1. Selection of the code in Old English?
The Selection of the code in Old English was different, because England was not the state of today, as it did not have a central government. There were four kingdoms and therefore in OE we have self-selection, the dialect was self-selected. The four main dialect forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian (known collectively as Anglian), Kentish, and West Saxon. OE was purely a Germanic Language. Most of the literary works were written in West-Saxon dialect, since this was the most important dialect.
2. Dispersion (spread) of English
English language has a wider dispersion than any other language in the world, due to the political, economic, scientific and cultural influence firstly in England and later on in the US. Countries using English as either first or second language are located in all five continents, and the total population of these countries amounts to close half of the world’s population. It is the official and national language of 52 countries. According to a recent estimate, 300 to 400 million speak English as their first language, making it the 3rd or 4th largest native language in the world. English is the most widely studied second language in the world and 1.9 billion people have a basic proficiency in English. English is the dominant international language in communication, science, business, aviation, entertainment, diplomacy and the internet. English spread from England to the rest of the British Isles, then to the colonies and the territories of the British Empire mainly during the 18th century such as the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and so on. English is also the official language in many countries formerly under British or American rule, such as Ghana, India, Nigeria, South Africa, Philippines etc.
3. Middle English verb system
The verbs during the ME period had serious losses, which they suffered by strong conjugation. This conjugation, although including some of the most important verbs in the language, was relatively small if compared with large and steadily growing body of weak verbs. While an occasional verb developed a strong past tense or past participle by analogy with similar strong verbs, new verbs formed from nouns and adjectives abandoned from other languages were regularly conjugated as weak. Thus the minority position of the strong conjugation was becoming constantly more appreciable.
ME Verb System was characterized by the:
• creation of auxiliary system to express tense, modality, aspect;
• creation of modal verbs (can, must, will, shall, may)
• greater use of helping verbs (have, be)
• increasing use of passive ‘be’ combined with auxiliary;
Three important new progressive forms appear in ME. First is the infinitive progressive ‘to be doing’ as early as the 1230. Second, is the perfect progressive ‘has been doing’. Third is the modal perfect progressive occurs in late ME “schuld hafe bene hingund” (should have been hanging). The loss of UNG and the standardization of ING.
4. Characteristics of periods of development of English
There have been more than 1500 of the development of English language, since English was first brought to England in the middle of the 5th century. However, it is possible to recognize three main periods during this development, as each of these periods contains its own characteristics. The period from 450 to 1150, known as Old English, is described as the period of full inflections, because during most of this period the endings of the noun, the adjective and the verb are preserved more or less unimpaired. During 1150 to 1500, known as the Middle English period, inflections have begun to break down and they become greatly reduced, and it is consequently known as the period of levelled inflections. The language since 1500 is called the Modern English. By this time a large part of the original inflectional system has disappeared entirely and therefore we speak of it as the period of lost inflections.
5. Old English Nouns
OE nouns have only four cases: nominative, genitive, dative and accusative. Meanwhile, the gender of OE nouns is not dependant upon consideration of sex. Although nouns designating males are often masculine and those indicating females feminine, whereas those indicating neuter objects are not necessarily neuter, such as mona (moon) is masculine , but sunne (sun) is feminine. Also the number of OE nouns differs from ME, since today the majority of nouns form their plural by adding s or es, whereas in OE nouns formed their plural by changing the root vowel such as en, while the majority of nouns in OE had irregular plurals. There are few irregular plurals that have survived from OE, like men, geese, mice, oxen, children and so on.
6. Great vowel shift
Between the time of Chaucer in the late 14th century and Shakespeare in the late 16th century all the long vowels of English spoken in the Midlands and South of England shifted their pronunciation. We don’t know why it happened and no similar shift is known to have taken place at other times. It has therefore been called the Great Vowel Shift; however this shift was not complete until 1569. All the long vowels came to be pronounced with a greater elevation of the tongue and closing of the mouth so that those that could be raised (a, ç) were raised and those that could not without becoming consonants (i, u) became diphthongs. The two changes that comprises long vowels were Narrowing and Diphthongization of the so called the Great Vowel Shift.
Narrowing: ME fet = ModE feet
Diphthongization: ME climb = ModE climb.
7. Phonological differences, AmE vs. BrE
AmE pronunciation shows certain marked differences from English use. The most noticeable is in the vowel sound in words such as: fast, path, grass, dance, can’t.
1. Other main difference is the pronunciation of R consonant, since in AmE is pronounced all the time, while in BrE consonant R is used only before the vowel, such as drive, throw, bride and so on, whereas it cannot be heard in words where R is after the vowel, such as car, dark, for and do on.
2. A slight difference is noticed in words such as: news, Tuesday, student where BrE pronounces (ju) while AmE (u).
3. Also the American spelling differs in small ways from that of BrE spelling, and an example can be given: Am E: color, honor, Br E: colour, honour.
4. The other difference is in the accent, where in two or more syllable words in BrE usually the accent falls on the first syllable, whereas in AmE the second or third syllable is stressed:
BrE: ‘secretary AmE: secret’ary
‘temporary tempo’rary
8. When was finally stabilized the single negative
Finally we may note that the 18th century is responsible for the condemnation of the double negative. Louth stated the rule that we are now bound by: “Two Negatives in English destroy one another or are equivalent to an Affirmative.”
9. Modern language panning goals (standardization)
Language planning is official, government-level activity concerning the selection and promotion of a unified administrative language or languages. The main language planning goal in ModE was standardization. The East Midland dialect was taken as the base for the establishment of Standard English and thus it needed to be standardized in the period of ModE. Standard language is defined as codified form of a language, accepted by and serving as a model to a larger speech community.
10. What is the role of outside historical forces in the development of standard English
By historical forces we understand the forces outside our country that influenced the development of English. The conquering is one of these forces. England was first conquered by Germanic tribes therefore Germanic language was brought with them. This period is known as the period of OE, where the language is Germanic. The most important factor that brought OE to an end and the beginning of the ME is was the outside historical force of the Norman Conquest. OE was the language of mass, whereas French became the language of law, court, schools. The Hundred Years War contributed to the disuse of the French and the reuse of English. Meanwhile, during the Norman Conquest many French words entered the English Dictionary, and we may say that this period influenced mostly on the English dictionary and the development of Standard English.