Научная статья на тему 'Historical development of English vocabulary in Old English period'

Historical development of English vocabulary in Old English period Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
OLD ENGLISH PERIOD / EARLY MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD / MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD / ANGLO-SAXONS / MANUSCRIPTS / GRAMMATICAL RELATIONSHIPS

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Mamedova Madina Ashuraliyevna

This article is devoted to the creation of English language during the Old English Period. The Relationship of English language of Old English Period with modern words. Influence of other dialects on English Language at Old English Period.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Historical development of English vocabulary in Old English period»

The principal types of grammatical correspondences between two languages are as follows;

a) complete correspondence;

b) partial correspondence;

c) the absence of correspondence.

- Complete morphological correspondence is observed when in the languages considered there are identical grammatical categories with identical particular meanings.

In all the three languages there is a grammatical category of number both the general categorical and particular meanings are alike; Number: Singular and Plural

Such correspondence may be called complete.

- Partial morphological correspondence is observed when in the languages examined there are grammatical categories with identical categorial meanings but with some differences in their particular meanings.

In the languages considered there is a grammatical category of case in nouns. Though the categorial meaning is identical in all the three languages the particular meanings are different both from the point of view of their number and the meanings they express. English has two particular meanings while Uzbek and Russian have six. Though the 1 latter two languages have the same quantity of particular cases, their meanings do not coincide. The differences in the case system or in any other grammatical categories are usually expressed by other means in languages.

- Absence of morphological correspondence is observed when there are no corresponding grammatical categories in the languages examined. As for instance in Uzbek there is a grammatical category of possessiveness, which shows the affixation of things to one of the three grammatical persons, eg.: китоб-им китоб-ингкитоб-и

This grammatical category is neither found in English nor in Russian. These languages use pronouns for this purpose. Ex: my book-моя книга, your book-твоя книга,

his( her, its) book- его( ее )книга

In English we use certain grammatical means to express a definite and indefinite meanings, that is articles. But there are no equivalent grammatical means in Uzbek and Russian. They use lexical or syntactic means to express those meanings.

References

1. Nida E.A. & Taber C.R., 1982. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: Brill.

2. Barhudarov. Language and translation. Moscow, 1975.

3. Buronov J.B. Comparative grammar of English and Russian languages. Tashkent, 1973.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY IN OLD

ENGLISH PERIOD Mamedova M.A.

Mamedova Madina Ashuraliyevna - teacher of English language, DEPARTMENT FOREIGN LANGUAGES, BUKHARA ENGINEERING-TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, BUKHARA, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

Abstract: this article is devoted to the creation of English language during the Old English Period. The Relationship of English language of Old English Period with modern words. Influence of other dialects on English Language at Old English Period.

Keywords: old English Period, Early Modern English Period, Modern English Period, Anglo-Saxons, manuscripts, grammatical relationships.

We shall discuss in turn the Old, Middle, Early Modern, and Modern English periods, with special emphasis on their respective characteristics at the lexical level. We shall also highlight the major contributions of each period to the development of English lexis as a whole. The first Old English (OE) manuscripts were simply a few scattered inscriptions written around the fifth and sixth centuries in the runic alphabet brought in by the Anglo-Saxons. These scattered inscriptions give very little information on the language. The literary age began only after the arrival of the Christian missionaries from Rome in ad 597. The first OE manuscripts, dating from around 700, are glossaries of Latin words translated into Old English, and a few early inscriptions and poems. Unfortunately, very little material

remains from this period. The most important literary work, which survived in a single copy, was the heroic poem Beowulf, written around 1000. But there were also a number of shorter poems concerned with Christian subjects or reflecting Germanic traditions and dealing with topics such as war, patriotism, travelling and celebration. It is generally acknowledged that most OE texts were written in the period following the reign of King Alfred (849-899), who arranged for the many Latin works to be translated, including Bede's Ecclesiastical History [1, p. 45]. But the total corpus is still considered relatively small. In most general terms, if we allow for the unfamiliar spelling and the unexpected inflections, we still notice a marked difference between the words used in prose and those used in poetic texts. While the majority of words in prose are very close to Modem English, words in poetic texts are different. For example, most of the prepositions and pronouns are identical in form (though not always in meaning): for, from, in, he, him, his, Modern English speakers can easily recognise singan as 'sing' or stod as 'stood': onslepte is quite close to 'asleep', and geleornode to 'learned'. Omitting the ge- prefix makes -seted more like 'seated', -seah like 'saw', and -hyrde like 'heard'. On the other hand, some of the words look very strange, because they have since disappeared from the language, e.g. glimplice, 'suitable', swefn, 'dream', beboden, 'entrusted', and some grammatical words such as se, 'the'. The OE lexicon is characterized by its readiness to build up words from a number of parts, a feature that has stayed with English. As we might expect, some words may look familiar, but have a different meaning in Modern English; e.g. wif refers to any woman, married or not; sona meant 'immediately', rather than 'in a little while'; and faest (fast) meant 'firm' or 'fixed', rather than 'rapidly'. These are 'false friends' when translating from Old into Modern English.

Old English is characterized by the frequent use of coinages known as 'kennings', a term from Old Norse poetic treatises referring to vivid figurative descriptions often involving compounds. Sometimes the interpretation is straight forward, sometimes it is obscure and a source of critical debate. Famous kennings include hronrad, 'whale- road' for the sea, banhus, 'bone-house' for a person's body. Often, phrases and compound words are used. God, for example, is described as heofonrinces weard, 'guardian of heaven's kingdom', and as mon- cynnes weard, 'guardian of mankind' [2, p. 71].

Secondly, the absence of a wide-ranging vocabulary of loanwords also forces them to rely more on word-formation processes based on native elements. As a consequence, OE displays much larger 'families' of morphologically related words than are typical of modern English. Thirdly, the latter period of OE was characterized by the introduction of a number of 'loan translations' (or 'calques'). Calques are lexical items that are translated part-by-part into another language, e.g. as superman was translated from German Ubermensch. Calques are common in late OE, as can be seen from the following examples of loan translations from Latin:

Before we close this article, we must mention the Viking invasions of the eighth and ninth centuries. These invasions had a significant impact on the development of the English vocabulary.

1. Bede (731) Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English people).

2. Crystal D. (1995) the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge University

Latin praepositio conjunct unicornis aspergere

Old English foresetnys gedeodnys

anhorn onstregdan

Modern English

preposition

joining unicorn

sprinkle

References

Press.

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