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An Outline History of the English Language

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An Outline History of the English Language An Outline History of the English Language AN OUTLINE HIST O RY O F T H E ENGLIS H LA NGU A GE by Frederick T. Wood (An Imprint of La xmi Publications Pvt. Ltd.) BANGALORE • CHENNAI • COCHIN • GUWAHATI • HYDERABAD JALANDHAR • KOLKATA • LUCKNOW • MUMBAI • RANCHI • NEW DELHI INDIA • USA • GHANA • KENYA AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE © 2015 by Laxmi Publications (P) Ltd. All rights reserved including those of translation into other languages. In accordance with the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise. Any such act or scanning, uploading, and or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the copyright holder’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained from the publishers. Printed and bound in India Typeset at Shubham Composer First Edition: 1941; Second Edition: 1969; Revised Edition: 2015 ISBN 978-93-5138-093-1 Limits of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties. The advice, strategies, and activities contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. In performing activities adult supervision must be sought. Likewise, common sense and care are essential to the conduct of any and all activities, whether described in this book or otherwise. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable or assumes any responsibility for any injuries or damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website if referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers must be aware that the Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. All trademarks, logos or any other mark such as Vibgyor, USP, Amanda, Golden Bells, Firewall Media, Mercury, Trinity, Laxmi appearing in this work are trademarks and intellectual property owned by or licensed to Laxmi Publications, its subsidiaries or affiliates. Notwithstanding this disclaimer, all other names and marks mentioned in this work are the trade names, trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. & Bangalore 080-26 75 69 30 & Chennai 044-24 34 47 26, 24 35 95 07 & Cochin 0484-237 70 04, 405 13 03 & Guwahati 0361-254 36 69, 251 38 81 PUBLISHED IN INDIA BY & Hyderabad 040-27 55 53 83, 27 55 53 93 Branches & Jalandhar 0181-222 12 72 & Kolkata 033-22 27 43 84 (An Imprint of Laxmi Publications Pvt. Ltd.) & Lucknow 0522-220 99 16 113, GOLDEN HOUSE, DARYAGANJ, & Mumbai 022-24 91 54 15, 24 92 78 69 NEW DELHI - 110002, INDIA Telephone : 91-11-4353 2500, 4353 2501 & Ranchi 0651-220 44 64 Fax : 91-11-2325 2572, 4353 2528 www.laxmipublications.com C— [email protected] Printed at: Contents Preface to the Second Edition vii Preface to the First Edition viii I The Origin of Language 1–7 II The Descent of the English Language 8–16 III The Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period 17–41 IV The Middle English Period 42–67 V The Renaissance and After 68–81 VI The Growth of Vocabulary 82–113 VII Change of Meaning 114–147 VIII The Evolution of Standard English 148–157 IX Idiom and Metaphor 158–171 X The Foreign Contribution 172–193 XI Conclusion 194–208 Bibliography 209–210 Index of Subjects 211–215 Index of Words and Phrases 217–230 Preface to the Second Edition In the present edition minor changes have been made throughout the book, but the more radical and extensive ones occur in the second half of it. A number of examples that had become somewhat dated by the lapse of time, or had been treated as neologisms, have been removed, and many new words that have come into English over the past twenty-five years have been added. The influence of American English upon that of Great Britain has been dealt with at greater length than before, and the chapter on Standard English has been considerably revised in the light of the changing attitude towards the whole conception of a ‘standard’ of speech. Something has been said on the ‘U’ and ‘non-U’ debate, and on the influence of television and present-day journalism on both the spoken and the written forms of the language. Finally, the bibliography has been revised and brought more up to date by the inclusion of works which have appeared since the book was originally published in 1941. Frederick T. Wood March, 1967 Preface to the First Edition The present book has been written in the belief that there is room for a work which will serve as an introduction to the history of the English language for those who have little or no previous knowledge of the subject. A number of excellent treatises by specialists in this branch of English studies already exist (a selection of them is given in the bibliography), but for the most part they are not books for the beginner. Either they are too detailed for his requirements, or they assume, and demand, a certain amount of previous knowledge which he does not possess. There are, too, several very competent and interesting books on etymology and the history of words, but this is only one side of language study. The present volume claims to be no more than an outline and an introduction, but at the same time it seeks to treat all the more important aspects of the subject—vocabulary, grammar, syntax, pronunciation, sound-change, etymology, etc.—in as simple, clear and methodical a way as possible. The type of reader I have had in mind is, on the one hand, the young student who is required by certain examining bodies to have some acquaintance with the history of the English language for the purpose of their Higher School Certificate and similar examinations, and, on the other, the more general reader who wishes to know something of how his mother-tongue has developed. For this reason I have tried to avoid a too academic approach to the subject and have striven rather to give it a living interest by keeping the attention, even when dealing with past developments, upon English as it is spoken and written today. Thus in touching upon sound-changes, for instance, mention has been made only of those which have left a definite mark upon the English of the twentieth century and help to explain its chief characteristics, as well as its apparent anomalies or peculiarities; those which are of historical interest only have been excluded. Words chosen for discussion and illustration have been selected on the same principle. Preface ix Obviously, the more languages a student of English can read, the better equipped will he be for his task and the easier and the more vitally real will it become for him. But here again I have assumed no more than would normally be acquired as the result of a grammar school education: that is to say, a working knowledge of French and Latin, none of Old English, and little of Middle English outside Chaucer. Should it happen that one is acquainted with any other languages, especially German, so much the better. In dealing with pronunciation and sound-change, too, as far as possible the employment of phonetics has been avoided. Instead an attempt has been made to indicate sounds by reference to similar ones in present-day English words. My debt to such authorities as Jespersen, Bradley, Wyld and Weekley will be evident throughout the text, often when no specific mention is made of it; and like all students of, and writers upon, the English language, I have had frequent recourse to the Oxford Dictionary, whose help has been indispensable. I must also thank a number of personal friends for valuable assistance: viz., my colleagues Mr. D. H. Carding-Wells and Mr. J. A. Over for advice on the Spanish and Italian contributions respectively, Mr.G. A. Birkett, Head of the Department of Russian in Sheffield University, for help with Russian words in English, Dr. Imrich Tarjan for collaboration on Czech and Hungarian words, and Dr. Clarice E. Tyler for reading the entire typescript and offering a number of valuable suggestions. Frederick T. Wood Sheffield September, 1941 Chapter I The Origin of Language efore setting out to make a study of the development of the English Blanguage over the past fifteen hundred years or more, there are one or two elementary facts concerning language in general that we should get clearly into our minds. It may perhaps be felt that they are sufficiently obvious to most intelligent people to render any mention of them unnecessary; but they are, nevertheless, apt to be overlooked, and since it is impossible to appreciate fully the significance of the various forces which have been at work behind and within our language, governing, determining and directing its evolution, unless we are first of all aware of these few essential facts concerning language in general, they are set down here as briefly and as concisely as possible. The first thing to realise is that language is primarily something that is spoken, not written.
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