The chronological division of the History of English. General characteristics of the OE language

2. The chronological division of the History of English. General characteristics of the OE language

The historical development of a language is a continuous uninterrupted process without sudden breaks or rapid transformation. The commonly accepted, traditional periodisation divides English history into three periods: Old English, Middle English, and New English, with boundaries attached to definite dates and historical events affecting the language. OE begins with the Germanic settlement of Britain (5^th c.) or with beginning of writing (7^th c.) and ends on the Norman Conquest (1066), ME begins with the Norman Conquest and ends on the introduction of printing (1475), which is the start of the Modern or New English; the New period lasts to the present day. The History of the English language can be subdivided into seven periods.

The first – pre-written or pre-historical period, which may be termed Early Old English, lasts from the West Germanic invasion of Britain till the beginning of writing, that is from the 5^th to the close of the 7^th c. It is the stage of tribal dialects of the West Germanic invaders (Angels, Saxon, Jutes and Frisians) The tribal dialects were used for oral communication, there were no written form of English. The second historical period extends from the 8^th c. till the end of the 11^th. The English language of that time is referred to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon; it can also be called Written OE. The tribal dialects gradually changed into local or regional dialects. Towards the end of the period the differences between the dialects grew and their relative position altered. OE was a typical OG language, with a purely Germanic vocabulary, and few foreign borrowings; it displayed specific phonetic peculiarities. As far as grammar is concerned, OE was an inflected language with a well-developed system of morphological categories, especially in the noun and adjective. The third period, known as Early Middle English, starts after 1066, the year of the Norman Conquest, and covers 12, 13, and half of the 14^th c. It was the stage of the greatest dialectical divergence caused by the feudal system and by foreign influences – Scandinavian and French. The dialectical division of present day English owes its origin to this period of history. Under Norman rule the official language in England was French. The local dialects were mainly used for oral communication and were but little employed in writing. Early ME was a time of great changes at all levels of the language, especially in grammar and lexis. English absorbed 2 layers of lexical borrowings: the Scandinavian element in the North-Eastern area and the French element in the speech of townspeople in the Soth-east. Phonetic and grammatical changes proceeded at a high rate, unrestricted by written tradition. The forth period – from the later 14^th c. till the end of the 15^th – embraces the age of Chauser. We may call it Late or Classical Middle English. It was the time of the restoration of English to the position of the state and literary language and the time of literary flourishing. The main dialect used in writing and literature was the mixed dialect of London. The phonetic and grammatical structure had incorporated and perpetuated the fundamental changes of the preceding period. Most of the inflections in the nominal system – in nouns, adjectives, pronouns – had fallen together. The verb system was expanding, as numerous new analytical forms and verbal phrases on the way to becoming analytical forms were used alongside old simple forms. The fifth period – Early New English – lasted from the introduction of printing to the age of Shakespeare, that is from 1475 to c. 1660. The first printed book in English was published by William Caxton in 1475. This period is a sort of transition between two outstanding epochs of literary efflorescence: the age of Chaucer and the age of Shakespeare. The growth of the vocabulary was a natural reflection of the progress of culture in the new, bourgeois society, and of the wider horizons of man’s activity. Extensive phonetic changes were transforming the vowel system, which resulted n the growing gap between the written and the spoken forms of the word. The inventory of grammatical forms and syntactical constructions was almost the same as in Mod E, but their use was different. The abundance of grammatical units occurring without any apparent restrictions, or regularities produces an impression of great «freedom of grammatical construction». The six period extends from the mid-17^{th c. to the close of the 18th c. In the history} of the language it is often called «the age of normalization and correctness». This age witnessed the establishment of «norms». The norms were fixed as rules and prescriptions of correct usage in the numerous dictionaries and grammar-books published at the time and were spread through education and writing. The neo-classical period discouraged variety and free choice in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Word usage and grammatical construction were subjected to restriction and normalization. The morphological system, particularly the verb system, acquired a more strict symmetrical pattern. The formation of new verbal grammatical categories was completed. The English Language of the 19^th and 20^th c. represents the seventh period in the History of English – Late New English or Modern English. The classical language of literature was strictly distinguished from the local dialects and the dialects of lower social ranks. The dialects were used in oral communication and, as a rule, had no literary tradition. In the 19^th and 20^th c. the English vocabulary has grown on an unprecedented scale reflecting the rapid progress of technology, science and culture and other multiple changes in all spheres of man’s activities. Linguistic changes in phonetics and grammar have been confined to alterations in the relative frequency and distribution of linguistic units^ some pronunciations and forms have become old-fashioned or even obsolete, while other forms have gained ground, and have been accepted as common usage.

General characteristics of the OE language. The history of the English language begins with the invasion of the British Isles by Germanic tribes in the 5^th c. Prior to the Germanic invasion the British Isles must have been inhabited for at least fifty thousand years. The Celts came to Britain in three waves and immediately preceded the Teutons. Economically and socially the Celts were a tribal society made up of kins, kinship groups, clans and tribes; they practiced a primitive agriculture, and carried on trade with Celtic Gaul.