The development of the English language.
Aseem Vaishya
around the 5th century AD and began to live in the Jutland, Holstein
and Schleswig areas. Later on the Jutes settled in Kent and the
southern Hampshire, the Saxons in the rest of the south of the Thames
area and the modern Middlesex, and the Angles spread throughout the
rest of England and as far as up to the Scottish lowlands. In
Germanic, Angles were called the Angli, and that was transformed to
Engle in Old English, and thus the land of all the three tribes was
collectively called (Engle + land) England. The Jutes, Saxons and
Angles still held their dialects separately. Later on two separate
Anglian dialects developed. The dialect of the north of Humber river
was called Northumbrian and of the south was called the Mercian. Also
the Saxons dialect was called West Saxon as they were settled in the
west, and the dialect of Jutes was called the Kentish who were on the
southern and eastern sides of the river Thames. Thus, there were four
main dialects in England.
In the beginning, the Northumbrians held prominence in literature and
culture, but after the Viking invasions (793-865) the cultural
leadership went to the West Saxon group. In the later part of 9th
century the Parker Chronicle (or Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) was written,
and thus, West Saxon's dialect became the "Standard Old English."
According to the literary development of the English language, it
could be classified as: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern
English and Modern English.
Old English (9th and 10th century).
The English language uses the Latin alphabet of 26 consonants and
vowels. In the beginning there were very few words of general use
like, words of kinship: faeder, modor, brothor, sweostor, and dohtor;
25 names with their inflections like mon, men (man, men) and some
adjectives and verbs. There were two demonstratives: se, seo, thaet
(that) and thes, theos (this) but there were no ('a' or 'the')
articles. So 'the good man' was written as 'se (that) goda mon,' and
'a good man' was written as 'an (one) goda mon.' Verbs had only two
tenses, present-future and past with their inflections. Hors (horse)
and maegden (maiden) were neuter gender; eorthe (earth) was feminine
but lond (land) was neuter; sunne (sun) was feminine, but mona (moon)
was masculine. Inflections were used in abundance, so the word order
in a sentence was not of much importance in those days as long as the
theme was understood. But Old English is totally incomprehensible for
a Modern English knower. It was more like the modern German of today.
For example: Hie ne dorston forth bi th ere ea siglan (They dared not
sail beyond that river).
Modern English (1660 onward).
1660 to 1700 is called the Restoration period because the Parliament,
on the public urge, restored the monarchy under Charles II. The period
between 1700 and 1750 is called the 'Augustan Age of English
literature' because the English writers of this period tried to
capture the soul of the Latin literature of the period of King
Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), which was considered the peak of the
development of Latin literature when Virgil, Horace and Ovid produced
their masterpieces.
The further development of English literature happened with the
publication of Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language"
in 1755, and Robert Lowth's grammar in 1761. The extensive (two
volume) work of Samuel Johnson was simplified by the single volume of
his dictionary in 1756 which continued to be used up to the 20th
century. In fact, since the 13th century, every century had its
reformers of the English language.
The grammarians of the 18th century like Robert Lowth and James
Buchanan etc. took a critical view and spent a lot of time in
correcting the shortcomings and the improprieties of the English
language that were commonly in use. For example: 'I had rather not,'
'a third alternative,' 'more perfect,' and 'you was' etc. The 'you
was' term was very commonly used among educated people in those days.
It was changed to 'thou wast' and then to 'thou wert' and finally to
'you were.' They held the view that Latin was still a superior
language. During that time Lindley Murray published his Grammar in
1795 followed by English Reader in 1799 and English Spelling Book in
1804. During that period Noah Webster (1758-1843) produced his
Spelling Book in 1783, the first edition of his American Dictionary of
English Language in 1828 and a subsequent edition in 1840.
Vocabulary of Modern English.
The vocabulary of English language is a mixture of Germanic (Old
English and Scandinavian), Greek, Latin and French where almost half
of it is Germanic and Greek and half is Latin and French with some of
the words from almost all of the notable languages of the world as it
had taken free admission from everywhere.
A sample of other adaptations are: Spanish-cigar, mosquito, tornado,
tomato (tomate) and potato (patata). Hebrew-amen, manna, messiah,
rabbi and jubilee. Norwegian-ski. Finnish- sauna. Russian-mammoth and
vodka. Czech-robot. Hungarian-paprika. Portuguese-marmalade, flamingo
and molasses. Turkish-turban, coffee and caviar. Hindi-sahib,
maharajah, jungle, cheetah, karma, mantra and dhoti. Persian-divan,
purdah, bazaar and chess. Tamil-curry. Chinese-tea. Japanese-judo and
jujitsu. Malay-ketchup, sago and bamboo. Polynesian-taboo and tattoo.
African languages-mumbo jumbo and voodoo. Caribbean-hammock, hurricane
and tobacco. These are just a few examples of adaptations.
(19th and 20th century)
In 1864 Frederick James Furnivall founded the Early English Text
Society to initiate the revival of the Medieval English literature and
to synchronize it with the gradual development of the English
language. As a result of that "A New English Dictionary on Historical
Principles," edited by Sir James A.H. Murray and assisted by three
more editors, Bradley, Charles Onions and Craigie, was published in 12
volumes along with its supplements from 1884 to 1928. It gives the
inventory and the history of words in use from 1150 up to 1500 of all
the five dialects of the Middle English. After 1500 only literary
English words are taken, not the dialecticals. It enormously contains
the quotations from the English literature and records, and
incorporates the words that have entered into English vocabulary from
the earliest records to the existing date along with their history and
origin. It contains more than 15,000 pages and over 400,000 words. A
revised and concise edition of this dictionary called "The Oxford
English Dictionary" was first published in 1933.
Dialects of Modern English. There are a number of dialects and
subdialects in United Kingdom. For instance, Southeast England,
Northern, Midland, Norfolk, South Western, Wales and Lowland Scottish
etc. Then, the English speech of America, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, Fiji, India, Gulf countries and Africa has its own
peculiarity.
The latest form of the most advanced English language.
The English language is considered to be the world language of today.
It has an extensive amount of words not found in other languages and
its rich vocabulary may sufficiently accommodate all the situations of
a social and technical nature. But, even at the maximum height of its
evolution (which took a full 1,500 years since the arrival of the
Germanic people in England in the 5th century AD) could you be sure of
the spellings of the names of people or their pronunciations unless
you are told? Isn't it a dilemma that the vowels have no fixed sound
or phonetic value, like, father, eye, now, son, sun, where a, e, o and
u, all of them sound as a, (long or short), and o is either o or a as
in Joan, John, Johnny? It is because the basic alphabetic structure
was scientifically wrong from the very beginning; and this is the case
with all other languages of the world
--
Aseem Vaishya
Vaishya Sadan,Jayendraganj,Gwalior
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With Regards
Alok Kumar Singh
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