theories,” Professor History begins his lecture. “The history of written

language also disappears in the jungles, in the deserts and far fields of

unrecorded time. But at least the words that have to do with writing tell

us much about the early beginning of the art and the objects that were used

to record the written symbols.

The word write was spelled writan in Old English. It first meant to

scratch, and it is exactly what the primitives did on their birch-bark or

shingles with sharp stones and others pointed instruments. In the more

sophisticated lands that surrounded the Mediterranean the papyrus plant was

used instead of the bark of the trees; as you already know, that gave us

the word paper.

Pen with which we write now, in its Latin form penna, meant a feather and

in some ancient collections you can still see quill pens. And pencil that

we hold inherits its name from the Latin penicillum, meaning a little tail,

and this refers to the time when writing was done with a tiny brush that

looked indeed like a little tail.

The term letter designating a written symbol, a letter of the alphabet is

thought to be relative to the Latin word linere, to smear, to leave a dirty

mark on some surface. Isn’t it a good description of some of the early

writing?

But what is written should be read. In read we have an odd little word,

from the Old English raedan, which meant first to guess, to discern. And

again it is just what you had to do to interpret what was scratched on

wooden shingles. Anything that had to be interpreted was called a raedels.

Later on people began to think that the word raedels was a plural because

of the “s” on the end. A new singular, raedel was formed and here is the

ancestor of our word riddle. Finally the word read took on its modern

meaning: if you can read, you have the ability to look at and understand

what is written.

Of course the basis of all writing is language. But it is first of all, a

spoken activity, and hence this noun is derived from a word referring to

the organ of speech primarily involved. In this case it is the French word

language, which goes back to the Latin lingua, tongue. The English, though,

retained their native word to name that soft movable part inside your mouth

whish you see for tasting and licking and for speaking”, a tongue.

Sometimes you may hear the word tongue used in the meaning of language, but

it is an old-fashioned and literary use.

If you want to read what is written in a foreign language, you need a

dictionary. The term dictionary comes from the Latin word dictio, from

dico, say or speak. A dictionary is really a record of what people say, of

the pronunciation, spellings, and meanings that they give to words.”

In Old English there was a different word with which the Englishmen called

bread, it was half. But then as a result of the Vikings invasion and

Scandinavian influence on the English language a new word of the same

meaning entered the English vocabulary from Scandinavian: cake. Since the

English had already their own word (half), they started to use the word

cake for a special type of bread. First it referred to a small loaf of

bread of flat and round shape. From the 15th century it began to mean sweet

food, as it does now.

To the Scandinavians, living in Britain, called their bread by the word

brauth. The English had a similar word – bread meaning a lump, a piece of

bread. Under the influence of the Scandinavian language the word bread

widened its meaning and began to mean bread in general, while the word loaf

(from Old English half) narrowed its meaning, now it is a large lump of

bread which we slice before eating.

The Great Englishman Caxton, who introduced printing in Britain in 1476,

wrote in a preface to one of the books about a funny episode with egg. The

thing is that in Old English the word egg had a different form which

spelled as ey in Middle English; its plural form was eyren. And again the

Scandinavians brought with them to Britain their word egg. It first spread

in the northern English dialects, the southerners did not know it and used

their native word.

Caxton tells the readers that once English merchants from the northern

regions were sailing down the Thames, bound for the Netherlands. There was

no wind and they landed at a small southern village. The merchants decided

to buy some food. They came to a house and one of them asked a woman if she

could sell them eggs. The woman answered that she did not understand him

because she did not know French. The merchant became very angry and said

that he did not speak French either. Then another merchant helped. He said

they wanted eyren, the woman understood him and brought them eggs.

For rather a long period of time two words existed in Britain: a native

English word eyren was used in the South, and the Scandinavian borrow eggs

in the North. The Scandinavian word has won after, as you can see.

D). The Norman French.

I made another excursion into the past. The Time Масhinе has саrried me

into the 11th century, into the year of 1066. An аwful picture ореns before

my eyes: а great battle at Hastings, the English king Наrold is killed, the

English are defeated, the Norman invaders have won а victory. Тhe Normans

саmе frоm across the British Сhannеl, from the part of France called

Normandy. Тhеу conquered the English under the head of their leader, Duke

William, who later got the name of William the Conqueror. Тhе Normans

brought into Britain not оn1у their king, but their French language as

well. So it еxplаins why there are so many French words in the English

vocabulary.

The successful Norman invasion of England in 1066 brought Britain into the

mainstream of western European culture. Previously most links had been with

Scandinavia. Only in Scotland did this link survive; the western isles

(until the thirteenth century) and the northern islands (until the

fifteenth century) remaining under the control of Scandinavian kings.

Throughout this period the English kings also ruled over areas of land on

the continent were often at war with the French kings in disputes over

ownership.

Unlike the Germanic invasions, the Norman invasion was small-scale. There

was no such thing as a Norman area of settlement. Instead, the Norman

soldiers who had been a part of the invading army were given the ownership

of land – and of the people living on it. A strict feudal system was

imposed. Great nobles, or barons, were responsible directly to the king;

lesser lords, each owing a village, were directly responsible to a baron.

Under them were the peasants, tied by a strict system of mutual duties and

obligations to the local lord, and forbidden to travel without his

permission. The peasants were the English-speaking Saxons. The lords and

the barons were the French-speaking Normans. This was the beginning of the

English class system.

The existence of two words for the larger farm animals in modern English is

a result of the class divisions established by the Norman conquest. There

are the words for the living animals (e.g. cow, pig, sheep), which have

their origins in Anglo-Saxon, and the words for the meat from the animals

(e.g. beef, pork, mutton.), which have their origins in the French language

that the Normans brought to England. Only the Normans normally ate meat;

the poor Anglo-Saxon peasants did not!

The strong system of government which the Normans introduced meant that the

Anglo-Norman kingdom was easily the most powerful political force in

British Isles. Not surprisingly therefore, the authority of the English

monarch gradually extended to other parts of these islands in the next 250

years. But the end of the thirteenth century, a large part of eastern

Ireland was controlled by Anglo-Norman lords in the name of the English

king and the while of Wales was under his direct rule (at which time the

custom of naming the monarch’s eldest son the “Prince of Wales” began).

Scotland managed to remain politically independent in the medieval period,

but was obliged to fight occasional wars to do so.

II. Middle English. (1100-1500)

The English which was used from about 1100 to about 1500 is called Middle

English. The cultural story of this period is different. Two hundred and

fifty years after the Norman Conquest, it was a Germanic language (Middle

English) and not the Norman (French) language which had become the dominant

one in all classes of society of England. Furthermore, it was the Anglo-

Saxon concept of common law, and not Roman law, which formed the basis of

the legal system.

Despite English rule, northern and central Wales was never settled in great

numbers by Saxon or Norman. As a result the (Celtic) Welsh language and

culture remained strong. Eisteddfods, national festivals of Welsh song and

poetry, continued throughout the medieval period and still take place

today. The Anglo-Norman lords of eastern Ireland remained loyal to the

English king but, despite laws to the contrary, mostly adopted the Gaelic

language and customs.

The political independence of Scotland did not prevent a gradual switch to

the English language and customs in the lowland (southern) part of the

country. First, the Anglo-Saxon element here was strengthened by the

arrival of many Saxon aristocrats fleeing the Norman conquest of England.

Second, the Celtic kings saw that the adoption of an Anglo-Norman style of

government would strengthen royal power. By the end of this period a

cultural split had developed between the lowlands, where the way of life

and language was similar to that in England, and the highlands, where

(Celtic) Gaelic culture and language prevailed – and where, because of the

mountainous landscape, the authority of the king was hard to enforce.

It was in this period that Parliament began its gradual evolution into the

democratic body which is it today. The word “parliament”, which comes from

the French word parler (to speak), was first used in England in the

thirteenth century to describe an assembly of nobles called together by the

king. In 1295, the Model Parliament set the pattern for the future by

including elected representatives from urban and rural areas.

Many food names in English are French borrowings. After the Norman Conquest

under William the Conqueror (1066) French words began to enter the English

language increasing in number for more than tree centuries. Among them were

different names of dishes. The Norman barons brought to Britain their

professional cooks who showed to English their skill.

Learners of the English language notice that there is one name for a live

beast grazing in the field and another for the same beast when it is killed

and coked. The matter is that English peasants preserved Anglo-Saxon names

for the animals they used to bring to Norman castles to sell. But the

dishes made of the meat got French names. That is why now we have native

English names of animals: ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, and French names of

meals from whose meat they are cooked: beef, veal, mutton, pork. (By the

way “lamb” is an exception, it is a native Anglo-Saxon word). A historian

writes that an English peasant who had spent a hard day tending his oxen,

calves, sheep and swine probably saw little enough of the beef, veal,

mutton and pork, which were gobbled at night by his Norman masters.

The French enriched English vocabulary with such food words as bacon,

sausage, gravy; then: toast, biscuit, cream, sugar. They taught the English

to have for dessert such fruits as: fig, grape, orange, lemon, pomegranate,

peach and the names of these fruits became known to the English due the

French. The English learned from them how to make pastry, tart, jelly,

treacle. From the French the English came to know about mustard and

vinegard. The English borrowed from the French verbs to describe various

culinary processes: to boil, to roast, to stew, to fry.

One famous English linguist exclaimed: “It is melancholy to think what the

English dinner would have been like, had there been no Norman Conquest!”

The period of Middle English is the time of the fast development of English

literature. The greatest poet of the 14th century was Geoffrey Chaucer. He

is often called the father of English poetry, although, as we know, there

were many English poets before him. As we should expect, the language had

changed a great deal in the seven hundred years since the time Beowulf and

it is much easier to read Chaucer than to read anything written in Old

English. Here are the opening lines of The Canterbury Tales (about 1387),

his greatest work:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures swote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote

When April with his sweet showers has stuck to the roots the

dryness of March…

There are five main beats in each line, and the reader will notice that

rhyme has taken the place of Old English alliteration. Chaucer was a well-

educated man who read Latin, and studied French and Italian poetry; but he

was not interested only in books. He traveled and made good use of his

eyes; and the people whom he describes are just like living people.

The Canterbury Tales total altogether about 17,000 lines – about half of

Chaucer’s literary production. A party of pilgrims agree to tell stories to

pass the time on their journey from London to Canterbury with its great

church and the grave of Thomas a Becket. There are more than twenty of

these stories, mostly in verse, and in the stories we get to know the

pilgrims themselves. Most of them, like the merchant, the lawyer, the cook,

the sailor, the ploughman, and the miller, are ordinary people, but each of

them can be recognized as a real person with his or her own character. One

of the most enjoyable characters, for example, is the Wife of Bath. By the

time she tells her story we know her as a woman of very strong opinions who

believes firmly in marriage (she has had five husbands, one after the

other) and equally firmly in the need to manage husbands strictly. In her

story one of King Arthur’s knights must give within a year the correct

answer to the question “What do women love most?” in order to save his

life. An ugly old which knows the answer (“to rule”) and agrees to tell him

if he marries her. At last he agrees, and at the marriage she becomes young

again and beautiful.

A good deal of Middle English prose is religious. The Ancren Riwle teaches

proper rules of life for anchoresses (religious women) how they ought to

dress, what work they may do, when they ought not to speak, and so on. It

was probably written in the thirteenth century. Another work, The Form of

Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4