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Germanic tribes enter and settle the British Isles.
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The generally agreed upon Old English language time span 450-1150.
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Germanic dialects push out the Celtic languages to the periphery.
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By 450 there are some words borrowed from the Celtic language are: dun, beak, car, lance.
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This distinguishes High German from Low German, Dutch, the Scandinavian languages, and English. The Germanic p turns into German pf, f, or p. The Germanic t turns into ts, s, or t. The Germanic k turns into X or k.
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Distinguishes Germanic languages from languages such as Latin and Greek and modern Romance languages such as French and Spanish. Grimm's Law also separates Latin from (Germanic and) Old English.
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During the seventh century the northern part of England is christianized by Irish missionaries and some Celtic into Old English. Christianity introduced Latin words like abbot, altar, and hymn into English through Celtic because of missionaries from Ireland.
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Old English is preserved in carvings on wood and stone from the seventh century. This runic alphabet, or futhorc, is an adaptation by Gothic speakers of the Etruscan alphabet.
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Scandinavians raid and plunder Britain from the 8th to 10th centuries.
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Old English epic is a mixed dialect Northumbrian/West Saxon manuscript. This text utilized a modified Roman alphabet which was introduced by Irish missionaries and the letter shapes are not identical to those of Modern English.
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Early West Saxon, ascribed to King Alfred.
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Northumbrian interlinear gloss.
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Interlinear gloss.
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Early poetry which contains Riddles Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wanderer, and the Seafarer.
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Written between the seventh and tenth centuries compiled towards the late tenth century. These works contain Genesis, Exodus, Christ and Satan.
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Written by Aelfric in West Saxon.
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Scandinavians raid and plunder Britain from the 8th to 10th centuries.
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There is an influx of new words beginning in the Old English period with Latin used in the church and before during the Roman occupation. These new words appear either from French or from Latin via French. The loans have a profound influence on the sound system of English. Several sounds are added to what we call the phoneme inventory, thus causing an internal change. Palatalization occurs in many other languages as well starting in early Old English.
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William of Normandy arrived and defeated Harold.
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Norman conquest of 1066 could be external changes that could be seen as a direct cause of the transition from Old to Middle English. Through missionaries from Rome Latin influences language as well as French.
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The generally agreed upon Old English language time span 1150-1500.
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One version was completed which tells the history of England from the time of Julius Caesar which was written in Peterborough.
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The adverbs in Old English can be used to express the mood of the speaker and are then considered discourse markers. Examples of discourse markers, also known as mood particles, are provided in works like Lambeth Homilies and Bodley Homilies.
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Shows several varieties of standards arising in spelling reform.
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Infrequent in Old English. Modern English modal auxiliaries such as can, could, will, and would are regular verbs in Old English. An example such as wille 'want'. Between Old and Modern English these verbs grammaticalize meaning they lose their meaning but gain grammatical function. These auxiliaries start occurring to becoming an analytic marker of non-finiteness in the late 14th century.
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Between 450 through 1400 some of the words borrowed by the Celtic language are: cairn, glen, loch, dolmen, druid, story, cross, curse, and anchor.
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The Midlands were characterized by population growth and the rise of the middle class. This generated scientific and religious texts such as Wycliffite sermons and texts. Therefore the Midlands and London were considered important to the development of an unofficial standard. This unofficial standard refers to the fact that English has never had an Academy or any other body regulating it.
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Scribes work at the Chancery began writing in English rather than Latin, which evolved by the 1430s.
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Characterized by relatively free spelling, but some rules evolve:
a. gh at the end of high, even though the consonant is no longer pronounced,
b. th endings for third person verbs, as in he doth 'he does' even though many varieties already have he does,
c. past tense (e)d endings and not t even though many sound like t, and
d. such and which for su(l)ch and (h)wi(l)ch, respectively (there are many other variations). -
The Chancery produced a huge number of documents, this connected with the rise of London as a major center for trade and politics.
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Magister is borrowed in Old English and becomes master in Middle English. It is them borrowed again as magister around 1450.
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William Caxton invents the printing press which is a major boost to standard English. Standardization is automatically established when a document, book, or pamphlet is reproduced the same way many times. Caxton relied on scribes to invent the new system since he had no desire to standardize them himself.
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Malory's Morte d'Arthur was one of the first books published but was based on an older manuscript. The print contains many variations (duke and duk, when and whanne, hyr and hir for 'her'). There was the distinct possibility that there were words no longer sounding the way Caxton printed them.
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First English dictionaries and word lists start appearing but the spelling system remains irregular.
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The generally agreed upon Old English language time span 1500-1699.
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Between 1066 and 1500 some words are borrowed from French for education like: study, anatomy, geometry, grammar, logic, medicine, and square.
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Between 1066 and 1500 some words are borrowed from French for art and fashion like: art, sculpture, music, painting, color, figure, image, poet, title, preface, fashion, dress, lace, garment, veil, button, couch, chair, and cushion.
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Between 1066 and 1500 some words are borrowed from French for meals like: dinner, supper, feast, appetite, taste, salmon, mackerel, beef, veal, mutton, pork, pastry, lemon, orange, raisin, and date.
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Between 1066 and 1500 some words are borrowed from French for religion like: temptation, damnation, salvation, confess, convert, ordain, baptism, communion, mercy, sanctity, charity, solemn, divine, and devout.
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The end of the Middle English period because most of the grammatical changes have taken place and the Great Vowel Shift is under way since the book production changes dramatically.
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Between 1066 and 1500 some words are borrowed from French for government like: government, royal, state, authority, prince, duke, duchess, tax, marshal, mayor, governor, warden, and treasurer.
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Between 1066 and 1500 some words are borrowed from French for the legal system like: judge, jury, felon, bail, estate, evidence, verdict, punish, and crime.
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Between 1066 and 1500 some less specialized words are borrowed from French: action, age, adventure, coward, damage, scandal, tavern, vision, able, abundant, active, certain, common, firm, frank, proper, safe, sudden, advise, aim, allow, apply, arrive, close,enjoy, enter, form, join, marry, move, praise, prefer, refuse, save, serve, and wait.
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Some words incorporate words from other languages and change pronunciation but keep the original spelling. Debt for example: is borrowed from France and occurs in 1300 as dete, dette, and dett without a b. Latin forms have bs int he same word, so the b is introduced by writers to sound educated. Therefore debte became debt by 1501.
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Advocate for spelling reform.
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Advocate for spelling reform.
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Advocate for spelling reform.
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First English dictionary is published.
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The most disruptive to standardizing spelling was the Great Vowel Shift which involved vowels (a, e, i, o, u) becoming (e,i,aj,aw,u).
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The King James Bible is printed on the printing press helping to standardize spellings.
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Political events date to political events such as the Restoration of the British Monarchy.
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Between 1440 and 1714 some words are borrowed from Dutch like: hop, pickle,deck, buoy, freight, dock, splice, dollar, yacht, furlough, easel, brandy, sketch, smuggle, and gin.
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From 1400 through 1715 some of the words borrowed from the Celtic language are: clan, bard, plaid, slogan, shamrock, leprechaun, galore, and whiskey.
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Van, G. E. (2006). History of the English language. Amsterdam, NLD: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
