of these words are altar, mass, priest, psalm, temple, kitchen, palm, and

pear. A few were probably introduced through the Celtic; others were

brought to Britain by the Germanic invaders, who previously had come into

contact with Roman culture. By far the largest number of Latin words was

introduced as a result of the spread of Christianity. Such words included

not only ecclesiastical terms but many others of less specialized

significance.

About 40 Scandinavian (Old Norse) words were introduced into Old English by

the Norsemen, or Vikings, who invaded Britain periodically from the late

8th century on. Introduced first were words pertaining to the sea and

battle, but shortly after the initial invasions other words used in the

Scandinavian social and administrative system—for example, the word

law—entered the language, as well as the verb form are and such widely used

words as take, cut, both, ill, and ugly.

8.2.Middle English Period

At the beginning of the Middle English period, which dates from the Norman

Conquest of 1066, the language was still inflectional; at the end of the

period the relationship between the elements of the sentence depended

basically on word order. As early as 1200 the three or four grammatical

case forms of nouns in the singular had been reduced to two, and to denote

the plural the noun ending -es had been adopted.

The declension of the noun was simplified further by dropping the final n

from five cases of the fourth, or weak, declension; by neutralizing all

vowel endings to e (sounded like the a in Modern English sofa), and by

extending the masculine, nominative, and accusative plural ending -as,

later neutralized also to -es, to other declensions and other cases. Only

one example of a weak plural ending, oxen, survives in Modern English; kine

and brethren are later formations. Several representatives of the Old

English modification of the root vowel in the plural, such as man, men, and

foot, feet, also survive.

With the levelling of inflections, the distinctions of grammatical gender

in English were replaced by those of natural gender. During this period the

dual number fell into disuse, and the dative and accusative of pronouns

were reduced to a common form. Furthermore, the Scandinavian they, them

were substituted for the original hie, hem of the third person plural, and

who, which, and that acquired their present relative functions. The

conjugation of verbs was simplified by the omission of endings and by the

use of a common form for the singular and plural of the past tense of

strong verbs.

In the early period of Middle English, a number of utilitarian words, such

as egg, sky, sister, window, and get, came into the language from Old

Norse. The Normans brought other additions to the vocabulary. Before 1250

about 900 new words had appeared in English, mainly words, such as baron,

noble, and feast, that the Anglo-Saxon lower classes required in their

dealings with the Norman-French nobility. Eventually the Norman nobility

and clergy, although they had learned English, introduced from the French

words pertaining to the government, the church, the army, and the fashions

of the court, in addition to others proper to the arts, scholarship, and

medicine. Another effect of the Norman Conquest was the use of Carolingian

script and a change in spelling. Norman scribes write Old English y as u

and u as ou. Cw was changed to qu, hw to wh, and ht to ght.

Midland, the dialect of Middle English derived from the Mercian dialect of

Old English, became important during the 14th century, when the counties in

which it was spoken developed into centres of university, economic, and

courtly life. East Midland, one of the subdivisions of Midland, had by that

time become the speech of the entire metropolitan area of the capital,

London, and probably had spread south of the Thames River into Kent and

Surrey. The influence of East Midland was strengthened by its use in the

government offices of London, by its literary dissemination in the works of

the 14th-century poets Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and John Lydgate, and

ultimately by its adoption for printed works by William Caxton. These and

other circumstances gradually contributed to the direct development of the

East Midland dialect into the Modern English language.

During the period of this linguistic transformation the other Middle

English dialects continued to exist, and dialects descending from them are

still spoken in the 20th century. Lowland Scottish, for example, is a

development of the Northern dialect.

8.3The Great Vowel Shift

The transition from Middle English to Modern English was marked by a major

change in the pronunciation of vowels during the 15th and 16th centuries.

This change, termed the Great Vowel Shift by the Danish linguist Otto

Jespersen, consisted of a shift in the articulation of vowels with respect

to the positions assumed by the tongue and the lips. The Great Vowel Shift

changed the pronunciation of 18 of the 20 distinctive vowels and diphthongs

of Middle English. Spelling, however, remained unchanged and was preserved

from then on as a result of the advent of printing in England in about

1475, during the shift. (In general, Middle English orthography was much

more phonetic than Modern English; all consonants, for example, were

pronounced, whereas now letters such as the l preserved in walking are

silent).

All long vowels, with the exception of /i:/ (pronounced in Middle English

somewhat like ee in need) and /u:/ (pronounced in Middle English like oo in

food), came to be pronounced with the jaw position one degree higher.

Pronounced previously in the highest possible position, the/i:/ became

diphthongized to “ah-ee”, and the/u:/ to “ee-oo”. The Great Vowel Shift,

which is still in progress, caused the pronunciation in English of the

letters a, e, i, o, and u to differ from that used in most other languages

of Western Europe. The approximate date when words were borrowed from other

languages can be ascertained by means of these and other sound changes.

Thus it is known that the old French word dame was borrowed before the

shift, since its vowel shifted with the Middle English /e:/ from a

pronunciation like that of the vowel in calm to that of the vowel in name.

8.4.Modern English Period

In the early part of the Modern English period the vocabulary was enlarged

by the widespread use of one part of speech for another and by increased

borrowings from other languages. The revival of interest in Latin and Greek

during the Renaissance brought new words into English from those languages.

Other words were introduced by English travellers and merchants after their

return from journeys on the Continent. From Italian came cameo, stanza, and

violin; from Spanish and Portuguese, alligator, peccadillo, and sombrero.

During its development, Modern English borrowed words from more than 50

different languages.

In the late 17th century and during the 18th century, certain important

grammatical changes occurred. The formal rules of English grammar were

established during that period. The pronoun its came into use, replacing

the genitive form his, which was the only form used by the translators of

the King James Bible (1611). The progressive tenses developed from the use

of the participle as a noun preceded by the preposition on; the preposition

gradually weakened to a and finally disappeared. Thereafter only the simple

ing form of the verb remained in use. After the 18th century this process

of development culminated in the creation of the progressive passive form,

for example, “The job is being done”.

The most important development begun during this period and continued

without interruption throughout the 19th and 20th centuries concerned

vocabulary. As a result of colonial expansion, notably in North America but

also in other areas of the world, many new words entered the English

language. From the indigenous peoples of North America, the words raccoon

and wigwam were borrowed; from Peru, llama and quinine; from the West

Indies, barbecue and cannibal; from Africa, chimpanzee and zebra; from

India, bandanna, curry, and punch; and from Australia, kangaroo and

boomerang. In addition, thousands of scientific terms were developed to

denote new concepts, discoveries, and inventions. Many of these terms, such

as neutron, penicillin, and supersonic, were formed from Greek and Latin

roots; others were borrowed from modern languages, as with blitzkrieg from

German and sputnik from Russian.

8.5.20th-Century English

In Great Britain at present the speech of educated persons is known as

Received Pronunciation. A class dialect rather than a regional dialect, it

is based on the type of speech cultivated at public schools and at such of

the older universities as Oxford and Cambridge. Many English people who

speak regional dialects in their childhood acquire Received Pronunciation

while attending school and university. Its influence has become even

stronger in recent years because of its use by such public media as the

British Broadcasting Corporation.

RP is not intrinsically superior to other varieties of English, and is,

itself, only one particular dialect. It has just achieved more extensive

use than others.

Widely differing regional and local dialects are still employed in the

various counties of Great Britain. Other important regional dialects have

also developed; for example, the English language in Ireland has retained

certain individual peculiarities of pronunciation, such as the

pronunciation of lave for leave and fluther for flutter; certain

syntactical peculiarities, such as the use of after following forms of the

verb be; and certain differences in vocabulary, including the use of

archaic words such as adown (for down) and Celtic borrowings such as

banshee. The Lowland Scottish dialect, sometimes called Lallans, first made

known throughout the English-speaking world by the songs of the 18th-

century Scottish poet Robert Burns, contains differences in pronunciation

also, such as neebour (“neighbour”) and guid (“good”), and words of

Scandinavian origin peculiar to the dialect, such as braw and bairn. The

English spoken in Australia, with its marked diphthongization of vowels,

also makes use of special words, retained from English regional dialect

usages, or taken over from indigenous Australian terms.

8.6.American English

An important development of English outside Great Britain occurred with the

colonization of North America. American English may be considered to

include the English spoken in Canada, although the Canadian variety retains

some features of British pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary. The most

distinguishing differences between American English and British English are

in pronunciation and vocabulary. There are slighter differences in

spelling, pitch, and stress as well. Written American English also has a

tendency to be more rigid in matters of grammar and syntax, but at the same

time appears to be more tolerant of the use of neologisms. Despite these

differences, it is often difficult to determine—apart from context—whether

serious literary works have been written in Great Britain or the United

States/Canada—or, for that matter, in Australia, New Zealand, or South

Africa.

8.7.Basic English

A simplified form of the English language based on 850 key words was

developed in the late 1920s by the English psychologist Charles Kay Ogden

and publicized by the English educator I. A. Richards. Known as Basic

English, it was used mainly to teach English to non-English-speaking

persons and promoted as an international language. The complexities of

English spelling and grammar, however, were major hindrances to the

adoption of Basic English as a second language.

The fundamental principle of Basic English was that any idea, however

complex, may be reduced to simple units of thought and expressed clearly by

a limited number of everyday words. The 850-word primary vocabulary was

composed of 600 nouns (representing things or events), 150 adjectives (for

qualities and properties), and 100 general “operational” words, mainly

verbs and prepositions. Almost all the words were in common use in English-

speaking countries; more than 60 per cent were one-syllable words. The

abbreviated vocabulary was created in part by eliminating numerous synonyms

and by extending the use of 18 “basic” verbs, such as make, get, do, have,

and be. These verbs were generally combined with prepositions, such as up,

among, under, in, and forward. For example, a Basic English student would

use the expression “go up” instead of “ascend”.

8.8.Pidgin English

English also enters into a number of simplified languages that arose among

non-English-speaking peoples. Pidgin English, spoken in the Melanesian

islands, New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines, and Hawaii and on the

Asian shores of the Pacific Ocean, developed as a means of communication

between Chinese and English traders. The Chinese adopted many English words

and a few indispensable non-English words and created a means of discourse,

using a simple grammatical apparatus. Bкche-de-Mer, a pidgin spoken in the

southern and western Pacific islands, is predominantly English in

structure, although it includes many Polynesian words. Chinook Jargon, used

as a lingua franca by the Native Americans, French, and English on the

North American Pacific coast, contains English, French, and Native American

words; its grammatical structure is based on that of the Chinook language.

The use of pidgin is growing in Africa, notably in Cameroon, Sierra Leone,

and East Africa.

9.Future of the English Language

The influence of the mass media appears likely to result in a more

standardized pronunciation, more uniform spelling, and eventually a

spelling closer to actual pronunciation. Despite the likelihood of such

standardization, a unique feature of the English language remains its

tendency to grow and change. Despite the warnings of linguistic purists,

new words are constantly being coined and usages modified to express new

concepts. Its vocabulary is constantly enriched by linguistic borrowings,

particularly by cross-fertilizations from American English. Because it is

capable of infinite possibilities of communication, the English language

has become the chief international language.[i]

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