The development of British English Language Thuyết trình môn Đa dạng Tiếng Anh

The development
of
British English
Language
Presented by Koah


Table of contents
Old English
2. Middle English
Early modern English
4. Modern English
1.

3.


Old
English
(450 – 1150)


Old English - the earliest form of the English language was spoken and written in Anglo-Saxon Britain from c.
450 CE until c. 1150 (thus it continued to be used for
some decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066).


The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid 5th century and
came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain. Their language, now
called Old English, originated as a group of Anglo-Frisian dialects which
were spoken, at least by the settlers, in England and southern and eastern

Scotland in the early Middle Ages, displacing the Celtic languages (and,
possibly, British Latin) that had previously been dominant.


Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest
relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic
languages, it is very different from Modern English and Modern
Scots, and impossible for Modern English or Modern Scots
speakers to understand without study. Within Old English grammar
nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have many inflectional
endings and forms, and word order is much freer.


Middle
English
(1100-1500)


_ Middle English lasted from about 1100 -1500
_ In 1066, William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy
( part of modern France), invaded and conquered England
_ The new conquerors ( called the Normans) brought with them
a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal
Court ruling and business classes.

William The Conqueror

The Norman Conquest/ The Battle of Hastings

Some characteristics of the Language:
_A period of linguistic class division:
•Upper class, political leaders, royal court: spoke French
•Lower classes: spoke Old English
_ In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again,
but with many French words added.
_ In 1399, King Henry IV became the first king of England
since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English.
By the end of the 14th century, the dialect of London had emerged as the
standard dialect of what we now call Middle English.


OLD ENGLISH
( CELTIC, LATIN,
GERMANIC,
SCANDINAVIAN)

Middle English Alphabet

+

FRENCH

=

MIDDLE ENGLISH


WORDS
_ Because the English underclass cooked for the

Norman upper class, the words for most domestic
animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine,
deer) while the words for the meats derived from
them are French ( beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon,
venison)

PLURALS
_ The Germanic form plurals ( house-housen, shoe-shoen)
was eventually displaced by the French method of making
plurals: adding an S ( house-houses, shoe-shoes). Only a few
words have retained their Germanic plurals: men, oxen, feet,
teeth, children
SPELLING
_ French also affected spelling so that the cw sound
came to be written as qu ( eg: cween became queen )
_ Chaucer was a 14th century author of The Canterbury
Tales written in Middle English


The Canterbury Tales

A page from Geoffrey Chaucer's
The Canterbury Tales


Some famous literacy works in the Middle English period

Piers Plowman ( Thomas Malory )

Sir Gawain and the

Green Knight ( Gawain
Poet (anonymous) )
Le Morte d'Arthur ( Thomas Melory )


Early Modern
English
(1500-1800)


_ The Early Modern Period is between the years of 1500-1800
and is known by scholars as the Middle English period. This
period is termed the Renaissance.
_ The beginning of the Tudor (1485-1603) period to the
English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition
from Middle English.


•

Language changes also resulted from social changes brought about by
The Great Plague. Although devastating in its death toll, this event saw
many interesting changes for the English language.

•

This time is when Early Modern English began, laying the stones for
the Modern English we speak today.

New words during Renaissance
Spanish/Portuegese:Banana, Embargo, Tobacco
French: Bizanne, Detail, Volunteer
Latin: Appropriate, Contradictory, Utopia, Vacuum
Persian: Caravan
Italian: Balcony, design, stanza
Dutch: Yatch
Turkish: Coffee


The Great Vowel Shift
•
•
•

Between 1450 and 1750 there is a great event in the history of the
English language which saw the change from Middle English to Early
Modern English – the Great Vowel Shift.
A radical change in the pronunciation of English vowels
7 long vowels, 3 short vowels and 5 diphthong underwent changes

House /hu:s/
Sheep /sep/
Fool /Fo:l/

Medieval Pronunciation


•

The Great Plague of 1665 – 1666 had a strong impact on the English
language due to the cultural changes that resulted.

•

The pronunciation changes that took place during the Great Vowel Shift
evolved in part due to the greater social mobility which happened after The
Great Plague.

•

This was because the plague wiped out a large portion of the aristocracy as
well as the lower classes. In just seven months, one fifth of the population
of London was dead.

•

This merging of lower-class English and higher class Anglo-Norman
combined to create a new Early Modern English.

•

Although difficult, this English is intelligible to English speakers today. A
good example of Early Modern English is the language used in
Shakespeare’s works.


Texts from the earlier phase of Early Modern English, may
present more difficulties but are still obviously closer to
Modern English grammar, lexicon, and phonology

The late-15th century Le Morte d'Arthur
(1485)

The mid-16th century Gorboduc (1561)


•

•

Early Modern English is also known as
Shakespearean English, thanks to it being the tongue
of the country’s most important writer
1590 - 1611—William Shakespeare writes his
Sonnets and the majority of his plays.


In 1603—Queen Elizabeth dies and James I (James VI of
Scotland) accedes to the throne.


In 1604—Robert Cawdrey's Table
Alphabetical, the first English dictionary, is
published


Early Modern English Timeline

In 1788

The English first settle in Australia, near
present-day Sydney.

1789

Noah Webster publishes Dissertations on
the English Language, which advocates an
American standard of usage.

1791

The Observer, the oldest national Sunday
newspaper in Britain, begins publication.