History of Germanic Languages PDF

# History of the English Language ## Aims of Studying the History To achieve the aims of studying the history of the English Language, a student must know the theoretical basis of the subject and work with the text to apply the theoretical knowledge to the practical analysis of English texts at di...

# History of the English Language ## Aims of Studying the History To achieve the aims of studying the history of the English Language, a student must know the theoretical basis of the subject and work with the text to apply the theoretical knowledge to the practical analysis of English texts at different periods. The main purpose of studying the history of the English language is to account for its current stage to enable a student to read books and speak the language with understanding and due knowledge of the intricate and complicated “mechanism” used. ## The Unbroken Chain The history of any language is an unbroken chain of changes, which occur more or less rapidly. However, though the linguistic tradition is unbroken, it is impossible to study the language of over 15 centuries without dividing it into smaller periods. The history of the English language is commonly divided conventionally into: - **Old English** (5th – 11th century) - **Middle English** (11th – 15th century) - **New English** (15th century – till now) ## Inner and Outer History We are going to speak about the inner and outer history of the English language. - **The outer history** is the events in the life (history) of the people speaking this language affecting the language, i.e. the history of the people reflected in their language. - **The inner history** is the description of the changes in the language itself, its grammar, phonetics, vocabulary or spelling. ## The Germanic Sub-family The English language belongs to the Germanic subdivision of the Indo-European family of languages. ## The Old Germanic Tribes - Evidence concerning Old Germanic tribes and dialects dates back approximately twenty centuries. - Germanic tribes occupied vast territories in western, central, and northern Europe beginning in AD. - The tribes and the dialects they spoke at that time were generally much alike. - The degree of similarity varied. ## Groups of Germanic Dialects It is common to speak about three groups of dialects: 1. **East Germanic:** Mainly spoken in central Europe: Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian. 2. **North Germanic:** Old Norwegian, Old Danish, Old Swedish, Old Icelandic. 3. **West Germanic:** Dialects of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians and others. Originally spoken in Western Europe. ## East Germanic - The principal East Germanic language is Gothic. - At the beginning of our era, the Goths lived on a territory from the Vistula to the shores of the Black sea. - Our knowledge of Gothic is almost wholly due to a translation of the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament made by Ulfilas, a missionary who Christianized the Gothic tribes. - These translations are the earliest record of the Germanic language, except for some runic inscriptions in Scandinavia. ## The Goths - The Goths played a prominent part in European history, making extensive conquests in Italy and Spain. - Their language soon gave place to Latin. - The language survived longest in the Crimea where vestiges of it were noted down in the sixteenth century. ## North Germanic - North Germanic languages include Scandinavia and Denmark. - Runic inscriptions from the third century are the earliest traces of this language in its early form. - This language is commonly considered Old Norse. - From about the eleventh century on, dialectal differences became noticeable. - The Scandinavian languages fall into two groups: - **An Eastern group:** Swedish and Danish. - **A Western group:** Norwegian and Icelandic. ## Icelandic - Old Icelandic is of particular importance among the early Scandinavian languages. - Iceland was colonized by settlers from Norway around the year 874 AD. - The country preserved a body of early heroic literature that is unsurpassed among other Germanic peoples. ## Important Monuments The following are considered important monuments of the North Germanic language: - **The Elder or Poetic Edda**: A collection of poems that likely date from the tenth or eleventh century. - **The Younger or Prose Edda**: Compiled by Snorri Sturluson (1178 – 1241). - **Forty Sagas:** Prose epics in which the lives and exploits of various traditional figures are related. ## West Germanic - West Germanic is of chief interest in the history of English. - The group is subdivided into two branches, High and Low German. - The Second (or High German) Sound Shift distinguishes the two. - The Shift is analogous to Grimm’s Law. - The change occurred around 600 AD in the mountainous part of the Germanic area, but did not occur in the lowlands. ## Languages of West Germanic - The Low German tongues included Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, Old Frisian, and Old English. - Old English and Old Frisian formed a special or Anglo-Frisian subgroup. ## Modern Languages - **Old Saxon:** Essential constituent of modern Low German or Plattdeutsch. - **Old Low Franconian**: With a mixture of Frisian and Saxon elements, it is the basis of modern Dutch and Flemish. - **Frisian:** Survived in the Dutch province of Friesland, Schleswig and the islands along the coast. ## High Germanic - High German comprises a number of dialects. - Divided chronologically: - **Old High German** (before 1100), - **Middle High German** (1100 – 1500), - **Modern High German** (since 1500). - Especially spoken in the midlands and used in the Imperial chancery, High German was popularized by Luther's translation of the Bible (1522 – 1532). -Since the sixteenth century, High German has been established itself as the literary language of Germany. ## Characteristics of the Germanic Languages - The Germanic languages are spoken by the Germanic tribes who lived on the fringes of the Roman Empire. - The tribes spoke languages that possessed distinctive characteristics of structure and pronunciation which are reflected in their descendents. ## Phonetics One of the most important common features of all Germanic languages is its strong dynamic stress falling on the first root syllable. - The stress emphasized the syllable bearing the most important semantic element. - It later contributed to the reduction of unstressed syllables and changed the grammatical system of the languages. ## Ablaut - The most important feature of the system of Germanic vowels is the so-called Ablaut, or gradation. - This is spontaneous, independent alteration of vowels inhabiting the Germanic languages from the Common Indo-European period. - This ancient phenomenon consisted of a change in vowels in the root, suffix, or ending, depending on the grammatical form or meaning of the word. ## Types of Ablaut - **Quantitative Ablaut:** Change in length, normal lengthened and reduced. - **Qualitative Ablaut:** Alteration of different vowels, mainly the vowels [e]/ [a] or [e]/ [o]. - **Indo-European Ablaut**: A classic example is the declension of the Greek word “pater” (father): - **[e:]** patēr (nominative case, lengthened stage) - **[e]** patēr (vocative case, normal stage) - **[-]** patros (genitive case, reduced stage) - **Germanic Ablaut**: A further development of Indo-European alterations. **Both quantitative and qualitative ablaut** are common. - In the **zero stage before sonorants**, the extra-short vowel [u] was added. ## Examples of Ablaut - **Quantitative ablaut:** Goth *qiman* (to come) – *qums* (the arrival) - **Qualitative ablaut:** OHG *stelan* (to steal) – *stal* (stole) - **Quantitative + qualitative ablaut:** OE *fīndan* (to find) – *fand* (found, past tense) – *fundan* (past participle) ## Umlaut - **Umlaut** was another phenomenon common to all Germanic languages. - This involves the phonetic assimilation of the root vowel to the vowel of the ending. - **Palatal mutation, or i-Umlaut** is the most important type of mutation. - This occurs under the influence of the sounds [i] or [j] in the suffix or ending. - **In Palatal mutation**, the root vowels became more front and more closed. - This process took place in the 5th – 6th centuries and is illustrated by comparing words from the language of the Gothic Bible (4th century) showing no palatal mutation with corresponding words in other Germanic languages. ## Examples of Umlaut - Goth *harjis* - OE *here* (army) - Goth *dōmjan* - OE *dēman* (deem) - Goth *kuni* - OE *cynn* (kin) The same tendency applies to word-building and form-building as a kind of internal flexion. - For example, OHG *gast* (guest) – *gesti* (guests) ## Germanic Consonants - Speaking about Germanic consonants, we should first of all speak of the correspondence between Indo-European and Germanic languages. - This correspondence was presented as a system of interconnected facts by the German linguists Jacob Grimm in 1822. - This phenomenon is called the first Consonant Shift, or **Grimm's law**. ## Grimm's Law: Indo-European to Germanic | Indo-European | Germanic | Example | |---|---|---| | Act voiceless stops (p t k) | voiceless fricatives (f þ h) | Lat. *pater* - O.E. *fæder* (father); Lat. *tres* - Goth. *preis* (three) | | Act voiced stops (b d g) | voiceless stops (p t k) | Rus. *болото* - O.E. *pōl* (pool); Lat. *duo* - Goth. *twai* (two); Greek. *egōn* - O.Icl. *ek* (1) | | Act voiced aspirated stops (bh dh gh) | voiced non-aspirated stops (b d g) | Snsk. *bhratar* - O.E. *brōþor* (brother) ; Lat. *frater* - O.E. *medu* (mead) ; Snsk. *madhu* - O.Icl. *syngva* (sing) ; Snsk. *songha* | ## Verner's Law - Verner's law explains the changes in the Germanic voiceless fricatives (f þ h) resulting from the first consonant shift and the voiceless fricatives that depend on the position of the stress in the original Indo-European word. - This law is illustrated in the following table: | Indo-European | Germanic | |---|---| | ptks | b ð/d g z/r | - **Example:** - Gk. *hepta* - Goth. *sibun* (seven) - Gk. *pater* - OSc. *Faðir* O.E. *fæder* - Gk. *dekas* - Goth. *Tigus* (ten, a dozen) - Snsk. *ayas* - Goth. *aiz*, OHG *ēr* (bronze) -According to Verner's Law, the above change occurred if the consonant in question was found after an unstressed vowel. - It is especially evident in the forms of Germanic strong verbs, except the Gothic ones, which allows to conclude that at some time the stress in the first two verbal stems fell on the root, and in the last two – on the suffix. ## Examples of Verner's Law: Strong Verbs - **to tug:** - O.E. *tēon* *tēah* *tuzon* *tozen* - OSx. *tiohan* *tōh* *tugun* *gitogan* - Goth. *tiuhan* *tauh* *tauhum* *tauhans* - **to choose:** - O.E. *cēosan* *ceas* *curon* *coren* - Olcl. *kiósa* *kaus* *kørom* *kørenn* - Coth. *kiusan* *kaus* *kusum* *kusan* ## Germanic Morphology and Grammar - One of the main processes in the development of the Germanic morphological system was the change in the word structure. ## The Common Indo-European Word - The common Indo-European notional word consisted of the following three elements: - **The root:** Expressing the lexical meaning. - **The inflexion or ending:** Showing the grammatical form. - **The stem-forming suffix:** A formal indicator of the stem type. - In the Germanic Languages, the stem-forming suffix often fuses with the ending and is no longer visible, resulting in a two-element word structure. - Nevertheless, stem-forming suffixes must be taken into account when explaining differences in the categorical forms of words originally having different stem-forming suffixes. ## Synthetic Type of Language - Germanic languages belong to the synthetic type, which means that grammatical meanings are expressed by changing the forms of the word itself, not by relying on auxiliary words. - This is opposed to analytic languages, which rely on word *order* rather than inflections to express meaning. ## Germanic Nouns - The Germanic nouns had a well-developed case system with four cases (nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative). - Some languages had elements of the instrumental and vocative cases and two number forms (singular and plural). - The Germanic nouns also included the category of gender (feminine, masculine and neuter). - The means of form-building were the endings added to the root/stem of the noun. ## Germanic Adjectives - Germanic adjectives had two types of declension, conventionally called strong and weak. - Most adjectives could be declined both in accordance with the strong and weak type. - Agreements with the noun in gender, case and noun determined the type of declension, which expressed the idea of definiteness (weak) or indefiniteness (strong declension). ## Definiteness and Indefiniteness - The meaning of definiteness/indefiniteness in adjectives was later to become expressed by a grammatical class of words unknown in the Common Germanic - the article. ## Degrees of Comparison in Adjectives - The Germanic adjective also had degrees of comparison. - These were mostly formed with help of the suffixes -iz/ōz and -ist/-ōst. - There were also instances of *suppletivism* meaning the use of different roots for different forms. - This was a common features of Indo-European languages. ## Example of Suppletivism - Goth *leitils* - *minniza* – *minnists* (little - less – least) - Rus. *Хороший* – *лучше* – *лучший* (good - better - best) ## Germanic Verbs - The Germanic verbs are divided into two principal groups: - **Strong verbs:** Past tense forms are based on Ablaut. - **Weak verbs:** Past tense forms are based on the dental suffix -d/t. ## Strong Verbs - The past tense of strong verbs was formed with the help of Ablaut, quantitative and qualitative. - Depending upon the phonetic root structure, the manifestation of Ablaut could be somewhat different. - Strong verbs are further subdivided into classes. ## Weak Verbs - Weak verbs expressed the past tense with the help of a dental suffix -d/t and stem-forming suffixes. - They fell into separate classes. ## Suppletive Verbs - There were also a small group of suppletive verbs that formed past tense forms from different roots entirely. - This is similar to other Indo-European languages. ## Examples of Suppletive Verbs - Goth *am* (I/am) - Rus. *есть* (to be) - Goth *was* (I / was) - Rus. *был* (was) ## Germanic Verb Categories - The Germanic verb had a well-developed system of categories that included: - **Person:** First, second third. - **Number:** Singular and plural. - **Tense:** Past, present, and future. - **Mood:** Indicative, imperative, and optative. - **Voice:** Active and mediopassive (only in Gothic). - The categorical forms relied on synthetic means of form-building. ## Germanic Alphabet - Although the people of the Germanic tribes were mostly illiterate, some nations created a distinctive alphabet called runic. - Each letter in this alphabet is called a rune. - Runes are used to record early stages of Gothic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, English, Frisian, Frankish and various tribal tongues of central Germania. - Runes may also have supplied other Germanic languages. ## Archeological Evidence of Runes - The earliest runes date back to the 2nd Century AD. - The script continued in use in some regions well into the Middle Ages. - Early runes were not written, but incised. - This is due to runes being designed for inscribing on wood. ## Characteristics of Runes - The characteristics of runes are based on the material they were inscribed on. - Wood is a grainy material and curves were avoided because they were difficult to cut. - Letters were made up of vertical strokes, cut at right angles to the grain, and of slanting strokes that mingled with the grain. ## Variation - Early examples of the script show variations in letter forms. - This means that a standard pattern for the Germanic runic alphabet cannot be provided. ## The Futhark - The earliest known runic alphabet included 24 letters that were arranged in a peculiar order. - This was known as the *futhark* based on the values of its first letters. - Texts could be written from right to left as well as left to right. - Alternate lines in opposite directions were also common. - A letter could be reversed at whim, and occasionally inverted. - There was no distinction between capital and lowercase letters. ## Roman Equivalent - Roman equivalents of the Germanic runes only offer an approximate representation of the sounds. - Early Germanic sounds did not coincide with those of Modern English. ## Origins of Runes - There is no definitive answer to the question of where and when runes were invented. - The similarity between runes and the Roman alphabet led scholars to believe they were a Roman adaptation. ## Other Theories of Origin - Some scholars point to the discovery of rune-inscribedobjects in Eastern Europe as evidence of Gotthic origin. - Others argue that runes were invented by Goths on the Danube or beside the Vistula. - The similarity of some runes to Greek letters is additional evidence supporting the theory of Greek origin. - The continued discovery of early runic texts in various parts of Europe does not conclusively confirm the origin of runes. ## Spread of Runes - Runes spread over the Germanic world and by 500 AD they are found not only in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, but also in Poland, Russia, and Hungary. - Different Germanic languages were recorded on various materials, including metal, bone, wood, and stone. ## Decline of Runes - Runes were in use for many centuries and in many lands. - However, the script gradually died out as it was superseded by Roman. - This occurred in England around the 11th Century and Germany shortly thereafter. - Runes persisted in Scandinavia and its colonies well into the Middle Ages. ## Later Runes - Later runic inscriptions are of little interest to the linguist because of the ample evidence available to understand the state of the language during that period. - Early inscriptions are of great importance because they contain material that has no other evidence. ## Summary The principal features common to all the languages of the Germanic area: 1. Fixation of the main stress on the initial syllable of the word. 2. The first, or Germanic sound shift affecting the Indo-European voiceless and voiced stops and the spirant [s]. 3. Certain vowel changes. 4. Reduction in the number of cases as compared to Common Indo-European. 5. Full development of the weak declension of the adjective with particular categorical meaning. 6. Development of a dental preterite and appearance of the strong/weak verb distinction. 7. A peculiar alphabet.