Thus the subject of the course is bound with that of the history of Britain

A study of the phonetical, grammatical and lexical evolution of the language will enable us to see the general trends in the development in English and their interdependence.

The English language of today reflects many centuries of development and knowledge of its history offers one a better understanding of its present structure.

On the primary aims of the curse is to provide the student with a knowledge sufficient to account for the essential features and more specific peculiarities of Modern English. A few illustrations are given below to show how features of Modern English can be explained in terms of their past development; taken from different spheres they also show that all levels of the language are apt to change:

1. The scholar of English will say that English spelling is more difficult because it is more “conventional” than phonetic. The values of Latin letters in English differ from their values in other languages, (Latin, German, French). Many letters are not pronounced at all; the connection between letters and their combinations with the sounds they designate often seems arbitrary and must be automatically memorized, for it cannot be deduced from the names of the letters.

Consider:

Bit [bit] -

complete correspondence between Latin letters and 3 letters 3 sounds English sounds.

Bite [bait]

4 letters 3 sounds - the final e does not stand for any sound but is used, conventionally, to show that the preceding letter has its alphabetic value.

night [ nait] -

5 letters 3 sounds - the same goal is achieved by the diagraph “gh” which does not indicate any sound either.

The following general explanation may be given for these phenomena: at the time when the Latin alphabet was introduced into Britain (7-th centuries) its letters were used on a phonetic principle and their significance in English was the same as in Latin. During the next few centuries, as the pronunciation of the word changed, its spelling was accordingly modified by the scribes. Later, esp. after the introduction of printing (15-th century) spelling became fixed. While the pronunciation of words continued to change, their spelling remained the same. The spelling “ night”, “bite” and others accurately show the pronunciation of the 14-th or 15-th centuries. The phonetic changes that have taken place since can be shown as follows:

14 century 19 century

[nix’t] > [nait]

[bi:t] > [bait]

(symbol >means “becomes”, “develops into”).

After the pronunciation had changed, the spelling became conventional and the letters “igh” and “i’ + consonant + “e” are now traditionally associated with the pronunciation [ai]. These spellings, like many others, can be justified solely from a historical viewpoint, or, in other words, the history of the language can help us to explain them.

It can also be concluded from the examples given that English sounds have undergone considerable changes, which can be seen if we compare modern English pronunciation with that of the 14th or 15th century.

2. Another illustration can be drawn from the history of the wordstock. The English language belongs to the group of Germanic languages and thus it is closely related to German, Swedish, Dutch and others. Thus, for example, the German for summer is Sommer, the German for winte r is Winter, the German for foot is Fuß, the German for long is lang, the German for sit is sitzen, etc.

On the other hand, in certain cases English has something in common with French, though the latter belongs to another linguistic group, Italic or Romance. Such words as autumn, river, blouse, modest, change came into English from French.

These similarities are easily observed by anyone having some knowledge of German and French. Today we can only suppose that they are not a matter of chance and that there must be some cause behind them. These causes belong to a more or less remote past and they can only be discovered by going into the history of the English language.

3. Finally, the history of English can also to help us to understand the peculiarities of Modern English grammar, both as regards the “rules” and the so-called “exceptions”. For example, why do the substantives men, foot, goose, mouse, as against most Modern English substantives, form their plural by change of the root vowel? Why have the substantives sheep, deer an unchanged plural?

Unlike lexical changes, alterations in grammar can only be observed if we compare the language of different periods of history, at least a few centuries apart.

The history of English will explain why English has so few inflections; how its “analytical” structure arose – with an abundance of compound forms and a fixed word order; why modal verbs, unlike other verbs, take no ending –s in the 3 rd.p.sg; why some nouns add –en or change the root-vowel in the plural instead of adding – s (e.g. oxen, feet) and so on and so forth.

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