1.The old Germanic langs, their classification and principal features.

PG is an entirely pre-historical language: it was never recorded in written form. English belongs to the Germanic group of languages & the history of this group begins with the appearance of what is known as the Proto-Germanic(PG)language.OLDGERMANIC:East-germanic(Gothic Gothic Gostel is considered to be the first written text connected with Germanic languages and other European languages. has been preserved in written records of the 4^th – 6^th), Vandalic(similar features with Spanish) Burgudeanx(withFrench))North-germanic(O.Norwegian,O.Danish,O.Swedish,O.Icelandic)West-germanic (O.High German, O.English, O. Low Franconian, O. Saxon, Old Frisian)Gothic is extremely important as The

The second group (north-germanic) – was not until the 10^th cent, it was called “old Norse” (древне северный). After the 10^th cent. North split into O. Norwegian, O. Danish, O. Swedish, O. Icelandic. Historically the most important is O. Icelandic:

it had the largest body of written records, dated back to 12-13 c.

The third group (west-germanic) consists of 5 members: Old English → English;Old Frisian → survived in local dialects in Friesland (in the Netherlands);Old Saxon → also in local dialects to be found in Germany;Old Low Franconian → Netherlandish → Afrikaans;

Old High German → German → Yiddish

Principal features:

Old German languages show differences in comparison with other European Lang on 3 main linguistic levels: grammatical, phonetic and lexical.

Grammatical level – the most important innovation in G. was the emergence of the new types of verbs – “weak”, past tense with the dental suffix –d-: open – opened,

Phonetic peculiarities – 1) accent (word stress) in IE was free and musical; in protogerm. Accent become fixed on the root syllable and dynamic, 2) Grimm’s law.The Germanic langs in the modern world, their classification. Their common ancestor.

Germanic languages

1. English:

GB – Лондон; Ireland – Дублин; The USA – Вашингтон; Canada – Отава; Australia – Канберра; New Zealand – Веллингтон.

2. German:

Germany – Берлин; Austria – Вена; Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland.

3. Netherlandish: The Netherlands & Belgium- Амстердам.

4. Danish: Denmark –Копенгаген.

5. Swedish:

Sweden – Стокгольм. Finland – Хельсинки.

6. Norwegian: Norway – Осло.

7. Ice Landic: Iceland – Рейкъявик.

8. Frisian:

The Netherlands; Germany

9. Faroese: The Faroe Islands

10. Yiddish: different countries.

11. Afrikaans: The SAR – Еханасбург.

2. The common features of Germanic langs

All the Germanic Languages of the past and present have common linguistic features .These features are characteristic of the Germanic group only. They appeared during the period of the Proto-Germanic Language, before it split into a certain number of the Germanic languages. First of all we are going to discuss the common Germanic phonetic features:1. Word Stress/AccentProto-Germanic 1. fixed stress (can’t move either in form- or word-building and is usually placed on root or prefix); 2. dynamic stress (force, breath stress) The Proto-Germanic type of stress led to the formation of the following peculiarities of the Germanic languages as compared to non-Germanic Indo-European languages: phonetic – as a result of the fixed position of the stress the unstressed syllables were becoming weaker and weaker, they got less distinct and neutral sounds (such as “schwa”) appeared; morphological – as a result of the fact that the stress was fixed on the root and the syllables following the root were always unstressed and weak, many Germanic languages began to lose suffixes and grammatical endings and became ANALYTICAL LANGS.Vowels:

Qualitative change – affects the quality of a sound (e.g. [o  Λ]). Quantitative change – affects the length of a sound (e.g. [i  i:]).Dependent/positional change – a change that occurs in certain position or in certain phonetic conditions. Independent/spontaneous change – affects a certain sound in all positions irrespective (независимо) of phonetic conditions and serves to distinguish a grammatical phenomenon (ablaut) . Main tendencies in Vowel Changes in the Germanic Languages: Short vowels  become neutralized. Long vowels  become short and more open.  become diphthongized and more closed.

Grimm’s law: The first Germanic consonant shifts took place in the V-II cent. BC. There are 3 acts of this law:

1. p, t, k c - f, Ө, h. Eg: пламя – flame, пена – foam, колода – holt.

2. b, d, g, →p, t, k. Eg: яблоко - apple, дерево – tree,

3. bh, dh, gh →b,d,g(lost aspiration.) Eg: bhrāta(sanscr.) – brother, rudhira – red, ghostis – guest.

The second consonant shift was Carl Verner’s law. According to C.Verner all the common Germanic consonants became voiced in intervocalic position if the preceding vowel was unstressed. p-f > v t-Ө > đ, d k-x > j, g

s-s > z/r Devoicing took place in early common germanic when the stress was not yet fixed on the root. rhotacism ( [s] →[z]→[r] was – were, is – are;. i-mutation (unmlaut)(6-7c)a,o,æ→e; a: - æ;

o-e; u-e; ea,eo-ie Includes fronting & narrowing.(5-6c) Brought a complete change in vowel quality: one phoneme is replaced by another. Traces of i-Umlaut in Modern English:irregular Plural of nouns (man – men; tooth – teeth);irregular verbs and adjectives (told ←tell; sold ←sell; old – elder);word-formation with sound interchange (long – length; blood – bleed). IN LEXIS:Native words

In all Gmc languages nature, sea, home life (sea, house, God, send, drink, broad, own). Borrowings:Latin words ( refer to trade and warfare) Lat strata via – OE stræt – NE street

3. The chronological division of the history of English. General characteristics of each period.

The division of the History of English into periods is based on 2 principles.

1. extra linguistic – cardinal changes in the history of people.

2. linguistic proper – cardinal changes in the structure and status of the language itself.

Roughly covers 12 centuries. It’s divided into 3 periods. The traditional division is based on the phonetics and grammatical principles (Henry Sweet)

1.Old English (500 – 1100) – no reduction of inflexion. – It was a typical OG language, with a purely Germanic vocabulary, and a few foreign borrowings, but it displayed specific phonetic peculiarities. Orthography. Was based on the phonematic principle which made writing and reading quite easy. OE starting with the 6^th cent began to use the Latin alphabet with some modifications. In the 6^th cent England became a Christian country. The Latin alphabet replaced the runic one. The oldest written record is dated by the 7^th cent. Grammar: OE was a synthetic lang (had lots of inflexions). A. Early OE (prewritten OE) from 450 – 700.

B. OE (written OE) 700 – 1066.( tribal dialects gradually changed into local and regional dialects.)

2. Middle English (1100 – 1500) – reduced inflexions, unstressed endings. . (The period was characterized by the growth of the English vocabulary and the increasing proportion of French loan words in English.) the nominal system was much simpler (2 tense forms)

a)Early ME 1066 – 1350(foreign influences – Scandinavian and French)

b)ME (classical) 1350 - 1475

3. Modern English (1500 - ...) loss of inflexion.

A. Early New English 1476 – 1660

B. Normalization Period 1660 – 1800 (age of correctness, Neo-Classical period)

C. Late NE/Mod E (including 1800 – present day English)