What Has Impacted The English Language Flashcards
What type of effect did the Angles, Saxons and Jutes have on the English Language?
Lexical
How did the Angles, Saxons and Jutes impact the language?
When they invaded, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes brought large amounts of their language within them and as such, imported lots of their language into Old English. Including:
Words for family
Verbs like ‘drink’ and ‘go’
Prepositions
What type of effect did vikings have on the English Language?
Lexical and grammatical
What did the vikings introduce to the English Language?
The Vikings brought with them new words like ‘sky’, ‘skull’ and ‘anger’ and a simplified grammatical system.
What type of effect did the Normans have on the English Language?
Lexical
What did the invasion of the Normans and subsequent domination lead to?
It led to a huge amount of (Norman)
French terms into the language, vastly
increasing the Middle English lexicon.
What effect did Wycliffe have on the English Language?
Lexical
What did Wycliffe do?
Translated the Bible from Latin to English.
What type of effect did the Chancery have on the English Language?
Lexical and orthographical
How did the Chancery impact the English Language?
Decided to make English changes to
standardise the use of English. For example,by removing the use of ‘hath’ and deciding to use “l’
Traditionalist campaigners type of effect on English Language
Orthographical
What did the traditionalist campaigners want?
Wanted spelling to reflect the history of the campaigners
language. This includes changing orthography to Latinate spellings. For example, adding the in ‘rhyme’ to match ‘rhythm’
The Great Vowel Shift type of change
Phonological
Effect of The Great Vowel Shift
Long vowel sounds moved from the front of the mouth to further back. Some sounds also became diphthongs. For example, “mouse’ was originally pronounced as
“moose’
What type of effect did Tyndall have on the English Language?
Lexical
What did Tyndall do?
Translated the Bible, but with slightly more success than Wycliffe.
Type of effect King James I
Lexical and grammatical
What did King James I do that affected the English Language?
Ordered a Bible in English which was heavily rhetorical, so could be read out and used archaic lexis and grammatical structures to
make it sound older and wiser.
Gutenberg type of effect
Orthographical
What did Gutenberg do?
Invented the printing press
What did Caxton do and how does this link to Gutenberg?
Brought the printing press to England. Made decisions on which spellings to use - orthography became more fixed.
Caxton type of effect
Orthographical
Renaissance thinkers type of effect
Lexical
What did the Renaissance thinkers bring to the English Language?
The rebirth of Greek and Latin ideas led to importation of many Greek and Latinate lexis into English.
The Inkhorn Controversy type of effect
Lexical
The Inkhorn Controversy
Concern was raised over the high numbers of lexis (Inkhorn terms) which were being imported from Latin and Greek.
Cawdrey type of effect
Lexical and orthographical
What did Cawdrey do?
Wrote the first dictionary to provide terms and definitions. Aimed to try and fix orthography.
Shakespeare- type of effect
Lexical
Johnson type of effect
Lexical and orthographical
What did Johnson do?
Published a dictionary in 1755 containing 40,000 words and provides spellings.
Limitations of Johnson
There is some controversy over the
terms he chose not to include and his
definitions are biased. He sought to provide ‘regulation’, though admits that trying to control language is like trying to ‘lash the wind’
Swift type of effect
Lexical
What did Swift think?
Thought that English needed to be corrected, improved and ascertained. He felt it was being destroy.
What did Swift dislike?
Contractions Long words New words Borrowed words Clipped words Young people changing language
Académie Francais type of effect
Lexical and grammatical
What does Académie Francais do?
Worked to accept or reject additions into the French language and to preserve grammar.
Lowth type of effect
Grammatical
