INTRODUCTION
Every language has a history. The history of the English language is long and complicated. We shall make do with just a notion selecting only the important milestones. For a fuller discussion of the history of the English Language read A History of the English Language by Baugh and Cable 1978. The account of the history of English given in this chapter is adapted from this source.
The history of English begins around 600 A.D. Before then is pre-history. Our linguistic ancestors were savages wandering through the forests of Northern Europe. Their language was a part of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. The English ancestors spoke a dialect of Low German.
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3.1 The Angles, Saxons and Jutes
From the beginning of the Christian era, at the time of the Roman Empire about 400 A.D., the speakers of what was to become ‘English Language’ were scattered along the northern coast of Europe. Their language was a dialect of Low German. Specifically, they spoke many dialects since they were different tribes. Some of the tribes migrated to England and the names of these tribes were Angles, Saxons and Jutes who for convenience were referred to as Anglo-Saxons. The first contacts of the Anglo Saxons with civilization were some occasional contacts with merchants and traders from the Roman Empire on whose borders they lived. This period of brief contacts started the first of the many borrowings from Latin. Words like kettle, wine, cheese, butter, cheap, plum, gem, bishop, church were borrowed into English.
In the 4th century, the Roman power began to fall on evil days following attacks from the Goths in the Mediterranean countries. The Anglo- Saxons began to attack Britain which had been ruled by the Romans since 43 AD. The Roman influence did not however, extend to other parts of the British Isles. In Scotland, Wales and Ireland for instance, the Celts, the original inhabitants of the British Isles including England remained free and wild and made incessant attacks against the Romans in England. The Roman power, even in England, was not strong enough to make Latin the national language as was the case in Gaul and Spain. The people continued to speak Celtic with Latin only as an official language.
The 4th century saw more and more troubles for the Romans in Britain. The wild tribes of Scotland and Wales grew more restive; the Anglo- Saxons began to attack the eastern coast; there were growing tensions everywhere in the empire and the Roman soldiers in Britain were taken away to fight in other places. In 410 A.D. the last Roman ruler in England left and took the last of the legions with him. The Celts were now in possession of Britain but defenceless against the imminent Anglo- Saxon attack.
According to the eighth century historian, Bede, the Jutes came in 449 to England in response to an appeal by the Celtic King Vortigen who wanted help against the Picts. They (the Jutes) later fought with Vortigen and settled permanently in Kent. Later, the Angles established themselves in Eastern England and the Saxons in the West and South. Fighting went on for as long as one hundred years before the Celts in England were all killed, reduced to slavery or driven into Wales. By 550 A.D. the Anglo Saxons were firmly established and English was now the language of England.
3.2 Old English
The history of English actually starts about 600 AD when the Anglo- Saxons were converted to Christianity and learnt the Latin alphabet. The conversion was a great advance for the Anglo-Saxons not only spiritually but also because it established again for them contact with the Roman civilization.
The history of the English Language is often divided into Old English (from the earliest records about the 7th century to about 1100; Middle English from1100 to 1450 or 1500. Modern English is divided into Early Modern, 1500 – 1700 and late Modern, 1700 to the present.
England was divided into several kingdoms which were more or less autonomous. One of the kingdoms, Northumber, the area between the Humber River and the Scottish border became more advanced, and developed a respectable civilisation. But in the eighth century the Northumbrian power declined and the centre of influence shifted first south to Mercia, the kingdom of the Midlands and a century later to Wessex, the country of the West Saxons. The most famous king of the West Saxons, Alfred the Great who was not only a military man but also a champion of learning founded and supported schools and caused many books to be translated from Latin to English in the West Saxon dialect.
In the ninth and tenth centuries, the Norsemen came from Denmark and the Scandinavian Peninsula to attack England. Alfred the Great rebuffed their sporadic attacks on England for some years until the year 866 when the Norsemen landed on the east coast of England. In 877 the struggle ended with a treaty by which a line was drawn from the North-West of England to the South-East. The Norse were to rule the Eastern side and the Western side was to be governed by England.
The effect of this on the English language was a considerable influx of
Norse into the English Language. Norse at that time was not so different from English as to make the two languages mutually unintelligible.
There was however a considerable degree of word borrowing. Examples of Norse words in the English language are: sky, give, law, egg, outlaw, leg, ugly, scant, sly, crawl, scowl, take, thrust. It is supposed also that the Norsemen influenced the sound structure and the grammar of
English but this is difficult to demonstrate in detail (Udofot, 1999: 107- 108).
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE (SAE) 1
1. Who were the Anglo-Saxons?
2. Where did they come from?
3. How did they come to settle in England?
A Specimen of Old English
A favourite illustration of a sample of old English is often the Lord’s Prayer probably because it needs no translation. One of the versions is given here.
Faeder ure bu de eart on heofonum si pin nama gehalgod. Tobecume pin rice. Gewurde pin villa on cordan swa swa on heofonum, Urne ge daeghwamlican hlaf syle us to daeg. An forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfap urum gyltendum. And ne glel pu us on costnunge ac alys us of ytele. Sodlice.
Besides the differences in grammar and orthography between the specimen of Old English shown above and Modern English, there are observable differences in vocabulary. For one, Old English was more highly inflected than Modern English. Most of the Old English words are native English words in the sense that they have not been borrowed from other languages but have been a part of English ever since English was a part of the Indo-European languages. Old English however had some borrowed words. We have seen above some of the ones that came from Norse. A large number too was borrowed while the Anglo-Saxons were still on the continent. These include cheese, butter, bishop, and kettle. A large number came into English after the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity. These include: angel, candle, priest, martyr, purple, school, spend, oyster etc. But the majority of old English words were native English.
3.3 Middle English
Between 1000 and 1200 AD, important changes took place in the structure of English so that Old English became Middle English. The single event which led to this was the Norman Conquest. The Normans came from Scandinavia in the early years of the tenth Century, established themselves in the north of France and established a powerful kingdom. In 1060 AD, under the leadership of Duke William, they crossed the English Channel and installed themselves the rulers of England. For many hundred years after this event, England was ruled by kings whose mother tongue was French. French did not however become the national language in England because unlike the earlier Anglo- Saxon invasion, the Norman Conquest was not a national migration. Although a large number of Normans came to England, they came as rulers. Consequently, French became the language of polite society, the nobility, the language of literature and education but it did not replace English as the language of the people. English was therefore spoken as a vernacular.
However, English, though it survived as a vernacular and the national language, was deeply affected and therefore changed after the Norman conquest. Because it was a language of the common people it became simplified; the case system of nouns and adjectives became simplified. People came to rely more on word order and prepositions than on inflectional endings. The change was also aided by changes in sound. Today English is less inflected than German, another member of the Germanic group of Indo-European languages, perhaps because Germany did not experience a Norman Conquest.
The effects of the Norman Conquest are more pronounced in vocabulary. Although after about a hundred years, French ceased to be the language of many people in England, it continued to be a second language. Till today, it is a second language in England and regarded as the epitome of elegance and sophistication. It was a sign of good breeding in England to spice one’s conversation with French words and French ideas. In fact, it was considered that one was au courant. The last expression shows that this practice is still with us as one often hears expressions like a la mode, bourgeois and proletariat.
Thus, all sorts of French words came into English. There were words that have to do with government: parliament, majesty, treaty, tax, alliance; words about the church: parson, sermon, baptism, incense, crucifix, religion, words for food: beef, mutton, bacon, jelly, peach, lemon, cream, biscuit. There were also colour words: blue, scarlet, vermilion; household words: chair, curtain, lamp, towel, blanket, parlour, play words: dance, chess, music, leisure, conversation; literary words: story, romance, poet, literary; learned words: study, logic, grammar, noun, surgeon, anatomy, stomach. There were also ordinary words of all kinds like nice, second, very, age, bucket, gentle, final, fault, flower, cry, count, sure, move surprise, plain.
All these and many more words poured into the English Language between 1100 and 1500. This did not however turn English into French. English remained English in sound structure and grammar although the grammar also felt some influence of the contact. Also, the very heart of the vocabulary remained English as most of the high frequency words: pronouns, preposition, conjunctions and the auxiliaries as well as many ordinary nouns, verbs and adjectives were not replaced by the borrowings. Thus, Middle English was still a Germanic language but it differed from old English in some ways: the sound system and the grammar changed; speakers relied less on inflectional devices and more on word order and structure to express their meaning.
A Specimen of Middle English
It appears that Middle English is simpler to us than Old English because it is closer to Modern English. It is however doubtful if is not a case of exchanging one set of complexities for others. The following passage is taken from Chaucer’s General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales written in the fourteenth century:
There was also a nonne, a Prioresse,
That of hir smyling was ful symple and coy,
Hir gretteste oath was but by Seinte Loy,
And she was cleped Madam Eglentyne,
Fullwell she song the service dyvyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely,
And Frenshe she spak ful faire and fetishly
After the scole of Straford-atte-Bowe,
For Frenshe of Parys was to hir unknowne.
3.4 Early Modern English
The English of Shakespeare’s time is different from the time of Chaucer shown above because of a couple of changes that English underwent between 1400 and 1600 AD. One change was the elimination of a vowel sound in some unstressed positions at the end of words so that words like wine, stone, name and dance which were pronounced as two syllables in Chaucer’s time were pronounced as one in Shakespeare’s time. This change is one of the causes of the discrepancy between the spelling and the pronunciation of Modern English words because it affected a lot of words other than those, which end with vowel sounds.
The following words: laughed, seemed and stored which were pronounced as two syllables in Middle English also became monosyllabic.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE (SAE) 2
1. Examine the Old English version of the Lord’s Prayer. What differences do you notice between the Old English Version and the modern version?
The Great Vowel Shift was the other big event, which made Middle English different from Modern English. This involved the shifting of half a dozen vowels and diphthongs in stressed syllables as can be seen from the examples below:
Middle English
name / a: /
wine / i: /
he / e /
mouse / u: / moon / /
Modern English
name
wine
he
mouse
moon
/ e / / a :/ / i: / / au:/ / u: /
This change affected all the words which contained these sounds but the Middle English spelling was retained thus creating another source of discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation of Modern English words.
These two changes which constitute the main differences between Middle and Modern English can also be said to account for the differences between English and other Germanic languages like French, Italian and Spanish where no vowel shift occurred. The last development which can be said to be responsible for standardizing the spelling of English, and unifying the various dialects of English is the introduction of the printing press into England in 1475 by William Caxton. Books and reading materials were produced and the printed word became the standard.
3.5 Modern English
In England the dialect of the East Midland became accepted as the literary standard. This does not mean that there were no other dialects. In the plays and novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there are often country gentlemen that speak their local dialects. But the English of the upper class and the upper middle class tended to adopt a uniform standard which was nurtured in the public schools. The public school English has been identified as a variant of the South Eastern English and it became the language of the upper class whatever part of the country they came from. Education therefore had a standardizing effect and became the agency for the transmission of a non-localized form of English as the prestigious form.
By 1770 movement between groups became accelerated with the invention of the steamship, the railway, the motorcar and the aero- plane. Man became more mobile and this extended his linguistic exposure. Other developments like the telephone, the radio, the sound film and the television all helped to standardize and spread Modern English.
The effect of all the above listed developments on the vocabulary was unprecedented. New objects, new ways of seeing the world, new things to do and new thoughts brought new words into the language so that nowadays there are words like psychedelic, spacelas, floppy discs, computerese, esperanto etc. Many native forms combined prefixes and suffixes which have come into the language to form new forms. Technical terms from scientific developments have also entered the language. Loan words have also entered the language and with the spread of English to other parts of the world Modern English is full of borrowings from other languages. As was the case with Norse, French and Latin borrowings the process of borrowing and the words borrowed throw some light on the nature of the relationship between England and these countries. Also, in the last two hundred years, loan words do not seem to have the cultural meaning they had. For example the following words borrowed from French do not have exactly the same cultural meaning and usage they had: guillotine, regime, and epaulette.
It is interesting to note that English has resisted Celtic loan words despite the fact that they live close to the Celtic communities and have intermarried throughout the period when English has been spoken in Britain. Yet the spread of English to other parts of the world has produced other varieties of English some of which are spoken as mother tongues.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE (SAE) 3
1. Can you guess the meanings of the words in bold print?
2. From the recognition of the words in bold print, what differences do you notice between these words and their Modern English equivalents?
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE (SAE) 4
1. What two events have been responsible for the differences between Middle English and Modern English?
5.0 SUMMARY
You have learnt from this unit that:
The linguistic ancestors of English were the Angles, Saxons and Jutes and they were savages who migrated from northern Europe and settled in England about 400 A.D.
The history of English actually started about 600 AD when the Anglo Saxons, having killed and driven out the original inhabitants of England, the Celts, and settled in England became converted to Christianity.
Old English as seen in the Lord’s Prayer differs from Modern
English both in grammar, orthography and vocabulary.
Between 1000 and 1200 A.D., the Norman Conquest brought the French language to England.
English was used as the vernacular while French was the official language; consequently English became simplified - the sound system and the grammar changed; speakers relied less on inflectional devices and more on word order and structure to express their meaning.
The elimination of the vowel sounds in unstressed positions so that words like wine and name which were pronounced as two syllables [w -ne] and [na-me] were pronounced as one syllable, helped to make Early Modern English different from Middle English.
Between 1400 AD and 1600 AD the Great Vowel Shift occurred, which also helped to change Middle English.
This involved the change of the quality of vowels in many two syllable words so that words like wine and name which were
pronounced as two syllables [w -ne] and [na-me], were now pronounced as one syllable ( e.g. wine [wa n] and name [ne m]) but the spellings were retained.
The invention of printing by William Caxton in 1475 standardised English spelling and with the production of books
and reading materials the printed word became the standard.
In England, the dialect of the East Midlands became the literary standard used by the upper and middle class and taught in schools although other dialects existed.
6.0 TUTOR MARKED ASSIGNMENT (TMA)
1. What contributions did the Norman Conquest and the Great
Vowel Shift make to the development of the English Language?
7.0 REFERENCE/FURTHER READINGS
Baugh, A. and Cable, T. 1978. A History of the English Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Udofot, I. M. 1999. An Introduction to the Morphology of English. Uyo: Scholars Press.
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