The English language has experienced a lot of changes since the fifth century up to date. There have been some phases which clearly indicate the transition period up to date. These are the Old English period, Middle English period and the Modern English period. The Old English period had most of its words borrowed from the Celtic language, then the Latin and the Norse who influenced it much more lately as it was the most spoken later. There are a lot of notable differences between the phases of transitions, some of which being; differences in the time frame when the language was being spoken, influencing languages and the number of dialects used.
Old English sounds were characterized by breaking and palatalization for the consonants and braking and fronting the vowels. The kind of alphabets mostly used was the runic alphabet which has been found on stone carvings and walls. The scribes also used Old English and they wrote on valium and layer, their writings were translated into Roman alphabets. The sounds of the Old English alphabet had a particular way of appearing in words. The sound “v”, “z” and “d” would appear in between vowels. This was as a result of loans, mostly from the French and Latin.
Old English was mostly used in between 450–1150 whereas the Middle English was used in between 1150–1500. Old English language started coming into existence around 449 when the Germanic tribes started moving and settling in England. These tribes borrowed some linguistic features from the original inhabitants of the areas. During these times, Latin was famous most likely due to the missionaries from Rome and Ireland. Middle English started to begin when the synthetic character of the Old English began to change. For example, a number of case endings simplified and became –e. this change occurred at different times in different places in Britain: in the north and east it proceeded faster than in the south and west.
Old English was divided along geographic lines into Northumbrian, Mercian, West-Saxon, and Kentish. It can also be categorized whether it was written in the early or late Old English and also whether it was poetry or prose. The Northumbrian ‘Caedmon’s hymn’ is a strong evidence to show the older Old English. Most of the evidence relating to the later English comes from the southern prose texts like Alfred’s Orosuis or the works of Ælfric. However in the Middle English, Clanchy (1979: 1–2) makes an argument that after the 1066 period, England transformed into a literate society. This was mainly because the Anglo Saxons produced 2000 writs and charters that are evident today. No matter how remote any village was, writing had become known and due to this community, the effect on society was astounding. After 1300 is only when English reemerge as a language used for literature, court and the church and a number of historical dates are relevant to this reemergence: 1244 when it becomes illegal to hold land and 1258 when Henry III uses both English and French for an official proclamation. Some of the Old English to Middle English spelling changes include:
OE ME OE ME
cw > qu c > ch, c, and k
hw > wh/w/qu u > ou
Þ/ð > th h > ʒ/gh
sc > sh
The most common trail in the Middle English is the consonant deletion as in [g], [h], [w] and [I] and vowel shifting unlike in the Old English where voicing and palatalization affected consonants and breaking and fronting affected the vowels. Old English had a limited use of [v],[z] and [ð] but due to an incursion of French words, v was introduced in more words. For instance vacuum, vase and voice. In Middle English, g/ʒ first became a w or j then later on merged with the following vowels to create a diphthong. For instance boga- bow and dæg-day.
Old English can be described as syntax whereas Middle English was becoming more of analytic than syntax. This means that in the Old English, there was lack of preposition which is a characteristic of syntax language. In the Middle English, there were introduction of comparatives and superlatives, a much complex word order, a rise in auxiliaries and subject pronouns and the use of complementizers and relatives, also called the sentence connectors. In the Old English, demonstratives occur although not as common and articles do not. In the Old English, there was the free word order where even the subject would start and the sentence would still make sense. There were still rules associated with this; the pronoun was near the start of the sentence and the verb at the end especially in the subordinate sentences. The verb could also occur in second position.
The Middle English has more dialectal differences because there were more texts from different areas. The Old English has four notable dialects; Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish. In the Middle English, the sound changes did not impact many areas hence the obvious differences in dialect. In the Old English there is not much proof of dialect distinction unlike the Middle English where we find distinct dialect differences.
When analyzing some characteristics of Old English as compared to those of Middle English, it is evident that the latter is more reasonable and analytical. The writings in Old English do not employ the articles ‘a’ and ‘an’ although the determinant ‘the’ is used more often. The comparatives and superlatives used in Middle English are more elaborate since more adjectives exist. To add on to that, there is a big difference in word order as used in these phrases. The world order used in the Middle English is more relevant as compared to the word order used in the Old English. The exception is in the arrangement of words when asking “wh” questions with finite verbs.
As the centuries passed, there were some variations in the sounds, especially around the 10 century, during the Old English period. The changes in sound were as a result of constant deletion and shifting of the vowels. The aspect of letter ‘h’ in some words was as a result of these changes. An example is, “Ich abbe I min castlen seoue þusend kempen” which translates tto I have in my castles seven thousand fighters. (Layamon, Brut line 223). Additionally, in the word these many consonants, the ‘h’ was pulled out, as a result, forming words like naked and loaf, which were previously “hnacod” ans “hlaf” respectively. The nasals and liquids were also modified as follows: “hwilum” changed to “while” and the liquid “swilce” was transformed to “such”. Depending on the consonants in the word, the vowels in that particular word either shortened or lengthened.
Changes in pronouns and endings of the verbs, adjectives and nouns also occurred. In the period of transformation, the pronoun “she” was introduced, as well as the plural “they”. Other changes included the changes in how the second person was used. The plural third person pronoun with initials “h” is transformed to the initial “th” in that , the statement “wat heo ihoten weoren” and “wonene heo comen” changes to “what they were called and from where they came”. The notable changes in the adjectives and adverbs include the reduction of forms and endings. Some endings for instance, “ice” is replaced by “ly”. The emergence of Middle English also causes a distinction between the weak and strong verb. In middle English, the verb “welk” is considered strong while “walked” as used in modern English is considered weak.
In the Middle English period, borrowing from the French did not affect English as mainly because there was a difference between the French dialects used between the 11th and 16th centuries. These two were Central and Norman French. However, some words were borrowed from English as the Frenchmen tried to learn English. Some words like government, jury, justice, study and art were borrowed from the French and later became English words. The concept of prefixes and suffixes was also adopted and it led to a wider branch of words with even more meaning, for example governance, envious, majority and labor. Some prefixes and suffixes were as a result of a mixture of many different dialects, the Latin and French, to English.
Work Cited
Gelderen, Elly van. History of the English Language. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Simpson, John, and Edmund SC Weeiner. “Oxford English dictionary online.” Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved March6(1989): 2008.
