive had no verbal grammatical categories. Being a verbal
noun by origin, it had a sort of reduced case-system: two forms which roughly
corresponded to the Nom. and the Dat. cases of nouns – beran – uninflected
Infinitive (“Nom.” case) tō berenne or tō beranne – inflected Infinitive (“Dat.”
case) Like the Dat. case of nouns the inflected Infinitive with the preposition tō
could be used to indicate the direction or purpose of an action. The uninflected
Infinitive was used in verb phrases with modal verbs or other verbs of incomplete
predication.
The Participle was a kind of verbal adjective which was characterized not
only by nominal but also by certain verbal features. Participle I (Present Participle)
was opposed to Participle II (Past Participle) through voice and tense distinctions:
it was active and expressed present or simultaneous processes and qualities, while
Participle II expressed states and qualities resulting from past action and was
contrasted to Participle I as passive to active, if the verb was transitive. Participle II
of intransitive verbs had an active meaning; it indicated a past action and was
opposed to Participle I only through tense. Participles were employed predicatively
and attributively like adjectives and shared their grammatical categories: they were
declined as weak and strong and agreed with nouns in number, gender and case.
Gerund appears in the 17th century. OE verbal noun with suffix —ung, -ing
and Participle1 overlapped; verbal noun later turned into Gerund and could 1) take
direct object (for example: buying the book) - verbal feature; 2) be preceded by
article or possessive pronoun – nominal feature.
The gerund can be traced to
three sources: the OE verbal noun in -uns and -ins, the Present Participle and the
Infinitive. In OE the verbal noun derived from transitive verbs took an object in the
Genitive case, which corresponded to the direct object of the finite verb. The
syntactic functions of the verbal noun, the infinitive and the participle partly
overlapped.
This verbal feature — a direct object as well as the frequent absence of article
before the -ing-form functioning, as a noun — transformed the verbal noun into a
Gerund in the modern understanding of the term. The nominal features, retained
from the verbal noun, were its syntactic functions and the ability to be modified by
a possessive pronoun or a noun in the Genitive case.
OE Strong verbs
The majority of OE verbs fell into two great divisions: the strong verbs and
the weak verbs. Besides these two main groups there were a few verbs which could
be put together as “minor” groups. The main difference between the strong and
weak verbs lay in the means of forming the principal parts, or “stems” of the verb.
The strong verbs formed their stems by means of ablaut and by adding certain
suffixes; in some verbs ablaut was accompanied by consonant interchanges. The
strong verbs had seven classes and four stems, as they distinguished two stems in
the Past Tense – one for the 1st and 3rd person, singular Indicative Mood, the other
– for the other Past tense forms, Indicative and Subj. The weak verbs derived their
Past tense stem and the stem of Participle II from the Present tense stem with the
help of the dental suffix -d- or -t-; normally they did not interchange their root
vowel, but in some verbs suffixation was accompanied by a vowel interchange.
Minor groups of verbs differed from the weak and strong verbs. Some of them
combined certain features of the strong and weak verbs in a peculiar way
(“preterite-present” verbs); others were suppletive or altogether anomalous.
Strong Verbs The strong verbs in OE are usually divided into seven classes.
Classes from 1 to 6 use vowel gradation which goes back to the IE ablaut-series
modified in different phonetic conditions in accordance with PG and Early OE
sound changes. Class 7 includes reduplicating verbs, which originally built their
past forms by means of repeating the root-morpheme; this doubled root gave rise to
a specific kind of root-vowel interchange, e.g.. maitan –maimait –maimatum –
maitans(‘chop’).
Strong verbs indicated tense by a change in the quality of a vowel. OE had
about 300 strong verbs. The 1 class – i class; the 2 class--u-class. The 3, 4 classes the gradation was caused by consonant (breaking), 6- qualitative-quantitative
ablaut; 7 class –reduplication of the root-morpheme. The principal forms of all
strong verbs have the same endings irrespective of class: -an for the Infinitive, no
ending in the Past singular stem, -on in the form of Past plural, -en for Participle II,
e.g. writan –wrat – writon - writen.
OE Weak verbs
The number of weak verbs in OE by far exceeded that of strong verbs. Weak
verbs form their Past and Participle2 by addition of a dental suffix (d/t) –love,
loved. Weak verbs form the majority of Old English verbs. There are three major
classes of weak verbs in Old English. The first class displays i-mutation in the root.
The verbs of Class I usually were i-stems, originally contained the element [-i/-j]
between the root and the endings. The verbs of Class II were built with the help of
the stem-suffix -ō, or -ōj and are known as ō-stems. Class III was made up of a few
survivals of the PG third and fourth classes of weak verbs, mostly -ǽj-stems.
Each weak verb is characterized by 3 basic forms: Infinitive, Past and a
Participle II.
The 1st class of weak verbs is formed either from noun, or from other
verbs. In regular verbs the root vowel in all forms subjected to mutation under the
influence -i in suffix. The verbs with long root vowels -i disappears irrespective
of which consonant stood before it, e.g. dēman-dēmde-dēmed – (Mod.English
deem).
There are 11 irregular verbs in the 1st class. Their irregularity consist that
they have suffix only in the 1-st form - the infinitive and present tense, and it
means, that umlaut was only in 1-st form, that is the 1st form distinguished from
the second and the third by quality of the root vowel. (tellan, tealde, teald-to tell).
The 2nd class –o-class. This o –is preserved before the dental suffix in Past
and Participle2. The 2nd class has - oja -in the infinitive and –o- in Past. The vowel
is not mutated(locian - locoed – locod - Mod.English –look).
The 3rd class contained few verbs: habban-hæfde-hæfd (have), libban-lifdelifd (live), secзan-sæзde/sæde-sæзd/ (say). The dental suffix is joined immediately
to the root. In the present there was –j-, but the 2nd and 3rd person singular show no
trace of –j-.
OE minor groups of verbs
Among the verbs of the minor groups there were several anomalous verbs
with irregular forms. Two OE verbs were suppletive зan, whose Past tense was
built зan-eode - зe зan( Modern English go). The other OE suppletive verb (beon,
wesan –root be, es,wes, Mod.English be) is a verb which creates different
grammatical categories by means of root vowel(be,es,wes). The most important
group of these verbs was the so-called “preterite-presents”. Originally the Present
tense forms of these verbs were Past tense forms. Later these forms had a present
meaning but preserved many formal features of the Past tense. Most of these verbs
had new Past Tense forms built with the help of the dental suffix. Some of them
also had the forms of the verbals: Participles and Infinitives. In OE there were
twelve preterite-present verbs. Six of them have survived in Mod E: OE āз;
cunnan; cann; dear(r), sculan, sceal; maзan, mæз; mōt (NE owe; ought; can;
dare; shall; may; must). Most preterite-presents did not indicate actions, but
expressed a kind of attitude to an action denoted by another verb, an Infinitive
which followed the preterite-present. In other words they were used like modal
verbs, and eventually developed into modern modal verbs.
Among the verbs of the minor grours there were several anomalous verbs
with irregular forms. OE willan was an irregular verb with the meaning of volition
and desire; it resembled the preterit-presents in meaning and function, as it
indicated an attitude to an action and was often followed by an Infinitive. Willan
had a Past tense form wolde, built like sceolde, the Past tense of the preteritepresent sculan, sceal. Eventually willan became a modal verb, like the surviving
preterite-presents, and, together with sculan developed into an auxiliary (NE shall,
will, should, would).
Some verbs combined the features of weak and strong verbs. OE don formed
a weak Past tense with a vowel interchange: and a Participle in -n: don — dyde —
зe-don (NE do). OE buan 'live' had a weak Past — bude and Participle II, ending in
-n, зe-bun like a strong verb.
The evolution of analytical forms.
In OE there were no analytical forms; they appeared in ME in all Germanic
languages and consisted of two elements; 1) a verb of broad semantics (to be, to
have) and high frequency; 2) non-finite forms (Inf., Participle I/II). They are
Perfect, Passive. Future, Cont, Do-forms.
The rise of Perfect forms
1.habbant (transitive verb)/ beon (intransitive verb) +Participle II
beon in ME ceased to be used, so as not to confuse Perfect with Passive.
2. In ME also Infinitive and Participle acquired Perfect forms.
The rise of Passive forms
In OE the finite verb had no category of Voice. The analytical Passive forms
developed from OE verb phrases consisting from OE verb beon(NE be) and
weorÞan(‘become’) and Participle II of transitive verbs
1. beon/ weorÞ (died out in ME) +PII of transitive verbs. The Pass. Inf., consisting
of beon plus Part. II, is found in OE texts. In Middle English period weorÞan was
replaced by numerous new link-verbs which had developed from notional verbs. In
ME bēon –ben + Past Participle developed into analytical form. 2. Passive
constructions were often used with prepositions: of, from, mid, with, by. Two were
selected by/with to show the doer of the action and the instrument.
The rise of the Future forms
1. Analytical Future Tense forms developed from OE verbs Sculan/willan"+inf.
2.In 13-14 cent. — Future Tense forms became very common "willan/scullan
were completely interchangeable.
3.In 17 th cent. John Wales established a rule - 'shall" – first person, will" - 2/3
person
4.present day tendency “will” is used with all persons
The rise of the Continuous Forms
OE "beon" +PI - denoted a quality of a lasting state of the subject. In Early ME
this form fell into disuse. In the 15 th cent. there were two forms to show
continuous aspect (be+PI/ be +preposition "on"). In the 18cent. Cont. forms were
well established. 19th cent - Cont. forms appear in Passive*, before this time such
forms were considered clumsy.
The rise of the do-forms1. do-forms (do-periphrasis) appeared in Past and Present
in Indicative Mood. 2. do-forms were used in negative, affirmative and
interrogative sentences and freely interchanged with simple forms, without do (1617 cent) ( for example: Did you hear this/ Heard you this? don't know/ I know not;
I do like ice cream/ I like ice-cream)3. 17 cent, do-forms were found only in
negative and interrogative sentences.
The evolution Of Participle and Infinitive
Participle I had an active meaning and expressed a process or quality simultaneous
with the events described by the predicate of the sentence. Participle II had an
active or passive meaning depending on the transitivity of the verb, and expressed
a preceding action or its results in the subsequent situation.
Participle I coincided with the verbal noun, which was formed in OE with the help
of the suffixes -ung and -ing, but had preserved only one suffix, -ing, in ME. (The
fusion of the Participle with the verbal noun was an important factor of the growth
of a new verbal, the Gerund, and played a certain role in the development of the
Continuous forms.
Participle 2. In ME the weak verbs built Participle II with the help of the dental
suffix -(e)d, -t, the strong verbs — with the help of vowel gradation and the suffix en. Strong verbs -4 grades(1-the form of the inf, 2-Preterit Sg, 3-Pret. Pl, 4-Partic2)
Weak verbs -3 grades (1-inf, 2-Pret, 3-P2).
Participle I - suffix -ende (ex. OE berende, ME bering. NE bearing) Participle II suffix -en{strong verbs), and -t,-d according to the type of verb (weak verbs) and
commonly marked by prefix -3e.
in OE: active voice (ex. segan) and passive
voice (ex.seboren). In OE Participle I and Participle II were used predicatively and
attributively (like adj.) and agreed with noun in number, Gender, case. Participle I
and Participle II lost number, Gender, case in ME.
Infinitive. loss of dative case (ME) (ex. OE Nomin.: writan, Dative: to writanne;
ME: to written, NE: to write, ("to” is a formal sign). The preposition to, which was
placed In OE to show direction or purpose, lost Its prepositional force and changed
into a formal sign of the Infinitive. In ME the Infinitive with to does not
necessarily express purpose. In order to reinforce the meaning of purpose another
preposition was used for.
The evolution of Strong verbs
The seven classes of OE strong verbs underwent multiple grammatical and
phonetic changes. In ME the final syllables of the stems were weakened, in Early
NE most of them were lost.
1.The OE endings •an, -on, and -en (of the 1st, 3rd and 4th principal forms) were
all reduced to ME -en; consequently in Classes 6 and 7, where the infinitive and
the participle had the same gradation vowel, these forms fell together. In Classes 1
and 3 it led to the coincidence of the 3rd and 4th principal forms. 2. There were
phonetic changes in root of verbs. The major factor is lengthening of root the
vowel: in the 4 and 5 class because the syllable is opened, also in the 3 class where after n goes d – (findan-> fiindan). The 4 and 5 class in ME began to merge
in favour of the 4-th class.
Early NE. Formation of a paradigm from 3 forms comes to the end. The 1st class has the form of Past Singular in all verbs, except bite. The 2nd class has the form
of plural. In the 3d class it is differently, basically the form of plural find-foundfound, but ring-rang-rung. The 4 and 5 class has vowel of Participle II, and these
classes completely coincide. In 6 and 7 class singular and plural of Past Tense were
identical.
2) presence/absence of the suffix of Participle II
The unaccented inflection of infinitive was lost already in the ME, and Participle II
in ME was: Зe-treden, зe-writen, зe-funden.
As a result, Early NE has the form without prefix. Remains: speak-spoken, findfound, but ring-rung. The 3d class has rejected a prefix and the form of Past and
Participle II coincided, as well as at weak verbs. Participle II has no suffix. There
were kept some distinction in the 5th class: British English get/forget - got/forgot,
American English gotten/forgotten.
One of the most important events in the history of the strong verbs was their
transition into weak. In ME and Early NE many strong verbs began to form their
Past and Participle II with the help of the dental suffix instead of vowel gradation.
Therefore the number of strong verbs decreased. In OE there were about three
hundred strong verbs. Some of them dropped out of use owing to changes in the
vocabulary, while most of the remaining verbs became weak. Out of 195 OE
strong verbs, preserved in the language, only 67 retained strong forms with rootvowel interchanges. The changes in the formation of principal parts of strong verbs
extended over a long period — from the 12th to'18th c.
The evolution of weak verb.
ME verbs of Class I took the ending -de in the past without an intermediate vowel
before the dental suffix — and the ending -ed in the Past Participle.
Several groups of modern non-standard verbs have developed from the weak verbs
of Class I. (1) Verbs like OE sellan and tacan had an interchange in the root caused
by palatal mutation in the Present tense stem and its absence in the other stems
(Past tense salde/sealde, tahte.) In ME and NE they preserved the root-vowel
interchange, though some of the vowels were altered due to regular quantitative
and qualitative vowel changes: ME sellen — solde ME I'so:ld]> NE sold [sould]),
techen — taughte; NE sell — sold, teach — taught.
(2) Another group of weak verbs became irregular in Early ME as a result of
quantitative vowel changes. In verbs like OE cepan, fedan, metan the long vowel
in the root was shortened before two consonants in the Past and Participle II; OE
cepte> ME kepte ['kepta]. The long vowel in the Present tense stem was preserved
and was altered during the Great Vowel Shift, hence the interchange[ i : ~ e ] , NE
keep — kept, feed — fed.
(3) Verbs like OE settan, with the root ending in a dental consonant, added the
dental suffix without the intervening vowel [e ] — OE sette.
When the inflections were reduced and dropped, the three stems of the verbs —
Present, Past and Participle II fell together: NE set —set — set;
Class 2 formed a basis of the future irregular verbs. The verbs of Class 2, which
were marked by -ode, -od in OE, had weakened these endings to -ede, -ed in ME.
In Late ME the vowel [e] in unstressed medial and final syllables became very
unstable and was lost. This change eliminated the differences between the two
classes and also the distinctions between the 2nd and 3rd principal forms.
3. All borrowings (unique loan word take from Scandinavian remains in the 6
class,). Class 3 was destroyed. We have 2 classes by the end of this process:
1. Regular (on the basis of weak) or “standard” verbs;
2. Irregular or non-standard verbs: 1) all remained strong verbs 2) weak verbs of
the 1st class irregular 3) weak verbs of the 1st class with devocalization in the end
4) 2 remained verbs of the 3d class - have, say. The number of non-standard verbs
in Modern English is not large, about 200 verbs. They constitute an important
feature of the language. Most of them belong to the basic layer of the vocabulary.
They preserved the distinction between three stems in all English verbs.
The evolution of anomalous verbs
Several preterite-present verbs died out. The surviving verbs lost some of their old
forms and grammatical distinctions but retained many specific peculiarities. They
lost the forms of the verbals which had sprung up in OE and the distinctions
between the forms of number and mood in the Present tense. In NE their paradigms
have been reduced to two forms or even to one.
Some verbs combined the features of weak and strong verbs. OE don formed a
weak Past tense with a vowel interchange: and a Participle in -n: don — dyde —
зe-don (NE do). OE buan 'live' had a weak Past — bude and Participle II, ending in
-n, ie-bun like a strong verb.
OE зan has had a most unusual history. In OE its Past form was built from a
different root and had a weak ending: eode; its Part. II ended in -n, similarly with
strong verbs (ie)^dn. In ME the verb acquired a new Past tense wente, which came
from an entirely different verb, OE wendan (ME wenden, NE wend). Its OE Past
form wente had entered the paradigm of goon (NE go, went), while wend acquired
a new past form wended. Thus the verb go remained a suppletive verb, though its
OE Past was replaced by a new form (this is a rare instance of suppletion appearing
at a relatively recent period of history).
Lecture 14. The evolution of word-formation.
Ways of formation - word formation fell into two types: word derivation and
word composition.
Word Derivation
Suffixation has always been the most productive way of deriving new words, most
of the OE productive suffixes have survived, and many new suffixes have been
added from internal and external sources.
The development of prefixation was uneven: in ME many OE prefixes fell into
disuse; after a temporary decline in the 15th and 16th c. the use of prefixes grew
again; like suffixes, Early NE prefixes could come from foreign sources.
The Early NE period witnessed the growth of a new, specifically English way of
word derivation — conversion (also known as "functional change"), which has
developed into a productive way of creating new words.
Sound interchanges
In OE they served as a supplementary means of word differentiation and were
mostly used together with suffixes. In ME and Early NE sound interchanges
continued to be used as an accompanying feature together with other derivational
means. The role of sound interchanges has grown due to the weakening and loss of
many suffixes and grammatical endings.
Word Stress
The role of stress in word-building has grown in ME and Early NE in consequence
of the same changes namely the weakening and loss of final syllables.
Prefixation
During the ME period prefixes were used in derivation less frequently than before.
OE prefixes were productive means of forming verbs from other verbs. The simple
and derived verb were synonymous. Consequently the prefix could be easily
dispensed with. Instead of the OE pairs of synonyms, differing in the prefix, ME
retained only the simple verb. Native Prefixes - Many OE verb prefixes dropped
out of use, e.g. a-, to-, on-. The negative prefixes mis- and un- produced a great
number of new words. OE un- was mainly used with nouns and adjectives, seldom
with verbs; New formations in ME are unable, unknowen, in Early NE — unhook,
unload and others; Borrowed Prefixes- In Late ME, and in Early NE new prefixes
began to be employed in word derivation in English: French, Latin, and Greek.
com- and sub-. French and Latin. Between the years 1200 and 1500 English
borrowed many French words with the prefix re-, e.g.: ME re-dressen, re-formen.
Re- was separated, as an element of the word.
The verb prefixes de- and dis- of Romance origin (French and Latin) entered the
English language in many loan-words, e.g.: ME destructive, discomforten.
Suffixation
Suffixation has remained the most productive way of word derivation through all
historical periods. Though some of the OE suffixes were practically dead, many
new suffixes developed from native and foreign sources. Native suffixes -
suffixes:)Several OE suffixes of agent nouns -end (friend), -ere(fiscere) were lost
as means of derivation; in ME -end, -en, -estre occur as inseparable parts of the
stem.
The old suffixes of abstract nouns -ap, -op, -p, had long been dead in ME. The
suffix -ness was equally productive in all historical periods. It was mainly used
with adjectival stems, irrespective of their origin: ME derkness, NE narrowness,
(native stems); ME cleerness, NE politeness (borrowed stems). New suffixes
derived from noun root morphemes - A new suffix -man, developed from a rootmorpheme in ME. Borrowed Suffixes - borrowed suffixes entered the English
language with the two biggest waves of loan-words: French loans in ME and
classical loans in Early NE. French loan-words with the suffix –able (agreeable).
In Late ME the suffix -able began to be used in adjective derivation — at first with
Romance stems —admittable. The French suffix -ess produced many derivatives in
ME, as it had replaced the native -estre; e.g.: ME authoress. The suffix -or (from
Fr) resembled the native suffix –er.
The evolution of syntax.
OE period
The syntax of Old English was much more flexible than modern English because
of the declensions of the nouns. The case endings told the function of the word in
the sentence, so word order was not very important. But as the stress began to
move to the first syllable of words, the endings were not pronounced as clearly and
began to diminish from the language. So in modern English, word order is very
important because we no longer have declensions to show case distinctions.
Instead we use prepositions. The general word order was subject - verb - object,
but it did vary in a few instances:1. When an object is a pronoun, it often precedes
the verb. 2. When a sentence begins with an adverb, the subject often follows the
verb. 3. The verb often comes at the end of a subordinate clause.
ME - Syntax was stricter and more prepositions were used. New compound tenses
were used, such as the perfect tenses, and there was more use of the progressive
and passive voice. The use of double negation also increased as did impersonal
constructions. The use of the verbs will and shall for the future tense was first used
too. Formerly, will meant want and shall meant obliged to.
The most obvious difference between OE syntax and the syntax of the ME and NE
periods is that the word order became more strict and the use of prepositions more
extensive.
In ME is used the direct word order. But in the sentences which began with adjunct
(обстоятельственное) word, it was indirect word order. The synthetical word
order gradually disappears. The word order in ME is not so fixed, as in NE, but has
important meaning. Then a direct word order becomes obligatory. The indirect
word order begins to be used in questions. The auxiliary word do is entered, which
was fixed in questions and negations.
Sentences.
In OE is distinguished part of the sentence, as in the modern language: the main
and minor clause.
In ME The word order from a rhetorical category becomes syntactic. A subject is
absolutely obligatory member of the sentence. If it is absent there is a formal
subject. The model with a formal subject “there” is traced already in OE.
In Early NE the simple sentence develops basically on a way of ordering of all
rules connected with an arrangement of all members, questions and negation.
Lecture 15.
THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH .WORLD ENGLISH VERSUS WORLD ENGLISHES
1. World English and World Englishes.
The notions of World English and World Englishes are far from similar,
although the terms are often mistakenly used interchangeably. World English
refers to the English language as a lingua franca used in business, trade,
diplomacy and other spheres of global activity, while World Englishes refers to
the different varieties of English and English-based creoles developed in different
regions of the world.
World Englishes refers to the emergence of localized or indigenized varieties
of English, especially varieties that have developed in nations colonized by Great
Britain or the United States. World Englishes consist of varieties of English used
in diverse sociolinguistic contexts globally, and how sociolinguistic histories,
multicultural backgrounds and contexts of function influence the use of colonial
English in different regions of the world.
The issue of World Englishes was first raised in 1978 to examine concepts of
regional Englishes globally. Pragmatic factors such as appropriateness,
comprehensibility and interpretability justified the use of English as an
international and intra-national language. In 1988, at a Teachers of English to
Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, the
International Committee of the Study of World Englishes (ICWE) was formed. In
1992, the ICWE formally launched the International Association for World
Englishes (IAWE) at a conference of "World Englishes Today", at the University
of Illinois, USA.
Currently, there are approximately 75 territories where English is spoken
either as a first language (L1) or as an unofficial or institutionalized second
language (L2) in fields such as government, law and education. It is difficult to
establish the total number of Englishes in the world, as new varieties of English
are constantly being developed and discovered.
There arises a question: why English has acquired this status, why we should
speak of World English and World Englishes and not of some other World
Language or World Languages? There are two answers to the question: one is
geographical-historical; the other is socio-cultural. The geo-historical answer
shows how English reached a position of preeminence. The socio-cultural answer
explains why it remains so.
By the 18th century, three main forces were
driving the direction of the English language: (1) to reduce the language to rule
and effect a standard of correct usage; (2) to refine by removing supposed defects
and introducing certain improvements; and (3) to fix it permanently in the desired
form. Hence, it was evident that there was a desire for system and regularity,
which contrasted with the individualism and spirit of independence characterized
by the previous age.
By the 19th century, the expansion of the British Empire led to the spread of
English in the world. Concurrently, the rising importance of some of England’s
larger colonies and their eventual independence, along with the rapid
development of the United States amplified the value of the English varieties
spoken in these regions. Consequently, their populations developed the belief that
their distinct variety of language should be granted equal standing with the
standard of Great Britain.
The historical account traces the movement of English around the world,
beginning with the pioneering voyages to the Americas, Asia, and the Antipodes.
It was an expansion which continued with the nineteenth-century colonial
developments in Africa and the South Pacific, and which took a significant
further step when it was adopted in the mid twentieth century as an official or
semi-official language by many newly independent states. English is now
represented in every continent, and in islands of the three major oceans –
Atlantic, Indian and Pacific. It is this spread of representation which makes the
application of the above mentioned labels a reality.
The socio-cultural explanation looks at the way people all over the world, in
many ways of life, have come to depend on English for their economic and social
well-being. The language has penetrated deeply into the international domains of
political life, business, safety, communication, entertainment, the media and
education. The convenience of having a lingua franca available to serve global
human relations and needs has come to be appreciated by millions. Several
domains have come to be totally dependent on it – the computer software
industry being a prime example. A language’s future seems assured when so
many organizations come to have a vested interest in it.
By the 18th century, three main forces were driving the direction of the
English language: (1) to reduce the language to rule and effect a standard of
correct usage; (2) to refine by removing supposed defects and introducing certain
improvements; and (3) to fix it permanently in the desired form. Hence, it was
evident that there was a desire for system and regularity, which contrasted with
the individualism and spirit of independence characterized by the previous age.
By the 19th century, the expansion of the British Empire led to the spread of
English in the world. Concurrently, the rising importance of some of England’s
larger colonies and their eventual independence, along with the rapid
development of the United States amplified the value of the English varieties
spoken in these regions. Consequently, their populations developed the belief that
their distinct variety of language should be granted equal standing with the
standard of Great Britain.
3. Global spread of English
The First dispersal: English is transported to the ‘new world’.
The first diaspora involved relatively large-scale migrations of around 25,000
mother-tongue English speakers from England, Scotland and Ireland
predominantly to North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Over
time, their own English dialects developed into modern American, South African
and Australasia Englishes. In contrast to the English of Great Britain, the
varieties spoken in modern North America, South Africa and Australasia have
been modified in response to the changed and changing sociolinguistic contexts
of the migrants, for example being in contact with indigenous Indian, Khoisan,
Aboriginal or Maori populations in the colonies.
The Second dispersal: English is transported to Asia and Africa.
The second diaspora was the result of the colonization of Asia and Africa,
which led to the development of ‘New Englishes’, the second-language varieties
of English. In colonial Africa, the history of English is distinct between West and
East Africa. English in West Africa began due to the slave trade. English soon
gained official status in Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon,
and some of the pidgin and creoles which developed from English contact,
including Sierra Leone and Cameroon Pidgin, have large numbers of speakers
now.
As for East Africa, extensive British settlements were established in Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, where English became a
crucial language of the government, education and the law. From the early 1960s,
the six countries achieved independence in succession; but English remained the
official language and had large numbers of second language speakers in Uganda,
Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi (along with Chewa).
English was formally introduced to the sub-continent of South Asia (India,
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan) during the second half of the
18th century. In India, English was given status through the implementation of
Macaulay ‘Minute’ of 1835, which proposed the introduction of an English
educational system in India. Over time, the process of ‘Indianisation’ led to the
development of a distinctive national character of English in India.
British influence in South-East Asia and the South Pacific began in the late
18th century, involving primarily the territories of Singapore, Malaysia and Hong
Kong. Papua New Guinea, also a British protectorate, exemplified the Englishbased pidgin - Tok Pisin. Nowadays, English is also learnt in other countries in
neighbouring areas, most notably in Taiwan, Japan and Korea, with the latter two
having begun to consider the possibility of making English their official second
language.
Questions on the History of the English Language.
1. The Ancient Germanic languages.
2. Evolution of East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic subgroups.
3. The main historical events of the ancient period.
4. Celtic tribes and languages on the European continent and British Isles (1000
BC).
5. Celtic languages in modern Britain.
6. The Roman occupation of Britain and its influence on different spheres of life in
Britain.
7. Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain and formation of English language.
8. The migration of Angles, Saxons Jutes, Frisians on the British island and
formation of Anglo-Saxon states.
9. The Scandinavian conquest of Britain and its role in the history of the English
language
10. The problem of chronological division of the periods in the history of the
English language.
11. The main three periods which are distinguished in the history of the English
language: Old English, Middle English, Modern English.
12. The main historical events of Middle Age period.
13. The Norman Conquest of England and its influence on all spheres of life.
14. Formation of English as the Language of the State and Literature.
15. The struggle between English and French languages.
16. The London Dialect.
17. The English vocabulary and its development.
18. The evolution of Phonological system of English language.
19. The evolution of Grammar system of English language
20. The evolution of parts of speech: noun, adjective, pronoun, verb
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Specialty: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the Academic Council
of the Philological faculty
Date ___________ Minutes No.
Dean
K. Abdezuly
Examination Card № 1
1. Ancient Germanic languages
2. The development of the London Dialect.
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Examination Card № 2
1. Evolution of spelling system.
2. Formation of English as the Language of the State and Literature in the 15-20th. c.
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Examination Card № 3
1. Evolution of East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic subgroups.
2. Formation of English as the Language of the State and Literature in the14th. c.
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Examination Card № 4
1. Modern Germanic languages
2. The Norman Conquest of England and its influence on all spheres of life.
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline:Theoretical Grammar
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Examination Card № 5
1. Celtic languages in modern Britain.
2. The evolution of Phonological system of English language.
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Examination Card № 6
1. Celtic tribes and languages on the European continent and British Isles (1000 BC).
2. The English vocabulary and its development
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Examination Card № 7
1. Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain and formation of the English language.
2. Parts of Speech in Old English
3. Do the given task.
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Examination Card № 8
1. The migration of Angles, Saxons Jutes, Frisians on the British island and formation of AngloSaxon states.
2. The evolution of the part of speech - noun
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Examination Card № 9
1. The problem of chronological division of the periods in the history of the English language.
2. The evolution of the part of speech - pronoun
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Card № 10
1. The Scandinavian conquest of Britain and its role in the history of the English language
2. The evolution of the part of speech - adjective
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Card № 11
1. The main three periods which are distinguished in the history of the English language: Old
English, Middle English, Modern English.
2. The evolution of the part of speech - verb.
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Card № 12
1. The migration of Angles, Saxons Jutes, Frisians on the British island and formation of AngloSaxon states.
2. The evolution of the part of speech - noun
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Card № 13
1. The struggle between English and French languages during the Middle English period.
2. The evolution of the Grammar system of English language
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Card № 14
1. The main dialects of Middle Age period.
2. The evolution of the part of speech - numeral
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Card № 15
1. The differences between American and British English
2. The main historical events of Middle Age period and their influence on the development of
the English language
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________
al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Philological Faculty The Chair of Foreign Philology
Speciality: Foreign Philology 050210
Discipline: History of the English language
Course 3
Approved at the sitting of
the chair of Foreign Philology
Date:
Minutes №
Card № 16
1. Principal Changes of Vowels in Middle English and Early New English period
2. The main historical events of Modern English period and their influence on the development
of the English language
3. Do the given task
Head of the Chair:
________________
Teacher
________________