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Unit 2: Impact of the History of English Language on Literature from 11th to 17th Century
The Descent of the English Language
Introduction:-
There are plenty of languages over world. The modern linguistics
research has shown that languages can be grouped in families. Pronunciation,
grammar and vocabulary of a language are traced to the other. There are several
families but we shall limit ourselves to Indo-European family as English is one
of them.
The name of the family is Indo-European one. Aryan and
‘Indo-Germanic” names are there. Nearly 3500 years ago romantic tribes round
the Black-sea and Siberia used to speak it. These tribes dispersed across the
subcontinent. Isolation of a tribe gave rise to addition and omission. Change
in the main language by the 200 B.C.
The term ‘family’ refers to those languages that share common
characteristics. Languages having common characteristics belong to one family.
They all descended from a common parent. The world languages are classified
under eight families.
1. Sino-Tibetan 2. Indo-European 3. Dravidian 4.
Afro-Asiatic 5. Niger-Congo 6. Mayala-Polynesian 7. Nishadha languages 8. Khosian dialects.
The English language belongs to Indo-European family of
languages. This family language split into eight distinct language groups and
this process of splitting continued. (See Below Diagram)
Common
things in Indo-European languages: -
There are some words, which indicate. Similarity of the
languages of this family. Ancient languages were more complex than the present day
languages. Amongst most contemporary language spoken today is of natives of
Australia. Some pronouns like ‘my’, ‘you’, and some relationship nouns such as
‘father’, mother’ brother’ prove the argument but surprising distant
relationship like aunt, uncle, cousin, don’t correspond in the same manner.
Surprisingly cardinal numbers from one to ten have considerable similarly. The
names of numbers in various languages like French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese
closely resemble the Latin and they are clearly derived from. Henry Bett in his
book ‘Wandering Among words (1936)’ shows that ‘five’ is the same word as
‘hand’ in Labrador and Roman ‘V’ while both are related to counting of fingers.
To add one ‘I’ indicating one finger or two and so on is done to ‘V’. Children
and uneducated people do counting with the fingers. To do it simple pebbles
were used. Latin word for ‘pebbles’ is calculate’. So our verb ‘calculate’ has
come into existence and now a days into come to point. One of the higher and
more complex process of mathematics.
Primitive Germanic Group:-
Out of eight groups of Indo-European family, we shall consider
primitive Germanic grows as it has the root English Language. 2000 year before
in the most parts of central and northern Europe the language was spoken. On
geographical basis it was breaking up into several different dialects. Constant
shift was main aspect. Italic group is very important. Its sound system
remained intact. Its influence is seen on Germanic group. Jacob Grimm found out
following.
|
Latin words |
Changed into |
Germanic |
|
P= Pedem |
F = fot |
= foot |
|
T= tres | O = ori | = three |
|
D= decam |
T = tien |
= ten |
|
C= Chine |
S = Sheot |
= sheet |
If we notice these sounds,
they have been changed with slight change of lips. They seem trivial but effect
is very much. It depends on the use of vocal, but lip constant or vice-versa.
These chances were
explained by Grimm. So it was known as Grimm’s Law. It did not answer all the
questions. Verner improved it son later on it was known as Verner’s Law.
Primitive Germanic fell into three groups’ Gothic, Scandinavian
and West Germanic. We have Gothic writing records. Scandinavian group has given
us four languages. West Germanic gave us; High German, law German and Anglo
Saxon language. From the last one we have middle and the modern English. West
Germanic is theoretical language. We have no written no writer documents. ‘R’
is added, or placed instead of ‘s’ or ‘z’ in a word e.g. ‘Was’ is turned ‘were’
and is into ‘are’.
Jacob
Grimm’s Law:-
The Indo-European family of languages from which English has
descended has eight branches including the eastern ones like Aryan, Albanian,
Armenian and Balto-Slavic and the western ones like Greek, Latin, Celtic and
Teutonic. It is from the last of these that English takes its descent. The
distinguishing qualities of the Teutonic branch are its verbal system, the
accent of words, and the series of sound changes to which the name the First
Sound Shifting has been given. The sound changes involved in the First Sound
Shifting, though originally discovered by a Danish scholar named Rask, were
first formulated as a law by one German scholar, Jacob Grimm (1785 – 1863). The
law formulated by Grimm has been named after him and is hence familiarly known
to the students of history of English as Grimm’s Law.
Grimm had found certain correspondences between some consonant
sounds occurring in the words of the classical languages like Sanskrit, Latin
and Greek and those of the Teutonic languages like English and Gothic. Grimm
who studied these correspondences more closely stated that there is regular
shifting of certain series of Indo-Germanic consonantal sounds in Teutonic. The
law, as it was originally stated by Grimm, referred only to the sound shifting
of the Indo-Germanic voiceless stop consonants p, t, k and kw. It has been
stated more completely and systematically as a result of the subsequent
investigation on the subject. In its present form Grimm’s Law includes the
following series of changes.
a. Indo- voiced aspirated stop sounds bh, dh, gh become shifted
in Teutonic to the corresponding voiced stop sounds b, d, g.
b. The Indo-European voiced stop sounds b, d, g are shifted in
Teutonic to the corresponding voiceless sounds p. t, k.
c. Indo-European voiceless stop sounds o, t, k, kw become
shifted in Teutonic to the corresponding voiceless open sounds f, th, h, hw.
Karl
Verner’s Law:-
Karl Verner, a disciple of Grimm, continued his research on the
subject and forty years later he discovered that the variable Indo-Germanic
voiceless open responsible for the hitherto unaccountable voicing of the
Germanic voiceless open consonants, which has been named after him as Berner’s
Law. This Law, formulated in 1875, satisfactorily explains “the apparent
exceptions to the Grimm’s Law”. According to his law, when the Indo-Germanic accent
did not fall on the vowel immediately preceding the consonants in question,
these voiceless open consonants became voiced in Germanic. In West Germanic,
the resulting voiced open sound was changed into a voiced stop sound. Thus from
Indo-Germanic ‘t’ in ‘centum’ West Germanic has a ‘d’ in ‘hundred’ instead of
the corresponding voiceless open sound, which was to be expected according to
Grimm’s Law.
Therefore, it becomes a voiced open sound in Germanic and is in
turn changed into a voiced stop sound in west Germanic. This is true of all the
voiceless stop consonants of Indo- Germanic as represented in Germanic when the
consonants in question are not preceded by the Indo-Germanic accent. Therefore,
English words illustrating Verner’s Law contain the voiced stop sound instead
of the voiceless open sound in Primitive Germanic. This is because in West Germanic
the voiceless open sounds at a very early date became changed into voiced stop
sounds.
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