The history of the english language. Old English period.

Составители: канд. филолог. наук, доц. Е.В. Краснова.

Учебное пособие по истории английского языка – Ростов н/Д: Издательский центр ДГТУ, 2015.-57с.

Данное учебное пособие охватывает часть программы курса «История первого иностранного языка и введение в спецфилологию», а именно, Старо - Английский период и предназначено для студентов специальности «Перевод и переводоведение» и направления «Лингвистика». Пособие содержит сведения об истории Англии, Германских племенах и их языках, о происхождении и развитии английского языка, становлении фонетики, морфологии, словарного состава английского языка в Старо-Английский период. В конце приводится список ключевых терминов и вопросы к семинарским занятиям по данному разделу.

Печатается по решению научно-методического совета специальности 45.05.01 «Перевод и переводоведение».

Научный редактор – канд. филол. наук, доц. В.В. Панкова

Рецензент - aссистент преподавателя Elain Wilson (USA)

© Издательский центр ДГТУ, 2015

The history of the english language

The aim of the history of the English language is to give a systematic description of the English language development, its phonetic structure, spelling, vocabulary, grammatical system and the historical conditions causing changes in the language history. This course will help you to understand the peculiarities of the English language, its ties with other Germanic languages and Indo-European language family.

The language can be analyzed in two ways. We use the diachronic method when it is necessary to compare the use of the same word or grammar form in different periods of time, or when it is necessary to understand how the expression of the same meaning changed in the course of time,. Diachronic study is the study of the historic development of separate linguistic phenomena and of the whole system of a language. We use the synchronic method when it is necessary to analyze language phenomena at some definite time. Synchronic study is the study of a language at a definite stage of its development as a system of lexical, grammatical and phonetic elements. Both these methods are combined to study a language completely.

Traditionally, the English language is divided into three periods: Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and New or Modern English (NE). This division is not as strict as it seems because every change takes a certain period of time.

Any language development means language change. Changes occur under the influence of different reasons. They are divided into two groups – internal and external.

Internal reasons exist within the language itself. They appear because of the necessity to improve the language, for example, to express different meanings by distinct means and identical meanings by identical means. Thus, the forms of borrowed nouns (nouns taken from other languages) acquire features of the forms typical of native nouns.

Language evolution is also influenced by external or extra-linguistic factors – those several reasons which exist beyond the language. Here we can mention the geographical and social place of the language, its contacts with other languages, and changes in the life of the speakers. Language development is closely connected with the history of this language-speaking community, that’s why it is important to know the people’s history, the geographical expansion of the community, their contacts with other peoples and nations, and the development of their literature, science and culture.

The development of a language has both static and dynamic character. Historically the process of language development can be regarded as permanent. However there are some constant features which do not or almost do not change (the most commonly used part of the vocabulary, ways of word-formation, grammatical categories). Linguistic changes are temporal transformations of the same units, which can be registered as distinct steps. A new feature becomes a linguistic change when it is accepted in most varieties of the language or in the literary standard.

When we consider language change by examining the result, the change can be characterized as merging or splitting, which means loss or appearance of opposition, respectively. Opposition is a general correlation of two or more units of the same class by means of which a certain meaning is expressed. The members of the opposition possess common and differential features (for example, nouns – singular and plural).

As an example of splitting (a new opposition develops) in OE we can trace [k] splits into [k] and a palatalized variant [k’]. Merging is the loss of opposition; for example, the unification of plural forms of nouns.

The evolution of the English language is studied at different linguistic levels: the phonetic and phonological level, or the sounds of a language; the morphological level, or the basic units of meaning with a language; the syntactic level, or the order of words and clauses of a language; the lexical level, or the vocabulary of a language.

Changes are not equally intensive at different levels of the language. For instance, vocabulary is subjected to linguistic changes more than other levels with the influx of new words. The phonetic system can’t change rapidly, as phonemes distinguish morphemes, and for this reason phonemic opposition is especially meaningful. The slowest to change is the grammatical system, but it is important to note that in the English language the grammatical system underwent very significant changes.

Sometimes changes at one level can also cause certain changes at some other level. For example, the shift of the stress to the beginning of a word and weakening of unstressed vowels caused homonymy of grammatical endings, and as a result the English language became analytical, though it used to be a synthetic language. And so, morphologically we classify the English language as an analytical language. Genealogically, it is an Indo-European language belonging to the Germanic group. To fully explore the genealogy, we must examine the very origins of the English language.

PRE-ENGLISH BRITAIN

Pre-historic Britain can be defined as the period before the English language began to develop and before the Germanic tribes settled on the British Isles, broken down into subcategories based upon the groups who settled there.