English as a changing language

AD.

Norman Influences: Latin

Prior to the Norman Conquest, Latin had been only a minor influence on the English

language, mainly through vestiges of the Roman occupation and from the conversion

priest,

of Britain to Christianity in the seventh century (ecclesiastical terms such as

vicar, masscame

and into the language this way). Now there was a wholesale infusion

of Romance (Anglo-Norman) words.

The Merging of Two Languages

The influence of the Normans can be illustrated by looking at two words, beef and cow.

Beef, commonly eaten by the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, while the

cow.

Anglo-Saxon commoners, who tended the cattle, retained the Germanic

indict, jury, verdict

Many legal terms, such as and have Anglo-Norman roots because

the Normans ran the courts. This split, where words commonly used by the aristocracy

have Romantic roots and words frequently used by the Anglo-Saxon commoners have

Germanic roots, can be seen in many instances.

(

Middle English c. 1150 – 1450). THE PERIOD OF LEVELED INFLECTIONS.

The Norman Conquest and Norman rule.

English vocabulary and spelling is now affected by French which becomes the official

language in England.

Educated English people trilingual (F, L, E).

It was not until the14th century—300 years later—that English became dominant in

Britain again. In 1399, King Henry IV became the first king of England since the

Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English. By the end of the 14th Century,

the dialect of London had emerged as the standard dialect of what we now call Middle

English. Canterbury Tales.

The most famous example of Middle English is Chaucer's

Unlike Old English, Middle English can be read, albeit with difficulty, by modern

English-speaking people.

The Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift was a change in pronunciation that began around 1400 and

separates Middle English from Modern English.

In linguistic terms, the shift was rather sudden, the major changes occurring within a

century. The shift is still not over, however, vowel sounds are still shortening although

the change has become considerably more gradual.

In all his life he hasn’t never yet said nothing

Chaucer wrote about his “gentle knight”:

discourteous to no sort of person.

What’s right to say today, may be wrong tomorrow!

Early Modern English (1450 – 1750). THE PERIOD OF LOST INFLECTIONS.

The Renaissance, the Elizabethan era, Shakespeare.

The role of the church, of Latin and of French declines and English becomes a

language of science and government.

Britain grows commercially and acquires overseas colonies.

Attempts to standardize the language.

The Renaissance brought with it widespread innovation in the English language.

The rediscovery of classical scholarship created an influx of classical Latin and Greek

words into the language.

While Latin and Greek borrowings diversified the language, some scholars adopted

Latin terms awkwardly and excessively, leading to the derogatory term “inkhorn.”

It was from the beginning a term of "gentlemanly abuse", referring to words which

were being used by scholarly writers but which were unknown or uncommon in

ordinary speech.

The word derives from the then standard name for the container in which ink was

stored, originally made from a real horn; later, when this term had itself become

obsolete, it was sometimes rendered as "inkpot term".

A great invasion of England was accomplished by Greek and Latin words which have

become a permanent part of the English language. Some English "purists" called

this classical invasion "Inkhorn Terms".

In fact, some of them strongly expressed: "Down with inkhorn terms, up with good old

Anglo-Saxon English!"

The phrase “inkhorn term” came into English in the early to middle sixteenth century,

with the first attested usage dating from 1543 and referred to "invented words" almost

exclusively from classical Latin and Greek origins

The Renaissance was a revival of classical literature; the purifying of Latin diction and

grammar, the revival of Greek, and a return from Middle Age compilation to the old

classical texts.

Italian humanists from 1393 onward went to Constantinople to learn Greek and

brought Greek manuscripts back with them.

Many students having difficulty understanding Shakespeare would be surprised to

learn that he wrote in "modern English

Many familiar words and phrases were coined or first recorded by Shakespeare, some

2,000 words and countless catch-phrases are his.

The first was the Great Vowel Shift, this was a change in pronunciation that began

around 1400.

In the fifteenth century, the Great Vowel Shift--a series of changes in English

pronunciation--further changed the English language.

These purely linguistic sound changes moved the spoken language away from the so-

called “pure” vowel sounds which still characterize many Continental languages today.

An important phonological change of English vowels took place between 1450 and

1650, when all long vowels changed their quality to a great extent. This development

Great English Vowel Shift.

is called the

Each long vowel came to be pronounced with a greater elevation of the tongue and

closing of the mouth.

Those vowels that could be raised were raised and those that could not be raised

became diphtongs.

Diphtongs are sounds where two vowels are pronounced after another so closely that

Eule" "Auto".

they become one acoustic phenomenon, like in German " or "Raising"

here refers to the position of the tongue in the mouth.

While modern English speakers can read Chaucer with some difficulty, Chaucer's

pronunciation would have been completely unintelligible to the modern ear.

Shakespeare, on the other hand, would be accented, but understandable.

Long vowel sounds began to be made higher in the mouth and the letter "e" at the

Lyf(pronounced

end of words became silent. Chaucer's "leef") became the modern

life. nam-a, feef,

In Middle English "name" was pronounced "five" was pronounced and

doon.

"down" was pronounced

In linguistic terms, the shift was rather sudden, the major changes occurring within a

century.

The shift is still not over, however, vowel sounds are still shortening although the

change has become considerably more gradual.

Consequently, the phonetic pairings of most long and short vowel sounds were lost,

resulting in the oddities of English pronunciation and obscuring the relationship of

many English words and their foreign roots.

The Great Vowel Shift was rather sudden and the major changes occurred within a

century, though the shift is still in process and vowel sounds are still shortening, albeit

much more gradually.

The causes of the shift are highly debated.

Some scholars argue that such a shift occurred due to the “massive intake of Romance

loanwords so that English vowels started to sound more like French loanwords.

Other scholars suggest it was the loss of inflectional morphology that started the shift”

(Bragg 2003).

The 17th century was a time of political and social upheaval in England, particularly

the period from about 1640 to 1660.

The increase in trade around the world meant that the English port towns (and their

forms of speech) would have gained in influence over the old county towns.

England experienced a new period of internal peace and relative stability, encouraging

the arts including literature, from around the 1690s onwards.

Another important episode in the development of the English language started around

1607: the British settlement of America. By 1750 a distinct American dialect of English

had developed.

The second was the Renaissance which resulted in a demand for translations of

Greek and Latin literature.

The translators could not find sufficient words in English to express the deeper literary

and philosophical concepts of the classical writers.

Modern English (c. 1750 – 1950).

Britain experiences industrial revolution and consolidates imperial power, introducing

English medium education in many parts of the world.

English becomes an international language of advertising and consumerism.

The Modern English period began in 1500 and lasts until the present day.

The complex inflectional system of Old English had been simplified during the ME

period. period of lost inflections

Modern English is often called the .

The invention of the printing press expanded education, communications, and the

awareness of social problems which resulted in new universal knowledge and

interests.

The invention of the printing press also marked the division from Old English to

Modern English as books became more widespread and literacy increased

Soon publishing became a marketable occupation and books written in English were

often more popular than books in Latin.

The printing press also served to standardize English.

The written and spoken language of London already influenced the entire country, and

with the influence of the printing press, London English soon began to dominate.

Indeed, London standard became widely accepted, especially in more formal context.

Soon English spelling and grammar were fixed and the first English dictionary was

published in 1604.

The change from Middle English to Early Modern English was not just a matter of

vocabulary or pronunciation changing: it was the beginning of a new era in the history

of English.

An era of linguistic change in a language with large variations in dialect was replaced

by a new era of a more standardized language with a richer lexicon and an established

(and lasting) literature.

Shakespeare’s plays are familiar and comprehensible today, 400 years after they were

written, but the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland, written only 200

years earlier, are considerably more difficult for the average reader.

The revival of classical scholarship brought many classical Latin and Greek words into

the Language.

These borrowings were deliberate and many bemoaned the adoption of these

"inkhorn" terms, but many survive to this day.

Love’s Labor Lost

Shakespeare's character Holofernes in is a satire of an over

enthusiastic schoolmaster who is too fond of Latinisms.

Late Modern English (c. 1950 - )

The collapse of the British Empire.

New standardized varieties of English emerge in independent countries

English becomes the international language of communications technology.

American English becomes the dominant world variety

The fundamental feature that distinguishes OE from MnEis its grammar.

Old English was a syntheticlanguage (a language that indicates the relation of words in

inflections);

a sentence largely by means of Modern English is analytic (languages that

prepositionsand word order

make extensive