History of the English language

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The history of the English language is divided into four stages , which can be chronologically classified as follows:

Old English or Anglo-Saxon (Old English or Anglo-Saxon) approx. 450 to approx. 1100
Middle English (Middle English) approx. 1100 to approx. 1500
Early New English (Early Modern English) approx. 1500 to approx. 1700
New English (Modern English) c. 1700 until today

Some authors also subsume Early New English under New English, which means that the history of the English language would only have three main language levels. According to this classification, New English begins around 1500 and is divided into Early Modern English 1500–1700 and Late Modern English from 1700. Occasionally, there is also a finer difference between Early Modern English , Late Modern English and Present-Day English (today's English) distinguished.

Originally, the English language emerged from the West Germanic group together with Scots and the Frisian languages after the first sound shift . Dutch and Low German ( Low German) are less closely related .

Old English

history

The history of the English language begins in the middle of the 5th century when the Germanic tribes of the Jutes , Angles and Saxons conquered England . The Angli (Latin Anglī ) gave the country its name; however, the name English was first coined and the name Engla land (around 1000) derived from it. After the conquest, the seven kingdoms of Northumbria , Mercien , East Anglia , Kent , East Saxony , South Saxony and West Saxony emerged , which together formed the so-called Anglo-Saxon heptarchy . The Old English language is divided into four dialects :

  • Anglish with the sub-dialects
    • Northumbrian north of the River Humber , as far as Edinburgh ( Scotland ). This dialect leads culturally and in literature up to the invasion of the Vikings in the 8th century (see below).
    • Mercian (also South Humbrian; south of the River Humber, east of Wales )
  • Jutish in its expression Kentisch around Canterbury , south of London and around the Isle of Wight
  • Saxon with the expression West Saxon on the south coast of England, all the way to Cornwall . West Saxon later took on the cultural leadership role (“Standard Old English”). Most of the surviving texts are written in this dialect.

alphabet

The English alphabet of that time has some special letters that are no longer used in New English . These include Þ (thorn), ð (eth), Ƿ (wynn) and the ligature æ (ash). The combination sc [ʃ] is pronounced like the modern sh (e.g. old. Scip - en. Ship ). There are also differences in the vowels (old. Stān - en. Stone ).

grammar

The grammar is more similar to today's German in many ways than to New English. There has been a steady decline in flexion throughout history . Old English is a synthetic language . The noun has four cases, while in New English there is only one difference in the genitive . A distinction is made between a strong (vowelic) and a weak (consonantic) declination . The article also differentiates between three genders, whereas today there is only one form (the) . Most of the endings in the personal pronoun were retained. The number of weak verbs was always higher than that of strong verbs , but the second group was much larger in Old English than it is today. The strong verbs are divided into seven classes, so-called Ablautreihen .

vocabulary

The vocabulary of Old English is largely Germanic . However, in the further course of history around 85% of the vocabulary died out due to outside influences, only basic elements survived. Old English is characterized by a wide variety of synonyms , e.g. B. when describing warriors and heroes.

In contrast to later periods, new words are often formed from their own material. New uses of old words are just as common as derivation with affixes (e.g. mōd, mōdig, mōdcræftig ). The same root can be combined with many different affixes.

Old English was influenced by three other languages.

When the Teutons came to England, they met the native Celts . Their language survived v. a. in place names and geographical names (e.g. Thames ). Otherwise there are only minor traces.

The influence of Latin was much more extensive , as the Roman civilization enjoyed a high reputation. Emperor Claudius conquered Britain in 43 AD after Caesar 55 BC. Chr. Had rejected a corresponding plan. The first traces were inscriptions . Terms from the areas of war, trade and everyday life were brought to the island from mainland Europe. Some borrowings were made indirectly through the Celtic. These include the word ceaster , derived from the Latin castra 'camp' , which has survived in city names such as Manchester . The Latin part of the vocabulary was increased when Augustine came to England with his monks to bring the Christian faith to the pagan people . The Christianization also changed the language. First and foremost, of course, terms were borrowed that are related to the new religion and its ecclesiastical organization. After the introduction of the Benedictine rule in the 10th century, many words were adopted from the realm of education. The time of a loan can be determined by the use in texts and the phonetic form of the word.

But Old English also described many new concepts using native vocabulary. Words like god 'god' and heaven 'heaven' were retained. The scriptures were called gewritu (the written) and the term Hālig Gāst was used for the Holy Spirit instead of the Latin Spiritus Sanctus .

The second foreign language influence came from the north. The Vikings invaded England between the 8th and 11th centuries . The invasion began in 793 with the raid on Lindisfarne . After several looting, the Wedmore Treaty was signed in 886 . The Scandinavians were given an area called Danelaw . The robbers became peaceful settlers and the two peoples mingled. The people brought their language with them to their new home.

Due to the close relationship of the Germanic languages, borrowing was easy. The locals and the new residents were able to communicate with each other relatively easily. Given the similarity, in many cases it is difficult to decide whether a word comes from Old English or the Scandinavian languages. The phonetic form provides an indication. English words begin e.g. B. with sh- (ship) and Scandinavian with sk- (sky) . Since the two peoples lived closely together, there was borrowing from the foreign language in all areas of life. The influence can also be seen in names. In England there were now surnames which, following the Scandinavian model, end in - son (cf. Jackson = Jack's son). Many Old English have been replaced with the borrowed words, e.g. B. niman “take” with take (but out of date nim “steal, steal”), weorpan “throw” with cast (but with a change of meaning English warp (to warp (to) “warp, bend” (from wood)) and snīðan with cut (but obsolete snithe ). In other cases there was a differentiation in terms of meaning, e.g. B. with sick (old English sēoc ) and ill ( old Norse íllr ). The Scandinavian influence even reached into grammar. Functional words, which are actually particularly resistant to change, have also been replaced, e.g. B. the pronouns hīe / hiera / him through they / their / them . The verbal unit plural are ~ sindon '(they / we) are, you are' was replaced by earon (cf. Icelandic erum 'we are', eruð 'you are', eru 'they are'), which is by analogy to other people was expanded.

Middle English

Historical background

The Middle English period was marked by an enormous influence of the French language . The history of the Middle English begins with the Norman Conquest (Norman Conquest) under the leadership of William the Conqueror . After the death of King Eduard the Confessor , Harald II was elected as his successor, although Wilhelm had allegedly been promised the throne. Wilhelm then invaded England and, after the successful Battle of Hastings , conquered the English throne in 1066. Since the English nobility were then completely replaced by French (Romanised Normans), a bilingual situation arose . The upper class spoke French while the common people spoke English. English had little prestige and was considered uncultivated. Knowledge of the English language was only necessary for those from the upper classes who had to communicate with members of the lower classes, e.g. B. Merchants. In addition, French was not only held in high esteem in England at the time: France was regarded as a model for court society in Europe.

The English language regained prestige through various historical developments: from 1204, when Normandy was lost to England, many Anglo-Norman nobles lost their possessions in France and now saw themselves more as English than French. During the Hundred Years War between France and England, French was perceived as the language of the enemy country. From the 13th century onwards, aristocrats and clergy began to speak English; a good knowledge of French decreased more and more. In addition, the English-speaking middle class became economically important.

As a consequence of these developments, the English language gradually replaced the French language in the church, administration and parliament. English also became the language of courts, schools and universities. More and more authors wrote in English. The 14th century is considered to be the prime of Middle English literature, the Period of Great Individual Writers , which also includes Geoffrey Chaucer , William Langland, and John Wyclif .

The rise of English was facilitated by the establishment of a standard from the end of the 14th century. There were four main dialects in the Middle English period: Northern, East Midland, West Midland and Southern. The new standard was based on the dialect spoken in the capital, London , and thus formed a compromise between the conservative south and the radical north.

vocabulary

The biggest change in the English language in the Middle English period is in the vocabulary, where the strong French influence is noticeable. Numerous words were taken from the language of the French-speaking upper class. All areas of life were affected, e.g. B. Government and Administration, Church, Law, Military, Fashion, Medicine and Kitchen.

The French influence was still small until 1250: Only about 900 words were adopted into English, which are mainly assigned to the areas of nobility, literature and the church. The English people learned words like baron, noble, dame, servant, messenger, feast, ministrel, juggler, largesse in contact with the French-speaking nobility. Words like story, rime, lay, douzepers found their way into English through literature. Another large group of loanwords before 1250 are from the church sector. From around 1250 the situation changed because many previously French-speaking aristocrats spoke increasingly English and transferred many French words into the English language. It is estimated that around 40% of the total proportion of French words in English today was adopted into English between the years 1250 and 1400.

When words of Old English origin and French words met, either the Old English word was replaced, e.g. B. æþele through noble or ēam (similar to the German Ohm, Oheim ) through uncle , or there was a differentiation of meanings . An interesting example is provided by the pairs of concepts cow , cattle '- beef , beef', sheep , sheep '- mutton , mutton', pig , pig '- pork , pork' and calf , calf '- veal , veal'. The first word of the pair of terms is of Anglo-Saxon origin and describes the animal, the second word is borrowed from French and describes the meat.

grammar

From a grammatical point of view, the period is marked by the decay of the inflection . While the case , number and gender of nouns and adjectives are clearly marked in Old English , this is greatly reduced in Middle English. In addition, many strong verbs were lost or became weak verbs. Grammatical gender disappeared in the Middle English period , pronouns are now used to refer to the natural gender of a person or thing. Due to the low inflection of nouns and adjectives, it became more and more necessary to use the order of the sentence to indicate whether a part of a sentence is subject or object. This is why the sequence of subject-verb-object (SVO) became more and more the rule in the Middle English period, while in Old English as in German the sequence of parts of the sentence was still relatively free.

Early New English

This time, which is not listed as a separate period in all representations, is characterized by changed external conditions. The letterpress supported the development of the standard language. The literacy has enabled more people to access the fixed written knowledge through improved ways of communication could be easily taught. In addition, people were now consciously preoccupied with the phenomenon of language.

vocabulary

Since access to knowledge became an important common property during the Renaissance , numerous words were borrowed and recreated to meet the increased demands. Latin served as the most important source . Some words were taken over unchanged (climax) , with others the Latin ending was removed (consult-are) or changed ( -tas becomes -ty ). In many cases, the Latin term has been adopted into the English language indirectly through French. Often one cannot understand the path of borrowing. While fact comes from the Latin factum and not from the French fait , consist and explore can come from both languages.

The number of new words kept increasing. Shakespeare is considered the author with the greatest vocabulary. Since many of the new terms were deemed redundant, a dispute arose. The purists resisted the so-called inkhorn terms , which are incomprehensible to most people without knowledge of Latin.

unification

With the development of the standard language, the desire to standardize the language arose. Until now there was no generally accepted system. In addition, the foreign influences had led to a clear discrepancy between sound and symbol. The words were no longer spelled as they were pronounced. However, all efforts to achieve a thorough orthography reform failed.

The scientific rationalism that emerged in the 18th century required a regulated language. Alleged mistakes should be corrected. The cleared language should be kept in a permanent form that is immune to change. Back then, people ignored the fact that human language is a living phenomenon. Following the example of the Académie française and the Italian Accademia della Crusca , an institution for the care of the language was also to be created in England. However, the plans failed. Nevertheless, the grammarians of the 18th century regard themselves as the decisive authorities who could make judgments about the “correct” use of the language. Samuel Johnson published a dictionary in 1755, but from today's perspective it is inadequate.

grammar

The most important development took place in phonetics. With the so-called Early New English vowel shift , the pronunciation of the vowels changed . The long vowels have been raised and the tallest diphthongs . In addition, unstressed vowels to a schwa ( [⁠ ə ⁠] attenuated).

New English or Modern English

In modern times, the possibilities for travel and communication have been further improved. The historical development, v. a. the two world wars and their consequences created many new words. With scientific progress, there is always a need for new terms. Even laypeople come into contact with technical terms, e.g. B. in medicine or in computer technology . In science, new terms are often formed with Latin or Greek elements, e.g. B. tele . Old expressions are given a new meaning (e.g. stand by ). With intensive use, words lose their special meaning, e.g. For example, nice or great only express general positive assessments. There is also a narrowing of meaning. So doctor changed from a scientific title to a general term for the doctor after it had supplanted popular leech . A typical phenomenon of modern times is the derivation of new words from proper names, e.g. B. Sandwich, Colt, Boycott or Lynch .

The most important work in English language history was written at the end of the 19th century. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was supposed to replace the unusable dictionaries. In order to do justice to their claim to document every English word with its history, the authors collected enormous amounts of text. The work finally comprised around 240,000 entries.

Important grammatical developments are conversion , i. H. the transition from one part of speech to the other without any formal change, and the numerous word combinations in fixed combinations that have to be learned as idioms or particle verbs by non-native speakers.

English worldwide

Through the colonization and expansion of the Empire , the English language spread around the world. a. to India , Oceania , Africa and Southeast Asia. After the colonization of America , a separate variety of the English language emerged in the USA , some of which was deliberately differentiated from British English. Different varieties have also developed in the other regions. 28 percent of the 125 pidgin and creole languages are based on the English language. On the other hand, since the middle of the 20th century at the latest, English has become the most important donor language for European and many non-European languages.

Conversely, English also adopts terms from more than 50 languages, including other European languages ​​such as Italian (volcano, violin) , Spanish (alligator, sombrero) , Portuguese (fetish, tank) , German (kindergarten, blitz (war) , zeitgeist, uber, angst) , Swiss German (putsch, muesli ) , Russian (samovar, troika) , but also from Arabic (magazine, coffee) , Persian (naphtha, chess) , Hindi (guru, chutney) , Japanese (sake, soy ) , Chinese (sampan, ginseng ) , from Indian languages (coyote, wigwam) and Australian languages (kangaroo, boomerang) .

grammar

thou and ye

The grammar of the New English language hardly differs from that of the Early New English, except for the fact that the pronoun you (originally “you”) the pronoun thou (“you”), today only out of date and used in a few dialects as “tha” ), thee ("you") and ye ("her") supplanted. The reason for this phenomenon is that after the Norman conquest , ye was also used for individuals to show respect, following the example of the French vous . From the 15th century onwards one suddenly felt that thou was inappropriate intimate and only used it in very close friendships and when one was B. talked to children. A husband consequently addressed his wife and children with thou , while they answered with ye . So the use of thou became more and more narrow , until it was seen only as an insult in the 17th century and finally died out.

Changes in verb conjugation

There have been a few changes in the 2nd and 3rd person singular:

Middle English Early New English New English
(thou) thinkest (thou) thinkest /
(ye / you) think		 you think
He / she / it thinketh thinketh /
thinks		 thinks

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to the history of the English language . 2nd Edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , p. 28 .
  2. ↑ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to Early New English . 2nd Edition. Winter, Heidelberg 1994, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , pp. 8-9 .
  3. ↑ Terttu Nevalainen: An Introduction to Early Modern English . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2006, ISBN 978-0-7486-1524-7 , pp. 1 .
  4. ^ Klaus Faiß: English language history . Francke, Tübingen 1989, ISBN 3-7720-1757-6 , p. 1 .
  5. ^ Albert C. Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 106, 112, 128 .
  6. ^ Albert C. Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 122-138 .
  7. ^ Albert C. Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 150, 184-189 .
  8. ^ Albert C. Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 163-176 .
  9. ^ Albert C. Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 154-163 .
  10. ↑ Joachim Grzega: Latin - French - English: Three Epochs of European Language and Vocabulary History . In: Joachim Grzega: EuroLinguistic Parcours: Core knowledge of European language culture. IKO, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-88939-796-4 , pp. 73-114.
English language levels

Old English  • Middle English  • Early New English  • New English