Language: The First Information Technology
English
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
German
Eins
Zwei
Drei
Vier
Funf
Sechs
Sieben
Acht
Neun
Zehn
Latin
Unus
Duo
Tres
Quattuor
Quinque
Sex
Septem
Octo
Novem
Decem
Greek
Ena
Dio
Tria
Tessera
Pente
Hexa
Hepta
Okto
Ennea
Deka
Russian
Odin
Dva
Tri
Chetyre
Pyat
Shest
Sem
Vosem
Dyevyat
Dyesyat
Kurdish
Eg
Du
Shay
Char
Pench
Shash
Haysh
Heft
Na
Da

English
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Kurdish
Eg
Du
Shay
Char
Pench
Shash
Haysh
Heft
Na
Da
Arabic
Wahid
Ithnain
Thalatha
Arba’a
Khamsa
Sitta
Saba
Thamanya
Tisa
Ashra
Turkish
Bir
Iki
Uc
Dort
Bes
Alti
Yedi
Sekiz
Dokuz
On

Germanic
– English, German, Dutch, Scandinavian
Romance (From Latin)
– French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian
Slavic
– Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian
Others: Hellenic, Iranian, Indian, etc.

• Historical Documents
• Words resistant to borrowing (small numbers, self, mother, sun, etc.)
• Patterns of Sound Change
• Grammatical Structures
• Genetics
• Search for the Proto-Language

• Alfa Hotel
• Bravo India
• Charlie Juliet
• Delta Kilo
• Echo Lima
Oscar
Papa
Quebec
Romeo
Sierra
• Foxtrot Mike Tango
• Golf November Uniform
Victor
Whiskey
X-Ray
Yankee
Zulu

Hebrew 1000 B.C.
Aleph - Ox
Beth - House
Gimel - Camel
Daleth - Door
Old Slavic 1000 A.D.
Az (I)
Buki (Beech Tree)
Vedi (Know)
Glagol (Word)
Dobro (Good)
In a pre-literate world, the best way to learn the alphabet is to use words as mnemonics, not meaningless syllables

• Pre-Roman Britain was Celtic
– Only a few place names are relics (Ben for mountain, glen for valley)
• Romans occupied Britain
– Castra, military camp, survives in Lancaster,
Worcester, Manchester
• Angles and Saxons invaded starting in the
5th Century
– Largely wiped the linguistic slate clean

• Closest language is Frisian, spoken by 300,000 in Holland and Germany
• Closest national language to English is Dutch
• About 80% of our small everyday words (day, word, father, mother, sun, moon) are Germanic
• Sometimes the relationship is hard to see:
Vogel isn’t much like bird but very similar to fowl

The Dog Bites the Man is not the same as
The Man Bites the Dog
-but-
Der Hund beisst den Mann means exactly the same as
Den Mann beisst der Hund

• Languages that use word endings for meaning are called inflected
• England was partly occupied by the Vikings beginning in 865 A.D.
• Vikings and Anglo-Saxons spoke Germanic languages but differed in word endings
• We just dropped the word endings (except for plural s, possessive ‘s, and a few others)

• In 911 the King of France gave part of
France to a Viking chief in return for protection
• This region, settled by the “Norsemen,” came to be called Normandy
• In 1066, William of Normandy (a Viking descendant) defeated Harold (also a Viking descendant) and conquered England
• By this time, the Normans spoke French

More earthy terms tend to be Anglo-Saxon, more abstract synonyms French:
Friendship
Freedom
Love
Amity
Liberty
Affection

Rural and small-town occupation names are often English, more urban or technical ones
French:
Baker
Miller
Weaver
Carpenter
Painter
Mason

French government terms reflect a more complex society than Anglo-Saxon terms
King
Queen
Governor
Parliament

The English grew it, the French cooked it
Sheep
Cow
Deer Venison
Of course, many cooking terms are French:
Fry, Broil
Mutton
Beef

Paper!
Cheap, abundant, smooth and absorbent.
Far better for printing than papyrus or vellum.
Means of printing impressions.
Chinese wood-block printing.
Wood block used in Europe in 14th century for religious pictures and cards.
Laurenz Janzoon (1420-30) used blocks for individual letters.
Press adapted from wine-making, book-binding, paper-making


Metal type used ca. 1430 in Holland to stamp copper plates. Lead poured on to copper to make printing face

Gutenberg ca. 1450 used dies as masters to cast copies of letters.
• Early type letters Pb-Sn (for corrosion resistance) - Sb (for hardness). Basically modern composition. Type metal is one of the oldest unchanged industrial materials.


By 1480, there were printing presses in 110 towns.

Ten million books in print by 1500.

Aldus Manutius of Venice (d. 1515). First cheap mass-market books.

William Caxton, 1476, first press in England

• Almost all English “long” vowels are
diphthongs or blends of vowel sounds
– “a” in “bay” = a + i as in “bait”
– “i” as in “bite” = e + i as in “height”
– “o” as in “go” = o + u as in “though”
• We also dropped or changed guttural “gh”: cough, through, light, sight

Why English Spelling is so Chaotic
• Great Vowel Shift happened just as English was first being printed
• Caxton used the spelling system of Chaucer
(ca. 1400)
• Result: English was set into print with an already-obsolete spelling system
• Also, English has borrowed from just about every other language and preserved their spelling


Vast increase in literacy.

Rapid dissemination of ideas.

Standardization and simplification of spelling.

(& from Latin et and % from p/c are relics of preprinting days)
• Stimulus toward accuracy.


Before printing, documents were suspect as too easily forged. Eyewitnesses and personal testimony were considered more reliable.

Printing made documents more authoritative than personal testimony. Hard to fake printed documents.

Before printing, people relied on memory to store facts.

Printing changed the concept of "fact" to "printed fact";
"show me in black and white.”

Electronic forgery: we have come full circle from preprinting days


Wood-cut along with type.

Itaglio-engraved metal. Copper plates with engraved lines did for pictures what type did for text.

Lithography.

Zinc plate, 1868.

Photography-halftone method.

Xerography, computer graphics, etc.

• Europe: mass literature
• China: official documents, validation
• Islamic World: suppressed until 19 th century
• Modern corporate and government attempts to control Internet, copyrights, etc.