OLD ENGLISH, MIDDLE ENGLISH , MODERN ENGLISH St

Studying the history of the English language

The history of the English language can be studied from a linguistic viewpoint--internal history, where linguistic sounds, structures, vocabulary, and other categories trace the evolution of the language. It can also be studied from the viewpoint of geographical and social spread, attitudes towards the language, features, and attempts at regulating it--this is external history. The difficulty with this classification is that there is constant overlap between the two approaches, such as when English borrows from, say, French; then, attitudes (an external factor) influence vocabulary (an internal factor).

"Internal linguistic change is often in the direction of diversity" (Bolton, 1992, p. 472). Yet, changes tend towards a certain regularity. Rhotic vs non-rhotic is an example of such overlapping and regularity. The English r is pronounced whenever it is orthographically present (read, bear, barrel, worker), i.e. rhotic pronouncing. In another set of accents, r is pronounced in syllable-initial position (red) and intervocally (barrel), but not postvocally (beer, beard, worker). In these positions, the r is vocalized and not pronounced unless another vowel follows--a non-rhotic phenomenon. In Canada, India, Ireland, South-Western England, Scotland, in the Barbados, and in the northern and western states of the U.S.A. (except for Boston and New York City), the r sound is rhotic. In

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not speak a uniform Middle English. Rather, they spoke dialects, the four major ones being Mercian, Kentish, West Saxon, and Northumbrian--all of which were more or less on a level, inasmuch as West Saxon lost its supremacy as the center of culture and learning gradually shifted from Winchester to London. The Old Northumbrian dialect divided into Scottish and Northern. The Old Mercian dialect was split into East and West Midland. West Saxon became the South Western dialect, while Kentish was considerably extended and was to be called South Eastern dialect. It is therefore not surprising that even today England has more real dialects than the U.S.A. Verb inflections varied often considerably among the Northern, Midland, and Southern dialects. "The Northern infinitive was already one syllable (sing rather than the Old English singan), whereas the past particle -en inflection of Old English was strictly kept. These apparently contradictory features can be attributed entirely to Scandinavian, in which the final -n of the infinitive was lost early in singa, and the final -in of the past participle was doubled in sunginn" (Potter, 1975, p. 881). The shift from speaking French to English occurred as a result of the Hundred Year War w
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Modern English, Middle English, Latin Greek, ENGLISH Studying, Madam M'am, Frngen Dash, English Northern, London English, Midland Southern, World English, middle english, modern english, english language, english modern, english middle english, english modern english, english middle, world english, vowel shift, history english, vowel sound, bolton 1992, middle english modern, companion english language, oxford companion english,
Approximate Word count = 6175
Approximate Pages = 25 (250 words per page)