3. Changes in the alphabet and spelling

The earliest written records of English are inscriptions on hard material made in a special alphabet known as the runes. The word rune originally meant ‘secret’, ‘mystery’ and hence came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. There is no doubt that the art of runic writing was known to the Germanic tribes long before they came to Britain, since runic inscriptions have also been found in Scandinavia. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate a separate sound. Besides, a rune could also represent a word beginning with that sound and was called by that word. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records. One of them is an inscription on a box called the “Franks Casket”; the other is a short text on a stone cross in Dumfriesshire known as the “Ruthwell Cross”. Both records are in the Northumbrian dialect.

During the 13^th and 14^th centuries many changes were made in the English alphabet and the graphic system. They pertain to the number of letters used by the scribes, the shapes of letters and their sound values.

Several Old English symbols were discarded: the two runes (“thorn”) and (“won”) as well as the letter ʒ (“yogh”) fell into disuse and gave place to the digraph TH, the doubled letter U (w “double u”) and g respectively. A number of new letters and especially digraphs were added to indicate the old sounds or the new sounds arising in Middle English: k, v, q (in the digraph qu), the digraph gh, etc.

Some of the letters and digraphs were borrowed directly from French: ou to denote [u:], ch for [th]; others appear to have been introduced in order to avoid confusion: thus 0 with the value [u] came to be used instead of the former U when it stood next to the letters N, M, or V, as they were all made up of down strokes difficult to distinguish (thus OE munuc became ME monk, NE monk; OE lufu became ME love, NE love).

Read the opening staza of the famous Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales pronouncing the words as transcribed under the lines; the stresses are shown as required by the iambic meter of the poem and are therefore marked both in polysyllabic and monosyllabic words.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

[xwan ‘θat ap’rille ‘wiθ his ju:res ‘so:te]

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

[θe ‘druxt of ‘martJ haθ ‘persed ‘to: θe ‘roite]

And bathed every wveyne in swich licour,

[and ba:θd ‘evri ‘vein in ‘swit∫ Li’ku:r]

Of which vertu engendered is the flour;

[of ‘xwit∫ ver’tju: en’dʒendred ‘iz θe ‘flu:r]

When April with his sweet showers

The draught of March has bathed to the roof.

And bathed every vein in such liquor,

Of which (whose) virtue power engendered in the flower.

Lecture 5

The formation of the national literary

English language

Plan

1. Historical background from the 15^th to the 17 century. Conditions for linguistic unity.

2. The formation of the national language. The spoken Standard.

3. Geographical expansion of English.

4. English today.

1. Historical background from the 15th to the 17th century. Conditions for linguistic unity.

The formation of the national English language, or Standard English, is considered to date from the period between the 15^th and the 17^th centuries. After that time the language continued to change, yet, henceforth one can speak of the evolution of Standard English instead of trading the similar or different trends in the history of its dialects.

We must mention at least two of the external factors that led to this development: the unification of the country and the progress of culture. Other historical events, such as the increased foreign contacts, produced a more specific kind of influence on the language: they affected the word-stock.

The 15^th and 16^th cc. saw striking changes in the life of the country. Trade had extended beyond the local boundaries and apart from farming and cattle-breeding an important wool trade and industry was carried on in the countryside. As the demand for wool and cloth rose, Britain began to export woolen cloth produced by the first big enterprises, the “manufactures”.

The changes in the economic and social conditions were accompanied by the intermixture of people coming from different regions, the growth of towns with a mixed population, and the strengthening of social ties between the various regions. All these processes played an important role in the unification of the English language.

Towards the end of the 15^th c. the period of feudal disunity in Britain came to an end, and Britain became a centralized state.

In 1485 the strongest royal power under Henry VII was established. Henry VII was the founder of the Tudor dynasty and of a new kind of Monarchy. He reduced the power of the old nobility and created new nobles out of the bourgeoisie and the middle class who ardently supported him. The royal power grew still stronger and the power of the church weaker when his successor, Henry VIII, broke with the Pope and declared himself head of the English Church (1534).

The Tudors encouraged the development of trade inside and outside the country. The great geographical discoveries gave a new impetus to the progress of foreign trade. English traders set forth on daring journeys in search of gold and treasures. Sea pirates and slave-traders were patronized by Queen Elizabeth as readily as traders in wool, for they made large contributions to her treasury. Under the later Tudors England became one of the biggest trade and sea powers. In 1588 England defeated the Spanish fleet, the Invisible Armada, thus dealing a final blow to Spain, her main rival in overseas trade and in colonial expansion. In the late 16^th c. England founded its first colonies abroad.

Thus the contracts of England with other nations – although not necessarily friendly – became closer, and new contacts were made in distant lands. These new ties could not but influence the development of the language.

All over the world the victory of capitalism over feudalism was linked up with the consolidation of people into nations and the unification of the regional dialects into a national language or rather the formation of a superdialect from of language used as a standard from of speech by the nation. The making of the English nation went hand in hand with the formation of the national English language.