4. The Scandinavian invasion and the Norman Conquest, their impact on the English language evolution.

England has been invaded several times. Since the 8^th c. it was invaded by Scandinavians, later by Norwegians. By the end of the 9^th c. the Danes conquered more than half of the territory. They assimilated with the natives, Scandinavians were absorbed into the local population both ethnically and linguistically. The language was influenced as well, many Scand. words appeared. The elements of Scand. speech was found not only in dialects but also in Standard English.

After the Norman Conquest which was complete in 1086 the language had changed greatly. Normans brought to Britain French kings and nobles. They brought the French language as well . After the Norman Conquest there were three languages in England. There was Latin, the language of the church and the language in which all learned men wrote and spoke; the kings wrote their laws in Latin for some time after the Conquest. Then there was French, the language which the kings and nobles spoke and which many people wrote. Finally, there was the English language which remained the language of the masses of the people. Rich people, the landowners, often knew French and Latin. But poor people, the peasants did not understand French or Latin. They understood only English.  In time, however, came the general use of the English language. About 1350 English became the language of law. Then between 1350 and 1400 the Bible was translated into English. But the English language when it came into general use was not quite the same as it was before the Conquest. The grammar remained, but many words came into it from the French language.

Such a linguistic situation led to the struggle btw English and French. Only in 13^th c. a few steps were made in that direction. English was recognized as an official language by Henry III in 1258. There were 3 official languages: French, Latin and English.

5. Middle English dialects. The formation of the national language. Major written records.

ME dialects developed from respective OE ones. Following groups of dialects of early ME can be distinguished: 1) The Southern group – Kentish and South-Western(OE Saxon dialect); 2)Midland(Central) – West and East Midland; 3)The Northern – from OE Northumbrian.

In the late 12^th the English made attempts to conquer Ireland. So that English was used there alongside with Irish and Welsh and was influenced by Celtic.

The earliest records of early ME prose were made in Anglo-Saxon Chronicles known as Peterborough Chronicle. The works which appeared at that time were of religious nature mostly.

In the 14^th c. English became the language of literature and law. The number of people who knew French had fallen. Anglo-Norman was dead language. So English was dominant in all social classes and in all regions. Later education became English.

The most important event in changing linguistic situation was the rise of London dialect as the prevalent written form of the language. Initially this dialect was fundamentally East Saxon, but later the speech of London was becoming more mixed with the east midland features prevailed. This mixed dialect which was extended to two universities(Oxford and Cambridge) ousted French from official sphere and sphere of writing.

The majority of the literary texts of the 14^th c. were written in London dialect. The period of flourishing of the literature named The Age of Chaucer took place. Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the most outstanding figures in English literature. He is considered to be the founder of the literary language. The most famous of his works were the collection of the stories The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s literary language based on mixed London dialect is known as classical ME; in 15^th and 16^th c. it became the basis of the national literary English language.

6. The Old English vowel system. Major changes in the Old and Middle English periods.

OE vowel system had some peculiarities. There were 7 pairs of monophthongs(i e u o a ae y) and 4 pairs of diphthongs(ea eo ie io). Each short vowel had its long equivalent. OE is the period of full inflections, vowels were not reduced in unstressed syllables.

Vowel changes took place in English at every period of history. As a result of the changes new phonemes and their variants appeared. The most important changes were: breaking, palatal mutation and lengthening.

Breaking – (6^th c.) a front vowel changed into a diphthong under the influence of the consonants h, l, r in combination with any other consonant (e – eo ‘melcan – meocan’, ‘herte – heorte’, ae – ea aeld – eald).

Palatal mutation( i-umlaut) – in the position before i and j in the succeeding syllable the vowel become more close and fronted, it practically mutated with I and j (fuljen – fullen). Palatal mutation affected almost all vowels and changed the vowel system greatly.

Lengthening (9^th c.) – a)all short monophtongs lengthened before nd, ld, mb (cIld – child), b) m/n before f,s, thorn + h lengthened the vowel (fimf – fIf – fife), c)j before d,n (saegde – say), d) h in the position btw 2 vowels(intervocal) disappeared and vowel lengthened (seohen – seon – seen).

In ME serious phonetic changes took place as well. The most important is vowel reduction. (nama(nama) – name(name) – name(neim)) This process was going in 14^th c. and affected the majority of words and produced a great number of monosyllabic words. The vowel system of ME included only 5 monophtongs(i e a o u).

7. Grimm’s and Verner’s laws. The Old English consonant system and its development in ME.

Consonants were historically more stable than vowels, but the system of consonant has changed greatly as well. The changes of consonants in OE were formulated by J.Grimm in 19^th c. It’s known as Grimm’s Law of PG consonant shift. According to the law voiceless plosives developed into voiceless fricatives, voiced plosives were shifted to voiceless plosives, voiced aspirated plosives developed into voiced fricatives of into pure plosives.

Another important series of consonant changes were described in 19^th c. by C.Verner. He said that all the early PG voiceless fricatives(f, th, x, s) became voiced in intervocal position, if the preceding vowel was unstressed. In the absence of this condition they remained voiceless. In late PG the phonetic conditions that caused voicing had disappeared: the stress had shifted on the first syllable.

The system of consonants consisted of several sets of consonants. All the C fell into noise and sonorants. Noise C were divided into plosives and fricatives, which subdivided into voiced and voiceless. In OE there were short and long opposition of C. The long C were distinguished in intervocal position.