HISTORY OF ENGLISH See also

1
HISTORY OF ENGLISHSee also Semantic Gaps and
Sources of New Words

• by Don L. F. Nilsen
• and Alleen Pace Nilsen

2
HISTORY OF ENGLISH BEFORE ENGLAND
3
FOUR MAJOR LANGUAGE FAMILIES

• SINO-TIBETAN
• e.g. Mandarin Chinese
• FINNO-UGRIC
• e.g. Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, etc.
• HAMIDO-SEMITIC
• e.g. Arabic and Hebrew
• INDO-EUROPEAN
• e.g. Romance, Germanic, Balto-Slavic,
  Indo-Iranian, and Celtic
• NOTE GIVE OTHER LANGUAGE FAMILIES PLUS
  EXAMPLES

4
INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

• ROMANCE
• French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish
• BALTO-SLAVIC
• Bulgarian, Croation, Czech, Macedonian, Old
  Church Slavonic, Polish, Russian, Serbian
• INDO-IRANIAN
• Avestan, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Pashto,
  Persian, Urdu,
• CELTIC
• Breton, Cornish, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh
• GERMANIC
• Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Flemish,
  German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish

5
PROTO INDO EUROPEAN LANGUAGES(Fromkin Rodman
Hyams 2011 522)
6
SOUND CHANGES BEFORE ENGLISH

• ABLAUT
• UMLAUT
• FIRST CONSONANT SHIFT (GRIMMS LAW)
• SECOND CONSONANT SHIFT (TO DISTINGUISH HOCH
  DEUTCH FROM PLATT DEUTCH)

7
ABLAUT

• begin-began-begun
• break-broke-broken
• choose-chose-chosen
• come-came-come
• eat-ate-eaten
• fly-flew-flown
• sing-sang-sung

8
UMLAUT

• child-children
• goose-geese
• man-men
• mouse-mice
• woman-women

9
GRIMMS LAW

• /bh/, /dh/, /gh/ gt /b/, /d/, /g/
• /b/, /d/, /g/ gt /p/, /t/, /k/
• /p/, /t/, /k/ gt /f/, /T/, /h/
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 510-511, 513)

10
GRIMMS LAW (Herndon 413)
11
GRIMM'S LAW 1st GERMANIC CONSONANT SHIFT

• /b/ gt /p/ bursa-purse, labial-lip
• /d/ gt /t/ decade-ten, dozen-twelve, dent-tooth,
  duet-two
• /g/ gt /k/ agriculture-acre
• /p/ gt /f/ pedestal-footnote, padre-father,
  plate-flat, pyre-fire
• /t/ gt /?/ tricycle-three
• /k/ gt /h/ courage-hearty, corn-horn,
  canis-hound
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 510-511, 513)

12
VERNERS LAW

• When the preceding vowel was unstressed, /f/ /?/
  /x/ underwent a further change to /b/ /d/ /g/.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 513)

13
2nd GERMANIC CONSONANT SHIFT HIGH/LOW GERMAN

• penny-pfennig
• too-zu
• water-wasser

14
INDO-EUROPEAN NUMBERS
ENGLISH one two three four five SPANISH uno dos tres quatro cinqo GERMAN eins zwei drei fier funf FRENCH un deux trois quatre cinque PERSIAN yek do seh chahar panj (FRH 2011 535)
15
HISTORY OF ENGLISH IN ENGLAND
16

• 499-1066 Old English
• 1066-1500 Middle English
• 1500-Today Modern English
• 499 Saxons invade Britain
• 6th Century Religious Literature
• 8th Century Beowulf
• 1066 Norman Conquest
• 1387 Canterbury Tales
• 1476 Caxtons Printing Press
• 1500 Great Vowel Shift
• 1564 Birth of Shakespeare
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2007 462)

17
GREAT ENGLISH VOWEL SHIFT(Fromkin Rodman Hyams
2011 493-494)
18
SOUND CHANGES IN ENGLISH

• Great English Vowel Shift
• Intervocalic Fricatives become contrastive
  (phonemic)
• Loss of Vowels in Unstressed Syllables (Suffixes)
• Loss of Duals
• Number Becomes Intimacy (thou, thee, thy, thine,
  ye, you)
• Loss of Verb Endings (-est, -eth)

19
Great English Vowel Shift

• A bat gt boat, name gt name
• E me gt me, he gt he, we gt we, ges gt geese
• I wis gt wise, ic gt I, min gt my, þin gt
  thine, mis gt mice
• O eow gt you, gos gt goose
• U þu gt thou, mus gt mouse
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 493-494)

20
Intervocalic Fricatives become contrastive
(phonemic)

• bath vs. to bathe
• calf vs. to calve
• half vs. to half
• house vs. to house
• lath vs. lathe
• safe vs. to save
• teeth vs. to teethe
• use vs. to use
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2007 465)

21

• Note that before English root syllables became
  stressed and English suffixes lost their stress
  and became lost, Old English was a very highly
  inflected language.
• In fact, at that time it was a synthetic language
  (with many inflections) rather than an analytic
  language (with prepositions and auxiliaries
  instead of suffixes).
• Here is an overview of Old English inflections.
  Contrast it with Modern English, but dont sweat
  the details.

22
Loss of Vowels in Unstressed Syllables (Suffixes)

• Nominative batas (boat) stan (stone)
• Accusative bata stanes
• Genitive batas stane
• Dative batum stane
• Instrumental batum stan
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 494)

23
SINGULAR ADJECTIVES, NOUNS PERSONAL PRONOUNS

• ADJ N PERSONAL PRONOUNS
• 1st 2nd 3rd
• Nom wis bat ic þu he/hit/heo
• Gen wises bates min þin his/his/hiere
• Dat wisum bate me þe him/him/hiere
• Acc wisne bat me þe hine/hit/hit
• Inst wise bat me þe hine/hit/hit

24
DUAL ADJECTIVES, NOUNS PERSONAL PRONOUNS

• ADJ N PERSONAL PRONOUNS
• 1st 2nd
• Nominative wit git
• Genitive uncer incer
• Dative unc inc
• Accusative unc inc

25
PLURAL ADJECTIVES, NOUNS PERSONAL PRONOUNS

• ADJ N PERSONAL PRONOUNS
• 1st 2nd 3rd
• Nom wise batas we ge hie/hie/hie
• Acc wise bata us eow hie/hie/hie
• Gen wisra batas ure eower hiere/hiere/hiere
• Dat wisum batum us eow him/him/him
• Inst wisum batum us eow him/him/him

26
VERBS

• IND SUBJ IMP PAST TENSE
• SINGULAR
• 1st drife drife draf
• 2nd drifest drife drif drife
• 3rd drifeþ drife draf
• PLURAL drifaþ drifen drifaþ drifon
• VERBALS
• INFINITIVE drifan
• GERUND to drifenne
• PARTICIPLE drifende
• SUPPLETIVE VERBS, which come from two different
  paradigms
• eom, eart, is, sindon, wæs, wære, wæron
• NOTE go comes from the to go paradigm but
  went comes from the to wend paradigm

27

• OLD ENGLISH The Lords Prayer
• Fæder ure,
• þou þe eart on heofonum,
• si þin name gehalgod.
• Tobecume þin rice.
• Gewurþe þin willa on eorþan swa swa on heofenum.
• Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg.
• And forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfaþ
  urum gyltendum.
• And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge,
• ac alys us of yfele.

28
MIDDLE ENGLISH, from Chaucers Canterbury Tales

• Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
• The droght of March hath perced to the roote
• When April with its sweet showers
• The drought of March has pierced to the root.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 489, 496)

29

• MIDDLE ENGLISH, from Chaucers Canterbury Tales
• Ther was also a nonne, a Prioresse,
• That of hir smyling was ful symple and coy,
• Hir gretteste oath was but by Seinte Loy,
• And she was cleped Madame Eglentyne.
• Ful wel she song the service dyvyne,
• Entuned in hir nose ful semely.
• And Frenshe she spak ful faire and fetisly
• After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,
• For Frenshe of Parys was to hir unknowe.
• (Roberts 2009 90)

30
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH Shakespeares Hamlet

• A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
  king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that
  worm.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2007 462)

31
THE KINGS ENGLISH

• Name the ruler who settled
• Charleston
• Georgia
• Jamestown
• Louisiana
• North and South Carolina
• Virginia and West Virginia
• Williamsburg

32
TODAY ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE

• In Hong Kong you can find a place called the
  Plastic Bacon Factory.
• In Naples, there is a sports shop called
  Snoopys Dribbling,
• while in Brussels there is a mens clothing store
  called Big Nuts, which has a sign saying
  SWEAT690 FRANCS. This was for a sweatshirt.

33

• In Japan you can drink Homo Milk or Poccari
  Sweat (a popular soft drink, eat some chocolates
  called Hand-Maid Queer-Aid, or go out and buy
  some Arm Free Grand Slam Munsingswear.
• (Nilsen Nilsen 164)
• (from Bill Brysons The Mother Tongue English
  and How It Got That Way)

34

• !ANACHRONISM 1
• Pease porridge hot.
• Pease porridge cold.
• Pease porridge in the pot nine days old.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2007 476)
• EXPLANATION On the first day of a march,
  prisoners used to be served hot pea soup.
• On the second day they were served cold pea soup.
• And on the ninth day of the march they would be
  served pea soup that had been in the pot for nine
  days.

35
!ANACHRONISM 2

• Bob Newhart does a sketch in which Sir Walter
  Raleigh telephones the West Indies Company in
  London.
• He was reporting on his voyage to the New Land of
  America.
• Since Sir Walter Raleigh is on the telephone, we
  can only hear one side of the conversation

36

• !!What is it this time, Walt? You got another
  winner for us do you? Tobacco? Whats tobacco,
  Walt? Its a kind of leaf and you bought 80 tons
  of it? You take a pinch of tobacco and shove it
  up your nose and it makes you sneeze. I imagine
  it would, Walt.
• The skit ends with, Youre going to have a tough
  time telling people to stick burning leaves in
  their mouth.
• (Nilsen Nilsen 31)

37
!!!Web Site

• History of Five Religions
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vx-sIF78QYCI

38

• References
• Aitchison, Jean Language Change Progress or
  Decay? (Clark, Eschholz Rosa, 1998 431-441).
• Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue English and How
  It Got That Way. New York, NY William Morrow,
  1990.
• Clark, Virginia, Paul Eschholz, and Alfred Rosa,
  eds. Language Readings in Language and Culture,
  6th Edition. New York, NY St. Martins Press,
  1998.
• Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark,
  eds. Language Awareness Readings for College
  Writers, 10th Edition. Boston, MA Bedford/St.
  Martins, 2009.
• Fennell, Barbara A. A History of English A
  Sociolinguistic Approach. Oxford, England
  Blackwell, 2001.

39

• Falk, Julia. To Be Human A History of the Study
  of Language (Clark, Eschholz Rosa 1998
  442-476).
• Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams.
  Language Change The Syllables of Time. An
  Introduction to Language, 9th Edition. Boston,
  MA Thomson Wadsworth, 2011, 488-539.
• Herndon, Jeanne H. Comparative and Historical
  Linguistics (Clark, Eschholz Rosa 1998
  411-419).
• Moore, Samuel and Albert Marchwardt. Historical
  Outlines of English Sounds and Inflections. Ann
  Arbor, MI Wahr, 1969.
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace. Changing Words in a
  Changing World. Living Language. Boston, MA
  Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 427-473.

40

• Nilsen, Alleen Pace. Technology and Language
  Change. Living Language. Boston, MA Allyn and
  Bacon, 1999, 379-426.
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen.
  Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor.
  Westport, CT Greenwood, 2000.
• Ohio State University Files. The Family Tree and
  Wave Models (Clark, Eschholz Rosa 1998
  416-419).
• Roberts, Paul A Brief History of English (Clark
  1998 420-430, Eschholz, Rosa Clark 2009
  84-93).
• van Gelderen, Elly, A History of the English
  Language. Philadelphia, PA John Benjamins, 2006.