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ЯЗЫКОЗНАНИЕ
УДК 811.541
НЕКОТОРЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ РАЗВИТИЯ АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА
С.К. Гураль
Аннотация. Английский язык в своей основе является германским, языком, произошедшим от языков древних германских племен. Словарный состав английского языка обогащался и модифицировался благодаря влияниям извне. Приход христианства внес свою латинскую лепту в развитие английского языка.
Ключевые слова: языковые изменения, язык времен королевы Елизаветы, германские племена, христианство, Чосер, древнеанглийский период.
All languages change constantly, and English is not an exception. The language we speak and write today is the creation of all generations that have gone before up, and we in turn help create the English of future generations.
The most obvious kind of change occurs in vocabulary. But language changes in more complex and subtle ways. We have our own opinion of the status of the man who says: «She won't never do nothing». But Shakespeare's «nor this is not my nose neither» was good Elizabethan English; and when Chaucer wanted to be emphatic about the perfection of his knight, it was perfectly natural for him to say that «he nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde».
Even the sounds of the language changed. For Shakespeare, reason sounded much like our raisen, the vowels of face and glass were much the same. The l in such words as would and should was pronounced.
Few of us realize that English is basically a Germanic language, descended from the language of the Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) who invaded the British Isles in the fifth and sixth centuries a.d.
Some of the surviving specimens of this language - now called Old English - hardly seem like English at all.
In the more than 1 000 years since the sentence was written, English has clearly altered immensely. Its vocabulary, particularly, has been continuously enriched and modified by external influences. Even before the time of King Alfred, the coming of Christianity had left its Latin mark in such words as angel, candle, priest, school and many others.
The Danes, who repeatedly attacked their Germanic cousins from the eighth century until the eleventh, left their imprint on the language. They brought the words: skill, skin, sky, anger, root, ill, happy, - and even pronouns: they, them, their. All these words are of Germanic origin.
But the first really great growth and change in English vocabulary came after 1066 when William, then Duke of Normandy, made good his claim to the English throne at the Battle of Hastings.
For several centuries thereafter the rules of England were kings whose native language was French.
Though English continued to be spoken by the common people, French became the language of the law, of the court, and the upper classes. For a century at least it was the only language that was written, except Latin, which continued to be the language of learning and of the church.
Even after French ceased to be the native language of anyone in England, it remained the language of fashion, the second language of the cultivated and educated classes. Thus French words continued to pour into the English vocabulary long after French rule was a thing of the past.
The borrowed vocabulary touched almost every comer of life: fashion, dress, social life (gown, veil, satin, dance, conversation); court, government, and legal procedures (tax, parliament, liberty, mayor, justice, jury, fraud); the church (prayer, clergy, religion, faith); war (battle, soldier, lieutenant, besiege); the arts (painting, beauty, cathedral, poet, tragedy, preface, paper, geometry, surgeon). In addition to such classifiable groups of words, an endless variety of common words of all kinds came into use from French: very, age, gentle, final, flower, sure, surprise. The lists could be extended by the thousands and the borrowing process continued for centuries until 1 500. English speakers surely must have known more French than English words. The proportion of French words in today's English remains high.
But in spite of this almost overwhelming influx of French words, English remained essentially English, and by the latter half of the fourteenth century the law courts and Parliament returned to the use of English for the conduct of their business. More important writers such as Chaucer, Eangland, Malory choose to write English, and under the influence of John Wyclif, the Bible was translated into English for the first time since the Old English period.
By 1 400, the time of Chaucer's death, not only was English established as the language of the land, but also the language spoken in London, by now the largest commercial centre and seaport of the country as well as the meeting place of Parliament and the centre of government, rapidly becoming the standard.
In another century, by 1 500, English was firmly established, recognizably modern in many respects and entering the period of Modern English. But the great wave of classical influence swept English culture and thought during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Renaissance exerted another strong influence upon the language.
Englishman borrowed with almost greater readiness from the Latin and Greek which they came to respect so highly and study so avidly. Thousands upon thousands of classical words flooded the vocabulary.
A random selection of a few words that seem vital today might contain: industry, maturity, admiration, education, insane, emancipate, exist, extract, confidence, anticipate, illustrate, multiply, benefit, paragraph, contradict, delicate.
Such changes in the language have the excitement of history. They are largely the story of how invasion and conquest, shifting political fortunes and
changing patterns of civilization and culture have molded the English language. These changes go on continuously, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly, depending upon external events. These changes are more complicated to explain, but knowing a little about them can help a good deal in understanding some important things about the language.
Some differences between the old and modern English are simply differences in spelling. The letters b and 9 represent the sound we spell th. The digraph x represents a sound like the a in hat. Generally speaking old English spelling was much more phonetic than the modern one.
Changes of endings (words)
urum Our
heofonum Heaven
eordan Earth
forgyfad Forgive
tobecume Become
alys Release
Latin borrowing tamptatian and rice we now translate kingdom, though many of us know its German cognate Reich in other contexts. Some meanings are changed: [hlaf and syle]. Hlaf is the modern word loaf, which we use only for bread shaped in a special way, and syle is modern English sell.
Old English strikes us with freer word order. It is different from us.
By the end of the 16th century English was truly a national language, as the English translation of the Bible in 1611 indicates very well.
The introduction of printing into England towards the end of the 15th century rapidly increased the number of people who could read and write.
Early in the 17th century the great expansion of English began. It took English into all corners of the globe, among which was America, where the language became firmly established. Later it became a vital second language in India and the language of Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Still later it became an important second language in such countries as Japan and in many of the new colonies of Africa, which after their independence have continued to rely upon it for their common language. As a result of this expansion, English is now probably the major world language.
SOME ASPECTS OF ENGLISH DEVELOPMENT Gural S.K
Summary. English is basically a German Language, descended from the language of the Germanic tribes. Its vocabulary has been continuously enriched and modified by external influences. The coming of Christianity had left its Latin mark on the development of the English Language.
Key words: language changes, Elizabethan English, Chaucer, Germanic tribes, Christianity, Old English period.
