Key Dates Flashcards
Old English ca. 450AD to 1066
> Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrive from north Germany
Language (Old English) is at first spoken
Only writing is runes
Written form comes from Latin-speaking monks, who use Roman alphabet, with new letters (æ, ð and þ - spoken as “ash”, “eth” and “thorn”)
About half of common vocabulary of modern English comes from Old English · Word forms vary according to syntax (inflection, case endings and declension) and grammatical gender
Vikings establish Danelaw
Some erosion of grammar and addition of new vocabulary.
Middle English Period
> Lexis - terms for law and politics from Norman French
General expansion of lexis, esp. abstract terms
Case-endings, declension and gender disappear
Inflection goes except in pronouns and related forms
Writers concerned about change want to stabilize language
1458 - Gutenberg invents printing (1476 - Caxton introduces it to England) · the press enables some standardizing and mass printing of text/books
Early Modern English contin 1485 to 1603
> Rise of nationalism linked to desire for more expressive language
Flowering of literature and experiments in style
idea of elevated diction
Vocabulary enlarged by new learning Renaissance· imports from Greek and Latin
Lexis expanded by travel to New World, and ideas in maths and science
English settlers begin to found colonies in North America.
In 1582 Richard Mulcaster publishes a list of 7,000 words with spelling forms, but this does not become a universal standard
Great Vowel Shift
Early modern english
> began in 15th century - took 150-200 years to occur
Speakers of English gradually changed how they articulate long vowels and articulation point moved upwards in the mouth.
E.g. Anglo Saxon words to Modern English: gode > good, Boats > boots, Fate > feet
This caused vowel sounds to be ‘higher’ sounding. Long vowels became dipthongs e.g. hoose > house
Pull theory – upper vowels moved first and pulled the other ones along
And Push theory – lower vowels moved upwards, pushing the others ahead.
William Caxton - printing press
> brought printing press in 1476 as he also translated books from Latin and French
People at the time couldn’t understand each other, therefore Caxton chose one form of the language – from London and it became the language of the printed English. Many Greek and Latin texts were translated into English.
He decided to keep the language consistent by keeping the spellings correct and consistently - this period was caused ‘standardisation’.
“standardisation” - huge process of fixing the English language during Early Modern English
Features of Early Modern English
> Shakespeare - coined around 1700 new words such as courtship, excitement and outbreak
word exploration - brought words from African, Asian and New World languages
European renaissance - a huge number of Latin, French and Greek words entered the English language: words were needed for new concepts like psychology
