Historia de la Lengua Inglesa

INTRODUCTION
-In the study of linguistics, we can appreciate 2 main approaches:

Studying a language as a system which operates from a given

point of time. For example, NOW. This is the SYNCHRONIC
point of view.
Establishing the connection between the different NOWS and
linking them for getting the essence. This is the DIACHRONIC
point of view.

It is important to know that BOTH complement each other.

-There are several reasons for studying the history of a language:
1. For the same reason as studying the history of a country
2. Because we have to know what happened in the past and as a
group of citizens, we are responsible for our changes.
3. Because the place we are born conditions us
4. Our language is the product of society
5. There have been historical inventions and conditions. As a result,
new words have born and we have to give them new names. To coin
a word.
6. English has borrowed words from other languages but English is
superior in some fields.
7. Because we want to understand the great pieces of literature in the
original language without having a translator.
8. Because grammar rules keep on changing
9. To understand apparent irregularities.

We also have to distinguish between INTERNAL and EXTERNAL history:

-Internal history: the history of a language must include the study of
the language structure.
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 Situations:
1. Phonetics: and Phonology are affected by diachrony
Ex: In Old English the word house was /hus/, whereas in
Middle English it was added [au].
Ex: I know not thee (Middle or Early Modern English) = I don
t know you
2. Syntax is also affected:
-External history: it gives us the knowledge about the different factors
that had influenced English: political issues, cultural facts, scientific
events
Both, internal and external, have the role of making English and both,
complement each other.
But. Why does a language change?- due to dynamism and How do
languages change?- there are two main reasons:
Innovation: the introduction f a new variant from which at
the beginning might have been a considered error. It can
made catching on or dying off.
Diffusion: spreading a variant form from the point when it
was used. The greater the place is, the bigger diffusion
takes
Also, there are variations in different fields:
-Variations in pronunciation: Ex: tomato (U.K VS U.S)
-Variations in vocabulary: Ex: Autumn (U.K)/Fall (U.S) or Toilet
(U.K)/Restroom (U.S)
-Variations in syntax:
WHY DOES A LANGUAGE CHANGE?: there are 3 main types of engines
which diffuse changes :
1. Structural
2. Social
3. Functional
1.Structural pressure may develop in any part of a language.
Bread-uncountable-----------------more bread-----------------------less bread
Loaf/Loaves-countable------------more
loaves
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bread-----------------------fewer

2.Social changes: languages are not only used for communication.

They are also used in order to state the group you belong to, as a way
of interacting marked by a social class although it may be vary.
Ex: More Better Blues
-Judgement of a user of standard English : WRONG
-Judgement of a non-user of standard English: RIGHT
Ex: We goes down the road
-present English used by a non-standard speaker but from a historical
point of view and particularly in the north of England, this is correct.
Ex: I never done it!
I have never done it
I never did it
-non-standard use
The option of choosing a past tense (done instead of did) marks that
is not coming from a standard English speaker.
3.Functional changes: vocabulary or expressions which are fresh
enough. A pragmatic use of words which shape the discourse.
Ex: Very

out of fashion nowadays and not strong enough

Extremely
Absolutely
Really

vocabulary to impress

Dead easy
Dirt cheap

Ex: economy of effort = change of pronunciation

Fasten: dropping the t or dropping the schwa
Often: dropping the t
We also have some extra linguistic factors like for example using an
acronym instead of the entire name in the fields of practical life and
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science (Ex: L.E.D). This is because inertia is more powerful than

change. Moreover, the presence of Standard English helps our use of
English to be homogeneous.
How an abstract idea of language can makes a shape?

Sushi: introduced by the end of the 19 th century in the

dictionary. Only few people knew it the word by this time, but
today, everybody knows it.
Twock: coined by the british police in the 1990s. It means
taken without the owners consent.
Gate: can be a word or can be a suffix (Watergate) used by
journalists when a political scandal occurred.

3 main areas:
1.Grammar:
Can I borrow
Could I borrow

Newer
options

Would you mind

May I
decreasing

the one which has been taught. Now is

Maynt I

used in the 20th century

2.Phonology:
H.R.T= High Rising Tone (use of an intonation for a statement, not for
a question)
Ex: Are you okay?
-A.Q.I= Australian Question Intonation (originated in Sydney working
women classes)
-Valley Girls (1980s, California)
-All scholars agree on the same thing: pragmatics are involved and it
s genre patterned
3.Sociolinguistics

UNIT 1:
English: An Important Language

Any language lives if there are people who speak it. There are six thousand languages
in the world but half of the world's population speaks only ten. English is the single
most dominant of all western languages and this, had a lot to do with British history and
colonialism which initiated its spread across the world. Today English has been spoken
nearly everywhere and it has become even more important since the Second World
War. Politics are also involved in a language. The importance of a language is not
connected to its linguistic issues, it is related to social issues. There are 3 main
reasons why English is important: first language, second language and pidgin and
creole varieties.

-English is used as the first language by about 375 million of people

-Largest language of the western languages
-Importance: not only about the territory, linked with the political role who used it and
their influence
-English today is very widely used as a second language and this is in part what gives
its importance.
-Importance of Spanish: a question of numbers (growing population in South America
or the Hispanic community in United States)
-English is being used as the basis of pidgin and creole varieties in areas where
English is not the first language.

- English may function all around the world as a mother tongue, official Dom or a s a
second language.

- English used as a medium of education

- English also works as a lingua Franca (language which is used among people who
don't have another language in common)

- British colonies usually achieved independence after the Second World War. India

became independent in 1947 but others in the decade of the 50s, 60s... When they
became independent, the new governments had to come to terms with a territory
which was multilingual and they had to give some orders to the new situation. The
reality was that the new nations had the need of a national language for representing

them. That choice was extremely difficult due to internal revolts and the influence of
super power nations. In some cases, they chose local languages thinking that it
could be partially representative but the problem is that many local languages are not
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spoken by a majority. In Africa, governments chose English because it had been

working pretty well as a lingua Franca and proved to work well for
intercommunication. Those nations who chose a local language had retained the
English as well as a second language (India).

- English in Africa: South Africa, English is the main language but is only one of the
eleven languages. In Cameroon, English and French are the main ones. In Nigeria,
English and the main local language are officials.
Easy and Difficult things in English:

There are things which are difficult as well as other which are easier to learn. English
has become easier because declinations disappeared many years ago. English is an
infective language.

For nouns: Ex: paper (sing) // paperS (plural)= regular or analogical plural //
man (sing) // men (plural) = irregular plural.

For adjectives: is even easier. Ex: a nice child// nice children. It remains
invariable independently its of function, genre or number.

Verbs: adding an s in the third person singular (present tense) there's no

conjugated verbs nowadays in English but it is not like it used to be. English has
simplified its grammar.

Grammatical gender: implies that you have to learn and memorize the gender which is
not grammatically or semantically connected. This happened many years ago and after
the 14th century, people started to use natural gender. It means that all nouns which
refer to living brewing a are masculine or feminine according to the sex of the individual
and the other nouns are neutral. There are cases in which a man is referring as a
woman for example sheep but this is a question of rhetoric.
Besides, is there a link between pronunciation and how a word is written? We can
safely say that we can't pronounce a word just by looking how it is written.
Ex: honour//heritage. It is a question if time. Heritage came before and honour after
and we need more time to adapt its pronunciation. This is the case of foreign words in
English.

Ex: [ i: ] - see -receive- leave -be-machine ///

-fuchsia-issue

[f]- shoe -ocean-nation-chaperon

There have been different attempts to making easier the pronunciation of English.
Roosevelt tried to get a degree of simplification in the pronunciation of English. But it
seemed that this advantage was not enough for formal conservatism. Ex: island
(inserting an s in the 16th century). Spelling is very difficult to get rid of graphemes due
to its conservatism. Ex: subtle
Pidgins and Creoles languages: Loreto Todd, 1990, Routledge
Pidgins and Creoles are found in every continent and they have received academic
attention but there is a way a different way to looking to the same linguistic fact. They
have been thought to have been a broken version of other standardized versions of
English. In academic circles for the last 25 years there have been serious attempts to
remove these varieties. Pidgin and Creoles have been regarded as broken forms of
English, primitive and inferior languages. Now, we try to detach this idea.
Pidgin: it is defined as a marginal language which arises to fulfill certain restricted
communication needs among people who have known common language. The birth of
a variety appears when there is contact between people who speak different
languages. In the first stages mainly for businesses, they used small vocabulary and
few words which are usually provided by one of the main languages. The syntactic
structure is less complex and less flexible than the syntactic structure of English.
All languages have a certain range of redundancy.
Ex:
les deux grands journaux 4/4 spelling but 3/4 pronouncing (plurality is marked)
The two big newspaper: English is less redundant than French
Tupela bik pepa: no redundancy
Ex:
Verb aller in French - no repetitions in its forms
Verb go in English - invariable except for the third person singular
Verb go in Tok Pisin- totally invariable
Nouns are also invariable in Tok Pisin and there are no markers of plurality
Ex: ten men// one man ( mutation of the vowel ) in Tok Pisin is tenpela man ( numeral
marks number )
Ex:Lots of men have no wife (English)- plenty man i no get meri (Tok Pisin) so there is
not gender distinction

Ex: Mi=I // yu=you // em = he,she,it // mipela/yumi =we/you and I // yupela= you // ol

(all)= they
Vocabulary: they built new words from words which already existed
Hen = paulmeri= gallina// cock= paulman=Gallo // pikinini meri=girl // pikinini man=boy

They used an adverbial for indicating past

These are essentially spoken varieties
It also depends on the age, place, how much standard English they know

Pronunciation can be very variable as well:

Discovery of phonological correspondences ever since the 19th century comparison
were established between languages in order to guess whether they had a common
parent tongue. If you take German and English we find correspondences in the
following examples:
OE: ban (a has a macron which marks a double vowel) - Bein
Stan ( a has a macron too) - stein
Conclusion: English and German are related and they come from the same
descendent. But, not only between English and German, also between English and
Latin
Nefa in old English =nephew // nepos in Latin
Different forms and account for them in a single way
The nature of English is Germanic and it has a quite a lot of points in common with
German and other Germanic ,a gauges but the problem is that almost all are
knowledge of them has to be known by means of reconstructions because there are no
written documents of the earliest forms of Germanic and we have to guess. We don't
face the same situation talking about Spanish, French or Italian because they are
Romance languages. They don't offer such a a great difficulty because we have quite a
lot of information about their ancestors. We know a lot about Vulgar Latin. A latin
knowledge derives from literary written texts. We can say that at the beginnings, the
first form of Germanic languages, were the different sub branches which weren't so
much different but with the passing of the time they have become main languages. Old
English is the first form of Germanic since the 7th century in AEngland. All High
German can be the first form from the 8th to the 11th century for people who lived in
Austria, Switzerland and some parts of Germany. How do we see linguistic change?
-It's because people who spoke old English created their own particularities and the
language grew in a different way from other languages. Many times, due to
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geographical distances or by means of mixing with foreigners and this provoked

linguistic change.