Lecture № 2

DEVELOPMENT OF THE LANGUAGE

Topics for discussions:

1. Historical background.
2. Old English Period.
3. Middle English Period.
4. Modern English Period.
5. 20th-Century English.

Historical background

Among highlights in the history of the English language, the following stand
out most clearly: the settlement in Britain of Jutes, Saxons, and Angles in the 5th
and 6th centuries; the arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the subsequent
conversion of England to Latin Christianity; the Viking invasions of the 9th
century; the Norman Conquest of 1066; the Statute of Pleading in 1362 (this
required that court proceedings be conducted in English); the setting up of
Caxton’s printing press at Westminster in 1476; the full flowering of the
Renaissance in the 16th century; the publishing of the King James Bible in
1611;the completion of Johnson’s Dictionary of 1755; and the expansion to North
America and South Africa in the 17th century and to India, Australia, and New
Zealand in the 18th.
Three main stages are usually recognized in the history of the development of
the English language. Old English, known formerly as Anglo-Saxon, dates from
AD 449 to 1066 or 1100. Middle English dates from 1066 or 1100 to 1450 or
1500. Modern English dates from about 1450 or 1500 and is subdivided into
Early Modern English, from about 1500 to 1660, and Late Modern English,
from about 1660 to the present time.
Old English Period

Old English, a variant of West Germanic, was spoken by certain Germanic

peoples (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) of the regions comprising present-day
southern Denmark and northern Germany who invaded Britain in the 5th century
AD; the Jutes were the first to arrive, in 449, according to tradition. Settling in
Britain, the invaders drove the indigenous Celtic-speaking peoples, notably the
Britons, to the north and west. As time went on, Old English evolved further from
the original Continental form, and regional dialects developed.
The four major dialects recognized in Old English are Kentish, originally the
dialect spoken by the Jutes; West Saxon, a branch of the dialect spoken by the
Saxons; and Northumbrian and Mercian, subdivisions of the dialects spoken by the
Angles. By the 9th century, partly through the influence of Alfred, king of the
West Saxons and the first ruler of all England, West Saxon became prevalent in
prose literature. A Mercian mixed dialect, however, was primarily used for the
greatest poetry, such as the anonymous 8th-century epic poem Beowulf and the
contemporary elegiac poems.
Old English was an inflected language characterized by strong and weak
verbs; a dual number for pronouns (for example, a form for “we two” as well as
“we”), two different declensions of adjectives, four declensions of nouns, and
grammatical distinctions of gender. Although rich in word-building possibilities,
Old English was sparse in vocabulary. It borrowed few proper nouns from the
language of the conquered Celts, primarily those such as Aberdeen (“mouth of the
Dee”) and Inchcape (“island cape”) that describe geographical features. Scholars
believe that ten common nouns in Old English are of Celtic origin; among these
are: bannock, cart, down, and mattock. Although other Celtic words not preserved
in literature may have been in use during the Old English period, most Modern
English words of Celtic origin, that is, those derived from Welsh, Scottish Gaelic,
or Irish, are comparatively recent borrowings.
The number of Latin words, many of them derived from the Greek that were
introduced during the Old English period has been estimated at 140. Typical of
these words are: altar, mass, priest, psalm, temple, kitchen, palm, and pear. A few
were probably introduced through the Celtic; others were brought to Britain by the
Germanic invaders, who previously had come into contact with Roman culture. By
far the largest number of Latin words was introduced as a result of the spread of
Christianity. Such words included not only ecclesiastical terms but many others of
less specialized significance. About 40 Scandinavian (Old Norse) words were
introduced into Old English by the Norsemen, or Vikings, who invaded Britain
periodically from the late 8th century on. Introduced first were words pertaining to
the sea and battle, but shortly after the initial invasions other words used in the
Scandinavian social and administrative system—for example, the word law—
entered the language, as well as the verb form are and such widely used words as
take, cut, both, ill, and ugly.

Middle English Period

At the beginning of the Middle English period, which dates from the Norman
Conquest of 1066, the language was still inflectional; at the end of the period the
relationship between the elements of the sentence depended basically on word
order. As early as 1200 the three or four grammatical case forms of nouns in the
singular had been reduced to two, and to denote the plural the noun ending -es had
been adopted.
The declension of the noun was simplified further by dropping the final n
from five cases of the fourth, or weak, declension; by neutralizing all vowel
endings to e (sounded like the a in Modern English sofa), and by extending the
masculine, nominative, and accusative plural ending -as, later neutralized also to -
es, to other declensions and other cases. Only one example of a weak plural
ending, oxen, survives in Modern English; kine and brethren are later formations.
Several representatives of the Old English modification of the root vowel in the
plural, such as: man, men, and foot, feet, survive also.
With the leveling of inflections, the distinctions of grammatical gender in
English were replaced by those of natural gender. During this period the dual
number fell into disuse, and the dative and accusative of pronouns were reduced to
a common form. Furthermore, the Scandinavian they, them were substituted for the
original hie, hem of the third person plural, and who, which, and that acquired their
present relative functions. The conjugation of verbs was simplified by the omission
of endings and by the use of a common form for the singular and plural of the past
tense of strong verbs. In the early period of Middle English, a number of utilitarian
words, such as: egg, sky, sister, window, and get, came into the language from Old
Norse. The Normans brought other additions to the vocabulary.
Before 1250 about 900 new words had appeared in English, mainly words,
such as: baron, noble, and feast, which the Anglo-Saxon lower classes required in
their dealings with the Norman-French nobility. Eventually the Norman nobility
and clergy, although they had learned English, introduced from the French words
pertaining to the government, the church, the army, and the fashions of the court,
in addition to others proper to the arts, scholarship, and medicine.
Midland, the dialect of Middle English derived from the Mercian dialect of
Old English, became important during the 14th century, when the counties in
which it was spoken developed into centres of university, economic, and courtly
life. East Midland, one of the subdivisions of Midland, had by that time become
the speech of the entire metropolitan area of the capital, London, and probably had
spread south of the Thames River into Kent and Surrey. The influence of East
Midland was strengthened by its use in the government offices of London, by its
literary dissemination in the works of the 14th-century poets Geoffrey Chaucer,
John Gower, and John Lydgate, and ultimately by its adoption for printed works by
William Caxton. These and other circumstances gradually contributed to the direct
development of the East Midland dialect into the Modern English language.
 During the period of this linguistic transformation the other Middle English
dialects continued to exist, and dialects descending from them are still spoken in
the 20th century. Lowland Scottish, for example, is a development of the Northern
dialect.

Modern English Period

In the early part of the Modern English period the vocabulary was enlarged by
the widespread use of one part of speech for another and by increased borrowings
from other languages. The revival of interest in Latin and Greek during the
Renaissance brought new words into English from those languages. Other words
were introduced by English travellers and merchants after their return from
journeys on the Continent. From Italian came: cameo, stanza, and violin; from
Spanish and Portuguese: alligator, peccadillo, and sombrero. During its
development, Modern English borrowed words from more than 50 different
languages.
In the late 17th century and during the 18th century, certain important
grammatical changes occurred. The formal rules of English grammar were
established during that period. The pronoun its came into use, replacing the
genitive form his, which was the only form used by the translators of the King
James Bible (1611). The progressive tenses developed from the use of the
participle as a noun proceeded by the preposition on; the preposition gradually
weakened to a and finally disappeared. Thereafter only the simple ing form of the
verb remained in use. After the 18th century this process of development
culminated in the creation of the progressive passive form, for example, “The job
is being done.”
The most important development begun during this period and continued
without interruption throughout the 19th and 20 th centuries concerned vocabulary.
As a result of colonial expansion, notably in North America but also in other areas
of the world, many new words entered the English language. From the indigenous
peoples of North America, the words raccoon and wigwam were borrowed; from
Peru: llama and quinine; from the West Indies: barbecue and cannibal; from
Africa: chimpanzee and zebra; from India: bandanna, curry, and punch; and from
Australia: kangaroo and boomerang. In addition, thousands of scientific terms
were developed to denote new concepts, discoveries, and inventions. Many of
these terms, such as neutron, penicillin, and supersonic, were formed from Greek
and Latin roots; others were borrowed from modern languages, as with blitzkrieg
from German and sputnik from Russian.

20th-Century English

In Great Britain at present the speech of educated persons is known as

Received Standard English. A class dialect rather than a regional dialect, it is based
on the type of speech cultivated at such schools as Eton and Harrow and at such of
the older universities as Oxford and Cambridge. Many English people who speak
regional dialects in their childhood acquire Received Standard English while
attending school and university. Its influence has become even stronger in recent
years because of its use by such public media as the British Broadcasting Corp.
Widely differing regional and local dialects are still employed in the various
counties of Great Britain. Other important regional dialects have developed also;
for example, the English language in Ireland has retained certain individual
peculiarities of pronunciation, such as the pronunciation of lave for leave and
fluther for flutter; certain syntactical peculiarities, such as the use of after
following forms of the verb be; and certain differences in vocabulary, including the
use of archaic words such as adown (for down) and Celtic borrowings such as
banshee. The Lowland Scottish dialect, sometimes called Lallans, first made
known throughout the English-speaking world by the songs of the 18th-century
Scottish poet Robert Burns, contains differences in pronunciation also, such as
neebour (“neighbor”) and guid (“good”), and words of Scandinavian origin
peculiar to the dialect, such as braw and bairn. The English spoken in Australia,
with its marked diphthongization of vowels, also makes use of special words,
retained from English regional dialect usages, or taken over from indigenous
Australian terms.
Twentieth-century globalization, then, has been a vehicle for the
diversification of English. But it has also had the opposite effect, promoting
convergence between varieties of English. Cultural diffusion, particularly via mass
marketing and mass media, has facilitated the spread of linguistic features
outwards from a high-prestige variety, with which others wish to align themselves.
In practice, this has generally meant the English of the USA, and the spread of
American usages into British and other Englishes – train station for railway station,
for example, can for tin, the pronunciation of the sch- of schedule as /sk/ rather
than /sh/, the use of be like to introduce direct speech (I was like, ‘Oh my God!’)
and of cool as an all-purpose term of approval – has been a phenomenon widely
recognized.
The most recent scare has arisen from the usage of English in electronic
communications, such as emails and especially text messages, blogs and postings
on social networks. This is certainly an area of the written language unconstrained
by the usual norms of orthography, punctuation and grammar, and those
particularly who do not communicate in these ways may fear that linguistic
anarchy will ensue. But there is little to it that is truly novel (abbreviated forms
such as c u l8er for see you later, for instance, have a venerable history, and have
not inflicted any long-term damage on the language in the past), and anyway, at the
end of the first decade of the twenty-first century there are signs that the popularity
of textspeak is subsiding. English, in arguably its sixteenth century of existence,
continues to thrive and grow.

Questions to lecture 2:
1. What are the three main stages recognized in the history of the development of
the English language.
2. Who were the first Germanic tribes settled in Britain in 449? What are the four
major dialects used during the Old English period?
3. What are the main grammatical changes of the Middle English period?
4. What is the role of Latin and Greek during the Renaissance? What caused the
increased borrowings from other languages?
5. What is the speech of the educated people in the 20th century England? What is
it based on?