INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY
OF ENGLISH
(BBI 3101)
Test 1 pointers
Material to be tested
A Social History of English:
• Chapter 1 (pp. 7-26)
• Chapter 2 (pp. 32-57)
A History of the English Language:
• Chapter 2 (pp. 14-38)
• Chapter 3 (pp. 39-69)
• Chapter 5 (pp. 104-120)
• Chapter 7 (pp. 152-194)
Terms and definitions
• What are the distinctive properties of a
developed language as opposed to a vernacular?
• What are the four types of bilingualism?
• Differentiate between weak and strong forms.
• What is the difference between analytic and
synthetic languages?
• What are self-explaining compounds?
• What is the difference between hypotactic and
paratactic styles?
Terms and definitions
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diglossia
lingua franca
pidgin
vernacular
patois
language shift
Sociolinguistic profile
I-umlaut (doing: /duwing/; an apple)
analogy
aureate terms
Grimm’s law
Origin of English
• What were the Germanic tribes who invaded
England?
• Who were Gauls?
• English borrowed simple words, used for bare
essentials, like angry, get, and take from which
language?
• Who was the writer of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle?
• What are the three periods of the development
of English?
Origin of English
• How old is the English language?
• What was the language that was spoken as a
second language in England for about four
centuries before the English came?
• What was the language of the Britons before
the Anglo-Saxons? It developed a literature
under the influence of which language?
• The Gaelic and Brythonic are the two
branches of which language?
Indo-European Family
• Who proposed the affinity of Sanskrit to Greek
and Latin?
• What are the two major groups in the IndoEuropean family of languages? Name four of their
subcategories and describe one of each.
• What are the two earliest remains of the Iranian
branch?
• Which Indo-European language is used in a small
area south of the Caucasus Mountains and the
eastern end of the Black Sea?
Indo-European Family
• Where have the inscriptions of Hellenic language been
found?
• Name a work which was written in a Hellenic language?
• What are the various languages that represent the survival
of Latin are known as?
• What were the two varieties of Latin?
• What part of the world does the Balto-Slavic branch cover?
• What is the principal language of East Germanic called?
• English belongs to which Germanic branch of the IndoEuropean family?
Old English
• Who was the English king who maintained the
tradition of writing in Anglo-Saxon and translating
works of Latin into English?
• Who is the father of English prose?
• Discuss some important features of Old English in
comparison with those of Middle English.
• What were the four dialects spoken in England
during the OE Period?
• How was ‘sh’ spelled during the OE Period?
Old English
• Rarity of words derived from Latin or French
was the feature of which period?
• How may percent of OE words are no longer in
use in Modern English?
• What themes were often used in poems
written in Old English?
• Give an example of an Old English poem.
• Who was the earliest English poet we know
of?
Middle English
• What happened as a result of Norman invasion?
• What was an additional source of foreign words in the
vocabulary of English that originated from the languages of
low countries?
• What happened to the inflections during the ME Period?
• Discuss two changes that happened in pronunciation and
spelling from Old English (OE) to Middle English (ME).
• What was the factor that helped in stabilizing the English
language?
• What type of vocabulary did English borrow from French?
Middle English
• Out of the words borrowed from French during ME, how
many percent are used in English today?
• Which one of the following words originates from French
and why? ‘Sheep’ or ‘Mutton’?
• What were the two Old English suffixes that began to
diminish in vitality in Middle and Modern English?
• Why didn’t Latin or French displace English?
• The richness of English in synonyms is due to the mingling
of Saxon, Latin, and French elements which gave it
synonyms at which levels?
• Which ME dialect was selected as the standard English?
Why?
• What distinguished Middle English dialects from one
another?
Standardization
• The four stages in the standardization:
Selection, Acceptance, Elaboration, and
Codification