Intro to Historical Linguistics

1 LESSON
How English is related to other languages?
- English is a Germanic lg (West Germanic) if you split lgs in lg tree /family
o Look at core vocab – existed 1000s of years
o Compare with other lg
 hand – Hand
 mother – Mutter so you establish family relation
 kiss – Huss
 father – Vater

- No more East Germanic lg

lingual/ethnolingual groups: Gothic (Russia, Belaruss )

2 LESSON
Grimm’s Law
- Linguistics is a field of investigation
- 19th century science
o has strict rules
o approach needs to be exact you need to be able to generalize it should
be verified with data if there is conflict modify generalization  if there are
exceptions ?
th
- 19 century: beginning of the comparative linguistics compare lgs to decide if they
are genetically related or not
o sister languages – from Latin, the gender of the word ‘lingua’ is female = siter
languages not brother lgs
- Schlegel & Rask
o 1806. Fiedrich von Schlegel: Latin p ~ Germanic f – e.g. pater ~ father
o 1820. Rasmus Rask: full range of consonants, added Greek + Sanskrit (Indian
lg, has a huge literacy)
o 1812: Children’s and Household Tales – by Grimm Brothers
o 1822: Jacob Grimm added Modern German
 2nd edition: Deutsche Grammatik - about German lgs in general
 - Grimm’s Law
o Erste Lautverschiebung

Latin  English
labio lip
duo two
ager ‘field’ acre ~ 4000m2

Greek/Latin  English
kardio heart
tres three
pater father

Latin/Greek/Sanskrit English

frater brother
thügátēr daughter
hamsa ‘swan’ goose

- Verner’s Law: concerns Proto-Germanic irregularities

3 LESSON
Old english spelling and morphology
- Spelling was pretty similar but there were differences as well

Consonants

- Intervocalic voicing of fricatives

o <f> : stæf [stæf] ‘letter’ but stafas [stɑvɑs] ‘letters, staves’
o <s>: hūs [huːs] ‘house’ but hūsian [huːziɑn] ‘to house’
o <þ> : bæþ [bæθ] ‘bath’ but baþian [bɑðiɑn] ‘bathe’ (it was a verb)
 - <þ> thorn : a letter of Runic origin, used in Old English, Old Scandinavian and Modern
Icelandic

Complementary distribution

f s þ

f v s z θ ð
(between
vowels)

Dorsal consonants

- (velars and postalveolars) [pronunciation-t jelöli]

o <c> [k] e.g. coffee //hard value BUT cnist [knight]
-didn’t use letter ‘k’
o <ċ> [tʃ] e.g. child [csild] //soft value BUT cild ~before vowels
o <sċ> [ʃ]
o <g> [g] e.g god ~ before vowels or [γ] between vowels

o <ġ> [j]
o <cg> [dʒ]

Vowels

Front Back

unrounded rounded unrounded rounded

Close i ī y ȳ u ū

Mid e ē œ ōe o ō

Open æ ǣ a ā

- ligature: two letters are pushed together e.g. æ

Morphology : GENDER

- Old English had grammatical gender not just for pronoun – nouns + adjectives +
determiners : had gender
- Determiners (Modern English the, that)

sē masculine

sēo feminine

þæt neuter

Morphology : DECLENSION

- declension: how you have suffixes

- Different paradigms by gender & stem type
- Old English noun had 4 cases
o Nominative: noun was the subject of the sentence
o Accusative: noun was the object of the sentence
o Genitive: marker of possessive valami: Jane’s book, book of Jane
o Dative: to the time

  tīd  ‘time’ (fem.) Singular Plural

Nominative tīd tīda

Accusative tīd, tīde tīda, tīde

Genitive tīde tīda

Dative tīde tīdum

Morphology : CONJUGATION

- Declension with verbs: conjugations

o weak: regular
o strong: irregular

E/1 dǣle Modern English SHE – was borrowed from Vikings

E/2 dǣlst

E/3 dǣlþ

T/1

T/2 dǣlaþ - ugyan az mindhárom esetben

T/3

- Weak conjugation: dǣlan ‘to share’

 iċ dǣle wē dǣlaþ

þū dǣlst ġē dǣlaþ

hē/hēo/hit dǣlþ hīe dǣlaþ

Old English epic poem

- Beowulf:
o An Old English epic poem
o c. 700–1000
o author unknown

o þ and ð – same sound value

That was a good king // þæt wæs gōd cyning

o a - hiányzik
o þæt – that
o wæs – was
o gōd – good
o cyning – king y=ü
4 LESSON
Runes
Futhark, Futhorc

- Elder Fuþark
- Younger Fuþark
- Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc

Anglo-Saxon Runes inherited fromElder Fuþark

 ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚩ ᚱ ᚳ ᚷ ᚹ ᚻ ᚾ ᛁ ᛄ
f u þ o r c g w h n i j
ᚨ ᚲ ᚺ ᛃ
a k h j

 ᛇ ᛈ ᛉ ᛋᚴ ᛏ ᛒ ᛖ ᛗ ᛚ ᛝ ᛟ ᛞ
ï p x s t b e m l ng œ d
ᛉ ᛊᛋ ᛟ
z s o

Anglo-Saxon additions

- Additional vowels

 ᚪ ᚫ ᚣ ᛡ ᛠ
a æ y io ea
ᚨ ᚢᛁ
a ui

- Northumbrian consonants

 ᛣ ᛤ ᚸ ᛇ
k k g h
Runes: names, meaning, pronunciation

 ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚩ ᚱ ᚳ ᚷ ᚹ ᚻ ᚾ ᛁ ᛄ
feoh ūr þorn ōs rād ċēn ġyf wynn hæġ nȳd īs ġēr
‘wealth ‘aurochs ‘thorn ‘god ‘riding ‘torch u ‘mirth l ‘need ‘ice ‘year
’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ‘gift ’ ‘hail ’ ’ ’
f  v u θ  ð o r k  t͡ʃ ’ w ’ n i j
 ɡ  j h

 ᛇ ᛈ ᛉ ᛋᚴ ᛏ ᛒ ᛖ ᛗ ᛚ ᛝ ᛟ ᛞ
ēoh peor eolhx sigel Tir beorċ eh mann lagu Ing œþel dæġ
‘yew’ ð ‘elk’s’ ‘sun’ ‘Mars ‘birch’ ‘horse’ ‘man’ ‘lake (name) ‘ethel ‘day’
ï ? ks s  z ’ b h m ’ ŋ ’ d
p t l ø  e

 ᚪ ᚫ ᚣ ᛡ ᛠ
āc æsc ȳr īor ēar
‘oak’ ‘ash’ ? ? ?
a æ y (= ü) iə æə

Ruthwell Rood

5 LESSON
Middle English
Period

- Roughly from the Battle of Hastings (1066) to the beginning of the 16th century
- William the Conqueror on the Bayeux Tapestry Bayeux Museum
o the Normans originally spoken Germanic lg – then Romanized French lg

Features

- Simplified morphology (though not yet as simple as in Modern English)

- Heavy borrowing from Norman French

 Anglo-Saxon Norman French

board table
dish plate
eat dine
cow beef
calf veal
sheep mutton
pig pork

- Morphology komplexebb, mint Modern Englishé, de nem annyira, mint Old Englishé
- Origin: farmers spoke Anglo-Saxon – animal’s name BUT aristocracy who used the
animal : Norman-Fernch : dish’s name

Pronunciation

- Long vowels
o a as the a in father (never as in Modern English mate)
o ee similar to the a in Modern English mate but a monophthong
o ea as in yeah → howjsay
o i as in Modern English see
o oo as the single o in hope but a monophthong
o ou as oo in Modern English boot

- Short vowels
o a as the a in father but short
o e final e is not silent unless it is followed by a vowel
o o as in British English hot → howjsay
o u as in put (never as in cut)
 - Consonants
o gh as German ch: thrugh [θrux] ‘through’
o kn the k is not silent: knight [kniçt]

Exceptional spelling

- The vowel of put was written with a u next to an m, n, v or w ~ because of

handwriting
DE kiejtve u
o some [sʊmə]
o sone [sʊnə] ‘son’
o love [lʊvə]
o wolf [wʊlf]

Canterbury tales

- Written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century

- 17th century portrait by unknown artist Government Art Collection

THE GENERAL PROLOGUE

1 Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

When April with its sweet-smelling showers (rain)

r – roared r, pronounal
2 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
th – E/3

Has pierced the drought of March to the root,

[everi] such
3 And bathed every veyne in swich licour

And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid

4 Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

By which power the flower is created;

w + h ≠ w (-h) h ejtve van, hallható!

- To English people: it is hard to pronounce monophthongs

- English had borrowed lot of French word

Modern French
ch  s
g zs
 Middle French
g zs
ch  cs

- Verse: used to have a rhythm

o it was listened to and memorized
o verse: line with rhythm
o modern ppl.: rhythm deaf

6 LESSON
Middle English to Modern English
- Vowel changes between Middle English and Modern English

gh : night ~ pronounced: nikht

OR

knikht – kiestek mostani kiejtés ‘nájt’

sounded like German ch – buck ~ kiejtve: ‘bukh’

THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

- Roughly from the early 15th century to the late 16th century (a többség olyan más,
mint a mostani mgh-k)
- Long vowels: continental values → Modern English values

diphthong
diphthong kiejtve bút

kiejtve bót nem bút

iː
monophthong, high vowel but stg happened to

uː the end of the vowel didn’t changed but the beginning became more and more open (au)
How did it happen?

- push chain stg happens at one point stg must happen at the other point (chain
reaction)

- drag chain

e.g. uː üres hely vákuum keletkezik

went down oː felszívta

au üres hely

ɔː felszívta

- In standard English oː and eː diphthong – no pronunciation, ha lenne pronunciation

akkor monophthong lenne

Diphthongs

- low [lɔʊ] → [loʊ] (merged with the vowel of boat)

- cause [kɑʊzə] → [kɔːz] (monophthongized [ˈmɔnəfˌθɔŋaɪzd])
- dew [dɛʊ] → [dɪu] (merged with the diphthong of due [dɪu])

Short vowels

- The foot–strut split

o put [pʊt] (no change)some didn’t change
o cut [kʊt] → [kʌt] some changed, became more open
(kut) (kát)

- Lg keeps changing even today

o e.g. pronunciation of SEE
 sií, saa, say
----------->became more open

7 LESSON
Early Modern English
Period

- 16th – 17th centuries

Pronouns

2nd person singular 2nd person plural

Nominative: thou [ðaʊ] Nominative: ye
Oblique: thee Oblique: you
Genitive: thy Genitive: your
Possessive: thine Possessive: yours

subject: thou informal: thou

object: thee formal: ye

Conjugation

- 2nd person singular: speakst

- 3rd person singular: speakth ~ speaks

British–American Phonological Innovations

- Shakespeare idejében nem volt különbség az amerikai és a brit között, de mivel nagy
távolság volt közöttük (ocean) és van is, ezért van hogy az amerikai, van hogy a brit
hasonlít a shakespearei angolra

- Neither British nor American is the same as Shakespeare’s English mindkettő sokat
változott

Innovations marked with RED

 Innovation British English American English

unrounded o hot [hɒt] hot [hɑːt]

centralized o hope [həʊp] hope [hoʊp]
trap–bath split bath [bɑːθ] bath [bæθ]
poor–pour merger poor [pɔː] poor [pʊr]
r-dropping heart [hɑːt] heart [hɑrt]
yod-dropping tube [tjuːb] tube [tuːb]
flapping notice [ˈnəʊtɪs] notice [ˈnoʊɾəs]
16th century - Modern English
Pronunciation

- No recording in the past

- You can borrow words from other languages
o you hear the original word and you try to reproduce it in your own lg with
your own sounds
 e.g. CoCa Cola ~ kh (original)

- English had borrowed lots of words – English didn’t have that much sound =>

changed the pronunciation

future [fütür] dieresis

[fytyr] ö = o dieresis
ü = u dieresis
ü – palatal (front) ä = a dieresie
round umlaut

Modern English – ajakkerekítéses a back vowel-eknél o, a

Old English – had this ü sound rare sounds called ‘marked sounds’ ~e.g. ü

When you borrow sounds you try to be as faithful as you can

palatal future is preserved yod

round future is preserved oo [u]

Letters of vowels
A [a] vs [ei]
E [e] vs [i]
I [i] vs [ai]
O [o] vs [ou]
U [u] vs [ju]

nation – náción vs nación

- Generations not accurately copy the previous generation’s way of speaking

(pronunciation)