PROTO ENGLISH

• Languages are categorized by their genetic

relationship.

• Traces its original roots back to a Neolithic

people known as the
Proto-Indo-Europeans (between the 7th
and the 3rd millennium BC).

• Knowledge’s based on conjecture,

hypothesis and reconstruction, using the
“comparative method”.

• The original Indo-European language had

split into a dozen or more major language
groups or families, the main groups being:

• -Hellenic -Italic -Indo-Iranian

-Celtic -Germanic -Albanian
-Armenian -Balto-Slavic
PROTO ENGLISH
The recognition of this common ancestry of Indo-European
languages is usually attributed to the amateur linguist Sir
William Jones in 1786. Examples are:

• Father in English, Vater in German, pater in Latin and

Greek, fadir in Old Norse and pitr in ancient Vedic Sanskrit.

• Brother in English, broeer in Dutch, Brüder in German,

braithair in Gaelic, bróðr in Old Norse and bhratar in Sanskrit.

• Three in English, tres in Latin, tris in Greek, drei in German,

drie in Dutch, trí in Sanskrit.

• Is in English, is in Dutch, est in Latin, esti in Greek, ist in

Sir William Jones
Gothic, asti in Sanskrit.

• Me in English, mich or mir in German, mij in Dutch, mik or

mis in Gothic, me in Latin, eme in Greek, mam in Sanskrit.
PROTO ENGLISH
Germanic

• Branch of Indo-European: Proto-Germanic.

• Jacob Grimm pointed out that, certain consonants in the
Germanic family of languages have shifted somewhat
from the Indo-European base.
• Tribes: Tungri, Batavi, Menapii and Frisi.
• Dialects from: the Ingvaeonic. (The North Sea coast,
within modern Denmark, north-west Germany and the
Netherlands. ) and Anglo-Frisian.
• Grammatical inflection.
• Vocabulary came largely from the core Germanic stock,
although included a number of loanwords from Latin.

• Thus, Germanic words like English “foot” West Frisian foet, Danish fod, are in fact related to the
Latin ped, Sanskrit pada, etc, due to the shifting of the “p” to “f” and the “d” to “t”. Several other
consonants have also shifted (“d” to “t”, “k” to “h”, “t” to “th”) etc.

• This process explains many apparent root differences in English words of Germanic and Latinate
origin, for example: Father and paternal, ten and decimal, horn and cornucopia, three and triple, etc).
PROTO ENGLISH
The Celts
• Also known as Britons, had very little
impact on the English language,
leaving only a few little-used words
such as brock (an old word for a
badger), and a handful of
geographical terms like coombe (a
word for a valley) and crag and tor
(both words for a rocky peak).

• There is some speculation that Celtic

had some influence over the
grammatical development of English,
though, such as the use of the
continuous tense (e.g. “is walking”
rather than “walks”), which is not
used in other Germanic languages.
PROTO ENGLISH
• 55 BC Roman invasion of Britain by
Julius Caesar: They did not begin a
permanent occupation until 43 AD.

• AD 43 Roman invasion and

occupation. Beginning of Roman rule
of Britain:
• First invasion had a profound effect on
the culture of Britain.

• 200 “loanwords” coined by Roman

merchants and soldiers, such as win
(wine), butere (butter), caese (cheese),
piper (pepper), candel (candle), cetel
(kettle), disc (dish), cycene (kitchen),
ancor (anchor), belt (belt), sacc (sack),
catte (cat), plante (plant), rosa (rose),
cest (chest), pund (pound), munt
(mountain), straet (street), wic (village),
mil (mile), port (harbour), weall (wall),
etc.
• 436 Roman withdrawal from Britain complete
• The Romans, under attack, abandoned Britain to the
Celts in 410 AD, completing their withdrawal by
436 AD.
• Within a remarkably short time after this
withdrawal, the Roman influence on Britain, was all
but lost, as Britain settled in to the so-called Dark
Ages.
 PROTO ENGLISH
The vowel changes over time can be seen in the following example words, showing
the changes in their form over the last 2,000 years:

One Two Three Mother Heart

Proto-Germanic,
ainaz twai θriːz moːðeːr hertoː
c. AD 1
West Germanic,
ain twai θriju moːdar herta
c. AD 400

OLD ENGLISH
The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain
developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound
or look like English today. Native English speakers now would have great
difficulty understanding Old English…
OLD ENGLISH Frisian words
which were
The story starts with the arrival of Germanic incorporated into
tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century English,
AD.
miel (meal), laam
The Angles, The Saxons, The Jutes. (lamb), goes
(goose), bûter
Denmark and northern Germany. (butter), tsiis
(cheese), see
The Frisian people. (sea), boat (boat),
stoarm (storm),
The Angles came from "Englaland" and their rein (rain), snie
language was called "Englisc" - from which the words (snow), frieze
"England" and "English" are derived. (freeze), froast
(frost), mist
The local dialect in Angeln is, at times, even today (mist), sliepe
recognizably similar to English, and it has even more (sleep), blau
in common with the English of 1,000 years ago. These (blue), trije
dialects had most of the typical West Germanic (three), fjour
features, including a significant amount of (four), etc.
grammatical inflection.
OLD ENGLISH Number of place
names throughout
England ending with
The Germanic tribes settled in seven smaller kingdoms, known as the Anglo-Saxon
the Heptarchy: “-ing” meaning people
of (e.g.
The Saxons in Essex, Wessex and Sussex Worthing, Reading,
The Angles in East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria Hastings), “-ton”
The Jutes in Kent meaning enclosure or
village (e.g. Taunton,
The new Anglo-Saxon nation, once known in antiquity as Albion and Burton, Luton), “-ford”
then Britannia under the Romans, nevertheless became known as meaning a river
Anglaland or Englaland, later shortened to England, and its emerging crossing (e.g. Ashford,
Bradford, Watford)
language as Englisc (now referred to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon,
“-ham” meaning farm
or sometimes Anglo-Frisian). (e.g.

Over time, four major dialects of Old English gradually emerged: Nottingham,
Northumbrian in the north of England Birmingham,
Mercian in the midlands Grantham) and
West Saxon in the south and west “-stead” meaning a site
Kentish in the southeast. (e.g. Hampstead).
OLD ENGLISH
• The Celts and the early Anglo-Saxons used
an alphabet of runes.

• The first known written English sentence,

which reads "This she-wolf is a reward to my
kinsman", is an Anglo-Saxon runic
inscription on a gold medallion.

• The oldest surviving text of Old English

literature is usually considered to be
"Cædmon's Hymn“.

• And the longest was the ongoing

“Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”. But by far the best
known is the long epic poem “Beowulf”.

By the 10th Century, (e.g. the word

evil was spelled efel in the south-east,
and yfel elsewhere; land would be land
in West Saxon and Kentish, but lond
further north; etc).
OLD ENGLISH
• Later on in the year 850, Britain was
invaded by the Vikings. This, yet
again, created a cultural shift.
• The Vikings brought many words to
the English language that we still use
today.
• Viking expansion was finally
checked by Alfred the Great and, in
878, a treaty between the
Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings
established the Danelaw, its
influence can be seen today in the
• The Vikings spoke Old Norse.
Prepositions like to, with, by, etc
became more important to make
meanings clear, although many
inflections continued into Middle
English.
Number of place names of
Norse origin in northern
England (over 1,500),
including many place
names ending in “-by”,
“-gate”, “-stoke”, “-kirk”,
“-thorpe”, “-thwaite”,
“-toft” and other suffixes
(e.g. Whitby, Grimsby,
Ormskirk, Scunthorpe,
Stoke Newington,
Huthwaite, Lowestoft,
etc), as well as the “-son”
ending on family names
(e.g. Johnson, Harrison,
Gibson, Stevenson, etc) as
opposed to the
Anglo-Saxon equivalent
“-ing” (e.g. Manning,
Harding, etc).
Vocabulary: MIDDLE ENGLISH
Consider these pairs of Modern English words. The first of each pair is
derived from Old English and the second is of Anglo-Norman origin:

pig/pork, chicken/poultry, calf/veal, cow/beef, wood/forest,

sheep/mutton, house/mansion, worthy/honourable, bold/courageous,
freedom/liberty

The role of Anglo-Noman as the language of government and law can be

seen in the abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of
government which derive from Anglo-Norman: court, judge jury, appeal,
parliament.

Why is middle English called Anglo-Norman? (Because it is a mixture

of Old English and French)
This period of trilingual activity developed much of the flexible
triplicate synonymy of modern English. For instance, English has
three words meaning roughly "of or relating to king":kingly from
Old English, royal from French and regal from Latin. Likewise,
Norman and later - French influences led to some interesting word
pairs in English, such as the following, which both mean "someone
who defends": Warden from Norman, and Guardian from French.
How do you account with example for the triplicate synonymy of
English?
Grammar:
With its simplified case-ending
system, the grammar of Middle
English is much closer to that of
modem English than that of Old
English. The changes in English
grammar may be described as
a general reduction of inflections.
Endings of the noun and
adjective marking distinctions of
number and case and often of gender were so altered in
pronunciation as to lose their distinctive form and hence
their usefulness. To some extent the same thing is true of the
verb.
Middle English grammar was simpler than Old English
grammar, Comment.
Nouns:
How do you account for this feature of
Middle English "name" and "namen"?

Middle English retains only two distinct

noun-ending patterns from the more
complex system of inflection in
Old English.

The early Modem English words

engel (angel) and name (name)
demonstrate the two patterns:

The strong -(e)s plural form

has survived into Modern English.
The weak -(e)n form is now rare in the
standard language, used only in oxen,
children, brethren, and it is slightly less rare in some dialects, used in
eyen for eyes, shoon for shoes, hosen for hose(s), kine for cows, weak
singular plural singular nonvace engel nanen en engles namen engle
nume and been for bees.
Verbs:

How do you account for theses forms of Middle English:

ich here, pou spekest, and he comep?

As a general rule, the first person singular of verbs in the present

tense ends in -e ("ich here". "I hear"), the second person in -(e)st
("þou spekest"- "thou speakest"), and the third person in -ep ("he
comep" - "he cometh/he comes"). (p is pronounced like the
unvoiced th in "think").
Plural forms vary strongly by dialect, with southern dialects
preserving the Old English -ep, midland dialects showing -en
from about 1200 onward, and northern forms using -es in the
third person singular as well as the plural.

What are the two form of past verbs in Middle English?

In the past tense, weak verbs are formed by adding an -ed(e),

-d(e) or -t(e) ending. These, without their personal endings,
also form past participles, together with past-participle
prefixes derived from Old English: i-, y- and sometimes bi-.
Strong verbs, by contrast, form their past tense by changing
their stem vowel (e.g. binden -> bound), as in Modern
English.
Pronouns:
Middle English inherits its pronouns
from Old English, with the exception
of the third person plural:
The first and second person pronouns
in Old English survived into Middle
English largely unchanged, with only
minor spelling variations.
In the third person, the masculine
vocative singular became him.
The neuter form was replaced by a
form of the demonstrative that
developed into sche, but unsteadily
—heyr remained in some areas for a
long time. The lack of a strong standard written form between the thirteenth and
the fifteenth century makes these changes hard to map.
The overall trend was the gradual reduction in the number of different case
endings: the locative case disappeared, but the six other cases were partly retained
in personal pronouns, as inhe, him, his.
Pronunciation:
Generally, all letters in Middle English words were pronounced. (Silent letters in Modern
English generally come from pronunciation shifts, which means that pronunciation is no
longer closely reflected by the written form because of fixed spelling constraints imposed
by the invention of dictionaries and printing.)
Therefore knight was pronounced [ kniçt] (with a pronounced <k> and the <gh> as the
<ch> in German Knecht), not [ na t] as in Modern English.
In earlier Middle English all written vowels were pronounced. By Chaucers time,
however, the final <e> had become silent in normal speech, but could optionally be
pronounced in verse as the meter required (but was normally silent when the next word
began with a vowel).
Archaic characters:
What was the source of such characters in Middle English: æ, ð, þ?

The following characters can be found in Middle English text, direct holdovers from the Old
English Latin alphabet.

Letter Name Pronunciation

Ææ Ash [æ]
Ðð Eth [ð]
Þþ Thorn [θ]
Middle English Literature:
The term Middle English literature refers to the
literature written in Middle English, from the
12th century until the 1470s, when the Chancery
Standard, form of London-based English, became
widespread and the printing press regularized the
language.

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 –1400), known as the

Father of English literature, is widely considered
the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages.
Among his many works, which, he is best loved
today for The Canterbury Tales.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories

organized into a frame narrative or frame tale.
The tales (mostly in verse, although some are in
prose) are told as part of a story-telling contest by
a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a
journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint
Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
Development Modern English
Modern English evolved from Early Modern English
which was used from the beginning of the Tudor period
until the Interregnum and Restoration in England. The
works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible
are considered to be in Modern English, or more
specifically, are referred to as using Early Modern
English or Elizabethan English. By the late 18th century
the British Empire had facilitated the spread of Modern
English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance.
Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and
formal education all contributed to English becoming the
first truly global language. Modern English also
facilitated worldwide international communication.
English was adopted in North America, India, parts of
Africa, Australia, and many other regions. In the
post-colonial period, some of the newly created nations
that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue
using Modern English as the official language to avoid
the political difficulties inherent in promoting any one
indigenous language above the others.
Outline of changes

The following is an outline of the major changes in Modern

English compared to its previous form (Middle English), and also
some major changes in English over the course of the 20th
century. Note, however, that these are generalizations, and some
of these may not be true for specific dialects:

Morphology
"like", "same as", and "immediately" are used as conjunctions.
"The" becomes optional before certain combinations of noun
phrase and proper name.
Pronouns
Loss of distinction between "whom" and "who" in favour of the
latter.
The elevation of singular they to formal registers.
Placement of frequency adverbs before auxiliary verbs.
Verbs
Regularisation of English irregular verbs
Revival of the present ("mandative") English subjunctive
Elimination of "shall" to mark the future tense in the first
person
Do-support for the verb "have"
Increase in multi-word verbs
Development of auxiliary verbs "wanna", "gonna",
"gotta"
Usage of English progressive verbs in certain present
perfect and past perfect forms.
Phonology

Up until the American–British split (1600–1725), some

major phonological changes in English included:

Initial cluster reductions, like of /ɡn, kn/ into /n/:

making homophones of gnat and nat, and not and knot.
The meet–meat merger in most dialects: making the
words "meat", "threat" and "great" have three different
vowels, although all three words once rhymed.
The foot–strut split: so that "cut" and "put", and
"pudding" and "budding" no longer rhyme; and "putt"
and "put" are no longer homophones.
The lot–cloth split: the vowel in words like "cloth" and
"off" is pronounced with the vowel in "thought", as
opposed to the vowel used in "lot".
After the American-British split, further changes to
English phonology included:
Non-rhotic (/ɹ/-dropping) accents develop in the English of
England, Australasia, and South Africa.
Happy-tensing: final lax [ɪ] becomes tense [i] in words like happY.
Absent from some dialects.
Yod-dropping: The elision of /j/ in certain consonant clusters, like
those found in "chute", "rude", "blue", "chews", and "Zeus".
Wine–whine merger from the reduction of /hw/ to /w/ in all
national standard varieties of English, except Scottish and Irish.
In North American and Australasian English, /t, d/ are flapped or
voiced to [ɾ] between vowels.
Cot-caught merger the merger of /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ to /ɑ/ in many dialects
of General American.
Syntax
Sentences can be classified as follows:
• (A) simple, containing one clause and predication: Jane knows this country
• (B) multiple or compound, containing two or more coordinate clauses: Jane has been
here before, and she knows this country
• (C) complex, containing one or more main clauses and one or more subordinate
clauses: Jane, who has been here before, knows this country or Because she has been here
before, Jane knows this country
Simple, declarative, affirmative sentences have two main patterns with five subsidiary
patterns within each. Verb and complement together form the predicate. “Complement” is
used here to cover both the complement and the object of traditional grammarians.
The table listing sentences (1) through (5) provides examples of the first main pattern. The
sentences of the first pattern consist of three parts: subject, verb, and complement. In Jane
knows this country (1), the complement is the direct object of a transitive verb; in Science is
organized knowledge (2), it is a predicative nominal group forming the second component
of an equation linked to the first part by the meaningless copula is; in Elizabeth becomes
queen (3), it is a predicative noun linked with the subject by the meaningful copula
becomes; in The captain falls sick (4), it is a predicative adjective; and in Nothing passes
unobserved (5), it is a predicative past participle.
Alphabet

The letter thorn (þ), which began to be

replaced by th as early as Middle English,
finally fell into disuse. In Early Modern
English printing thorn was represented
with the Latin y, which appeared similar
to thorn in blackletter typeface (𝖞). The
last vestige of the letter was in ligatures of
thorn, ye (thee), yt (that), yu (thou), which
were still seen occasionally in the King
James Bible of 1611 and in Shakespeare's
Folios.
The letters i and j, previously written as a
single letter, began to be distinguished;
likewise for u and v. This was a common
development of the Latin alphabet during
this period.
Consequently, Modern English came to
use a purely Latin alphabet of 26 letters.
Morphology / Inflection
Modern English nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and The forms of verbs are
verbs are inflected. Adverbs, prepositions, not complex. Only the
conjunctions, and interjections are invariable. substantive verb (to be)
Most English nouns have plural inflection in (-e)s, has eight forms: be, am,
but that form shows variations in pronunciation in the is, are, was, were,
words cats (with a final s sound), dogs (with a final z being, been. Strong
sound), and horses (with a final iz sound), as also in verbs have five forms:
the 3rd person singular present-tense forms of verbs:
ride, rides, rode, riding,
cuts (s), jogs (z), and forces (iz). Seven nouns have
mutated (umlauted) plurals: man, men; woman, ridden. Regular or weak
women; tooth, teeth; foot, feet; goose, geese; mouse, verbs customarily have
mice; louse, lice. Three have plurals in -en: ox, oxen; four: walk, walks,
child, children; brother, brethren. Some remain walked, walking. Some
unchanged (e.g., deer, sheep, moose, grouse). Five of that end in t or d have
the seven personal pronouns have distinctive forms three forms only: cut,
for subject and object (e.g., he/him, she/her). cuts, cutting.
Adjectives have distinctive endings for comparison
(e.g., comparative bigger, superlative biggest), with
several irregular forms (e.g., good, better, best).
Morphology / Affixation
Affixes, word elements attached to words, may either precede, as
prefixes (do, undo; way, subway), or follow, as suffixes (do, doer; way, Suffixes may
wayward). They may be native (overdo, waywardness), Greek
(hyperbole, thesis), or Latin (supersede, pediment). come to be
Modern technologists greatly favour the neo-Hellenic attached to
prefixes macro-“long, large,” micro- “small,” para- stems quite
“alongside,” poly- “many,” and the Latin mini-
“small,” with its antonym maxi-. The early Internet era fortuitously,
popularized cyber- “of computers or computer
networks” and mega- “vast.” Greek and Latin affixes
but, once
have become so fully acclimatized that they can occur attached, they
together in one and the same word, as, indeed, in
ac-climat-ize-d, just used, consisting of a Latin prefix are likely to be
plus a Greek stem plus a Greek suffix plus an English permanent.
inflection. Suffixes are bound more closely than
prefixes to the stems or root elements of words. At the same
Consider, for instance, the wide variety of agent time, one suffix
suffixes in the nouns actor, artisan, dotard, engineer,
financier, hireling, magistrate, merchant, scientist, can perform
secretary, songster, student, and worker many functions.
Composition
Composition, or compounding, is concerned with free forms. The primary compounds
cloverleaf, gentleman, and (less obviously, because of the spelling) already show the
collocation of two free forms. They differ from word groups or phrases in stress, juncture,
or vowel quality or by a combination of these. Thus, already differs from all ready in stress
and juncture, cloverleaf from clover leaf in stress, and gentleman from gentle man in vowel
quality, stress, and juncture. In describing the structure of compound words it is necessary
to take into account the relation of components to each other and the relation of the whole
compound to its components. These relations diverge widely in, for example, the words
cloverleaf, icebreaker, breakwater, blackbird, peace-loving, and paperback. In cloverleaf
the first component noun is attributive and modifies the second, as also in the terms
aircraft, beehive, landmark, lifeline, network, and vineyard. Icebreaker, however, is a
compound made up of noun object plus agent noun, itself consisting of verb plus agent
suffix, as also in the words bridgebuilder, landowner, metalworker, minelayer, and
timekeeper..
 Vocabulary
The vocabulary of Modern English is approximately a quarter Germanic (Old
English, Scandinavian, Dutch, German) and two-thirds Italic or Romance
(especially Latin, French, Spanish, Italian), with copious and increasing
importations from Greek in science and technology and with
considerable borrowings
from more than 300 other
languages. Names of many
basic concepts and things
come from Old English or
Anglo-Saxon: heaven and
earth, love and hate, life and
death, beginning and end,
day and night, month and
year, heat and cold, way and
path, meadow and stream.
Orthography

The Latin alphabet originally had 20 letters, the present English alphabet minus J, K, V, W,
Y, and Z. The Romans themselves added K for use in abbreviations and Y and Z in words
transcribed from Greek. After its adoption by the English, this 23-letter alphabet developed
W as a ligatured doubling of U and later J and V as consonantal variants of I and U. The
resultant alphabet of 26 letters has both uppercase, or capital, and lowercase, or small,
letters.
English spelling is based for the most part on that of the 15th century, but pronunciation
has changed considerably since then, especially that of long vowels and diphthongs. The
extensive change in the pronunciation of vowels, known as the Great Vowel Shift, affected
all of Geoffrey Chaucer’s seven long vowels, and for centuries spelling remained untidy. If
the meaning of the message was clear, the spelling of individual words seemed
unimportant. In the 17th century compositors began to adopt fixed spellings for practical
reasons, and in the order-loving 18th century uniformity became more and more
fashionable. Since Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755),
orthography has remained fairly stable. Numerous changes, such as music for musick (c.
1880) and fantasy for phantasy (c. 1920), have been accepted, but spelling has nevertheless
continued to be in part unphonetic. Attempts have been made at reform. Indeed, every
century has had its reformers since the 13th, when an Augustinian canon named Orm
devised his own method of differentiating short vowels from long by doubling the
succeeding consonants or, when this was not feasible, by marking short vowels with a
superimposed breve mark (˘).
William Caxton, who set up his wooden
printing press at Westminster in 1476, was
much concerned with spelling problems
throughout his working life. Noah Webster
produced his Spelling Book, in 1783, as a
precursor to the first edition (1828) of his
American Dictionary of the English Language.
The 20th century produced many zealous
reformers. Three systems, supplementary to
traditional spelling, were proposed for different
purposes: (1) the Initial Teaching (Augmented
Roman) Alphabet (ITA) of 44 letters used by
some educationists in the 1970s and ’80s in the
teaching of children under age seven; (2) the
Shaw alphabet of 48 letters, designed in the
implementation of the will of George Bernard
Shaw; and (3) the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), constructed on the basis of one
symbol for one individual sound and used by
many trained linguists. Countless other systems
have been worked out from time to time, such as
R.E. Zachrisson’s “Anglic” (1930) and Axel
Wijk’s Regularized English (1959).