12.02.09

Notes for TEST I

 

 

*Families of languages: ‘THE INDO-EUROPEAN’

-Different languages can be systematically compared and, depending of the number and kind of similarities, the relationship between them can be established.

-Either they can be traced to common attested, reconstructed or allegedly re-constructable proto-languages (i.e.: in which case they are cognate), or they have no attested, res-constructed or allegedly reconstruct able common ancestor.

A) Generic tree Theory: the origin of individual languages is caused by their ‘branding off’ from older languages. (Schleicher)

B) Wave Theory: language change starts in restricted contexts. Generic relationships between languages according to the Genetic Tree Theory. (Schuchardt / Schleicher).

-Ancestor: parent language (i.e.: Latinà Spanish)

-Daughter language: with respect to parent language: Spanish, Italian, French respect to Latin.

-Sister languages: Spanish-Italian-French.

 

A group of genetically related languages is called:

-a language family in the narrow sense (parent language)

-a language family in the broad sense.

 

Reconstruction of non-existent languages:

-DEF: determining older

-Our knowledge of possible types of change (i.e.: sound change)

-Phonetically motivated changes: i.e.: hævtu >hæftu

-Phonologically motivated changes: i.e.: the / Θ / changed to a /t/ after another fricative.

-Synchronic linguistic data: i.e.: sounds spoken in today’s languages.

-Two types of reconstruction depending on the synchronic linguistic data they are based on:

a) language-internal reconstruction à if historical forms are reconstructed on the basis of systematic relationships within a single language.

b) language-external (comparative) reconstruction à if historical forms are reconstructed on the basis of systematic relationships between different (presumably) genetically related languages.

 

Accidental similarities.

-Greek words with ‘pneu-‘ as a root, like ‘blow’ or ‘to breath’, but in Klamath of Oregon ‘to blow’ is ‘pniw-‘ and these languages are not remotely related.

-In the languages of most countries where the bird is known, the cuckoo has a name derived from the noise it makes

[*Iconic words (onomatopeya) swim=splash]

-We try to reconstruct the parent from of forms used in contemporary Romance languages to denote ‘father’. We apply external reconstruction (we collect words from different potentially cognate languages): padre (Italy)/ pare (Catalan)/ pere (French).

-The following processes may occur universally in the evolution of languages:

a) Weakening (Lenisization): change /t/>/d/>/ø/, i.e.: /dađo/

b) Metathesis: change /er/>/re/. Deriving forms in the daughter languages. I.e.: bren/burn.

c) Vowel harmony: putative vowel /a/ into /e/ (long vowel influences in another): i.e.: foot > feet  à result /fi:t/

 

03.03.09

 

*INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

-What is Indo-European? A now extinct language that is the ancestor of a linguistic family that includes most of the languages of Europe, past and present, as well as those found in a vast area extending across Iran and Afghanistan to the northern half of the Indian subcontinent.

-Sanskrit, Latin and Greek.

 

CENTUM LANGUAGES

-Celtic influences in English are difficult to determinate. Because is the same language branch: 

 

 

 

-The north part of England is more influenced by Scandinavian than the south.

 

SATEM LANGUGES

-English belongs to the West Germanic. English has borrowed from Germanic and Romance neighbours and from Latin and Greek. Over 50% of English vocabulary comes from Indo-European.

 

 

*FROM THE ROMANS TO THE NORMANS.

 

CELTS and ROMANS

-First inhabitants of Great Britainà Iberians (north of Spain). Then the Celts occupied France, North Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, North-Western Germany, Great Britain and Ireland in early Western Europe history.

 

CELTS

-There seems to have been no code –mixing between Celtic languages and Anglo-Saxon (i.e.: I don’t understand your language and you don’t understand mine, so let’s simplify: Spanglish)

-This might explain the lack of Celtic influence in English nowadays.

-No new words were needed as Continental Europe and Britain were similar.

 

BRITANNIA and ROMAN DOMINATION

-South-east of Britain

-South and East of Britannia were romanized .

-Scotland and Wales left un-romanized.

 

10.03.09

 

*TRACES of ROMAN INFLUENCES

-Place-names: -cester or –chester.

-Bath was a place of leisure (Aqua Solis).

-Londonà Lugdinium: Londinium.

 

*DE EXCIDIO BRITANNIAE

-407/410 A.D: Roman legions left Britannia to defend empire from Germanic routs.

-Romanized Britons left alone to face the attacks by the Picti (Pictos: Scotland) and Scotti (Ireland).

-Britain had to ask Germanic tribes for help.

-Germanic mercenaries, landed 456 A.D (in Kent).

 

*ADVENTUS ANGLORUM (Jutes, Angles, Saxons).

-Jutes arrived in England and were offered the island of Thanet, later occupied the area of Kent.

-Angles settled the north area of the river Humber and the south.

-Saxons settled in Essex, Wessex, Middlesex, and Sussex.

Those establishments meant the principle of the English dialects

-The most important Saxon Kingdom was Wessex (below London, capital: Winchester).

-The seven main kingdoms competing for supremacy formed the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy: Kent, Essex, Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria.

-Kent was the first focus of culture and powerà6th c.

-In the 7th and 8th centuries the supremacy passed on to Northumbria: monasteries of Jarrow, Lindisfarne, and Wearmouth.

-Mercia became the ruling kingdom until it was invaded by the Norsemen.

-At the end of the 8th century Wessex was the only surviving Anglo-Saxon kingdom, thanks to King Alfred the Great. Anglo-Saxon Chronics started 890 A.D.

 

*CELTS AND ANGLO-SAXONS

- Britons and Anglo-Saxons cohabite peacefully.

-Celtic Britons no resisted Saxon invaders: King Arthur fought against the invader but was inevitable.

-At 577 Britannia was under Germanic rule.

 

*LATIN INFLUENCE

-The Germanic invaders did not adopt Latin because:

--no coexistence with Latin speaking Britons.

--decadence of Roman civilization.

--Germanic tribes which invaded Britannia had little contact with the Roman Empire.

--Latinization: St. Augustine Christianize the island at 597.

 

*9TH/11TH C.: VIKING INVASIONS

-793 A.D. Viking raid destroyed Lindistarne and in the following year Jarrow suffered a similar fate.

-From than on pirates coming from Norway and Denmark devastated coastal areas of Ireland and Great Britain.

-Danelaw (Britannia A.D. 945):

--The Viking invaders were detected by Alfred the Great in the Battle of Edington in the year 878.

--Division of the territory into 2: Wessex and the Danelaw.

--In 970, Danelaw was settled by Scandinavian speakers.

-1066à the last time that England was invaded.

 

*THE NORMAN CONQUEST

-When Edward the confessor died, the Anglo-Saxon noblemen elected Harold, son of Godwin, as the new king.

-William of Normandy, second cousin of King Edward, thought that he was the legal king of England.

 

13.03.09

 

*LINGUISTIC SITUATION TILL 13TH CENTURY

-The language of the Church and the court was Norman, French and Latin.

-King, greater feudal landlords, higher clergy-spoke French and Latin.

-Lesser landlords and clergy were bilingual.

-Most people of Saxons descent spoke only English.

-English was disdained by the upper classes; it was no longer written.

-Anglo-Saxon chronicles ended at 1155

 

*THE RISE OF ENGLISH

-1204-1348: Several events would seal the resurgence of English over Normal French.

-The Black Death: fewer workers meant that landlord gave land to English-speakers tenants for rent.

-The Hundred years War:

--gradual loss of dominion on the continent.

--the creation of cities and the birth of middle-classes.

-the Parisian dialect, became more fashionable than Norman French and was used in Universities and other centres of culture.

 

24.03.09

 

*MIDDEL ENGLISH DIALECTS

-Continental verse forms based on metrics and rhyme replaced the Anglo-Saxon the Anglos-Saxon alliterative line in Middle English poetry.

-14th c.: beginning of standard with Chaucer (Canterbury Tales) and the introduction of the Printing Pressà Caxton: a man who introduced printing Press in U.K.

-From Caxton’s translation of the French version of the Prologue to Virgil’s Book of Eneydos (Aenied) c.1990

 

** S.V.O: Subject-Verb-Objective Complements: word order become absolutely important in translation (then: SOV/nowadays: SVO)

 

 

 

            OLD ENGLISH TO MIDDLE ENGLISH

 

Old English

• The Old English we generally study is a kind of standard, elaborated on the basis of one of the dialects spoken at that time (West Saxon) plus the addition of grammatical, syntactic and lexical features from other dialects.

• Different dialects spoken depended on where each Germanic tribe settled. (See

Heptarchy map)

 

Old English Periods

Pre-Old English (449/450-700), paucity of written records.

Early Old English (700-900), use of a literary dialect (West Saxon).

Made important by King Alfred and his collaborators.

Old English proper (900-1150).

 

Linguistic Situation in OE Period

• a. Anglian: spoken north of river Thames.

a.1. Northumbrian: north of river. Humber.

a.2. Mercian: between Humber and Thames.

• b. Kentish: the south-east of England.

: south-west of England.

 

Changes from Old English to Middle English

• Morphosyntactic Change

• Syntactic Change

• Lexical Change

 

Morphosyntactic Change

Gender in the article system disappears.

                                           OE                     ME

MASCULINE                se wulf               þe wulf

FEMENINE                  seo giefu           þe gift

NEUTER                      þæt land           þe land

 

Natural gender takes over in the pronoun system: it to refer to most objects and he, she to males and females and some objects such as ship.

 

Morphosyntactic Change

• Simplification of the cases in the article system

                                         OE                             ME

                                    Masculine               All genders

Nom                                 se                               þe

Acc                                  þone                            þe

Dat                                  þǽm                          þe

Gen                                  þæs                            þe

 

Morphosyntactic Change

• Simplification of noun endings

                                          Singular                                        Plural

                                      OE           ME                              OE                ME

Nominative                   stān         stone                                           stānas           stones

Accusative                   stān         stone                                               stānas           stones

Genitive                        stānes      stone’s                      stanum         stones’

Dative                          stāne          stone                                             stāna         stones

 

Morphosyntactic Change

Plural with s spreads to most nouns

 

                                        Sing      Plural                 Sing      Plural

MASC.                           stan         stanas     à       stone      stones

FEM.                             giefu        giefa       à       gift         gifts

NEUT.                           ship        shipu      à        ship       ships

                                       bok             bec        à        book       books

BUT                              man            men      à       man         men

 

Morphosyntactic Change

• Simplification of adjective endings

                         OE                                                           ME

Nom.   se wilda wulf                                                þe wild wulf

Acc.   tone wildan wulf                                            þe wild wulf

• Gen.  tas wildan wulfes                                           þe wild wulf

• Dat.   Tǽm wildan wulfe                                        þe wild wulf

• Nom.    ta wildan wulfas                                          þe wild wulfes

• Acc.   ta wildan wulfas                                            þe wild wulfes

• Gen.   tǽra wildra wulfa                                        þe wild wulfes

• Dat.    tǽm wildum wulfum                                  þe wild wulfes

 

Syntax From OE to ME

• Word order became more important with the loss of declensions.

• Scandinavian phrasal verbs: gyfen up, faren mid, leten up, tacen to.

• Use of Scandinavian verbal operator get.

• Use of operator do:

Wryteth ye this with your owne hande?

Dyd ye wryte this with your owne hande?

 

Celtic substratum

• Very few words of Celtic origin are found

in Modern English:

• Rivers: Avon, Clyde, Dee, Don, Forth,

Severn, Thames, Usk

Axminster, Caerleon-on-Usk, Exmouth, Uxbridge from the word for water.

• The word whisky/whiskey also comes from a compound of this word: uisge beatha =

water of life

Cities: Belfast, Cardiff, Dublin, Glasgow, London, York

• Landscape words: ben, cairn, corrie, crag, crannog, cromlech, dolmen, glen, loch, menhir, strath, tor:

• First Names: Alan, Donald, Duncan, Eileen, Fiona, Gavin, Ronald, Sheila

• Other words: badger -brock - tejón; peat - turba; bucket – cubo; dun = “dark coloured”, binn =“basket”

• Some of the Celtic words that entered English come from Latin. These words

were borrowed during the Roman occupation of Gaul:

car, carry, carriage, chariot, charioteer,

carpenter, carpentry, lance, and lancer.

 

Latin Influence: Period of Continental Borrowing from Latin 1st to 5th centuries A.D.

• Around 50 words through Germanic contact with Rome before the invasion and settlement of Britain: straet (strata), pund (pondo), mil (milia).

 

Latin influence: (from Roman occupation of Britain -up to 410 AD)

Very little influence during this period. Place names: ceaster (castra = “walled encampment'), for example: Dorchester, Winchester, Manchester, Lancaster, and

wic (vicum = “village” ) Greenwich, etc.

 

Latin influence: Period of the Christianizing of Britain (7th to 10th centuries AD)

abbot, alms, pope, priest, oyster, fig, pine, cedar, sack, sock, etc.

• loan translations (native word formations in imitation of a Latin model) se haliga

gast, godspel

 

Scandinavian Influence

• Toponyms:

Scale (dwelling) Scalby Beck

-by (village) Ormsby, Kirkby

-gill (ravine) Aisgill

-fell (hill) Cross Fell

-thorpe (farm) Priesthorpe

-slack (dell, valley) Garton Slack

-thwaite Micklethwaite

 

Scandinavian Influence

egg for OE ey

sister for swuster

leg for shanks

• Word pairs: skiff-ship; skirt-shirt

OE words replaced by Scandinavian words:

take-niman; cast-weorpan

cut-ceorfan, die-steorfan (starve)

 

Scandinavian Influence

• Function Words:

til

though

they, their, them

both

same

against

 

Linguistic Situation in ME Period 1100-1450/1500

• English co-existed with Anglo-Norman and Latin.

• Latin was the written language of the Church and many secular documents.

• After the Conquest a certain amount of bilingualism in England.

 

Norman Influence

• In Early ME 91.5 % of words had English origin; in later Middle English

this figure had fallen to 78.8 %.

• The language of 5 or 10% of the population became the most substantial source of new words in written ME.

• 13th c. Parisian French superseded Anglo-Norman French.

 

Vocabulary

• Pre-Conquest French borrowings: prud, castel.

• Early Post-Conquest words: natiuite, canceler, concilie, carite,

• Borrowings increased dramatically around the 13th century, not because of structural gaps but because they were felt to be stylistically more suitable.

 

Norman and French Word Pairs

Wile (1154)                        guile (1225)

warrant(1225)                   guarantee (1624)

warden(1225)                    guardian (1466)

reward(1315)                     regard (1430)

 

Latin Borrowings in ME

Words of common use: aggregate, applaude, assimilate, etc.

Words used in the church, administration, education:, curate, pulpit, legitimate; elect, convict, pedagogue, graduate, literate.

 

 

Notes for TEST II

 

07.04.09

*EARLY MODERN ENGLISH FROM 16 TH C. (Towards a Standard)

-Henry VIII (1509-1547): establishment of Church of England, incorporation of Wales.

-Great Bible. Emphasis on English.

-Elizabeth I (1558-1603).

-Defeat of the Armada 1558. National pride including the English language.

-Renaissance classical influence, loanwords English style affected, attempts to improve English.

-Beginning of colonial expansion. Bermuda, Jamaica, Bahamas, Honduras, Canada, American colonies Plymouth (1620), India, Gambia, Gold Coast, Australia, New Zealand.

-Words from non-Indo-European languages: koala, kangaroo, tippy, boomerang.

-Spread of English around the world.

-James I (VI of Scotland) (1603-1625), patron of King James Bible (1661)

-Translating Committees in: Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster.

-Called the ‘Authorized Version’ but never specifically approved to replace other bibles.

-The Book of Common-Prayer (1559).

‘A Proclamation for the Authorizing and Uniformity of the Book of Common Prayer so to be used throughout the Realm’

-17th c. scholarly writing still mostly in Latin, Newton and Bacon.

-Some in favour of borrowing from Latin to enrich English.

-Many new loanwords. Greek and Latin technical vocabulary. Further borrowing from French (comrade, duel) also Spanish (armada, bravado), Italian (cupolo, pizza).

-Sir Thomas Elyot, definition of neologisms.

-Shakespeare’s character Holofernes in Love’s Labour Lost in a sartre of a schoolmaster who is too keen on Latin terms.

-Critics of Classical borrowings called the ‘inkhorn terms’, Thomas Wilson, Roger Ascham, Sir John Cheke (translated ‘New Testament’ using only English words)

-Reviving of older English words; Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

-Compounding of English words: Arthur Golding (1587); attempts to produce English technical vocabulary: ‘endsay’ (conclusion), ‘saywhat’ (definition), ‘drymock’ (irony)...

 

 

*SPELLING REFORM (part I)

-John Cheke (1569): proposed silent letters.

            -Sir Thomas Smith (1568): elimination of ‘c’ and ‘q’, reintroducing of /þ/, used as /θ/, vowel length marked with diacritics.

            -John Hart (1569-1570): elimination of: ‘y’, ‘w’ and ‘c’, capital letters (phonetic like Spanish)

            -William Bullokar (1580): diacritics and new symbols.

            -Public spelling standardized by middle of 1700, and influenced by printers, scribes of Chancery.

            -English Academy Movement (17th-18th)

            -To regulate excesses of the Renaissance.

            -Based on: Académie Française (1635)

            -Proponents: scientist and philosopher Robert Hooke (1660), curator of experiments of Royal Society, Daniel Defoe (1697), Joseph Addison (1711), Jonathan Swift (1712).

            -Middle class use English as scholarly language during 18th c.

            -Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” (1755), 40000 entries, illustrative quotations, model for OEDà (Camino al ingles actual (la primera piedra). Lo escribió él solo en 9 años)

            -ACT OF UNION (1707): England and Scotland united to form Great Britain.

            -George I (1714-1727): Hanover dynasty. Could not speak English.

            -George II (1727-1760): born in Germany. He never learns to speak English properly.

            -American Revolution. Independence of American colonies 1783.

            -Separation of English speakers, beginning of several national English.

            -Noah Webster’s ‘Plain and Comprehensive Grammar’ (1784), American grammar, based on usage.

            -1828 Noah Webster published his dictionary.

            -IRELAND incorporated to England in 1801.

            -QUEEN VICTORIA (1837-1981) Consolidation of the British Empire.

 

21.04.09

 

 

            *SPELLING REFORM (part II)

           

            Chancery English (Mid 14th Century)

            *   The Chancery clerks fairly consistently preferred the spellings which have since become standard … At the very least they were trying to limit choices among spellings, and that by the 1440s and 1450s they had achieved a                         comparative regularization. (J.H. Fisher et al., An anthology of Chancery English, 1984).

 

            Chancery Spelling                                             Other spellin

                *   such (e)                                                              sich, sych, swich

                *   much(e)                                                             moch(e), myche(e)

                *   whiche(e), whyche(e)                                        wich, wech

                *   not/noght                                                             nat

                *   many                                                                   meny

                *   any                                                                      eny, ony

                *   if/yf                                                                     yif, yef

 

            Hart’s Orthographie, 1569

           

            *   An exersi _z ov dat hui_ iz se_d: huer-in iz declard, hou de rest ov de con_onants ar mad bei dinstruments ov de mou_: hui_ uaz omíted in de premisez, for dat ui did not mu_ abiuz dem. Cap. VII.

 

            *   In dis ti_tl abuv-uritn, ei konsider ov de i _ in exersi _z, ∞de leik ov de i _ in ti tl, hui_ de kómon man, and mani lernd, du_ found in de diph_ongs ei, and iu: iet ei uld not _ink it mi _t to ureit dem, in do_z and leik u_rds, hue_r de          sound ov de voël

            o_nli, me_ bi as uel álouëd in our spi __, az dat ov de diph_ong iuzd ov de riud: and so fár ei álou observasion for derivasions.

 

            *   hierbei iu me_ perse_v, dat our singl sounding and ius of letters, me_ in proces ov teim, bring our ho_l nasion tu o_n serten, perfet and _eneral spe_king.

 

            *   huer-in _i must bi riuled bei de lernd from teim tu teim. And ei kan not bla_m ani man tu _ink dis maner ov niu ureiting stranȝ tu mei self doh befo_r ei ha_v nded de ureiting, and iu de ri _ding ov diz bu_k, ei dout not bo_d iu            and ei _al _ink our  la_burs uel bestoëd

 

            Bullokar’s Book at Large, 1580    

 

           

            *   Evidence of two contrasting pairs of front and back vowels in William Bullokar's Boke at Large (1580).

            *   He proposes separate letters for the long vowels [e:], [ _:], [o:] and [ _:]. It is clear that in the late 16th century they were still separate phonemes.

            *   The letters for the two mid-front vowels [ _ ] and [e] (short and long) (e:æ) and (e').

 

           

 

 

            *   <e> = [_] sent, qestion, terror,

                               sent, question, terror

            *   <æ> = [_:] mæning, thærfore, encræse, decræse, whær, læu

                        meaning, therefore, increase, decrease, where, leave

            *   <e’> = [e] bre’f, agre’, be’, be’ing, e’nglish, ke’p, we’, ye’ld.

                        Brief, agree, be, being,     English, keep, we, yield

 

            Letters for the mid-back vowels, approximately [_] and [o] (short and long) are in the third row (see below), (o) and (oo). Letter (oo) is glossed “betwe'n o & u”, which is evidence of the raising of long [o:] towards [u:],

 

           

 

            <o>= [_] qestion (3 syllables), prosody, diphthong, wronged,

                 question,                      prosody,  diphthong,    wronged

            <o>= [_:] wo, on,

                  woe, one

            <oo> = [o:]-[u:] untoo, too,  dooth,

                              unto,  to/too, doth.

 

            George Bernard Shaw

            *   To illustrate the absurdity of English spelling, George Bernard Shaw suggested spelling the word fish "ghoti."

            *   “gh” may be pronounced /f/ as in laugh.

            *   “o” may be pronounced /i/ as in women.

            *   “ti” may be pronounced /sh/ as in nation.

 

            *    For Shaw, reform of the alphabet meant saving effort but laypersons were used to the alphabet and against change:

            *   “the waste does not come home to the layman. For example, take the two words tough and cough. He may not have to write them for years, if at all. Anyhow he now has tough and cough so thoroughly fixed in his head and everybody       else's that he would be set down as illiterate if he wrote tuf and cof; consequently a reform would mean for him simply a lot of trouble not worth taking. Consequently the layman, always in a huge majority, will fight spelling reform           tooth and nail.”

            *   … take the words though and should and enough: containing eighteen letters. Heaven knows how many hundred thousand times I have had to write these constantly recurring words. With a new English alphabet replacing the old        Semitic one with its added Latin vowels I should be able to spell t-h-o-u-g-h with two letters, s-h-o-u-l-d with three, and e-n-o-u-g-h with four …

 

           

 

 

            *DICTIONARIES

 

            Dr Samuel Johnson

            * Dates and statistics

            * The plan of the dictionary published in 1747

            * Dictionary completed in 1755

            * Definitions of 40,000 words

            * 114 quotations to illustrate usage

            - Objectives:

            * To fix the English language although language is the work of man, of a being from whom permanence and stability cannot be derived

            * Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, will require that it should fix our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make init without opposition. With this consequence I will                 confess that I have indulged           expectation which nether reason nor experience can justify.

 

                *… tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.

            * (from the Preface to Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, 1755)

            * To preserve the purity and ascertain the meaning of our English idiom

            * To provide a dictionary for popular use.

 

            Criteria used in preparing the dictionary:

            * The inclusion of                 

            * foreign words

            * the peculiar words of every profession

            * the names of species –even though they required so their accents should be settled, their sounds ascertained, and their etymologies deduced

                * to settle the orthography, or spelling of words:

            * The chief rule which I propose to follow, is to make no innovations, without a reason sufficient to balance the inconvenience of change; and such reason I do not expect often to find

                * To produce a guide to pronunciation –the accentuation of polysyllables and the pronunciation of monosyllables.

            * To consider the etymology or derivation of words

            * Interpreting the words with brevity, fullness and perspicuity

            * Assigning words to classes –general, poetic, obsolete, used by individual writers, used only in burlesque writing, impure and barbarous

            * He is credited with standardizing spelling although …

            * his spellings gave precedence to preserving a word's etymology or origin

            rather than its sound.

            * lexicographer, ‘a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge’

            * Johnson declared his intention to “ascertain” or fix pronunciation, “the stability of which is of great importance to the duration of a language” (1747: 11).

            * When the dictionary was published, eight years later, entry words came only with an indication of stress-position, hence CO'MELY or INDETERMINA'TION.

 

            * To FRE'NCHIFY. v. a. [from French.] To infect with the manner of France ; to make a coxcomb. They miſliked nothing more in King Edward the Confeſſor than that he was Frenchified; and accounted the deſire of foreign language         then to be a foretoken of bringing in foreign powers, which indeed happened. Camden’s Remains.

            Has he familiarly diſlik'd Your yellow ſtarch, or ſaid vour doublet Was not exactly Frenchified?

Shakſp-

 

            * COUGH, n. ſ. [kuch, Dutch.] A convulſion of the lungs vellicated by ſome ſharp feruſity. It is pronounced coff. In conſumptions of the lungs, when nature cannot expel thr cough, nen fall into fluxes of the belly, and then they die.          Bacon’s Natural

                Hiſtory. For his dear ſake long reſtleſs nights you bore, While rattling coughs his heaving veſ ſels tore.

Smith-

 

            Noah Webster American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

            * Webster resented the fact that America children learnt from books imported from

            England.

            * He thought the English in Britain was corrupted by the aristocracy’s obsession with Latin and Greek.

            * His books were based on the republican principle of popular sovereignty.

 

            *Successful                                 Unsuccessful

                gaol jail                                                                ache   ake

                mould mold                                                       soup   soop

                travelled traveled                                             sleigh   sley

                honour honor                                                 sponge   spunge

                centre center                                                    tongue   tung

                humour humor                                              cloak   cloke

                masque mask                                             determine   determin

                publick public                                                women   wimmen

 

            Oxford English Dictionary, 1928

            * The essential feature of the dictionary is its historical method, by which the meaning and form of the words are traced from their earliest appearance on the basis of an immense number of quotations, collected by more than 800     voluntary workers.

            * The dictionary contains a record of 414,825 words, whose history is illustrated by

            1,827,306 quotations.

            * 1933-1986: Supplements to the OED

            * 1980s: The Supplements are integrated with the OED to produce its Second Edition.

            * 1992: The first CD-ROM version of the OED is published.

            * 1992: The first CD-ROM version of the OED is published.

            * James Murray (1837-1915)

            * Henry Bradley (1845-1923)

            * William Craigie (1867-1957)

            * C.T. Onions (1873-1965)

            * Robert Burchfield (1923-2004)

            * Edmund Weiner (b. 1950)

            * John Simpson (b. 1953)

 

            Cobuild Dictionary

            * The first COBUILD dictionary was published in 1987.

            * It was the first of a new generation of dictionaries that were based on real examples of English - the type of English that people speak and write every day.

            * Collins and the University of Birmingham, led by John Sinclair, developed an electronic corpus in the 1980s, which is where these examples of English were taken from.

            * The corpus, known as the Bank of English™, became the largest collection of English in the world and COBUILD uses the corpus to analyze the way that people really use the language.

 

 

19.05.05

            *EXPANSION OF ENGLISH

           

            Expansion of English

            -There was no Wales or Scotland only Britain!

            -England invaded by Anglo-Saxons from around the year 447.

            -Most of England occupied by AS.

           

            Scotland

            -Geographically divided into:

            *Southern Uplands

            *Lowlands (Glasgow)

            *Highlands

            -In pre-history inhabited by Picts.

            -Scots, Celts from Ireland settled on the west coast of GB around 5th century AD.

            -By 700 Anglo-Saxons conquered most of England and Southern Scotland

            -Normans spread power to Scotland in 11th century helped by Scottish kings     Malcolm & David I.

            -Union of the crowns* of Scotland and England 1603

            -English and Scottish Parliaments unified in 1707 (Act of Union)

            -“Dress act” designed to disarm and finish off clan culture (1746) after     Jacobite Rising.

            -Highland Clearances 18th, 19th centuries. Gaelic-speaking population    evicted from land

 

            NOTES:

            -In pre-history Scotland was inhabited by Picts.

            -Scots and Celts were from Ireland, settled on the west coast of Great Britain around 5th century AD.

            -“Act of Union” à parliament in Scotland became part of England parliament (unification of both parliaments, just one parliament)

            *Crowns: coronas.

            **Sassenach: is a word used chiefly by the Scots to designate an Englishman.

 

            Wales

            -After 1066 the Normans slowly took over parts of Wales: Pembroke and the Vale of Glamorgan in Southern Wales -1093.

            -Edward 1st (1272). In 1277 it was a massive invasion.

            -By 1290s Wales virtually an English colony.

            -King Edward 1st gave his son, (Edward II), the title Prince of Wales in 1301.

            -King Henry VIII, joined England and Wales under the Act of Union in 1536

 

            Ireland

            -Norse kingdom established in Ireland in 838.

            -Viking influence is checked in 1014 but they remain in Dublin and Waterford.

            -Norman nobles invade Ireland 1169-1170

            -Henry II invades. Pope Adrian IV grants him authority over Ireland. Irish and Vikings accept him.

            -1210-1300 English Government in Ireland.

            -Celtic uprising 1315-1318. Edward Bruce, king of Ireland.

            -Henry VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I strengthen* English control of Ireland.

            -The plantation of Ireland: 1586-1641

            -Scottish Presbyterian settlers.*

 

            NOTES:

            *Scottish Presbyterian: Scottish immigrants and Protestants.

            *Strengthen: reforzó

            **Lickspit: una persona desdeñable, aduladora

 

            United States

            -The Colonial Period (1607–1776)

            -Humphrey Gilbert claimed the island of Newfoundland (1583).

            -Walter Raleigh’s failed settlement at Roanoke, Virginia (1584).

            -Jamestown 1607

            - Plymouth colony 1620

            - Maryland colony 1634

            -Colonization of the Carolinas began in 1663

            -The Dutch settled Manhattan Island 1613 to 1664

            -Quaker colony Pennsylvania 1681 under William Penn (also Dutch and             Swedes)

 

            American English

            -Plymouth, Massachusetts. Settlers mainly from East of England and Midlands. (Non-rhotic)

            -Virginia Settlers mainly from West Country of England.

 

            NOTES:

            -Rhotic: pronunciation of a /r/ post-vocalic (/r/ colouring):

            RP English: /ka:/

            American English: /ka:r/

 

            United States English Today

            -American English

            -General American (rhotic)

            -Southern States (non-rhotic), (drawl*)

            -New England (non-rhotic)

            -New York (non-rhotic) (dental “d” and “t”)

            -African American Vernacular English

            -Spanglish

 

            NOTES:

            *Drawl: speaking ‘slowly’ (arrastrar las vocals/consonantes)

            **New York: un-American –> non-rhotic   [!!!!!!!!!!!]

            **y’all: you all. i.e.:  y’all comin’?

            -Ethnic variety (Chicago: white/black people speak different ones from others)

 

            Canada

            -Peace of Utrecht (1713) Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Hudson Bay ceded to Britain by French.

            -The rest of New France conquered by Britain and ceded in 1763.

            -40,000 Loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia and Ontario during and after American War of Independence 1775–1783.

            -Dominion of Canada 1867: control of home affairs

 

            Canada English

            -Virtually indistinguishable from American English due to influence of southern neighbour.

            -Use of “eh”

            -Diphthong for words like about and knife have not been lowered as in RP and General American.

            -No distinction between initial /hw/ and /w/, making which/witch homophones

 

            Africa

            -The first permanent British settlement on the African continent was made at James Island in the Gambia River in 1661.

            -Sierra Leone became British possession in 1787.

            -Cape of Good Hope (now part of South Africa) acquired in 1806.

            -The British East Africa Protectorate was established in 1896: Kenya, Uganda

            -Zanzibar, Tanzania (after WWI)

 

            NOTES:

            -West Africa was the first part of Africa to be colonised and then the rest

            - Great Britain was the first that colonized Africa. Spain, France... was after that

            -Zanzibar and Tanzania were English after the English colonization because first they were German colonies!!

 

            English in Africa

            -English is an official language of 16 countries:

            In West Africa Cameroon (with French), Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria,            and Sierra Leone; in East Africa Sudan (with Arabic), Uganda; in Southern Africa Botswana, Lesotho (with Sesotho), Malawi (with Chichewa), Namibia, South          Africa (with Afrikaans and nine indigenous languages), Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

            -In Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili is the official language, English the second language and medium of higher education.

            -Standard English occupies a privileged place in the stratification of languages in these regions, but is largely a minority language learned mainly through formal education. (Concise Oxford Companion to the English             Language)

 

26.05.09

 

            Caribbean

            -Early incursions by privateers John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake brought three boatloads of slaves to the Spanish colonies from Guinea in the years 1562–1580.

            -First British settlements: St Kitts in 1623 (Thomas Warner); Barbados (John Powell) in 1627.

            -Jamaica taken from Spain in 1655. 

 

            English-speaking Caribbean

            -12 independent countries: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize (on the Central American mainland), Dominica, Grenada, Guyana (on the South American mainland), Jamaica, Saint Kitts/Nevis(known also as             Saint Christopher/Nevis), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

            -6 dependent territories: Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Montserrat.

           

            NOTES:

            -Dependent territories: mixed: European languages and African languages,

            -Acrolect (+), Mesolect (+/-) and Basilect (-): it depends on your education. If you have a good education, you will speak Acrolect, and so on.  

 

            Caribbean English

            -Standard English: used by a minority. Now lots of American influence.

            -Creoles based on European lexicons and with African substrates.

            -The English-based creoles can be viewed as dialects of English or languages in their own right.

            -Mesolect*: Somewhere between creole* and localized English.

 

            NOTES:

            *Mesolect: A mesolect is a register of spoken language whose character falls somewhere between the prestige of the acrolect and the informality   of the basilect. Mesolectic speech, where it is distinguished from             acrolectic        speech, is often the most widely spoken form of a language, generally being used by the middle class.

            *Creole: A creole language, or just creole, is a well-defined and stable    language that originated from a non-trivial combination of two or more        languages, typically with many distinctive features that are not inherited             from either parent. All creole languages evolved from pidgins, usually those that have become the native language of some community.

            -EBONICS: ‘Black English’ that children did not have a standard English, so the School Board decided to teach them in African-American-Vernacular- English.

 

            India

            -Clive defeated the French company and captured Bengal (1757)

            -Power transferred from the English East India Company to the British Crown (1858)

            -India: Hindi plus 14 other official languages and English.

            -Pakistan: Urdu (official); Punjabi; Sindhi; Pashtu; English

 

            Australia and New Zealand

            -Captain James Cook claimed New South Wales as a British possession in 1770.

            -British penal colony of New South Wales founded in 1788.

            -Tasmania settled in 1803

            -New Zealand, visited by Cook from 1769. Became colony in 1840.

 

            Australian English

            -London English dominant but settlers from all parts of Great Britain.

            -Most marked characteristic: Homogeneity but varieties go from Broad Australian, General Australian, and Cultivated Australian.

            -New Zealand English indistinguishable from Australian to most outsiders.

 

            NOTES:

            -Australian English does not seem to have varieties. It is very difficult to distinguish the social classes.

 

 

Academic year 2008/2009
© Daniela Curadelli
dacu@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press

 

 

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