Language Change

Question 1

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 449 AD for language change?

Answer 1

Key dates for lang change

invasion by the Angles, Saxons + Jutes brought Germanic language in Britain

Question 2

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 597 AD for language change?

Answer 2

Key dates for lang change

St Augustine’s mission arrives in Kent bringing Christianity to Britain (predominately Catholicism) this created a Latin influence over the language

Question 3

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 680 AD for language change?

Answer 3

Key dates for lang change

estimated date for the composition of Beowulf, earliest piece of Old English Literature

Question 4

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 787 AD for language change?

Answer 4

Key dates for lang change

Viking raids begin - the Nordie languages arrive

Question 5

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 886 AD for language change?

Answer 5

Key dates for lang change

Danelaw boundaries created - this generated accent differences

Question 6

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1066 AD for language change?

Answer 6

Key dates for lang change

Norman conquest - influence of French in government + the law, for example

Question 7

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1150 - 1200 AD for language change?

Answer 7

Key dates for lang change

the earliest Middle English texts

Question 8

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1250 - 1300 AD for language change?

Answer 8

Key dates for lang change

Edward I’s campaigns against the Scots + the Welsh leads to English spreading across the British Isles

Question 9

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1362 AD for language change?

Answer 9

Key dates for lang change

English first used at the State Opening of Parliament, establishes English as the official lang of the British Isles

Question 10

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1375 - 1400 AD for language change?

Answer 10

Key dates for lang change

Chaucer’s major works written - important because they’re the first literacy representations of English dialectal varieties

Question 11

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1384 AD for language change?

Answer 11

Key dates for lang change

Wyclif’s translation of the bible - the first time the bible had been written in English

Question 12

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1400 - 1450 AD for language change?

Answer 12

Key dates for lang change

the Great Vowel Shift

Question 13

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1476 AD for language change?

Answer 13

Key dates for lang change

intro of printing - William Caxton establishes his printing press in Westminster

Question 14

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1475 - 1650 AD for language change?

Answer 14

Key dates for lang change

Renaissance loan words begin to appear in English

Question 15

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1584 AD for language change?

Answer 15

Key dates for lang change

Roanoke settlement in American=, marking the beginning of the spread of English to the American colonies

Question 16

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1500 - 1616 AD for language change?

Answer 16

Key dates for lang change

Shakespeare’s main works written led to the creation of a range of grammatical conversion, idiomatic expressions, diverse hyphenations + neologisms - some of which remain in the lang to the present day

Question 17

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1604 AD for language change?

Answer 17

Key dates for lang change

publication of Robert Cawdrey’s ‘A Table Alphabeticall’

Question 18

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1611 AD for language change?

Answer 18

Key dates for lang change

authorised version of the bible

Question 19

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1712 AD for language change?

Answer 19

Key dates for lang change

Johnathan Swift proposes an English academy to regulate + promote the ‘proper’ use of the English language

Question 20

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1721 AD for language change?

Answer 20

Key dates for lang change

publication of Nathaniel Bailey’s Universal Etymological Dictionary - the list was more comprehensive than any other previous collection of English words
however, it didn’t contain definitive illustrations of meaning or usage

Question 21

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1755 AD for language change?

Answer 21

Key dates for lang change

publication of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language - the dictionary took 7 years to compile + was more wide-ranging than any of the previous attempts to standardise English lexical usage
according to Johnson’s contemporaries, his publication ‘conferred stability’ in the use of his English words

Question 22

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1762 AD for language change?

Answer 22

Key dates for lang change

publication of Robert Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar - was important for 2 reasons: primarily because it prescribed the use of ‘correct’ grammar, e.g. it prescribed that prepositions shouldn’t end sentences + double negatives were ‘bad’ grammatical features

Lowth’s publication formed the inspiration for Lindley Murray’s English Grammar

Question 23

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1776 AD for language change?

Answer 23

Key dates for lang change

declaration of American independence

Question 24

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1788 AD for language change?

Answer 24

Key dates for lang change

first penal colony established in Australia

Question 25

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1794 AD for language change?

Answer 25

Key dates for lang change

publication of Lindley Murray’s English Grammar

Question 26

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1806 AD for language change?

Answer 26

Key dates for lang change

British control established in South Africa

Question 27

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1828 AD for language change?

Answer 27

Key dates for lang change

publication of American Dictionary of the English lang - for the first time, the concept of ‘Americanisms’ is realised

Question 28

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1840 AD for language change?

Answer 28

Key dates for lang change

an official colony is established in New Zealand

Question 29

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1884 - 1928 AD for language change?

Answer 29

Key dates for lang change

publication of the Oxford English Dictionary

Question 30

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1922 for language change?

Answer 30

Key dates for lang change

BBC is established

Question 31

Key dates for lang change

What happened in the 1960s for language change?

Answer 31

Key dates for lang change

the second wave of feminist movement begins bringing changes in ways that women identify themselves + are identified by men, causing a major shift in how lang is gendered

Question 32

Key dates for lang change

What happened in the 1990s for language change?

Answer 32

Key dates for lang change

the re-emergence of political correctness in the US - leading to the practice of changing words + phrases that were considered to be offensive to minority groups

Question 33

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 1994 for language change?

Answer 33

Key dates for lang change

the internet becomes widely available in homes + workplaces across the developed world

Question 34

Key dates for lang change

What happened in 2001 for language change?

Answer 34

Key dates for lang change

September 11th; attacks on NYC & War on Terror - causes a range of neologisms + semantic realignments in the lang of war to suit the unpopularity of the ensuring conflicts

Question 35

Key dates for lang change

What happened to the speed of language change after the 18th century?

Answer 35

Key dates for lang change

• after the 18th century, the pace of language change slows somewhat
• this is because the standard has been settled + linguistics appear to be concerned w/ the process of refinement + fine-tuning the lang

Question 36

Key dates for lang change

What has happened to the speed of language change now?

Answer 36

Key dates for lang change

• as technological changes increase, so does the speed of language change, e.g the number of words used to describe a PC
• meaning that language change isn’t driven by just rules and conventions, but by the world outside
• the users of a lang need to find new ways to articulate things, e.g. computer technology, so the pace of change gradually increases

Question 37

Key Periods in the development of English

What happened in 449 AD - 1000 AD (Old English)?

Answer 37

Key Periods in the development of English

• British Isles were invaded by the Angles, Saxons + Jutes in 449 AD, arrived from Germany + Scandanavia
• at first, English is a dialectal variant of Germanic lang, so there’s no standard that governs how Old English is used
• written forms of the lang were provided only by Latin speaking monks, who arrived after St Augustine’s mission arrived in Kent (597 AD)
• part of the mission was to convert the people in Britain to the Roman Catholic church, therefore the texts were produced to be read aloud
• arrival of Vikings (787 AD) brings about the erosion of grammar + adds to the lexicon

Question 38

Key Periods in the development of English

What happened in 1100 AD - 1500 AD (Middle English period)?

Answer 38

Key Periods in the development of English

• 1066, William the Conqueror invaded from France, bringing the influence of the French lang. the lang of this period is Medieval French, which became the ‘prestige’ lang (used in government + law)
• 1362, Edward III confirmed that English is the official lang of the British Isles at a State Opening of Parliament
• Chaucer’s keywords are written during this period, as for the first time, there’s a literacy representation of spoken dialect. he’s part of a movement, that’s identifying a change in English
• his writings describe the change, whilst other writers, e.g Ranulph Higden bemoan the strange sound of what has become known as ‘Estuary English’

Question 39

Key Periods in the development of English

What happened in 1500 - 1800 (Early modern English)?

Answer 39

Key Periods in the development of English

• 1458, Johan Gutenberg developed European printing tech in Mainz. printing was brought to England in 1476, by William Caxton, who established his printing press in Westminister
• begins the 300-year march toward standardisation of the English lang: Caxton’s press was able to create some standardiation of the Eng lang, but was limited because there wasn’t a widespread standard of spelling or punctuation
  printing wasn’t widely available, was reserved for books of significance
• Great Vowel Shift (GVS), which saw long vowel sounds become pronounced differently, a vowel used to be pronounced in 1 part of the mouth was pronounced ‘higher up’
• GVS had long-term implications for spelling, the teaching of reading + our understanding of written texts. it continued for a long period of time
• Renaissance was taking place + saw the development of English vocab, most of which was borrowed from other langs to describe concepts, techniques + processes that were coming from Europe in the fields of science, med + arts
• English was heavily influenced by the writing of Shakespeare, Milton; his plays demonstrated inventiveness w/ the lang providing us w/ neologisms + common idioms
  the authorised vers of the bible gave church congregations exposure to a standard form of the lang

Question 40

Key Periods in the development of English

What happened in 1800 AD - the present (Modern English)?

Answer 40

Key Periods in the development of English

• towards the end of early modern period, there was growing unease about the rapidity in which lang was changing
• feeling about the state of English was so intense that words like, ‘corrupt’, ‘unrefined’, ‘unruly’, and ‘barbarous’ were used to describe the state of the lang
• attempts to standarise the lang culminated during the early stages of modern English

Question 41

Key Periods in the development of English

What happened in the 18th century (the age of prescriptivism)?

Answer 41

Key Periods in the development of English

• latter half of the 18th century is crucially important, in terms of the development of English, because it’s concerned w/ the first major attempt to impose order on the use of the lang
• the culmination of this process was the publication of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary (1755)
• attempts to standarise English were prevalent as those to standarise the lexicon. during this period (1750-1800), there were over 200 published works on grammar + rhetoric.
• approach of linguistics differs from present day, in the sense that they looked at lang from a primary prescriptive POV
• many linguistics sought the creation of an ‘English academy’ to regulate + control the development of English

Question 42

Key Periods in the development of English

What happened in the 19th century?

Answer 42

Key Periods in the development of English

• throughout this period, those who wished to standardise + regulate the lang persisted
• 1826, Noah Webster published American Dictionary of the English Language; it caused controversy because the first examples of what we call ‘Americanisms’ began to spell
  his dictionary concerned the affixes ‘-our’ and ‘-re’, where Webster has ‘-or’, ‘-er’. e.g color instead colour
• Jakob + Wilhelm Grimm were the forefathers of modern lang science
  their work revealed that English wasn’t descended from Latin but from a Germanic origin - this was radical thinking, at the time because the common assertion amongst some linguistics was that English was a development from Latin + hence much of the thinking regarding the evolution of the lang was derived from principles of Latin
• also, this negated the attempts to explain English by categories of Latin or to make writers conform to classical models as historically mistaken. although, it’s important to remember that this remains a belief of some people today

Question 43

Key Periods in the development of English

What happened in the 20th century (conflict, agitation + the technology age)?

Answer 43

Key Periods in the development of English

• arguments of ‘prescriptivists’ became less persuasive + the focus of lang development changes. instead, this century can be looked at 3 distinct phrases

1) conflict
- there was a succession of military conflicts that changed the world order + and the way people viewed warfare. politicians + national leaders had to alter the lang that was used to describe warfare.

• technology’s a central component in the development of how the war impacted lang. WW1, WW2, Cold War + the latter conflicts created a context in which lang was central to maintaining widespread popular support for warfare.
  most obvious linguistic development was related to lexical growth + semantic re-alignment

2) agitation
- different groups were mobilised into a protest against their marginalisation by wider society. the suffragette movement was the pre-cursor to second-wave feminists of the 1960s, who sought the right to vote primarily, setting the foundations for feminism to pursue financial + ideological parity w/ men

• 20th century is prepped w/ other equal rights movement, e.g. black rights, different religious groups + nationalist movements from ireland to S.Africa
  each movement impacted some way on the development of lang. e.g feminists 1960s affected the way that lang + linguistic labeling was gendered

3) technology
- technological advances were unprecedented: development of modern recording equipment, mass broadcasting, home computer tech, internet + modern communication have all contributed to the development of the lexicon: grammatical structure, promotion of written + spoken forms

• development of ‘spell check’ + ‘grammar check’ has a profound influence on lang, removing the need for conscious technical accuracy. allows users to choose which standard of English to adopt, e.g. UK English, US English, Australian/NZ English

Question 44

Key Periods in the development of English

What happened to the rise of compulsory education?

Answer 44

Key Periods in the development of English

- 1946 GE was won by the Labour party w/ Clement Atlee as PM. at the centre of Atlee's welfare reform agenda was the issue of education
the butler education act (1944) achieved several significant objectives: education was available to all, free until 15 yrs + compulsory. a whole generation of working class children were given teaching in literacy + exposed to a standard form of communication + lang use

• speed of literacy across society helped to equip more people to use lang. the more people can do and use lang, the greater the flexability that’s imposed on the lang as all the different groups of users manilpulate it to meet their needs

Question 45

Language change; Old English (Anglo Saxon)

What was the effect of Old English on modern English?

Answer 45

Language change; Old English (Anglo Saxon)

lexis:
- early English period is characterised by a succession of invasions, from this history comes a lang that’s comprised of loan words taken from languages that were assimilated during this period.

• so, by looking at Old English, we can see influence of Latin + Scandinavian by looking at the loan words used in English

loan words:
- after the arrival of St. Augustine’s mission, lang saw an influx of Latin words related to church + theology, as well as, more general loans. once the Anglo-Saxons arrived, English began to loan words from Norse

grammar:
- Old English was an inflected lang, where the function of a word is determined by its ending. the inflectional system was used to:
> specify number/quantity
> assign gender to nouns
> show the function of specific words within a sentence

• while being fully inflected, Old English also had 5 grammatical cases, which show the precise function of a noun in a sentence:
  1) accusative; shows that the noun is the direct object

2) dative; shows that the noun is the indirect object
3) indicative; indicates the verb mood through the use of inflection
4) genitive; indicating a relationship between the noun in the genitive + another noun
5) nominative; shows the noun is the subject of a verb within a clause

other ways that Old English grammar’s different to modern English:
- personal pronoun system had more members than modern English

• past tense of the verb ‘to be’ (was) has lost its plural ending
• Old English nouns may be masculine, feminine or neuter, regardless of the biological sex of their referents

Question 46

Language change; Middle English

What was the effect of Middle English on Modern English?

Answer 46

Language change; Middle English

orthography:
- spelling is incredibly varied + diverse, the same word can have upwards of 10 to 15 variations

there are a number of reasons that explain the diversity of spelling:
> impact of the french invasion - french scribes wrote down words phonetically + hence an increased number of variants appeared

> continuation of the processes of sound change that began in the Old English period

> growth + movement of the Medieval population

influence of french on Middle English orthography:
- as this period progressed, french scribes played a role in the development of spelling. began to impose the conventions of Norman french onto the English that they heard - long term effect was the spelling system was a combo of Old English + french

• most common example of this was the way U and V came to be used in complimentary ways: V at the beginning of the word (under) + u in the middle of word (haue = have)

lexis:
- estimated that up to 10000 words entered the English lexicon following the arrival of the french (1066). these words predominately belonged to to the semantic fields of law + administration.
- also included words from fields, including medicine, art + fashion. over 70% of the words that came into the lang were nouns

• french wasn’t the only influence during this period: Latin played a part in the influx of new words. most of these were professional/technical terms belonging to fields like religion, medicine, law + literature

compounding:
- loan words weren’t the only way that the lexicon grew during this period, compounding played a major role in the expansion of the lexicon

noun compounds: bagpipe, birthday, blackberry
adjective compounds: lukewarm, moth-eaten, new-born, red-hot

many compounds were created using the suffix ‘er’ in the 14th century: bricklayer, housekeeper, money-maker

affixation:
- french + latin introduced some new affixes to the lang: ‘con-‘, ‘trans-‘, ‘pre-‘. these, plus others were used to expand the lexicon

• affixations in ME: consecration, duckling, forgetful, greenish, manhood, napkin, uncover

grammar:
ME saw a range of grammatical developments:

• inflectional system died away throughout the period, partly because the endlings were becoming indistinguishable in everyday speech, because of the increase in dialectal varieties
• a fixed pattern of word-order was established to show the relationship between clause elements = the subject-verb-object order was consolidated
• emergence of the progressive form - ‘have’ was used to express actions that were ongoing or immediate, for the first time
• modal auxiliaries emerged at the only way to determine the possibility/necessity of an action the inflectional verb endings had died away
• continued use of double + triple negatives to create emphasis

Question 47

Language change: Early Modern English

What was the impact of Caxton and printing on English?

Answer 47

Language change: Early Modern English

• Caxton was a merchant, not a linguistic, so when he tried to translate texts for printing + circulation, he was faced w/ several key questions.
  most questions arose from the fact that there wasn’t standardised form of English.
• if Caxton was going to produce texts that could be accessed by many people, he had to answer the following questions:
  > should he use use foreign words in his translation of replace them w/ native English words?

> which variety of English should he follow - given there was a variety of regional differences

> which literacy style should he use as a model? Chaucer was the obvious example, however, because it was an ornate style, it might not have been accessible to wider public

> how should the lang be spelled + punctuated? given the variations generated, the scribal differences of pervious centuries + lack of a standard

> in publishing, being a native writer, should he change their lang to make it more readily understood?

the outcome:
- recognising there wasn’t an overall standard of English orthography, he realised that he couldn’t satisfy everyone.
- therefore, he published his texts, incl. translations of Homer, in the dialect of the south east of England
realised that the questions he was faced w/ were unanswerable by just one man

Question 48

Language change: Early Modern English

What was the significance of Caxton on English?

Answer 48

Language change; Early Modern English

• he’s significant because of the printing press + the problems it raised in terms of orthography, promoted the need for English to be standardised.
  if texts were going to be readily available, it was essential to overcome the unusual features of the different lang variations that were operating at the time
• to achieve this, linguistics had to strive towards a central ‘standard version’ of English orthography + grammar.
  the need for a standard wasn’t just highlighted by Caxton, the printing technology he brought to England facilitated the production of texts in later years, dealing w/ grammar, vocab + written style
• Caxton’s press provided more writers w/ motivation to write, so there are more texts available. within the next 150 yrs, 20,000 texts appeared
  as some of the texts survived beyond the period of their production, the history of English becomes more definite in the 15th century

Question 49

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

What was William Tyndale - The Tyndale Bible 1525 impact on English?

Answer 49

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

• was the first vernacular text of the bible + was the basis for most subsequent versions of the bibles that appeared.
• he was motivated by the idea that people should be able to read the bible in their own lang

Question 50

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

What was Miles Coverdale - 1525 impact on English?

Answer 50

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

• his version was the first complete bible to be printed in English from a German translation

Question 51

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

What was Matthew’s bible - 1537 impact on English?

Answer 51

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

• this complete bible was the first to be printed in England, the text attributed to Thomas Matthew, Chamberlain of Colchester, but was complied by John Rogers, a friend of Tyndale
• Matthew’s bible is largely based on Tyndale’s works w/ some use of Coverdale’s translations

Question 52

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

What was the Great bible’s (1539) impact on English?

Answer 52

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

• text was given its name because of its size, was the first of many official versions used by the Protestant church - a copy was placed in every parish
  it was a revision of Matthew’s bible

Question 53

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

What was the Geneva bible’s (1560) impact on English?

Answer 53

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

• translation was produced by English Protestants exiled during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary
  was the first bible in Roman type

Question 54

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

What was the Bishop’s bible’s ( 1568) impact on English?

Answer 54

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

• revised version of the great bible became the official version of the church in 1571 + was used by the scholars working on the subsequent authorised version which would be published in 1611

Question 55

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

What was the Douai-Rheims bible’s (1610) impact on English?

Answer 55

Language change; Early Modern English (Age of bibles)

• translation was produced by Roman Catholic priests in exile in Europe, Rheims testament first appeared in 1582 + the remaining text was produced from Douai in 1609
  based on Latin vulgate, it was used by English Catholics for the next century

Question 56

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

How the protocols of translation - translation by committee impact King James’s bible?

Answer 56

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

• a total of 54 translators involved in the production of a draft. translators were split into 6 ‘companies’, each working on a different section of the bible.
  the preliminary version took 4 yrs + the final version, a further 9 months

the translators had to follow a series of protocols in their production of a new bible:

> translators were to use the Bishop’s bible where possible
were permitted to consult w/ Tyndale if necessary - which they did extensively
were to preserve chapter divisions + proper names
were ordered to avoid lengthy marginal notes
translations by 1 member of the ‘company’ had to be agreed by the other members
each company had to send its material to the other companies for final approval
disagreements had to be formally discussed + outside mediation sought if necessary

Question 57

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

How does a Conservative style impact King James’s bible?

Answer 57

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

• translations weren’t motivated in the same way that Tyndale had been, the idea of a Bible which allowed greater access to the gospels wasn’t a paramount consideration
• instead, translators often opted to use older, more archaic forms of lang when, more contemporary ones were available
• unlike Shakespeare’s influence on Early Modern English, the King James bible doesn’t offer a wealth of neologisms. equally, the bible is regressive in its use of grammatical structures that were, elsewhere, falling out of use

Question 58

Language change: Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

What were the grammatical features of King James’s bible?

Answer 58

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

• irregular verbs are found in their archaic forms:
  > digged (‘dug’)
  > gat (‘got’)
  > bare (‘bore’)

- older lexis is still in use:
> follow thou me 
> speak ye unto
> things eternal 
> they knew him not

• pronoun usage was evidence of older forms using:
  > ‘(e)th’ ending as opposed to the more commonly use ‘-s’ ending
• Ye was still being used as the 2nd person pronoun as opposed to ‘you’ which was becoming more common by the end of the 16th century

Question 59

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

How was King James’s bible recieved?

Answer 59

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

• it was a major success for a combo of reasons. primarily, the conversation of the style made it an aural delight
  much of the process of producing the new version had involved the translators reading the bible aloud to access the rhythm + balance of the prose
• secondly, the decision to avoid a populist style ensured that the magnitude of the events wasn’t evaporated
  instead, the archaisms of the bible preserved much of the intensity + mystery of the gospels

Question 60

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

What was the importance of King James’s bible?

Answer 60

Language change; Early Modern English (King James bible - 1611)

• such was the success of the bible as a ‘preacher’s bible’, church congregations were exposed en masse to an elevated style of writing
• alongside, Shakespeare verse, the King James Bible gave the broader population exposure to a style of formalised writing that transcended the dialectal variations of their communities

Question 61

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

How did the Renaissance change language?

Answer 61

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

• as interest grew in sciences, medicines + arts, new words had to be found to describe processes + concepts linked to these areas
• most new concepts + ideas were imported from mainland Europe where many of the advances in the sciences + medicines were taking place
• consequently, we can see this foreign influence in many of the loan words which entered the English lexicon at this time + remain to present day

Question 62

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of loan words from Latin + Greek?

Answer 62

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> absurdity
> adapt
> agile
> chaos
> climax
> transcribe
> tonic
> parenthesis
> parasite
> obstruction

Question 63

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of loan words from, or via French?

Answer 63

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> alloy
> bayonet 
> anatomy
> entrance 
> equip
> ticket
> surpass
> vogue
> colonel 
> detail

Question 64

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of loan words from, or via Italian?

Answer 64

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> balcony
> solo
> opera
> plaza
> cameo
> rocket
> ballot
> lottery 
> design
> carnival

Question 65

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of loan words from, or via Spanish/Portuguese?

Answer 65

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> alligator
> anchovy 
> apricot
> banana
> barricade
> bravado
> cannibal
> yam
> maize
> guitar

Question 66

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What is meant by ‘New Formation’?

Answer 66

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

• the influx of loan words was one way in which the lexicon was expanded throughout the period, however the vocab was expanding in other ways

- more words came into the lang by suffixation (the adding of pre/suffixes), or by forming new compounds. 
Shakespeare was also central to this process employing the technique of word-class formation

Question 67

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of prefixation?

Answer 67

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> bedaub
> counterstroke
> disabuse
> disrobe
> endear
> forename
> interlink
> nonsense
> submarine
> uncivilised 
> uncomfortable

Question 68

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of suffixation?

Answer 68

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> blandishment 
> changeful
> considerable
> delightfulness
> drizzling
> frequenter 
> gloomy
> immaturity
> laughable
> lunatical
> mumorous

Question 69

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of compounding?

Answer 69

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> chap-fallen
> commander-in-chief
> Frenchwoman
>heaven-sent
> laughing-stock
> pincushion
> pine-cone
> rosewood
> spoonwort

Question 70

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of noun from verb conversion?

Answer 70

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> invite
laugh
scratch

Question 71

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What some examples of verb from noun conversion?

Answer 71

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> gossip
launder
season

Question 72

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What was Shakespeare’s influence over this period?

Answer 72

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

• his influence over lang was considerable; his plays produced the first recorded examples of many words which are now regularly used parts of the English lexicon
• he contributed many of the idiomatic expressions which are regularly used

Question 73

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What are some examples of idiomatic expressions from Shakespeare?

Answer 73

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> 'beggars all description'
> a foregone conclusion'
> 'in my mind's eye'
> 'play fast and loose'
> 'cold comfort'
> 'at one fell swoop'
> 'to the manner born'
> 'i must be cruel only to be kind'

Question 74

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

How did Mulcaster and the growth of Regulation impact language?

Answer 74

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

• 1582, Richard Mulcaster published Elememtaire in which he vowed to find out the ‘right writing of ours’
  he was one of many early critics of the chaotic + inconsistent nature of English orthography
• him + others blamed printers for the lack of order in the orthographic system, this was unfair, because, many printers were foreign + arrived w/ expertise in printing tech + little understanding of the orthographic traditions of English
• the texts that were printed were merely symptomatic of the lack of a standardised spelling system not the cause
• Elementaire was a list of 9000 words + their spellings which was significant because it came to inform pronunciation teachers + grammarians
  Mulcaster’s text was weakened by the absence of semantic illustration, discussing the contextual use of each word
• the text was the first of a series of works by other writers which looked at the writing of English

gradually, a culture of standardisation was emerging

Question 75

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What was the effect of Mulcaster + Regulation on language?

Answer 75

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> vowels came to be spelled in a more predictable way - an increased use of double vowel convention in words, like ‘soon’
the silent ‘e’ was used more frequently to signal the length of words, e.g. ‘name’

> the u/v convention was settled - ‘u’ came to represent a vowel sound while ‘v’ was used to represent a consonant

> during the 17th century, an increasing number of spelling guides began to emerge, identifying homophones that schoolchildren had to learn

> by the middle of the 17th century, printing practices became more regularised + a gulf established between spoken + written forms

> gradually, the modern system of irregular spellings that can be explained, but not predicted, emerged
variant spellings began to attract a social stigma in the ‘prescriptive’ years of the 18th century

Question 76

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

How did capitalisation emerge during this period?

Answer 76

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

• by early of 17th century, the practice of using capitals to delineate the beginnings of sentences, proper names + important common nouns had become commonplace
• equally, capitals were being used for titles, forms of address + personified nouns
• continued into the 18th century, following the principles of modern German, all nouns had been given capitals, by this point
• in 18th century, grammarians were angered by this apparent lack of order + soon began to regulate it w/ their objectives of reason + logic

Question 77

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

How did Renaissance punctuation impact language?

Answer 77

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

• foundations of modern punctuation emerged during Renaissance, Caxton inherited a legacy of rhetorical punctuation, where it was used to show readers where to breathe, how long to pause + how to introduce emphasis + rhythmical balance into speech

Question 78

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What was the key punctuation of EM period?

Answer 78

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

> / = the virgule. = the period
: = the colon

• when Caxton was printing, the virgule assumed the role of the modern day comma, full stop or colon
  it fell out of use during 16th century + was replaced by the comma
• full stop was used where today, we would use a comma
  colon had a broad range of rhetorical functions + wasn’t restricted to introducing a list/summary

Question 79

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

What was the punctuation that was introduced during the Renaissance?

Answer 79

Language change; linguistic changes over the Early Modern English period

• John Hart in his text, The opening of the Unreasonable writing of our Inglish (1551) commented on the grammatical + rhetorical ‘pointing’
• suggested a new system of punctuation w/ a series of definite purposes attached to each punctuation symbol
  consequently, many of the punctuation devices we use today began to emerge during this period

Question 80

Language change; impact of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary

What was Johnson’s dictionary?

Answer 80

Language change; impact of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary

• Johnson initially set out to create a dictionary motivated by a prescriptive mentality, writing ‘The chief intent… is to preserve the purity + ascertain the meaning of our English idiom’
• once the dictionary was complete, he wrote in his famous preface that his aim is to ‘not form, but register the lang’
  regardless of his initial + final intentions, his 7 year work became the motivation for the Prescriptive Age of the English lang in the 18th century

Question 81

Language change; impact of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary

What was Johnson’s achievement?

Answer 81

Language change; impact of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary

• once completed, his dictionary contained some 40,000 entries in a sophisticated format that gave clear illustration for each word + its context
• Boswell, Johnson’s biographer, noted that the dictionary ‘conferred stability’ on the lang + w/ respect to spelling, where most of Johnson’s choices can be found in modern usage, this would appear to be the case

Question 82

Language change; impact of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary

What was Johnson’s method?

Answer 82

Language change; impact of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary

> definitions are succinct, appropriate + consistent
he gave particular attention to the different senses of each word
there’s copious quotation to support each definition
he routinely identifies parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc)

Question 83

Language change; impact of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary

What was the significance of Johnson’s dictionary?

Answer 83

Language change; impact of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary

• his dictionary is significant for a range of reasons: primarily because it’s the first attempt at a principled lexicography
  the dictionary portrayed the complexity of the lang + of its usage more accurately than ever before
  use of quotation + semantic illustration has informed English dictionaries ever since
• the dictionary is the beginning of a culture of regulating the lang, subsequent years saw the emergent of grammar books, for example, which attempted to build on the foundations of Johnson’s work
  aimed to build on the standardisation of orthography in other areas, like grammar + pronunciation, for example

Question 84

Language change; 18th century, age of prescriptivism

What were the attitudes to English in the 18th century?

Answer 84

Language change; 18th century, age of prescriptivism

• by the turn of the 18th century, there was a growing feeling that the Renaissance had created a lang that was out of control
  the influx of foreign loan words had created a lang in which there was a superfluous number of words, which were similarly defined; that spelling had been arbitrary
• some people like John Wallis in his Grammatica Luingae Anglicanne (Grammar of the English lang) commented on the need for standardisation because there’s ‘great demand for it from foreigners, who want to be able to understand the various important works which are written in our tongue’
• others criticised these linguistics who had adopted Latin as the model upon which English might be moulded, arguing that this created ‘useless rules about the cases, genders + declensions of nouns’, for example
• some linguistics were even more vehement: Lowth commented that English was rapidly becoming a ‘corrupt’ lang
  he argued that the models of grammatical construction had been men like Shakespeare + Milton, all of whom in his opinion ‘offend’
• there’s little doubt at the outset of the 18th century, was considerable division amongst linguistics about how to effectively regulate + control the lang
  it was clear that the lang needed regulating somehow

Question 85

Language change; 18th century, age of prescriptivism

What was the battle lines of the prescriptive age: prescription vs description?

Answer 85

Language change; 18th century, age of prescriptivism

• in the pursuit of standardisation, it appears that there were 2 schools of though which dominated the linguists’ debate: whether dictionaries + grammar books ought to describe or evaluate the idiom of the time
• towards the end of the 18th century, prescriptive attitude was the most prevalent: that is, lang ought to be controlled + judged based on whether it’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’

Question 86

Language change; 18th century, age of prescriptivism

What was the academy debate?

Answer 86

Language change; 18th century, age of prescriptivism

• authors, e.g Swift, were severely concerned that the pace of lang change was dangerous, because there was no longer regulation of English
• sought to ‘fix’ English to a ‘standard…forever’ Swift + others sought the creation of an English academy to preserve + regulate English

Question 87

Language change; 18th century, age of prescriptivism

What was the impact of prescriptivism?

Answer 87

Language change; 18th century, age of prescriptivism

• prescriptive movement created what we now call ‘traditional grammar’ which determines what’s correct to say/write
  for the first time, there was the essence of a ‘standard’, as there was a series of rules, which determined how the lang should be used

examples of these rules include:
> infinitives should never be split
> double negatives ought to never be used
> sentences should end w/ prepositions

• from perspective of 21st century, we can identify that these rules still have currency, that is grammarians still argue that rules ought to be adhered to + obeyed
  in the 21st century, there’s an increasing sense that if meaning can be conveyed then these rules are essentially unimportant
• 18th century, prescriptive linguistics can be seen as the forerunner of the ‘progress decay’ argument of the 21st century
  their concerns were w/ the regulation + protection of English in the same way that writers, e.g. Lynn Truss, is concerned w/ the protection of the ‘apostrophe’, for example