The English language in history
- OE: before 1100
• Before Norman Conquest
• Very Germanic - ME: ca. 1100-1500
• French influence
• Chaucer
• Rising standard - Early Modern English: 1500-1700
• Printing press
• Renaissance
• Reformation
• Shakespeare - Late Modern English: 1700-1900
• The language codified
• Prescription - PDE: the past 20 years
What is the traditional model of the history of English?
Internal: sound shifts, changes in vocabulary, syntax, historical events are of secondary importance.
External: the social, demographic, and cultural factors affecting language and language use.
Old English
- Arrival of Anglo-Saxons: 449 AD
- Christianity brought by St. Augustine: 597 AD
- West-Saxon is the standard -> King Alfred
- Essentially Germanic lexicon (wordhoard, mod hoard).
- Highly inflectional grammar (synthetic language)
Middle English
- Norman Conquest: 1066
- No standard, but dialects
- Literary revival (Chaucer)
- Impact of French and Latin
- Inflections largely disappear, synthetic to analytic
Early Modern English
- In 1476 William Caxton introduced the printing press and spelling becomes standardised
- Beginnings of Standardisation, shift in status
- Inkhorn debate
- Latin/Greek loan words
- Further reduction of morphology
- GVS (?)
Late Modern English
- English is standardised further; rise of prescriptivism
- Laying down the rules for a standard; grammar and pronunciation guides
- Stigmatisation of non-standard varieties
- Spread of English across the globe
- Minor changes in Standard grammar
Dialect
A sub-type of a language that can be distinguished based on its syntax, and vocabulary, sometimes phonology.
It is mutually intelligible with other dialects grouped under the same language.
Sometimes specifically used for regionally bound varieties as opposed to what we sometimes call sociolects.
Accent
Historical linguists; distinguished a given group of speakers by its pronunciation. This may be regional variation but also social variation.
Non-linguists; usually accents that are not standard; regional/L2.
Language
Umbrella term for a collection of dialects/varieties that we group together based on their mutual intelligibility.
Most non-linguists; standard variety, language that represents a given national identity/social group.
Standard
A dialect of a language that often enjoys prestige and national status. It is often internally consistent and uniform. Not, or no longer, tied to a specific region, but usually all the more so to a specific social group: sociolect.
Rp
Sociolect, linked to class rather than region.
How do these terms (dialect, RP, standard, etc.) relate to the history of English?
They allow us to describe different levels of variation across time, space and context.
• Varieties can serve as reference dialects to explain how things have changed over time.
• Emergence of sociolects and other varieties of English; help us identify origin and changing status over time (RP).
