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Introduction

English Language, primary language of the majority of people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, other former colonies of Britain, and territories of the United States. It is also an official or semiofficial language of many countries with a colonial past, such as India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and South Africa. Even in countries where English is not a primary or official language, it is taught as a foreign language and used as the language of technology and diplomacy. English is spoken in more parts of the world than any other language and by more people than any other language except Chinese.

English is classified as an Indo-European language. It is part of the Germanic subfamily and is grouped with its most closely related language, Frisian, as part of the Anglo-Frisian group. Other related languages include Dutch, Flemish, and the Low German dialects, and, more distantly, Modern High German.

Vocabulary

The English vocabulary has changed continually over more than 1,500 years of development. The most nearly complete dictionary of the language, the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition, 20 volumes, 1989), contains more than 600,000 words, including obsolete forms and variant spellings. It has been estimated, however, that the present English vocabulary consists of more than 1 million words, including slang and dialect expressions and scientific and technical terms, many of which only came into use after the middle of the 20th century. The English vocabulary is more extensive than that of any other language in the world, although some other languages—Chinese, for example—have a word-building capacity equal to that of English.

Internal processes have led to the creation of many new words as well as to the establishment of patterns for further expansion. For example, the process of onomatopoeia, or the imitation of natural sounds, has created such words as burp and beeper. Affixation, or the addition of prefixes and suffixes, such as mis-, ex-, -ness, and –ist, has given English such words as mislead, exchange, forgetfulness, and machinist. The process of combining or blending parts of words produces new words such as in brunch, composed of parts of breakfast and lunch. The formation of compounds yields such words as lighthouse and downpour. Back formation, or the formation of new words from previously existing words, suggests that the verb jell, for example, was formed from jelly. Functional extension, or the use of one part of speech as if it were another, for example, turned the noun shower into a new verb, to shower. The processes that have probably added the largest number of words to English are affixation and functional extension.

Throughout its history English has come into contact with a great number of languages. Extensive, constant borrowing from every major language—especially from Latin, Greek, French, and the Scandinavian languages—has also provided numerous words. From Latin, English has taken the words cheese, street, campanile, and exodus. From French, it has taken café, lingerie, envelope, and avalanche. Borrowings from Scandinavian languages include the words sky, egg, sister, birth, and smorgasbord. From Spanish have come the words pueblo, guacamole, fajita, and macho. The languages of India have given English the words chutney, bungalow, pajamas, amok, and polo (see Indian Languages). Native American languages have provided chipmunk, moccasin, tipi (also spelled teepee), skunk, squash, and quinine. From languages of the Pacific, English has taken sarong, ketchup, koala, and kiwi. From Japanese have come hibachi, sushi, bonsai, and origami.

Spelling 

Both native English speakers and nonnative speakers regard the spelling of English as one of its most difficult characteristics. The English spelling system is not based on a phonetic correspondence between sounds and letters, as is the spelling of Spanish and certain other languages. Instead, English spelling reflects the historical development of the language. The same combination of letters can produce different pronunciations. Similarly, different combinations of letters can produce the same pronunciation.

The six different pronunciations of ough provide an outstanding example of the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation, as in bough, cough, thorough, thought, through, and rough. The spellings are retained from a time when gh represented a consonant that was pronounced. Another discrepancy is the many different spellings of the sh sound, as for example in anxious, fission, fuchsia, and ocean.

The correspondence between sound and spelling in English is not phonetically exact for two main reasons. First, spelling changes did not keep pace with changes in the sound system after the development of printing and of conventions for spelling. For example, the k in knife and the gh in right are relics of the Middle English period (from about 1100 to about 1500), when they were pronounced as separate sounds. Second, some imported spelling conventions persist. For example, during the 16th century the b was inserted in doubt (formerly spelled doute) on the authority of the Latin source of the word, dubitare, although the b was not pronounced in English.

American English developed its own spelling conventions, largely as a result of the work of spelling reformer Noah Webster. Webster attempted to remove some of the irregularities from the English spelling system and distance American English from British English.

1- Old English Period

Old English, a variant of West Germanic, was spoken by certain Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) of the regions comprising present-day southern Denmark and northern Germany who invaded Britain in the 5th century ad. According to tradition, the Jutes were the first to arrive, in 449. Settling in Britain, the invaders drove the indigenous Celtic-speaking peoples, notably the Britons, to the north and west. As time went on, Old English evolved further from the original Continental form, and regional dialects developed.

The four major dialects recognized in Old English are Kentish, originally the dialect spoken by the Jutes; West Saxon, a branch of the dialect spoken by the Saxons; and Northumbrian (see Northumberland) and Mercian (see Mercia), subdivisions of the dialects spoken by the Angles. By the 9th century, partly through the influence of Alfred, king of the West Saxons and the first ruler of all England, West Saxon became prevalent in prose literature. A Mercian mixed dialect, however, was primarily used for the greatest poetry, such as the anonymous 8th-century epic poem Beowulf and the contemporary elegiac poems.

Old English was a much more inflected language than contemporary English. It was characterized by strong and weak verbs; a dual number for pronouns (for example, a form for we two as well as for we); two different declensions of adjectives; four declensions of nouns; and grammatical distinctions of gender. Although rich in word-building possibilities, Old English was sparse in vocabulary. It borrowed a few proper nouns from the language of the conquered Celts, primarily those such as Aberdeen (“mouth of the Dee”) and Inchcape (“island cape”) that describe geographical features. Scholars believe that ten common nouns in Old English are of Celtic origin; among these are cart, down, and clock. Although other Celtic words not preserved in literature may have been in use during the Old English period, most Modern English words of Celtic origin, that is, those derived from Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, or Irish, are comparatively recent borrowings. See Celtic Languages.

The number of Latin words, many of them derived from the Greek, that were introduced during the Old English period has been estimated at 140. A few were probably introduced through Celtic; others were brought to Britain by the Germanic invaders, who previously had come into contact with Roman culture. Most Latin words were introduced as a result of the spread of Christianity. Such words included not only ecclesiastical terms—for example, altar, mass, priest, psalm, temple—but also many others of less specialized significance, such as cheese, wine, and street.

About 40 Scandinavian (Old Norse) words were introduced into Old English by the Norsemen, or Vikings, who invaded Britain periodically from the late 8th century on. Introduced first were words pertaining to the sea and battle, but shortly after the initial invasions other words used in the Scandinavian social and administrative system—for example, the word law—entered the language, as well as the verb form are and such widely used words as take, cut, both, ill, and ugly.

2- Middle English Period

At the beginning of the Middle English period, which dates from the Norman Conquest of 1066, the language was still quite highly inflectional. By the end of the period the relationship between the elements of the sentence depended basically on word order. As early as 1200 the three or four grammatical case forms of nouns in the singular had been reduced to two, and to denote the plural the noun ending (e)s had been adopted.

 

The declension of the noun was simplified further by dropping the final n from five cases of the fourth, or weak, declension; by neutralizing all vowel endings to e (sounded like the a in Modern English sofa), and by extending the masculine, nominative, and accusative plural ending -as, later neutralized also to -es, to other declensions and other cases. Only one example of a weak plural ending, oxen, survives in Modern English; kine and brethren are later formations. Several representatives of the Old English modification of the root vowel in the plural survive also, such as man, men, and foot, feet.

With the reduction of inflections, the distinctions of grammatical gender in English were replaced by those of natural gender. During this period the dual number fell into disuse, and the dative and accusative of pronouns were reduced to a common form. Furthermore, the Scandinavian they, them were substituted for the original hie, hem of the third person plural, and who, which, and that acquired their present relative functions. The conjugation of verbs was simplified by the reduction of endings and by the use of a common form for the singular and plural of the past tense of strong verbs.

In the early period of Middle English, a number of utilitarian words, such as egg, sky, sister, window, and get, came into the language from Old Norse. The Normans brought other additions to the vocabulary. Before 1250 about 900 new words had appeared in English, mainly words, such as baron, noble, and feast, that the Anglo-Saxon lower classes required in their dealings with the Norman-French nobility. Eventually the Norman nobility and clergy learned English, but they introduced into it words from the French language pertaining to the government, the church, the army, and the fashions of the court, in addition to others proper to the arts, scholarship, and medicine.

Midland, the dialect of Middle English derived from the Mercian dialect of Old English, became important during the 14th century, when the English counties in which it was spoken developed into centers of university, economic, and courtly life. East Midland, one of the subdivisions of Midland, had by that time become the speech of the entire metropolitan area of the capital, London, and probably had spread south of the Thames River into Kent and Surrey. The influence of East Midland was strengthened by its use in the government offices of London, by its literary dissemination in the works of the 14th-century poets Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and John Lydgate, and most significantly by its adoption for printed works by William Caxton. These and other circumstances gradually contributed to the direct development of the East Midland dialect into the Modern English standard language.

During the period of this linguistic transformation the other Middle English dialects continued to exist, and dialects descending from them are still spoken in the 21st century. Lowland Scots, for example, is a development of the Northern dialect.

3-The Great Vowel Shift

A major change in the pronunciation of vowels marks the transition from Middle English to Modern English during the 15th and 16th centuries. This change, termed the Great Vowel Shift by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, involved a shift in the articulation of vowels with respect to the positions assumed by the tongue and the lips. The Great Vowel Shift changed the pronunciation of 18 of the 20 distinctive vowels and diphthongs of Middle English. As printing developed in England from 1475 on, spelling remained unchanged, leading to the major discrepancies between spelling and pronunciation that persist today.

All long vowels, with the exception of /ī/ (pronounced in Middle English somewhat like ee in need) and /ū/ (pronounced in Middle English like oo in food), came to be pronounced with the jaw position one degree higher. Pronounced previously in the highest possible position, the/ī/ became diphthongized to “ah-ee,” and the/ū/ to “ee-oo.” The Great Vowel Shift, which is still in progress, caused the pronunciation in English of stressed vowels in English to differ markedly from that of other languages of Western Europe. As a result, the approximate date when words were borrowed from other languages can be determined by means of these and other sound changes. Thus it is known that the old French word dame was borrowed before the shift, since its vowel shifted with the Middle English /ā/ from a pronunciation like that of the vowel in calm to that of the vowel in name.

4- Modern English Period

In the early part of the Modern English period the vocabulary was enlarged by the widespread use of one part of speech for another and by increased borrowings from other languages. The revival of interest in Latin and Greek during the Renaissance brought new words into English from those languages. Other words were introduced by English travelers and merchants after their return from journeys on the Continent. From Italian came cameo, stanza, and violin; from Spanish and Portuguese, alligator, peccadillo, and sombrero. During its development, Modern English borrowed words from more than 50 different languages. The works of William Shakespeare are prime examples of the way in which an accomplished writer could incorporate a wide vocabulary and reflect the expanding geographical and cultural horizons of the Renaissance.

In the late 17th century and during the 18th century, certain important grammatical changes occurred. The formal rules of English grammar were established during that period. The pronoun its came into use, replacing the genitive form his, which was the only form used by the translators of the King James Bible (1611). The progressive tenses developed from the use of the participle as a noun preceded by the preposition on; the preposition gradually weakened to a and finally disappeared. Thereafter only the simple ing form of the verb remained in use, as in, for example, “The baby is crying.” After the 18th century this process of development culminated in the creation of the progressive passive form, for example, “The job is being done.”

The most important development begun during this period and continued without interruption throughout the 19th and 20th centuries concerned vocabulary. As a result of colonial expansion, notably in North America but also in other areas of the world, many new words entered the English language. From the indigenous peoples of North America, the words raccoon and wigwam were borrowed; from Peru, llama and quinine; from the West Indies, barbecue and cannibal; from Africa, chimpanzee and zebra; from India, bandanna, curry, and punch; and from Australia, kangaroo and boomerang. In addition, thousands of scientific terms were developed to denote new concepts, discoveries, and inventions. Many of these terms, such as neutron, penicillin, and supersonic, were formed from Greek and Latin roots; others were borrowed from modern languages, as with blitzkrieg from German and sputnik from Russian.

20th Century English

For much of the 20th century in Great Britain, the speech of educated persons could be classified as Received Standard English. A class dialect rather than a regional dialect, it was based on the type of speech cultivated at such schools as Eton and Harrow and at older universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. Many English people who speak regional dialects in their childhood acquire Received Standard English while attending school and university or serving in the military. Its influence was strengthened by its use in such public media as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). However, widely differing regional and local dialects remained in use throughout Britain. In recent decades regional dialects of British English have become much more prestigious locally and much more acceptable in the highest social circles. Today, BBC national broadcasters may have regional accents such as Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish.

In different English-speaking countries recognizable varieties of English have developed. For example, the English language in Ireland has retained certain individual peculiarities of pronunciation, some of which result from contact with Ireland’s Gaelic language and some of which result from contact with Scots. Scotland has a number of regional dialects and is considered by some linguists to have developed into a separate language. Lowland Scots, sometimes called Lallans (see Scottish Language), was first made known throughout the English-speaking world by the songs of 18th-century Scottish poet Robert Burns. It features differences in pronunciation, such as guid for “good”, and words of Scandinavian origin, such as braw (for “fine”) and bairn (for “child”). The Doric, spoken in Aberdeenshire in Scotland, features pronunciation differences, such as fit for “what,” and distinctive vocabulary, such as quine for “woman.” The English spoken in Australia is notable for its marked diphthongization of vowels, its retention of features from English regional dialect usages, its incorporation of indigenous Australian terms such as wallaby and digeridoo.

 

American English

An important development of English outside Great Britain occurred with the colonization of North America. American English may be considered to include the English spoken in Canada, although the Canadian variety retains some features of British pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary. The most distinguishing differences between American English and British English are in pronunciation and vocabulary, although there are slighter differences in grammar, spelling, pitch, and stress as well. American English appears to be both tolerant of newly coined words and conservative in comparison to British English.

There are a wide variety of American dialects, some of which appear to be diverging markedly from others. In particular, dialects of certain Northern cities seem to be undergoing shifts that are different from those of certain Southern cities. Furthermore, American English has developed rather distinctive ethnic dialects, such as African American Vernacular English and Hispanic American English. The use of ethnic dialects varies from region to region and social group to social group.

Pidgin English

English also features a number of simplified languages that arose among non-English-speaking peoples. Pidgin English developed as a means of communication between English and non-English-speaking traders. It is spoken in the Melanesian islands (see Melanesia), New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines, and Hawaii, and on the Asian shores of the Pacific Ocean. The speakers of Pidgin English developed a simplified structure with a vocabulary formed from a mixture of English, indigenous, and international words. The vocabulary gradually expanded with frequency of contact and the extension of communication requirements.

Bêche-de-Mer, a pidgin spoken in the southern and western Pacific islands, is predominantly English in structure, although it includes many Polynesian words. Chinook Jargon, used as a lingua franca by the Native Americans, French, and English on the North American Pacific coast, contains English, French, and Native American words; its grammatical structure is based on that of the Chinook language. The use of pidgin is growing in Africa, notably in Cameroon, Sierra Leone, and East Africa. Certain varieties of this sort have developed further, becoming the first language of generations of speakers. These languages are referred to as creoles; examples include Jamaican and Hawaiian Creole.

 

English as a World Language

The English language spread as Britain expanded its colonial empire from the 1600s on and established legal, military, and educational systems in many countries along English lines. British expansion ended after World War II (1939-1945), when many of its colonies sought independence. Since World War II American English has dominated as a world language, largely because of U.S. economic and political influence and the advance of technology, especially computing and the Internet. At the turn of the 21st century, English prevailed as the most widely used language internationally.

At the same time as English became a world language, the number of English speakers learning a second language dropped substantially. Even more disturbingly, English was blamed for the “death” of some minority languages, such as Gaelic and various Australian aboriginal languages (see Aboriginal Australians). Various measures are needed to protect these smaller languages from disappearing.

The English language seems set to dominate world communications for some time to come. Although dominance brings with it a degree of standardization, it is not the case that English is losing its variety, either within countries or across the globe. Current research suggests that, rather than dwindling, differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation continue to allow people to express multiple identities. The fear of some linguists that mass communications would lead to the death of English dialects appears to be unfounded.

Source:

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2007.

 
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