Historic Change Flashcards
Pre English period (-c. 450 AD)
Romans rule Britain
Latin is dominant language - government
Celtic is the local language
Early old English period (450-c. 850)
Anglo-Saxons invade Romans defeated Speak German dialects English is born e.g. dog, earth Intro do Christianity Borrow Latin words e.g. mass
Later old English period (850 - 1100)
Vikings invade from Scandinavia
English influenced highly by Scandinavian e.g. sky harbour
Middle English period (1100 - 1450)
Norman conquest = influence of French
Large number of French words e.g. royal biscuit
Latin still very influential
Early Modern English period (1450 - 1750)
Renaissance
Borrow words from Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese
Shakespeare
Science and government becomes English
Attempts at standardisation e.g. printing
Modern English period (1750 - 1950)
Industrial revolution
English is official language
English’s medium of education
Late modern English period (1950 - now)
English is international language of communication and technology
400million+ speak English as first language
500million speak English as second or foreign language
Old English (450 - 1100)
10,000 words in vocab
Mainly Germanic language
Old English got written down
Vikings invaded and got rid of inflections and prepositions (Old Norse)
Words from Celtic = crag (rock) O.E = Combe. Old Norse = sky, harbour
Middle English (1150 - 1450)
Norman’s invaded England 1066
English became language of illiterate
French was language of power, law etc
10,000 new French words e.g. legal beef fork
Intermarriage - women usually spoke English, kids spoke mums language
1348-1350 = Black Death killing 1/2 Britain
Importance of English speaking working class increased
English became people’s language
Middle English = blend of OE and Norman French
Words became synonyms e.g. cookery and cuisine. Want and desire. Kingly and royal
Early Modern English (1450-1750)
Pronouns (2nd person thou thy)
Verbs (2nd person -est 3rd -eth. Use of do)
Nouns and adjectives (plurals -es and ys)
No possessive “s” only -es
Comparative and superlative adjs
Word order (VSO)
Process of standardisation
- helps govern and teach
- guarantee intelligibility
- communicate nationally on mutual ground
- Chancery standard (1430+)
- Caxton’s printing press (1476)
- Inkhorn controversy (16th-17th cent)
- English Literature (1500s)
- Exploration, trade, science
- Reformation (1534)
- King James Bible (1611)
- First dictionaries (1604)
- Johnson’s dictionary (1755)
- Prescriptivism (18th cent 1791)
- Schooling & Literacy
Chancery Standard (1430)
The civil service of the Middle Ages
Was an agreed form of English adopted by the bureaucrats
Was the FIRST attempt to create a single English
Based on East Midlands dialect
E.g. hey hem replaced by they them
Caxton’s printing press
Gutenburg invented printing (1458 in Mainz)
Caxton brought it to Westminster (1476)
Published Canterbury tales in his own dialect (East Midlands)
Spread this dialect around England
Other dialectics died out - not printed
Inkhorn controversy (16 - 17th cent.)
Latin and Greek taught in schools (language of power)
New words came from these languages JOHN CHEKE didn’t like English progressing away form it’s Germanic roots
He was unsuccessful at stopping it
Inkhorn words = crisis, education
English literature
Renaissance saw outbreak of literature
SHAKESPEARE (1564 - 1616) used as much new vocab as possible - used Inkhorn terms and slang
Introduced approx 600 words in Hamlet e.g. laughable, radiance
Tried to use lots of exciting words
Exploration, trade, empire
New discoveries of land introduced new words for foods, animals, plants and geographical features
Loanwords from other languages e.g. tobacco, potato
British empire became the biggest so borrowed lots of words from lots of places who originally borrowed words from the natives
Science and discovery
Vinci, Galileo, Newton pushed boundaries of thought & invention
Telescope, thermometer invented and are Latin / Greek based
Astronomy provided satellite
Anatomical words based on Latin for bones muscles etc
Reformation
Henry 8th made Protestant Church of England in 1534
Latin had been language of the bible
Break from Rome lead for a desire of English bible
King James Bible (1611)
Told 30 scholars to produce official translation
Worked to a set of standards
Archaic forms ye and thee remained
Became official and best known text throughout England
First dictionaries 1604
Bilingual dictionaries pre-existed
Increased literacy and vocab required a reference book
CAWDREY’S Table Alphabeticall had list of 2500 words with their synonyms to explain meanings
JOHNSON’S dictionary 1755
Desire for an authoritative book to show meanings, textual references and in alphabetical order
Remained authoritative until first Oxford English Dictionary in 1928
Contributed to standardised spelling
Prescriptivism 18th cent.
Lots of social, industrial, linguistic change (change reflects society) People wanted to become more posh - upper class dialect and RP JOHN WALKER (1791) published pronouncing dictionary on how to produce a London Accent which he said was undoubtably the best Gave it to cockney speakers
Prescriptive grammarians
Grammar began to get codified because was too inconsistent
ROBERT LOWTH wrote short intro to English grammar 1762 which rules like no split infinitives, no double negatives (3500 rules)
JOSEPH PRIESTLY didn’t think these rules were necessary
Schooling and literacy
Schools in Middle Ages was elite education
EDWARD VI set up new grammar schools
Could go to school if you could pay
Three R’s Latin, Greek, religious instruction lead to increased literacy and need for standard English
The 4 standardisation stages
Selection
Elaboration
Codification
Implementation
Selection
One variety of English is chosen (East Midlands)
Usually from socially influential area
Printing in London was easy and cheap
Provides a base language for everyone to communicate by
Elaboration
Ensuring the new language has a wide range of functions
More words included in vocab
Standardised spellings
English can be used for all contexts
Trade, science, exploration, Inkhorn words
Codification
Making the new language official
Writing it down in dictionaries and grammar books
Allows referencing to official language
Finding normal grammatical usage and vocab
Implementation
Using the language in a variety of places
Discouraging the use of other languages
Teaching it through schools and religious texts
Everyone uses same dialect
John humphreys
If language changes too fast it becomes incomprehensible.
Adults won’t be able to understand children
Against - language only changes at the rate of society change
