History of English (paper 2) Flashcards
1
Q
OLD ENGLISH
the celts
A
- angles, saxons and jutes invaded around 455
- pushed Celts to very edges of the country (Scotland, Wales, Cornwall etc.)
- influenced place and river names (Carlisle and the Thames)
CELTIC MORPHEMES - “ing” “ton” and “ham” suffixes denote the Celtic morphemes for “the people of” “enclosure or village” and “farm” respectively
2
Q
OLD ENGLISH
the anglo saxons
A
- after becoming dominant in England, replaced Celtic with their own language
- old English had a lexicon of 25000 words and was an aural language (written work meant to be read aloud)
eg. (nouns) son, daughter, (verbs) drink, sing, love, (prepositions) in on
3
Q
OLD ENGLISH
the vikings
A
- invaded around 9th century but continued for about 200 years
- brought with them old Norse
eg. score, sky, anger, ball - Danish language spread around the country leading to a simplified grammatical system
- borders came into place - but trade was permitted
- led to the borrowing and trading of words
4
Q
OLD ENGLISH
the normans
A
- Normans and William the Conqueror invaded 1066
- brought with them the French language
- Normans didn’t speak English and the English didn’t speak French - issue was Normans wanted to use English as slaves but struggled without means of communication
as a result, Norman words seeped into the English language
eg. arrest, judge, duke, baron
5
Q
MIDDLE ENGLISH
impact of French language
A
- period from around 1100 to 1700
- English kept words like cow, sheep and swine but gained beef, mutton and pork from the French
this was due to the French dominating the English - the French ate the meat but the English worked with the animals (hence the lexical differences) - estimated 10 000 words to have entered the English lexicon from the French
- ultimately French and Latin became the language of power and authority
- French often ended up marrying the English so language became more intertwined
6
Q
MIDDLE ENGLISH
the black death
A
- 1340s
- wiped out a massive percentage of the population (estimated around 33-50%)
- wiped out those at the top of the hierarchy (latin-speaking clergymen and French aristocracy) leaving a large number of only English speakers
- English became the more dominant language of England
7
Q
MIDDLE ENGLISH
Catholic church and Wycliffe
A
- during this period power and authority comes from the Catholic Church
- Bible and sermons initially in Latin but wasn’t very accessible to non-Latin English people
- 1380 John Wycliffe translated the Bible from Latin to English
ISSUES - translated word-for-word maintaining the Latin syntax which isn’t the same as English
- Catholic church banned the bible, ordered its destruction and the arrest of Wycliffe
- so angry they ordered his remains to be dug up and burned
8
Q
MIDDLE ENGLISH
Tyndale and the King James bible
A
- early 1500s emergence of another bible, translated by William Tyndale
- embedded rhythmic and simplistic phrases so very effective
- still banned though
KING JAMES BIBLE - ordered the creation of a standardised bible
- 85% of Tyndale’s translation made it into the King James version
- still the version in use today
9
Q
MIDDLE ENGLISH
Henry V and orthography
A
- Henry V started writing letters home from the war in English (not done by previous monarchs)
- Signet office (published all the King’s official documents) started using English in publications
- caused an issue as dialects and orthography (spelling system) were pre-standardisation so very different from each other
- from this point the process of standardisation begins
10
Q
MIDDLE ENGLISH
standardisation
A
- traditionalists - wanted to spell in ways that we had always spelt
- reformers - who wanted to spell things how they were pronounced
- traditionalists won this battle
11
Q
MIDDLE ENGLISH
the great vowel shift
A
- changed where we articulated long vowels - moving from the front of the mouth to the back of the mouth
eg. “house” used to be pronounced as “hoose” - short vowels were not affected by this
12
Q
MIDDLE ENGLISH
the printing press and William Caxton
A
- originally formed in Germany by Johannes Gutenberg
- William Caxton brought the printing press to England (did not invent it)
- published many famous works eg. Chaucer’s ‘the Canterbury tales’
- opening of the printing press in London (1476) effectively symbolises the end of Middle English
13
Q
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
the Renaissance and the Inkhorn Controversy
A
- early modern english 1500-1800
- Renaissance saw a “rebirth” of Latin and Greek - Latin was still being taught in schools so when educated scholars were working there was an upsurge of Latin and Greek words into our language
INKHORN CONTROVERSY - arguments over the high number of Greek and Latinate terms entering our language
- arose because no one had control over the English language and people in this century had a desire for categorising things
14
Q
Dictionaries
A
- very first attempt 1582 by Richard Mulcaster
only 8000 words and only a list of alphabetical words with no definitions - dictionary number 2 - 1604 by Robert Cawdrey
2453 words and not designed for scholarly use - 1755 (took 8 years to complete) Samuel Johnson created the Dictionary of the English language
40 000 words - 1928 James Murray published the Oxford English dictionary (took 49 years to complete)
over 400 000 words and continues to expand as it aims to catalogue as many words as possible
15
Q
LATE MODERN ENGLISH
Prescriptivism and Jonathan Swift
A
- period from around 1700 to 1900 characterised by the rise of prescriptivism
- Jonathan Swift (writer of Gulliver’s Travels) was appalled at the state of English
- proposed that we eliminate “defective” grammar and employ more archaic (old fashioned) grammar systems
- core argument was that we employ a system like the “Academie francaise” - French institution that controlled and limited what came into the French language
