Periods of English History

Periods of English History

1. 1. Old English: Anglo-Saxon England

   • Germanic tribes settled in England (Roman Empire) in the 5th century -> Great Migration (Völkerwanderung)
     • in some areas occupied by these tribes ->
       • Germanic languages (Germany, England)
       • Vulgar Latin (France)
     • these three tribes were: Angles, Saxons, Jutes (coming from today northeastern Germany & Denmark) their language: Saxon (=English) = Anglo-Saxons!
       • culture was largely oral but had form of writing: runes carved into wood, bone, stone
       • Anglo-Saxons were christianised in the 7th century by missionaries from Rome and Ireland. Brought also along: Roman alphabet, reading, writing (mostly Latin), bookmaking
         • Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms attacked by Vikings from Norway and Denmark in 8th century, settled in northern and eastern England -> area was called Danelaw
           • English-speaking Anglo-Saxons mixed with Old Norse from the Vikings, still Old-English
           • Scandinavian loanwords: contact happend on a everyday level -> knife, bark, egg, root, sky
             • some replaced English words: root for wyrt
             • scandinavian and english word survived side by side: heaven/sky, sick/ill
         • Latin loanwords: cheese - caseus, street - strata, wine - vinum
           • after Vikings came monasteries: altar, angel, candle
           • Latin = language of learning

2. 2. Middle English

   • Battle of Hastings: The Normans (Vikings who were settled in France) conquered all of England
     • they French language and culture: upper class only spoke French then, all the others English -> although French official language
       • over 10'000 French-loanwords out of church/religion, meals, art, learning, medicine etc.: table, dinner, art, etc.
       • english stem + french affix = understandable
       • words etablished very quick in English -> French endings were added to words (gentleman, gently)
   • different from Old English because its mixed vocabulary, internal changes -> loss of inflections
     • loss of different endings, now: -s
     • Great Vowel Shift! (1400-1600), From Middle-, to Modern-English
       • All long vowels of MidE: diphthongized or raised
   • beginning of Standard English!

3. 3. Early Modern English

   • no dramatic event like Norman Conquest but inventing of the printing press and the reformation -> language of renaissance!
     • interest in classical antiquity -> borrowings from Greek and Latin (paradox, monopoly, explain) = inkhorn words (Tintenfasswörter) / hard words
       • hard words: Germanic-Romance vocabulary, words learnt at school trough reading, meaning often not obvious. Native speakers today have to look up words!
         • English voci very mixed: 1. wealth of synonyms (animal - beast, great - large)
           • 2. Dissocation: mouth - oral -> only related in meaning, but not in form = dissociated
           • hard words in English opaque, cannot be guessed from their components (Nas-horn in German transparent)

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