History of the English

1.Give the development of the West Germanic languages. Which West Germanic Language gave rise to living modern languages? What is the role of West Germanic language?

The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages and include German, English, Scots, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, Low Saxon languages and Yiddish. The other branches are North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic. English is part of the North Sea Germanic branch of the West Germanic languages.

Origins

The West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages is spoken by the Germanic-speaking people who occupied the southwestern part of the Germanic homeland. The languages of these people show characteristic differences from the East and North Germanic branches.

All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history. The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. It is the linguistic ancestor of the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from the western IE tongues between 15th c. and 10th с. The ancient Germans moves further north than other tribes and settled on the southern cost of the Baltic Sea in the region of the Elbe. This place is regarded as the most probable original home of Germans, where they became a separate group of the IE family. Towards the beginning of our era the common period of Germanic history came to an end. The Germans have extended over a larger territory and PG language broke into 3 parts: East Germanic, North Germanic, and West Germanic.

At the later stage of the great migration period - in the 5th с - 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, part of the Saxons, the Frisians and the Jules. Their dialects in the British Isles developed into the English language.

Old English (450 - 1100 AD): During the 5th Century AD three Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes) came to the British Isles from various parts of northwest Germany as well as Denmark. These tribes were warlike and pushed out most of the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants from England into Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. One group migrated to the Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak the Celtic Language of Breton today. Through the years, the Saxons, Angles and Jutes mixed their different Germanic dialects. This group of dialects forms what linguists refer to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon. The word "English" was in Old English "Englisc", and that comes from the name of the Angles. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin.

Old English developed four major dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. Most of recorded Old English is in the West Saxon dialect.

Old English is characterized by phonetic spelling, a moderate number of inflections (two numbers, three genders, four cases, remnants of dual number, and instrumental case), a syntax somewhat dependent on word order, and a simple two tense, three mood, four person (three singular, one plural) verb system.

Old English is recorded from the late seventh century onwards. By about 1100 C.E. enough changes had accumulated so that the language is designated Middle English.

Task:Analyze the consonant correspondences in the following groups of words and classify the words into Germanic and non-Germanic: foot, pedal, pedestrian, twofold, double, doublet, twin, brotherly

"Foot" in German is "Fuß", where the final symbol is an "s-Zett", usually rendered in typing as "ss". English "foot" and German "Fuß" are cognates. The French word is "pied", Spanish "pie" and Italian "piede", from the Latin root "pedal". In English, we have the words "pedal", "pedestrian" (one who goes on foot, as opposed to an equestrian, who goes on an equus, a horse), and "pedestal" (the "foot" of a statue). Again, the Latin-based words are the fancy, upper-class words, and the Germanic words are the everyday words