FROM AN OBSCURE GERMANIC DIALECT TO A GLOBAL LANGUAGE
Part II — Periods in the Development of English
Terminology: Englisc, which the term English is derived from, means ‘pertaining to the Angles’. In Old English, this word was derived from Angles (one of the Germanic tribes who conquered parts of Great Britain in the 5th century). During the 9th century, all invading Germanic tribes were referred to as Englisc.
Old English
Timeframe 5th C. — 11th C.
Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic (also known as North Sea Germanic) dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England. This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.
Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion.
Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are basic elements of Modern English vocabulary.
Phonology wise, old English was characterized by short, one-syllable words, sometimes compounded, the use of vowel teams, silent letters, digraphs, diphthongs in spelling, the loss of certain weak vowels in word-final and medial positions, as well as the reduction of remaining unstressed vowels
Loss of /h/ between vowels or between a voiced consonant and a vowel, with lengthening of the preceding vowel.
Middle English
Timeframe 1066–15th C.
Middle English is the form of English spoken roughly from the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the end of the 15th century. The Normans spoke a rural dialect of French with considerable Germanic influences, usually called Anglo-Norman or Norman French, which was quite different from the standard French of Paris of the period, which is known as Francien. Anglo-Norman French became the language of the kings and nobility of England for more than 300 years . While Anglo-Norman was the verbal language of the court, administration and culture, though, Latin was mostly used for written language, especially by the Church and in official records. The Normans bequeathed over 10,000 words to English (about three-quarters of which are still in use today), including a huge number of abstract nouns ending in the suffixes “-age”, “-ance/-ence”, “-ant/-ent”, “-ment”, “-ity” and “-tion”, or starting with the prefixes “con-”, “de-”, “ex-”, “trans-” and “pre-”. Perhaps predictably, many of them related to matters of crown and nobility (e.g. crown, castle, prince, count, duke, viscount, baron, noble, sovereign, heraldry), of government and administration (e.g. parliament, government, governor, city), of court and law (e.g. court, judge, justice, accuse, arrest, sentence, appeal, condemn, plaintiff, bailiff, jury, felony, verdict, traitor, contract, damage, prison), of war and combat (e.g. army, armour, archer, battle, soldier, guard, courage, peace, enemy, destroy), of fashion and high living (e.g. mansion, money, gown, boot, beauty, mirror, jewel, appetite, banquet, herb, spice, sauce, roast, biscuit), and of art and literature (e.g. art, colour, language, literature, poet, chapter, question). Curiously, though, the Anglo-Saxon words cyning (king), cwene (queen), erl (earl), cniht (knight), ladi (lady) and lord persisted.
During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun, adjective and verb inflections were simplified by the reduction (and eventual elimination) of most grammatical case distinctions.
Early Modern English — The Great Vowel Shift
Timeframe 1500–1800
The Great Vowel Shift was a major series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1350 and the 1600s and 1700s, beginning in southern England. Through this vowel shift, all Middle English long vowels changed their pronunciation. In addition, some consonant sounds changed as well, particularly those that became silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is sometimes used to include these consonant changes as well. English spelling was first becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for the fact that English spellings now often strongly deviate in their representation of English pronunciations. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term. The main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English in the year 1400 and Modern English (Received Pronunciation) is in the value of the long vowels. Long vowels in Middle English had “continental” values, much like those in Italian and Standard German, but in standard Modern English, they have entirely different pronunciations.
