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Seminar 2 Old English

1. The names English and England.


The Celts called their Germanic conquerors Saxons indiscriminately, probably because
they had had their first contact with the Teutons through the Saxon raids on the coast. The
Teutons, on the other hand, called the Celts Wealas (foreigners) from which the word Welsh is
derived. Early Latin writers, following Celtic usage, generally call the Teutons in England
Saxones and the land Saxonia. But soon the terms Angles and Anglia occur besides Saxones
and refer not to the Angles individually but to the Teutons generally. thelbert, king of Kent,
is styled rex Anglorum by Pope Gregory in 601, and a century later Bede called his history the
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. In time Angli and Anglia become the usual terms in
Latin texts. From the beginning, however, writers in the vernacular never call their language
anything but Englisc (English). The word is derived from the name of the Angles (O.E. Engle)
but is used without distinction for the language of all the invading tribes. In like manner the
land and its people are early called Angelcynn (Angle-kin or race of the Angles), and this is the
common name until after the Danish period. From about the year 1000 Englaland (land of the
Angles) begins to take its place. The name English is thus older than the name England. It is
not easy to say why England should have taken its name from the Angles. Possibly a desire to
avoid confusion with the Saxons who remained on the continent and the early supremacy of the
Anglian kingdoms were the predominant factors in determining usage.
2. The origin and position of English
The English language of today is the language which has resulted from the fusion of the
dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes who came to England in the manner described in the
previous lecture. It is impossible to say how much the speech of the Angles differed from that
of the Saxons or that of the Jutes. The differences were certainly slight. Even after the dialects
had been subjected to several centuries of geographical and political separation in England, the
differences were not great. As we have already seen, English belongs to the Low West
Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. This means in the first place that it shares
certain characteristics common to all the Germanic languages. For example, it shows:
the shifting of certain consonants under the head of Grimms Law.
2.1. Grimms Law
- in 1822 a German philologist, Jacob Grimm, following up the suggestion of a Danish
contemporary, Rask, formulated an explanation which systematically accounted for the
correspondences between certain consonants in the Germanic languages and those
found for example in Sanskrit, Greek and Latin. His explanation, although subsequently
modified and in some of the details of its operation still a subject of dispute, is easily
illustrated.
- According to Grimm, a p in Indo-European, preserved as such in Latin and Greek, was
changed to an f in the Germanic languages. Thus, we should look for the English
equivalent of Latin piscis or ps to begin with an f, and this is what we actually find in
fish and foot respectively.
- What is true of p is also true of t and k: in other words, the original voiceless stops (p, t,
k) were changed to spirants (f, , h). So Latin trs = English three, Latin centum =
English hundred.
- A similar correspondence can be shown for certain other groups of consonants: the
aspirates (bh, dh, gh which some hold to have been really spirants) became voiced
spirants (v, , ) or voiced stops (b, d, g).
- Consequently Sanskrit bhrmi = English bear, Sanskrit dh = English do, Latin hostis
(*ghostis) = English guest. Latin hortus = English yard, etc.
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The original voiced stops (b, d, g) changed to voiceless ones (p, t, k) in the Germanic
languages, so that Latin cannabis = English hemp, Latin decem = English ten, Latin
genu = English knee.
- In High German some of these consonants underwent a further change, known as the
Second or High German Sound-Shift. It accounts for such differences as we see in
English open and German offen, English eat and German essen.
The formulation of all these correspondences is known as Grimms Law. The cause of
the change is not known. It must have taken place sometime after the segregation of the
Germanic from the neighbouring dialects of the parent language. There are words in Finnish
borrowed from Germanic which do not show the change, and which therefore must have
resulted from a contact between Germanic and Finnish before the change occurred. There is
also evidence that the shifting was still occurring as late as about the fifth century B.C. It is
often assumed that the change was due to contact with a non-Germanic population. The contact
could have resulted from the migration of the Germanic tribes or from the penetration of a
foreign population into Germanic territory. Whatever its cause, the Germanic sound-shift is the
most distinctive feature marking off the Germanic languages from the languages to which they
are related.
Certain apparent exceptions to Grimms Law were subsequently explained by Karl
Verner and others. It was noted that between such a pair of words as Latin centum and English
hundred the correspondence between c and h was according to the rule, but that between t and
d was not. The d in the English word should have been a voiceless spirant, that is, a . In 1875
Verner showed that when the Indo-European accent was not on the vowel immediately
preceding, such voiceless spirants became voiced in Germanic. In West Germanic the resulting
became a d, and the word hundred is therefore quite regular in its correspondence to centum.
The explanation was of importance in accounting or the forms of the preterite tense in many
strong verbs. Thus, in Old English, the preterite singular of cwean (to say) is ic cw but the
plural is we cwdon. In the latter word the accent was originally on the ending, as it was in the
past participle (cweden), where we also have a d. The formulation of this explanation is known
as Verners Law, and it was of great importance in vindicating the claim of regularity for the
sound changes which Grimms Law had attempted to define.
Old English possess a weak as well as a strong declension of the adjective and a
distinctive type of conjugation of the verb the so-called weak or regular verbs such as
fill, filled, filled, which form their past tense and past participle by adding ed or some
analogous sound to the stem of the present. It shows the adoption of a strong stress
accent on the first or root syllable of most words (this is obscured in Modern English by
the large number of words borrowed from Latin). This is a feature of great importance
in Germanic languages, since it is chiefly responsible for the progressive decay of
inflections in these languages. In the second place it means that English belongs with
German and certain other languages because of features which it has in common with
them and which enable us to distinguish a West Germanic group as contrasted with the
Scandinavian languages (North Germanic) and Gothic (East Germanic). These features
have to do mostly with certain phonetic changes, especially the germination or doubling
of consonants under special conditions, matters which we do not need to enter upon
here. And it means, finally, that English, along with the other languages of Northern
Germany and the Low Countries, did not participate in the further modification of
certain consonants, known as the Second or High German Sound-Shift. In other words
it belongs with the dialects of the lowlands in the West Germanic area.
3. The periods in the history of English.
The evolution of English in the fifteen hundred years of its existence in England has
been an unbroken one. Within this development, however, it is possible to recognize three
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main periods. Like all in history, the periods of the English language are matters of
convenience and the dividing lines between them purely arbitrary. There is no break in the
process of continuous transition. But within each of the periods it is possible to recognize
certain broad characteristics and certain special developments that take place.
1. The period from 450 to 1150 is known as Old English. It is sometimes described as the
period of full inflections, since during most of this period the endings of the noun, the
adjective, and the verb are preserved more or less unimpaired.
2. From 1150 to 1500 the language is known as Middle English. (Some of the
developments which distinguish Middle English begin as early as the tenth century, but
a consideration of the matter as a whole justifies the date 1150 as the general line of
demarcation.) During this period the inflections, which had begun to break down
towards the end of the Old English period, become greatly reduced, and it is
consequently known as the period of leveled inflections.
3. The language since 1500 is called Modern English. By the time we reach this stage in
the development a large part of the original inflectional system has disappeared entirely
and we therefore speak of it as the period of lost inflections. The progressive decay of
inflections is only one of the developments which mark the evolution of English and its
various stages.
4. The dialects of Old English.
Old English was not an entirely uniform language. Not only are there differences
between the language of the earliest written records (about A.D. 700) and that of the later
literary texts, but the language differed somewhat from one locality to another. We can
distinguish four dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. Of these the
Northumbrian and Mercian are found in the region north of the Thames settled by the Angles.
They possess certain features in common and are sometimes known collectively as Anglian.
But Northumbrian spoken north of the Humber River and Mercian spoken between the
Humber and the Thames, each possess certain distinctive features as well. Unfortunately we
know less about them than we should like since they are preserved mainly in charters, runic
inscriptions, a few brief fragments of verse and some interlinear translations of portions of the
Bible.
Kentish is known from still scantier remains, as is the dialect of the Jutes and their
probable associates in the southeast. The only dialect in which there is an extensive collection
of texts is West Saxon, which was the dialect of the West Saxon kingdom in the southwest.
Nearly all of Old English literature is preserved in manuscripts transcribed in this region. The
dialects probably reflect differences already present in the continental homes of the invaders.
There is evidence, however, that some features developed in England after the settlement. With
the ascendancy of the West Saxon kingdom, the West Saxon dialect attained something of the
position of a literary standard, and both for this reason and because of the abundance of the
materials it is made the basis of the study of Old English. Such a start as it had made toward
becoming the standard speech of England was cut short by the Norman Conquest, which
reduced all dialects to a common level of unimportance. And when in the Middle English
period a standard English once more began to arise, it was on the basis of a different dialect.

Practical exercises
Grimms and Verners laws
HIDDEN ROOTS
Some Indo-European roots have been highly productive in the various Indo-European
descendant languages. Through subsequent borrowing, English has occasionally acquired dozens
of words from the same Indo-European root. However, the original root may be difficult to spot
because it has undergone so many phonological changes in the various languages and because it
had different affixed forms in the original Indo-European. Among the more prolific IndoEuropean roots is *bh- to speak. One Latin form of this root has given us affable, fate, (in)effable,
infant, infantry and preface. Other Latin forms are responsible for banish, contraband, fame, infamous,
confess, profess. Greek versions of IE *bh- give Modern English aphasia, prophet, euphemism,
blasphemous, blame, and the highly productive phone (as in telephone, phonetics and symphony). From Old
English itself we have ban and banns, from Old Norse boon, from Old French abandon and banal,
and from Italian, bandit.
In most of these derivatives, the core meaning to speak is obvious. For example,
blasphemous means speaking badly of something holy, ineffable means unable to be spoken or
expressed in words and a telephone let us speak at a distance. In other instances, the semantic
connection is harder to detect, but it can usually be ferreted out with a little effort and imagination.
An infant is someone unable (too young) to speak. Both a ban and banns were ones spoken publicly.
Bandit comes from an Italian verb meaning to band together, that is to have been summoned by
speaking.
PRACTICE:
Give the PDE reflex (descendant) of the following reconstructed Indo-European (IE) roots.
Every example includes at least one application of Grimms Law or Verners Law or both. Because
the development of vowels from IE to PDE is extremely complex, you will have to ignore the
vowels for this exercise. Concentrate on consonant correspondences. The part-of-speech category
may have changed, and the meaning may be slightly different.
IE root
*bhreg- break
*dom-o- to constrain
*gwou- cattle
*kerd- cardiac
*mn-ti- to think
*gn-ti- origin, race
*p-lo- to rot, decay
*reug- to vomit, belch, smoke
*roup- to snatch
*saus- dry
*steip- to stick, compress
*swd- pleasant
*swod- to exude
*nod- to tie, bind
*pleus- feather, animal coat
*yeug- to join

PDE reflex

sweet

If we know that grain in IE is *gr -no-, why are we certain that grain is a borrowed word and not a
native word in English?

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