Linguistics 2 Phonetics
Old English before 1100
Old English (OE) influenced by:
Latin: (up to 410AD)
o Before the Anglo-Saxons tribes entered Britain, Latin was an official
language
o Less than 200 words present in OE at the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon
period
o Examples: catte (cat), stræt (road), candel (candle)
Anglo-Saxons (5th CAD)
o Germanic tribes bring their own languages: wīf (wife), hūs (house),
drincan (drink)
Christian missionaries (6th – 8th C AD)
o Brought Latin vocabulary mainly focused on Church and its services,
theology, learning
o Examples: scola (school), offerre (sacrifice), nonnus (monk), altar (altar)
Vikings (Norse) (8th – 10th C AD)
o Settlements with Danish names, increase in personal names of
Scandinavian origin
o General words (about 1,000): both, same, get, give, score, fellow
Features of Old English:
Spelling
o Alphabet: a, æ, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, ð, Þ, u,
w, y
o No standardized spelling
Vocabulary
o Words that are very close to ModE: singan (sing); stōd (stood),
ondswarende (answered)
o Words that have disappeared: gelimplice (suitable), neata
(cattle), swefn (dream)
o Meaning not always the same: wīf = any woman, fæst (fast) =
firm, fixed
, Middle English 1100-1500
Middle English (ME) influenced by:
French
o 1066: Norman Conquest
o French becomes the language of the ruling class (church, court,
aristocracy)
o 10,000 words enter language: authority, abbey, bacon, button, action,
remember
English
o Remained language of lower classes
o End 12th C: English seems to take over French
o Hundred Years War: status of French diminishes; 1425: English widely
used
Features of Middle English (ME):
Loss of inflections
o Auditory confusion: word stress changed, and as a result endings were
difficult to distinguish
Grammar
o More fixed pattern of word order: SVO
o Marking infinitive used to be done with –ian ending, but changed to
the use of to
o Genitive: use of of in NP (i.e. the back of the house)
Spelling
o Enormous diversity in spelling; some words have a dozen variants:
neurer (never) written as naure, næure, ner, neure
o Norman influence: Norman scribes used French conventions
cwen => queen
sercle => cercle (circle)
hus => house
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