Concept of ‘language change’.

One can distinguish three main types of difference in language: geographical, social and temporal. Language changes imply temporal differences, which become apparent if the same elements or parts of the language are compared at successive historical stages; they are transformations of the same units in time which can be registered as distinct steps in their evolution. For example, the OE form of the Past tense pl Ind. Mood of the verb to find – fundon became founden [fu:ndən] in the 12^th -13^th c. and found in Mod E. All these changes can be defined as structural or intralinguistic as they belong to the language system. The concept of language change is not limited to internal, structural changes. It also includes temporal differences in the position of the given unit in language space, that is the extent of its spread in the functional varieties of the language. A new feature – a word, a form, a sound – can be recognized as a linguistic change only after it has been accepted for general use in most varieties of the language or in its main variety – the Literary Standard. Most linguistic changes involve some kind of substitution and can therefore be called replacements. They are subdivided into different types or patterns. A simple replacement occurs when a new unit merely takes the place of the old one, e.g. in the word but, feet the vowels [u] and [e:] have been replaced by [л] and [i:]. Replacements can also be found in the plane of content; they are shifts of meaning in words which have survived from the early periods of history, e.g. feoh [feox] had the meaning ‘cattle’, ‘property’, its modern descendant is fee. Most linguistic changes, however, both in the language system and language space, have a more complicated pattern. Two or more units may fall together and thus may be replaced by one unit, or, vice versa, two distinct units may take the place of one. These types of replacement are defined as merging and splitting. The modern Common case of nouns is the result of the merging of three OE cases – Nom., Gen. and Acc. Many instances of splitting can be found in the history of English sounds, e.g. the consonant [k] has split into two phonemes [k] and [tS]. Linguistic changes are usually slow and gradual. They proceed in imperceptible steps unnoticed by the speakers. The slow rate of linguistic change is seen in the gradual spread of new features in language space. It is important to note that different parts or levels of language develop at different rates. It is often said that vocabulary of a language can change very rapidly. This is true only if we compare lexical changes with changes at other linguistic levels, e.g. grammatical. Lexical changes are quite conspicuous and easy to observe, since new items spring into being before our very eyes, though, as a matter of fact, they rarely amount to more than isolated words or groups of words. The system of phonemes cannot be subjected to sudden or rapid changes since it must preserve the oppositions between the phonemes required for the distinction of morphemes. Likewise, the grammatical system is very slow to change. Being the most abstract of linguistic levels it must provide stable formal devices for arranging words into classes and for connecting them into phrases and sentences.

The causes of language change. Different schools have different answers. In the 19^th c. the representatives of the romantic trend thought that the history of I-E and esp. of Germanic languages shows their degradation and corruption. Most of Germanic languages lost their inflections, declensions and others. Naturalists thought that any language is a living organism. It is developed just like the human body (Schleicher). Psychologists attributed changes to psychology of people. Sociologists thought that linguistic changes are caused by social conditions and historical events (Meillet). Young-Grammarian school representatives thought that phonetic changes destroy the grammatical system.

1. Proto-Indo-European language and comparative linguistics

When there are no documents of language to be traced the pre-written history of any language is studied by methods of comparative linguistics. It is 200 years old. It all started with a publication of an article by Franz Bopp (1816). The talk is about the so-called I-E language. It is now well-supported with evidence from many languages that there was a language spoken by people in pre-historic times. It was given a name Proto-Indo-European. There are 2 main problems. Actually, when and where it was spoken. The time can hardly be accurately dated. It is dated far back 10000 B.C. – 4000 B.C. In the 15^th thousand B.C. I-E still existed and people spoke it. Why is it so? The most ancient languages are compared like the Hittite, Ancient Greek, Veda. It was found out that the difference between them is so much that the time period between them should be no less than 2000 years. In the 4^th millennium B.C. P-I-E was dead. 10000 B.C. is the most probable time of existing P-I-E homeland. It is based upon linguistic and archeological facts.

Linguistic facts:

1) words denoting the sea (the root mor- denotes the water area)

2) names of the tress

3) names of the rulers

4) names of the devices for cultivating soil (the plough)

Archeological facts:

1) the crockery, the pots, the burial places

2) people in power were buried with what they possessed

3) tools made of stone and absence of metal

4) evidences of transition from gathering food to cultivating soil

5) megalithic culture. Pre-historic monuments were reconstructed with huge stones.

Marina Gimbutas writes that Indo-Europeans lived north-west of the Caucasus and north of the Caspian Sea as for Southern Urals. This result is supported by many scientists. Other locations have been proposed for I-E homeland:

- Northern Central Europe between the Vistula and the Elbe

- Modern Turkey

It was supported by Russians Camkelidze and Ivanov.

What happened to Latin?

Various migrations began. Indo-Europeans were driven from their original homeland to many parts of Europe and Asia. So P-I-E developed in different ways in the various parts of the world to each its speakers traveled. At the beginning of historical times languages that derived from it were spoken from Europe in the west to India in the east. P-I-E was the ancestor language of most of the Europe languages and many of those in South Asia. Its descendants make up the I-E family: Italic (Italian, French, Spanish) group, Balto-Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian), Indo-Iranian (Modern Persian, Sanskrit, Hindi), Germanic (English, German, Dutch and Flemish).

1. Proto-Germanic language, its development from Proto-Indo-European

Historically, all the Germanic languages originated from one ancestor language. It is called Proto-Germanic. It developed from P-I-E spoken in pre-historic times. Speaking about the date. Archeological findings provide data that I-E tribes came to Europe in 3000-2500 B.C. (Northern part of Europe). Before that time the coasts of the Baltic and the North Seas were inhabited by a different group. I-E newcomers mixed with this group and formed the tribes that later became known as Germanic tribes. The Germanic group of languages developed its specific trades during the first millennium B.C. At about this time the Germanic tribes separated from other west I-E tribes. In the course of many centuries radical developments occurred in the P-I-E spoken by those I-E tribes who lived in Denmark and origins there. The result of these developments was that P-G became a separate language between the 15^th – 10^th centuries B.C. P-G was distinctive in many of its sounds, inflections, stress patterns and vocabulary. The ancient Germans moved further than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the region of the Elbe. Southern Scandinavia including Jutland peninsula is the probable homeland of P-G. It was only a spoken language. P-G was most probably spoken just before the beginning of the Christian era. The forms of P-G can only be reconstructed. This was done in the 19^th century by methods of comparative linguistics. The Germans didn’t lose touch with other I-E languages. They migrated and these migrations caused new contacts. This was reflected in the speech. The Germanic tribes came into contact with East European tribes, and the languages later formed the Baltic and Slavonic groups. The Germanic tribes also had contacts with Italian tribes that lived in southern Europe. Thus, Latin language influenced the language of Germanic tribes. These contacts found reflections in the borrowings into the languages of these nations. Most important are the borrowings into the Finnish language in the beginning of our era. The borrowings were well preserved in the Finnish language. They had the ancient type of morphological structure that can hardly be found in the forms of the verbs in the earliest documents written in Germanic languages. Suffixes and inflections are used in their full forms that were lost by the time the Germans had their first written documents. By the third and the 4^th centuries suffixes and inflections had undergone the process of reduction.

1. Modern Germanic languages

Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the I-E linguistic family. The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:

English – in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies;

German – in the Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, part of Switzerland;

Netherlandish – in the Netherlands and Belgium (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively);

Afrikaans – in the South African Republic;

Danish – in Denmark;

Swedish – in Sweden and Finland;

Norwegian – in Norway;

Icelandic – in Iceland;

Frisian – in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany;

Faroese – in the Faroe Islands;

Yiddish – in different countries.

Lists of Germanic languages given in books differ in some points, for the distinction between separate languages and also between languages and dialects varies. Until recently Dutch and Flemish were named as separate languages; Frisian and Faroese are often referred to as dialects, since they are spoken over small, politically dependent areas; the linguistic independence of Norwegian is questioned, for it has intermixed with Danish; Br E and Am E are sometimes regarded as two independent languages. All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history.

1. The earliest descriptions of the Germans, the ancient tribes that spoke Germanic languages

The history is known from the writings of Greek and Roman authors. The earliest paper is written by Pytheas. He lived in the second half of the 4^th century B.C. Pytheas sailed much. The description of his journeys is not preserved. But something was quoted in the papers of old historians as in Titus Livy and Polybius in the second century B.C. They provided extracts from a paper of Pytheas. It was also mentioned that Old Germanic tribes raided the Hellenic countries of south-eastern Europe, Italy and Gall. In the beginning of our era the Greek historian Strabo wrote about Germans nomads. They moved from forest to forest, built houses, and were engaged in cattle bringing. The great writer Plutarch described Germans as wild nomadic tribes who had constantly been in war. They were not interested in agriculture or in cattle bringing, but only in war. The Roman general Julius Caesar devoted several chapters to the militant Germanic tribes in his “Commentaries on the war in Gall” (1044 B.C.). Caesar fought with them on the Rhine. He took two expeditions against the Germanic tribes who wanted to get hauled on some territories. The Romans defeated the Germans in both expeditions. Caesar wrote about their military tactics, described how they prepared their attacks and so on. Caesar wrote that Germans lived in tribal unions. He also gave a detailed description of the structure of their society and peculiarities of their life.

The next great historian Pliny spent many years in the Roman provinces of Low and High Germany. He was a prominent encyclopedias. He wrote a book called “Natural History”. He was the first who enumerated and classified the military tribes. It was proved by many scientists. According to Pliny there were several Germanic tribes:

The Vindili. They lived in the eastern part of the territory inhabited by the Germanic tribes. They consisted of the Goths, the Burgundians and the Vandals. The Vandals first inhabited the territory between the Oder and the Vistula. Later they moved to Northern Africa through Spain. The word vandalism originated from Vandal (means Barbary).

The Burgundians came to the continent from the island of Bornholm. It was in the Baltic Sea. Later they moved to the west and settled in south-eastern part of France in the area called Burgundia.

The Goths first inhabited the lower coast of the river Vistula. Later they moved to the south and formed powerful tribal unions of Ostrogoths and Visigoths.

The Ingvaenoes. They lived in the north-western part of the Germanic territory. They inhabited the Jutland peninsula and the coast of the North Sea. The tribes of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians were formed later of this group.

The Istaevones. They lived on the Rhine. Later they formed a very powerful tribal union of Franconians. In the early Middle Ages they were powerful group of West Germans.

The Herminones lived in the centre of Germany and later the German nation was formed of these tribes.

The Hilleviones were isolated from other Germanic tribes. They inhabited Scandinavia. Modern Scandinavian nations are the descendants of these tribes.

The Vindili spoke eastern Germanic; the Hilleviones spoke northern Germanic, the Ingvaones, Istaevones and Herminones – West Germanic.

The Roman historian Tacitus made a detailed description of the life and customs of ancient Germans. Tacitus was a prominent Roman historian. He himself had never been to Germany. Being a Roman senator he got information from military travelers, actions, etc. he also used papers written about the Germans before him. In the time of Tacitus there were constant arm conflicts between the Germans and Romans. Numerous attempts of the Roman generals to conquer the Germanic tribes failed. In the second half of the second century after a short period without wars they began their attacks again. The ancient Germans had a tribal society. In the head of each tribe there was a chief who was called ‘kuning’. Some modern place-names testify to this social structure of the Germans. The whole tribe had the name of the Chief.

1. Eastern Germanic, Western Germanic and Northern Germanic groups of languages

East Germanic

The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them were the Goths. They were among the first Teutons to leave the coast of the Baltic Sea and start on their great migrations. The Gothic language, now dead, has been preserved in written records of the 4^th – 6^th c. The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christian. In the 4^th c. Ulfilas, a West Gothic bishop, made a translation of the Gospel from Greek into Gothic using a modified form of the Greek alphabet. Parts of Ulfilas’ Gospels – a manuscript of about two hundred pages have been preserved and are kept now in Sweden. It is written on red parchment with silver and golden letters and is known as the Silver Codex. It is one of the earliest texts in the languages of the Germanic group; it represents a form of language very close to PG and therefore throws light on the pre-written stages of history of all the languages of the Germanic group, including English. The other East Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written traces. Some of their tribal names have survived in place-names, which reveal the directions of their migrations. Bornholm and Burgundy go back to the East Germanic tribe of Burgundians; Andalusia is derived from the tribal name Vandals.

West Germanic

Around the beginning of our era the would-be West Germanic tribes dwelt in the lowlands between the Oder and the Elbe bordering on the Slavonian tribes in the East and the Celtic tribes in the South. On the eve of their “great migrations” of the 4^th and 5^th c. the West Germans included several tribes. The Franconians occupied the lower basin of the Rhine. The Angles and the Frisians, the Jutes and the Saxons inhabited the coastal area of the modern Netherlands, Germany and the southern part of Denmark. A group of tribes known as High Germans lived in the mountainous southern regions of Germany. Hence the name High Germans contrasted to Low Germans – a name applied to the West Germanic tribes in the low-lying northern areas. The Franconian dialects were spoken in the extreme North of the Empire; in the later Middle Ages they developed into Dutch – the language of the Low Countries and the Flemish – the language of Flanders. The modern language of the Netherlands, formerly called Dutch, and its variant in Belgium, known as the Flemish dialect, are now treated as a single language, Netherlandish. About three hundred years ago the Dutch language was brought to South Africa by colonists from Southern Holland. Their dialects in Africa eventually grew into a separate West Germanic language, Afrikaans. This language has combined elements from the speech of English and German colonists in Africa and from the tongues of the natives. The High German dialects consolidated into a common language known as Old High German (OHG). Towards the 12^th c. High German (known as Middle High German) had intermixed with neighboring tongues, esp. Middle and High Franconian, and eventually developed into the literary German language. Yiddish, an offshoot of High German, grew from the High German dialects which were adopted by numerous Jewish communities scattered over Germany in the 11^th and 12^th c. These dialects blended with elements of Hebrew and Slavonic and developed into a separate West Germanic language with a spoken and literary form. At the later stage of the great migrations period – in the 5^th c. – a group of West Germanic tribes started out on their invasion of the British Isles. The invaders came from the lowlands near the North Sea: the Angles, the Saxons, Frisians and the Jutes. Their dialects in the British Isles developed into the English language.

North Germanic

The Teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths gave rise to the North Germanic subgroup of languages. They lived on the southern coast of the Scandinavian peninsula and in Northern Denmark. The speech of the North Germanic tribes showed little dialectal variation until the 9^th c. and is regarded as a sort of common North Germanic parent-language called Old Norse and Old Scandinavian. The disintegration of Old Norse into separate dialects and languages began after the 9^th c., when the Scandinavians started out on their sea voyages. The principal linguistic differentiation in Scandinavia corresponded to the political division into Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The three kingdoms constantly fought for dominance and the relative position of the three languages altered, as one or another of the powers prevailed over its neighbors. For several hundred years Denmark was the most powerful of the Scandinavian kingdoms, therefore both Swedish and Norwegian were influenced by Danish. In the later Middle Ages, with the growth of capitalist relations and the unification of the countries, Danish, and then Swedish developed into national literary languages. Norwegian was the last to develop into an independent national language. During the period of Danish dominance Norwegian intermixed with Danish, therefore there emerged two varieties of the Norwegian tongue. In addition to the three languages on the mainland, the North Germanic subgroup includes two more languages: Icelandic and Faroese, whose origin goes back to the Viking Age. In the Faroe Islands the West Norwegian dialects brought by the Scandinavians developed into a separate language called Faroese. It is spoken nowadays by 30000 people. Iceland was practically uninhabited at the time of the first Scandinavian settlements. Their West Scandinavians dialects, at first identical with those of Norway, eventually grew into an independent language, Icelandic.

1. The runic alphabet. Old English alphabet and pronunciation.

The runic alphabet

The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet, not to be found in languages of other groups. The word rune originally meant ’secret’, ‘mystery’ and hence came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate separate sound. This alphabet is called futhark after the first six letters. Runic letters are angular; straight lines are preferred, curved lines avoided; this is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of Greek or Latin, other have not been traced to any known alphabet, and the order of the runes in the alphabet is certainly original. The number of runes in different OG languages varied. As compared to continental, the number of runes in England was larger: new runes were added as new sounds appeared in English (from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on the continent). The main use of runes was to make short inscriptions on objects, often to bestow on them some special power or magic. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records. One of them is and inscription on a box called the “Franks Casket”, the other is a short text on a stone cross near the village of Ruthwell known as the “Ruthwell Cross”.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 2452