FLSH Marrakesh

Cady Ayad University, Morocco

Department of English language and literature

An Introduction to The History of the English Language

Abdelali ELBOUHSSINI

2015

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Introduction

The history of the English language can be divided into three broad periods. In spite of
the fact that there are no exact boundaries between these periods it was agreed that "old
English covers from the first Anglo-Saxon settlements in England, from about 450 to about
1100, Middle English from about 1100 to about 1500, and Modern English from 1500 to the
present day."(Barber, 200: 39).

1. Old English

1.1 England before English

At this stage it is worth to mention that English was not the first language spoken in
England, as some people may say. In prehistory England was inhabited by races referred to
as Paleolithic Man, but there language(s) is not known. Other races followed, they were
referred to as Neolithic Man. They inhabited England around 5000.B.C. Their language is
also dead but it is believed that the Basques who live in Spain still represent the last remnant
of the race. The first Indo-European language spoken in England and about which there is a
definite knowledge is Celtic (Bough, 1978:44).

1.2. The coming of English to England

When the Romans came to England the people in the island were speaking Celtic. The
Romans’ language Latin did not replace Celtic. Latin was spoken in particular by the upper
classes and the inhabitants of cities and towns .In about 449 A.D new invaders came to
England, the Germanic tribes. They were three tribes, the Jutes, Saxons and Angles. They
had different dialects; the mixture of these dialects gave birth to Old England. The latter was
not an entirely uniformed language because at the time a distinction can be made between
four dialects of Old English; Northumbrian, Mercian –these were found in the region north
of the Thames settled by the Angles-, west Saxon –it was located in the west Saxon kingdom
in the southwest_ and finally Kentish, it was associated with the southeast region (Bough:
44-52).

Of these the West Saxon dialect was recognized as the history standard. The Old
English epic poem Beowulf was possibly written in an Anglican dialect (Mercian,
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Northumbrian), but the only surviving manuscript is in West Saxon. Although the West
Saxon dialect was the literary standard of a unified England in the late Anglo-Saxon period,
it is not the direct ancestor of Modern English, the latter may be developed from an Anglican
dialect (Barber :104-106).

1.3. English as a Germanic –Indo –European language

1.3.1. The Indo –European language

The term Indo- European language is used to refer to that huge language family which
includes a number of languages from Asia and Europe. This language family is divided into
a number of branches which themselves include many languages.

All these branches have descended from a single language referred to as proto-Indo –
European. They are dialects of the proto- system. In this case these dialects are said to be
related. If the discussion goes on in this way it will lead us to raise questions about the proto-
Indo – European and the people who spoke this initial language. An archeologist named
Marija Gimbutas suggested that “the people speaking the proto-Indo –European language
where a semi-nomadic pastoral people in the Chalcolithic stage of culture, living on the
south Russian steppes in the fifth millennium BC, where they formed a loosely linked group
of communities with common gods and similar social organization."(Barber: 79).

1.3.2. The Germanic languages

Germanic is one of the branches of the Indo-European language family. It was merely a
dialect of proto-Indo-European, but as the course of language evolution went on it developed
into a number of dialects which are now standard languages. English, the language in
question, has descended from the Germanic branch, which can be referred to as Proto-
Germanic. The people who spoke Proto-Germanic lived in north of Europe. They were
described by Romans authors as Germani. In about 300 B.C, they began to expand in all
directions. As a result of their expansions, the Proto-Germanic language began to develop
into there main branches: West Germanic, North Germanic and East Germanic. English
belongs to the West Germanic branch, also does Dutch, German and Frisian (ibid: 81-86).

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 In terms of its pronunciation, Proto-Germanic was dominated by stress accent, unlike
Proto-Indo-European which made great use of musical accent. Proto-Germanic put stress on
the first syllable, but in Proto –Indo- European stress didn't have a uniform position. The
case of stress in Proto-Germanic resulted in the weakening or even the loss of unstressed
syllables at the end of words, for example: "to bear” which was something like *bheronom, it
developed into Proto -Germanic * beranan. The final -an was weakened and then lost. The
Old English form is "beran", the final -an became -en, giving early middle English "beren".
The final -n was lost in Middle English, and the word became 'bere'. At the end of the
Middle English period, the final -e was lost, and the modern from is simply the single
syllable 'bear'(ibid: 92-93).

Concerning its vocabulary, Proto -Germanic had a vocabulary which seemed strange to
it because it does not exist in other Indo European languages .These words are related to
ships and seafaring: ship, sail, boat, keel, sheet, stay, float and sea. May be these words were
developed by Germanic peoples after the dispersal of the Indo-Europeans since they
"reached the coast and took to the sea." (ibid: 98).

1.4. The invasions and their influences on old English

Old English was not merely what the Jutes, the Angles and the Saxons produced, these
formed the basic grammar and the largest part of old English vocabulary .Other elements
contributed to the development of what is now modern English. Old English was influenced
first by the Celtic language. The vocabulary of Old English was reach in Celtic instances of
words which the Anglo-Saxon heard in the speech of the native population and adopted
them. The evidences for the contact between the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts are found
chiefly in place names, for example 'Devonshire' contains the tribal name 'Dumonii',
'Cornwall' means the 'Cornubian Welsh', and ‘Cumberland’ is the 'land of the cymry or
ɒritons’. The name 'London' most likely goes back to a Celtic designation (ɒough: 72.73).

Other Celtic loan words came to Old English .hey were either learned by the Anglo-
Saxons through their daily contact with the Celts or introduced by the Irish missionaries in
the north. The first ones include ‘binn’ (basket, crib), ‘bratt’( cloak ), and ‘brocc’ (brock or
badger ). The second ones include ‘ancor’ (nermit), ‘stær’ ( history), etc ( ibid:74).
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 The fact that Celtic did not highly influence Old English does not mean that the Celts (
Britons ) were all killed by the Anglo-Saxon conquerors , they did live with each other but
they were a defeated people whose language was not prestigious than that of the conquerors (
Barber :101).

Latin was the language of a high civilization, that of the Roman Empire. The contact
between the Anglo-Saxons and Latin began before the Anglo-Saxons came to England .The
Anglo- Saxons acquired a considerable number of Latin words through the various relations
they had with the Roman. Later when they came to England they learned other Latin words
from the Celts. The old English word ‘ceaster’ used to refer to a town or enclosed
community; it represents the Latin word ‘castra’ (camp). It's an element of a number of
English place names like ‘Chester’, ‘Colchester’, ‘Donshester’, ‘Manchester’, and many
others. Moreover, when Christianity was brought to England in 597 Old English was
affected to a great extent by Latin. ‘Church’ and ‘bishop’ are Latin word, also words like
‘abbot’ , ‘alms’, ‘altar’ , ‘angel’, ‘anthen’, ‘ark’ , ‘candle’ , ‘canons’, ‘disciple’ , ‘epistle’ ,
‘hymn’, ‘litany’ ‘manna’ , etc ( Bough: 75-84).

The Scandinavians influenced old English as well, and this manifested in the Vikings. At
a point in history the Viking were neighbor of Anglo-Saxon and closely related to them in
blood and language. They inhabited the Scandinavian Peninsula and Denmark, they are
Germanic as well (ibid: 91).

The attacks of the Viking on Europe took place between about 750 and 1050. The
Vikings consisted of Swedes Norwegians and domes. These attacked England roundabout
800, and they repeated their attacks 838. They also contributed to the influence of English
place-names as in ‘Grimsb’, ‘crimsthrope’, ‘Micklethwaite’, etc. More than that they
influenced the English speech too, the verb ‘to take’ is from Old Norse ‘take ', but Old
English had ' niman' , so the origin of 'take' is Old Norse, Scandinavian . Other words include
anger, to cast, to die, and ill, from Old Norse ‘angr’ ‘kasta’, ‘deyja’, and ‘illr’. The old
English corresponding items were: ‘wræƤƤ’, ‘weorpan’, ‘steorfan’ and ‘yfel’, these have
become in Modern English: wrath, warp, starve and evil (Barber : 127-131).

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 Sometimes the Old Norse (North Germanic branch to which the modern Scandinavian
language – Norwegian , Swedish, Danish , Icelandic ,Faroese and Gutnish _belong) and Old
English words would give the same Modern English word but with difference in meaning,
like the modern English form 'gate' came from Old English plural form 'gatu ' and from Old
Norse 'gata ' which meant way , street , or road ( ibid :131-132).

The last conquest that England witnessed in its history was the Norman. It took place in
1066 and it influenced English a great deal. In Normandy, North France, there were Viking
rulers from Scandinavia. Their language melted in the French culture and by the middle of
the eleventh century the Normans had lost their Scandinavian speech. During the Anglo-
Saxon rule over England the English had developed a sophisticated civilization. When they
were invaded by the Normans, the latter’s language, French, became the language of the
upper class. Church and education were dominated by French; this was the case with the
aristocracy and the court as well for two hundred years. Less account was made of people
who didn't speak French. The latter was given prestige at that time, but English people did
not make their language vanish, they continued speaking it. However, there was no literary
standard form of English; even the West Saxon lost its place as a literary standard language.
The position of French rose from the ashes of Latin which was dominant before the
conquest. However, in the thirteenth century the balance was tipped away from French back
to English. At this stage Middle English was given birth (ibid: 134-136).

1.5. The grammar of Old English

In terms of sound change, the umlaut rule was present in old English, for example the
back vowel ᾰ was fronted and became ǣ, as in 'dᾰl’ (portion) and 'dǣlan (to divide). The
same thing happened to u which was fronted and became y, as in the old English word 'full'
which became 'fyllan'(ibid:113-115).

In terms of morphology, Old English made some simplifications on the Proto-Germanic

system. There were four types of case in old English: nominative, accusative, genitive and
dative. In its verbal system, Old English inherited a two tense system from Proto-Germanic,
present and past. In the present subjunctive there was one form of the singular 'helpe', and
one form for the plural ‘helpen’. In past subjunctive also there were the singular form 'hulpe'
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and the plural form 'hulpen'. There was also a past participle 'holpen', and a present participle
'helpende'(ibid: 116-117).

In terms of syntax, Old English was free in ordering words thanks to its inflectional
system, unlike Modern English. It had three types of word order for the clauses: S-V-O, V-S
O, and S-O-V. The order V-S-O was confined to questions, as the following example shows:
hwȳ didst þū Ƥæt? (why did you that). It can be seen that Old English did not make use of
the auxiliary ‘do’ in questions, nor in negation (ibid:118-119).

In terms of vocabulary, Old English formed adjectives form nouns by means of suffixes
and prefixes. The word ‘blōdig’ (bloody) consists of ‘blōd’ plus the suffix –ig. ‘Ƥancful’
consists of Ƥanc and suffix –ful. Also, nouns could be formed from adjectives: for example,
the proto-Germanic suffix *-‘iƤo’ could be added to adjectives in order to form abstract
nouns. Thus, from the adjective –fūl (fool, dirty) was formed the old English noun *fūliƤa,
because of umlaut it became fȳlƤ (impurity, filth) (ibid: 120-121).

Old English formed new words by compounding as well, for example: 'literature' was
written as 'bōccræft' (book-skill).

2. Middle English

As mentioned before, French dominated everything in England from the Norman

Conquest to the thirteenth century. Then the balance tipped away from French to English.
One of the events that contributed to the triumph of English was King John’s loss of
Normandy to the French crown at the beginning of the thirteenth century. In addition,
nationalism began to arise in England, which must have promoted the prestige of English.
Literature was written in English, and Chaucer was one of its major figures. Administration
was also dominated by English rather than French, and so was education. All these gave
birth to a new standard language in England, it was descended from the dialect in which
Chaucer was writing, East Midland (ibid:141-145).

2.1. The dialects of Middle English

Middle English was consisting of four dialects: the East Midland, West
Midland,(descended from the Mercian dialect of Old English) , South Eastern (descended
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from the Kentish dialect of Old English),and the southern dialect (descended from West
Saxon dialect of Old English)(ibid: 138).

2.2. Foreign influences

After it was once the dominant language in England, French came to the point of loss
and death in the island. However, it influenced English heavily especially at the level of
vocabulary. Many of the French loan words reflect the cultural and political dominance of
the Normans (war, the arts, law, fashion).Titles of rank words include ‘baron’, ‘count’,
‘duke’, ‘marquees’, ‘peer’, ‘prince’, and ‘sovereign’. Words related to administration include
‘chancellor’, ‘council’, ‘country’, ‘crown’, ‘government’, ‘nation’, ‘parliament’, ‘people’
and ‘state’. In addition to other words related to law, religion, military, art and fashion
(ibid:145-147).

French words that have corresponding items in English are different in pronunciation.
The word ‘age’ which came from old French ‘age’ is pronounced differently, in English it’s
pronounced with [dȝ] at the end, in French it’s pronounced with [ȝ]. In French the original
[a:] is retained, in English it became [ei] (ibid: 147).

2.3. The grammar of Middle English

The Norman Conquest played a major role in the transition from Old to Middle English.
The Normans disregarded the Old English spelling and introduced many of Norman French
conventions. The symbol 'g' was introduced to represent the stops while the traditional 'ȝ’
retained for the fricatives. ’V’ or ‘u’ was introduced also to represent the voiced ‘v’ which
was represented by ‘f’ in old English. The same thing happened to ‘z’ which was no longer
represented by‘s’. Similarly, ’th’ replaced both ‘ɖ’ and ‘ð’.[kw],[ʃ],[dȝ],[k] and [tʃ] were
represented in old English respectively as ‘cw’, ‘sc’, ‘cg’ , ‘c’ , ‘c’ .These were changed to
middle English ‘qu’(queen), ‘ss’/’sch’ , ‘sh’ (fiss/fisch,fish), ‘I’/ ‘j’/ ‘g’ (iuge/juge/egge),
‘k’/’c’ (kin/cool), and ‘ch’ (chin) (ibid:151-152).

Concerning phonological change, old English ‘æ’ disappeared in middle English, all the
old English diphthongs became monophthonized (heorte ‘heart’ ~ herte), new diphthongs
were developed (mægden ~ meiden), and the vowels in unstressed syllables became

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weakened. Moreover, some vowels were lengthened in this period; we find them in words
like: old, bold, cold, told, etc. These vowels were short in old English (ibid: 153-155).

In terms of morphology, the high inflectional system of Old English was reduced in
Middle English. The first reason behind this was the mixture of Old English with Old Norse.
The second reason was the loss and weakening of unstressed syllables at the end of words,
this disrupted many of the distinctive inflections of old English, for example, Old English
word final-a, -u, and -e all became Middle English -e ; -an , -on, -un, and -um became -en
which was later reduced to-e (ibid:157).

In addition, the early Middle English retained the old English four cases of nouns. But
later the number was reduced to three: nominative and accusative singular (eye), the genitive
singular (‘eyes’ of an eye), and one for all the plural uses (eyen ‘eyes’). Then the genitive
singular and the plural fell into one, this gave only two forms:’ eye’ and ‘eyes’. Thus, this is
typical for many modern English words in which we have only two forms (boy, boys), few
nouns however have four forms like: man, man’s, men, men’s (ibid: 159).

In terms of syntax, the decay of the inflectional system led to the establishment of S-V-
O order as the dominant one in Middle English. It’s the normal one, as it still is. S-O-V order
in clauses disappeared in early Middle English. The V-S-O order persisted but disappeared in
the seventeenth century. The decay of the inflectional system also led to the use of
prepositions to function instead of word endings’ function. In, with, and by were frequently
used in middle English than in old English, for example the following Old English sentence
made use of any preposition: ‘mildheortnysse Drihtnes full is ‘eorɖe’ (the earth is filled with
the mercy of God) (ibid:161).

Concerning the verbal system, the inflectional system of verbs in Old English was
reduced in Middle and Modern English. The system of tenses became wide instead of the
only past and present of Old English. The tense system was built up by the use of the
auxiliaries be, have and later do, as well as the modals shall, should, will, would, could, etc.
The future was established with shall and will; have and be were used in the perfect, be in
the passive too. They replaced the perfect tenses of Old English ‘habban’ or ‘bēon’, and the
passive forms with ‘bēon’ or ‘weorϸan’. The continuous tense was formed with be and the
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present participle (he is coming, we were eating). The continuous tense didn’t descend from
Old English, but from Middle English sentences like: ‘he was areading’, which is in Modern
English ‘he was reading’ (ibid: 161-163).

3. Early modern English (16 and 17 centuries)

London city was located in the East Midland district, the origin of East Midland dialect
from which the Middle English standard language raised. As the latter became more
influential London as well became more important as the capital of England in all fields. It
can be said that “the history of standard English is almost a history of London English”
(Baugh: 194). In the course of the fifteenth century London English was recognized as the
standard language of speech and writing. At this stage many factors contributed to the
triumph of English in the modern period. These are the printing press, the spread of popular
education, the increased communication and its means, as well as the social consciousness
(ibid: 199).

The printing press was brought to England in 1476 and books were copied at high
levels, especially in Latin. The latter was the rival of English. It had prestige in that it was
the means of international learning. It was the language of knowledge because many scholars
wrote in it. It was also the language of religion throughout the continent. However, it was
religion that contributed to the triumph of English over Latin. To illustrate, during the
religious reformation (Protestantism) books and pamphlets were written in English. Not only
that, the Bible also was translated into English and Latin was replaced in church by English.
In fact, Latin was used by priests at the expense of ordinary people who could not use it. For
this reason Protestants wanted English to take over Latin which maintained power for priests
while ordinary people were kept in ignorance(Barber:175-176).

Moreover, national feeling led to the rise of the modern nation-state (nationalism) in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The feeling of belonging to the Christendom under the
power of Latin was disrupted by the feeling of belonging to a nation-state. This factor
strongly revived pride and prestige in the national language (English, French, Italian,
etc.).Nationalism provoked people to create a vernacular literature that challenges that of

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Greece and Rome. In England for instance, Spenser and Milton wanted to do for English
what Homer and Virgil did before for Greek and Latin (ibid: 176).

3.1. Foreign influences

English won supremacy over Latin. However, Latin had a great influence on English.
During the Renaissance a number of Latin words came to English, especially between 1580
and1660.Some of these are: genius, species, cerebellum, militia, radius, torpor, squalor,
apparatus, focus, lens, and antenna. It is noticeable that these words were taken to English
with their Latin spelling. Other loan words were given the English form by replacing the
Latin ending –ātus with –ate as in ‘desperate’. The ending of some words was even omitted,
the case with ‘complexus ~ complex’, etc (ibid: 177-179).

French was the second major source of influence on early modern English. The French
loan words included the military ones like bayonet and feint; scientific words like anatomy
and muscle; many words were general like docility, entrance, and invite. Greek also
influenced English by some words like anathema, cosmos, larynx and pathos. English
borrowed a few words from Italian and Spanish, too (ibid: 181-182).

English based also on word formation in its early modern period. Words were formed
through processes such as affixation, compounding, and conversion (a word is derived from
another word without changing the form: to laugh ~ a laugh) (ibid: 182-183).

3.2. Early Modern English grammar

In this period speakers and writers had a choice of the form they could use.
Shakespeare did not inflect the present- plural of verbs like today’s English, but Chaucer did
that when he writes verbs like ‘han’ and ‘desiren’. The third person singular was formed with
–es, as well as with –eth morpheme. But Shakespeare did not inflect the verb in this case, we
notice this when he says: he go, thou go. The plural marker –es was common in
Shakespeare’s time. It developed its three allomorphs /-s/, /-z/ and /-iz/.Also Shakespeare in
this period made use of another demonstrative which is ‘yon’ or ‘yond(er).It implies that the
thing mentioned is remote from both the speaker and hearer, and it can be seen. The pronoun
determiner ‘its’ appeared in this period as well. It was traditionally formed as ‘his’. The

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relative pronoun who, which, and that were common in Shakespeare’s works, but their usage
was not restricted as it is today, who could be used to refer to a thing, and which was used
when referring to people. Moreover, the perfect was often formed with ‘have’. The auxiliary
‘do’ was optional in early Modern English; Shakespeare could say ‘I assure you’ or ‘I do
assure you’, ‘I know not’ or ‘I do not know’, etc. Concerning word order, V-S and V-S-O
were not common in this period, especially with sentences beginning with adverbs like now,
so, then, there, and thus. S-V order was quite common (ibid: 183-188).

The Great Vowel Shift was the most considerable change in pronunciation during the
period of early modern English. It took place in the early fifteenth century. The change was
concerned with the quality of all long vowels. The two close Middle English vowels ī and ū
were diphthongized and other long vowels moved up to the available space. Middle English
ū (spelt as ou in house or ow in how) changed from [u:] to the diphthong [ʊu] which
developed to present day [ ʊ].

The Great Vowel Shift shows that the number of long front vowels was four whereas
the long back vowels were three. But the number became equal during the sixteenth century
when Middle English diphthong [ u] changed from [aʊ] to the single long vowel [ :] as in
‘do’. The Great Vowel Shift made it move closer to the existing [ɔ:] (ibid: 193).

In general the Great Vowel Shift is about the fact that “all long vowels were raised by a
degree of tongue height and the high vowels /i:/ and/u:/ were diphthongized.”(ɒynon: 82).

4. Late Modern English

It was seen that English in its early modern period was triumphed and reached a
considerable position. However, many things in the language were not settled, for example,
the grammar contained certain forms governed by choice, variations in pronunciation, and
the unfixed spelling. These were the reasons behind the need to fix and standardize the
language in its late modern period (Baugh: 253).

The changes that took place in the early period of modern English, including the Great
Vowel Shift, were completed by 1700.Third person forms like ‘loveth’ and the pronouns
‘thou’ and ‘thee’ disappeared from the language, especially the educated and standard

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language. There remained only slight differences between English of that time and present
day English in morphology, syntax, and vocabulary, for instance today ‘sang’ was written as
‘sund’(ibid:200).

4.1. Standardization of spelling

The differences in terms of spelling can be illustrated by examples like ‘carry’d’

(carried), ‘answer’d’ (answered), ‘publick’ (public).The spelling was not standardized in
both Middle English and its early modern period. It varied from writer to writer. One may
even notice that proper names were not fixed, Shakespeare used to write his name in two
ways: Shakespeare and Shakspeare. A powerful element that appeared to unify spelling was
printing. This point was achieved by the end of the early modern period in printed books.
The problem was that the accomplished standard spelling was archaic and represented the
pronunciation of pre-Vowel Shift. As a result, many letters are dumb in present day English
such as ‘k’ and ‘gh’ in ‘knight’,‘t’ in ‘castle’, and ‘w’ in ‘wrong’, etc. Even where there is no
distinction, the latter can be made as in ‘meet/meat’ and ‘sea/see’ (ibid: 201).

4.2. The need to regulate and rule English

To standardize spelling was not the entire purpose, it was only one aspect of the general
standardization. From the seventeenth century onwards scholars felt that English was in need
for rules and regulations. The first grammars and dictionaries appeared in order to do this.
These were highly developed in the eighteenth century. They had authority and their function
was prescribing the correct forms and usages. It was only until the seventeenth century that
English dictionaries came to existence, before that there were two-language dictionaries
(French-English). The first English dictionary was published in 1604; it was a dictionary of
hard words. Another one was published in 1676; it included a high number of words
(25.000). As they progress, dictionaries included more information, such as etymology and
differences of style and acceptability (archaic words were distinguished from current ones)
(ibid: 203).

Grammar books began to appear in the sixteenth century as well. They were influenced
by the grammars of Latin. As an illustration, double negatives, double comparatives and
double superlatives were rejected by correctors. Besides, the prescription of the grammar
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was motivated by the fact that languages must conform to universal grammar. The one to
which English must conform turned out to be the Latin grammar. As a result, certain cases
were argued such as the personal pronouns (whether ‘it’s me’ or ‘it’s I’). The past tense and
past participles of strong verbs were also argued. They were not differentiated in many verbs
like ‘I have wrote’ and ‘he had chose’. Later the correctors made such distinctions ‘written’
and ‘chosen’ (ibid: 204-206).

The prescriptive works that were in this period were mainly addressed to the gentry. But
later when language became an important social marker money or dress were no longer
enough to mark the gentry from other social groups (ibid: 204-207).

4.3. The verb system

The correctors tried to look at the active /passive forms of verbs. They found that an
active present participle can not be used in the passive form as in this unacceptable sentence
‘the house is building’. Its passive form ‘the house is being built’ appeared only in the late
eighteenth century. In earlier times this passive form was not possible because the
progressive and the passive can not be combined, unlike the other markings of the verb that
can be combined(perfect + passive, past+ perfect, etc ) (ibid: 207-209).

Phrasal verbs expanded a great deal in this period. Old English used prefixes in
expanding the meaning of verbs, for example: rīdan = to ride, æfterrīdan =ride after. Phrasal
verbs began to appear starting from late Middle English (ibid: 209).

4.4. Changes in pronunciation

Since 1700 there have been only some minor changes like the disappearance of /r/
before consonants and before a pause, this is typical for British English. /r/ was used to be
pronounced in words like ‘person’, ‘barn’ and ‘father’, but today it’s no longer the case. In
‘father’ it’s pronounced only when it occurs before a vowel. Its disappearance and
weakening began in the sixteenth century. However some varieties of English have retained
this /r/. These varieties are called ‘rohtic’ as opposed to ‘non-rohtic’. The loss of /r/ has
caused three kinds of vowel change: lengthening, for example: arm and bark; cord and horse
had original short [a] and [ɔ], these were lengthened after the loss of /r/ and they became / :/

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and /ɔ:/, change of quality, for example ‘herb’, ‘birth’, and ‘curse’, had short vowels [ε], [ı]
and [ʊ]. The loss of /r/ made them change to [ǝ]. The latter was lengthened to [ǝ:] in the
eighteenth century and developed into present day /ε:/, diphthongization is the fact that an [ǝ]
developed whenever /r/ occurred after a long vowel or a diphthong, for example, ‘fire’
developed from [fair] to [faiǝr], in ‘bower’ from [baʊr] to [baʊǝr].When /r/ was lost in the
eighteenth century these became [faiǝ] and [baʊǝ] (ibid: 210-212).

4.5. The scientific vocabulary

The expansion of scientific vocabulary was an aspect of the scientific influence on

English. Scientists needed an enormous number of technical terms. The technical vocabulary
was estimated to reach millions of items, some familiar words are: atom, cell, nucleus, volt,
etc. The sources of the scientific vocabulary are various. Scientists take words already in
everyday use and give it a scientific meaning, like salt in chemistry, fruit in botany, parasite
in zoology, etc. Another source is taking words from another language, for example: cortex,
equilibrium, genus, formula, stamen and tibia have come from Latin. Iron, iris, larynx,
pyrites, and thorax have come from Greek, Cobatt, paraffin, and quartz from German. Other
words are divided from the names of scientists such as: coulomb (French), gauss and ohm
(German), volt (Italian). The farad, the Kelvin, and the watt are named in honour of Michael
Faraday (Englishman), of Lord Kelvin(ɒelfast) and James Watt(Scot). It’s worth to mention
that these were not the only sources of scientific vocabulary (ibid: 215).

4.6. The expansion of general vocabulary

The vocabulary of a language does not expand only in the scientific framework; new
words appear to express concepts, attitudes, and new things. This expansion is general in that
it covers different fields like finance, politics, the arts, fashion and others (ibid: 216).

Late modern English borrowed new words from distant countries thanks to the growth
of the world trade, ‘budgerigar’ from ɑustralia,(tea)-caddy from Malaya, ketchup from
China, raffia from Madagascar and taboo from Polynesia. ɒesides, ɒritain’s long occupation
of India was a factor behind the entrance of many Indian words to English, such as: bangle,
cashmere, chutney, dinghy, jungle, pyjamas, and shampoo. French, Dutch, German and
Italian also influenced English in this period. Affixation compounding and conversion are
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main ways of expanding general vocabulary in this period as well. The prefix un- is used
widely as in unforgiving, unfunny and unfranked; de- is used in verbs such as decarbonizes,
decontrol, denationalize. Other prefixes are: anti-, dis-, inter-, mis-, pre-, etc. Suffixes
include: -able, -ee, -er, -y, -ist, etc (ibid: 219-220).

Compounding makes use of free morphemes as in airmail, graveyard, offside, oildoth,

and pigskin. The third process is conversion. In this case words are derived from other words
without affecting the form. The Norman French word market was used as a noun, in the
seventeenth century it was used also as a verb. Some verbs are derived from nouns like: to
audition, to garage, to headline, to pinpoint, and to service. Some nouns are derived from
verb phrase like: to handout ~ a handout, to blackout~ blackout (ibid: 223).

These three processes are major sources of the great expansion of vocabulary in late
modern English. Some minor ones include: shortening ( cabriolet ~ to cab, photograph ~ to
photo, aeroplane ~ plane), blending which is about combining part of one word with part of
another(breakfast and lunch→ brunch, motor and hotel→ motel), and back-formation which
is about creating a new word from an existing one( to enthuse, to reminisce, and to televise
are derived from their existing nouns enthusiasm, reminiscence, and television) (ibid: 224).

4.7. The loss of words and change of meaning

As the English language went on acquiring new words it has also lost some of the old
ones. The words ‘swēg’(noise) and ‘werod’ (crowd, band) didn’t survive into modern
English. One of the reasons behind the loss of words is that they are no longer needed
because some concepts became outdated, for example 'phlogiston' or 'free-penny'. Another
reason is when phonetic changes make a confusion and thus cause homophony, like the
words ‘queen’ and ‘quean’ were pronounced differently in old English, but a sound change
made them identical in the eighteenth century , the result is that one of them has fallen out of
use. A third possible reason would be the shortening of a word by a phonetic change which
makes it non-distinctive. For this reason speakers replace it by a longer one. The old English
word ‘ēa’ (river) didn’t survive into modern English because it was monosyllabic. However,
this fact is challenged by the monosyllabic French word ‘eau’ (water) and Swedish
‘ᾰ’(stream) (ibid: 226).
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 In terms of meaning, the everyday life may develop a new meaning for a word along
with its earlier one. When words have different meanings they are said to be polysemous. An
example of this phenomenon is the word ‘bead’. Its earlier meaning was ‘prayer’. ɑ new
meaning of the word arose in the fourteenth century, which is ‘small pierced ball for
threading on a string’. This meaning was associated with the medieval habit of counting
one’s prayers on a rosary (ibid: 227).

At this point the history of the modern English period can be closed. The questions that
may be raised now would be about English as we see it today.

5. The present-day English

The English language has become a world language thanks to its wide expansion
outside its original home. England has conquered many countries in Africa, Asia, Australia
and America. It has established a large and powerful empire on which the sun never goes
down, as the English say. It also played a major part in the world trade. As a result English
nowadays has left its traces in Anglophone communities as a first or a second language.
What is striking about it is that it has become the language of all domains at the international
level. It is the language of international communication and science. English is nowadays
spoken all over the world. It has become highly prestigious because of the power and
dominance of the United States in which English is the national language, but as they
say:”Rome was not built in a day”.

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