奈良教育大学学術リポジトリNEAR
English Teaching and the History of English
著者 UEMURA Morito, YONEKURA Hiroshi journal or
publication title
奈良教育大学紀要. 人文・社会科学
volume 34
number 1
page range 9‑15
year 1985‑11‑25
URL http://hdl.handle.net/10105/2196
s｡c),1985
EnglishTeachingandtheHistoryofEnglish
MoritoUEMURAandHiroshiYONEKURA
(Department of English, Nara University of Education, Nara 630, Japan) (Received April 30, 1985)
0. It may be safely said that a history of the English language is neither useful nor in‑
structive for junior or senior high‑school pupils to learn English. In other words, the his･
tory of English bears no relation to pupils'English acquirements. Does this mean that an English teacher is not in need of a knowledge of the history of English either? Or is it absolutely unnecessary for an English teacher to gain a general knowledge of the history of the English language? The present writer should answer the question above by saying that English teaching is connected with a history of the English language. If so, to what extent should an English teacher acquire a knowledge of the history of English? The pur‑
pose of the present paper is to make clear some historical linguistic facts which an En‑
glish teacher should gain in order to thoroughly master English.
1. Before going to much discussion about the historical linguistic facts important for an En‑
glish teacher, we would like to direct our attention to the question why we should study the history of the English language or to the aim of acquiring a general knowledge of a history of English. English has a history of about 1500 years and is spoken by about 340 million people. English has witnessed many remarkable changes. For example, the丘rst singular person was pronounced /itJ/ (/c) in the tenth century, /i:/ (2) in the fourteenth century, /9i/ (/) in the sixteenth century, and /ai/ (7) in the eighteenth century. Another
example is the word lord, which took the form hlaford /hla:vord/ォhlaf (‑bread,
loaf)+ weard (‑keeper)) in the tenth century, lord /lord/ in the fourteenth century, and lord /lo:d/ in the eighteenth century. These examples show that the change is observed in both form and pronunciation. In short, c is dropped in /, of which the pronunciation /i/
is turned to /ai/ after the stage of /i:/ and !ai/. On the other hand, the letters h, f, and a are deleted in the word lord. There, however, are many words such as him, bed, which have not undergone any change since the tenth century.
Generally speaking, language undergoes various kinds of changes as time goes by. And so, the purpose of the history of English is to throw a light upon what changed phonolog‑
ically, morphologically, syntactically or semantically, and what did not change at all. Fur‑
thermore, when anychange is observed,the questions may be raised how the change hap‑
pened and why the change was seen. We need to answer the questions so as to unterstand the nature of the English language more deeply.
2. As obvious from the linguistic facts mentioned above, it is easy to say that English was once very different from what it is now, but, you may say, how can we know this?
9
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Morito Uemura and Hiroshi Yonekura
We may divide the history of English into three great periods of growth: Old English, which lasts from the landing of the English tribes in Britain until about 1100; Middle En‑
glish, from 1100 till about 1475; Modern English, from 1475 until the present time. Of course, these are not sharply marked periods. Old English passes gradually into Middle English, and this into Modern English.
Old English is characterized by a homogeneous anglo‑Saxon language, with only a small amount of Latin inauence, followed by some from Norse, on the vocabulary of the writ‑
ten language. It is also characterized by having its inflectional system relatively full, with three or four case‑endings that existed at any time later. It is unfortunate that there
is not a direct continuity between this literary West‑Saxon and later English, since the direct ancestor of modern literary English was some kind of Midland, with an underlay of South‑Eastern. Middle English is marked by the sweeping changes in vocabulary caused丘rst by the Scandinavian invasions and then by the Norman Conquest. The effects of the Norman Conquest and of the consequent French cultural influences later, were to deprive English finally of its homogeneous character. Inflections, which had begun to weaken or become blurred in later Old English owing to the fixed stress, became definitely reduced in the Middle English period: and it is for this reason that it has been called the period of ̀levelled'inflections. This weakening of inflections caused the word order to become less free, as well as encouraging the growth of the use of prepositions and periphrases. The comparative nearness of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, with their similarly very mixed educated ̀foreign'population, helped further to develop East Midland dialect of which London was the centre into something wider and more influential. But the East Anglian trade, especially that in wool and cloth, caused London to have particularly close connections with the East Midlands; and it is for this reason that the educated heteroge‑
neous population of London developed a very mixed dialect, spreading out to take in ed‑
ucated Oxford and Cambridge, which became largely East Midland in character while re‑
taining an underlayer of the original South‑Eastern of its geographical position. It will now be seen why it is that received standard English is described as descending from an East Midland type of dialect rather than from King Alfred's West‑Saxon. This period ends with the introduction of printing to England by William Caxton. Modern English is distin‑
guished by a vast and varied increase in the Latin elements through the Renaissance influ‑
ences, as well as by the loss of many of inflections which had been levelled in Middle Eng‑
lish. It is often called the period of lost inflections for this latter reason. Further fixation of word order follows inflectional loss, as well as increased developments in prepositional usages and periphrases.
3. Old English differs from Modern English not only in its sounds and vocabulary, but in the ways the words are put together to form sentences. The difference is often summa‑
rized by saying that English has changed from a synthetic to an analytic language. A syn‑
thetic language is one in which the relations of words are shown primarily by their inflec‑
tional forms. An analytic language is one in which most differences in form have disap‑
peared, and relations are shown primarily by word order, supplemented by such function words as prepositions and auxiliary verbs. The shift from one type to the other has been a matter of changing emphasis rather than of absolute conversion. Word order had some importance in Old English, and inflections have some communicative importance now.
Often the two supplement each other. But when they conflict we have to decide which one to believe. Consider such a sentence as Him saw I. From the synthetic point of view it obviously means "I saw him," because / is in the normal form for the subject, him in the normal form for an objest, and the order of the words is a secondary matter. Let us take one illore example:
(1) The dog bites the man. (Latin: Canis mordet hominem.) (2) The man bites the dog. (Latin: Homo mordet canem.)
Though all the English words used in both the first and the second sentence are one and the same, the first sentence is absolutely different in meaning from the second. To put it otherwise, the arrangement of the words is an important factor for determining the mean‑
ing of each sentence. On the other hand, the two Latin sentences have no relation to the order of the words, because the Latin language maintains a full system of inflections. There‑
fore, even if we have such a sentence as Hominem mordet cams or Canem mordet homo, we cannot misunderstand the meaning of each sentence. The drift toward analytic struc‑
ture had begun even before the Germanic tribes left the continent, and was continuing all during the Old English period. That is, more and more inflectional forms that had once been different were coming to be identical and therefore losing much of their signaling power. The heavy Germanic stress on the root syllables made it easy to slur the endings.
More or less simultaneously a reliable word order was developing. We could argue in‑
definitely about whether the new word order had to develop when the inflections dropped out, or whether the inflections were lost because the new word order made them unneces‑
sary. It seems simpler to say that both tendencies were at work, and we do not know which was more important. But the dropping of inflections was happening a little faster than the development of a word order to replace them.
4. The Present‑day English noun earl has now four kinds of forms: earl, earl's, earls, earls. What kind of forms did the word earl have in the Old English period? The par‑
adigm for the Old English noun eorl is given below:
Singular Plural
Nominative eorl Nominative eorlas
Genitive eorles Genitive eorla
Dative eorle Dative eorlum
Accusative eorl Accusative eorlas
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Morito Uemura and Hiroshi Yonekura
Theparadigmaboveshowsthatthepresent‑daypluralnounearlsisequivalenttotheOld Englishformeorlas,whichisgenerallychangedintoeorlesintheMiddleEnglishperiod.
Thesamethingistrueofsuchwordsasstone,horse.InEnglishwemakemostnouns
pluralbyadding‑5or‑esinwriting,byadding/s/,/z/,or/iz/inpronunciation.InOld Englishthereweremanywaystoformplurals.Inaddition,caseendingsweremorenu‑
merousthantheyarenow.However,thevariousvowelsintheinflectionalendingsall changedto‑e/a/inMiddleEnglishanddroppedoutcompletelyinModernEnglish.
Thusthepluralformeorlas(twosyllables)becameeorles(twosyllablesinMiddle English)andearlsinModernEnglish.
Furthermore,therewereafewminordeclensionswithveryfrequentlyusednouns.
Mosthavesurvivedwiththereflexesofthemutated‑vowelpluralswhichtheyhadinOld English:fot‑fetasfoot‑feet.
SingularPlural
NominativejotNominativefet GenitivefotesGenitivefota DativefetDativejotum AccusativejotAccusativejet
Thefrontvowel/e/insomemembersoftheparadigmisaccountedforbyaninstanceof
phonologicalassimilationcalledbytheGermantermUmlaut,whichliterallymeansmerely
̀soundchange'.Anothertermsometimesusedforthisparticularassimilationis̀mutation, whichisnomorespecificthanUmlautandisconsequentlynoimprovement.Theprinci‑
pieofUmlautissimple:Englishspeakersatonestageofthelanguagefrontedbackvow‑
elswhenthefrontvowel/i/orthesemivowel/]/occurredinthesecondsyllableofa disyllabicform.Thissoundchangeseemstohaveoccurredasspeakersunconsciouslysim‑
plifiedtheirspeechforms:anticipatingthefronttonguepositionfor/i/or/' ]/,theyfound
itmorecomfortabletoplacethetongueforwardearlyandtokeepitthere.Thepre‑um‑
lautformofthedativesingularmusthavebeen*f6ti,aywhichspeakersthenpronounced
"fiti.The/i/whichwasthecauseofUmlautthendroppedoff,leavingtherecorded formfet.Thisisthecasewiththewordslikemus‑mys(mouse‑mice),mann‑menn (jnan‑men).
5.Inthedeclensionoftheadjectiveandtheconjugationoftheverbanirregularform isoftenobserved:good‑better‑best;bad‑worse‑・worst;go‑went‑gone;am,is,̀ire‑
be,been‑was,were.Fromanetymologicalpointofview,betterisabsolutelydifferent fromgood.Thesamethingissaidabouttheotherwordslistedabove.Inthesedeclen‑
sionsorconjugationsthecomparative/superlativeformandthepresent/pasttensearefilled withdifferentforms.Thisiscalled'suppletion'.Suchmodalauxiliariesascan,shall,
・will,maydonottake5‑or^‑endinginthethirdpersonsingularintheindicative.This isbecausethesemodalauxiliariesareoriginallypastforms,fromahistoricalviewpoint.
And these modal auxiliaries have been used as present tense, so that could, should, would, and might were created as past tense forms.
6. Myself, yourself, herself, ourselves, yourselves are formed with a possessive pronoun
plus what appears to be a noun‑as in ̀̀my very own self" or "our very own selves". If language were consistent, or if we speakers were, we would also use the possessive pro‑
nouns his and their plus noun self to produce hisself and theirselves. Some of us do, but not as speakers of standard English. The pronouns himself and themselves are formed with an object pronoun plus what can be considered a modifying self or selves. This re‑
fleets the Old English situation in which any noun or pronoun could be followed by self, which took appropriate adjective endings. Meself, of course, is as far from standard Mod‑
ern English as hisself. But it is structurally parallel to the standard himself, themselves, and even herself, which consists of a possessive or objective her plus self.
7. The italic parts of the words in pairs such as child‑children, deep‑depth, keep‑kept, south‑southern, sheep‑shepherd, wide‑width were the same in pronunciation in the four‑
teenth century. In Present‑day English, however, these words are completely differently pronounced. For example, deep has /di:p/ in pronunciation, while depth has /depo/. The difference in pronunciation between Middle English and Modern English is on the basis of the so‑called Great Vowel Shift, which is the most important development in the sound system of English. The Great Vowel Shift is a change in the sound values of all the long vowels. When the front part of the tongue was raised, /a:/ changed to /e:/ and /e:/ to /i:/; when the back part of the tongue raised, /a:/ changed to /o:/ and /o:/ changed to /u:/. The vowels /i:/ and /u:/ were already pronounced with the tongue so high that any further raising would have resulted in consonant rather than vowel sounds, so that people backed up and made the diphthongs !ai/ and /au/ instead. Exact dating of the shift is impossible, partly because of scanty and sometimes conflicting evidence, partly be‑
cause some people were slower than others in following the new tendency. It apparently began in the fifteenth century, and is sometimes called the 'fifteenth‑century vowel shift'.
The evidence of spelling suggests that the main development was rather later. There is some doubt that the modern diphthongs in such words as bite and mouse had been fully developed in Shakespeare's time, but they must have been well on their way. The evi‑
dence for the pronunciation at various times is of several kinds, of which the most obvious are English attempts at phonetic spelling of foreign words, and foreign attempts at phonet‑
ic spelling of English words. We also have some evidence from rhymes, some from non‑
standard dialects that developed differently. The following words indicate the changes :
Vowel Word
Chauceria?
pronunciation /a:/ place /pla:s9/
/e:/ feet /fe:t/
ShakespeaTean pronunciation
/ple:s/
/fi:t/
14
! / イ り
′
!
′ / . Q J
〇 O u
′ /
′ /
′
! /
′ /
Morito Uemura and Hiroshi Yonekura
bite /bi :t/
stone /st〇:n/
fool /fo:l/
/mu:s/
/bait/
/sto:n/
/fu:l/
/maus/
Many English words show the difference between the spelling and its pronunciation.
For example, our notice will be directed to the italic letter of the words such as 'debt, douJt'. The letter b is called a silent letter. We pronounce /det/ and /daut/ respectively.
These words are originally a loanword from Old French. And so, the Middle English spellings which are equivalent to these words are dette and dout, where the letter b is not inserted. The Latin words equivalent to the two words are debitum and dubitum respec‑
tively. From these Latin words it is obvious that the letter b is spelt out and pronounced.
After the Norman Conquest, however, these Latin words were introduced to England by the French people, when only the letter b was inserted into the Middle English words dette and dout respectively but not pronounced. The same thing is true of the Middle English words such as faut and fause. The Present‑day English words equivalent to these words are fault and false respectively, where the letter / is observed. The insertion of the letter I is due to the Latin words fallitum and falsum respectively. In addition, the inserted letter / comes to be pronounced later, unlike debt or doubt. The Present‑day Eng‑
lish word could was spelt out as coude according to the pronunciation in Middle English.
The insertion of the letter / in the word could is due to the analogy of other Middle Eng‑
lish words scholde and wolde. On the contrary, the letter / in scholde and ivolde becomes unpronounced under the influence of the pronunciation of the word coude.
A marked characteristic of English in modern times is that its spelling, while fixed, is largely based upon a relation to pronunciation which historically belongs to Late Middle English and Early Modern English ; and pronunciation has changed considerably without being at all phonetically reflected in the orthography. An outstanding feature of English, therefore, is now that its spelling is largely symbolical of thoughts and things rather than a phonetic representation of the actual sounds of the words.
8. As has been mentioned above, a general knowledge of the history of English is not indispensable for junior or senior high‑school pupils. A systematic study of the history of the English language, however, provides an English teacher with a valuable working tool for understanding Present‑day English thoroughly. The present writer has so far made much discussion on some important matters of the history of English. The most brief sketch would be sufficient for showing that a historical interpretation of the existence of silent letters and spellings which seem to us irregular attaches a deep significance to mas‑
tering Presenトday English.
Note
(1) The asterisk placed before the word indicates that the word is a hypothetical form or one not
found in records.
References
Baugh, Albert Croll and Thomas Cable. 1978. A History of the English Language. London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.
Bloom丘eld, Morton Wilfred and Leonard D. Newmark. 1963. A Linguistic Introduction to the History ofEnglish. New York : Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
Bolton, Whitney F. 1982. A Living Language : The History and Structure of English. New York Random House.
Delcourt, Joseph. 1944. Initiation a LI Etude historique de L'Anglais. Paris:由itions Montaigne.
