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EARLY MODERN ENGLISH FROM 16th C.
Henry VIII (r.1509-1547)
Establishment of Church of England, incorporation of Wales.
Great Bible. Emphasis on England.
Elizabeth I (r.1558-1603)
Defeat of the Armada 1588. 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 (eg. koala, boomerang, squaw).
Spread of English around the world.
James I (VI of Scotland) (r. 1603-1625).
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 authorizing and uniforminity of the Book of
Common Prayer so to be used throughout the Realm”.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Scholarly writing still mostly in Latin. Newton, Bacon.
Some in favour of borrowing from Latin to enrich English.
Many new loanwords. Greek and Latin technical vocab. Further borrowing from French (comrade, duel),
also Spanish (armada, bravado), Italian (cupola, piazza).
Sir Thomas Elyot, definition of neologisms (new words)
Shakespeare’s character Holofernes in Loves Labor’s Lost is a satire of a schoolmaster who is keen on Latin
terms.
Critics of Classical borrowings called them“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 technichal vocab.-
endsay (conclusion), saywhat (definition), dry mock (irony).
Spelling Reform
John Cheke (1569) proposed removing silent letters.
Sir Thomas Smith (1568)- elimination of c and q, reintroduction of “pb”, use of “th”, vowel length marked
with diacritics.
John Hart (1569-70)- elimination of y, w, c, capital letters.
William Bullokar (1580)- diacritics and new symbols.
Public spelling standardized by mid 1700s, influenced by printers, scribes of Chancery.
English Academy Movement (17th-18th C.)
To regulate excesses of the Renaissance
Based on Academie Francaise (1635)
Prononents- 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), 40,000 entries, illustrative quotations,
model for OED
Act of Union (1707), England and Scotland united to form G.B.
George I (r.1714-1727) Hanover Dynasty. Could not speak English.
George II (1727-1760) born in Germany. He never learnt to speak English properly.
American Revolution. Independence of American colonies 1783.
Separation of English speakers, beginning of several national “Englishes”
Noah Webster’s “Plain and Comprehensive Grammar” (1784), American grammar, based on usage.
1828- Noah Webster published his dictionary.
Beginning of industrial revolution. New words needed.
Ireland incorporated into England 1801.
Queen Victoria (r.1837-1901). Consolidation of the British Empire.
MIDDLE ENGLISH DIALECTS
Continental verse forms based on metrics and rhyme replaced the Anglo-Saxon alliterative line in Middle English poetry (with the important
exception of the 14th C. alliterative revival- The Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, Morte Arthur).
FOURTEENTH CENTURY
Beginning of standard with Chaucer and the introduction of the Printing Press by William Caxton, who made it possible for the middle
classes to read literature. Caxton had the objective of selling as many books as possible and therefore being understood by both northerners
and southerners. to do this, he approached spelling with a“middle of the road” attitude. His standardized spelling system became particularly
popular and became a model followed by many.
TRACES OF ROMAN INFLUENCE
Places names from Latin “castra” -; -cester, -chester.
Bath was a place of leisure (Aqua Solis).
London (Lugdinium- Londinium).
DE EXCIDIO BRITANNIAE (407- 410 AD)
The Roman legions left Britannia to defend Empire from Germanic raids
Romanised Britons 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).
ADVENTUS ANGLORUM (450 AD)
Jutes arrived in England first and were offered the little island of Thanet to live in, but later occupied the area of Kent.
Angles, from Angulum Terrae (Denmark), settled in the area north of the river Humber (Northumbria) and the south
(Mercia)
Saxons (named after the“sax”, a kind of axe) settled in Essex, Wessex, Middlesex and Sussex
Jutes, Angles and Saxons all spoke different varieties of Germanic (dialects).
The most important Saxon kingdom was Wessex (capital Witchester).
The 7 main kingdoms competing for supremacy formed the Anglo Saxon Heptarchy- Kent, Essex, Sussex, Wessex,
East Anglia, Mercia (Midlands) and Northumbria (Yorkshire, Cumbria etc.)
Kent was the first nucleus of culture and power, approx. in the 6th century AD (episcopal- Canterbury)
In the 7th and 8th centuries the supremacy passed on to Northumbria- monasteries of Jarrow, Lindisfarne, Wearmouth
River.
Mercia became the ruling kingdom until it was invaded by the norsemen.
At the end of the 8th century, Wessex was the only surviving Anglosaxon Kingdom, thanks to King Alfred the Great.
The Anglo Saxon Chronicles were founded in 890 AD.
CELTS AND ANGLOSAXONS
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 romanised celtic chieftain, fought briefly against the invaders, but domination
was inevitable.
About the year 577, most of Britannia was already under germanic rule.
LATIN INFLUENCE
The germanic invaders did not adopt Latin because-
a. No coexistence with Latin speaking Britons.
b. Decadence of Roman civilization.
c. Germanic tribes which invaded Britannia had had little contact with the Roman Empire.
Pope Gregory sent St. Augustine to christianise the island from the year 597 (Proseletism).
VIKING INVASIONS ( NINETH-ELEVENTH CENTURIES )
793 AD- Viking raid destroyed Lindisfarne
794 AD- Jarrow was also raided
From then on, pirates coming from Norway and Denmark devastated (pillaged) coastal areas of Ireland and Great
Britain.
DANELAW ( KINGDOM OF THE DANES/NORSEMEN)
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- Wessex and the Danelaw.
By the year 970, the Danelaw (parts of North Lancashire, West Moorland and Cumberland), were settled by
Scandinavian speakers
(The Treaty of Wedmoor- 886)
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. He invaded
England, defeated Harold (Battle of Hastings, 1066), and became king.
After the Norman Conquest, Latin and Norman French were the 2 main languages in England. Nevertheless, the lower
classes generally spoke in English, which became a “mixed code”, with influences from a range of different languages.
The normans, originally Norsemen, 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, and brought with him Norman barons and clerics and
replaced the native nobility in the state and church.
By 1086 only two of the greater landlords and 2 bishops were Saxon.
THE LINGUISTIC SITUATION TILL THE 13th CENTURY
The languages of the church and the court were Norman French and Latin.
The King, greater feudal landlords and 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 English over Norman French-
- The Black Death- fewer workers meant that landlords gave land to English speaking tenants for rent.
- The Hundred Years War- gradual loss of the dominions on the Continent.
- The creation of cities and the birth of the middle classes
- The parisian dialect became more fashionable than Norman French and was used in universities and other centres of culture.
INDOEUROPEANS
About 1500 BC, India was invaded by Indo-European people. These people came from the area between the Black
Sea and the Caspian sea. Between 2500 and 2000 BC, many Indo-Europeans migrated all over Eurasia. Some went to
Europe and became the Romans and the Greeks, some settled in Turkey and became the Hittites. Others migrated
south-east instead. Some of them stopped in Iran, while others continued south-east to Pakistan and India. The slow
migration did not arrive in northern India until about 1500 BC. In India, the Indo-Europeans are usually called the
Aryans.
The Aryans first settled along the Indus River, in the same place where the Harappa people had lived. They settled
down and mixed with the local Indian people. They lived there from about 1500 BC to about 800 BC. It seems to be at
this time that the caste system got started in India.
About 800 BC, the Aryans learned how to use iron for weapons and tools. They probably learned to work iron from
the people of West Asia, the Assyrians, who had learned it from the Indo-European Hittites. Once the Aryans learned
how to use iron, they used their new weapons to conquer more of India, and moved to the south and east into the
Ganges river valley. They settled there not long after 800 BC.
Two major language groups were spoken in the Mediterranean and Western Asian areas in the ancient and medieval
periods. These are Indo-European and Semitic. In southern Africa, most people spoke either a Bantu language or a
Khoisan language. Indo-European languages came to be spoken in India as well, but other languages also were spoken.
In Central Asia, most people spoke variations of Turkic languages. And in China, people spoke different variants of
Chinese.
WA 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 ina vast area extending across Iran and Afganistan 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.
The possibility of common origin for these disparate tongues was first proposed by Sir William Jones, who noticed similarities between four of
the oldest languages known in his time, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these and other old languages conducted
by Franz Bopp supported this theory. In the 19th century, scholars used to call the group "Indo-Germanic languages" or sometimes "Aryan".
However when it became apparent that the connection is relevant to most of Europe's languages, the name was expanded to Indo-European.
An example of this was the strong similarity discovered between Sanskrit and older spoken dialects of Lithuanian.
The common ancestral (reconstructed) language is called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). There is disagreement as to the original geographic
location (the so-called "Urheimat" or "original homeland"), where it originated from. The main canditates today are the steppes north of the
Black Sea and the Caspian (see Kurgan), or Anatolia (see Colin Renfrew). Proponents of the Kurgan hypothesis tend to date the proto-
language to ca. 4000 BC, while proponents of Anatolian origin usually date it several millennia earlier (see Indo-Hittite).
The various subgroups of the Indo-European family include:
There are several extinct languages:
Satem and Centum languages
The Indo-European sub-branches are often classified in a Satem and a Centum group. This is based on the varying treatments of the three
original velar rows. Satem languages lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal
velars. The centum languages, on the other hand, lost the distinction between palatal velars and pure velars. In general, the "eastern" languages
are Satem (Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic), and the "western" languages are Centum (Germanic, Italic, Celtic). The Satem-Centum isogloss runs
right between the (otherwise closely related) Greek (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages, with Greek exhibiting some marginal Satem
features. There may be some languages that classify neither as Satem nor as Centum (Anatolian, Tocharian, and possibly Albanian). In any
case, the Centum-Satem dichotomy is considered paraphyletic, i.e. there never was a "proto-Centum" or a "proto-Satem", but the sound
changes spread by areal contact among already distinct post-PIE languages (say, during the 3rd millennium BC).
Most spoken European languages belong to the Indo-European superfamily. There are, however, language families which do not. The Uralic
language family, which includes Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish and the languages of the Sami, is an example. The Caucasian languages are
another. The Basque language is unusual in that it does not appear to be related to any known living languages.
The Maltese language and Turkish are two examples of languages spoken in Europe which have definite non-European origins. Turkish is a Turkic language, and Maltese is largely derived from Arabic.
Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages are part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-
European to other language families, such as Caucasian languages, Altaic languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, Afro-Asiatic languages. This theory is controversial, as is the similar Eurasiatic theory of Joseph Greenberg.
The Centum-Satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European language family, related to the evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows
reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, *k? (labiovelars), *k (velars), and *?; (palatovelars). The terms come from the words for the number
"one hundred" in representative languages of each group (Latin centum and Avestan sat?m).
The Satem languages include Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Albanian, and perhaps also a number of barely documented extinct
languages, such as Thracian and Dacian. This group merged PIE-velars and PIE-labiovelars to develop into velars, and changed PIE-
palatovelars into sibilants. Although Albanian is treated as a Satem language, there is some evidence that the plain velars and the labiovelars
may not have been completely merged in Proto-Albanian.
SANSCRIT
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 ini
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thmnsENGLISH
English belongs to the West Germanic branch. Although 85% of Old English vocabulary has been lost and
English has borrowed from Germanic and Romance neighbours and from Latin and Greek, the inherited
vocabulary, a small proportion of the total, remains the genuine core of the language.
“All the 100 words shown to be the most frequent in the corpus of 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, inherited or borrowed”.
2. BRITANNIA AND ROMAN DOMINATION
Julius Caesar invaded in 55 and 54 B.C. 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 A.D. Britannia was finally incorporated into the Roman Empire through the campaigns of Claudius’ general, Aulus Plautius.