OLD ENGLISH TO MIDDLE ENGLISH: external history

FAMILIES OF LANGUAGES: the Indo-European.

Different languages can be systematically compared and, depending on the number and kind of similarities, the relationship between them can be established (some can be found by chance).

Either can be traced to a common attested, reconstructed or allegedly reconstructable proto-language (in which case they are cognate), or they have no attested (no surviving evidence, no proof), reconstructed or allegedly reconstructable common ancestor.

· GENETIC TREE THEORY.

The origin of individual languages is caused by their branching off from older languages similarly to branches sprouting from a trunk. Differentiation into daughter language is abrupt and clear cut (August Schleicher, 1681-2).

Language is no a living thing, speakers give life to it.

· WAVE THEORY.

Language change usually starts in restricted context within a certain community like a wave caused by a stone dropped into the water. The change then spreads successively in all contexts and with all speakers: dialectology (Hugo Schuchardt, 1868)

Genetic relationships between languages according to Genetic Tree Theory exist if there is clear linguistic evidence of a close relationship between those languages:

- The ancestor is called a parent language (e.g. Latin).

- Daughter languages with respect to the parent languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian from Latin).

- Sister languages with respect to themselves (e.g. Spanish and Italian).

A group of genetically related languages is called

- A language family in the narrow sense, or a branch if the group is composed only of parent languages and its daughters (sort of “nuclear family”).

- A language family in the broad sense, if the group is composed of any related language.

Reconstruction of non-existent languages (figure out what happened to change):

- DEF: a procedure for determining older, non-recorded or insufficiently attested stages of a language based on.

- Our knowledge of possible types of change. e.g. possible sounds change → a /s/ becoming a /r/ in many Latin words.

- Phonetically motivated changes: the trend towards simplicity in the articulatory effort.

e.g. /hævtu/ → /hæftu/

- Phonologically motivated changes: the trend towards maximal distinctiveness of speech sounds. e.g. the /T/ changed to a /t/ after another fricative: / TeofT/ → /Teoft/

- Synchronic linguistic data. e.g. sounds spoke in today’s language.

There are two types of reconstruction depending on the type of synchronic linguistic data they are based on:

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

e.g. ablaut (change in the root vowels → give, gave, given) in Indo-European based on Greek

- Language-external reconstruction: if historical forms are reconstructed on the basis of systematic relationship between different (presumably) genetically related language.

e.g. pater – vater – father

pod – fuss – foot

Words above are reconstructed by comparing languages.

Accidental similarities or systematic similarities:

The Greek verb “to breathe”, “to blow”… has a root pneu-, and in the language of the Klamath of Oregon “to blow” is pniw-, but this languages are not remotely related.

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

We try to reconstruct the parent form of forms used in contemporary Romance languages to denote “father”. To do that, we apply external reconstruction – we collect words from different potentially cognate languages:

e.g. padre (Italian), pare (Catalan), père (French)

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

- Weakening (lenizisation), which could result in the change /t/>/d/> Ø in the derivation of the above forms from their common parent form (in agreement with the trend towards simplicity in articulatory effort). e.g. /da∂o/ → dado > dao

- Metathesis, which could result in the change /er/>/re/ when deriving the forms in the daughter languages. e.g. bren → burn

- Vowel harmony, which could cause the change of the putative vowel /a/ in the first syllable into /e/ under the influence of the vowel /e/ of the second syllable resulting in the present French form. e.g. the original plural of feet was foti, so the first /O/ has been influenced by the final /i/ > /fi:t/

INDO-EUROPEAN

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 the vast area extending across Iran and Afghanistan to the northern half of the Indian subcontinent.

The English orientalist and jurist Sir William Jones (1746-1794) discovered the link between Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. He discovered similarities that could not be accidental.

Centum languages

INDOEUROPEAN

Ancient Medieval

Greek Modern Greek

Cornish

Celtic Breton

Gowlish Welsh

Irish Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic

Manx

Celtic influence is difficult to determine when and where took place.

Spanish

Italic Latin Catalan

Osco-Umbrian French

Italian

Portuguese

Provencal

Romanian

North-Germanic Danish

Icelandic

Swedish

Norwegian

Germanic East-Germanic Gothic

High German Modern High German

Yiddish (spoken by Jews)

West-Germanic

Low German Afrikaans

Dutch

English

Flemish

Frisian

Anatolian Hittite

Tocharian

Satem languages

Albanian

Armenian

West Czech, Polish, Slovak

Slavic East Russian, Ukrainian

South Servo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian

Old-Prussian

Baltic Latvian

Lithuanian

Iranian Old Persian Persian

Avestan Pashto

Indo-Iranian

Sanskrit Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Romany, Urdu

Indo-Aryan

Dard languages of the Kashmir region and the upper-Indus valley

Indo-Iranian languages preserve their sacred languages.

English belongs to the West-Germanic branch. Although 85% of Old English vocabulary has been lost and English has borrowed from Germanic and Romance (French, Spanish…) neighbours and from Latin and Greek, the inherited vocabulary, a small proportion of the total, remain the genuine core of the language.

All of the 100 words shown to be the most frequent in the Corpus of the Present Day American English, also known as the Brown Corpus, are native words; and of the second 100, 83 are native.

Over 50% of English vocabulary comes from Indo-European (French, Latin...the Norman Conquest is the biggest reason: Vikings from Northern-France), inherited or borrowed.

Is a paradox that the important words and the mostly function words are native, although 85% of the vocabulary has disappeared.

FROM THE ROMANS TO THE NORMANS

The BIYAUX tapestry shows the Roman Conquest: England was invaded successfully.

Celts & Romans

The first inhabitants of Great Britain were the Iberians from the North of Spain- builders of Stonehenge.

The, the Celts occupied France (Gaul), northern Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, North-Western Germany, Great Britain and Ireland in early Western Europe history.

Celts è there is very little influence in English nowadays.

There seems to have been no code-mixing between Celtic languages and Anglo-Saxon.

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

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

*Pigeon: mixture of a European language, normally for trade business and to simplify it.

Britannia and the Roman domination

Julius Caesar invaded in 55&54 BC intending to secure an area in the South-east of Britain so insular Celts could not help Celts on the continent in their fight against Rome.

43 AD, Britannia was finally incorporated into the Roman Empire through the campaign of Claudius’ general, Aulus Plautius.

No attempt to conquer the whole island or Ireland. Only areas in the South and East of Britannia were Romanized, mostly in urban areas.

Large areas in Cornwell, Scotland and Wales left un-Romanized. Romans built a wall in the north of England: Hadrian’s wall (120-130 AD) and the Antonine wall in Scotland (142-144 AD).

Traces of Roman Influence

- Place-names: -cester or –chester (from Latin “castra”).

/ba:T/

- Bath was a place of leisure (Aqua Solis) /bæT/

/ba:f/

- London (Lugdinium: Londinium)

De excidio Britanniae

407/410 AD the Roman legions left Britannia to defend empire from Germanic raids.

Romanised Britons (speakers of Celtic and Latin) left alone to face the attacks by the Picti (Scotland) and the Scotti (Ireland).

Eventually, the inhabitants of Britain had to ask other Germanic tribes for help, mainly the Saxons and Jutes (Bede). So, as soon as they were invited, this was the beginning of the end for the Celts because they were thought to be cowards.

Germanic mercenaries landed in Kent in the year 456 AD.

Adventurous Anglorum

Jutes arrived in England first, and were offered the little island of Thane to live in but later occupied the area of Kent.

Angles (from Angulum terrae, Denmark) settled the area north of the river Humber (Northumbria) and the south (Mercia).

Saxons (called after the Sax, a kind of axe) settled in Essex, Wessex, Middlesex and Sussex.

They all spoke a kind of Germanic but not the same kind. So, this was the beginning of English dialects and dialectal differences. Dialects came right from the origin of the occupation of England (they were pushed out to the extremes).

The most important Saxon Kingdom was Wessex. Capital: Winchester.

The seven main Kingdoms competing for supremacy formed the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy: Kent, Essex, Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia (Middlelands) and Northumbria.

Hebrew is now a living language and it was dead. It is possible to resuscitate a language if religious and nationalistic feelings are stronger enough.

Kent was the first nucleolus of culture and power, approximately in the 6^th century AD (Episcopal See at Canterbury).

In the 7^th and 8^th century the supremacy passed on to Northumbria monasteries of Sarrow, Lindisfame and Wearmouth.

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

At the end of the 8^th century, Wessex was the only surviving Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, thanks to King Alfred the Great. He was a warrior and a scholar.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicles started in AD890.

The lack of knowledge of Latin and Greek was deplored: those days, Latin was the privileged language.

Celts and Anglo-Saxons

Britons and Anglo-Saxons cohabited peacefully at first but Celtic language and customs had very little influence on the Anglo-Saxons.

Celtic Britons resisted Saxon invaders. King Arthur –probably a Romanized Celtic chieftain– fought briefly against the invaders but domination was inevitable.

About the year 577, most of the Britannia was already 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 invade Britannia had had little contact with the Roman Empire.

Latinisation: Pope Gregory sent Saint Augustine to Christianize the island from the year 597 (proselytism: get people to join your gang). Ecclesiastic Latin had lot of influence later and also in scientific revolution.

9^th / 11^th century: Viking Invasions

793 AD Viking raid destroyed Lindisfarne, and the following year Jarrow suffered a similar fate.

From then on pirates coming from Norway and Denmark devastated coastal areas of Ireland and Great Britain. (945, the division is very much like the modern map of dialects of English).

The Viking invaders were defeated by Alfred the Great in the Battle of Edington in 878.

The subsequent peace treaty led to the division of the territory into two: Essex and the Danelaw (were the law of the Danes –Norsemen– was imposed).

By the year 970, the Danelaw (parts of the north: Lancashire, Westmoreland and Cumberland) were settled by Scandinavian speakers.

THE DANELAW: TREATY OF WEDMORE (886 AD)

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.

1066 (last time England was invaded): England had a more or less united and homogeneous population which spoke different dialects of almost the same language.

William of Normandy invaded England, defeated Harold (Battle of Hastings, 1066) and became king.

Originally Norsemen, they came from the French region of Normandy and brought the French culture and language with them.

The new king imported the principle of the feudal system: the state as a hierarchy in which every member was directly responsible to the person above him.

William bought with him Norman barons and clerks and replaced the native nobility in the State and the Church.

By 1086 only two of the greater landlords and only two bishops were Saxon.

Linguistically, English was in decline; Latin and French were the dominant languages after the Norman Conquest, although English was used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles: a lot of words changed their pronunciation, but there were no spelling reforms (if it had happened, nobody would have been able to read word from before the reform).

Higher classes spoke French and lower classes spoke English, so it became a mixed-code with French and Latin words.

Linguistic situation till the 13^th century

Language of the Church and the Court was Norman French and Latin.

The King, greater feudal landlords, higher clergy… spoke French and Latin. Lesser, landlords and clergy were bilingual. Most people of Saxon descent spoke only English.

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

The Anglo- Saxon Chronicles ended in 1155.

The rise of English

1204-1348. several events would seal the resurgence of England over Norman-French.

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

- The Hundred Years War: gradual loss of dominion on the content (less French feeling).

- Creation of cities and the birth of the middle-classes (decline of the feudal society).

- The Parisian dialect became more fashionable than Norman French (old-fashioned) and was used in Universities and other centres of culture.

Middle English Dialects

The continental verse forms based on metrics and rhyme replaced the Anglo-Saxon alliterative (no rhyme) line in the Middle English poetry (with the important exception of the 14^th century alliterative revival: the Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plownan, Morte Arthur…).

14^th century, beginning of the standard with Chaucer and the introduction of the Printing Press. It coincided with the growth of a bourgeois type class, the middle class and what was going to be capitalism in a future: everyone could read literature. The introduction of the printing press is not a milestone to the development of language in most countries; however, it was in England because it standardized the spelling.

Caxton’s translation of the French version of the Prologue to Virgil’s Book of Eneydos (Aeneid), c.1490

egges /eyren → Caxton does not know what he has to write. He was, above all, a business man and wanted to sell books all over England. So, he tried the middle row and he “invented” a standard. When there is a fault of consensus, you have to make choices.

Caxton is a very important person in the history of English language, he affects the language tremendously with his choices.

egges /egez/ eyren /eiren/

skirt /skɜ:t/→Scandinavian shirt /bɜ:d/→ Anglo-Saxon

In the North people use a velar sound, whereas in the South people use a palatal sound.

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