English Language Change notes

How to analyse/checklist
Lexis e.g. archaic, out dated, old fashioned, formal, quotations used? Field specific or
specialist lexis
Semantics-meaning can change e.g. gay
Grammar; e.g. syntax (word order), complex sentences, coordinating conjunctions (e.g.
‘and,’ ‘but’), embedded clauses (can lift out of sentence-unnecessary), quotes, direct
commands, conditional clauses (e.g. ‘if’)
Spellings e.g. realise or realize
Genre of the text e.g. newspaper
Phonology e.g. onomatopoeia, alliteration, list of 3
Graphology-adapted for intended audience?
Context e.g. time period-stereotypes at the time and social hierarchy-affect the content?
Audience-e.g. Upper class-how affects content and language style
Purpose e.g. entertain, Newspaper, inform, persuade
Text used-e.g. Verbosity of author (too many words used than necessary), complex
sentences
Pragmatics-what need to know to understand text
Dialect- e.g. ‘I were’ and slang, colloquial
Formality of text-colloquial, pompous? Patronising tone RP and Standard English

Suggestions
• …the e on the end of the word was subsequently dropped
• There is a modern tendency…
• Words now omitted

Before English began-up to 450 AD

• British (Celtic) tribes-language related to modern Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish- only
real connection with Modern English is in lexis-mostly place names.
• Romans invade in 55BC-Latin-word Englaland shortened in AD 1000. Roman Empire
left a mark on the language

Origins of English- 450 AD to 1066

• Anglos and Saxons arrive from North Germany.
• Language (Old English) is at first spoken
• Only writing is runes · Written form comes from Latin-speaking monks, who use
Roman alphabet, with new letters (æ, ð and þ - spoken as "ash", "eth" and "thorn")
• About half of common vocabulary of modern English comes from Old English

Middle English Period- 1066-1485

• Lexis - terms for law and politics from Norman French · General expansion of lexis
• After the Norman Conquest the language of government is mediaeval French.
French scribes started to introduce their spelling patterns: qu replaced cw (cween to
queen). Reversed word order of letters eg hw to wh =hwere to where.GU added to
words like guide, guise and guard
• In 1362 (under Edward III) English becomes the official language and acknowledged
as the language for law and state business, rather than French or Latin
• The Black Death in 1347-1350 killed between a quarter and a third of the population
of Britain of 4 million-many priests died (communal disease)-spreads- loss of Latin
• Writers concerned about change-want to stabilize language ·
• 1458 - Gutenberg invents printing (1475 - Caxton introduces it to England) -the press
enables some standardizing But note that there is no widespread standard form of
spelling nor of punctuation. Some publishers may attempt in-house consistency.
Also, for some time after the invention of printing, more books than previously are
produced by hand - printing is at first reserved to books likely to justify the time taken
to set up type. The press provides the technical means to guarantee standardizing of
spelling, but this will wait for some 300 years.
• Practice of doubling letters to indicate length especially ee and oo
• Some unphonetic spellings eg son, monk, come-instead of letter ‘u’ which sounds
like it

The ‘Great Vowel Shift’ (1300-1500)

Change in the pronunciation of all long vowels-vowels in this period had acquired their
present pronunciation

Tudor Period 1485-1603 (15th-16th century-The Renaissance)

• Rise of nationalism (patriotism) linked to desire for more expressive language but
Latin perceived by many to be a superior language
• Flowering of literature and experiments in style · idea of elevated diction · Vocabulary
enlarged by new learning (Renaissance) · imports from Greek and Latin-and ideas in
maths and science
• Lexis expanded by travel to New World, · English settlers begin to found colonies in
North America. Trade and discovery bring about rapid change, especially in the
lexicon, and while some settling down of spelling may appear, it is far from being
standardized.
• On the other hand, modern editions of Elizabethan poetry may retain archaic spelling
variants - as (in John Donne's poetry, say) of personal pronouns ending in -ee - mee,
hee or shee (like thee).
• Also the disuse of the pronouns ‘thou’ ‘thy’ and ‘thee’ by 16th C these forms had
disappeared leaving only the plural forms (ye, your, you) the thou/thy/thee used
when addressing children, social inferiors and familiars plural forms as a mark of
respect when addressing a social superior.
• Not all words in Elizabethan period have been permanently retained-replaced by
other words
• Biggest influx of words from classical texts e.g. Latin and Greek-language of the
scholars-educated people-renaissance, inventions and concepts-continental Europe-
classical words-medicine field developed e.g. skeleton
• English borrowing by no means confined to Latin/Greek-English vocabulary used
words adopted from more than 50 languages esp. French, Italian and Spanish
• INK HORN debate-people object to long and obscure Latin terms-controversy- 1st
formal dispute on English language-culminate in an academic row-shouldn’t be
‘polluted’ by other languages-‘clean and pure’
• Spelling (orthography) no generally accepted system in 16th century-use the
pronunciation of words
• Words from this period are now indispensable e.g. atmosphere, benefit, disability
• Use interrogative form (i.e. question) without an auxiliary e.g. ‘think you I am
handsome?’ (Do you think…)
• Scarcity of progressive aspect ‘I come’ instead of ‘I am coming.’
• Double negative perfectly accepted-used for emphasis, stronger negative and
intensive
• Many scholars who revered (liked) Latin and ancient Greek became spelling
reformers and tried to re-model English spelling on classical patterns. H inserted in
words like ‘throne’ and ‘author’ because it was recognised that they came from Greek
 via Latin. ‘receipt’ ‘indict’ ‘reign’ ‘parliament’ also had letters added to give them a
Latin look.
• By end of 16th century Latin still used but 10s of Latin words lost-other languages
from Europe used

17th Century
• Influences of Puritanism and Catholicism (Roundhead and Cavalier) and of science ·
Puritan ideas of clarity and simplicity influence writing of prose· reasonableness and
less verbose language
• English preferred to Dutch as official tongue of American colonies and New World
• English had 1st dictionary (1604) before many European states e.g. Spain-not an
exhaustive collection but 1st one-book for ordinary people-growth in literacy-social
context-1/2 population of 3 ½ million literate and growth in education.
• Authorized King James Bible 1611- 94% of words English and 6% Latin
• Theatres e.g. The Globe in London-hugely popular-the playwrites use slang-mix of
society-English had a new audience e.g. Shakespeare “All the Worlds a Stage”
Shakespeare ‘the biggest export’ (Melvyn Bragg) English develop around world-
biggest contribution to vocabulary- estimated 2,000 words added and first used by
him and phrases and compounds e.g. ‘fair-play.’ His 38 plays translated into 50
languages-described by Bragg as a ‘ambassador of the English language.’
• Great deal of tolerance of spelling variation-even Shakespeare spelt his name
differently
• Spellings by 1660s mainly standardised and now the same as the modern usage

18th Century
• Age of reason · Ideas of order and priority
• During the 18th C language acquired a great deal of prestige and there was a great
desire to fix the language and regularise and standardise spelling. From this time on
dictionaries came to be regarded as the arbiters of correct spelling. Johnson' s
Dictionary of the English Language in 1755 fix language and grammar fixed by
Robert Lowth's Short Introduction to English Grammar in 1762 and Lindley Murray's
English Grammar in 1794. Dr. Samuel Johnson, in the preface to his 1755 Dictionary
of the English Language, notes that "tongues…have a natural tendency to
degeneration" It has some 40,000 words and has extensive quotations to support
descriptions or definitions of words. Johnson had earlier sought to regulate and
control the language - now, having considered its history more thoroughly, he
recognizes this as folly. Nevertheless, his dictionary does establish models for
spelling most of which are still accepted today.
• Classical languages are seen as paradigms (ideal models) for English · Romantic
Movement begins

19th Century
• Interest in past · use of archaic words
• Noah Webster publishes American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828.
Differences from Johnson's are relatively few but mostly notorious. Most familiar are
variants on the affixes -our and -re (Webster has -or and -er: e.g., color, labor;
theater, center). See USA section
• British Empire causes huge lexical growth · English travels to other countries and
imports many loanwords
• James Murray begins to compile the New English Dictionary (which later becomes
the Oxford English Dictionary) in 1879- he takes five years to reach ant.
20th Century and beyond
• Modern recording technology allows study of spoken English
• Influence of overseas forms grows · US and International English dominant · English
becomes global language (e.g. in computing, communications, entertainment).
• Finally, computer technology provides a powerful means for encouragement of
standard written forms with spell-checking and grammar-checking.
• Spellings are now generally fixed and highly resistant to change because in
dictionaries, but even today there is still a degree of uncertainty or minor
disagreement about how to spell some words.
• Most susceptible and less resistent to change is pronunciation is more flexible by
individual’s speech. Change from situation to the next-context, purpose, who talking
to and circumstances-Accents. Greater tolerance of a regional accent in areas where
it would earlier have been a social stigma
• Language is constantly changing but this is deplored (criticised) and try to prevent
these changes. Why is it changing? Schools, TV
• Is l\language deteriorating or decaying? Difficult to attribute reasons to account for
language change. Declining standards?
• J Aitchison ‘It is natural and inevitable that a living language will change’ ‘is our
language sick?’ argues it isn’t decaying and that change isn’t necessary a bad thing
• D Crystal ‘there is a widely held belief that change must mean deterioration and
decay and standards have fallen.’ ‘Language change is inevitable’
• Americanisation of English language e.g. 24/7, collateral damage and war links
• Still use Latin root e.g. video, internet-technology
• 3% of population speak RP-Received Pronunciation

USA
• British spelling has proved very resistant to change. In the USA though, Noah
Webster published dictionaries in 1806, 1828 and 1840 that contained many revised
spellings. But many of the spelling changes which Webster proposed were not
accepted; and those that were usually already existed as alternative spellings. The
modern Merriam-Webster Dictionary is as famous in the USA as the Oxford
Dictionary is here.
• Suggestions which didn’t catch on were dropping the final ‘e’ in words like ‘fugitiv’
‘medicin’ ‘deficit’ . Some of the proposals that did catch on though- but only in the
USA:
o Replacing ‘or’ with ‘our’ in words like ‘armor’ ‘favor’ ‘color’
o Replacement of ‘-re’ with ‘-er’ as in theater, meter, caliber
o ‘-ize’ became the normal American suffix where English is ‘-ise’

Vocabulary
Accent-way in which you pronounce words
Amelioration-is a process by which words become more socially acceptable or
prestigious
Archaic-word used to be used commonly but has fallen out of usage-old fashioned
Conditional clauses- (e.g. ‘if’)
Coordinating conjunctions- e.g. ‘and,’ ‘but’
Deregation-meaning changes for the worse
Derogative- says something bad about someone-insult
Diachronic or historical study-study of the development of language over time
Dialect-way to describe the different kinds of vocabulary and grammar a particular
place uses
Embedded clauses- can lift out of sentence-unnecessary (?) part of a sentance
Euphemism-less strong a word e.g. passed away for dead
Neologisms-creation of brand new words e.g. ‘high tech’
Orthography-spelling
Pejoration-is a process by which words increasingly acquire negative meanings
Phonic-i.e. spelled as it sounds
Prefix-
‘Romance Languages’- languages of Latin origins e.g. French, Spanish, Italian and
Latin itself
Semantics-meaning of words can change e.g. ‘gay’ used to mean happy but now
homosexual
Suffix-
Verbosity of author-i.e. Used lots of words and only needed a few

S Russell-Grammar, Structure and Style-book 1996

• Modern English is made up of 3 layers of vocabulary;
1. Anglo-Saxon (with additions from the Viking language, Old Norse)
2. French
3. Latin (with additions from Greek)

1. Anglo-Saxon ‘Native English

• Extremely important-structure words e.g. ‘a’ ‘the’ ‘in’ and ‘that.’ Join sentences
together and are indispensable words
• Personal pronouns e.g. ‘I’ ‘you’ ‘he’ ‘she’ ‘we’ ‘us’
• Demonstrative pronouns ‘this’ ‘that’ ‘these’
• Auxiliary verbs ‘can’ ‘shall’
• Conjunctions ‘as’ ‘and’ ‘but’ ‘so’ ‘then’
• Prepositions ‘on’ ‘in’ ‘under’ ‘over’ ‘down’ ‘up’
• Adverbs ‘when’ ‘where’ ‘while’
• Most parts of the body and numbers
• Also many Strong Verbs (form their past tense by changing the vowel) e.g. speak-
spoke

2. French
• From 1066-brought by the Normans-used or Church, government, army, it was the
language of the court and the upper and middle classes. Low classes and peasants
spoke English
• Lasted for 200 years after conquest
• Although many humble words e.g. bucket came originally from French, most French
borrowings are elegant words, with connotations of chivalry, courtliness and romance
• Anglo-Saxons had put stress on first syllable of most words e.g. ‘board.’ French put
equal stress on all syllables of a word e.g. cliché, elite

3. Latin and Greek

• 20th century scientists mainly used Greek rather than Latin words for inventions and
discoveries e.g. medicine use. Greek suffixes –itis and –osis e.g. arthritis
• But Latin made a far deeper and wider impact on the English language. Half of the
English vocabulary today is derived from Latin
• Use lots of Latin prefixes e.g. ‘ant’ ‘re’ ‘pro’ ‘trans’ ‘pre’ ‘post’ and suffixes e.g. ‘-ate’ ‘-
al’ and ‘-ic’ e.g. educate, normal and elastic

English is a mix of the 3 elements-

Anglo-Saxon; familiar, immediate and warm in tone e.g. ask/ help
French; more formal and polite e.g. question/ aid
Latin; weightier, solemn and more remote e.g. interrogate/ assistance

Latin words flood into the English vocabulary at beginning of the Renaissance-from the
1430s onwards but Authorized King James Bible 1611- 94% of words English and 6%
Latin
Reasons for new words coming into a language include;
Wars Trade Work and leisure Global media New technology
Religion Immigration

Early Modern English 1500-1800’s Context and how affects language

• Printing Press-introduced in England by Caxton in 1476-mor books copied-
printed more quickly and exert a strong force for promoting a standard and
uniform English-spread quickly through the land
• Education-literacy-read and write-Elizabethan times between 1/3 to ½ population
could read
• Communication-parts of country and world joined through commerce,
transportation and rapid means of communication-diversification and spread of
language over vast areas

All had a ‘radical’ (i.e. promote change) effect on language and exerted a ‘conservative
force’ (i.e. resist change) lead to a promotion and maintenance of a standard-especially
in grammar and useage
• Latin still in use-prestige and tradition in all fields of knowledge-strengthened by
‘revival of learning’ poetry philosophy educated talk in a common language. Classical
languages compared to common languages. But a number of scholars and citizens
came to challenge the supremacy of Latin and Greek and to advocate the use of
English in all spheres of life.
Key dates
• AD 1000-Englaland shortened by Romans
• 1362- The Statute of Pleadings makes English the official language of Parliament
• 1475- Caxton introduces the printing press to England
• Plays of Shakespeare 1564-1616
• 1592- Shakespeare's first play (Henry VI, part i) performed
• 1604-first English dictionary-before other European states e.g. Spain
• 1611-King James version of Bible-94% of words English and 6% Latin
• 15th-16th century-InkHorn debate-debate on "borrowing" words to enrich language vs.
English purity
• 1755 Dr. Samuel Johnson publishes his Dictionary of the English Language-spelling
becomes standardised
• 1762- Robert Lowth publishes his Short Introduction to English Grammar
• 1928-Noah Webster publishes American Dictionary of the English Language
• 1879- James Murray starts work on the Oxford English Dictionary
• 1928- First edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is completed
Bibliography
• Melvyn Bragg the ‘Adventures of English’ 2003 TV Series and Book
• J Aitchison ‘The Language Web’ 1996 Reith Lectures-broadcast on Radio 4
• Jean Aitchison (1991)-she identified recent changes in the pronunciation of English
e.g. ‘mistake’ pronounced ‘merstake’ replacing the ‘t’ in a word eg football with a
glottal stop so that no ‘t’ is heard-‘foo'ball’
• David Crystal
• Baugh and Cable 1951 ‘The History of the English Language’
Martha’s Vineyard-carried out by linguist William Labov in 1966. Island on the north-
east coast of USA, which has a small resident population and is a popular tourist spot.
Local fisherman’s pronunciation of certain vowel sounds changing subtly over a period of
time. Have own identity and show ‘true islanders’. Not a conscious (deliberate) decision
How change the Lexis
• Borrowing- taken from foreign languages, usually because we do not have an
equivalent of our own e.g. curry (India), café (France), vodka (Russia), fries and
burger (USA)
• Coinings- invent new words to describe new experiences or name new objects and
technology e.g. telephone, megabyte
• Clippings- alters longing, existing words by shortening or clipping them. If this
process is successful in time the original term is forgotten and clipped version seem
the ‘natural’ one e.g. ‘mob’ ‘pram’ ‘fridge’ ‘phone’
• Acronyms- new word the initial letters e.g. ‘AIDS’ ‘NATO’ ‘BBC’
• Compounding- two already existing words are joined together to form a new
one e.g. spaceship
• Morphology- like compound but one of the words is not a word e.g. ‘dis +
appoint’
• Blending- PARTS of words are joined together e.g. smog-smoke and fog
• Depletion- words fall out of use but can still be in dictionary

How change semantics (meaning)

• Broadening or generalisation- meaning of a word broadens e.g. dog used to mean
a particular canine breed but now means any dog
• Narrowing or specialisation- word becomes more specific in its meaning-opposite
to broadening e.g. girl in Middle Ages used to mean any young person-now female
• Amelioration- word takes on a more pleasant or positive meaning than it used to
have e.g. wicked used to mean evil, but can now mean slang for brilliant
• Pejoration- meaning of word becomes less favourable over time e.g. cowboy used
now means incompetence or dishonest
• Metaphors- words taking on new meanings when used metaphorically
• Idioms- formed from existing words e.g. ‘in the doghouse’ ‘under the weather’
• Euphemisms- polite way of describing something unpleasant e.g. ‘passed away’

Change in sounds (phonology)

• The Great Vowel Shift-occurred over a period of approx 200 years, the sound of
thousands of vowels in English changed from a long sound to a shorter sound e.g.
Middle English pronunciation-‘toe’, Modern English-‘to’
• Martha’s Vineyard-carried out by linguist William Labov in 1966. Island on the north-
east coast of USA, which has a small resident population and is a popular tourist
spot. Local fisherman’s pronunciation of certain vowel sounds changing subtly over a
period of time. Have own identity and show ‘true islanders’. Not a conscious
(deliberate) decision
• Jean Aitchison (1991)-she identified recent changes in the pronunciation of English
e.g. ‘mistake’ pronounced ‘merstake’ replacing the ‘t’ in a word eg football with a
glottal stop so that no ‘t’ is heard-‘foo'ball’
• About 750,000 words in the English Language-nearly half of these are of Germanic
origin and nearly half from the Romance Languages (languages of Latin origin e.g.
French, Spanish and Italian and Latin itself) most adult English speakers use
between 10,000-40,000 words
• Most borrowings from other languages occur in a given historical period e.g. close
relationship between Britain and India within British Empire adds to the lexicon in the
 late 19th century and early to mid 20th century. Musical terms from Italy enter in late
17th and early 18th century.
• Borrowings from Greek are heavy in science and technology e.g. biology, logic,
philosophy