Varieties of English
From around 1600, the English colonization of North America resulted in the creation of a distinct American variety of English. Some English pronunciations and words "froze" when they reached America. In some ways, American English is more like the English of Shakespeare than modern British English is. Some expressions that the British call "Americanisms" are in fact original British expressions that were preserved in the colonies while lost for a time in Britain (for example trash for rubbish, loan as a verb instead of lend, and fall for autumn; another example, frame-up, was re-imported into Britain through Hollywood gangster movies). Spanish also had an influence on American English (and subsequently British English), with words like canyon, ranch, stampede and vigilante being examples of Spanish words that entered English through the settlement of the American West. French words (through Louisiana) and West African words (through the slave trade) also influenced American English (and so, to an extent, British English).
Today, American English is particularly influential, due to the USA's dominance of cinema, television, popular music, trade and technology (including the Internet). But there are many other varieties of English around the world, including for example Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English, Indian English and Caribbean English.
The Germanic Family of Languages
English is a member of the Germanic family of languages.
Germanic is a branch of the Indo-European language family.
The rise of London dialect and the formation of the National Language.
In the course of the 15th century the London literary language gradually spread all over the country, superseding local dialects. Spoken English in various parts of Britain gradually approaches the literary norm, and differences between the norm and popular speech tend to become obliterated.
London documents of the former half of the 15th century are poems by Thomas Occleve (Hoccleve), official London papers, and also official documents from other towns. The literary language is also found in letters written by kings, queens, ministers, and other officials.
The formation of a national language was greatly forsed by two events of the late 15th century.
The most significant event of the period was the War of Roses (1455 - 1485), which marked the decay of feudalism and the birth of a new social order - an absolute monarchy.
|
|
|
Another great event was the introduction of printing. Printing was invented in Mayence (Germany) by Johann Gutenberg in 1438. From Mayence printing spread to Strasburg, then to Italy and to the Netherlands. The englishman William Caxton (1422 - 1491) published the First English printed book, The Recuyeil of the Histories of Troy. Then he founded the first English printing office in London in 1476, and in 1477 appeared the first book to be printed in England, namely, The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers. The spread of printed books was bound to foster the normalization of spelling and also of grammatical forms.
Printed books was a first- rate factor in fixing spellings and grammar.
Social changes of the 16th century created the conditions for a great cultural progress and the growth of a national literature. The 16th century was a time of great literary achievement. The early poetical works of Wyatt and Surrey were followed by the The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (1552 - 1599), and the 80s and 90s witness the rise of a great number of dramatists. The greatest of these was William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616). His contemporaries were Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593), Benjamin (Ben) Jonson (1573 - 1637), Philip Massinger (1583 - 1640), Frances Beaumont (1584 - 1616), John Fletcher (1579 - 1625), and many others. This epoch, which historians usually call Elizabethan after queen Elizabeth I, who reigned 1558 - 1603, belongs to the period of Early Modern English.
The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in the south of England between 1450 and 1750.[1] The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen(1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term.[2]
The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English andModern English, and the Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical events marking the separation of Middle and Modern English. Originally, these vowels had "continental" values much like those remaining in Italianand liturgical Latin. However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels becamediphthongs, and the other five underwent an increase in tongue height with one of them coming to the front.
|
|
|
The principal changes (with the vowels shown in IPA) are roughly as follows.[3] However, exceptions occur, the transitions were not always complete, and there were sometimes accompanying changes inorthography:
- Middle English [aː] (ā) fronted to [æː] and then raised to [ɛː], [eː] and in many dialects diphthongised in Modern English to [eɪ] (as in m a ke). Since Old English ā had mutated to [ɔː] in Middle English, Old English ā does not correspond to the Modern English diphthong [eɪ].
- Middle English [ɛː] raised to [eː] and then to modern English [iː] (as in b ea k).
- Middle English [eː] raised to Modern English [iː] (as in f ee t).
- Middle English [iː] diphthongised to [ɪi], which was most likely followed by [əɪ] and finally Modern English [aɪ] (as in m i ce).
- Middle English [ɔː] raised to [oː], and in the eighteenth century this became Modern English [oʊ] or[əʊ] (as in b oa t).
- Middle English [oː] raised to Modern English [uː] (as in b oo t).
- Middle English [uː] was diphthongised in most environments to [ʊu], and this was followed by [əʊ], and then Modern English [aʊ] (as in m ou se) in the eighteenth century. Before labial consonants, this shift did not occur, and [uː] remains as in s ou p).
Дата добавления: 2016-01-05; просмотров: 14; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!