History of Language and Linguistics Final

6 principle changes to English in the Middle English Period

1) subjection and re-establishment of English as the language of England (and the southern part of Scotland) 2) expansion and enrichment of the vocabulary, esp. from French 3) shift from a synthetic to an analytic grammar system 4) evolution to a VO word order 5) changes in orthography (both letters themselves and letters used for specific sounds) 6) emergence of a dominant dialect, but not a standard

Robert Lowth

1762-A Short Introduction to English Grammar--prompted by the absence of simple and pedagogical grammar textbooks in his era

878

Alfred the Great defeats the Danish Vikings

1485/1489

All of the official proceedings of Parliament (where laws are made) must be mandated in Latin, French, and English-- in 1489 they must be mandated in Latin and English

ebonics

American Black English regarded as a language in its own right rather than as a dialect of standard English

Network Standard

American English

Noah Webster

American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author; been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education"; wrote the American Spelling book in 1788; took a sampling of the founding father's ideas on Americanizing English and published it in the ASB

Franklin

Ben Franklin wanted to Americanize English to make a distinct separation in culture--had a printing press & the ability to experiment on a small group of people within the Philadelphia community; his farmer's almanac becomes very widespread, alongside his book of sayings and wisdoms

Received Pronunciation

British English

right writing/natural force/proper use

In 1582 Richard Mulcaster wanted consistency of spelling, not of system--these were the 3 things he wanted compiled for every word spelling, grammar/part of speech, & definition/power of the word--so right writing, natural force, and proper use.

academy (re-language)

In early 18th century, as individual dictionaries expanded in size and focus, lexicographers experimented with content and form, in some cases becoming more like mini-encyclopedias. Gradually standard aspects of format and content emerged—pronunciation was not added until 1780. The expansion was reflective in part of an increase in literacy. Side by side with the debate about and proposals for an Academy for the English Language, partly in imitation of a project such as the Italian Dictionary, wealthy patrons interested in language sought an appropriate person to create an extensive Dictionary of English.

Alfred the Great

Is called the Great because he retook England from the Danes, and insisted that all official documents & histories be written in English-- thus preserved the language & culture

1204

King John loses Normandy to the French--begins the re-establishment of English as the language of England.

Vikings

Normans were Vikings; sea-borne conquerers with a mostly oral language; Viking was originally a verb; Vikings interrupted the Golden Age of Northumbria- era of learning (monasteries had bibles covered in gold & jewels) Vikings stole these as well as men & women as slaves. The 1st big attack was on the monastery at Lindisfarne in 793. After this, Alfred names himself King, keeps the Vikings from taking over all of England and insists on compromising--so the Vikings convert to Christianity and marry English girls & assimilate into society.

Middle English

Pre-1250--English little used amongst people of political authority or cultural influence 1250-1350--English begins to return to use among aristocracy and rise of the middle class paves way for patronage and production of English vernacular literature 1375-1475--English re-established as part of English national identity at all social levels, although French is still a learned language marking social class and culture

pre- and descriptive grammar

Specialists in descriptive grammar (linguists) study the rules/patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. Pre-spective grammarians (most editors and teachers) lay out rules about what they believe to be the "correct" or "incorrect" use of a language.

Judicious neology / Americanisms

Thomas Jefferson coined the fancy term "judicious neology" for making up "americanisms"--terms and words that are distinct to American speech

Norman Conquest & William of Normandy

William the Conqueror easily defeated English armies, took over England--but he never prohibitted the use of English and posted decrees in both English & French. He appointed French/Norman nobles to positions of power in England and these passed down through bloodlines, one son getting French land & the other getting English--which became an issue after 1244 Decree

dialect/accent

a dialect is a variety of language differing in vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation--dialects are usually spoken by a group united by geography or class; when a standard language and pronunciation are defined by a group, an accent may be any pronunciation that deviates from that standard.

pidgin

a grammatically simplified form of a language used for communication between people that don't share common language; pidgins have a limited vocabulary, some elements of which are taken from local languages--not native languages--and arise out of language contact between speakers of various languages

creole

a mother tongue formed from the contact of two languages through an earlier pidgin stage--a stable natural language developed from a mixture of different languages. Unlike a pidgin (a simplified form of one language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups), a creole language is a complete, complex language used in a community and acquired by children as their native language.

orthography

a set of conventions for writing a language; includes norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.

100 years war

between 1337-1453; French becomes the language of the enemy and its use becomes very obsolete--England gains new trade partners in Italy and the Low Countries

London Standard

by the end of the 15th century London dialect was becoming the dominant dialect--as it was the mid-point between the North and South it was intelligible to all and could be understood by most; it was also used in the place where the greatest number of literate people lived (London—1/3-1/2 of population of London was at least marginally literate by 1500); contained within the boundaries of this dialect were the two major universities as well as the center of the law courts, the royal court, the church, parliament, and many wealthy merchants; London was a city people from other parts of London passed through, where both extreme aspects of their regional speech had to be left behind to communicate (leveling) but where some regional variants that were deemed useful (pronouns for example) were adopted. Returning home, visitors sometimes brought with them "new speech"—similar to how jive slang spread in the US later on. When the printing press was introduced, the center of printing was London--it is from this written dialect that the first modern standardized form of English would begin to emerge in the 16th century.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

chronicles of English history--sends copies to 9 monasteries, charges them to write important events that happen in the area; 880-1135 Peterborough was the last remaining chronicler

William Caxton

considered the be the inventor of the printing press in England; credited with standardizing the English language through printing--homogenizing regional dialects through largely adopting the London dialect; this facilitated the expansion of the English vocal, the regularization of inflection and syntax, and a widening gap between the spoken and written word; translated a large number of works into English, doing much of the translating himself; credit with printing as many as 108 books--87 of which in different languages including the first English translation of Aesop's Fables (1484); he tried to provide the most linguistically exact replication of foreign language texts into language, but often had wholesale transference of French words not English and numerous mistranslations

rule/doctrine of usage

despite the popularity of the prescriptive/proscriptive approach (among grammarians at least), Joseph Priestley's approach won out--1761 he published The Rudiments of English Grammar in which he asserts that custom and usage should be the guiding principle of language; he was not arguing for anything goes, but rather than one should study how the language at this point in time it is used, especially by its great writers and speakers; this is not the foundation behind Samuel Johnson's innovative practice in his dictionary (1755) of validating his definitions by quotations rather than by creating illustrative examples of usage himself

British vs American English

differences in: Pronunciation Vocabulary Grammar Intonation Degree of Uniformity and Tolerance for Variation within the Standard four trends led to differences: -Rapid Assimilation of New Vocabulary -The Impact of Patriotism (though in American English this has been more deliberate than accidental) -The Leveling of Dialects -The Impact of "pidgin" Forms of English on Mainstream English

Joseph Priestly

father of modern chemistry, a pastor, a professor, and a grammarian--wrote The Rudiments of English Grammar in 1761; wrote about the doctrine of usage.

Gullah

group of slaves brought from Africa to Southern US--believed that Black English is derived from them

1244

here comes a decree that states that nobles can only hold land from/be loyal to one king and one country--so those wanting to hold land in Britain began to speak and use English more as they settled in England; Mid-13th century resentment of "foreign" influence at court—1258-1265 Baron's War to drive out the "foreigners"—England for the English and English

Early Modern English

in grammar and syntax (despite some residual inflections in plural markers for nouns) English employed an analytic grammar system and the modern VO word order (subject/verb/object; preposition/noun); in vocabulary, most words have survived into Modern English and are recognizable, even if specific meanings have changed marginally; the only barriers to comprehension for the modern reader are a lack of standardization in 1) the presentation of words (especially evident if one consults original manuscripts in which the texts have not be edited to a more standardized form of English: spelling and even lettering in the originals in inconsistent) 2) word usage, as even recognizable words didn't have the same usage--syntax and idiomatic phrases are awkward to our ear, much of what we read now is poetic language and not common speech, common speech when written used slang and idioms of the time

printing press

invented in 1440 in Germany, introduced in England in 1446; helped standardize spelling and grammar, increased literacy, and provided easier and cheaper access to books

Black Death

killed a lot of people

leveling of dialects

mobility of classes causes the most difficult to understand parts of dialect to die out--American English grew out of a language that was more accepting of deviation from a standard and was frozen in the 18th and 19th centuries; causing modern USEng speakers to use words and definitions that have since changed in BREng

Danelaw

north of the line, Danish was spoken-south of the line, English was spoken; was an attempt to standardize language in any particular reason--most popular English/Danish combo comes out of London since it is in the center of the line and melds the languages effectively--little intermingling between locations (N Eng had very little contact w/ S Eng), but 10,000 French words adopted due to the Danelaw and Norman Conquest

Inflectional decay

noun endings (male/female/singular/plural) were not longer used and adjectives were only inflected for magnitude (big, bigger, biggest, etc.); so verbs decayed from strong (now called irregular, swim->swam) to weak (now called regular kick->kicked); decay of inflections was probably hastened by the tendency of English words to place the accent on the first syllable and delayed by a residual sense that something else should be there, the final "e" being both unaccented and indistinct in pronunciation.

Jefferson

prolific writer of iconic American literature (decl of ind); coined the term judicious neology to mean creating Americanisms,

1828

publication of Noah Webster's American English dictionary

1755

publication of Samuel Johnson's dictionary, first comprehensive English dictionary

American Spelling Book

published in 1788 by Noah Webster--offered Americanized spellings (-ise->ize, got rid of ou, -re -> -er), got rid of etymologies to eliminated shared word history, added words for foods, animals, etc. that were unique to the U.S.; one of the widest used student books, used in every classroom for students to learn how to spell; words grouped by the number of syllables and the way to spell the word so that students could easily go from one word to the next.

Richard Mulcaster

referred to as the founder of the English language lexicography Elementarie; his compilation ends with a list of 8000 "hard words" that he does not define, but attempts to lay down a standardized spelling of them (at a time when English lacks universal standardized spellings). This encourages movements in spelling rules for English (such as the role of the silent e in vowel length in such pairs as bad and bade). The list also represents a call for English to have its first dictionary, to gather "all the words which we use in our English tongue into one dictionary, and besides the right writing would open unto us therein, both their natural force, and their proper use."

Middle English Dialects

spoken English divided into 5, sometimes almost mutually unintelligible dialects, esp. North to South--especially different between Chaucer and Gawain poet regarding matters of intelligibility; divisions were similar to the 4 Old English dialect areas; Northern dialect experienced grammar changes most rapidly, but sustained more Germanic vocab w/ Scandinavian influence and runic orthographic influences--elements of the speech survive especially in Northern and Broad Scots dialects; Midlands/Kentish rapidly adopted French vocabulary and orthography; Southern changed most slowly grammatically and certain sounds developed in a direction akin to modern German--all "f" sounds became "v"s and "s" sounds because "v"s, a feature still heard in rural, Modern Southern English Dialects--the area least directly impacted by Viking or French influence; but by 1400 the basic grammar and syntax structures that emerged in the North had taken hold across all dialects--the principle dividing elements were vocabulary and pronunciation, differences that were especially important for the written form of the language

1362

the Statute of Pleading is passed through parliament--all court cases must be brought in English

emphatic verb forms

the emphatic tense in its original usage was to emphasize--seen throughout early Middle English and Old English. For Modern usage, it is used for questions and negation not seen yet.

1476

the printing press is introduced in England by Caxton--sparking the beginning of efforts to standardize spelling

ascertainment

the word that contains both the process and the product--the process of discovering the patterns and systems at work in the language & using the uncovered patterns to fix the language, as in repair points of error and divided usage to make the language stable, fix it in place (not so much as to prevent change as to manage it in written forms and thereby slow the rate of inevitable change and avoiding having the language fragment into mutually unintelligible variants as seen in the late Middle English period.

Loss of Normandy

this caused a large language shift--those staying in England spoke more English because ties were cut with the Norman-French nobles and patriotism over English roots flourished

Great Vowel Shift

vowels moved forward in the mouth Æ (ah) A-->E-->I-->E-->A O U; i=aheey, u=oyu, a=ayee; began shifting in late Old English and finished in the 19th century--but the bulk of change occurred in the 15th and 16th century, exactly when the spelling of English was being standardized. First change: long "A" to long "O"—so, OE stan becomes ModE stone; OE ham ModE home; this change happened so early that the spelling changed in the Middle English period when for example "halig" was written "holy" but pronounced initially as "hawly" & this first stage didn't happen in Northern English and Broad Scots, so in Scottish dialect "ham" went through the later change of A to become "hame"; this later stage occurred after Chaucer and affected French borrowings such as April, and OE short "A" words, such as "bacan" to "bake"; evidence of the ongoing change throughout the 18th century even can be seen in rhymes which no longer work—for example, tea still pronounced "tay"

John Cheke

wanted to change the pronunciations of English word (which would make his own name be pronounced differently)--proposed doubling letters for long vowels and dropping the silent "e" (note his name) and only using "y" when a semi-constant--for ex. "day" spelled as "dai"

code shifting

when someone shifts between multiple languages in the course of a single conversation

inkhorn terms/doublet

words that are made up when you're writing--there was a lot of pushback against using these terms as they were deemed redundant & unnecessary; doublet- result of inkhorn terms, essentially a synonym of them, making inkhorn a made up word itself

Samuel Johnson

wrote a Dictionary of the English language; the most commonly used and imitated for the 150 years between its first publication and the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928; was already known for his writing and was approached by a group of English printers about taking on the task and eventually agreed; the first edition, published in 1755, contained over 43,000 words-- unlike other dictionaries, which largely built on the work of others, he arrived at both his words and definitions by collecting vast numbers of sample quotations and examples of usage from which he derived his definitions; he also is largely responsible for the format of modern dictionaries

1066

year of the Norman conquest--English reverts to an oral language, Norman French becomes the language of government, and Latin becomes the language of church & education.