Professional Documents
Culture Documents
start of Chaucers
Modern English (ModE) can be regarded externally as starting with the introduction of
printing. Caxtons selection of an East Midlands/London variety of English for the first printed
books at the end of the 15th century contributed to the development of a standardised
variety of the language, with fixed spelling and punctuation conventions and accepted
vocabulary and grammatical forms.
These changes were not reflected in ModE spelling, already largely fixed by standardisation,
adding to the disparity between pronunciation and writing which differentiates English today
from most other European languages.
An example of early Modern English can be seen in the
longe rge
folcum gefrage
aldor of earde-hah Healfdene
Bowulf Scyldinga
glde Scyldingas
forgermed
weoroda raswan:
ws Onelan cwn
healsgebedda.
ws Hrgre
herespd gyfen
wges weormynd
georne hrdon
o t so geogo gewox
magodriht micel
GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS
WORD
AS USED
IN THE
TEXT
lof
Leod
cyning
ANALYSIS, NOTES
Explanations and
Ethymology
VARIATION
OF MODERN
ENGLISH
As an adverb, "dearly,
willingly" from c.1250.
Beloved
King of the
people
longe
rage
gefrage
fder
hwearf
hah
lifde
German kuning.
Adv., positive
Old English lang "long," from
Proto-Germanic langgaz .
long
Age, time ,
period
Famed,
famous
father
related to Old
English hwearfian "to
turn," perhaps in a sense
implying "busy activity,"
from PIE root *kwerp- "to
turn, revolve"
Turn,
change, go
High,deep,
great
Lived, live
(Past Simple)
glde
fower
raswan
Glad, bright
four
Leader, ruler
Notes
Etymology
All words are native, except famous - from Anglo-French famous, Old French fameus. A
native word for this was Old English namcu, literally "name-known; age - from Old
French aage. Most of the words come from the roots of the common IE layer andhave parallels
outside the Germanic groups,eg:
OE lof - love
OE longe long
Old English heh (Anglian), heah (West Saxon) high Old English lifian live
Comments
weoroda raswan:
raswan - Weak noun, masc., pl., Nom. case, sing. Dat. Case
In both Old and Modern English, the infinitive is the form that
dictionaries use as the headword for verb entries. But in Old
English it has its own endings that distinguish it from the
present forms. It is in origin a noun built on the verbal root.
Hweorfan - inf., sing., str., Class III Libban inf., weak verb, Class III, -
glde Scyldingas
PHONETIC ANALYSIS
bearn
1. Ealdor
Aldor
2. Ealdor
ANALYSIS
Pl. infl. of noun um, burg,
burh
ME burrh, burch, burw
(Cons. Shift, Grimms
Law, gh >y (g)
Barn, ME barn, bern (< prt.
Of beran) (u-o-umlaut,
a>ea by the inf. of a)
ME aldor <eald+or <al ro
(a> >ea>e)
NE
WORDS
Fortified place, town,
borough, burg
Child
Barn (Shakspeare)
Prince, lord
Elder
Grow up, age, life
fronting>
breaking>monopht.
verb
>d from OG (gram. Changes
Verners Law)
earde
ME erd
= aru<eart, e<ea breaking,
Land, earth
>d>th
eft
folcum
fder
ME eft, efte
(<aftiz, v. ftan, of ),
a>>e - fronting
Pl. infl. of noun um, folc,
ME folk, follc, volk, folke
c>k pr-on change
ME fder, feder, fader, fader,
Again, afterwards
father
> d> th
fower
glde
hwearf
Hwalbo<hwalb=v. hwelf,
arch
a>ea- breaking, l>r
Four, fourth
Notes
The phonological changes among selected words are: consonant shifts according to
Grimms and Verners Law, eg.
aldor <eald+or <al - ro >d, burg, burh- burrh, burch, burw gh >y (g),
vowel shifts:breaking, palatalisation, u-o-umlaut, eg.
Hwearf - hwalbo<hwalb=v. hwelf
glde gled
fower
bearn - barn, bern
e>eo
a>ea by the inf. of a
Comments
Specific pronunciation differences or changes from Old English and its Closest
Relatives according to Robinson
/c/ : as [t] before or after original vowels /i/ and /e/ (before umlaut) as [k]
elsewhere
/g/ : as [g] when doubled /gg/ or when preceded by /n/ as in /ng/ as [j] before the
front vowels /i/ and /e/, after /i/ and /e/ when syllable final as [] elsewhere
/sc/ : Robinson states [] and makes no mention of [sk] as a pronunciation for this
letter
/f/ : as [v] between voiced sounds as [f] elsewhere /s/ : as [z] between voiced
sounds as [s] elsewhere
/h/ : as [h] initially and before vowels as [c] nally and between consonants
/x/ : Robinson states this is pronounced as [xs], not [ks] as stated by the image
above
/u/ : /u/ occasionally appears instead of /w/ and thus has the pronunciation [w]
THE KNIGHT
ME variation
tyme
time
trouthe
hadde
wonne
truth
had
won
foughten
fought
Notes
All words are native except chivalrie, curteisie, algezir. Most of the words come from the roots
of the common IE layer andhave parallels outside the Germanic groups,eg:
foughten Old English feohtan, rom Proto-Germanic *fehtan,
wonne
Word structure and word-formation. Most words are simple eigher originally or after the
loss of stem suffixes, eg. Tyme, trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.
Derived words are: worthynesse worthy ness-e, honour-ed, hethe-ness-e,
In this passage are no compound words. As we can see, the spelling of all proper nouns such as
cristendom, alisaundre, lettow, ruce were not capitalized.
Phonological changes. The main change was the Great Vowel Shift, represented by the noun
tyme, from tim<time (ti:m)< tyme <time(taim).
Short and lond vowels
Caas<case, blak<black
COMMENTS
Chaucer's English falls between the trickier Germanic endings of Old AngloSaxon and the later Great Vowel Shift. There are many similarities to Modern
English, especially when it comes to consonants. In other words, it should be
easy for you to learn the basics.
Middle English spelling was in a period of transition. If you traveled around England in
1300 and asked five literate people to spell a word, they might have given you five
different spellings. Geoffrey Chaucer made a rough attempt to standardize spelling, but
even he spells the same word various ways in his works.
Most consonant sounds act like English. Since consonants in most words are
nearly identical to their Modern English counterparts, let's focus on the
differences.
/th/ and /f/ are voiceless like in "thing" and "fish". They are only voiced
(like "this" and "of") between two vowels:
/gh/ or /h/ represent the 'hard h' sound in German "a ch" or Scottish "loch"
between /a/, /o/, /u/ and a consonant. They represent the 'soft h' of German
"ich" or English "heehee!" between /e/ or /i/ and a consonant:
/ng/ sound like "finger", not like the simple velar 'n' of "singing":
fingeres
/s/ sounds like "seem", unless it's between two vowels, then it's like
"please":
rood, ferne
Vowels are a bit trickier, but here are a few rules to get you pronouncing Middle
English vowels in no time. Note that long vowels come before a single
consonant or on their own at the end of a word. Short vowels, on the other
hand, are found before two consonants or before a single consonant at the end
of a word. Any vowel written double (aa, ee, oo, uu) is long.
Pronouns in Middle English look much the same as their Modern English
counterparts, with a few exceptions:
The first person singular ("I") is variously spelled i, ich, ih, and is found
capitalized as I from 1250. The objective (accusative and dative case) form is
the same as Modern English: me. The possessive form myn, min may occur
without the -n, but takes a final -e when used with plural nouns.
The second person singular is thou (older thu). The objective (accusative
and dative case) form is thee. The possessive thyn is sometimes written
without the -n, but takes a final -e when used with a plural noun.
He, him, his appear virtually unchanged. She may also be spelt sche, but
we find hire rather than her and hir instead of hers. The third person singular
neuter (it, also found in the older form hit) relates to the possessive
his (not its!): ...Aprille with his shoures soote ...April, with its showers
sweet.
The first person plural we, us, and oure are easy to understand. In older
texts, expect to find ure instead ofoure.
The second person plural ("all of you") is ye, but we find you as an object
and possessive case your.
The third person plural ("they") has they as a subject, but hem instead
of them and hir for their.
Verbs are a bit more complicated in Middle English, but only somewhat so. In
other words, the phrase she singeth is used for she sings, I singe for I sing,
etc. Notice that the plural forms all end in -en. Infinitives also end in -en, like to
singen rather than to sing.
When we talk about the past tense, we distinguish between strong verbs
(like singen) and weak verbs (likebathen). This is because preterite
indicative verbs (actions that happened in the past) change their root
vowel and add fewer endings if they're strong, or add -d- or -t- and take
more endings if they're weak:
Nouns in Middle English do not reflect the complex three-gender system of Old
English. They change to reflect singular and plural number, typically by adding -s
(dayes and nightes days and nights) or -n (namen, ynnames, eyes).
Adjectives in Middle English work much the same way as they do in Modern
English. These descriptive words come before the noun they modify: yong
sone young son. There is a Germanic twist, though. As in German and
Icelandic, Middle English differentiates between strong and weak adjectives.
Strong adjectives stand on their own before a noun, like the yong in yong
sone. They often do not have a final -e (schwa sound).
Weak adjectives come between the article the, the demonstratives (this,
that, these, those) or a possessive (his, Annes his, Anne's) and the
modified noun. Such adjectives have a final -e (schwa): the yonge man
and his sweete breeth the young man and his sweet breath.
With plural nouns, it's far easier: adjectives generally take -e, weak or
strong (yonge sones, the yonge childrenyoung sons, the young
children).
Shakespeare
Sonnet 145
This is the only sonnet of the 154 which is not written in the usual iambic pentameter (verses of
five feet consisting of a short followed by a long syllable) but of the more jerky iambic
tetrameter, or octosyllabic verse, which is thought to be more appropriate for epigrammatic and
comic verse. It is a sonnet that is not highly regarded, being thought of as rather trivial, and most
commentators would prefer to discard it.
Shakespeare could have familiarized himself at this early stage with the sonnet tradition and its
language and ideas. In 1582 he was only 18 years old, had just contracted what was probably a
shotgun marriage with Anne Hathaway, was still living in Stratford, knew little of London and
the literary set, and yet (we are asked to believe) was able to write a poem which anticipated the
language of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella by at least nine years.
If the puns are insisted upon, it is always possible that Shakespeare sent off this sonnet to his
wife when he was writing the other ones, to assure her that all was well. The other sonnets were
hardly such as to promote marital concord, and one wonders how she might have responded to
their publication in 1609. The pun of line 14 'Anne saved my life' could equally apply to the dark
lady, if her name was Anne.
Shakespeare's Grammar
Shakespeare played a very influential role in standardizing English grammar. He revived the use of
suffixes in the grammar, which were hardly used in his time. Furthermore, his writing depicted the
rules that would be followed later in the English language. Also, Shakespeares spellings have been
changed, but his grammar has not been changed to date.
Usage Shifts
COMMENTS ON SONNETS
Shakespeare's complex sentence structures and use of now obsolete words lead many people
to think they are reading Old or Middle English. In fact, Shakespeare's works are written in Early
Modern English. Once you see a text of Old or Middle English you'll really appreciate how easy
Shakespeare is to understand (well, relatively speaking).
Any period in the history of the English language can be studied from the point of view of how it
was pronounced at the time. Old English,Chaucer and so on. In relation to Shakespeare, were
talking about the sound system, or phonology, that was in use in a period called early modern
English, and in the period specifically around about the year 1600. Now, its a period during
which pronunciation was changing very, very rapidly, so there isnt just one kind of OP, theres
an OP that evolves throughout the period. For example, early on in the period, people are
pronouncing the word musician, as musisian, Later in the period, it had evolved into musician. And, of course, later still, it became musician.
How do we know that that was original pronunciation?
Poetry is also extremely helpful in this regard because you know where the
intonation is automatically.
The Great Vowel Shift gives clues. Before the GVS, English vowels used the Latin
alphabet. So they were pronounced differently, especially the long vowels.
However, of great importance is The Ormulun. Orm, who wrote the Ormulun,
actually noted that he hated people who misprounounced English. So he spelling
many words phonetically. This gives us many clues and is probably one of the most
significant linguistic pieces in the history of the English language.
So, in short, the answer lies in earlier poetry, Ormulun, knowledge of the Great
Vowel Shift, and later poetry and phonetic dictionaries.
Conclusion
At the end of our analysis we can conclude, that during the whole period of language
development all aspects of language have changed, and we cannot say exactly at which
period starts this or that processand began the next. The periodisation of the development
of language is conventional and artificial. Nethertheless, it is obvious that grammar,
phonology and vocabulary have changed by the influence of regional dialects, historical
events, and significant inventions.
The OE period is called a period of full endings, i.e a large amount of inflections in
morphological structure existed. Through the ME period the most endings were lost, i.e.the
simplification of the words occurred. And during the period of Normalisation the fixing
pronounciation and standardization of vocabulary took place.
Beowulf was written in runic inscriptions, the symbols of which are now used in transcription
of MoE words. Chaucer works during the Late ME period, his literary language was based on
London dialect, known as classical ME.
In the present day, English is used in many parts of the world, as a first, second or foreign
language, having been carried from its country of origin by former colonial and imperial
activity, the slave trade, and recently, economic, cultural and educational prestige.
It continues to change at all linguistic levels, in both standard and non-standard varieties, in
response to external influences (e.g. modern communications technologies; contact with
other world languages) and pressures internal to the language system (e.g. the continuing
impulse towards an efficient, symmetrical sound-system; the avoidance of grammatical
ambiguity).
We need not fear or resist such change, though many people do, since the processes
operating now are comparable to those which have operated throughout the observable and
reconstructable history of English, and indeed of all other languages.