Lecture introductory. General characteristics of germanic languages list of principal questions

ТНE PROBLEM OF SPELLING PRONUNCIATION

The spelling of Middle English is much more phonetic than that of Modern English. The trouble was not merely that English spelling was bad, for it is still bad today, but that there was no generally accepted system that every one could conform to. In short, it was neither phonetic nor fixed. The confusion was increased when certain spellings gradually became conventional while the slowly changed. And here we must confine ourselves to а few observations about the importance of sound-changes and their representation in writing.

In considering the changes in pronunciation which English words underwent passing from Old to Middle English we may say that qualitatively they were slight. Changes in the consonants were rather insignificant, as they have always been in English. Some voiced consonants became voiceless, and. vice versa, and consonants neither were occasionally lost nor were they’re much alteration in the quality of vowels in accented syllables. Most of the short vowels, unless lengthened, passed over into Middle English unaltered. The Old English diphthongs were all simplified, and all diphthongs in Middle English are new formation. If the quality of Old English vowels did not change much in passing into Middle English, their quantity or length was subject to considerable alteration. All these changes in length are little noticeable in the spelling.

When we come to the vowel changes in Modern English we see the importance of the factors that determined the length of vowels in Middle English. All Middle English vowels, which were long, underwent radical alteration in passing into Modern English, but the short vowels, in accented syllables, remained comparatively stable. So far as the short vowels are concerned it is clear that а person today would have little difficulty in understanding the English of any period, of the language.

The situation is very different when we consider the long vowels. In Chaucer's pronunciation these had still their so-called 'continental' value, as for instance Modern German vowels. But in the 15th с. all the long vowels gradually became raised and those that could not became diphthongs. These major vowel changes from about 1350 mark the shift from Middle English to Modern English, and they are usually termed the Great Vowel Shift. It will be noticed that the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for the rather disorganized use of the vowel symbols in English, spelling. The spelling of English had become fixed in а general way before the shift and therefore did not change when the quality of the long vowels changes. Consequently English vowel symbols no longer correspond to the sounds, which they once represented in English and. still represent in the other modern languages in which vowels have their 'continental' value accurately represented by well fixed symbols.

Norman scribes introduced some confusion in English spelling even before the Great Vowel Shift when they tried to write а language that they imperfectly knew and carried over habits that they had formed in writing French. In some cases а further confusion in spelling arose when letters were inserted in words where they were not pronounced (like the -b- in debt or doubt) because the corresponding word in Latin was so spelled (debitum, dubitare), or in other cases (for example, the -gh- in delight, tight) by analogy with words similarly pronounced (light, night) where the -gh- had formally represented an actual sound [х].

All in all spelling was one of the problems that the English language began consciously to face in the 16^th c. During the period from 1500 1о 1650 it was fairly settled. Mention should be made of the fact that the detailed history of English spelling has yet to be written.

Before 1798 the system of polite language, which had developed in the 18 century, was under strain. It can be highlighted only four of them. According to W. Blake the first is freeing up of restrictions on newsprint and copyright. The second is the American Revolution leading to the independence of the former American colonies. The third is the French revolution and the impetus that provide for democratic movements and the inevitable backlash from those who wanted to preserve conservative values and social standards. The fourth is the discovery by Sir William Jones that Sanskrit was related to Latin and Greek as well as possibly other European languages. These events became associated with other developments which took place during the 19^th century to put the old system under pressure.[Blake, 273]

In the 18^th century copyright law was uncertain, but the fear of prosecution under the law inhibited many printers from publishing material for that they thought they could be put in prison. In 1774 the limits of copyright were clarified and it became far easier to publish material that might previously have been considered suspect. This is not immediately stop the prosecution of those who published material to which the government took exception, and during the Napoleonic wars various acts restricted liberty and freedom of expression. However, the end of the copyright and the general availability of newsprint meant that many cheap editions were issued so that those who could read might have better access to reading matter other than the Bible.

During the 19^th century circulating libraries grew in importance and there was a growth in literacy. Newspapers became more widespread, and in 1835 the repeal of the newspaper stamp duty meant that newspapers came down in price and could reach a wider audience.

It should be pointed out that there is another theoretical approach to the problem under discussion. This theory says that the generally accepted view that English orthography bears little relation to English phonology is in fact quite false. The pronunciations of words are quite generally predictable from their spelling. Moreover, quite aside from pronunciation, this orthography preserves information about the history and meaning of words that is of great value in human communication.

As R. Burchfield states that of all the main languages of the world none is widely disseminated and more subtly sliced and severed than English, and all within the space of only 1500 years. From the diversity of the earliest records of the Anglo-Saxons it can be assumed that it already divided into a multitude of linguistic subgroups using different modes of pronunciation, grammar and usage even though they remained mutually intelligible. [Burchfield]

In the period since 1800 most of the observable changes to received pronunciation have been brought by Mitford factor – in other words by sociological change and not by phonetic change. They include the substitution of [ei] for [i:] in words like deity, homogeneity and spontaneity; and the replacement of a soft g in gynaecology by a hard one.

This is not to deny that there are quite а few no phonological, no phonetic spellings in English. Clearly, there is some orthography that is of no value. Standard spelling persists over the decades and centuries. The resistance of standard spelling to change reflects, rather, an important fact of historical linguistics. The underlying phonological spellings of language that are represented by alphabetic writing systems are themselves quite resistant to change. And the complicated interaction between Modern English orthography and pronunciation is а striking example such resistance.

LECTURE 4.
NEW ENGLISH. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

List of principal questions:
1. Outer history

1.1. Emergence of the nation

1.2. Establishment of the literary norm

1.3. Geographical expansion of the English language

2. Inner history

2.1. Phonetics

2.2. Grammar

2.3. Word-stock

Literature

1. 
   R.V. Reznik, T.C. Sorokina, I.V. Reznik A History of the English language. M., 2003.
   
2. 
   T.A. Rastorguyeva History of English. M., 1983.
   
3. 
   А.И. Смирницкий Лекции по истории английского языка. М., 2000.
   
4. 
   К. Бруннер История английского языка. Т.1 М., 2001.
   
5. 
   И. Чахоян, Л. Иванова, Т. Беляева. История английского языка. СПб., 1998.
   

1. Outer history
1.1. Emergence of the nation

The 15^th century is a border-line in the history of the English people. In 1485 there ended the War between the Roses. The end of the war meant the end of feudalism and the beginning of the new economical and political stage of the English society capitalism. It was a transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. An absolute monarchy was established, the first absolute monarch being Henry Tutor. It meant a real unification of the country, political and economic, resulted in the development of capitalism and made it evitable that one nation and one national language be established.

The first king of this period, Henry VII (1485 – 1509) strengthened the monarchy and provided the revenue imperative for its very existence. During his reign commerce and shipbuilding were encouraged, and the material wealth of the country increased. New lands – Newfoundland and Nova Scotia – were discovered. Following in his steps, his son, Henry VIII (1509 – 1547) broke away from the ecclesiastical influence of Rome, made himself head of the Church of England and of the State and transferred the property of the monasteries to himself. Dozens of large ships were built, trade continued to develop, and new territories were drawn into it. It was during the reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI (1547 – 1553), that trade with Muskovy or Russia, as we call it today, was opened up.

The long reign of Elisabeth I (1558 – 1603) was one the most remarkable for the country, its progress in the discovery and colonizing field tremendously. Queen Elisabeth’s reign was also particularly rich in learning – it was the age of Shakespeare, Sydney, Spencer, Beckon, Marlowe and many other famous names.

Nevertheless, the evident achievements in foreign policy, trade and culture did not put an end to the controversy of various powerful forces in the country. Another problem which was to have far-reaching consequences was that of whether sovereignty lay with monarch or Parliament advocating the interests of the new developing classes of society. The strife between the Crown and Parliament was aggravated by religious differences. The development of the country required more regular revenue, and forced the Crown to raise taxes, which met with disapproval from Parliament.

In the XVII century Charles I (1625 – 1649) for over a decade ruled without Parliament, but had finally to reach a compromise, according to which the powers of Parliament were greatly extended. Hence force one legal system was to apply to the king and his subjects alike, and no taxation was to be raised without Parliament’s consent. However, when Parliament demanded further concessions, denied the king control of the army, a crisis followed which is now known under the title of the Great Rebellion. The Crown lost the ensuing war, Charles I surrendered and was executed, and for over a decade the country was ruled by Parliament alone, the most notable leader of that time being Oliver Cromwell. Granted the title of Lord Protector, he was a virtual dictator of the nation, heavily relying on the Army and disillusioning Parliament which had first brought him to power.

After the death of Oliver Cromwell the Army and Parliament were unable to agree on a government, and the restoration of monarchy that followed in 1660, when the son of the executed king, Charles II, was invited to return to the throne, was more a restoration of Parliament than of the king himself. Charles II, who during the time of Cromwell lived in exile in France, brought with him from the Continent a keen interest in scientific development, culture and arts, together with a considerable influence of the French language spoken by his supporters.

1.2. Establishment of the literary norm

As we have said, in the New English period emerged one nation and one national language. But the English literary norm was formed only at the end of the 17^th century, when the first scientific English dictionaries and the first scientific English grammar. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries there appeared great number of grammar books whose authors tried to stabilize the use of language. Thus Samuel Johnson, the author of the famous Dictionary (1755), wrote that he preferred the use of “regular and solemn” pronunciation to the “cursory and colloquial”. Many famous writers also greatly contributed to the formation of the English language, and among them, first and foremost, the great Shakespeare.

Early New English (15^th – beginning of the 18^th century) – the establishment of the literary norm. The language that was used in England at that time is reflected in the famous translation of the Bible called the King James Bible (published in 1611). Although the language of the Bible is Early Modern English, the author tried to use a more solemn and grand style and more archaic expressions.

A great influence was also connected with the magazine by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele called The Spectator (1711 – 1714), the authors of which discussed various questions of the language, including its syntax and the use of words.

Late New English – since the 18^th century.

If the gradual acceptance of a virtually uniform dialect by all writers is the most important event in the emergence of Modern English, it must be recognized that this had already gone a considerable way before 1500, and it was undoubtedly helped by Caxton’s introduction of printing in 1477. The fact that the London dialect was used by him in his translations and prefaces, and that Chaucer’s works were among the books he published, led to its rapid diffusion throughout the country. But the adoption of a standard of spoken English was a slower process. It was not until Elizabeth’s time that the language of the court came to be generally recognized as the best form of spoken English; and as late as the 18^th, and even the early 19^th century country gentlemen in their occasional visits to polite society in London were not ashamed to use dialect.

Nevertheless, despite the persistence of wide varieties in pronunciation, the basic phonetic changes that distinguish Modern English from Middle English are profound, though they are not reflected in a similar modification of spelling. The early printers, whose practice was to prove of decisive importance for the future, derived their spelling from the Middle English scribes (a fact that largely accounts for the difficulty of English spelling today). The most important of theses changes was that affecting the sound of vowels and diphthongs, with the result that the “continental values” of Middle English were finally replaced by an approximation to modern pronunciation. Lesser changes also occurred in the pronunciation of consonants, though some of these have been restored by conscious, and often mistaken, attempts to adapt pronunciation more closely to the received spelling.

Geographical expansion of English in the 17^th – 20^th centuries and its effect on the language
Up to the 17^th century the English language was spoken by the people who lived only on the British Isles (at that time of William the Conqueror there were about 2 million people), but even there in the far-away mountainous parts of the country the people preserved their own Celtic dialects very long into the New English period. Thus in Cornwall the local dialect, Cornish died out in the 18^th century. In Wales there arose a tendency to revive the local Celtic language. In 1893 the Welsh University was founded, and in 1961 the number of those speaking Welsh amounted to 650 thousand. In Ireland through centuries a struggle against English was fought. It reached its climax in 1916 with the Irish rebellion. In 1922 the Irish Free State was formed and in 1949 the new state – Eire – left the Commonwealth of Nations. Now Eire occupies the whole but the northern part of Ireland, which is a part of Britain. The number of people rose from 300 thousand to over 600 thousand, but the majority speak English.

The penetration of the English language to other parts of the globe mainly began in the 16^th century together with the expansion of British colonialism. The 16^th century was an age of great adventurers, and England’s progress in the discovery and colonialized field was tremendous. The first Virginian colony was founded; Drake circumnavigated the globe; the East India Company was established and English seamen left their mark in many parts of the world. In 1620 the famous ship The Mayflower reached North America in the region which is now the state of Massachusetts. This marked the beginning of English in the New World.

The 18^th century witnessed the coming of English to India where nowadays the language is widely spread, although its sphere is limited to large cities and a certain social layer, and in today’s India English is a state language together with the native languages of Hindi and Urdu.

In the 18^th century England conquered Canada. During the 19^th century the colonization of Australia took place. In the 20^th century English penetrated into South Africa.

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Now about 300 million people speak English as their native language in various parts of the globe, and many times that – as a second language. To foretell the future of any language, English among them, is of course impossible, but the mere fact of its wide diffusion throughout the world is a guarantee that it will continue to change and develop.

Cultural Development in the 14^th Century

In the long run, the Norman kings did much to centralize power and unite England into a state, preparing the ground for the decay of feudalism, bourgeois development and the beginning of the nation. The unifying English language, the growth and influence of the bourgeois, religious “heresies” undermining the catholic church, this bulwark of feudalism - all these were signs of the time. The appearance of the House of Commons (1343) heralded future developments.

There were big changes in the material life of the population. Life was safer and more comfortable for the rich than it was in the early Norman period when the wealthy families had to live in the dark of the fortress-homes, with little light, less convenience. Now palaces and castles were built with spacious halls illuminated by wide windows lots of light pouring in.

The farms and cottages of the poor people were buit of logs or planks, the floors were usually bare earth and the roof made of thatch: the walls might be made of mud and timber.

There was progress in letters as well. John Wycliffe translated the Bible from Latin into English creating actually the beginning of English prose.

The development of the national language was greatly promoted by the works and creative activities of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) an outstanding poet, “father of English literature”. His works paved the way for English Renaissance literature. His realistic approach his optimism and folk-spirit made that everfresh masterpiece of his “Canterbury Tales” immortal. It depicts the England of the 14 th century. It is the source not only of lively satisfaction but of authentic information as well. Influenced by Italian Renaissance literature, particularly by Boccaccio, Chaucer rises above his Italian teacher in lifelikeness.

Son of the ordinary tradesman, Chaucer rose to high court positions, traveled on diplomatic business, but died in poverty. When Henry IV came to the throne, his father, Duke of Lancaster who replaced the last Plantagenet on the throne of England used to be Chaucer’s patron, the aging poet sent him a poem entitled “Complaint to My Empty Purse”. The king took the hint and increased Chaucer’s small pension, but it was too late-the great poet did not use the money to enjoy.

PRE-RENAISSANCE CULTURE

Compared to the preceding and the following centuries, the 15^th century was comparatively barren. At that time tere were no great poets and writers no great masterpieces were created. The most important book of that time was “Morte de’Arthur” written by Thomas Malory, a Yorkist nobleman. It was one of the last chivalric romances of the king’s Arthur cycle, a swan song of the nobility.

But folklore flourished all long through the 15^th century. Many of them were printed (at that time Caxton started printing]. Some of them are ballads of Robin Hood, who had to leave his oppressors and come to Sherwood Forest where very soon other good and honest outlaws gathered to proclaim Robin Hood their leader and begin a life full adventure for justice and nobleness.

Other ballads were historical; many of them described the brinkmanship between England and Scotland.

By the end of the 15^th century new forces were beginning to work in English culture. The Oxford University was becoming the center of learning, science and culture. The professors of the university started to discover the antique authors.