The Historical Development of the English Lexicon презентация

English belongs to the Indo-European language family, namely, to its Germanic branch, together with German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Afrikaans, Yiddish and some other languages.
The periods of English are:
Old English – 5th century-1066;
Middle English – 1066-1500;
Modern English – 1500- 1800;
Present-Day English – 1800 till present

OLD ENGLISH
The historic facts related to the period
5th-6th c. - Germanic tribes inhabit the British Isles: the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes.
597 A.D. – Christianization of England;
the 9th century. The reign of King Alfred; many works were translated from Latin;
invasions of the Vikings (8th-9th centuries); the influence of Old Norse (Old Scandinavian) as a result.
.

2. The scope and types of texts
5th-6th centuries: inscriptions in the Runic alphabet; (before the adoption of the Latin alphabet);
(The runic alphabet is an alphabet, consisting of 29, and later, even 33 characters. It was used from the 5th century. It was used for carving in wood or stone and is characterized by angular shapes).
7th century: glossaries (lists) of translations of Latin words in manuscripts;

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (about 731)
It begins with the Ceasar’s invasion in 55. B.C. The aim was to show the growth of the united church throughout England.
9th century: religious texts translated from Latin;
Beowulf – Old English epic poem (around 1000).

3. Peculiarities of spelling and the alphabet:
spelling was not unified;
no capital letters;
j v f q x z were absent;
numbers were written only in the Roman alphabet.

4. The structure of the vocabulary
mostly of native origin; compounding, affixation were common types of word formation;
numerous synonymous expressions (because of alliteration in poetry)
e.g. messenger has at least 14 synonyms
original compounds (kennings);
e.g. hronrad ‘whale-road’ – sea
banhus ‘bone-house’ –human body
heofon-candel – the Sun

The words had inflectional endings which showed relations within sentence; no conversion as a type of word formation which is common in Modern English (love –to love)
Very few borrowed words (loanwords).
Latin borrowings (only about 200 found) are related to religion (e. g. mass, monastery),trading , military activities.
Celtic words are mostly place names (the Thames, London)
About 80 per cent of OE vocabulary was lost!

The Middle English Period
(1066 – 1500)
The historic events related to the period:
The Norman Conquest (occupation of England by Duke William II of Normandy)
Normandy lost to France in 1204 (the influence of French diminishes)
The Hundred Year War with France (began in 1377)
The languages used : French, Latin, English
(by different layers of the society)

The Main Texts of Middle English
The documents of the royalty (French, Latin, later English);
Translations from Latin and French, texts used for teaching these languages;
Literature:
William Langland (author of an allegorical poem);
John Wycliffe (philosopher, translator, teacher);
Geoffrey Chaucer
(Spelling still varied; borrowings from French were frequent).

Important historical and social factors
Invention of printing (W. Caxton, 1476) – freezing of spelling; spreading of literacy (because books became less expensive);
The Protestant Reformation of the Church – English, not Latin is used during the Mass
The Renaissance - interest in classical languages (Greek and Roman) which led to massive borrowing from these languages

Shakespeare’s works
King James Bible (1611) – an English translation of the Bible for the Church of England
The spread of the London dialect in the 15th century (because the court moved from Windsor to London) helped in the formation of the national language;
Samuel Johnson’s dictionary (1755) which helped to standardize English

Characteristics of Present-Day English
(1800 – till present)
emergence of American English;
growth of scientific vocabulary and terminology
new varieties of English around the world
(Australian, New Zealand, South African, etc.)

The Process of Borrowing

Direct vs. indirect borrowing
Direct – a language takes a word directly from another language;
e.g. omelet, (from French); metaphor (from Greek)
Indirect – a word travels from one language to another and then another, etc.
e.g. quahwah (Arabic) – kahve (Turkish) – caffee (Italian) – coffee (English)

Loanwords and loanshifts
Loanword – one word belonging to a language is adopted by another
e.g. government (Fr), street (L), lexis (Gr)
Loanshift (calque) – the meaning of a loanword is represented by a word in a foreign language. The meaning is taken but not the word itself. Parts of the words are translated.
e.g. Superman (from German Ubermensch); Holy Spirit (from Latin Spiritus Sanctus)

Why do languages borrow?
Most borrowed words belong to open lexical classes, especially nouns. There is often a need to give a new name to an unfamiliar thing, cultural phenomenon, etc.
Often reasons are not purely linguistic and are related to new achievements in science, cultural relations, etc, There may be no suitable word in the native language.
Algebra, zenith, zero, alcohol (from Arabic came via Latin)

Names of animals and plants from around the world have entered English from all kinds of languages.
e.g. Panda (Nepalese), koala (a native Australian language), chimpanzee (an African Bantu language)
Words are often borrowed to assert identity and prestige (use of code-switching).
Nativisation of borrowings
Many borrowed words become completely nativised
e.g. parent (from Latin in the 14th c)

Café (from French at the end of the 18th c) still has the diacritic mark.
Naïve (Fr 17th c)
How to recognize borrowings?
Some sounds at the beginning of a word indicate that it is a borrowing [dz, v z]
jungle (Hindi)
volcano (Italian)
zero (Arabic via Latin)

The morphological structure of words and their grammatical forms:
suffixes (e.g. –osis >neurosis)
prefixes (e.g. a->atypical, non->non-toxic)
roots (e.g. bio-, geo-, tele-, -derm)
Irregular plurals:
referendum – referenda,
corpus – corpora,
formula – formulae

The lexical meaning of the word may clearly indicate that a word has been borrowed. E.g.panda, Islam,
yoga.
The words borrowed from French can be recognized by their typical patterns of spelling: -ity (felicity), -our (favour), -ant (infant).
Effects of borrowings
Phonological and semantic.

Some examples of semantic effects
Peod meaning “people” (OE) was lost when the word people was introduced from French.
Deor (>deer) meant “animal” in OE. When animal came from French, it changed its meaning.
Pig – pork, sheep – mutton, cow – beef, calf – veal.

The vocabulary of English
Native English vocabulary
It is made up of Anglo-Saxon words. These words arrived with the Germanic invaders.
Grammatical (be, in, that) and lexical words (father, love, name).
Most of them are common words; some are colloquial, some are literal, and some are neutral. It is basic vocabulary, often short words.

The influence of Celtic on English
Celtic could not have a great impact on English because it was the language of a conquered nation. Very few Celtic words were borrowed.
A few words have survived in regional dialects, e.g. carr “rock”, etc. (see the textbook).
Place names:
rivers: the Thames, the Severn, the Trent, the Avon (it meant “river”)
towns: London (a tribal name), Kent, Leeds

Scandinavian words in English
The words came as a result of the Viking raids in Britain, which began in 787 A.D. and continued with intervals for about 200 years..
The linguistic influence: place names
(in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire)
–by meaning “farm or town” ? Derby
-thorpe meaning “village” ? Astonthope
-toft meaning “homestead” ? Sandtoft
-thwaite maning “clearing” ?Applethwaite
personal names -son (Davidson, Jackson)

Sometimes a Scandinavian word just replaced an OE word:
e.g. vindauga was replaced by window.
Semantic contamination: OE dream “joy” ? “vision in sleep” because of ON influence.
sk/sc- indicates ON origin ? scrape, skill, skin, scrub, sky.
Thus skirt and shirt come from the same source.
Duplicate words also arose from the contact: sick-ill, raise-rise.

French loanwords
Because of some contacts between the countries there were loanwords from French even before 1066. E.g. prison. Out of about 10,000 French loanwords (taken during ME) 70 per cent were nouns.
The most common semantic fields: law, administration, medicine, arts, education, everyday life, etc.
E.g. crime replaced sin, which changed its meaning and remained in the religious sphere.

What happened when a French word entered English?
the English word disappeared;
the English word changed its meaning
e.g., harvest meant autumn in OE, but when the latter came from French it changed its meaning;
crime replaced sin, which also changed its meaning and remained in the religious sphere.

The same word could be borrowed again:
chief – chef (the 19th century)
gentle – genteel
The later borrowings may retain stress not on the first syllable.
After the 17th century the French words are less nativized. They may retain the pronunciation of [š], not changed into [tš],
e.g. chauffeur
but chamber (ME)

Latin words in English
The influence was greater or smaller depending on the period. It is sometimes hard to decide whether a word came from Latin or French at that time.
E.g. library (ME)
Most of the words were scholastic, religious, from law and literature.
Triplets – sets of three items, all expressing basically the same notion:
e. g. ask – question – interrogate

During Early Modern English the borrowing from Latin greatly increased (often via French). Often scientific words.
e.g. atmosphere, formula, focus, energy, apparatus
From the Renaissance on, English borrowed roots and affixes to form new words that had not existed in the Classical languages themselves.
cortex >L, but cortical did not exist in L

Some Latin words entered English twice – during ME via French and later – directly from Latin:
envious – invidious
treasure – thesaurus
porch – portico
Greek loanwords
a considerable number of technical and scientific terms in all braches of knowledge

metaphor “transfer”
paradox “beyond belief”
phenomenon “appearance”
lexis “word, speech, diction, text”
German and Dutch loans Commercial contacts mostly. The Dutch were mostly famous for their sea travels. Their languages have contributed some nautical terms:
cruise, deck, skipper

German:
noodle, frankfurter (sausage, 19th c), waltz (18th c), Gestalt (a unified whole, 20th c).
Romance vocabulary (Spanish, Portuguese and Italian)
From the 16th century onwards. Also from the colonies where these languages were spoken.

Spanish: from the 16th century – potato, chocolate, cigar, sombrero, alligator.
Portuguese: madeira, flamingo, mango, marmalade.
Italian: music and other arts – madrigal, violin, adagio, cantata, soprano,
balcony, balloon, fresco, torso, studio, volcano, vendetta.

Loanwords from the East
Arabic: some words were borrowed during the Middle Ages, they came mostly via Latin or French: e.g. amber, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, azimuth.
al- is an element which represents the Arabic definite article.
Hindi: jungles, shampoo (18th century; meant “massage”).
Sanskrit: karma, yoga.
Chinese: tycoon, judo, and kamikaze (but came via Japanese).

Other languages
Slavic languages: polka (Czech; 18th c);
czar, intelligentsia, tundra, vodka (Russian); 20th c), tundra, and vodka
Native American: moccasin, skunk, toboggan.
Place names: Chicago, Michigan, Saratoga.
West African: banana (via Spanish), gorilla.