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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
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
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
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
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
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
About 40 Scandinavian (Old Norse) words were introduced into Old English by the Norsemen, or Vikings, who invaded
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
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
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
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
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
20th Century English
For much of the 20th century in
In different English-speaking countries recognizable varieties of English have developed. For example, the English language in
American English
An important development of English outside
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),
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
English as a World Language
The English language spread as
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.