MATERIAL ANALYZED IN THE CLASS:

Hadrian’s Wall:

At the time of Julius Caesar's first small invasion of the south coast of Britain in 55 BC, the British Isles, like much of mainland Europe was inhabited by many Celtic tribes loosely united by a similar language and culture but nevertheless each distinct. He returned the next year and encountered the 4000 war chariots of the Catevellauni in a land "protected by forests and marshes, and filled with a great number of men and cattle." He defeated the Catevellauni and then withdrew, though not before establishing treaties and alliances. Thus began the Roman occupation of Britain.

Nearly 100 years later, in 43 AD, the Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Plautius and about 24,000 soldiers to Britain, this time to establish control under a military presence. Although subjugation of southern Britain proceeded fairly smoothly by a combination of military might and clever diplomacy, and by 79 AD what is now England and Wales were firmly under control, the far North remained a problem. However, the Emperor Vespasian decided that what is now Scotland should also be incorporated into the Roman Empire. Under his instructions the governor of Britian, Julius Agricola, subdued the Southern Scottish tribal clans, the Selgovae, Novantae and Votadini by 81 AD. Further to the North lived loose associations of clans known collectively as the Caledonians. Agricola tried to provoke them into battle by marching an army into the Highlands eventually forcing a battle with the Caledonian leader Calgacus in present day Aberdeenshire at a place called Mons Graupius. 30,000 Caledonians were killed, but the Roman victory was a hollow one, for the next day the surviving clansmen melted away into the hills, and were to remain fiercely resistant and independent.

By the time Hadrian became Emperor in 117 AD the Roman Empire had ceased to expand. Hadrian was concerned to consolidate his boundaries. He visited Britain in 122 AD, and ordered a wall to be built between the Solway Firth in the West and the River Tyne in the east "to separate Romans from Barbarians".

* (http://www.aboutscotland.co.uk/hadrian/)

Black Death in England - 1348-1350

The Black Death reached England in 1348. Bristol was an important European port and city in England during the Medieval era. It is widely believed that Bristol was the place where the Black Death first reached England. The plague reached England during the summer months between June and August. The Back Death reached London by 1st November 1348. London was a crowded, bustling city with a population of around 70,000. The sanitation in London was poor and living conditions were filthy. The River Thames brought more ships and infection to London which spread to the rest of England. The crowded, dirty living conditions of the English cities led to the rapid spread of the disease. Church records that the actual deaths in London were approximately 20,000. Between 1348 and 1350, killed about 30 - 40% of the population of England which at the time was estimated to be about five to six million. Many people were thrown into open communal pits. The oldest, youngest and poorest died first. Whole villages and towns in England simply ceased to exist after the Black Death.

* ( http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/black-death.htm )

Grimm's law

Principle of relationships in Indo-European languages, first formulated by Jakob Grimm in 1822 and a continuing subject of interest and investigation to 20th-century linguists. It shows that a process—the regular shifting of consonants in groups—took place once in the development of English and the other Low German languages and twice in German and the other High German languages. The first sound shift, affecting both English and German, was from the early phonetic positions documented in the ancient, or classical, Indo-European languages (Sanskrit, Greek, Latin) to those still evident in the Low German languages, including English; the second shift affected only the High German languages, e.g., standard German. Grimm's law shows that the classical voiceless stops (k,t,p) became voiceless aspirates (h,th,f ) in English and mediae (h,d,f ) in German, e.g., the initial sounds of Latin pater, English father, German Vater, and in the middle of Latin frater, English brother, German Bruder. It also shows that the classical unaspirated voiced stops (g,d,b) became voiceless stops (k,t,p) in English and voiceless aspirates (kh,ts,f) in German, e.g., the initial sounds of Latin decem, English ten, German zehn, and that the classical aspirated voiced stops (gh,dh,bh) became unaspirated voiced stops (g,d,b) in English and voiceless stops (k,t,p) in German, e.g., the initial sounds of Sanskrit dhar, English draw, German tragen.

* (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0821874.html )

The Great Vowel Shift

The main difference between Chaucer's language and our own is in the pronunciation of the "long" vowels. The consonants remain generally the same, though Chaucer rolled his r's, sometimes dropped his aitches, and pronounced both elements of consonant combinations, such as "kn," that were later simplified. And the short vowels are very similar in Middle and Modern English. But the "long" vowels are regularly and strikingly different. This is due to what is called The Great Vowel Shift.

Beginning in the twelfth century and continuing until the eighteenth century (but with its main effects in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries) the sounds of the long stressed vowels in English changed their places of articulation (i.e., how the sounds are made). Old and Middle English were written in the Latin alphabet and the vowels were represented by the letters assigned to the sounds in Latin. For example, Middle English "long e" in Chaucer's "sheep" had the value of Latin "e" (and sounded like Modern English "shape" [/e/] in the International Phonetic Alphabet [IPA]). It had much the same value as written long e has in most modern European languages. Consequently, one can read Chaucer's long vowels with the same values as in Latin or any continental European language and come pretty close to the Middle English values.

* (http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/vowels.html )

The Battle of Hastings (1066): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings

http://www.battle-of-hastings-1066.org.uk/

http://www.battle1066.com/intro.shtml

Dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. Dialects separated by great geographical distances may not be mutually comprehensible. According to the Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache paradigm, these dialects can be considered Abstandsprachen (i.e., as stand-alone languages). However, they can be seen as dialects of a single language, provided that a common standard language, through which communication is possible, exists.

*( http://dictionary.babylon.com/ )

WAVE THEORY:

In historical linguistics, the wave model or wave theory (German Wellentheorie) is a model of language change in which new features of a language spread from a central point in continuously weakening concentring circles, similar to the waves created when a stone is thrown into a body of water. This should lead to convergence among dissimilar languages. The theory was directed against the doctrine of sound laws and the strict tree model introduced by the Neogrammarians and laid the foundations of modern sociolinguistics. Advocacy of the wave theory is attributed to Johaness Schmidt and Hugo Schuchardt.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Wave_model_(linguistics)

TREE MODEL:

In historical linguistics, the Tree Model (German Stammbaumtheorie) is a model of language change in which daughter languages are genetically) descended from a proto-language, through a regular process of gradual change and is due in its most strict formulation to the NeogrammarianNeogrammarians. The model relies on earlier conceptions of William JonesWilliam Jones (philologist) and Franz BoppFranz Bopp by adding the exceptionlessness of the sound laws and the regularity of the process. The notions of exceptionlessness and regularity as factors of process and change are challenged by the proponents of the Wave Model of change.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Tree_model

PROTO-LANGUAGE:

A proto-language is a language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a language. The German term Ursprache (derived from the prefix Ur-"primordial" and Sprache "language") is occasionally used as well.

In most cases, the ancestral protolanguage is not known directly and it has to be reconstructed

 by comparing different members of the language family via a technique called the comparative method. Through this process only a part of the proto-language's structure and vocabulary can be reconstructed; the reconstruction remains the more fragmentary the more ancient the proto-language in question relative to the number of its descendants. Examples of unattested but (partially) reconstructed proto-languages include Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic, Proto-Bantu and Proto-Paman. Sometimes, however, the proto-language is a language which is known from inscriptions, an example being the Proto-Norse language attested in the Elder Futhark runic inscriptions.. For more examples of proto-languages, see the category "proto-languages"

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Proto-language

DAUGHTER LANGUAGE:

In a historical linguistics, a daughter language is a language descended from another language through a process of genetic descent.

INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES:

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent (South Asia). It is composed of 449 languages and dialects, according to the 2005 SIL estimate, about half (219) belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch. "Indo" refers to the Indian subcontinent, as the language group geographically extends from Europe in the west to India in the east. The languages of the Indo-European group are spoken by approximately three billion native speakers, the largest number of the recognised families of languages. (The Sino-Tibetan family has the second-largest number of speakers.)

· Proto-Indo-European

· Anatolian†

o Hittite†

· Celtic

o Gaulish†

o Manx†

o Irish Gaelic^EU

o Scots Gaelic

o Cornish

o Breton

o Welsh

· Germanic

o West Germanic

§ Old English

§ English^EU

§ Scots

§ High German^EU

§ Yiddish

§ North Frisian

§ West Frisian

§ Low Saxon/Low Franconian

§ East Frisian

§ Low German

§ Flemish

§ Dutch^EU

§ Afrikaans

o East Germanic

§ Gothic†

o North Germanic

§ Old Norse

§ Western Old Norse

§ Icelandic

§ Faroese

§ Norwegian

§ Eastern Old Norse

§ Danish^EU

§ Swedish^EU

· Hellenic

o Ancient Greek

§ Modern Greek^EU

· Italic

o Latin†

§ Catalan

§ French^EU

§ Galician

§ Italian^EU

§ Portuguese^EU

§ Provençal

§ Romansch

§ Romanian^EU

§ Spanish^EU

o Osco-Umbrian†

· Tocharian†

o Tocharian†

· Albanian

o Gheg

o Tosk

· Armenian

o Armenian

· Baltic

o Old Prussian†

o Latvian^EU

o Lithuanian^EU

· Indo-Iranian

o Indic

§ Sanskrit

§ Assamese

§ Bengali

§ Gujarati

§ Hindi

§ Marathi

§ Nepali

§ Punjabi

§ Romany

§ Sindhi

§ Singhalese

§ Urdu

o Iranian

§ Avestan†

§ Sogdian†

§ Baluchi

§ Kurdish

§ Pashto

§ Old Persian†

§ Persian

o Dardic

§ Kashmiri and Dardic languages

· Slavic

o South Slavic

§ Bulgarian^EU

§ Slovenian^EU

§ Serbian

§ Croatian

§ Bosnian

§ Macedonian

§ Old Church Slavonic†

o West Slavic

§ Polish^EU

§ Czech^EU

§ Slovak^EU

§ Sorbian

o East Slavic

§ Russian

§ Belarusian

§ Ukrainian

* (http://www.danshort.com/ie/iesatem.htm)

OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY:

ABLAUT: [mod.G., f. ab off + laut sound.] 

Vowel permutation; systematic passage of the root vowel into others in derivation, as in sing, sang, song, sung, apart from the phonetic influence of a succeeding vowel as in umlaut.

THEFT: [OE. WSax. íef, ýf, later ýft, non-WSax. éof, later éoft, = OFris. thiufthe, thiufte (obs. Du. diefte), ON. ýf, later ýft, Goth. *iuia:OTeut. *eui, f. *euo^z, THIEF + suffix -ia = L. -itt-em: see -TH¹ b, -T³ b. OE. showed two main dial. types: WSax. íef, later ýf with umlaut; non-WS. éof. In both, final after f became t by dissimilation; eoft became eft, theft. In ME. the various forms often had final -e from the oblique cases; north. dial. and Sc. had ift, yft, thift from ON. ýf, ýft.] 

The action of a thief; the felonious taking away of the personal goods of another; larceny; also, with a and pl., an instance of this.

b. by theft, stealthily, furtively, by secret craft. Obs. rare¹.

concr. That which is or has been stolen; the proceeds of thieving. Now rare.

attrib. and Comb., as theft-guilty adj.

LAYPERSON: [f. LAYMAN¹, after chairperson, etc. (see PERSON n. 2f).] 

A member of the laity; a layman or laywoman.
One of numerous manufactured words formed to avoid alleged sexual discrimination in terminology.

ATTESTED: [f. ATTEST v. + -ED.]

Sworn, vouched for, certified, proved.

Of cattle or milk: approved by authority as free from disease.

LENIS: [a. L. lnis soft.] 

adj. Of one of two or more homorganic consonants: articulated with less energy. Opp. FORTIS B. adj.

n. (pl. -es). A lenis consonant.

CORPUS: b. The body of written or spoken material upon which a linguistic analysis is based.

The body or material substance of anything; principal, as opposed to interest or income.

SANSKRIT: [ad. Skr. saskta (neut. sasktam) put together, well-formed, highly wrought, perfected, f. sam- together (related to sama: see SAME a.) + k to make, do, perform. Cf. F. Sanscrit.
The 18th c. form Hanscrit, which occurs also in Fr. at the same period, has not been satisfactorily explained.] 

n. The ancient and sacred language of India, the oldest known member of the Indo-European family, in which the extensive Hindu literature from the Vedas downward is composed. In a narrower sense, the ‘classical Sanskrit’ (opposed to the ‘Epic’ and ‘Vedic’), the grammar of which was fixed by Pini (? 4th c. B.C.).

EMPIRICAL: 2. That practises physic or surgery without scientific knowledge; that is guilty of quackery. Also of medicines: That is of the nature of a quack nostrum. Cf. EMPIRIC B. 2.

3. In matters of art or practice: That is guided by mere experience, without scientific knowledge; also of methods, expedients, etc. Often in opprobrious sense transf. from 2: Ignorantly presumptuous, resembling, or characteristic of, a charlatan.

IDIOLECT: [f. IDIO- after DIALECT.] 

The linguistic system of one person, differing in some details from that of all other speakers of the same dialect or language.

TO FLOCK: [f. FLOCK n.¹] 

1. trans. To gather (individuals) together into a company; to assemble, muster (troops). to flock in: to bring in in crowds. Obs.

2. To lead away to another flock. Obs.

3. intr. (rarely refl.) To gather in a company or crowd, to congregate; to come or go in great numbers, to troop. Const. about, after (a person), in, into, to, upon (a place). Also with advbs. in, out, over, together.

4. trans. a. To crowd upon, throng (a person). b. nonce-use. To fill or occupy as a flock does.

SHOP: 5. Matters pertaining to one's trade or profession; discourse on matters of this kind, esp. as introduced unseasonably into general conversation; chiefly in phrase to talk shop.

BIZARRE: [mod.Eng. (17th c.), a. F. bizarre ‘odd, fantastic,’ formerly ‘brave, soldier-like’; cf. Sp. and Pg. bizarro ‘handsome, brave,’ It. bizzarro ‘angry, choleric,’ dial. Fr. (Berry) bigearrer to quarrel. Littré suggests that the Spanish word is an adaptation of Basque bizarra beard, in the same manner as hombre de bigote moustached man, is used in Sp. for a ‘man of spirit’; but the history of the sense has not been satisfactorily made out.

1. At variance with recognized ideas of taste, departing from ordinary style or usage; eccentric, extravagant, whimsical, strange, odd, fantastic.

b. esp. At variance with the standard of ideal beauty or regular form; grotesque, irregular.