Periods in the history of

the English language

English language has been functioning
for more than a millennium and a half.
Several periods of functioning are А
distinguished :
- Old English period (449–1066)
- Middle English (1066–1475)
- New English period
(15th century onwards).
 Old English period
The Old English Period is the period from the fifth up to mid-eleventh century. It
is characterized by the existence of the language in the form of several dialects.
The vocabulary of each of them is comparatively homogeneous and contains
mostly words of native origin: Indo-European, Germanic and specifically English
 The соnnection of words in the utterance is
performed through a ramified system of endings;
hence word order is relatively free.
New short diphthongs appear as a result of
assimilative changes, the system of consonants
develops more marked pairs of voiced and voiceless
fricative sounds.
 The full extent of the Old English vocabulary is not
known to present-day scholars. Some Old English
words were lost altogether with the texts that
perished; some might not have been used in written
texts as they belonged to some spheres of human
life which were not of great interest.
Modern estimates of the total vocabulary range
from 30 000 words.
 Loan words are fairly insignificant, and are
grouped around some specific spheres of life.
Native words, in their turn can be subdivided
into:
1) Common Indo-European words, which were
inherited from the common Indo-European
language;
2) Common Germanic words are the words than
can be found in all Germanic languages, old and
new, eastern, western and northern.
 Middle English period
The beginningPeriod was marked by
intense decline in the importance and
sphere of functioning of the language.
Unable to compete with the language of
the mighty conquerors, is was reduced to
serve the lower layers of the population, its
functioning being prevalently in oral
communication, the rules for the use of the
forms were not only observed
 The changes in the vocabulary in the Middle English
period were mainly quantitative. This is the period when
new words and new morphemes were actively borrowed
and promptly assimilated grammatically. This made the
vocabulary of the late Middle English quite different from
that of the other Germanic languages.
French borrowings were especially numerous. They came
quite naturally into the language in Middle English.
But no matter how drastic were the innovations,
the majority of the everyday words remain
native – a man and his father, mother, brothers,
sisters, sons; He lives in the house; he eats and
sleeps, he drinks and sings, he sees trees and
grass, sheep and deer, mice and lice, pigs and
oxes
 New English Period
Early New English – known as Shakespeare’s English
– lasted for a century and a half – a time span far
exceeding the life of the great Englishman – is
represented by numerous writings of a whole bunch
of prominent thinkers, writers, scientists.
This period is characterized by co-existence of
numerous almost equal in meaning forms – that
was one more turbulent period of the making of the
language, when not the strict rules but the
authority of the user of the form was decisive in the
choice of forms.
Early New English is traditionally distinguished in
the history of the language because it was in this
period that the rest of the grammatical
categories came into use, the last systematic and
cardinal change in the sound system occurred,
shifting the real sound form of the words from
the spelling to almost the present-day state .
 Early New English was the period when
borrowing of foreign words came not due to
invasion, but because the English language was
already free from its xenophobic qualities, and
even the most strict scholars did not reject them;
on the contrary, scholarly language abounded in
borrowings too.
 The changes in the sound system of the period
were significant. The process of the levelling of
endings continued, there were positional and
assimilative changes of short vowels, and a
significant change in the whole system of long
vowels, called the Great Vowel Shift. During the
period the process of simplification of consonant
clusters and loss of consonants in certain
positions continued.
 Borrowings in the Early New English
Latin borrowings were especially numerous.
Taken mainly from written sources they easily
assimilated in the language, and all the long
vowels comply with the changes in the vowels
in similar position during the Great Vowel.
French borrowings in Early New English are
somewhat different from those taken in Middle
English.
 Spanish borrowings of this period are rather
numerous and can be subdivided into two
groups – borrowings of the native Spanish words
and those that were taken into Spanish from
various American Indian languages .
Portuguese borrowings of the period are not so
numerous and reduced to a number of words
denoting some material things like animals and
some fruit
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