History of

the English Language

 Points at issue:

•
1) Germanic languages
•
2) Ancient Germanic tribes
•
3) Linguistic features of Germanic languages
•
4) The Anglo-Saxon settlement
PIE::PG::CG
Development of OLD Germanic Languages from PIE
* - asterisk
 Modern Germanic languages

West Germanic Languages: English, Frisian, Dutch, Flemish,

German, Afrikaans, Yiddish.

North Germanic Languages: Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian,

Swedish, Danish.

East Germanic Languages: Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian (extinct).

Frisian
 Afrikaans

Is spoken in South Africa, Namibia

and, to a lesser extent, Botswana,
Zambia and Zimbabwe
Gothic

Ulfilas, a West Gothic bishop, translated the Bible from

Greek into Gothic in the 4th century, using the Gothic
alphabet (modified form of the Greek alphabet).
Although his original translation has not survived, several
documents of the 5th and 6th centuries reproduce
fragments of his work.
The most important of these is the SILVER CODEX,
which is written in gold and silver on purple-red
parchment.
The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become
Christians.
Our knowledge of the Germanic people (Teutons) is based on the
testimonies by Old Greek and Roman writers:

- Pytheas (4th BC)

- Julius Caesar (1st BC) «Commentaries on the War in Gaul»
- Pliny the Elder (1st AD) «Natural history»
- Tacitus (I-II AD) «Germania»
According to Pliny Germanic tribes in the 1 century AD consisted of
6 groups:

-the Vindili (the Goths, the Burgundians, spoke East G.L.)

-the Ingvaeones (Ingevones) (North-western Germ. territ., North Sea
(Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Frisians))
-the Istaevones (Iscaevones) (the western part, the shores of Rhein,
(Franks))
-the Herminones (the southern part (Bavarians, the Alemans))
-the Peucini and Bastarnae (Lived close to the Dacians (now
Rumania))
-the Hilleviones (inhabited Scandinavia, spoke northern G. L.)
Friederich Engels accepted Plyn's classification with only 1 amendament:

Tribes Languages

-the Vindili Eastern

-the Ingevones Western
-the Istaevones Western
-the Herminones Western
-the Hillavions Northern
LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES

- Word stress
- Vowels
- The First Consonant Shift, or Grimm's Law
- Verner's Law
- West Germanic Lengthening of consonants
- Ablaut
 Word Stress in Indo-European and
Proto-Germanic

In ancient IE languages there existed two ways of word-

stress: musical pitch and force stress. The position of the
stress was free and movable.
Both these properties of the word stress were changed in
PG. Force stress (dynamic stress) became the only type of
stress used. In early PG language word stress was still
movable as in ancient IE but in Late PG its position in the
word was stabilized. The stress was now fixed on the first
syllable, which was usually the root of the word.
 Indo-European Proto-Germanic
(Non-Germanic)

- free stress (movable, i.e. can - fixed stress (can’t move either
appear in any part of a word in form- or word-building and is
(root, prefix, suffix)); usually placed on root or prefix);
The Germanic Vowel Shift
I c. BC- I c. AD
 Phonetic laws
The First Consonant Shift
(Grimm’s Law)
Grimm's law (the First Germanic Sound Shift /the Rask's-Grimm's
rule) in the 1st millennium BC establishes a set of regular correspondences
between early Germanic stops and fricatives and the stop consonants of
certain other centum Indo-European languages).

Discovered by Friedrich von Schlegel (1806) and Rasmus Christian Rask

(1818), elaborated by Jacob Grimm (1822)
 Grimm’s Law

1 Indo-European voiceless stops (p, t, k) correspond to Germanic voiceless

fricatives (f, þ, h).
2 Indo-European voiced stops (b, d, g) correspond to Germanic voiceless stops
(p, t, k).
3 Indo-European voiced aspirated stops (bh, dh, gh) correspond to Germanic
voiced stops (b, d, g)
 Grimm’s Law or
The First Sound Shifting
(BC mid-1st mill.)

Aspirated Voiced Voiced Stops Voiceless Voiceless

Stops Stops Fricatives

*bh → *b → *p → *f

*dh → *d → *t → *Θ

*gh → *g → *k → *h
Latin pa'ter – Gothic 'fadar

t d= ?
 Verner’s Law
In 1877 Danish scholar Karl Verner explained the apparent exceptions to
Grimm’s Law:

If an IE voiceless stop was preceded by an unstressed vowel, the voiceless

fricative which developed from it in accordance with Grimm’s law became
voiced and then this voiced fricative became a voiced stop.
 Rhotacism

PG [z] underwent a phonetic modification into [r] and thus became a

sonorant, which ultimately merged with the older IE [r], e.g.
Gt. Wasjan, OE werian (NE wear).

Rotasizm: voicing of PIE /s/ > PG /z/

Cf. Goth. maiza, OHG mêra, PDE more
Goth. dags, ON dagr, Run. dagaR
West Germanic Gemination of consonants

is the doubling of consonants – in West Germanic group PG

phoneme /j/ in position after one consonant assimilated
completely with the proceeding consonant.
Goth. saljan – OE sellan.
Goth. satjan – OE settan.

The change didn’t affect the sonorant [r], e.g. OE werian; nor
did it operate if the consonant was preceded by a long vowel.
 Ablaut
The earliest set of vowel interchanges, which dates from
PG and PIE, is called vowel gradation or ablaut.
The term is introduced by Jacob Grimm.

Ablaut is an independent vowel interchange

unconnected with any phonetic conditions; different
vowels appear in the same environment, surrounded by
the same sounds thus indicating a corresponding
modification of function or meaning.
The principal gradation series used in the IE languages – [e~o~zero] –
can be shown in Ukrainian examples:

нести - носити
везти - возити
сон - сну

Germanic ablaut -[i~a~zero] — can be shown in English

sing-sang-sung
 Word structure
The structure of noun in PG as in other Indo-
European languages included three main
morphological components.
root + stem building suffix + case inflection
Later the stem-suffix merged with other components of
the word (inflection) and the three-morpheme
structure was transformed into a two-morpheme
structure: stem and inflexion with fixed stress on the
first root syllable in the stem.
Late PG - stem + inflection
 Periods in the History of English


The English scholar Henry Sweet (1845-1912) proposed the following
classification of English according to the state of unstressed endings:


1st period, Old English, the period of full endings.

2nd period, Middle English, the period of levelled endings.

3rd period, Modern English, the period of lost endings.
 Periods in the History of English

Old English - from about V-VII century till 1066.

Middle English – from 1066 till 1485.
Modern English – from 1500 till our times.

Within Modern English we distinguish:

Early Modern English (approximately 1500-1660)
Late Modern English (from 1660 till our times)
OLD ENGLISH
V-VII c. - 1066
 The Roman Conquest

55 B.C. - Julius Caesar

43 A.D. - Claudius
410 - Roman legions were recalled from Britain
 The history of English started with the arrival of three
Germanic tribes, who invaded Britain during the 5th
century AD.

Jutes
Angles
Saxons
 Heptarchy

The Germanic tribes which conquered Britain formed 7

kingdoms:


Jutes – Kent

Angles – East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia

Saxons - Sussex, Wessex, Essex
Heptarchy:
Seven Kingdoms in England
VII-IX centuries