2/3. 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.

   1. Early OE (prewritten OE) from 450 – 700.

   2. OE (written OE) 700 – 1066.

2. Middle English (1100 – 1500) – reduced inflexions, unstressed endings.

   1. Early ME 1066 – 1350

   2. ME (classical) 1350 - 1475

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

   1. Early New English 1476 – 1660

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

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

OE was spoken on a small territory and number of speakers was ≈ 1 mln. There were 4 dialects of OE language.

1. Northumbrian

(north of r. ): anglian

2. Mercian

(between r. Thames): dialects

3. Kentish – the peninsula of Kent – spoken by Juts, Frisian.

4. Wessex – West Saxons. Since king Alfred, when Wessex became the most powerful kingdom, Wessex dialect became popular and got the status of written standard. Most OE written record are in Wessex d.

Middle English:

1. Northumbrian → North;

2. Mercian → East Midland, West Midland;

3. Kentish

4. Wessex → South Western.

East Midland became the modern language, was spoken not far from London → modern national English.

4. Oe dialects. The role of the Wessex dialect.

The ancient Germanic tribes occupied a comparatively small territories in the North-West of Europe, they spoke similar dialects. These dialects → common germanic, it lasted till the beginning of our era. In the V cent germanic tribes migrated to the British Isles. They were Saxons, Jutes, Angles. The language of this tribes serves as a basis for the formation of OE. They spoke 4 dialects:

1. Kentish (Jutes);

2. West-Saxon /Wessex (Saxon);

3. Mercian (Angles);

4. Northumbrian (Angles) – north to r. Humber.

In the IX cent – during the reign of King Alfred (871-899) the Great, when Wessex became the most powerful kingdom and led the successful war against the Scandinavians. Since him the dialect of Wessex became more popular and got the status of written standard.

Most OE written records that came to us are in the Wessex dialect (“Beowulf”, Anglo-Saxon chronicles).

5. The Scandinavian invasion and its effect on English.

By the end of the 8-th cent Britain was often invaded by Vikings (Danes from Denmark and Northmen from Scandinavia). England was invaded by Danes, Scotland and Ireland by Northmen. At first they came in small groups, than in large bands conquering territories one after another. Wessex kingdom under Alfred the Great began to struggle. But still Scandinavian invasion had made some effect on English:

1. words beginning on “sk” (sky, skirt, skin)

2. the system of personal pronouns (they, them, their)

3. the form ‘are’ of the verb to be/

4. the ending –s- for Present Simple, 3-rd person singular (in verbs) (he makes, she gives).

5. the system of personal names ending on –son-: Davidson, Richardson, Jefferson.

6. there are more then 1500 words of Scandinavian origin in ModE: sister, bad, fog, cake, get, again etc.

[sk’] → [s] NE Etymological doublets in

ME

→ [sk] Sc skjorte (Sc) – skirt (NE)

scierte (OE) – shirt (NE)

The influence was felt in 2 spheres

• vocabulary – law, husband, loose, root, sky, smile, want;

• morphology – the verb system was expanding.