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