The History of the English

Language
Literature:
Расторгуева Т.А. История английского языка. – М.:
Астрель, 2002.
Иванова И.П., Чахоян Л.П. История английского языка. –
СПб.: Лань, 2001.
Ilyish B.A. The History of the English Language. – M.:
Nauka, 1968.
www.books.google.com
Smith J. Essentials of Early English. – L., N.-Y.: Routledge,
1999.
Robinson O. Old English and its Closest Relatives. – L., N.-
Y.: Routledge, 1992.
Baker P. The Electronic Introduction to Old English: URL:
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/index.htm
l
, 2003.
OUTLINE:
 The English language (introduction);
 Language families in the world, the
notion of a proto-language;
 The Indo-European language family,
Germanic languages as its subgroup;
 The Ethnologue (2007):
English
 508 million speakers
 167 million speakers use it as a second
language
 a lingua franca – a language used
among people who have no other tongue
in common
 in some areas it has provided a base for
pidgins and creoles.
Language families:
 1. Niger-Congo 1,514 languages
 2. Austronesian 1,268 languages
 3. Trans-New Guinea 564 languages
 4. Indo-European 449 languages
 5. Sino-Tibetan 403 languages
 6. Afro-Asiatic 375 languages
 7. Nilo-Saharan 204 languages
 8. Oto-Manguean 174 languages
 9. Austro-Asiatic 169 languages
 10.Deaf Sign Language 121 languages
(Ethnologue 2007)
A language family is a group of
languages related by descent
from a common parent language
(proto-language).
William
Jones
Franz Bopp
Rasmus Rask
Jakob Grimm
lists of cognate terms (i.e.,
words that have a common origin)
 night (English), nuit (French), Nacht (German,
Dutch), nicht (Scots), natt (Swedish), nat
(Danish) noc (Czech, Polish), ночь, noch
(Russian), nich (Ukrainian), noć (Serbian), νύξ,
nyx (Greek), nox (Latin), nakt- (Sanskrit), natë
(Albanian), noche (Spanish), nos (Welsh), noite
(Portuguese and Galician), notte (Italian), nit
(Catalan), noapte (Romanian), nótt (Icelandic),
natt (Norwegian), and naktis (Lithuanian), all
meaning "night“
 These cognate terms must come from
“basic vocabulary”:
 • body parts, kinship terms, natural
phenomena not limited to a particular
climate or place, bodily functions, etc.
 • not readily borrowed from other
languages
 • exclude onomatopoeia or nursery
words
Establish regular/recurrent
sound correspondences
between the languages:
o English Latin
tongue dingua
tooth denttow
tow dūco
two duo

o Engl. t || Lat. d
Postulate a sequence of regular sound
changes which allows the protolanguage to be
reconstructed from its daughter languages.

 • the cognates meaning ‘night’ above are

derived from the Proto-Indo-European
(PIE) *nokt-, "night."
 It is possible for languages to have different
degrees of relatedness.
 English, for example, is related to both
German and Russian, but is more closely
related to the former than it is to the latter.
 The reason for this is that although all three
languages share a common ancestor,
Proto-Indo-European, English and German
also share as a more recent common
ancestor, one of the daughter languages of
Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic,
while Russian does not.
 Therefore, English and German are considered
to belong to a different subgroup of the Indo-
European language family, the Germanic
languages, than Russian (which belongs to the
Slavic subgroup).
 The division of related languages into sub-
groups by the comparative method is
accomplished by finding languages with large
numbers of shared linguistic innovations
from the parent language; two languages
having many shared retentions from the
parent language is not sufficient evidence of a
subgroup.
Indo-European Language Family
 Germanic,
 Romance,
 Celtic,
 Greek,
 Armenian,
 Albanian,
 Baltic,
 Slavic,
 Iranian,
 Indic,
 among the dead ones: Anatolian, Tocharian,
Italic
East Germanic

 Gothic,
 Vandal,
 Burgundian
 Etc.
West Germanic languages:

 English,
 German,
 Dutch,
 Afrikaans,
 Yiddish,
 Frisian,
 Flemish (some parts of Belgium),
 Luxembourgian (some scholars).
North Germanic subgroup:

 Icelandic, Norwegian, Faroese (West

Scandinavian),
 Danish, Swedish (East Scandinavian).
The Historic Development of
English
 1. Historic data on Germanic tribes.
 2. Periods of the English Language.
 a) Pre-History
 b) Old English and its major records
 c) Middle English and its literary works
 d) Early New English
 Historic data on Germanic
tribes
 Greek merchant Pitheus
 Titus Livius
 “Notes on Gaul War” (52 BC) by Julius
Caesar (“Germane”)
 Pliny the Elder (3-79 AD) “Bella
Germanica”
 “Naturalis historia” (Natural History, 77 AD)
 Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 55-120 AD) “De
origine et situ Germanorum” (On the Origin
and Settlement of Germane, 98 AD)
The English Language and its
Periods
 Old English,
 Middle English
 Modern English
 Henry Sweet
 Old English: the time of the Germanic tribes’
settlement on the British Isles (ca. V cen.) up to
the Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066, the
end of feudal development.
 Middle English (12th – 15th centuries) – the fall
of feudal state and transition to absolute
monarchy (the end falls to the War of Roses.
 Modern English (16th century – present) with
Early Modern English period (first half of the
16th cen. up to 18th cen.) – the rise of
bourgeoisie
 Old English – a period of “full endings”,
 Middle English – a period of “leveled
endings”
 Modern English – a period of “lost
endings”.
Brooklyn-Geneva-Amsterdam-
Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old
English
 1. ca. 450 AD – 1150 Old English
 2. 1150 – 1500 Middle English (within
this period they single out the following
subperiods: Middle English 1 – 1150-
1250; Middle English 2 – 1250-1350;
Middle English 3 – 1350-1420; Middle
English 4 – 1420-1500).
 3. 1500 – present Modern English (Early
Modern English 1500-1700, Modern
British English 1700-present).
Stonehenge (4760) Salisbury
Plain
 Iberians
 Celts (Britons and Gaels)
 Gaius Julius Caesar
 Aulus Platius were sent by Emperor
Claudius
Two things combined to bring
about the end of Roman rule in
Britain:
 1. Civil war (rival generals fought to
become emperor);
 2. Increasing attacks by barbarian tribes
from Northern Europe.
Old English
 Bede the Venerable “Ecclesiastical
History of English People ”
 The Anglo Saxon Chronicle
 Celtic leader Vortigen
 Picts and Scots
 Hengest and Horsa (meaning
respectively ‘horse’ and ‘mare’)
Kent
Wales and Cornwall
Sussex
Wessex
 Anglo-Saxon Heptarch –
seven kingdoms –
Northumbria, Mercia, East
Anglia, Kent, Essex,
Sussex and Wessex
Alfred the Great (849-899)
Edward the Confessor
Duke of
Normandy
(William the
Conqueror
Old English Dialects
 Kentish – spoken in Kent, Surrey and in the Isle
of Wight (developed from the tongue of Jutes
and Frisians).
 Mercian – spoken in the central region, from the
Thames to the Humber (speech of southern
Angles).
 West Saxon – spoken south of the Thames and
the Bristol channel, except Wales and Cornwall
(Saxons).
 Northumbrian – spoken from the Humber north
to the river Forth (Anglican dialect) – (North-
Humbrian).
Runic Inscriptions
Franks
Casket (a
box made
of
whalebone
found near
the town
Clermont
Ferrant in
France)
Ruthwell
Cross
Old English Manuscripts

 Hwīlum heaþo-rōfe hleapan lēton

(Beowulf 864).
 , Cunewulf’s “Elena”, “Juliana”,
“Andreas”: “Judith” (unknown), “Dream
of the Rood”, Exodus, The Wanderer
West Saxon

 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Parker

Chronicle 891 up to XI cen.),
 Alfred’s translations 1) Cura Pastoralis
(Pastoral Care), Orosius’ “World
History”,
 Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy
Mercian

 Charters of Mercian Kings,

 Interlinear Glosses to Psalters and
Gospels,
 Hymns.
Northumbrian

 two runic inscriptions

 Glosses in the Lindisfarne Gospels,
 The Rushworth Gospels,
 The Durham Ritual,
 Caedmon Hymn
 Middle English (ME) is the term used to
describe the varieties of English spoken
 and written from about 1100 to about
1500.
 After the Norman Conquest of 1066, the
OE written standard, Late West Saxon,
gradually fell into disuse.
 Latin took over from English the
documentary functions of the medieval
state, and
 French, the language of the conquerors,
at first competed with English as the
language of literary culture
 During the course of the ME period,
English re-established itself as an
elaborated language of prestige,
available for a whole range of literary
and documentary functions
factors that favored the extinction
of Anglo-Norman in England
 : 1) the loss of control over the French
province – Normandy (1204-1265);
 2) the rise of English national movement
(1272-1400);
 3) Hundred’s Year War with France
(1337-1453).
Middle English Dialects

 Northumbrian - Northern,
 Mercian – Midland,
 West Saxon – Southern or South
Western
 Kentish
East Midland

 The Peterborough Chronicle (1070-

1154),
 Ormulum (XIII cen.),
 “King Horn” (XIII cen.),
 “Havelok the Dane” (XIII cen.),
 Romances of Chivalry (XIV cen.).
The Peterborough
Chronicle
Ormulum
West Midland:

 Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight (XIV

cen.),
 William of Palerne (XIV cen.),
 The Vision of William Concerning Piers,
the Plowman (XIV cen.).
Sir Gawayne and the Green
Knight
South-Western (Southern):

 Layamon’s Brut,
 Ancrene Riwle,
 Robert of Gloucester,
 John Trevisa “Polychronicon”.
Kentish:

 Poema Morale (XIII cen.),

 Dan Mitchel “The Ayenbite of Inwit” (XIV
cen.)
Northern:

 The Prose Rule of St. Benedict (XVIII

cen.),
 Cursor Mundi (XIV cen.),
 York Plays (XIV cen.),
 The Pricke of Conscience (XIV cen.).
Cursor Mundi
Scottish Dialect

 J. Barbour “Bruce” (XIV cen.),

 Henry the Minstrel “Wallace” (XIV cen.),
 James I “The Kingis Quhair” (XV cen.)
The Rise of London Dialect

 Geoffrey Chaucer
 “the worshipful father and first founder
and embellisher of ornate eloquence in
our language”.
 The Canterbury Tales
 : “Proclamation” of Henry III (XIII cen.),
 Gower’s works (XIV cen.),
 Th. Malory’s” Morte D’Arthur”
Early Modern English

 the invention of printing press,

 the rapid spread of popular education, \
the growth of specialized knowledge and
 the emergence of various forms of self
consciousness about language
Iohan Guttenberg
William Caxton