Summary 2- Chapter 2: An Overview of the Early History

Question 1

who were The original inhabitants of the British Isles ?

Answer 1

The Picts (iberians? scandinavians?)

Question 2

when did celtic speakers (IE’s) come to the british isles?

Answer 2

in 2 waves, around 700 BC

Question 3

when did the Romans invaded and conquered the Celtic population?

Answer 3

in 43 AD

Question 4

where did the romans NOT establish themselves in 43 AD?

Answer 4

in the north (Scotland) and in the west (Wales)

Question 5

why did the Romans abandon Britain in 410 AD?

Answer 5

Because of distance, attacks by Germanic tribes, and stretched military resources

Question 6

who were the germanic settlers that came after the romans?

Answer 6

Angles, Saxons, Jutes (?), Frisians (?), Franks (?)

Question 7

when did the germanic settlers first come?

Answer 7

in 449 AD.

Question 8

• A larger wave of Germanic settlement and conquest came in the :

Answer 8

fifth century

Question 9

According to the story by Bede, what happened?

Answer 9

Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians (?), and Franks (?) were invited (449) by the Celtic Chieftain Vortigern to help fend off attacks by their northern adversaries, the Picts, in the north in exchange for land.

Question 10

The Jutes settled in _______, the Angles in the ______, and the Saxons in the _______ and _____.

Answer 10

Kent (southeast), East Midlands, south (Sussex) and west (Wessex)

Question 11

did the jutes, angles and saxons bring with them one uniform language?

Answer 11

NO! a variety of several closely related West

Germanic dialects spoken along the northern coast of present-day Germany and Denmark.

Question 12

who were the Norse?

Answer 12

Danes and Norwegians, Vikings

Question 13

the Norse from Norway and Denmark (collectively called ______

Answer 13

“Danes”).

Question 14

who rallied the troops and beat the Danes which forced a compromise, and where?

Answer 14

Kind Alfred of Wessex (West Saxon territory)

at the Battle of Edington (Ethandune)

Question 15

what result came from the Battle of Edington (Ethandune)?

Answer 15

the Danelaw

Question 16

England alternately had ____ and ____ kings

Answer 16

English, Norse

Question 17

scandinavian (old norse) pronouns that english took:

Answer 17

them, their, they

Question 18

what is - Probably the source of the third person singular present tense
–(e)s ending (She sings.) replacing –th (She singeth.).
?

Answer 18

the erosion of inflections in the verbal exchanges between Norse and English

Question 19

• Christianity arrived in the _____ century under the direction of _____________

Answer 19

seventh, Celtic (St. Patrick) and Rome-based missionaries.

Question 20

FuÞork alphabet is AKA:

Answer 20

Runes

Question 21

Several runic letters were retained:

Answer 21

þ = voiceless “th” (thin, thick, think, myth, wrath)
ð = voiced “th” (wither, weather, there)
æ/ǣ = /æ/ (pat, bat, rat)
Ƿƿ – the wynn rune was also used to represent /w/.

Question 22

Many Latin words came into English. examples:

Answer 22

religious, academic, learning

Question 23

why did William (The Conqueror) believe he had a claim to the English throne?

Answer 23

Because of his family connection with Viking kings who had previously ruled England

Question 24

who was Edward The Confessor ?

Answer 24

half-Norman English king) died, and a battled for succession ensued between Harald Godwinson and William.

Question 25

when did William invaded and defeated (and killed) Harald ?

Answer 25

in 1066

Question 26

what piece of art is based on the battle in 1066?

Answer 26

the bayeux tapestry

Question 27

when did King John lose Normandy (to Philip, King of France)?

Answer 27

in 1204, which was the beginning of a turn-around in the status of English.

Question 28

when did English become the official legal language and the language of Parliament?

Answer 28

by 1362

Question 29

an example of assimilation:

Answer 29

impossible (

Question 30

an example of simplification (of consonant clusters) :

Answer 30

write, gnat, castle, Christmas)

Question 31

an example of loss of a sound:

Answer 31

gh in eight, brought, through

Question 32

what is metathesis?

Answer 32

reversal of sounds (three - third)

Question 33

what is apocope?

Answer 33

loss of a final sound (helpe => help, hope)

Question 34

what is The substrate theory?

Answer 34

speakers of one language need to learn the language of their new
conquerors = they speak it with an accent.
Speakers of another language move into a new area and their language gradually
displaces the original language of the area. This happened numerous times at
the beginning of the first millennium AD. (The Romans in Gaul and
elsewhere, Germanic tribes in Germany and England)

Question 35

what is The Great Vowel Shift in English (long vowels)?

Answer 35

• The high front and back long vowels became diphthongs.

- The other long vowels moved up to fill the vacant locations

Question 36

what types of words are highly resistant to change?

Answer 36

numbers, pronouns, other grammar words

Question 37

what is Systematic sound change?

Answer 37

the change affects many words consistently throughout the system.
English: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten
German: eins zwei drei vier fünf sechs sieben acht neun zehn
(German v is pronounced f.)

Question 38

Another systematic difference between english and german:

Answer 38

English: three, then, think, thank, through
German: drei, dann, denken, danken, durch

Question 39

Grimm’s Law:

Answer 39

Voiceless Indo-European stops became voiceless fricatives in Germanic.

Question 40

Inflections tend to :

Answer 40

erode

Question 41

what, in language, is Most susceptible to change?

Answer 41

vocabulary

Question 42

what are Inflections?

Answer 42

bound morphemes (attached to words) which signal a variety of grammatical functions.

Question 43

what is case?

Answer 43

A designation used to identify the function of a noun or pronoun in a sentence. (subject, direct object, indirect object, object of a preposition, possession, ….)

Question 44

Latin grammarians imagined the base form to be :

Answer 44

upright

Question 45

The cases signalled :

Answer 45

grammatical function

Question 46

the subject case is called:

Answer 46

nominative

Question 47

the direct object case is called:

Answer 47

accusative

Question 48

the possessive case is called

Answer 48

genitive

Question 49

the indirect object case is called:

Answer 49

dative

Question 50

Modern English has lost most case inflections and uses word order and prepositions in most instances to signal sentence function, but other languages (German, Slavic languages) and Old English relied mainly on different case forms.
. what is an EXCEPTION of this?

Answer 50

pronouns!

Question 51

Modern English and French rely mainly on _______ to signal subject and direct object functions.

Answer 51

word order

Question 52

strong verbs are AKA?

Answer 52

irregular

Question 53

STRong verbs are inherited from:

Answer 53

IE (used to be regular)