Language Change Flashcards
Who inhabited England in 0 AD?
The Celtic people
When did the Germanic tribes arive in England?
449 AD
What happened to the Celtic tribes due to the arrival of the Germanic tribes?
The celts were pushed to Wales , Scotland , Cornwall and Ireland forming welsh, galic and cornish
Roughly what year did the vikings invade the North East of England?
800’s AD
What year did William the Conqueror invade England (and subsequently the French language)
1066 AD
What year was English made the offical language again for documents in England?
1430 AD
Who brought the printing press to the UK?
William Caxton
What year was the printing press brought to the UK?
1476 AD
Why is the invention of the printing press so significant in the use of Standard English?
Caxton chose to print the documents in the English spoken by the Cambridge , Oxford and London triage. Which influenced the creation of ‘standard’ English
Whats the example of an unusual sentence structure in Old English from Genisis?
‘They knew then, that they naked were’
Why was 1066 AD signficant for the development of English?
Because french was brought into the uk by the Normans , meaning it became the dominant langauge
What are some features of Old English?
Existence of different inflexions (e.g for ‘saw’
Irregular sentence structure in comparison to Standard English (e.g putting the verb last)
What are two words that were integrated into English from the Vikings?
Give and recieve
Explain the existence of different inflexions of the word ‘saw’ in old English?
In old English, there was 3 different types of ‘saw’ (for example I = seah , you = sawe) which depended on the use of a 1st, 2nd or third person singular or plural pronoun)
What is Signficant about closed-word classes in relation to old English?
All our closed-word classes (e.g pronouns , determiners, prepositions and conjunctions) have been left mostly untouched since Old English
What is significant about the top 10 most used words survey from the Oxford Dictionary in 2006?
That every word in the top ten (apart from ‘Person’) is Anglo-Saxton
What event caused Old English begin to shift Middle English?
The Norman invasion of 1066 where French became the prestige language of England and the English language had covert prestige
Why did the spelling change from Old English to Middle English?
Because Norman scribes wanted to switch to typical French spelling conventions
What happened to inflections during the Middle English period?
They were mostly levelled out and nearly all plural nouns were given the suffix ‘s’ to mark pluralism
What Old English inflections still remain?
‘En’ and ‘an (e.g Oxen)
What is meant by ‘the great vowel shift’?
Beginning in the early 13th century in the North of England , it highlights when short high vowels (e.g ‘U’ and ‘I’) were lengthened and lowered , by the early 16th centuary , all long vowels sounded very similar to their modern pronunciation
What are Three examples of the great vowel shifts effects on language?
Weef–> wife
Moos –> mouse
Teem –> time
What were the two main reasons standardisation of English began?
Caxtons printing press
The rise of Grammatarians (prescriptivists) calling for standarised English
What was John Hart’s (one of the original grammarians) novel called?
‘The unreasonable writing of our Inglish Toung’
What happened to Old English after the Norman invasion?
It began to expand with French and Latinate words
What was the time periods of development of English?
500 AD - Old English
1000 - 1500 AD - Middle English
1500 - 1800 AD - Early Modern
1800 - Present
When did Caxton introduce Gutenberg’s printing press to the UK?
1476
In what novel and it what year did Caxton refer to ‘Old English’
The Preface To Eneydos (1490)
What dialect did Caxton pick for his printing press?
Southeast Midlands and London dialect
What are 3 reasons that the printing press began to ‘fix’ a standard form of English?
It enabled the East Midlands dialect to be spread wider than ever as texts were made on mass
It promoted literacy (e.g reading and writing) as books were widely available
It encouraged the rise of Grammarians (prescriptivists)
What were the 4 ‘rules’ of Standard English that Robert Lowth highlted in his book ‘A Short Inroduction To Grammar’ (1762)
The pronoun ‘thou’ should not be used anymore
Infinitive verbs shouldn’t be split
Multiple negotation is illogical
Prepositions shouldn’t end sentences
Who are three prescriptivists we highlight specficically?
John Hart - 1507
Bullokar - 1586
Robert Lowth - 1762
Where prescriptivists successful at ‘fixing’ a standard English completely?
Not completely as prescriptivist rules are still ignored by some dialects (e.g Cockney’s use of double negatives)
When did the Renaissance begin in England?
Roughly the 1500’s
How many words were estimated to be added to English during the Renaissance?
Over 30,000 words
What two idoms that came from the KJV Bible (1611) ?
Salt of the earth
Walking the straight and narrow
What are two idoms that came from Shakespeare during the Renaissance?
In a pickle
Vanished into thin air
Which two things had the largest effect on Language during the Renaissance?
Shakespeare and the KJV Bible
How was English mostly spread in the Renaissance?
Auraly (via spoken mode)
What were the 4 ways that new words begin to be used
Affixation (prefixation + suffixation)
Conversion
Coining
Compounding
What were ‘new words’ know as by prescriptivist?
Inkhorn terms
What did the Ink Horn controversy suggest?
It meant that ‘linguistic purists’ were unhappy with new words
What are 5 languages that we ‘borrowed’ from during the renaissance period?
Latin
Spanish
French
German
Dutch
Who made the first English Dictionary in 1604?
Robert Cawdrey’s ‘A Table Alphabetical’
How many words did Cawdreys ‘A Table Alphabetical’ (Dictonary) have?
2500 words
Who did Cawdrey call out with his dictonary?
Preachers as they converge with the dialects of ‘ignorant people’ (everyday people) and using ‘Ink Horne Tearmes’ when preaching instead of using ‘Standard English’
What were sentences like in Early Modern English?
They very long, usually compound sentences with multiple clauses. They are also known as suspended sentences as the main clause was usually very far into the sentence
How was Standard English begining to be viewed by the 18th century?
As a value marker but not a ‘standard’ (e.g the ‘best’ English)
Why was there such a push for standardisation in the early 1700’s?
Because the rulers wanted stability after the English Civil War. They wanted to achieve this partially by ‘fixing’ a standard for English and create linguistic order.
Who was Johnathan Swift?
A famous writer who accused the English language of barbarism and called for a formal institution to be set up to set the ‘rules’ of English
What French Idea did Johnathan Swift build his idea off of?
The Academie Francaise (A formal French Inastiutition set up to ‘protect’ the language)
What is a dictionary writer formally know as?
A Lexicographer
What dictonary came after Nathan Baileys ‘Dictionary’ ? (1730)
Dr Samuel Johnson’s Dictonary (1755)
How many words does Dr Samuel Johnsons ‘Dictionary’ (1755) have?
Around 40,000
What did Dr Samuel Johnson seek to do with his ‘Dictionary’ ? (1755)
He wanted to standardise meaning, orthography and the grammar of words
What did the publication of Johnson’s ‘Dictonary’ (1755) mark a shift to?
Post-standardisation of English
What happened after Johnson’s (1755) ‘Dictionary’ was published?
Prescriptivism became the ‘norm’ meaning most writers became very focused on ‘correctness’
What are the 4 steps of standardisation?
Selection - Caxton selected the dialect , South-East Midlands and London
Eleboration - English massively expaned during the renaissance (over 30,000 new words)
Codification - the rules are ‘fixed’ by Grammar texts books and Dictionaries
Acceptance/implementation - everyone accepts that standard English will be used and ‘rejects’ non-standard
What event happened that lead to the growth of the middle class?
The industustral revolution
Why did the newly minted ‘middle class’ upwardly converge to Standard English?
Because they wanted symbols of their nee status
What was the 1870’s education act?
When education was made complusory for all children up to the age of 12
Why did The Education Act (1870) help spread Standard English?
Children were taught to read and write in Standard English as education was compulsory
How did fee paying ‘public schools’ lead to the spread of RP?
Wealthly middle class and upper class son’s were taught RP as the correct pronunciation
What does the OED?
Oxford English Dictionary
What did Irish migration lead to the creation of?
Scouse (the Liverpudlian accent)
What is semantic narrowing?
When a word reduces or focuses its meaning (e.g meat —-> flesh)
What were the biggest impacts on language past the 1900’s?
Media and journalism
What year did the BBC begin (and RP began to be spread)
1922 - Radio
1932 - T.V
Why was the novel ‘lady Chattoley’s lover’ (written in 1928, published in 1960) significant?
The first English publication of the word ‘f*ck’
What happened after in the 20th century in terms of formality?
The softening of formalities began
What happened linguistically after the softening of formalities began?
Phrasal verbs - e.g ‘shut up’ ‘sit down’ used more
Transitive verbs began to be used - ‘ I’m planning an essay —> ‘I’m planning’
What 2 events happened in the 20th century that led to the the expansion of English?
WW1/2 - Blitz, Kamakazi
Technological advancement - Video games (1973)
How did the war lead to the creation of Estuary English?
People moved out of London into the surrounding areas , which caused RP and Cockney to mix
How coined the phrase ‘Estuary English’ in the 1980’s?
Rosewarne
What has the introduction of hyperlinks created?
Major changes in Graphology and has allowed reading to become interactive and more engaging
How has the rise of texting and emails effected language development?
It has led to the rise of CMC and blurred distinctions of formaility
What does CMC make use of?
Alphanumeric and symbol characters
(E.g C u l8)
What are 4 features of CMC?
Phoentic spelling (e.g u)
Emotive pronunciation (e.g ????)
Deletion (e.g yh)
Accorcyms (e.g btw)
What have CMC and spell checks started to unravell?
A long period of standardisation which began at the printing press
What does David Crystal believe about CMC (text speak) ?
That it is the next stage in the evolution of English
What did Cinogle and Sundar believe about CMC (text speak)?
That the use of CMC undermines gramactical understanding
What is text speak know to contain?
Number and letter homophones (e.g C U L8r)
What is the Clear English Campaign?
It is a campaign which aims to make documents language easier to understand , it aims to make up to 90% of writings use active rather than passive voice
What did David Crystal argue was one of the biggesr changes made to English in the late 20th century?
Informalisation - meaning that the register of modern texts tends to be more informal than texts from the past
