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The runic alphabet

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The runic alphabet

The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet, not to be found in languages of other groups. The word rune originally meant ’secret�, ‘mystery� and hence came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate separate sound. This alphabet is called futhark after the first six letters. Runic letters are angular; straight lines are preferred, curved lines avoided; this is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of Greek or Latin, other have not been traced to any known alphabet, and the order of the runes in the alphabet is certainly original. The number of runes in different OG languages varied. As compared to continental, the number of runes in England was larger: new runes were added as new sounds appeared in English (from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on the continent). The main use of runes was to make short inscriptions on objects, often to bestow on them some special power or magic. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records. One of them is and inscription on a box called the “Franks Casket”, the other is a short text on a stone cross near the village of Ruthwell known as the �Ruthwell Cross�.

Old English alphabet and pronunciation

OE scribes used two kinds of letters: the runes and the letters of the Latin alphabet. The bulk of the OE material is written in the Latin script. The use of Latin letters in English differed in some points from their use in Latin, for the scribes made certain modifications and additions in order to indicate OE sounds. The most interesting peculiarity of OE writing was the use of some runic characters, in the first place, the rune called �thorn� which was employed alongside the crossed d, ∂ to indicate [th] and [∂]. In the manuscripts one more rune was regularly used – �wynn� for the sound [w]. Like any alphabetic writing, OE writing was based on a phonetic principle: every letter indicated a separate sound. This principle, however, was not always observed, even at the earliest stages of phonetic spelling. Some OE letters indicated two or more sounds, even distinct phonemes. The letters could indicate short and long sounds. In reading OE texts one should observe the following rules for letters indicating more than one sound. The letters f, s and [th], [∂] stand for voiced fricatives between vowels and also between a vowel and a voiced consonant; otherwise they indicate corresponding voiceless fricatives. The letter � stands for [g] initially before back vowels, for [j] before and after front vowels, for [γ] between back vowels and for [g�] mostly when preceded by c: OE da� [j]

The letter h stands for [x] between a back vowel and a consonant and also initially before consonants and for [x�] next to front vowels: OE niht [x�]

The letter n stands for [n] in all positions except when followed by [k] or [g]; in this case it indicates [ŋ]: OE sin�an.

Eastern Germanic, Western Germanic and Northern Germanic groups of languages

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East Germanic

The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them were the Goths. They were among the first Teutons to leave the coast of the Baltic Sea and start on their great migrations. The Gothic language, now dead, has been preserved in written records of the 4th – 6th c. The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christian. In the 4th c. Ulfilas, a West Gothic bishop, made a translation of the Gospel from Greek into Gothic using a modified form of the Greek alphabet. Parts of Ulfilas’ Gospels � a manuscript of about two hundred pages have been preserved and are kept now in Sweden. It is written on red parchment with silver and golden letters and is known as the Silver Codex. It is one of the earliest texts in the languages of the Germanic group; it represents a form of language very close to PG and therefore throws light on the pre-written stages of history of all the languages of the Germanic group, including English. The other East Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written traces. Some of their tribal names have survived in place-names, which reveal the directions of their migrations. Bornholm and Burgundy go back to the East Germanic tribe of Burgundians; Andalusia is derived from the tribal name Vandals.

West Germanic

Around the beginning of our era the would-be West Germanic tribes dwelt in the lowlands between the Oder and the Elbe bordering on the Slavonian tribes in the East and the Celtic tribes in the South. On the eve of their “great migrations” of the 4th and 5th c. the West Germans included several tribes. The Franconians occupied the lower basin of the Rhine. The Angles and the Frisians, the Jutes and the Saxons inhabited the coastal area of the modern Netherlands, Germany and the southern part of Denmark. A group of tribes known as High Germans lived in the mountainous southern regions of Germany. Hence the name High Germans contrasted to Low Germans � a name applied to the West Germanic tribes in the low-lying northern areas. The Franconian dialects were spoken in the extreme North of the Empire; in the later Middle Ages they developed into Dutch � the language of the Low Countries and the Flemish � the language of Flanders. The modern language of the Netherlands, formerly called Dutch, and its variant in Belgium, known as the Flemish dialect, are now treated as a single language, Netherlandish. About three hundred years ago the Dutch language was brought to South Africa by colonists from Southern Holland. Their dialects in Africa eventually grew into a separate West Germanic language, Afrikaans. This language has combined elements from the speech of English and German colonists in Africa and from the tongues of the natives. The High German dialects consolidated into a common language known as Old High German (OHG). Towards the 12th c. High German (known as Middle High German) had intermixed with neighboring tongues, esp. Middle and High Franconian, and eventually developed into the literary German language. Yiddish, an offshoot of High German, grew from the High German dialects which were adopted by numerous Jewish communities scattered over Germany in the 11th and 12th c. These dialects blended with elements of Hebrew and Slavonic and developed into a separate West Germanic language with a spoken and literary form. At the later stage of the great migrations period � in the 5th c. � a group of West Germanic tribes started out on their invasion of the British Isles. The invaders came from the lowlands near the North Sea: the Angles, the Saxons, Frisians and the Jutes. Their dialects in the British Isles developed into the English language.

North Germanic

The Teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths gave rise to the North Germanic subgroup of languages. They lived on the southern coast of the Scandinavian peninsula and in Northern Denmark. The speech of the North Germanic tribes showed little dialectal variation until the 9th c. and is regarded as a sort of common North Germanic parent-language called Old Norse and Old Scandinavian. The disintegration of Old Norse into separate dialects and languages began after the 9th c., when the Scandinavians started out on their sea voyages. The principal linguistic differentiation in Scandinavia corresponded to the political division into Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The three kingdoms constantly fought for dominance and the relative position of the three languages altered, as one or another of the powers prevailed over its neighbors. For several hundred years Denmark was the most powerful of the Scandinavian kingdoms, therefore both Swedish and Norwegian were influenced by Danish. In the later Middle Ages, with the growth of capitalist relations and the unification of the countries, Danish, and then Swedish developed into national literary languages. Norwegian was the last to develop into an independent national language. During the period of Danish dominance Norwegian intermixed with Danish, therefore there emerged two varieties of the Norwegian tongue. In addition to the three languages on the mainland, the North Germanic subgroup includes two more languages: Icelandic and Faroese, whose origin goes back to the Viking Age. In the Faroe Islands the West Norwegian dialects brought by the Scandinavians developed into a separate language called Faroese. It is spoken nowadays by 30000 people. Iceland was practically uninhabited at the time of the first Scandinavian settlements. Their West Scandinavians dialects, at first identical with those of Norway, eventually grew into an independent language, Icelandic.

The earliest descriptions of the Germans, the ancient tribes that spoke Germanic languages

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The history is known from the writings of Greek and Roman authors. The earliest paper is written by Pytheas. He lived in the second half of the 4th century B.C. Pytheas sailed much. The description of his journeys is not preserved. But something was quoted in the papers of old historians as in Titus Livy and Polybius in the second century B.C. They provided extracts from a paper of Pytheas. It was also mentioned that Old Germanic tribes raided the Hellenic countries of south-eastern Europe, Italy and Gall. In the beginning of our era the Greek historian Strabo wrote about Germans nomads. They moved from forest to forest, built houses, and were engaged in cattle bringing. The great writer Plutarch described Germans as wild nomadic tribes who had constantly been in war. They were not interested in agriculture or in cattle bringing, but only in war. The Roman general Julius Caesar devoted several chapters to the militant Germanic tribes in his “Commentaries on the war in Gall” (1044 B.C.). Caesar fought with them on the Rhine. He took two expeditions against the Germanic tribes who wanted to get hauled on some territories. The Romans defeated the Germans in both expeditions. Caesar wrote about their military tactics, described how they prepared their attacks and so on. Caesar wrote that Germans lived in tribal unions. He also gave a detailed description of the structure of their society and peculiarities of their life.

The next great historian Pliny spent many years in the Roman provinces of Low and High Germany. He was a prominent encyclopedias. He wrote a book called �Natural History�. He was the first who enumerated and classified the military tribes. It was proved by many scientists. According to Pliny there were several Germanic tribes:

The Vindili. They lived in the eastern part of the territory inhabited by the Germanic tribes. They consisted of the Goths,� the Burgundians and the Vandals. The Vandals first inhabited the territory between the Oder and the Vistula. Later they moved to Northern Africa through Spain. The word vandalism originated from Vandal (means Barbary).
The Burgundians came to the continent from the island of Bornholm. It was in the Baltic Sea. Later they moved to the west and settled in south-eastern part of France in the area called Burgundia.
The Goths first inhabited the lower coast of the river Vistula. Later they moved to the south and formed powerful tribal unions of Ostrogoths and Visigoths.
The Ingvaenoes. They lived in the north-western part of the Germanic territory. They inhabited the Jutland peninsula and the coast of the North Sea. The tribes of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians were formed later of this group.
The Istaevones. They lived on the Rhine. Later they formed a very powerful tribal union of Franconians. In the early Middle Ages they were powerful group of West Germans.
The Herminones lived in the centre of Germany and later the German nation was formed of these tribes.
The Hilleviones were isolated from other Germanic tribes. They inhabited Scandinavia. Modern Scandinavian nations are the descendants of these tribes.

The Vindili spoke eastern Germanic; the Hilleviones spoke northern Germanic, the Ingvaones, Istaevones and Herminones – West Germanic.

The Roman historian Tacitus made a detailed description of the life and customs of ancient Germans. Tacitus was a prominent Roman historian. He himself had never been to Germany. Being a Roman senator he got information from military travelers, actions, etc. he also used papers written about the Germans before him. In the time of Tacitus there were constant arm conflicts between the Germans and Romans. Numerous attempts of the Roman generals to conquer the Germanic tribes failed. In the second half of the second century after a short period without wars they began their attacks again. The ancient Germans had a tribal society. In the head of each tribe there was a chief who was called ‘kuning’. Some modern place-names testify to this social structure of the Germans. The whole tribe had the name of the Chief.

Modern Germanic languages

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Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the I-E linguistic family. The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:

English – in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies;
German � in the Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, part of Switzerland;
Netherlandish � in the Netherlands and Belgium (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively);
Afrikaans � in the South African Republic;
Danish � in Denmark;
Swedish � in Sweden and Finland;
Norwegian � in Norway;
Icelandic � in Iceland;
Frisian � in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany;
Faroese � in the Faroe Islands;
Yiddish � in different countries.

Lists of Germanic languages given in books differ in some points, for the distinction between separate languages and also between languages and dialects varies. Until recently Dutch and Flemish were named as separate languages; Frisian and Faroese are often referred to as dialects, since they are spoken over small, politically dependent areas; the linguistic independence of Norwegian is questioned, for it has intermixed with Danish; Br E and Am E are sometimes regarded as two independent languages. All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history.

Proto-Germanic language, its development from Proto-Indo-European

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Historically, all the Germanic languages originated from one ancestor language. It is called Proto-Germanic. It developed from P-I-E spoken in pre-historic times. Speaking about the date. Archeological findings provide data that I-E tribes came to Europe in 3000-2500 B.C. (Northern part of Europe). Before that time the coasts of the Baltic and the North Seas were inhabited by a different group. I-E newcomers mixed with this group and formed the tribes that later became known as Germanic tribes. The Germanic group of languages developed its specific trades during the first millennium B.C. At about this time the Germanic tribes separated from other west I-E tribes. In the course of many centuries radical developments occurred in the P-I-E spoken by those I-E tribes who lived in Denmark and origins there. The result of these developments was that P-G became a separate language between the 15th – 10th centuries B.C. P-G was distinctive in many of its sounds, inflections, stress patterns and vocabulary. The ancient Germans moved further than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the region of the Elbe. Southern Scandinavia including Jutland peninsula is the probable homeland of P-G. It was only a spoken language. P-G was most probably spoken just before the beginning of the Christian era. The forms of P-G can only be reconstructed. This was done in the 19th century by methods of comparative linguistics. The Germans didn’t lose touch with other I-E languages. They migrated and these migrations caused new contacts. This was reflected in the speech. The Germanic tribes came into contact with East European tribes, and the languages later formed the Baltic and Slavonic groups. The Germanic tribes also had contacts with Italian tribes that lived in southern Europe. Thus, Latin language influenced the language of Germanic tribes. These contacts found reflections in the borrowings into the languages of these nations. Most important are the borrowings into the Finnish language in the beginning of our era. The borrowings were well preserved in the Finnish language. They had the ancient type of morphological structure that can hardly be found in the forms of the verbs in the earliest documents written in Germanic languages. Suffixes and inflections are used in their full forms that were lost by the time the Germans had their first written documents. By the third and the 4th centuries suffixes and inflections had undergone the process of reduction.

Proto-Indo-European language and comparative linguistics

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When there are no documents of language to be traced the pre-written history of any language is studied by methods of comparative linguistics. It is 200 years old. It all started with a publication of an article by Franz Bopp (1816). The talk is about the so-called I-E language. It is now well-supported with evidence from many languages that there was a language spoken by people in pre-historic times. It was given a name Proto-Indo-European. There are 2 main problems. Actually, when and where it was spoken. The time can hardly be accurately dated. It is dated far back 10000 B.C. – 4000 B.C. In the 15th thousand B.C. I-E still existed and people spoke it. Why is it so? The most ancient languages are compared like the Hittite, Ancient Greek, Veda. It was found out that the difference between them is so much that the time period between them should be no less than 2000 years. In the 4th millennium B.C. P-I-E was dead. 10000 B.C. is the most probable time of existing P-I-E homeland. It is based upon linguistic and archeological facts.

Linguistic facts:

words denoting the sea (the root mor- denotes the water area)
names of the tress
names of the rulers
names of the devices for cultivating soil (the plough)

Archeological facts:

the crockery, the pots, the burial places
people in power were buried with what they possessed
tools made of stone and absence of metal
evidences of transition from gathering food to cultivating soil
megalithic culture. Pre-historic monuments were reconstructed with huge stones.

Marina Gimbutas writes that Indo-Europeans lived north-west of the Caucasus and north of the Caspian Sea as for Southern Urals. This result is supported by many scientists. Other locations have been proposed for I-E homeland:�

Northern Central Europe between the Vistula and the Elbe
Modern Turkey

It was supported by Russians Camkelidze and Ivanov.

What happened to Latin?

Various migrations began. Indo-Europeans were driven from their original homeland to many parts of Europe and Asia. So P-I-E developed in different ways in the various parts of the world to each its speakers traveled. At the beginning of historical times languages that derived from it were spoken from Europe in the west to India in the east. P-I-E was the ancestor language of most of the Europe languages and many of those in South Asia. Its descendants make up the I-E family: Italic (Italian, French, Spanish) group, Balto-Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian), Indo-Iranian (Modern Persian, Sanskrit, Hindi), Germanic (English, German, Dutch and Flemish).

The aims of studying the history of the English language

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The aims of studying the history of the English language. Synchronic and diachronic approaches to studying the language. The concept of ‘language change’

A language can be considered from different angles. In studying Modern English we regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level – phonetics, grammar or lexis � synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features. When considered diachronically, every linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or step in the never-ending evolution of language. In practice, however, the contrast between diachronic and synchronic study is not so marked as in theory.

Through learning the history of the English language the student achieves a variety of aims, both theoretical and practical. So, one of the aims is to provide the student with a knowledge of linguistic history sufficient to account for the principal features of present-day English. For example, through centuries writing and spelling was changing in English. At the time when Latin letters were first used in Britain (7th c.) writing was phonetic: the letters stood for the same sound. After the introduction of printing (15th c.) the written form of the word became fixed, while the sounds continued to change (knight was [knix�t]). Another important aim of this course is of a more theoretical nature. While tracing the evolution of the English language through time, the student will be confronted with a number of theoretical questions such as the relationship between statics and dynamics in language, the role of linguistic and extralinguistic factors and so on. These problems may be considered on a theoretical plane within the scope of general linguistics. In describing the evolution of English, they will be discussed in respect of concrete linguistic facts, which will ensure a better understanding of these facts and will demonstrate the application of general principles to language material. One more aim of this course is to provide the student of English with a wider philological outlook. The history of the English language shows the place of English in the linguistic world.

Concept of �language change�.

One can distinguish three main types of difference in language: geographical, social and temporal. Language changes imply temporal differences, which become apparent if the same elements or parts of the language are compared at successive historical stages; they are transformations of the same units in time which can be registered as distinct steps in their evolution. For example, the OE form of the Past tense pl Ind. Mood of the verb to find � fundon became founden [fu:ndən] in the 12th -13th c. and found in Mod E. All these changes can be defined as structural or intralinguistic as they belong to the language system. The concept of language change is not limited to internal, structural changes. It also includes temporal differences in the position of the given unit in language space, that is the extent of its spread in the functional varieties of the language. A new feature � a word, a form, a sound � can be recognized as a linguistic change only after it has been accepted for general use in most varieties of the language or in its main variety � the Literary Standard. Most linguistic changes involve some kind of substitution and can therefore be called replacements. They are subdivided into different types or patterns. A simple replacement occurs when a new unit merely takes the place of the old one, e.g. in the word but, feet the vowels [u] and [e:] have been replaced by [�] and [i:]. Replacements can also be found in the plane of content; they are shifts of meaning in words which have survived from the early periods of history, e.g. feoh [feox] had the meaning �cattle�, �property�, its modern descendant is fee. Most linguistic changes, however, both in the language system and language space, have a more complicated pattern. Two or more units may fall together and thus may be replaced by one unit, or, vice versa, two distinct units may take the place of one. These types of replacement are defined as merging and splitting. The modern Common case of nouns is the result of the merging of three OE cases � Nom., Gen. and Acc. Many instances of splitting can be found in the history of English sounds, e.g. the consonant [k] has split into two phonemes [k] and [tS]. Linguistic changes are usually slow and gradual. They proceed in imperceptible steps unnoticed by the speakers. The slow rate of linguistic change is seen in the gradual spread of new features in language space. It is important to note that different parts or levels of language develop at different rates. It is often said that vocabulary of a language can change very rapidly. This is true only if we compare lexical changes with changes at other linguistic levels, e.g. grammatical. Lexical changes are quite conspicuous and easy to observe, since new items spring into being before our very eyes, though, as a matter of fact, they rarely amount to more than isolated words or groups of words. The system of phonemes cannot be subjected to sudden or rapid changes since it must preserve the oppositions between the phonemes required for the distinction of morphemes. Likewise, the grammatical system is very slow to change. Being the most abstract of linguistic levels it must provide stable formal devices for arranging words into classes and for connecting them into phrases and sentences.

The causes of language change. Different schools have different answers. In the 19th c. the representatives of the romantic trend thought that the history of I-E and esp. of Germanic languages shows their degradation and corruption. Most of Germanic languages lost their inflections, declensions and others. Naturalists thought that any language is a living organism. It is developed just like the human body (Schleicher). Psychologists attributed changes to psychology of people. Sociologists thought that linguistic changes are caused by social conditions and historical events (Meillet). Young-Grammarian school representatives thought that phonetic changes destroy the grammatical system.

Five Events that Shaped the History of English

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Philip Durkin, Principal etymologist at the Oxford English Dictionary, chooses five events that shaped the English Language.

The Anglo-Saxon Settlement

It's never easy to pinpoint exactly when a specific language began, but in the case of English we can at least say that there is little sense in speaking of the English language as a separate entity before the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain. Little is known of this period with any certainty, but we do know that Germanic invaders came and settled in Britain from the north-western coastline of continental Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries. The invaders all spoke a language that was Germanic (related to what emerged as Dutch, Frisian, German and the Scandinavian languages, and to Gothic), but we'll probably never know how different their speech was from that of their continental neighbours. However it is fairly certain that many of the settlers would have spoken in exactly the same way as some of their north European neighbours, and that not all of the settlers would have spoken in the same way.

The reason that we know so little about the linguistic situation in this period is because we do not have much in the way of written records from any of the Germanic languages of north-western Europe until several centuries later. When Old English writings begin to appear in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries there is a good deal of regional variation, but not substantially more than that found in later periods. This was the language that Alfred the Great referred to as ‘English’ in the ninth century.

The Celts were already resident in Britain when the Anglo-Saxons arrived, but there are few obvious traces of their language in English today. Some scholars have suggested that the Celtic tongue might have had an underlying influence on the grammatical development of English, particularly in some parts of the country, but this is highly speculative. The number of loanwords known for certain to have entered Old English from this source is very small. Those that survive in modern English include brock (badger), and coomb a type of valley, alongside many place names.

The Scandinavian Settlements

The next invaders were the Norsemen. From the middle of the ninth century large numbers of Norse invaders settled in Britain, particularly in northern and eastern areas, and in the eleventh century the whole of England had a Danish king, Canute. The distinct North Germanic speech of the Norsemen had great influence on English, most obviously seen in the words that English has borrowed from this source. These include some very basic words such as take and even grammatical words such as they. The common Germanic base of the two languages meant that there were still many similarities between Old English and the language of the invaders. Some words, for example give perhaps show a kind of hybridization with some spellings going back to Old English and others being Norse in origin. However, the resemblances between the two languages are so great that in many cases it is impossible to be sure of the exact ancestry of a particular word or spelling. However, much of the influence of Norse, including the vast majority of the loanwords, does not appear in written English until after the next great historical and cultural upheaval, the Norman Conquest.

1066 and after 1066 and all that

The centuries after the Norman Conquest witnessed enormous changes in the English language. In the course of what is called the Middle English period, the fairly rich inflectional system of Old English broke down. It was replaced by what is broadly speaking, the same system English has today, which unlike Old English makes very little use of distinctive word endings in the grammar of the language. The vocabulary of English also changed enormously, with tremendous numbers of borrowings from French and Latin, in addition to the Scandinavian loanwords already mentioned, which were slowly starting to appear in the written language. Old English, like German today, showed a tendency to find native equivalents for foreign words and phrases (although both Old English and modern German show plenty of loanwords), whereas Middle English acquired the habit that modern English retains today of readily accommodating foreign words. Trilingualism in English, French, and Latin was common in the worlds of business and the professions, with words crossing over from one language to another with ease. One only has to flick through the etymologies of any English dictionary to get an impression of the huge number of words entering English from French and Latin during the later medieval period. This trend was set to continue into the early modern period with the explosion of interest in the writings of the ancient world.

Standardization

The late medieval and early modern periods saw a fairly steady process of standardization in English south of the Scottish border. The written and spoken language of London continued to evolve and gradually began to have a greater influence in the country at large. For most of the Middle English period a dialect was simply what was spoken in a particular area, which would normally be more or less represented in writing - although where and from whom the writer had learnt how to write were also important. It was only when the broadly London standard began to dominate, especially through the new technology of printing, that the other regional varieties of the language began to be seen as different in kind. As the London standard became used more widely, especially in more formal contexts and particularly amongst the more elevated members of society, the other regional varieties came to be stigmatized, as lacking social prestige and indicating a lack of education.

In the same period a series of changes also occurred in English pronunciation (though not uniformly in all dialects), which go under the collective name of the Great Vowel Shift. These were purely linguistic �sound changes� which occur in every language in every period of history. The changes in pronunciation weren�t the result of specific social or historical factors, but social and historical factors would have helped to spread the results of the changes. As a result the so-called �pure� vowel sounds which still characterise many continental languages were lost to English. The phonetic pairings of most long and short vowel sounds were also lost, which gave rise to many of the oddities of English pronunciation, and which now obscure the relationships between many English words and their foreign counterparts.

Colonization and Globalization

During the medieval and early modern periods the influence of English spread throughout the British Isles, and from the early seventeenth century onwards its influence began to be felt throughout the world. The complex processes of exploration, colonization and overseas trade that characterized Britain�s external relations for several centuries became agents for change in the English language. This wasn�t simply through the acquisition of loanwords deriving from languages from every corner of the world, which in many cases only entered English via the languages of other trading and imperial nations such as Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, but through the gradual development of new varieties of English, each with their own nuances of vocabulary and grammar and their own distinct pronunciations. More recently still, English has become a lingua franca, a global language, regularly used and understood by many nations for whom English is not their first language. (For further information on this see the pages on Global English on this site). The eventual effects on the English language of both of these developments can only be guessed at today, but there can be little doubt that they will be as important as anything that has happened to English in the past sixteen hundred years.

Chronology of Events in English

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pre-600 A.D.	THE PRE-ENGLISH PERIOD
ca. 3000 B.C. (or 6000 B.C?)	Proto-Indo-European spoken in Baltic area. (or Anatolia?)
ca. 1000 B.C.	After many migrations, the various branches of Indo-European have become distinct. Celtic becomes most widespread branch of I.E. in Europe; Celtic peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France, Germany and England.
55 B.C.	Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles.
43 A.D.	Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia" established. Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others continually rebel).
200 B.C.-200 A.D.	Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and spread over Central Europe in successive waves. Supplant Celts. Come into contact (at times antagonistic, at times commercial) with northward-expanding empire of Romans.
Early 5th century.	Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain and other colonies, attempting to shore up defense on the home front; but it's useless. Rome sacked by Goths.
	Germanic tribes on the continent continue migrations west and south; consolidate into ever larger units. Those taking over in Rome call themselves "Roman emperors" even though the imperial administration had relocated to Byzantium in the 300s. The new Germanic rulers adopted the Christianity of the late Roman state, and began what later evolved into the not-very-Roman "Holy Roman Empire".
ca. 410 A.D.	First Germanic tribes arrive in England.
410-600	Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic. These dialects are distantly related to Latin, but also have a sprinkling of Latin borrowings due to earlier cultural contact with the Romans on the continent.
	Celtic peoples, most of whom are Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite occasional violent uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Anglo-Saxons, originally sea-farers, settle down as farmers, exploiting rich English farmland.
	By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language distinct from the continental Germanic languages.
ca. 600-1100	THE OLD ENGLISH, OR ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD
600-800	Rise of three great kingdoms politically unifying large areas: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex. Supremacy passes from one kingdom to another in that order.
ca. 600	Christianity introduced among Anglo-Saxons by St. Augustine, missionary from Rome. Irish missionaries also spread Celtic form of Christianity to mainland Britain.
793	First serious Viking incursions. Lindisfarne monastery sacked.
800	Charlemagne, king of the Franks, crowned Holy Roman Emperor; height of Frankish power in Europe. Wessex kings aspire to similar glory; want to unite all England, and if possible the rest of mainland Britain, under one crown (theirs).
840s-870s	Viking incursions grow worse and worse. Large organized groups set up permanent encampments on English soil. Slay kings of Northumbria and East Anglia, subjugate king of Mercia. Storm York (Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic) and set up a Viking kingdom (Jorvik). Wessex stands alone as the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain.
871	Vikings move against Wessex. In six pitched battles, the English hold their own, but fail to repel attackers decisively. In the last battle, the English king is mortally wounded. His young brother, Alfred, who had distinguished himself during the battles, is crowned king.
871-876	Alfred builds a navy. The kings of Denmark and Norway have come to view England as ripe for the plucking and begin to prepare an attack.
876	Three Danish kings attack Wessex. Alfred prevails, only to be attacked again a few months later. His cause looks hopeless.
878	Decisive battle at Edington; Alfred and a large contingent of desperate Anglo-Saxons make a last stand (they know what awaits them if they fail). Alfred leads the Anglo-Saxons to decisive victory; blockades a large Viking camp nearby, starving them into submission; and exacts homage from the kings of Denmark and an oath that the Danes will leave Wessex forever.
	Under Alfred's terms of victory, England is partitioned into a part governed by the Anglo-Saxons (under the house of Wessex) and a part governed by the Scandinavians (some of whom become underlords of Alfred), divided by Watling Street. 15 years of peace follow; Alfred reigns over peaceful and prosperous kingdom. First called "Alfred the Great".
925	Athelstan crowned king. Height of Anglo-Saxon power. Athelstan reconquers York from the Vikings, and even conquers Scotland and Wales, heretofore ruled by Celts. Continues Alfred's mission of making improvemen ts in government, education, defense, and other social institutions.
10th century	Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and ultimately become indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter the language; English even borrows pronouns like they, them, their.
978	Aethelred "the Unready" becomes king at 11 years of age.
991	Aethelred has proved to be a weak king, who does not repel minor Viking attacks. Vikings experiment with a major incursion at Maldon in Essex. After losing battle, Aethelred bribes them to depart with 10,000 pounds of silver. Mistake. Sveinn, king of Denmark, takes note.
994-1014	After 20 years of continuous battles and bribings, and incompetent and cowardly military leadership and governance, the English capitulate to king Sveinn of Denmark (later also of Norway). Aethelred flees to Normandy, across the channel.
1014	Sveinn's young son Cnut (or Canute) crowned king of England. Cnut decides to follow in Alfred's footsteps, aiming for a peaceful and prosperous kingdom. Encourages Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. Even marries Aethelred's widow Emma, brought over from Normandy.
	After Cnut's death his sons bicker over the kingdom. When they die without issue, the kingdom passes back to the house of Wessex, to young Edward, son of Aethelred and Emma, who had been raised in exile in Normandy. Edward is a pious, monkish man called "The Confessor".
	Edward has strong partiality for his birthplace, Normandy, a duchy populated by the descendents of Romanized Vikings. Especially fond of young Duke William of Normandy. Edward is dominated by his Anglo-Saxon earls, especially powerful earl Godwin. Godwin's son, Harold Godwinson, becomes de facto ruler as Edward takes less and less interest in governing.
1066	January. Edward dies childless, apparently recommending Harold Godwinson as successor. Harold duly chosen by Wessex earls, as nearest of kin to the crown is only an infant. Mercian and Northumbrian earls are hesitant to go along with choice of Harold.
	William of Normandy claims that Harold once promised to support HIM as successor to Edward. Harold denies it. William prepares to mount an invasion. Ready by summer, but the winds are unfavorable for sailing.
	September. Harald Hardradi of Norway decides this is a good time to attack England. Harold Godwinson rushes north and crushes Hardradi's army at Stamford Bridge.
	The winds change, and William puts to sea. Harold rushes back down to the south coast to try to repel William's attack. Mercians and Northumbrians are supposed to march down to help him, but never do. They don't realize what's in store for them. October. Harold is defeated and killed at the battle of Hastings. December. William of Normandy crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.

ca. 1100-1500	THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
1066-1075	William crushes uprisings of Anglo-Saxon earls and peasants with a brutal hand; in Mercia and Northumberland, uses (literal) scorched earth policy, decimating population and laying waste the countryside. Anglo-Saxon earls and freemen deprived of property; many enslaved. William distributes property and titles to Normans (and some English) who supported him. Many of the English hereditary titles of nobility date from this period.
	English becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and slaves). Norman French becomes the language of the court and propertied classes. The legal system is redrawn along Norman lines and conducted in French. Churches, monasteries gradually filled with French-speaking functionaries, who use French for record-keeping. After a while, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is no longer kept up. Authors write literature in French, not English. For all practical purposes English is no longer a written language.
	Bilingualism gradually becomes more common, especially among those who deal with both upper and lower classes. Growth of London as a commercial center draws many from the countryside who can fill this socially intermediate role.
1204	The English kings lose the duchy of Normandy to French kings. England is now the only home of the Norman English.
1205	First book in English appears since the conquest.
1258	First royal proclamation issued in English since the conquest.
ca. 1300	Increasing feeling on the part of even noblemen that they are English, not French. Nobility begin to educate their children in English. French is taught to children as a foreign language rather than used as a medium of instruction.
1337	Start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
1362	English becomes official language of the law courts. More and more authors are writing in English.
ca. 1380	Chaucer writes the Canterbury tales in Middle English. the language shows French influence in thousands of French borrowings. The London dialect, for the first time, begins to be recognized as the "Standard", or variety of English taken as the norm, for all England. Other dialects are relegated to a less prestigious position, even those that earlier served as standards (e.g. the Wessex dialect of southwest England).
1474	William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the first printed book in England. Beginning of the long process of standardization of spelling.
1500-present	THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD
1500-1650	Early Modern English develops. The Great Vowel Shift gradually takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek borrowings and neologisms.
1611	King James Bible published, which has influenced English writing down to the present day.
1616	Shakespeare dies. Recognized even then as a genius of the English language. Wove native and borrowed words together in amazing and pleasing combinations.
1700s	Classical period of English literature. The fashion for borrowing Latin and Greek words, and coining new words with Latin and Greek morphemes, rages unabated. Elaborate syntax matches elaborate vocabulary (e.g. writings of Samuel Johnson).
	The rise of English purists, e.g. Jonathan Swift, who decried the 'degeneration' of English and sought to 'purify' it and fix it forever in unchanging form.
17th-19th centuries	British imperialism. Borrowings from languages around the world.
	Development of American English. By 19th century, a standard variety of American English develops, based on the dialect of the Mid-Atlantic states.
	Establishment of English in Australia, South Africa, and India, among other British colonial outposts.
19th century	Recognition (and acceptance) by linguistic scholars of the ever-changing nature of language. Discovery of the Indo-European language family. Late in century: Recognition that all languages are fundamentally the same in nature; no "primitive" or "advanced" languages.
19th-20th centuries	Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Development of technical vocabularies. Within a few centuries, English has gone from an island tongue to a world language, following the fortunes of those who speak it.
20th century	Communications revolution. Spread of a few languages at the expense of many. Languages of the world begin to die out on a large scale as mastery of certain world languages becomes necessary for survival. Classification and description of non-Indo-European languages by linguists continues, in many cases in a race against the clock.
1945-?	American political, economic, military supremacy. Borrowing patterns continue. English has greater impact than ever on other languages, even those with more native speakers. Becomes most widely studied second language, and a scientific lingua franca.
	By the 1990s, preferences begin to shift in many places from British to American English as the selected standard for second language acquisition. The twin influences of British and American broadcasting media make the language accessible to more and more people. Hollywood and the pop music industry help make English an irresistible medium for the transmission of popular culture. Even long-established European cultures begin to feel linguistically and culturally threatened, as English comes into use in more and more spheres and large numbers of English borrowings enter their languages.
	New waves of immigrants to the U.S. Linguistic diversity increases where the newcomers settle, but immigrants repeat the pattern of earlier settlers and lose their language within a generation or two. The culture at large remains resolutely monolingual (despite the fears of cultural purists). But as ever, the language continues to absorb loanwords, continually enriched by the many tongues of the newcomers to these shores.

History of the English Language II

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The figure below shows the timeline of the history of the English language. The earliest known residents of the British Isles were the Celts, who spoke Celtic languages—a separate branch of the Indo-European language family tree. Over the centuries the British Isles were invaded and conquered by various peoples, who brought their languages and customs with them as they settled in their new lives. There is now very little Celtic influence left in English. The earliest time when we can say that English was spoken was in the 5th century CE (Common Era�a politically correct term used to replace AD).

In case you hadn’t made the connection, “England” <– �Engla Land� <� �Angle Land� (Land of the Angles, a people of northern old Germany). Their name lives on in the district of England named East Anglia, and also in the Anglican Church. In the present day there is still a region of Germany known as Angeln, which is likely the same area from which the original Angles came. Angeln lies in Schleswig-Holstein on the eastern side of the Jutland peninsula near the cities of Flensburg and Schleswig.

History of the English Language

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:38:33 +0400

A short history of the origins and development of English

The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from Englaland and their language was called Englisc - from which the words England and English are derived.

Germanic invaders entered Britain on the east and south coasts in the 5th century.

Old English (450-1100 AD)

Part of Beowulf, a poem written in Old English.

The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English. Old English was spoken until around 1100.

Middle English (1100-1500)

An example of Middle English by Chaucer.

In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered England. The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today.

Modern English

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

Hamlet's famous "To be, or not to be" lines, written in Early Modern English by Shakespeare.

Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published.

Late Modern English (1800-Present)

The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.

Varieties of English

From around 1600, the English colonization of North America resulted in the creation of a distinct American variety of English. Some English pronunciations and words "froze" when they reached America. In some ways, American English is more like the English of Shakespeare than modern British English is. Some expressions that the British call "Americanisms" are in fact original British expressions that were preserved in the colonies while lost for a time in Britain (for example trash for rubbish, loan as a verb instead of lend, and fall for autumn; another example, frame-up, was re-imported into Britain through Hollywood gangster movies). Spanish also had an influence on American English (and subsequently British English), with words like canyon, ranch, stampede and vigilante being examples of Spanish words that entered English through the settlement of the American West. French words (through Louisiana) and West African words (through the slave trade) also influenced American English (and so, to an extent, British English).

Today, American English is particularly influential, due to the USA's dominance of cinema, television, popular music, trade and technology (including the Internet). But there are many other varieties of English around the world, including for example Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English, Indian English and Caribbean English.

The Germanic Family of Languages

English is a member of the Germanic family of languages.
Germanic is a branch of the Indo-European language family.

A brief chronology of English
BC 55	Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar.	Local inhabitants speak Celtish
BC 43	Roman invasion and occupation. Beginning of Roman rule of Britain.
436	Roman withdrawal from Britain complete.
449	Settlement of Britain by Germanic invaders begins
450-480	Earliest known Old English inscriptions.	Old English
1066	William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invades and conquers England.	Old English
c1150	Earliest surviving manuscripts in Middle English.	Middle English
1348	English replaces Latin as the language of instruction in most schools.
1362	English replaces French as the language of law. English is used in Parliament for the first time.
c1388	Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales.
c1400	The Great Vowel Shift begins.
1476	William Caxton establishes the first English printing press.	Early Modern English
1564	Shakespeare is born.
1604	Table Alphabeticall, the first English dictionary, is published.
1607	The first permanent English settlement in the New World (Jamestown) is established.
1616	Shakespeare dies.
1623	Shakespeare's First Folio is published
1702	The first daily English-language newspaper, The Daily Courant, is published in London.
1755	Samuel Johnson publishes his English dictionary.
1776	Thomas Jefferson writes the American Declaration of Independence.
1782	Britain abandons its American colonies.
1828	Webster publishes his American English dictionary.	Late Modern English
1922	The British Broadcasting Corporation is founded.
1928	The Oxford English Dictionary is published.

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The runic alphabet

The runic alphabet

Old English alphabet and pronunciation

Eastern Germanic, Western Germanic and Northern Germanic groups of languages

East Germanic

West Germanic

North Germanic

The earliest descriptions of the Germans, the ancient tribes that spoke Germanic languages

Modern Germanic languages

Proto-Germanic language, its development from Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European language and comparative linguistics

Linguistic facts:

Archeological facts:

The aims of studying the history of the English language

The aims of studying the history of the English language. Synchronic and diachronic approaches to studying the language. The concept of ‘language change’

Concept of �language change�.

Five Events that Shaped the History of English

The Anglo-Saxon Settlement

The Scandinavian Settlements

1066 and after 1066 and all that

Standardization

Colonization and Globalization

Chronology of Events in English

History of the English Language II

History of the English Language

A short history of the origins and development of English

Old English (450-1100 AD)

Middle English (1100-1500)

Modern English

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

Late Modern English (1800-Present)

Varieties of English

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