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English Language ENGLISH LANGUAGE 1. The History of English English is not only the first language for more than 400 million native speakers, but also a lingua franca1 for 1,5 billion speakers overall. It is the official language in almost 60 countries around the world. The shaping2 of the English language was a complicated process connected with the historical and social experience of the people living on the British Isles and elsewhere. It is not incorrect to say that the evolution of English resembles3 the evolution of the British nation as we know it today. Through various eras and in specific situations, the social life of the British has had an immense4 influence on the language the people spoke and speak today. From a linguistic perspective, English is traditionally described as a West-Germanic language. Its roots lie deep in the past before the beginning of the first millennium. “The Proto- Germanic5 parent language gave rise6 to three branches of descendant7 languages, namely8, eastern, northern, and western. … The eastern branch was represented by Gothic, Burgundian and Vandal languages, all the three of them dead now. The northern branch comprises9 idioms10 spoken on the territory of today’s Denmark and Scandinavia.”11 Thus12 we have two groups of Germanic languages in existence today: the western group (English, German, Dutch) and the northern group (Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and some minor languages). Traditionally, the history of English is divided into three major stages: Old English, Middle English, and New English with Modern English as part of it. Let us discuss the individual stages in more detail now. 1.1. Old English (5th century – 1066) By Old English, a group of dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons is usually meant. They 1 Lingua franca is a language which people use to communicate with people whose language they do not master. 2 shaping – utváření 3 resemble – připomínat 4 immense – nesmírný 5 Proto-Germanic – pragermánský 6 give rise – nechat vzejít 7 descendant – nástupný 8 namely – jmenovitě 9 comprise – zahrnovat 10 idiom – jazyk 11 Kavka 2008: 123 12 thus – takto English Language – page 1 brought their language from the continent in the 5th century after the Roman forces had left Britannia. They conquered13 the areas inhabited by the Celts and settled14 in Britain. It is worth noting – and you will soon discover – that Old English does not look like modern English at all and even to native speakers it would certainly sound and look like a foreign language. To give you a view of what Old English looked like, it will be best to start with the famous Lord’s Prayer15: Old English New English translation Fæder ūre Our Father þū þe eart on heofonum, Which art in heaven, sī þīn nama ȝehālgod. Hallowed be thy name. Tōbecume þīn rīce. Thy kingdom come. Gewurþe ðīn willa on eordan Thy will be done on earth, swā swā on heofonum. As it is in heaven. Ūrne ȝedæȝhwāmlīcan hlāf syle ūs tō dæȝ. Give us this day our daily bread. And forȝyf ūs ūre ȝyltas, And forgive us our debts, swā swā wē forȝyfad ūrum ȝyltendum. As we forgive our debtors. And ne ȝelǣd þū ūs on costnunge, And lead us not into temptation, ac ālȳs ūs of yfele. But deliver us from evil. Soþlīce. Amen.16 The first feature you have probably noticed is the presence of obsolete17 letters. Old English used two ways to write Gg: the Gg that we know even today, and Ȝȝ, called “yogh”. There were no universal rules which should be written where. The same applied to Þþ (called “thorn18”) and Đð (called “eth”), which are the archaic variants of the digraph19 TH. For Ww, the letter Ƿƿ (called “wynn”) was often used. The letter S sometimes had two lower-case variants: s, used in final position, and ſ, used elsewhere20. The only obsolete vowel is Ææ. Long vowels are marked with macrons, however, marking lengths was not common. As for pronunciation, it would be incorrect to say that everything in OE was pronounced “as written”. The spelling was much more regular than in modern English, however, there were some 13 conquer – dobýt 14 settle – usadit se 15 the Lord’s Prayer – Otčenáš 16 Kavka 2008: 92. Also, please note that there were more versions of the Lord’s Prayer. 17 obsolete – zastaralý 18 thorn – osten 19 digraph – spřežka 20 The latter survived into the New English period. It is also to be found in old Czech texts. Using these obsolete letters in transcriptions of Old English texts would make them almost unreadable, therefore modern letters are preferred and characters such as Ƿƿ are not used even in transcriptions. English Language – page 2 special features. Gg and Ȝȝ could be pronounced both |ɡ| and |j|, but never |ʤ| as today. The digraphs SC and CG could be pronounced |ʃ| and |ʤ|, respectively. Ff was pronounced |v|. Cc was pronounced either |k| or |ʧ|. Ææ was pronounced |æ|. The system of grammar was much more complicated than today, as21 OE was rather a synthetic language22. Nouns used declensions23 as there were four grammatical cases24. There were both strong and weak nouns. As an example of strong nouns, let us mention stān (“stone”): N stān, G stānes, D stāne, A stān. As for weak nouns, nama (“name”) is a good example: N nama, G naman, D naman, A naman.25 Some nouns even used umlauts26: N bōc (“book”), G bēc, D bēc, A bōc. This applied even to the plural and it is the reason why some nouns have got “irregular” plurals (e.g. “foot” – “feet”). Adjectives were also flexive. Verbs used conjugations27 and were both weak and strong, the strong giving birth to present-day irregular verbs. The OE vocabulary consisted of much more Germanic words than today. However, there were strong influences of Latin and Old Norse. Words such as candle, school, master or history have their origin in the Latin influx28 between the 7th and 11th centuries. From Old Norse, words such as husband, wrong, sky, root or ugly became a part of the English vocabulary. Let us close this brief overview with the opening lines to Beowulf, probably the best known Old English poem: Old English original Modern English translation Hwæt we Gardena in geardagum, Hle, Slyšte zvěst o králích Gar-Danů, o tom, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, jakými byli válečníky, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. za časů dávných a minulých. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, Často Scyld Scefing zdrtil nepřátele, monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, hodovní síně mnoha národů rozvrátil, egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð jarlové se jej děsili. Pastorek bez přátel, feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, nalezencem byl. Však osud jej právem odměnil. weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, Prospíval pod nebem, přátele získal. oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra Všichni lidé, blízcí i ti vzdálení ofer hronrade hyran scolde, od velrybích cest, mu naslouchali 21 as – jelikož 22 Synthetic languages tend to build words using suffixes and endings rather than using prepositions. Czech could be described as a synthetic language, modern English as an analytic language. Compare “kamarádovi” (synthetic) to “to a friend” (analytic). 23 declension – deklinace, skloňování 24 case – pád 25 You might be familiar with the concept of weak nouns from present-day German. 26 umlaut – přehláska 27 conjugation – konjugace, časování 28 influx – příliv English Language – page 3 gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs god cyning! a dary jej obšťastňovali. Byl to dobrý král! Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned, Jemu syn se narodil, geong in geardum, þone god sende dědic jeho síní. Skrze něj seslali folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat Bohové radost lidu, þe hie ær drugon aldorlease který již postrádal lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea, dědice králova. Byl obdařen, wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf; nositel zázraků, velkou slávou. Beowulf wæs breme (blæd wide sprang), Pověstný byl tento Beowulf, daleko letěla pověst o něm, Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. synu Scylda, po zemích Skanzy. Some facts probably still need to be pointed out. Anglo-Saxon poems were not rhymed. They rather concentrated on rhythm and repeating sounds – alliteration. The long space in the lines is called caesura. There are also a couple of kennings, Anglo-Saxon metaphors. For example the word “hronrade”, in modern English “whale-road”, simply refers to the sea. 1.2. Middle English (1066–1500) The Middle English period begins with the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Led by William the Conqueror, the conquest brought far-reaching29 changes to the English society and culture. The language people spoke also changed drastically – even though not overnight, of course. It was a period of heavy French influence – the new nobility30 brought their customs and way of life and Norman French became the official language. Latin was also important as the language of the church. English did not disappear, but rather underwent a significant progress. French had an immense influence on the English vocabulary. Over 10,000 words were adopted – they were words associated with administration, fashion and social life: crown, state, government, sir, madam, crime, judge, soldier, court, army, dress, coat, dinner, colour, tower and thousands of others. It is often mentioned that words expressing various kinds of meat are of French origin while the words expressing animals are of Germanic origin, e.g. beef – cow or pork – pig. The influence on grammar was not as radical as on vocabulary. Probably the only issue worth mentioning here is the way adjectives were compared31 – the Romance32 way appeared, as comparatives and superlatives were created using more and most. Also, during the period, but 29 far-reaching – dalekosáhlý 30 nobility – šlechta 31 compare – stupňovat 32 Romance – románský English Language – page 4 not as a direct impact of French, English lost much of its grammatical complexity – declensions and conjugations gradually disappeared or became much more simple.
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