History of English Language
(ENG 404)
Course Tutor: Rabia Mahmood
My Bio
This is Rabia Mahmood Lecturer from Comsats Institute of
Information Technology, Islamabad. I did my Masters in
English from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan in 2005.
Then I completed my M.Phil with a distinction and Ph.D.
course work again with distinction securing 77% marks from
the same university. I am currently involved in teaching at
Graduate and Post graduate level. I have diverse expertise in
different fields of Linguistics and Language Studies. Having
firm groundings in Research, I am pursuing my Ph.D. in
Linguistics as well.
Bio Contd….
• I have also done Bachelor of Education in 2005
form Allama Iqbal Open University. I joined
BZU as lecturer in 2007 and COMSATS in May
2011. My five research papers have been
accepted in international conferences in
countries like India, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia and
Australia. I was also awarded travel grant by
HEC. I have been an active participant and
resource person at numerous national and
international conferences.
History of English Language (ENG 404)
Course Description:
• A Historical study of English Periods
• Basic concepts of language and language
change, including semantics (how words
mean), phonology (where sounds come from
and how they are made), morphology (how
words are formed), orthography (spelling),
and syntax (how words are put together)
Course Description
• Prehistory of English, including the Indo-European
language family and where English fits into it.
• Chronologically moves through Old English (before
1100), Middle English (12th-15th centuries), Early
Modern English (16th-18th centuries), and Modern
English (18th century-present)
• Historical events such as invasions, revolutions political
and intellectual, immigration, emigration and cultural
assimilation as shaping forces in the living entity of the
language
Course Objectives
• To acquaint the student with the historical
development of English from Indo- European
language to the present state.
• To study the linguistic, political, social, intellectual
and other factors that has contributed to the
change of English over time.
• To emphasize the linguistic changes that led to
the development of English from the Old and
Middle varieties to the contemporary variety.
• To introduce the phonetic, morphological and
syntactic changes of English.
Learning Outcomes
• a comprehension of the mechanisms of language change
and an acceptance of the inevitable nature of
language change
• a knowledge of the origins of English and its place in
respect to other languages of the world
• awareness of several problems in the origin and nature of
language
• knowledge of general features of Old and Middle English
• a recognition of the major stages in the development of
English from a synthetic to an analytic language
• an understanding of how the current state of the English
language has resulted from historical change
Course Contents
16 weeks & 32 Lectures
Week 1 (Introduction)
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Course Outline
Language
What is language?
Characteristics of language
Levels of language
How many Languages?
How many speakers?
Week 2 (The Origins of Language)
Different Theories of the origins of language
• The Bow-Wow Theory
• The Pooh-Pooh Theory
• The Ding-Dong Theory
• The Yo-he-ho Theory
• The la-la Theory
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Early Experiments
Children of the Wild
Scientific Approaches
The evidences from Paleontology
Week 3 (Families of Languages)
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Family Trees
The Comparative Method
Types of Classification
Genetic Classification
Typological Classification
The Problems in Classification
Week 4 (Pre- History)
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Proto-Indo-European
Language Reconstruction: Cognates
The Laryngeal Theory
Indo-European Varieties
The Indo-European Family
Detailed History of one IE Family (Celtic)
Periods of Development
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Early (5th-9th c)
Old (9th-12th c)
Middle (12th- 15th c)
Modern (16th-20th c)
Week 5 (The Primitive Old English Period)
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Other Families
Uralic
Caucasian
Palaeosiberian
Altaic
Dravidian
Austro-Asiatic
Tai
Sino-Tibetan
The Languages of China, Africa, Afro-Asiatic
Austronesian
Indo-Pacific Languages
The languages of America
Australian Aboriginal Languages
Consonant Changes in Primitive Old English
Week 6 (The Old English Period)
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The Heptarchy
A brief linguistic Description of Old English
Characteristics of Old English
Spellings and Pronunciation
Word-Stock
Grammar
Foreign influences on Old English
Celtic Influence
Latin Influence
Scandinavian Influence
Vikings and Their Influence on English
Week 7 (Middle English Period)
• Historical Background of Normandy
A. Origins of Normandy and etmology of name
B. 912 pact between Rollo and Charles the Simple
C. Adaptability of Scandinavians
• Events Leading up to the Battle of Hastings
A. Danish line of Cnut dies out in 1042
B. Edward restored to throne
C. Edward dies childless
D. Harold, son of Godwin, is elected King of England
E. William's claim to the throne
• The Battle of Hastings
A. Harold fights King of Norway
B. Harold's and William's battle strategies
C. Harold's death
D. Depiction in Bayeux Tapestry
E. William takes England by force
• Effects on the English Language
A. Attitude towards English
1. a matter of social distinction
2. the fate of England at William's death
3. division of England with William's
successors and continued foreign influence
4. attitude of indifference for church and
nobility
5. ultimate fusion
6. French as language of court; English as
language of masses
• The loss of Normandy in 1204
A. King John Lackland angers King Phillip of
France
B. King John loses title as Duke of Normandy
• Repercussions for aristocrats with landholdings in
England and France
A. voluntary relinquishment and divisions as
two options
B. King Louis' decree of 1244
C. consequences: after 1250, nobility of
England consider themselves "English"
• Continued French influence under Henry III
1. under Peter des Roches
2. Henry III's marriage to Eleanor of
Provence
3. death of Henry III's mother
• English reaction to foreigners:
A. Provisions of Oxford (1258) and Baron's
War (1258-65)
Week 8 (Middle English period
Contd……)
• The Thirteenth Century:
A. Shifting emphasis of French and English
B. French becomes cultivated tongue:
1. used in law courts and parliaments
2. used by educated and in universities
3. used by polite society as second language
C. many French words enter the language during this time
• The Fourteenth Century:
French is in decline because
A. Anglo-French is seen as inferior
B. the Hundred Year's War
C. Rise of the Middle Class
1. the Black Death
2. the Peasant's Revolt
3. rise of the bourgeois class
4. Statute of Pleading-- 1362
5. the Wycliffite Bible
6. English in schools
7. English as choice in writing
Middle English Language
• . Leveling of Inflections
• II. Effects of the Norman Conquest
A. Grammatical: the Conquest allows the language to evolve as
spoken by the lower classes.
B. Vocabulary
English is trilingual (Latin, French, and English)
• III. Influence from the Low Countries
• IV. Middle English Dialects
A. four principal dialects
B. rise of Standard English
1. location
2. population
3. Oxford and Cambridge
4. importance of London English
5. Caxton
Week 9 (The Early Modern English Period)
• Important historical events that distinguish Early Modern
English
A. printing press
B. the Tudor dynasty (1485)
C. exploration
D. separation of church and state
E. education (especially under reign of Elizabeth I)
F. exploration, trade, and British expansion
G. scientific endeavors (The Royal Society founded in 1660)
H. the first daily newspaper established in London (1702)
I. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (sometimes labeled the first
English novel)
J. Johnson's dictionary 1755
K. The American Revolution (1755-83) (first independent
nation of English speakers)
• II. Problems of vernacular languages throughout
Europe
A. recognition over Latin
1. Revival of Learning
2. translations
3. Ciceronianisms
4. Protestant Reformation
B. orthography (The Great Vowel Shift)
C. enrichment of vocabulary
• III. sixteenth-century purists object to three
classes of words
A. inkhorn terms
B. overseas language
C. Chaucerisms
Week 10 (Early Modern Forms, Syntax and
Usage)
• Forms and Usage
• I. Eighteenth-Century Purism
A. Standardize (ascertain): According to Johnson,
ascertain means "a settled matter, an established
rule." The term is used in this sense in Swifts's Proposal for
Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue.
B. Refine: fallacious notion that contemporary language
was corrupt and must by rid of "imperfections," such as the
following noted by Swift:
1. recent innovations, especially shortened words
2. tendency to contract verbs
3. words in vogue, especially those used by fops
C. Fix: establish a permanent form
Attempts to form an Academy:
A. Examples of French and Italian Academies
B. earliest suggestions for an English Academy
C. Important Voices for the Academy
1. Dryden, 1664
2. Defoe, 1697
3. Swift's Proposal
4. Robert Lowth (and purism)
D. Increasing skepticism in the 18th century
E. Substitutions for an Academy
1. dictionary
2. grammar
• III. Johnson's Dictionary
• IV. 18th Century Grammarians and Rhetoricians
A. Grammarians (Cooke, Murray, Sheridan, Priestley, Lowth)
B. Rhetoricians (Sheridan, Campbell, Baker)
C. The aims and goals of grammarians and rhetoricians attempting to
ascertain English
1. Codified principles of language
2. Reduced language to rule
3. Settled disputed points and decided on usage
4. Pointed out and corrected common errors
D. How did they settle rules?
1. reason
2. etymology
3. example of the Classics
4. doctrine of usage (late 18th century, Priestley and Campbell)
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Week 11 (English Varieties)
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Three Periods of European Immigration
A. Jamestown in 1607 to the end of Colonal times (@1787)
B. Expansion of 13 colonies west of Appalachains to Civil War (1860)
C. post Civil War
II. Hispanic and Aisan Immigration
III. English Immigration from the time of the 13 colonies
IV. Characteristics of American English
A. high degree of uniformity
B. archaism
C. distinct vocabulary
V. National Consciousness (Webster, Cooper, Franklin)
VI. Controversy over Americanisms
VII. American Dialects
A. Hans Kurath's World Geography (1949)
B. the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada
VIII. American Contributions to Linguistics
A. H. L. Mencken's 1919 American Language
B. Leonard Bloomfield's 1933 Language
C. Noam Chomsky's 1957 Grammar
C. recent contributions
Week 12 (Word Meanings)
• . A. Modern Influences
• II. How is vocabulary increased?
1. borrowings
2. self-explaining compounds
3. compounds from Greek and Latin elements
4. prefixes and suffixes
5. coinages
6. common words from proper nouns
7. old words with new meanings
8. influence of journalism
• III.. Semantics
1. generalization
2. restriction
3. degeneration
4. regeneration
• . Types of Speech
1. Spoken Standard
2. Written Standard
3. Vulgar or Illiterate Speech
• V. English in the Empire
• VI. Spelling Reform (late 19th century)
1. 1840, Phonetypic Journal (Pittman and Ellis)
2. 1870, English Philological Society
3. 1898, the National Education Association
4. 1930, R. E. Zachirisson's ANGLIC
5. 1940, New Spelling by the British Simplified
Spelling Society
6. Axel Wijk
• VII. Purist Efforts and the Oxford English Dictionary
Week 13 (World Englishes)
• Concept of Pidgin and Creole
• Varieties of English
• English as Lingua Franca
Week 14 (The Status of English
Language in Today’s World)
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Multilingualism
Bilingualism
Code-Switching
Code Mixing
Week 15 (From Language to
Linguistics)
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Early History
Greeks
The Romans
The Indians
The Middle Ages
The Renaissance
Week 16 (Twentieth Century
Linguistics)
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Europe and America
Ferdinand De Saussure
Franz Boas
Later Developments
Bloomfield
Firth
Chomsky
Reference Books
• The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
(David Crystal)
• A History of English Language (Baugh &
Cable)
• A Cultural History of English Language (Gerry
Knowles)