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Creative work on a subject of a report is: History of English, English written language”



English

english language writing orthography

The English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the official language of a nation, a second language, or in a mixture with other languages (such as pidgins and creoles.) English is the (or an) official language in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; however, the United States has no official language.

English is a West Germanic language that developed in England and south-eastern Scotland during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world, and the most prominent language in international business and science. It is used extensively as a second language and as an official language in Commonwealth countries and many international organizations.

Historically, English originated from several dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of the island of Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers beginning in the 5th century . English was further influenced by the Old Norse language of Viking invaders.

At the time of the Norman conquest, Old English developed into Middle English, borrowing heavily from the Norman (Anglo-French) vocabulary and spelling conventions. The etymology of the word "English" is a derivation from the 12th century Old English englisc or Engle, plural form Angles ("of, relating to, or characteristic of England").

Modern English developed with the Great Vowel Shift that began in 15th-century England, and continues to adopt foreign words from a variety of languages, as well as coining new words. A significant number of English words, especially technical words, have been constructed based on roots from Latin and Greek.



Classification and related languages

The English language belongs to the Anglo-Frisian sub-group of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic Family, a member of the Indo-European languages. The closest living relatives of English are the Scots language, spoken primarily in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland, and Frisian. As Scots is viewed by some linguists to be a group of English dialects rather than a separate language, Frisian is often considered to be the closest living relative.

After Scots and Frisian come those Germanic languages which are more distantly related, namely the non-Anglo-Frisian West Germanic languages (Low German, Dutch, Afrikaans, High German), and the North Germanic languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese). With the exception of Scots, and on an extremely basic level, Frisian, none of the other languages is mutually intelligible with English, due in part to the divergences in lexis, syntax, semantics, and phonology, and to the isolation afforded to the English language by the British Isles, although some such as Dutch do show strong affinities with English. This isolation has allowed English and Scots to develop independently of the Continental Germanic languages and their influences over time.

Lexical differences with the other Germanic languages can arise from several causes, such as natural semantic drift caused by isolation, and heavy usage in English of words taken from Latin (for example, "exit", vs. Dutch uitgang) (literally "out-gang" with "gang" as in "gangway") and French "change" vs. German Anderung, "movement" vs. German Bewegung (literally "othering" and "be-way-ing" ("proceeding along the way")). Preference of one synonym over another can also cause a differentiation in lexis, even where both words are Germanic (for instance, both English care and German Sorge descend from Proto-Germanic *karo and *surgo respectively, but *karo became the dominant word in English for "care" while in German, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages, the *surgo root prevailed. *Surgo still survives in English as sorrow).

Although the syntax of German is significantly different from that of English and other Germanic languages, with different rules for setting up sentences (for example, German Ich habe noch nie etwas auf dem Platz gesehen, vs. English "I have never seen anything in the square"), English syntax remains extremely similar to that of the North Germanic languages, which are believed to have influenced English syntax during the Middle English Period (eg., Norwegian Jeg har likevel aldri sett noe i torget; Swedish Jag har annu aldrig sett nagot pa torget). It is for this reason that despite a lack of mutual intelligibility, English-speakers and Scandinavians can learn each others' languages relatively easily.

Dutch syntax is intermediate between English and German (eg. Ik heb nog nooit iets gezien op het plein). In spite of this difference, there are more similarities between English and other Germanic languages than differences (eg. English bring/brought/brought, Dutch brengen/bracht/gebracht, Norwegian bringe/brakte/brakt; English eat/ate/eaten, Dutch eten/at/gegeten, Norwegian ete/at/ett), with the most similarities occurring between English and the languages of the Low Countries (Dutch and Low German) and Scandinavia.

Semantic differences cause a number of false friends between English and its relatives (eg. English time vs Norwegian time "hour"), and differences in Phonology can obscure words which actually are genetically related ("enough" vs. German genug, Danish nok). Sometimes both semantics and phonology are different (German Zeit, "time", is related to English "tide", but the English word, through a transitional phase of meaning "period"/"interval", has come primarily to mean gravitational effects on the ocean by the moon, though the original meaning is preserved in forms like tidings and betide, and phrases such as to tide over). These differences, though minor, preclude mutual intelligibility, yet English is still much closer to other Germanic languages than to languages of any other family.

Finally, English has been forming compound words and affixing existing words separately from the other Germanic languages for over 1500 years and has different habits in that regard. For instance, abstract nouns in English may be formed from native words by the suffixes "_hood", "-ship", "-dom" and "-ness". All of these have cognate suffixes in most or all other Germanic languages, but their usage patterns have diverged, as German "Freiheit" vs. English "freedom" (the suffix "-heit" being cognate of English "-hood", while English "-dom" is cognate with German "-tum"). Icelandic and Faroese are other Germanic languages which follow English in this respect, since, like English, they developed independent of German influences.

Many written French words are also intelligible to an English speaker (though pronunciations are often quite different) because English absorbed a large vocabulary from Norman and French, via Anglo-Norman after the Norman Conquest and directly from French in subsequent centuries. As a result, a large portion of English vocabulary is derived from French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.), as well as occasional divergences in meaning of so-called false friends (for example, "library", vs. French "librarie", meaning bookstore) (in French, "library" is "bibliotheque").

The pronunciation of most French loanwords in English (with exceptions such as mirage or phrases like coup d'etat) has become completely anglicised and follows a typically English pattern of stress. Some North Germanic words also entered English because of the Danish invasion shortly before then (see Danelaw); these include words such as "sky", "window", "egg", and even "they" (and its forms) and "are" (the present plural form of "to be").

History of the English Language

The English language begins with the Anglo-Saxons. The Romans, who had controlled England for centuries, had withdrawn their troops and most of their colonists by the early 400s. Attacks from the Irish, the Picts from Scotland, the native Britons, and Anglo-Saxons from across the North Sea, plus the deteriorating situation in the rest of the Empire, made the retreat a strategic necessity. As the Romans withdrew, the Britons re-established themselves in the western parts of England, and the Anglo-Saxons invaded and began to settle the eastern parts in the middle 400s. The Britons are the ancestors of the modern day Welsh, as well as the people of Britanny across the English channel. The Anglo-Saxons apparently displaced or absorbed the original Romanized Britons, and created the five kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex (see map below). Notice that the last three are actually contractions of East Saxon, South Saxon, and West Saxon, and that the Welsh still refer to the English as Saxons (Saesneg).

The language we now call English is actually a blend of many languages. Even the original Anglo-Saxon was already a blend of the dialects of west Germanic tribes living along the North Sea coast: The Saxons in Germany and eastern Holland, the Jutes, possibly from northern Denmark (the area now called Jutland), and the Angles, probably living along the coast and on islands between Denmark and Holland. It is also likely that the invaders included Frisians from northern Holland and northern Franks from southern Holland (whose relatives gave their name to France). The dialects were close enough for each to understand the other.

Later, in the 800s, the Northmen (Vikings) came to England, mostly from Denmark, and settled in with the Anglo-Saxons from Yorkshire to Norfolk, an area that became known as the Danelaw. Others from Norway ruled over the people in the northwest, from Strathclyde to the north of Wales. The Norse language they spoke resembled Anglo-Saxon in many ways, but was different enough for two things to happen: One, there were many Old Norse words that entered into English, including even such basic ones as they and them; And two, the complex conjugations and declensions began to wither away as people disagreed about which to use!

Last, William the Conqueror and his Norman supporters invaded England in 1066. Although, as their name suggests, they were the descendents of the same Northmen that had invaded England earlier, they had been settled long enough in Normandy in the north of France to adopt a dialect of French. They brought this Norman French with them to England and kept it as the language of their newly imposed aristocracy. In the day-to-day need to communicate, the common language became English, but with a large number of French words, and still more withering of grammatical complexities.

English since then has been absorbing vocabulary from a huge number of sources. French, the language of diplomacy for Europe for centuries, Latin, the language of the church, and Greek, the language of philosophy and science, contributed many words, especially the more "educated" ones. Other European languages have left culturally specific words. The American Indian languages, Australian Aborigine languages, and the languages of Africa and India gave us many hundreds of words, especially for the innumerable species of plants and animals of the world. On top of all this, there is the steady creation of new words and new uses for old words by the many subcultures of the English speaking world.

English's closest relatives can be found right across the water in Holland and Germany. It's very closest relative is Frisian, spoken in northern Holland and the islands running along the coast from Holland up into Denmark. Notice some obvious similarities:

Table



To understand these relationships better, here is the Germanic languages family tree:

The Germanic Family of Languages.

Рicture

English is a member of the Germanic family of languages.
Germanic is a branch of the Indo-European language family.

Table - You get a better sense of the relationships by looking at the numbers in some of the ancient and modern languages:

Proto- Germanic	Gothic	Old Norse	Old High German	Old Low German	Old Low Frankish	Proto- Anglo- Frisian	Old West Frisian	Old Scottish	Old English
ainaz twai thrijiz fidwor fimfi sehs sibum ahto niwun tehun	ains twai ?reis fidwor fimf saihs sibun ahtau niun taihun	einn tveir ?rir fjorir fimm seks sjau atta niu tiu	ein zwa drio fior fimf sehs sibun ahto niwun zehan	en twa drio fiwar fif sehs sibun ahto nigun tehan	en twa dri ver vif sehs seven ahto nigun ten	an twa thre fiowor fif sex sewen ahta nigun tehun	an twa thre fiower fif sex sowen achta niogen tian	ane twa thrie fouwer fyve sax sieven aught nyne tene	an twa thri feower fif sex seofon eahta nighon tyn

Table

Icelandic	Norwegian	Danish	Swedish	German	Low German	Dutch	Frisian	Scots	English
einn tveir ?rir fjorir fimm sex sjo atta niu tiu	en to tre fire fem seks sju atte ni ti	en to tre fire fem seks syv otte ni ti	en tva tre fyra fem sex sju atta nio tio	eins zwei drei vier funf sechs sieben acht neun zehn	een twee dree veer fief so? soven acht negen teihn	een twee drie vier vijf zes zeven acht negen tien	ien twa trije fjouwer fiif seis san acht njoggen tsien	ane twa thrie fower fyve sax seiven aicht nyne ten	one two three four five six seven eight nine ten

Old English (449 - 1066 CE)

The Old English language (also called Anglo-Saxon) dates back to 449 CE. The Celts had been living in England when the Romans invaded. Although they invaded twice, they did not conquer the Celts until 43 CE and Latin never overtook the Celtic language. The Romans finally left England in 410 CE as the Roman Empire was collapsing, leaving the Celts defenseless. Then the Germanic tribes from the present-day area of Denmark arrived. The four main tribes were the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians. These tribes set up seven kingdoms called the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy that included: Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, and East Anglia. Four dialects were spoken in these kingdoms: West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian. The Celts moved north to Scotland, west to Ireland and south to France, leaving the main area of Britain.

In 731 CE, Bede wrote the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" in Latin. It detailed the sophisticated society of the Germanic tribes. They had destroyed the Roman civilization in England and built their own, while dominance shifted among the kingdoms beginning with Kent and Northumbria. They aligned with the Celtic clergy and converted to Christianity. Laws and contracts were written down for a sense of permanence and control. The Tribal Hidage, a list of subjects who owed tribute to the king, was written during the Mercian period of power.

Alfred the Great was the king of Wessex from 871-899 while Wessex was the dominant kingdom. During his reign, he united the kingdoms together and commissioned the Anglo-Saxon chronicles, a historical record of important events in England that continued 200 years after his death. Alfred also settled a truce with the Vikings who repeatedly invaded the area. The Treaty of Wedmore was signed in 878 CE and this "Danelaw" gave the northeast half of England to the Danes for structured settlement. However, because the languages were so similar, the Danes quickly assimilated and intermarried into the English society.

Although the Danes brought their own writing system with them, called the Futhorc, it was not used in England. It is commonly referred to as Runes. The Insular Hand was the name of the writing system used in England, and it contained many symbols that are no longer found in Modern English: the aesc, thorn, edh, yogh and wynn, as well the macron for distinguishing long vowels.

Characteristics of the Old English language

The Germanic tribes were exposed to Latin before they invaded England, so the languages they spoke did have some Latin influence. After converting to Christianity, Latin had more influence, as evidenced in words pertaining to the church. Celtic did not have a large impact on English, as only a few place names are of Celtic origin, but Danish (Old Scandinavian) did contribute many vocabulary words.

Nouns could be of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter; but these were assigned arbitrarily. Numbers could be either singular or plural, and there were four cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. In all, there were seven groups of declensions for nouns.

The infinitive of verbs ended in -an. In the present tense, all verbs had markers for number and person. The weak past tense added -de, while the strong past tense usually involved a vowel change. Old English also had many more strong verbs than modern English.

Adjectives could be weak or strong. If preceded by a determiner, the weak ending was added to the adjective. If no determiner preceded the adjective, then the strong endings were used. They also agreed in gender, case and number with the nouns they described. The comparative was formed by adding -ra to the adjective, while the superlative had many endings: -ost, -ist, -est, and -m. Eventually the -ost and -m endings combined to form the word "most" which is still used before adjectives in the superlative today.

Adverbs were formed by adding -e to the adjective, or -lic, the latter which still remains in modern English as -like.

The syntax of Old English was much more flexible than modern English becase of the declensions of the nouns. The case endings told the function of the word in the sentence, so word order was not very important. But as the stress began to move to the first syllable of words, the endings were not pronounced as clearly and began to diminish from the language. So in modern English, word order is very important because we no longer have declensions to show case distinctions. Instead we use prepositions. The general word order was subject - verb - object, but it did vary in a few instances:

1. When an object is a pronoun, it often precedes the verb.

2. When a sentence begins with an adverb, the subject often follows the verb.

3. The verb often comes at the end of a subordinate clause.

Pronunciation was characterized by a predictable stress pattern on the first syllable. The length of the vowels was phonemic as there were 7 long and 7 short vowels. There were also two front rounded vowels that are no longer used in modern English, [i:] and [?:]. The i-mutation occurred if there was a front vowel in the ending, then the root vowel became fronted. For example, fot becomes fot+i = fet (This helps to explain why feet is the plural of foot.)

Pronunciation of consonants:

Table

f	v f	between voiced vowels elsewhere
c	и k	next to a front vowel elsewhere
g	j ? g	next to a front vowel between other vowels elsewhere
h	h x, c	at beginning of word elsewhere
s	z s	between voiced vowels elsewhere
?	? и	between voiced vowels else where
r	trilled
sc	s
cg	j

Part of Beowulf, a poem written in Old English

Anglo-Saxon or Old English was pronounced quite differently from Modern English. P, b, t, d, m, n, l, and r were pronounced as they are today. The letters k, q, v, x, and z were not used. But then the trouble begins: A number of letters change pronunciation depending on what letters are around them. F and s were pronounced as they are today, unless they were between two vowels or a vowel and a voiced consonant, in which case they were pronounced v and z respectively. The same goes for the distinctly unmodern letters thorn (?) and eth (?). Both were pronounced like the th in thin, unless between vowels (etc.), in which case they were pronounced like the th in then. C and g had another set of variations: Before back vowels (a, o, and u), they were pronounced like c in cat and g in guess; before front vowels (y, i, e, and ?), they were pronounced like ch in chat and y in yes. The same goes for h: At the beginning of a word, is is pronounced like our h; otherwise, next to back vowels, it sounded like the ch in the German name Bach; next to front vowels, it sounded like the ch in the German word ich. Plus, there were several double consonants: sc was pronounced like sh in ship; cg was pronounced like the j and dg in judge; hl, hr, hn, and hw were pronounced like l, r, n, and w but unvoiced (breathy). Vowels are actually pretty easy. The short vowels were a as in Bach, e as in bet, i as in bit, o as in cot (pronounced as they do in England today), u as in book, y as in French tu or German u, and ? (ash) as in bat. The long vowels, often marked with an accent acute (?), were a as in father, e like the French e, i as in beet, o as in French eau, u as in boot, and y and ? as longer versions of themselves. There were also three double vowels, each with short and long versions: ea was eh or ay followed by ah, eo was eh or ay followed by a short o, and ie was ih or ee followed by eh. But you can get a sense of the sound of Old English if you just pronounce the vowels as you might in Italian or Spanish. Here are some samples of Anglo-Saxon, from Instant Old English, by Catherine N. Ball

· Ic grete ?e -- I greet you

· Wes ?u hal; Hal wes ?u; Sy ?u hal; Wes gesund; Beo? ge gesunde -- Hail! Farewell!

· Wilcume -- Welcome!

· Wilcuman la, mine hlafordas -- Welcome, my lords!

· Leofe bro?ra -- Dear brothers

· Sweostor min -- My sister, ...

· Leof -- Friend, ... (or Sir, ...)

· Hlaford min -- My lord, ...

· Hl?fdige min -- My lady, ...

· Hw?t eart ?u? -- Who are you?

· Beowulf is min nama -- My name is Beowulf

· Min nama is Michael -- My name is Michael

· Wa me -- Woe is me!

· Eala -- Alas! Lo!

· La -- Lo! Oh! Ah!

· Wa la wa -- Woe!

· Giese; Gea -- Yes

· Nese -- No

· Ic ?e ?ancas do -- Thank you [I give you thanks]

· Ic s?cge eow ?ancas -- Thank you [I say you thanks]

· Ic ?ancie ?e -- Thank you [I thank you]

· So? is ??t ?u segst! -- What you say is true!

· Wel ?u writst -- You write well

· Ic nat -- I don't know

Note the letters thorn (?) and eth (?). They should look like a b with a long downstroke and a d with a cross bar, in case they don't register on your browser!

Middle English (1066 - 1500 CE)

The period of Middle English begins with the Norman invasion of 1066 CE. King Edward the Confessor had died without heirs, and William, Duke of Normandy, believed that he would become the next king. However, upon learning that Harold was crowned king, William invaded England, killed Harold and crowned himself king during the famous Battle of Hastings. Yet William spoke only French. As a result, the upper class in England began to speak French while the lower classes spoke English.

But by 1250 CE, French began to lose its prestige. King John had lost Normandy to the French in 1204 CE, and after him, King Edward I spoke only English. At this time, many foreigners entered England which made the nobility feel more "English" and so encouraged more use of the English language. The upper class tried to learn English, but they did still use French words sometimes, which was considered somewhat snobbish. French still maintained its prestige elsewhere, and the upper class did not want to lose it completely. Nevertheless, the Hundred Year's War (1337-1453 CE) intensified hatred of all things French. The Black Death also played a role in increasing English use with the emergence of the middle class. Several of the workers had been killed by the plague, which increased the status of the peasants, who only spoke English. By 1362 CE, the Statute of Pleading (although written in French) declared English as the official spoken language of the courts. By 1385 CE, English was the language of instruction in schools. 1350 to 1400 CE is known as the Period of Great Individual Writers (most famously, Chaucer), but their works included an apology for writing in English.

Although the popularity of French was decreasing, several words (around 10,000) were borrowed into English between 1250 and 1500 CE (though most of these words were Parisian rather than Norman French). Many of the words were related to government (sovereign, empire), law (judge, jury, justice, attorney, felony, larceny), social life (fashion, embroidery, cuisine, appetite) and learning (poet, logic, physician). Furthermore, the legal system retained parts of French word order (the adjective following the noun) in such terms as fee simple, attorney general and accounts payable.

Characteristics of Middle English

The writing system changed dramatically in Middle English:

· ? and ? were replaced by th (and sometimes y, as in ye meaning the)

· c before i or e became ch

· sc became sh

· an internal h was added after g

· hw became wh

· cw became qu

· the new symbols v and u were added; v was used word initially, and u was used everywhere else

· k was used much more often (cyning became king)

· new values were given to old symbols too; g before i or e was pronounced j; ? became j, and c before i and e became s in some cases

· a historical h (usually not pronounced) was added to some words (it was assumed that these words had once begun with an h): honor, heir, honest, herb, habit

· sometimes words were written with o but pronounced as [?] but later were pronounced [?]: son, come, ton, some, from, money, honey, front, won, one, wonder, of

Because of the stress shift to the beginning of the word, Middle English lost the case suffixes at the ends of nouns. Phonological erosion also occurred because of this, and some consonants dropped off while some vowels became ?and dropped off too. The generalized plural marker became -s, but it still competed with -n.

Verb infinitives dropped the -an ending, and used "to" before the verb to signify the infinitival form. The third person singular and plural was marked with -(e)th; but the singular also competed with -(e)s from the Northern dialect. More strong (irregular) verbs became weak (regular) as well.

Adjectives lost agreement with the noun, but the weak ending -e still remained. The comparative form became -er and the superlative became -est. Vowels tended to be long in the adjective form, but short in the comparative form (late - latter). The demonstratives these and those were added during this period. And the adverb ending -liи became -ly; however, some "flat" adverbs did not add the -ly: fast, late, hard.

The dual number disappeared in the pronouns, and the dative and accusative became the object forms of the pronouns. The third person plural pronouns replaced the old pronouns with th- words (they, them, their) borrowed from Scandinavian. She started being used for the feminine singular subject pronoun and you (plural form) was used in the singular as a status marker for the formal.

Syntax was stricter and more prepositions were used. New compound tenses were used, such as the perfect tenses, and there was more use of the progressive and passive voice. The use of double negation also increased as did impersonal constructions. The use of the verbs will and shall for the future tense were first used too. Formerly, will meant want and shall meant obliged to.

Pronunciation changes:

· Loss of initial h in a cluster (hleapan - to leap; hnutu - hut)

· [w] lost between consonant and back vowel (w is silent in two, sword, answer)

· [и] lost in unstressed syllable (iи - I)

· [v] lost in middle of words (heofod - head; h?fde - had)

· Loss of final -n in possessive pronouns (min f?der - mi f?der) and the addition of -n to some words beginning with a vowel (a napron - an apron, a nuncle - an uncle)

· Voiced fricatives became phonemic with their voiceless counterparts

· [z] phoneme was borrowed from French as the voiced counterpart for [s]

· Front rounded vowels merged with their unrounded counterparts

· Vowel length became predictable (lost phonemic status); an open syllable with no consonant following it contained a long vowel, while a closed syllable with at least one consonant following it contained a short vowel

In addition, there were dialectal differences in the north and south. The north used -(e)s for the plural marker as well as for the third person singular; and the third person plural pronouns began with th- (borrowed from Scandinavian). The south used -(e)n for the plural, -(e)th for the third person singular, and h- for the third person plural pronouns. The north used [a] and [k] while the south used [o] and [и] for certain words. Eventually, the northern dialect would become the standard for modern English regarding the grammatical endings, but the southern pronunciation of [o] and [и] would also remain.



Рicture

An example of Middle English by Chaucer

The period of Middle English is roughly from 1150 to 1475. The main dialects of Middle English were:

Northern (corresponding to the original Northumberland) Midlands (the original Mercia) Southern (the original Wessex)

Some of the main characteristics of these dialects follow. Notice how modern English takes some things from northern Middle English (the plural of nouns and the third person singular of verbs, for example) and some from southern Middle English (the long o in words like stone and the ch sound instead of the k in words like church). Some of these choices were conscious ones, made by scholars in the service of the King. Plural pronouns:

Northern they, their, them Midlands they, hir, hem Southern hi, hir, hem

Verb third person singular

Northern -s (hits)

Midlands -th (hitteth)

Southern -th (hitteth)

Verb plural

Northern -s (hits)

Midlands -en (hitten)

Southern -eth (hitteth)

Old English long o

Northern a (stan)

Midlands o (stone)

Southern o (stone)

Old English c

Northern k (ik, kirk)

Midlands ch (ich, chirch)

Southern ch (church)

Old English f

Northern f (fox)

Midlands f (fox)

Southern v (vox)

The evolution of the personal pronouns gives you a sense of the changes from Anglo-Saxon through Middle English to Modern English (oblique replaces accusative and dative):

Anglo-Saxon

nom ic we ?u ge he heo hit hie

acc me us ?e eow hine hie hit hie

dat me us ?e eow im hire him heom

gen min ure ?in eower his hire his hira/heoras

Late Middle English

nom I we thou ye he she hit they

obl me us thee you him hir hit hem/them

gen my oure thy your his hir his hir/their



Modern English

nom I we - you he she it they

obl me us - you him her it them

gen my our - your his her its their

Early Modern English (1500 - 1650/1700 CE)

William Caxton introduced the printing press to England in 1476 and the East Midland dialect became the literary standard of English. Ten thousand words were added to English as writers created new words by using Greek and Latin affixes. Some words, such as devulgate, attemptate and dispraise, are no longer used in English, but several words were also borrowed from other languages as well as from Chaucer's works. In 1582, Richard Mulcaster proposed in his treatise "Elementaire" a compromise on spelling and by 1623, Henry Cockrum published his English dictionary. The printing press helped to standardize the spelling of English in its modern stages.

Characteristics of Early Modern English

Adjectives lost all endings except for in the comparative and superlative forms. The neuter pronoun it was first used as well as who as a relative pronoun. The class distinctions between formal and informal you were decreasing, so that today there is no difference between them. More strong verbs became weak and the third person singular form became -(e)s instead of -(e)th. There was a more limited use of the progressive and auxiliary verbs than there is now, however. Negatives followed the verb and multiple negatives were still used.

The Great Vowel Shift (1400-1600) changed the pronunciation of all the vowels. The tongue was placed higher in the mouth, and all the verbs moved up. Vowels that were already high ([i] and [u]) added the dipthongs [aj] and [aw] to the vowels of English.

Several consonants were no longer pronounced, but the spelling system was in place before the consonant loss, so they are still written in English today. The consonants lost include:

· Voiceless velar fricative lost in night; pronounced as f in laugh

· [b] in final -mb cluster (dumb, comb)

· [l] between a or o and consonant (half, walk, talk, folk)

· [r] sometimes before s (Worcestershire)

· initial clusters beginning with k and g (knee, knight, gnat)

· [g] in -ing endings (more commonly pronounced [?n])

Finally, assibilation occurred when the alveolars [s], [d], [t], and [z] preceded the palatal glide [j], producing the palatal consonants: [s], [j], [и], [z]

Рicture

Hamlet's famous "To be, or not to be" lines, written in Early Modern English by Shakespeare.



Late Modern English (18th Century)

A proposal for an Academy of the English Language was first brought forth by Jonathan Swift in 1712, but the Parliament voted against it. Nevertheless, several grammarians wrote dictionaries and grammar books in a prescriptive manner - telling people what to do or not to do with the language. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 and Robert Lowth's Introduction to English Grammar appeared in 1762. Early grammarians felt that language should be logical, therefore, the double negative was considered incorrect (two negatives equal one positive) and should not be used. They also didn't like shortened or redundant words, borrowing words from other languages (except Latin and Greek), split infinitives, or prepositions at the end of the sentence.

A more scientifically minded attitude took hold by the 19th century when the Oxford English Dictionary was proposed in 1859. It was to be a factual account of every word in the English language since 1000 including its main form, pronunciation, spelling variations, part of speech, etymology, meanings in chronological order and illustrative quotations. The project was begun in 1879 under its first editor, James AH Murray. The first edition was published in 1928, with supplements in 1933 and 1972-6. The second edition was published in 1989 and it recognized American and Australian English, as the International Phonetic Alphabet for pronunciation.

The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.



Beginnings of Modern English

In England, several changes to English had occurred since 1700. These include a loss of the post-vocalic r (so that the r is only pronounced before a vowel and not after); an increase in the use of the progressive tenses; and a rise in class consciousness about speech (Received Pronunciation.) Since 1900, a very large amount of vocabulary words has been added to English in a relatively short period. The majority of these words are related to science and technology, and use Greek and Latin roots.

The Great English Vowel Shift

From Old English to Middle English to Modern English, the vowels have obviously shifted. This accounts for a great deal of the difference between English words and their Frisian and Dutch counterparts. For better or worse, our spelling still reflects these earlier pronunciations. The most dramatic changes occured between the late part of Middle English and the early part of Modern English, and didn't stabilize until about 1600. This is known as the Great English Vowel Shift!

Originally, the long vowels were literally long versions of the short vowels, that is, they were held longer, as they are still in Dutch. These long vowels shifted "up," that is, they were pronounced with the tongue higher in the mouth, so that long e (like French e) shifted to its present ee position, and long o (like French eau) went to its modern oo position. Long i (which was pronounced like ee today) and long ou (like oo in boot today) had no where higher to go, so they became the diphthongs they are today (as in bite and bout). The short vowels, on the other hand, moved very slightly "down." The original diphthongs ai (then pronounced like our long i in kite) and au (then like our ou in house) became our long a (as in bate) and aw sound. In some positions, long u (our oo in boot) became our long u (as in mute). Note also that the "silent e" was not originally silent! It was originally pronounced like a short e, became the nondescript "schwa" (like the a in ago), and then finally disappeared, but not before defining the preceding vowel as long!

Consonants also changed, but not as dramatically. In fact, it was the Frisians and Dutch who changed their consonants more! One change was the dropping of l's between vowels and consonants (so talk became "tawk"). Another is the way that gh -- originally pronounced like the ch in Bach -- became y after front vowels and w after back vowels (so night > niyt and through > throuw), and by the 1500's disappeared altogether. One more is the silent k in words like know and knight, which was originally pronounced. Knight, in fact, was originally pronounced as spelled, which makes it much closer to the Dutch knecht, meaning man-servant! Finally, several dialects began to drop r's after vowels until, by the 1600's, r-dropping was the standard for the Queen's English.

Here are the changes in IPA:

Рicture

The grammar of English is perhaps the most interesting story: It went from a typical old Indo-European language, with many complex and irregular verb conjugations and noun declensions, to arguably the most isolating Indo-European language to date. (Afrikaans - a close relative of Dutch spoken in South Africa - probably beats it by a smidgen.)

Anglo-Saxon nouns, their articles, and even adjectives were complex. There were three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter:

Table

Stone	singular	plural
nominative	se stan	?a stanas
accusative	?one stan	?a stanas
dative	??m stane	??m stanum
genitive	??s stanes	?ara stana
Tale	singular	plural
nominative	seo talu	?a tala
accusative	?a tale	?a tala
dative	??re tale	??m talum
genitive	??re tale	?ata tala
Ship	singular	plural
nominative	??t scip	?a scipu
accusative	??t scip	?a scupu
dative	??t scipe	??m scipum
genitive	??s scipes	?ara scipa

As in most Indo-European languages, gender had little to do with reality:

Рicture Table

Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
wifmann (woman) stan (stone) a? (oath) bat (boat) hlaf (loaf) ) mete (food)	glaf (glove) ecg (edge) hwil (a while) sceadu (shadow) miht (might) tid (time)	m?gden (girl) scip (ship) ban (bone) bedd (bed) wedd (pledge) spere (spear)



Modern English only really has six grammatical affixes left: -s for plural nouns, -'s for genitive nouns, -s for third person singular verbs, -ed for the past tense, -ed the past participle, and -ing for the present participle. Unfortunately for learners of English, it still has several irregular verbs (e.g. to be and to have) and a large number of strong verbs (e.g. sing-sang-sung), plus a few irregular plurals (e.g. child-children, man-men...). Nevertheless, people around the world find English relatively easy, with one huge exception: English has the worst spelling of any language using the Latin alphabet! Unlike most other European languages, we have not had any major updates in spelling since Shakespeare's time, despite dramatic sound changes and innumerable borrowings from other languages.

A Changed and Changing Language.

Like other languages, English has changed greatly, albeit imperceptibly, so that an English speaker of 1300 would not have understood the English of 500 nor the English of today. Changes of every sort have taken place concomitantly in the sounds (phonetics), in their distribution (phonemics), and in the grammar (morphology and syntax). The following familiar words show changes of 1,000 years:

Table



The changes are more radical than they appear, for Modern English ф and в are diphthongs. The words home, stones, and name exemplify the fate of unaccented vowels, which became ?, then ? disappeared. In Old English important inflectional contrasts depended upon the difference between unaccented vowels; so, as these vowels coalesced into ? and this disappeared, much of the case system disappeared too. In Modern English a different technique, word order (subject + predicate + object), is used to show what a case contrast once did, namely, which is the actor and which the goal of the action.

Although the pronunciation of English has changed greatly since the 15th cent., the spelling of English words has altered very little over the same period. As a result, English spelling is not a reliable guide to the pronunciation of the language.

The vocabulary of English has naturally expanded, but many common modern words are derived from the lexicon of the earliest English; e.g., bread, good, and shower. From words acquired with Latin Christianity come priest, bishop, and others; and from words adopted from Scandinavian settlers come root, egg, take, window, and many more. French words, such as castle, began to come into English shortly before the Norman Conquest. After the Conquest, Norman French became the language of the court and of official life, and it remained so until the end of the 14th cent.

During these 300 or more years English remained the language of the common people, but an increasingly large number of French words found their way into the language, so that when the 14th-century vernacular revival, dominated by Chaucer and Wyclif, restored English to its old place as the speech of all classes, the French element in the English vocabulary was very considerable. To this phase of French influence belong most legal terms (such as judge, jury, tort, and assault) and words denoting social ranks and institutions (such as duke, baron, peer, countess, and parliament), together with a great number of other words that cannot be classified readily-e.g., honor, courage, season, manner, study, feeble, and poor. Since nearly all of these French words are ultimately derived from Late Latin, they may be regarded as an indirect influence of the classical languages upon the English vocabulary.

The direct influence of the classical languages began with the Renaissance and has continued ever since; even today Latin and Greek roots are the chief source for English words in science and technology (e.g., conifer, cyclotron, intravenous, isotope, polymeric, and telephone). During the last 300 years the borrowing of words from foreign languages has continued unchecked, so that now most of the languages of the world are represented to some extent in the vocabulary. English vocabulary has also been greatly expanded by the blending of existing words (e.g., smog from smoke and fog) and by back-formations (e.g., burgle from burglar), whereby a segment of an existing word is treated as an affix and dropped, resulting in a new word, usually with a related meaning.

Countries where English is a major language

English is the primary language in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize (Belizean Kriol), Bermuda, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the British Virgin Islands, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guam, Guernsey (Channel Island English), Guyana, Ireland (Hiberno-English), The Isle of Man (Manx English), Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, Nauru, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In some countries where English is not the most spoken language, it is an official language; these countries include Botswana, Cameroon, Dominica, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines (Philippine English), Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, the Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

It is also one of the 11 official languages that are given equal status in South Africa (South African English). English is also the official language in current dependent territories of Australia (Norfolk Island, Christmas Island and Cocos Island) and of the United States (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands), and the former British colony of Hong Kong.

English is not an official language in either the United States or the United Kingdom. Although the United States federal government has no official languages, English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments. Although falling short of official status, English is also an important language in several former colonies and protectorates of the United Kingdom, such as Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates. English is not a de jure official language of Israel; however, the country has maintained official language use a de facto role for English since the British mandate.

English as a global language

Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "world language", the lingua franca of the modern era. While English is not an official language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language around the world. Some linguists (such as David Graddol) believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural property of "native English speakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow. It is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications. English is an official language of the United Nations and many other international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee.

English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union (by 89% of schoolchildren), followed by French (32%), German (18%), Spanish (8%), and Russian; while the perception of the usefulness of foreign languages amongst Europeans is 68% English, 25% French, 22% German, and 16% Spanish. Among non-English speaking EU countries, a large percentage of the population claimed to have been able to converse in English (note that the percentages are for the adult population, aged 15 and above): in Sweden (85%), Denmark (83%), the Netherlands (79%), Luxembourg (66%), Finland (60%), Slovenia (56%), Austria (53%), Belgium (52%), and Germany (51%).

Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world. English is also the most commonly used language in the sciences. In 1997, the Science Citation Index reported that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.

Dialects and regional varieties

The expansion of the British Empire and--since World War II--the influence of the United States have spread English throughout the globe. Because of that global spread, English has developed a host of English dialects and English-based creole languages and pidgins.