A Brief History of English

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A Brief History of English

• OE(Old English) 7th C 1100
• ME(Middle English) 1100 1500
• Early ModE(Modern English) 1500 1800
• ModE 1800 -
  present

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OE ME Early ModE
ModE

• 597 1066 1400 1500 1600
  1800 1884 1941-5
• Germanic Movement
• 
  Caxton
• 
  The Great Vowel Shift
• Conversion
  Shakespeare
• Norman Conquest
• 
  the King James Version of the Bible(1611)
• 
  Chaucer Samuel Johnson
• 
  Wordsworth
• 
  Oxford English
  Dic.
• 
  
  World War II

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Indo-European Language Family(B.C. 3-4,000)

• Eastern Germanic (Satem) ? Slavic, Indo-Iranian
• Western Germanic (Centum)
• ? Celtic
• Greek
• Latin
• Germanic (B.C. 1000)
• ? N. (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish)
• E. (Gothic, Vandalic)
• W. ? Low German (English, Dutch,
  Flemish, Frisian)
• High German (German)

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Grimms Law High German Consoanant
Shift

(Germanic Consonant Shift)
(2nd Germanic Consonant Shift)

• dh ? d vd. stop
• d ? t ? vl
• t ? th
• bh ? b
• b ? p
• p ? f vl. stop
• gh ? g ?fricative
• g ? k
• k ? h

• p ? f
• t ? z
• t ? s
• k ? x
• d ? t
• e.g., water ? Wasser
• better ? besser
• book ? buch
• bed ? Bett

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1. Celtic B.C. 2,000? Europe?? ???? ?? (B.C. 7C
A.D. 3C)

• B.C. 6C? ? ??? Celts? ? Scots, Picts, Briton
• ?? Gaelic, Goidelic ? Scotland, Ireland ??
• Cymric, Brython ? Wales ??
• Kent, London, Cornwall, York,
  Winchester,
• Lichfield ? ??? ?? ??? ??.
• Britain, Britannia? ?? Celtic??.
• England Land of the Angles

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2. Latin (B.C. 55 A.D. 450) Roman Empire,
Roman Civilization

• B.C. 55-54 Caesar's invasion of Britain
• A.D. 43? (The Roman Conquest)
• Claudius?? ? Roman
  Empire?
• ????
  ???
• A.D. 410? Rome? ??? ??? Latin ??
• Kettle, wine, cheese, butter, cheap, plum, gem,
  bishop, church, etc.
• 597? Conversion to Christianity(???? ?? ) ??? ???
  ????? Latin? ??? ???? ?? ? ?? ??? ???? ??? 597?
  ?????.

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3. The Teutonic Conquest (the Germanic
settlement)

• 449-6C? The invasions by the Jutes, Saxons, and
  Angles
• the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy Kent, Essex,
  Wessex, Sussex
• 
  East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria
• Center of the civilization
• Kent ? Northumbria ? Mercia ? Wessex (the great
  Alfred until 899)
• 597? (Conversion to Christianity) St. Augustine
  at Canterbury
• 675-725 Beowulf (epic poem of the Old English)
• 731 Bede, Historia Ecclesiatica Gentis Anglorum
• (Ecclesiastical History of
  the English People) in Latin

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4. The Viking Age

• 787-1042 Raid of the Teutonic inhabitants of
• the Scandinavian peninsula and
  Denmark
• 877 the Danelaw
• (Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum
• the Treaty of Wedmore from
  Chester to London)
• sky, give, law, egg, outlaw, leg, ugly, scant,
  sly, crawl, scowl, take, thrust, they, their,
  them, etc.
• 1017 Cnute, king of Denmark, obtained the
• throne of England
• 1042-66 Edward the Confessor

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5. The Norman Conquest

• 1066 William I (duke of Normandy)
• defeated the English (Harold)
• in the great battle of Hastings.
  
• In the 1040s King Edward (later St.
  Edward the Confessor), last of the Anglo-Saxon
  kings, established his royal palace (Westminster
  Palace) by the banks of the river Thames on land
  known as Thorney Island.

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Westminster Palace, London
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French Borrowings

• Government words parliament, majesty, treaty,
  alliance,
• tax,
  government
• Church words parson, sermon, baptism, incense,
  crucifix,
• religion
• Words for foods veal, beef, mutton, bacon,
  jelly, peach,
• lemon, cream,
  biscuit
• Colors blue, scarlet, vermilion,
• Household words curtain, chair, lamp, towel,
  blanket, parlor
• Play words dance, chess, music, leisure,
  conversation
• Literary words story, romance, poet, literary
• Learned words study, logic, grammar, noun,
  surgeon,
• anatomy, stomach
• Ordinary words nice, second, very, age, bucket,
  gentle, final,
• fault, flower, cry, count,
  sure, move, surprise, plain

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Westminster Abbey
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• 1204 King John? ??? ??? ???
• Normandy ?? ??
• 1337-1453 Edward III ?? ??? ??.
• France? One Hundred Years'
  War
• the disuse of French
• (??? inflectional forms ??)
• 1348-69 The Black Death

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• 1350-69 English began to be used in the
  schools
• 1387-1400 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
  Tales
• (??? prose)
• 1455-1485 30?? The Wars of the Roses
• (York vs.
  Lancaster)
• York white roses Edward III,
  IV, Richard III)
• Lancaster red roses Henry IV, V, VI
• 1486? Henry VII? Edward IV? ?? ???? ??
• Henry VIII, Tudor ??? ??
• 
  (Elizabeth I ?? 1558-1603 )
• 1475 The first introduction of printing
• by William Caxton.

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Early Modern English

• 1) Elimination of a vowel sound in certain
  unstressed positions
• name, stone, wine, dance
• laughed, seemed, stored
• 2) The Great Vowel Shift
• wine vs. mean
• he vs. hey
• mouse vs. moose
• moon vs. moan

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The Great Vowel Shift(? ????)
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Examples Shift

• ME ModE
  ME ModE
• mice mis ? mays i
  ? ay
• mouse mus ?maws u ?
  aw
• geese ges ? gis
  e ? i
• goose gos ? gus
  o ? u
• break breken ? brek e ?
  e
• broke br?ken ? brok ? ?
  o
• name nam? ? nem a ?
  e

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6. The Early Modern English Period (1500 1800)

• Four World-shaking Events
• the Renaissance
• from Italy to Europe (1500-1650)
• Rebirth of Ancient Learning
• Classical Latin
  (B.C. 75 A.D. 175)
• Cicero, Horace,
  Caesa, Quintillian etc.

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ii) the Reformation (16C)

• Martin Luther (1483-1536)
• ????,
• ????? the Protestant Episcopal Church
• (the English Church)?
• 1525 Tyndale, New Testament
• (the 1st English
  from Greek text)
• ??? ????? ??? ?? ??? ??? ? ? ???.
• colloquial English prose style ???? ?? ??,
• 
  ???? ??

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iii) the invention of Printing

• William Caxton, the 1st person to introduce
• a printing press into England, set up a
  
• press in Westminster in 1476.

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iv) the discovery of America

• 1400-1600 The Great Vowel Shift
• 1564-1616 William Shakespeare,
• 38 plays and
  poems
• 1561-1626 Francis Bacon, Essays
• 1573-1637 Ben(jamin) Jonson,
• Every Man in his
  Humour (1600)
• 1608-74 John Milton, Paradise Lost
  (1667)

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• 1653-58 Restoration ????
• Cromwell(1599-1658)? ????? ??,
• ???? ???? Charles II ??
• 1660-1798 the Enlightenment (????)
• (the Age of Reason ??????)
• ?? ??? ??, ????? ??
  
• 
  Newton(1642-1727)

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• Latin, Greek terminologies
• pedestrian, bonus, anatomy, contradict,
  
• climax, dictionary, benefit, multiply,
• exist, paragraph, initiate, scene, inspire,
  
• etc.

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7. The Modern English Period (1800 )

• 1775 Samuel Johnson (Dr. Johnson)
• A Dictionary of the English
  Language
• Wordsworth (1770-1850),
• Blake(1757-1827),
• Keats(1795-1821)
• Shelley(1792-1822), etc.
• 1837-1901 Queen Victoria
• 1857-1884 Oxford English Dictionary

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The 20th C

• World War I, II
• American English
• Webster's Dictionary
• Karl Mark(1818-83)
• Sigmund Freud(1856-1939)
• Albert Einstein(1879-1955)
• new intellectual environment

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The 21st C

• Bill Gates, IT industry, Generative Grammar
• Cloning, DNA, Dooley, stemcell
• avant garde, rock/rap music, CEO, plastic surgery
  
• PC, e-mail, chatting, cellular phone,
• digital camera, chip, 3G, etc.
• mp3, usb, notebook, computer, Wi-Fi,
• website, blog/web-blog, H1N1/swine flu