Lecture 2 The Development of English (Old English and Middle English)

List of questions under discussion

1. Chronological Division of the History of English

2. The Old English period (OE)

   1. The origins of English. The OE dialects

   2. Characteristics of OE

3. The Middle English period (ME)

   1. Scandinavian Invasion and its impact on English

   2. Norman Conquest and its effect on English

   3. The language situation in ME. ME dialects

   4. Characteristics of ME

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1. Chronological division of the history of English

Language, whether it is English or any other, doesn’t remain unchanged for a period of time. It is constantly changing throughout its history. The history of English embraces over 15 centuries and is traditionally divided into 3 broad periods.

• Old English (OE): 500 – 1100

• Middle English (ME): 1100 – 1500

• New English (NE): 1500 – the present days, which is subdivided into

  • Early New English (ENE): 1500 – 1800

  • Modern English (MnE): 1800 – the present days

The reasons for this division are as much political as linguistic. Thus, OE begins with the Gmc invasion of the 5^th c. The end of OE and the beginning of ME is marked by the Norman Conquest (1066). ME ends on the introduction of printing (1477) and the end of the war between the White and the Red Rose (1485), which led to the establishment of an absolute monarchy on the British Isles.

The linguistic reasons for thinking of historical periods in the language are complex. Various features in the language undergo changes at different times and at different rates. For instance, while changes in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and word-meaning can be complicated enough, they are less puzzling than changes in pronunciation. Moreover, sound changes happen slowly over a period of time and they are less obvious than grammar or vocabulary changes. Besides, it is difficult to date the changes so specifically that we cannot use them to provide precise dates for the end of one period and the beginning of another. (For instance, the levelling of inflections has been dated anywhere between approximately 900 and 1200, but it all depends on what data are used and which texts are selected to provide evidence.) It is also difficult to choose a more significant feature of the language for the characteristic of this or that period. (Is the loss of inflection or the Great Vowel Shift more prominent to mark the change-over from ME to NE?)

So, we’ll follow the traditional chronological division to describe the changes the English language underwent in its history. Moreover, striking historical events often trigger quite radical changes in a linguistic system.

2. The Old English period

2.1. The origins of English. Oe dialects.

The history of English begins in the 5th c. AD with the invasion of the British Isles by four Gmc tribes of the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Frisians. After the Germanic peoples settled in Britain, their languages were cut off from the related ones on the continent and began to develop in their own way. As a consequence, between the time of the migration and the appearance of the earliest written records in the first years of the 8th c. the four West Germanic languages transformed into a single language known as Old English.

Among the four tribes the Angles eventually took the remainder of England. The word Enhle 'the Angles' came to be applied to all Gmc settlers in Britain as well as the related adjective Enhlisc was similarly applied to all these peoples and their languages, not just to the Angles.

O ver time OE developed into four major dialects mainly named after the names of kingdoms on the territory of which the given dialect was spoken.

The area originally occupied by the Angles gave rise to two main dialects:

• Northumbrian was spoken north of the river Humber to the river Forth. A period of Northumbrian political power in the late 7th c. made the north a cultural centre and witnessed the flourishment of the dialect;

• Mercian, another Anglian dialect, was spoken in the Midlands, roughly between the River Thames and the River Humber. The chief period of Mercian flourishment was the early 8th c.;

• K entish, derived from the tribal tongues of the Jutes and the Frisian, was spoken in Kent, Surrey and on the Isle of Wight;

• West Saxon (Wessex) was spoken in the southwest, south of the Thames except Wales and Cornwall, which was settled by the Saxons. It is in the Wessex dialect that most OE literature is written, for from the time of King Alfred (reigned 871-899) until the Norman Conquest Wessex dominated the rest of Anglo-Saxon England politically and culturally. This resulted in West Saxon's becoming “standard Old English”.

One interesting thing is that Wessex isn’t the direct ancestor of modern standard English, which is mainly derived from the Mercian dialect.