This document summarises chapters 1 - 18 of Keith Johnson's 'A History of Early English: An Activity-Based Introduction to Early, Middle and Early Modern English Language' which is seen in the Linguistics 1 Course for first-year students.
Engelse Taal en Cultuur, English Language and Culture
Introduction to Linguistics
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ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 1: STORIES OF ENGLISH
CHAPTER 1: HISTORY, AND HISTORICAL CHANGE
1.1 HISTORY: IS IT BUNK? (QUATSCH)
In 1916, Henry Ford said “History is bunk” and “We want to live in the present”
o plenty people disagree on this though
There are 2 arguments in defence of history:
1. Edward Carr “The past is the key to understanding the present”;
Norman Invasion, French Renaissance, British colonial expansion all helped to enlarge the
English vocabulary many historical events are part of the evolution of English
2. Learning about the history of English will tell you something about yourself, or about the
culture that you are studying
1.2 HOW ENGLISH HAS CHANGED
languages change over time and no one can stop this from happening
o Although there are many countries/people who are still trying to stop their
languages from changing; EXAMPLE: France has an institution called “académie
francaise” which prevents foreign words from entering their language
change happens as much now as it happened back in the days
o many people complain about it
o EXAMPLE: “old rule” of less and fewer: fewer is used with plural nouns, while less
is used with singular ones. This has now changed with the evolution of language
trying to prevent a language from changing is like trying to stop tide from coming in
1.3 IN A NUTSHELL
the book goes from Old English to Middle English and then Early Modern English
Short summary of important events:
OLD ENGLISH:
1) Around AD 449, Germanic tribes from the European mainland came over to Britain and
brought their language with them. These became the basis of English (Anglo-Saxon).
English became and still is a Germanic tongue
2) In 597, St Augustine introduced Christianity to England, and thus bringing Latin with him
3) Around 787, the Vikings from Scandinavia came to Britain. Their influence is still evidenced
in English today with place names and around 900 Scandinavian words still used in Modern
English. King Alfred came to power in 871 and with him the West-Saxon dialect.
4) In 1066, William the Conqueror and the Norman French invaded England and French
became the dominant language in Britain
ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 1
,MIDDLE ENGLISH:
Over the centuries, French faded away and English became the main language again
1066 – 1509, when Henry VIII became king, is known as Middle English
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH:
Tudor monarchs and Elizabeth I were important expansions and development for Britain
Latin influence was brought back because this age looked back at the Renaissance, the
rebirth of classical values and learning
Greek influence was taken as well
people argue about the beginning of EModE, it is rumoured to be around 1660, the date
of the restoration
LATE MODERN ENGLISH:
The 18th century wanted standardise the language and spread English all around the world
with the colonialism
PRESENT DAY ENGLISH:
Germanic language
extremely cosmopolitan vocabulary
FALSE FRIENDS
A word or expression that has a similar form to one in a person's native language, but a
different meaning (for example English magazine and French magasin ‘shop’).
ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 1
,CHAPTER 2: LANGUAGES AND THEIR DAUGHTERS
2.1 TREES
Barber et al.
If two villages speak the same languages, with time, differences will appear and some point
they will have two different dialects. If then one village and its inhabitants decide to move
away en masse, distance and lack of contact will make the dialects change even more and
then even become two different languages. But because the two languages have common
origins, they remain related. The languages may one day become so different that the two
villages will not understand each other anymore, but they will stay related.
Languages are like people, they have relations, families and therefore family trees. To
explain even further: families have siblings, parents, ancestors meaning that they share
characteristics with their family members but they also have personal traits with make
them distinct. So do languages, they also have family relations. These similarities and
differences are revealed by the words.
Family membership will only be revealed by looking at a large quantity of words and then
you should still keep in mind that English has borrowed many words from language
families with different family background.
2.2 THE INDO-EUROPEAN TREE
William Jones, a British judge with strong interest in linguistics, is an early contributor to
English linguistics. In 1786 he was working in India and learned the old Indian language
Sanskrit. He found out that Sanskrit has many similarities to Greek and Latin even though
nobody ever expected these languages to be related to one another.
William Jones is considered the initiator of the field of comparative linguistics.
Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with
comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.
The common source is what we call “Proto-Indo-European”
Another important person is August Schleicher, who tried to identify the group of
languages spoken in Europe and Asia (Indo-European languages)
2.3 THE GERMANIC LANGUAGES
In the book, there are six major language families (Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Hellenic, Balto-
Slavic, Indo-Iranian)
Tacticus, a roman historian, wrote a book called Germania around AD 98, in which he talk
about the Germanic people. He describes them as follows:
o blue eyes and reddish hair, could tolerate the cold but not the heat
o they we egalitarian, monogamous and treated their women well
o at the beginning, they lived in northern Europe
ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 1
, Their original language was Proto-Germanic
2.4 A GERMANIC LAW
The law describing the characteristics of the Germanic languages was formulated by the
German scholar Jacob Grimm (also known for his and his brother’s fairy tales).
Grimm’s law focused on the consonants, thus being called “the First Germanic Consonant
Shift”
Grimm noted that some consonants found in the Indo-European language changed in the
Germanic languages and that these changes followed regular patterns
Then again, some words did not undergo the consonant shift because they were added
after the consonant shift. EXAMPLE: pedestrian comes from Latin and it was added to the
OED after Grimm’s law
2.5 AND SO TO ENGLISH
West-Germanic branch in the language tree is where English can be found alongside
Frisian
ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 1
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