7. The formation of the national English language
The London dialect. The domination of the French language in England came to an end in the course of the 14th c. The vitory of English was predeterminated and prepared for by previous events and historical conditions. Towards the end of the 14th c. the English language had taken the place of French as the language of literature and administration. English was once more the dominant speech of all social classes in all regions. The history of the London dialect reveals the sources of the literary language in Late ME and also the main source and basis of the Literary Standard, both in its written and spoken forms. The Early ME records made in London - beginning with the PROCLAMATION of 1258 - show that the dialect of London was fundamentally East Saxon; in terms of the ME division, it belonged to the South-Western dialect group. Later records indicate that the speech of London was becoming more mixed, with East Midland features gradually prevailing over the Southern features. Most of the new arrivals came from the East Midlands; Norfolk, Suffolk, and other populous and wealthy counties of Medieval England, although not bordering immediately on the capital. As a result the speech of Londoners was brought much closer to the East Midland dialect. The official and literary papers produced in London in the late 14th c. display obvious East Midland features. The London dialect became more Anglian than Saxon in character. This mixed dialect of London, which had extended to the two universities (in Oxford and Cambridge) ousted French from official spheres and from the sphere writing.
8. The Germanic languages in the modern world, their classification. Their common ancestor
Languages may be classified according to different principles. The historical, or genealogical classification, groups languages in accordance with their origin from a common linguistic ancestor. Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the 12 groups of the IE linguistic family. The Germanic language in the modern world are as follows: 1. English - in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zeland, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies and dominations, (dialects of the Angles, part of the Saxon and Frisians, and probably Jutes develop into the English, WG) wr 7c,; 2. German - in the Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland, Old High German group dialects (Saxon, the Alemanians, Bavarians, and Thuringians) mixed with Middle and High Franconian, wr 16 c. 10 million; 3. Netherlandish - in the Netherlands and Belgium (known as Dutch and Flemish), WG, the Franconian dialects and Flemish dialect, wr 12 c.; 4. Afrikaans - in the South African Republic, WG, the Dutch, wr 19 c.; 5. Danish - in Denmark (north Germanic, Old Danish); 6. Swedish - in Sweden and Finland (North Germanic, Old Swedish), 7. Norwegian - in Norway (NG, Old Norwegian); 8. Icelandic - in Iceland (its origin goes back to the Viking Age, NG, the West Scandinavian dialect) spoken over 200., Elder edda 12-13 c. 000; 9. Frisian - in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany, dialects of Low German tribes, wr 13 c, WG; 10. Faroese - in the Faroe Islands (its origin goes back to the Viking Age, NG, the West Norwegian dialect), spoken nowadays by about 30.000, wr-18 c.; 11. Yiddish (Old High German dialects, WG)
- in different countries the total number of people speaking Germanic languages approaches 440 million.
9. The Old English alphabets. OE major written records
The earliest written records of English are inscriptions on hard material made in a special alphabet known as the runes. The word rune originally meant `secret', `mystery, and hence came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. There is no doubt that the art of runic writing was known to the Germanic tribes long before they came to Britain. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate a separate sound. The two best known runic inscriptions in England is an inscription on a box called the «Franks Casket» and the other is a short text on a a stone known as the «Ruthwell Cross». Both records are in the Northumbrian dialect. Many runic inscriptions have been preserved on weapons, coins, amulets, rings. The total number of runic inscriptions in OE is about forty; the last of them belong to the end of the OE period. The first English words to be written down with the help of Latin characters were personal names and place names inserted in Latin texts. Glosses (заметки) to the Gospels (Евангелие) and other religious texts were made in many English monasteries, for the benefit of those who did not know enough Latin (we may mantion the Corpus and Epinal glossaries in the 8th c. Mercian).OE poetry is famous for Bede's HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM, which is in Latin, but contains an English fragment of 5 lines. There are about 30,000 lines of OE verse. OE poetry is mainly restricted to 3 subjects: heroic, religious and lyrical. The greatest poem of that time was BEOWULF, an epic of the 7th or 8th c. It was originally composed in the Mercian or Nuthumbrian dialect, but has come to us in a 10th c. West Saxon copy. OE prose: the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES. Also prose was in translating books on geography, history, philosophy from Latin. TE LIVES OF THE SAINTS by Alfric, the HOMILIES by Wulfstan (passionate sermons - страстные поучения). OE Alphabet. OE scribes (писцы) used two kinds of letters: the runes and the letters of the Latin alphabet. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate a separate sound. Besides. A rune could also represent a word beginning with that sound and was called by that word. In some inscriptions the runes were found arranged in a fixed order making a sort of alphabet. After the first six letters this alphabet is called futhark. The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet, not to be found in languages of other groups. The letters are angular (угловые), straight lines are preferred, curved lines avoided: this is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone, or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of Greek or Latin, others have not been traced to any known alphabet. Some OE letters indicate two or more sounds, even distinct phonemes. The letters could indicate short and long sounds. The length of vowels is shown by a macron or by line above the letter; long consonants are indicated by double letters.
10. Major spelling changes in ME
The written forms of the words in Late ME texts resemble their modern forms, though the pronunciation of the words was different. In the course of ME many new devices were introduced into the system of spelling; some of them reflected the sound changes which had been completed or were still in progress in ME; other were graphic replacements of OE letters by new letters and digraphs. In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn - . - and the crossed d - ... were replaced by the digraph th, which retained the same sound value; [] and []; the rune «wynn» was displaced by «double u» - w -; the ligatures. and. fell into disuse. Next: for a long time writing was in the hands of those who had a good knowledge of French. Therefore many innovations in ME spelling reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie, and ch which occurred in many French borrowings were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:], and [t.]. Compare the use of these digraphs in some borrowed and native ME words: ME chief [] from French and the native ME thief (NE chief, thief); ME chaumbre [], chasen [] (NE chamber, chase). The letters j, k, v and q were probably first used in imitation of French manuscripts. The two-fold use of g and c, which has survived today, owes its origin to French: these letters usually stood for [d.] and [s] before front vowels and for [g] and [k] before back vowels: ME gentil [], mercy [] (NE gentle, mercy). At that tine there was more wider use of digraphs. In addition to ch, ou, ie, and th mentioned above, Late ME notaries introduced sh (also ssh and sch) to indicate the new sibilant [], e.g. ship (from OE scip), dg to indicate [d] alondside j and g (before front vowels), e. g. ME edge [], joye [], (NE edge, joy); the digraph wh replaced the OE sequence of letters hw as in OE hw t, ME what [hwat], (NE what). Long sounds were shown by double letters, e.g. ME book [bo:k], sonne [sunn] (NE book, sun). The introduction of the digraph gh for [x] and [x'] helped to distinguish between the fricatives [x, x'], which were preserved in some positions, and the aspirate [h]; e.g. ME knyght [knix't] and ME he [he:] (NE knight, he); in OE both words were spelt with h: OE cnient, he. Some replacements were probably made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: thus o was employed not only for [o] but also to indicate short [u] alongside the letter u; it happened when u stood close to n, m, or v. The letter y came to be used as an equivalent of i and was evidently preferred when i could be confused with the surrounding letters m, n and others. The letters th and s indicate voiced sounds between vowels, and voiceless sounds - initially, finally and next to other voiceless consonants: ME worthy [], esy [], thyng [] (NE worthy, easy, thing).
11. The OE vowel system. Major changes during the OE period
The development of vowels in Early oE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted and, in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds.
The PG diphthongs [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] - underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in - u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].
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