Germanic languages have four common characteristics:

1. Great consonant shift ( Grimms Law)

2. Adjectival declension
3. Stress system
4. Verb system
Great consonant shift:

e.g. Sanscrit
Latin
OE

p
f

p --- f
t --- th
k --- h
pitar
pater
father

pad
pes,pedis
foot

Sanscrit
Latin
OE

trayas
tres
th three

Sanscrit
Latin
OE

k cata
centum caput
h hundred head

tenis (CR.) tanak

thin
cunas
canis
hund

-------------------------------------------b --- p
d --- t
g --- k
e.g. CR. dubok
OE deep
Latin duo
OE two
Latin genu
OE
knee

slab
sleep
domare
tame
ego
Ic

-------------------------------------------

(CR.) trn
thorn

b --- b
p --- p
g --- g
e.g.

Sanscrit
OE

bu
be

bhar
bear

Sanscrit
OE

da
do

dvar
door

Sanscrit
OE

gans
goose

gostis
guest (Latin hostis)

Adjectival declension - weak and strong

e.g. se goda man
(an ) god man

(weak)
(strong)

Stress system
family, familiar, familiarity (stress shifts)
love, lovely, loveliness, loveless (stress stays on the same syllable)

Verb system
lufian - luvode ( to love)
weak (today regular verbs)
singan sang - sungon - gesungen strong ( today irregular)

OLD ENGLISH PERIOD

(600-1100)

OE Consonants
All consonants were pronounced, no silent consonants (e. g. writan,
gnawan, cnawan)
Letter c pronounced as /k/ or //.

/k/ in the vicinity of back vowels e.g. coin, boc, corn

// in the vicinity of front vowels e.g. cild, cirice, cealk
Letter g was pronounced as /g/ or /y/
/g/ back vowels of consonants e.g. guma (man); grindan ( grind), gold
/y/ in the vicinity of front vowels e.g. gievan (give), gear (year), halig
(holy), daeges (days)
(So give is not an Anglo-Saxon word, it came from Scandinavian)
Consonant group /sc/ pronounced as // e.g. sceap ( sheep), scort (short),
scafian (shave)
Letter f was pronounced as /f/ or /v/
e.g. wif (wife), fot (foot),
wifes /vives/ Intervocalically as /v/
Letter s was pronounces as /s/ or /z/.
e.g. ceas /s/
ceosan /z/ Intevocalicaly as /z/

OE Vowels
Long

a: ham ( home)
ae: daed (deed)

Short

man

ae glaed

e: fet (feet)

e well

i: wif (wife)

i sittan

o: god (good)

o God

u: hus (house)

u ful

y: mys (mice)

y synn

I-mutation
Change of back vowels into front vowels under the influence of i/j

1. Plural of nouns

gos + /iz/
fot + /iz/
boc + /iz/

2. Abstract nouns

lang + /ithu/ length

strang + /ithu/ strength
full + /ithu/
fylth (foul - filth)

3. Verbs from nouns

fod + /jan/ fedan ( feed)

blod + /jan/ bedan (bleed)

from adjectives
4. Comparatives and
superlatives

Angla + /isc/

English

full + /jan/

ges
fet
bec

fyllan ( fill)

old + /ira/ eldra

old + /ista/ eldsta
Wales + /isc/ Welsh

Morphology
NOUNS

OE gender was grammatical and natural

e.g. wifman (woman) was masculine in OE because it is a compound

and the last part is man (masculine). So grammatical gender masculine
but natural gender feminine.
Declensions
a. Masculine declension of words ending in a consonant
N hund
hundas
G hundes
hunda
D hunde
hundum
A hund
hundas

b. N-declension (masculine)
N oxa
oxan
G oxan
oxena
D oxan
oxum
A oxan
oxan
c. Neuter declension ending in a consonant
N sceap
sceap
G sceapes
sceapa
D sceape
sceapum
Also:: deer, swine, horse, gear (years today but two-year-old child)
e.g. His hors were gode (His horses were good)
d. Declension with I-mutation (masculine and feminine)
N gos
G gese
D ges
A gos

ges
gosa
gosum
ges

PRONOUNS
Personal pronouns
N Ic
we
G min
ure
D me
us
A me
us
N
G
D
A

he
his
him
hine

heo
hiere(heore)
hiere
hie

u
in
e
e

(thou)
(thine)
(thee)
(thee)

hit
his
him
hit

Interrogative pronouns
N
G
D
A

hwa (who)
hwaes
hwaem
hwone

hwaet (what)
hwaes
hwaem
hwaet

ge
eower
eow
eow
hie
hiera
him
hie

(they)

Reflexive pronouns
Accusative of personal pronouns used for reflexive
E.g. He hit hine (he hit himself)
seolf (self) was used only for emphasis
Adverbs
Three ways of forming adverbs
1. hlud (loud) + e hlude freondlic + e

freondlice (friendly)

2. glaed + lice glaedlice (gladly)

3. adding -es ones (once), elles (else), nightes (nigths)
daeges (days)
Verbs
inf.

p.t.sg.

p.t. pl.

strong: drifan - draf - drifon

p.part.
- gedrifen ( to drive)

ceosan - ceas - curon - gecoren ( to choose)

singan - sang - sungon - gesungen
weak: (d/t) hieran - hierde -hierdon -gehierd (to hear)
settan -sette - setton -gesett ( to set)
lufian -lufode -lufodon - gelufed ( to love)
Present tense
strong verbs: sg. I
drif-e
thu drif-st
he drif-th
weak verbs: sg. I lufi-e
thu luf -ast
he luf-ath

pl. drifath

pl. lufiath

Past tense
strong verbs sg. draf
drife
draf
pl.

weak verbs

drifon

pl.

lufode
lufodest
lufode
lufodon

In ME plural forms were not used any more.

VOCABULARY
Words borrowed (loanwords) from Indo European
day, sun, night, moon, wind, thunder, earth, fire water, cow, goose,
mouse, wolf
erian (to plough); mawan ( to maw)
Latin influence
three periods 1. infuence on the continent
2. during Christianisation
3. after Christanisation
1. Words accepted on the continent
e.g. street (strata via); wall (vallum) mile (mille passus), pound
(pondus), biship (episcopus); church ( gr. kiriakon); cheese (caseus), wine
( vinum)
Names of the days of the week are related to Gods:

Saturday - Saeturnesdaeg ( day of Saturn)

Sunday - (day of the sun)
Monday - (day of the Moon)
Tuesday - Tiu (god of war)

Wednesday - (Woden, Roman god Mercury)

Thursday - Thor ( or Jupiter)
Friday - Frei or Frigi (equivalent to Venera)

2. Words accepted before Christianization

A small group of words like: castra - OE caester like Winchester,
Lancaster. Word lake ( from Latin lacus)
3. After Christianization
Language connected to church: alms, abbot, angel, candle, church,
deacon, devil, martyr, minister, monk, mass, nun, priest, psalm, pope, etc.
Transformations: monasterium - munasterium - mynster - minster. Or
moneta - muneta - mynet -minst
Some words were translated: trinitas becomes thrines (MN trinity),
evangelium translated as godspell (OE good story)
Some pagan words got Christian meaning : bledsian ---bledan ---bless
Words from common vocabulary: lily, palm, pine, capon, peacock,
trout, turtle, dish, chalk, cup, fork. Verbs like: offer, shrive, spend, stop
adjectives like: crisp, short
CETLIC words
Small amount: dry (wizard); druid; brat (cloth); rug. Mostly geographical
terms like: London (protected place); Aberdeen (mouth of the Dee); the
Avon; the Thames.

SCANDINAVIAN influence

Geographical terms (endings) : -by (Whitby); -toft (Lowestoft); -thwaite

(Brathwait); -thorpe (Athorp).
English endings are: -ham (Horsham); tun,-ton (Alton);- bury
(Canterbury)

Words with: k, g, sk e.g. kid, kilt, kirk

give, gift, get, egg,
skin, sky,
OE scyrta (shirt, skirt)
diphtong /ei/ imported from Scandinavian; they, raise, great, bait
Common words; sister, husband, knife, fellow, awe (adjectives): big,
wrong, (verbs): get, give take. (pronouns): she, they, them, their;
prepositions: fro, till

Middle English Period

(1100-1500)
OE period ends with William the Conqueror in 1066. Great influence of
French in this period. The beginning of the standard language with
Chaucer.
ME phonology

Long

Short

OE
a: ham ( home)
ae: daed (deed)
e: fet (feet)
i: wif (wife)
o: god (good)
u: hus (house)
y: mys (mice)
a
ae
e
i
o
u
y

man
glaed
well
sittan
God
ful
synn

ME
o: hoom
e: deed

i: mys, mice

a glad

i sinn

Shortening of vowels:
1. before two or more consonants : OE fedde - ME fedde (fed)
2. threesyllabic words : OE haligdaeg - ME holiday
3. before the suffix : wisdom from wise; shepherd from sheep, gosling
from goose
Orthography (under the influence of French)
u ou (hus house)
cw qu (cwen queen)
c ch (cild child)
Introduction of v instead of f: OE lufu ME love
Introdution of letter z (Zephyrus)

Morphology
Simplification and loss of endings as a general tendency
a. Masculine declension of words ending in a consonant
sing.
pl.
N hound
houndes (for all cases)
G houndes
D. hound
A. hound
b. N-declension (masculine)
N oxe
G. oxen
D. oxen
A. oxen

oxen

c. Neuter declension ending in a consonant

N. sheep
G. sheepes
D. sheep
A. sheep

sheep

d. Declension with I-mutation (masculine and feminine)

N. fot
G. fote
D. fot
A. fot

fet

PRONOUNS
Personal pronouns
N Ich
we
G min
our
D me
us
A me
us

thou
thine
thee
thee

ye
your
you
you

N he
G his
D, A. him

hit,it
his
hit (it)

they
their
them

she
hir(e)
hir (e)

Interrogative pronouns
who, whom, whose for persons and what for things
Reflexive pronouns
1. seolf (self) was used only for emphasis.
2. Now also for reflexive: make himselven wood (made himself crazy).
3. Accusative of the personal pronouns still for reflexive (and born him
well - born himself well)

Relative pronouns
That used most. Sometimes which in the genitive function like: of
which virtue. One can also leave out the relative pronoun: Ther was a
plowman, was his brother.
Adverbs
1. Ending -e e.g. faire, sore, smerte

2. -lice in the form of liche but more often now as -ly e.g. soothly,
fetishly. In Chaucer still liche in word of French origin: rudeliche,
royaliche
3. -es ( originally genitive) e.g. ones, thryes, elles
Verbs
OE ridan - rad- ridon - (ge) riden
ME ryden -rood - riden - (y) riden
OE singan - sang- sungon (ge) sungen
ME singen - sang,song - songen (y) songe(n)
Present tense
Endings from the Northern dialect where we find -es in the third person
singular:
sg. -e
-est
-es
But we still have -eth in the literary language, for exmaple, in the Bible.

Syntax
Nouns: -es in the genitive of nouns. But in this period we also have the
introduction of of for the genitive. It came from French de.
examples: at his beddes heed ( at his beds head); the reule of seint Maur
(the rule of St. Maur).
In the declension where there was not -es in the genitive we find: in his
lady grace, by my fader soule
Adjectives: The only ending is -e. Adjective usually stand in front of the
nouns; smale fowles but under the influence of French we also find:
servyse dyvine. Adjective can also be turned into nouns: a wantoun and
a merye
The loss of grammatical gender. Only natural gender
Impersonal constructions: OE me thinketh it accordant to resoun but
also it seemed me

Question formation:
1. with a question particle - what needeth wordes more?
2. Inversion: seyde he nat thus?
3. rarely with do: why do ye wepe?
Negation formation:
1. Negative particle: I ne saugh
2. With nought, nat, not after the verbs: He yaf nat
3. Double negation: He ne lafte nat.
Contractions: ne was = nas; ne wolde = nolde; ne woot = noot ne wiste
= niste
Word order: With a great loss of endings the word order became more
fixed and played a more important role. Prepositions playing a greater
role instead of endings. Also personal pronouns.
Middle English vocabulary
French words in ME

1250- 1400

From Purely Germanic to mixed vocabulary

French was spoken on the court, in schools until the 14th century

Words coming from two dialects: Northern and Central French

N /k/ catch
C // chase

// catch
/s/ chase

/w/ warden
/gu/ guardian

Feudal system: domain, castle, court, manor house or villa

villeins ( village) /tun =town/
Titles: earl (E) - (F) count, countess; duke, duchess, marquis, viscount,
baron (E)- king, queen, earl, knight, lord, lady
Food: sheep - mutton; pig-pork; cow - beef; calf - veal
Meals: breakfast (E) - dinner, supper, banquet, bottle, table, servant,
butler, master
Law: trespass, cheat, treason (theft, thief, murder (E))
justice, judge, jury, verdict, punish, prison, prisoner, court

Military: battle, assault, siege, banner, fortress, arms, tower

Craft: common (E): smith, baker, skinner
(F): barber, carpenter, grocer, tailor, jeweller
Church hierarchy: (E) priest, bishop. (F) abbot, abbess, curate, cardinal,
friar, deacon, archdeacon
connected with church: service. clergy, parish, apostle, conscience,
confession, penance, prayer, absolution
Medieval science: (general) mercy, pity, charity, beauty, courtesy,
repentence (astrology): influence, disaster, jovial, mercurial,
saturnine (medicine): humor, choleric, sanguine, cordial, physic
Literature: tragedy, comedy, drama
Family relations: uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, cousin (E) grandmother,
sire, dame
Synomyms:
E kingdom
F realm

folk
people

E
F
Latin
French

wish
desire

friendship
amity
regal
royal

Replaced by French:

child
infant

hearty
cordial

bloom wed ask

flower marry demand

hut
cottage

legal
loyal

riht justice; frith - peace; cyneholm crow;

earm - poor; halga - saint;

French and English: love and charity; make and endyte,

faire and fetisly

MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD 1500 -

East Midlands 1589 London dialect as the literary language

1450 printing press

Great Vowel Shift

Raising of vowels
e:
o:

fet i: feet
gos u: goose

Diphtongization
i:
u:
a:
:

lif
hus
name
home

ai
au
ei
ou

life
house
name
home

Short vowels do not change

i ---- i
bit
e ---- e
get
o ---- o
good
a ---- ae glad
u ---- u
full
Some other changes:
Diphtongs
eu (u) --- ju: new, due
ai ---- ei day, raise
au ---- o: awe, autumn
a before l --- au --- o
talk, walk
a before lf, lv, lm --- a: calf, calves, calm
Consonants
s, t, d, + j palatalized

pension, ambition, soldier

Loss of consonants
k, g, w, ---- 0
(kn, gn, wr)
b --- 0
h ---- 0

/mb

comb, lamb

hit ---it ;

knowledge, gnaw, write

(lim --- limb)

hour ; h ---- f enough, laugh

gh --- 0 might, brought

t --- 0 in the middle position

whistle, Christmas

Spelling (orthography)
k, g, w
gh

although not pronounced

night, though (niht)

doubling of consonants
cry - cried;

inn, kiss, sell

beauty - beautiful flour - flower

Modern English Morphology

Nouns: Plural of nouns and genitive singular lose the vovel from the
inflectional ending: houndes hounds or hounds (becoming thus one
syllabic words). The loss in the genitive indicated by an apostrophy.
Dativ ending -e completely lost.
Adjectives: The -e ending completely lost. Comparative and superlative
by -er and -est but also more and most.
Adverbs: The ending -ly becomes predominant
Pronouns: Complete loss of the distinction between thou and ye. One
form: you and your. The older forms used only in the Bible, poetry and
in some dialects. Reflexive pronouns: myself, yourself, ourselves etc.
Verbs: Some use of the endings -est and -eth in the early period.
Completely lost with the only ending -s in the third person singular.
In the past tense the two forms are lost and only the singular form is used
for singualr and plural (sang, loved). Prefix gey 0 is completely lost.
The suffix -en remained in some of the forms like: written, chosen, eaten,
shaken (drunk: drunken , forgotten: forgot)

Modern English Syntax

The category of case (nouns) is indicated only with Saxon genitive.
Personal pronouns have the case markings like I -me - mine, etc.

Gender category is marked in personal pronouns: he she - it. This is not

grammatical gender but only natural gender.
Syntactic relation that did not exist in OE or Mid. English is genitive
relation such : the leg of the table and also the word order: Give the man
the book.
Comparative and superlative forms also expressed with more and most.
Double comparison existing only in the early Mod. English such as: This
is the most unkindest cut of all (Julius Caesar)
Differentiation of the use of pronouns like who, which, that. In the early
Mod. English which was used for persons.
Introduction of past tenses like present perfect (I have gone), plusperfect
(I had gone) and he progressive tenses ( I am writing)
Regular introduction of do in questions ( What do you say?) and in the
negative ( He does not know)
Double negation not allowed in this period. Two negations give a positive
meaning. (This is not unknown to you = This is known to you)
Fixed word order (Subject verb object). Functional change of words and
phrases like hit-me-of-you-dare expression.
Modern English vocabulary

Words from classical languages:

There was an attempt to introduce a lot of words from Latin and Greek
and some of those words stayed: industry, maturity, temperance,
artificiality, negotiation, geology, geography, philology, psychology,
ideology, criterion, phenomenon, crisis, thesis, formula, locus, index,
genus, datum, memorandum.
Later in the 16-th century words specifically from Latin: genius, medium,
senior, junior, area, animal, circus, specimen, census, series, species,
apparatus. The whole phrases like: ex catedra, ab inition, vice versa.
Some inventions like: locomotive, tractor, velocipede, motor.
Greek: Mostly through Latin: acrobat, alphabet, asylum, chemist, cycle,
character, cardiogram. The result of the influence from classical

languages is the difference between the noun and the corresponding

adjective: eye -optical, moon -lunar, sun-solar, house - domestic
French words
-et: cadet, coquette. -esque: picturesque, -oon: buffoon, baloon, -ade:
parade, promenade
Also:ballet, beau, belle-lettres, salon, etiquette, debut, souvenir, boudoir,
fiancee, regime, guillotine, tricolor
In the 19th century words from arts and literature, clothing, furniture,
food, social like. Words like the following; atelier, genre, blouse,
costume, beret, ensemble, chic, brassier, chifonnier, cafe, restaurant,
menu, mayonnaise, cab, parvenu, soiree, debutant, barrage, camouflage,
attache,
Italian words
Most of them came through French, connected to music, painting etc.:
alarm, florin, piano, violin, viola, cello, aria, scherzo, sonata, primadonna,
maestro, fresco, studio, sonnet, canto, motto, fiasco, influenza, umbrella,
fascist, fascizm
Spanish words
armada, mosquito, cherry, canyon, negro, cigar, cargo, embargo,
picaresque, cafeteria, matador, toreador
Portuguese words
marmelade, port (wine), caste, tank
German words
protestant, kindergarten, aestetics, subjective, objective, complex,
introvert, extrovert, overtone, chromosome, dynamo, relativity, bacillus.
Music terms like: waltz, yodel. Political and war terminology: state
socialism, social democrat, class-conscious, gestapo, Fuhrer, blitzkrieg.
Food: saurekraut, delicatessen
Dutch words
yacht, dock, deck, buoy, cruise, skipper, landscape, easel, sketch
Scandinavian words
fiord, geyser, viking, easy, saga

Celtic words
clan, whiskey, slogan, plaid, flannel, bog, tory
Words from Slavic languages
steppe, tundra, mammoth, samovar, vodka, bolshevik, soviet, commissar,
kulak, sputnik, mazurka, robot, karst, vojvoda, kolo
Jewish words
amen, hallelujah, cherub(in), manna, Jehovah
Persian words
caravan, divan, bazzar, dervish, tiger, azure
Arabic words
alcohol, alkali, algebra, alchemy, almanac, sheik, bedouin, harem,
Moslem, Islam, Koran, fakir, sofa, orange, lemon, sugar, candy, zenith
(they mostly came through French, Italian and Spanish)
Turkish words
jackal, turban, kiosk, horda, fez, coffee, bosh
Anglo-Indian
bungalow, shampoo, jungle, cot, cashmere, pyjamas, khaki
Japanese: rickshaw, kimono; Malasian: lorry, orangoutant; Chinese: tea,
business: from the American continent: cocoa, tomato, tapioca, tabacco,
potato, tomahawk, wig-wan, totem, toboggan, moccasin

Orientation questions for the history of the English language

1. Indo-European family of languages.
2. Four common characteristics of the Germanic branch of languages.
3. Great Consonant Shift or Grimms law.
4. OE consonants and their pronunciation.
5. OE vowels, short and long with examples.
6. I-mutation in different categories with examples.
7. OE gender.
8. Four declensions in OE.
9. Personal pronouns in OE.
10. Interrogative pronouns.
11. The formation of adverbs.
12. Verbs in OE, strong and weak.
13. Present and past tense in OE.
14. The formation of the reflexive pronouns.
15. Borrowed words in OE from the Indo-European.
16. Celtic words in OE.
17. Latin words in OE.
18. Scandinavian influence in the OE vocabulary.
19. Changes in long and short vowels in ME.
20. Spelling changes in ME.
21. Declensions in ME, what changed in comparison to OE.
22. Personal pronouns in ME.
23. Verbs in ME.
24. Reflexive pronouns.
25. ME syntax: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, relative pronouns
26. Shortening of vowels in ME.
27. Changes of consonants in ME.
28. Spelling changes.
29. Middle English vocabulary - French influence in different categories.
30. Great vowels shift.
31. Short vowels in Mod. English.
32. Diphtongs in Mod. English.
33. Some other changes
34. Mod. English morphology.
35. Mod. English syntax.
36. Mod. English vocabulary.

Literature
Barber, Charles. (1993). The English Language, A Historical
Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baugh A.C. & T. Cable (1993). A History of the English Language.
London: Routledge
Clark, John. (1964). Early English. New York Andre Deutch
Grlach, M., The Linguistic History of English: An Introduction,
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, London: Macmillan Press
Ltd., 1997.
Jespersen, Otto. (1972). Growth and Structure of the English
Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Pyles, Tomas. (1971). The Origins and Development of the English
Language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich