A
brief outline of the history of English
The
origins of English
English began as a dialect of
Germanic, the language of the ancient Germans. The origins of English go back
to the middle of the fifth century when the Germanic tribes (the Angles, the
Saxons, the Jutes) began to settle in Britain. English received its name from
the name of the Angles. The languages of the Celtic tribes (the Britons, the
Scots, the Picts) who settled in Britain before that were the basis on which
Welsh, Scottish and Irish developed.
In the course of its history,
English was influenced by other languages and borrowed from them. Such
languages as Latin, Old Norse and French had great influence on the development
of the English language and were major sources of loanwords.
The history of English is divided
into three main periods: Old English (before 1100); Middle English (from 1100
till 1500); Modern English (after 1500). (The dates are approximate.) The
changes that the English language underwent in each historical period did not
start or end simultaneously throughout the country.
Old
English
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was
spoken in England from the fifth century till the second half of the twelfth
century, though the Old English period is often described as lasting till the
Norman Conquest of 1066.
Old English was heavily inflected
and had a complex system of declension of nouns and adjectives, flexible
syntax, and rather free word order. Words were usually spelled the way they
were pronounced; as a result, words could have several spelling variants
depending on differences in pronunciation.
Early Old English (until the 9th
century) used the runic alphabet; some of the runic letters were used almost
until the twelfth century. Transition to the Latin alphabet took place in the
Late Old English period.
Middle
English
Middle English was characterized
by significant changes in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Its
vocabulary greatly increased due to French borrowings after the Norman
Conquest. Middle English underwent the loss of most inflections, which resulted
in significant simplification of grammar. Its syntax became stricter, and its
word order was mostly fixed.
A series of changes in the
quality of the long vowels, known as the Great Vowel Shift, started in the 15th
century. Most of the long vowels changed their articulation; some of them
became diphthongs; in some cases the vowel sounds were shortened, merged, etc.
For the most part, these phonetic changes were not reflected in spelling, which
led to considerable differences between the pronunciation of English words and
their spelling.
The Middle English period ended
in the second half of the 15th century when printing was introduced in England
in 1476. Printing preserved the spelling of English words in print and
gradually led to uniformity in English spelling.
Modern
English
The Modern English period began
in the late 15th century. During the Early Modern English period (till 1800),
further simplification of grammar took place, and the process of
standardization of English spelling and word usage began. The works of William Shakespeare
(1564-1616) and A Dictionary of the English Language published in
1755 by Samuel Johnson contributed greatly to the process of standardization of
English.
During the period of Late Modern
English (after 1800), new dialects of English emerged in various parts of the
world. A large number of words from other languages came into English, making
its vocabulary one of the largest in the world. In the 20th century English
became the language of international communication. As a second language,
English is widely used by those for whom it is not their mother tongue.
The Modern English period is
still going on, and English is going through new changes. It is possible that a
new period of Modern English has already begun. One of the most interesting
developments is a certain leveling of dialectal differences in English
pronunciation due to television, radio, Internet, traveling, and other types of
international communication. It seems that English pronunciation is becoming
more uniform.
For example, in my opinion,
British and American speech now sound closer to each other than they did fifty
years ago. It is also possible that a new kind of English is developing –
International English, a blend of British English, American English and the
other major dialects of English.
Language,
dialect, accent
A language is a particular system
of words and sentences used as a means of oral and written communication and
common to a particular nation living in some geographical area.
A dialect is a variety of a
language distinguished from other varieties of the same language by differences
in grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation, and by the use of this
dialect by a group of people in some locality. A dialect may have regional
varieties (regional dialects, subdialects, subvarieties) spoken by large or
small communities of people in some localities.
An accent is a particular way of
pronunciation and speaking characteristic of a group of people in some
locality. Regional accents (local accents) are part of regional dialects (local
dialects). An accent usually has the same name as the dialect to which it
belongs.
Dialects and accents are usually
named and grouped according to the name of the place where they are generally
found, for example, British dialects, American dialects, American accents,
Australian accents.
Note the use of articles with
languages, dialects and accents: the English language; English; American
English; the Southern dialect; Southern dialects; a Southern dialect; the
Boston accent (as a whole; as a group of accents); Boston accents (several Boston
accents); a Boston accent (one of Boston accents).
British English
and its accents
There are a lot of regional
accents in the United Kingdom. Every region of the country has its own accent
or accents which often have their own subvarieties, sometimes with noticeable
phonetic differences even between the accents of neighboring towns.
British accents include Received
Pronunciation, Cockney, Estuary, Midlands English, West Country, Northern
England, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, and many others.
Received
Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is
the type of educated English spoken mostly by those who received formal
education in the English public schools and at Oxford and Cambridge
universities. Received Pronunciation is also called Received Standard, Public
school English, BBC English, normative English, standardized English, Queen's
English, King's English.
Received Pronunciation is a
Southern England accent, but it does not have any regional peculiarities.
Received Pronunciation is the closest to standard English pronunciation as it
is described in textbooks for learners of English as a second language.
Received Pronunciation is traditionally taught to foreign learners of English.
American
English and its accents
American English has a number of
regional accents, including such well-known accents as the Midwestern accent,
the Southern accent, the speech of New England. On the whole, regional American
accents share enough common features in pronunciation and speech patterns so
that the spoken language in the United States can be clearly distinguished from
the languge spoken in Great Britain or from other varieties of spoken English.
Common characteristics of
regional American accents include such clearly noticeable features as the sound
[r] pronounced in all positions in words (e.g., hard [ha:rd], more [mo:r],
first [fərst]); the sound [æ] in words like "ask, last, class, demand,
dance" (whereas British English has [a:] in such cases); the sound [o]
that sounds like [a:] in words like "hot, off, rob, gone, sorry, bother,
want"; the sound [yu:] pronounced as [u:] after the letters "d, n, s,
t" (duplicate, news, sue, student, tune).
One of the most important common
characteristics of American accents is American intonation. Typical patterns of
American intonation are characterized by mid-level beginning and mid-level
continuation through the sentence (as compared with gradually descending scale
of British English) and by strong stresses that sound like falls.
Such surprising uniformity is
typical of most American accents and lets you recognize an American accent as
soon as you hear it. Nevertheless, the accents are not the same, and there are
many minor regional differences in their pronunciation. Also, there are
distinctive accents on the East Coast (for example, in New England) and in the
South.
Dialect
leveling
The process of dialect leveling,
i.e., reduction of dialectal differences in speech, gradually led to
considerable uniformity of most American accents.
People of different nationalities
settled in North America during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. They needed
to communicate, build houses, do business, protect themselves and their
families, raise and educate children.
In those times, in the
environment where settlements were small and far from one another, where
medical aid and means of communication and transportation were limited or
absent, and where everyone carried a gun, the necessity to speak the same
language was, without exaggeration, a matter of life and death.
During that period Americans
spoke English with various accents carried over from their native languages,
and they pronounced and spelled English words differently, but there was a
growing tendency toward general leveling of dialectal differences.
The process of dialect mixing and
leveling was the most intensive in the Midwest, the northern middle section of
the country. The Midwest had a good climate and fertile land rich in mineral
resources. Early settlers came to the Midwest from the American colonies on the
Atlantic coast, and later many immigrants from England, Ireland, Germany,
Holland and the Scandinavian countries settled in the Midwest. The population
of the Midwest grew rapidly.
In schools, colleges and
universities of the Midwest, new settlers and their children studied English as
a second language according to strict formal rules of grammar, spelling and
pronunciation. The Midwestern dialect developed and became a standard in the
region. When the settlement of the western regions of the country began, the
Midwestern dialect spread westward and served as a basis for Western dialects.
Noah Webster (1758-1843) was an
American lexicographer, educator and author whose lifework was the
standardization of American speech and spelling. His spelling books taught
several generations of American children how to read and spell. His major work
was An American Dictionary of the English Language published in 1828.
General
American
General American (GA) is
generalized American pronunciation that has few regional peculiarities and is
perceived as typical American pronunciation by native speakers of American
English. General American is also called Standard American English, General
American English, Standard Spoken American English, General American Speech,
Standard Midwestern, American Broadcast English, Network Standard.
General American was formed on
the basis of Midwestern speech, but generally, the term "General
American" is applied to any American accent that has few clearly marked
regional peculiarities.
As the most neutral, typical
pronunciation, General American is used by radio and television broadcasters
throughout the United States. The term "Network Standard" refers to
General American pronunciation that radio and TV speakers are usually required
to have in order to be understood by their listeners across the country.
General American pronunciation is
the closest to standard American pronunciation as it is described in textbooks
for learners of English as a second language. General American pronunciation is
usually taught to ESL learners of American English.
Немає коментарів:
Дописати коментар