The Old Germanic Ls, their classification and principal features.

The Old Germanic Ls, their classification and principal features.

1. East Germanic Ls

The East Germanic tribes were known as the Goths. One of the most numerous and powerful Germanic tribes, returned form Scandinavia around 200 A.D. and settled in the east of Europe. two major branches: Visigotæ (lived on present-day France) – Celtic Dialects; Ostrogotæ (lived on present-day northern Italy) – the Gothic L (dead).

Other East Germanic tribes (Burgundians, Vandals, Langobards) also had their Ls.

The Gothic L was the most important of the old germanic Ls because: Oldest written records – 4^th – 6^th c. A.D. The Goths were the first Germans to become Christians. The Gothic, having the earliest written records among the Germanic Ls, is considered to be very close to the Proto-Germanic L and throws some light on the history of this common Proto-Germanic L.

2. North Germanic Ls

The North Germanic tribes settled on the southern coast of Scandinavia and in Northern Denmark (since the 4^th c. A.D.). They lived relatively isolated and showed little dialectal variation at that time.

One common L – Old Norse/Old Scandinavian:

It used the original Germanic Alphabet called the Runes/the Runic Alphabet. It appeared in the 3^rd – 4^th c. A.D. It has come down to us in runic inscriptions – separate words written/carved on objects made of wood, stone, metal. It was spoken by all North Germanic tribes.

In Scandinavia the linguistic division = the political division: there were 3 kingdoms (Sweden, Denmark and Norway) that were constantly fighting for dominance and they had 3 respective Ls (earliest records in these Ls date back to the 13^th c.): Old Danish – later it developed into Danish; Old Swedish - later it developed into Swedish; Old Norwegian – was the last to develop, later transformed into Norwegian

In the 8^th c. A.D. sea-rovers and merchants founded numerous colonies on the islands in the North Sea and in the Atlantic Ocean (the Shetland Islands, the Orkneys, the Faroe Islands) and reached even Iceland and Greenland. Thus two more North Germanic Ls appeared: Faroese (In the Faroe Islands the writing was done in Danish for centuries. The first written records in Faroese appeared only in the 18^th c.); Icelandic (9^th c. A.D.)

The Icelandic L was the most important of all north Germanic Ls because:

1. The isolation of Iceland caused the preservation of archaic vocabulary and grammatical system.

2. The preservation of archaic vocabulary and grammatical system makes this L very close to Old Norse and helps to reconstruct this ancient common Germanic L.

3. Icelandic has the largest body of written texts (12^th – 13^th c.), e.g.: “The Elder Edda” (12^th c.) – a collection of heroic songs; “The Younger Edda” (13^th c.) – a text-book for poets; Old Icelandic Sagas.

3. West Germanic Ls

The West Germanic tribes lived between the Oder and the Elbe and they never left the mainland.

· the Franconians (Low, Middle and High Franconians) – settled the lower basin of the Rhine and with time began to speak the L of the Romanised Celts,

· the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Frisians – settled the coastal territories of the Netherlands, Germany, the south of Denmark and the British Isles. The Ls they spoke were: OE – later developed into à English (national L – 16^th c.; first written records – 7^th c.); Old Saxon – later developed into a territorial dialect in Germany; Old Frisian – later developed into à Frisian

· High Germans – settled the southern mountainous areas of Germany and spoke Old High German that later developed into two distinctive Ls: German and Yiddish.

The Germanic Ls in the Modern world, their classification.

The Germanic Ls in the Modern world are as follows:

English – in GB, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other former British colonies and dominions: German – Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein; Netherlandish – in the Netherland, Belgium; Africaans – in the South African Republic; Danish – in Denmark; Swedish – in Sweden and Finland; Norwegian – in Norway; Icelandic – in Iceland; Frisian – in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany; Faroese – in the Faroe Islands; Yiddish – in different countries.

Until recently Dutch and Flemish were named as separate Ls.; Frisian and Faroese are often reffered to as dialects, since they are spoken over small, politically dependent areas; Br E and Am E are sometimes regarded as two independent Ls.

It is difficult to estimate the number of people speaking Germanic Ls, especially on account of English, which in many countries is one of two Ls on a bilingual community. The estimates for English range from 250 to 300 mln people who have it their mother tongue. The total number of people speaking Germanic Ls approaches 440 mln.

All the Germanic Ls are related through their common origin and joint development at the early steges of history.

 

ME dialects. The rise of the London dialect.

OE Dialect Kentish → ME Dialect Kentish Dialect;

OE Dialect West Saxon → ME Dialect South-Western Dialects (East Saxon Dialect, London Dialect, Gloucester Dialect);

OE Dialect Mercian → ME Dialect Midland Dialects (West Midland Dialect, East Midland Dialect);

OE Dialect Northumbrian → ME Dialect Northern Dialects (Yorkshire Dialect, Lancashire Dialect).

The most important dialect in the ME period was the London dialect:

In the 12^th -13^th c. the London Dialect became the literary L and the standard, both in written and spoken form. The reasons why this happened:

· The capital of the country was transferred from Winchester, Wessex, to London a few years before the Norman Conquests.

· The East Saxon Dialect, that was the basis of the London Dialect got, became the most prominent in the ME period.

· Most writers and authors of the ME period used the London Dialect in their works.

Features of the London Dialect:

· The basis of the London Dialect was the East Saxon Dialect

· The East Saxon Dialect mixed with the East Midland Dialect and formed the London Dialect.

· Thus the London Dialect became more Anglican than Saxon in character à The London Dialect is an Anglican dialect.

 

Major spelling changes in ME, their causes.

In the course of ME many new devices were introduces into the system of spelling; some of them reflected the sound changes which had been completed or were still in progress in ME; others were graphic replacements of OE letters by new letters and digraphs.

In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn – þ – and the crossed d – đ, ð – were replaced by digraph th, “wyne” > double u – w -, shwa fell into disuse;

French influence: ou, ie, ch;

Wider use of digraphs: sch/ssh, dg, wh, oo, ee, gh;

When u stood close to n, m, v it was replaced by o to indicate short u (lufu - love);

y was used as equivalent of i;

ou and ow were interchangeable.

The letters th and s indicated voiced sounds between vowels, and voiceless sounds – initially, finally and next to other voiceless consonant.

Long sounds in ME texts are often shown by double letters or digraphs. The length of the vowel can be inferred from the nature of the syllable.

The use of noun cases in OE.

There were 4 major cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative. The Nom. case was the case of the subject used with verbs denoting activity, it indicated the subject of the sentence. It was also used for direct address. The Acc. indicated the direct object of the sentence. It was never distinguished in the plural, or in a neuter noun. The Gen. case indicated possession. It also indicated partitive nouns. The meanings of the Gen. case were very complex and can only be grouped under the headings “Subjective” and “Objective” Gen. Subjective Gen. is associated with the possessive meaning and the meaning of origin. Objective Gen. is associated with what is termed “partitive meaning”.The Dat. case indicated the indirect object of the sentence, it was the chief case used with prepositions, Dat. Case could convey an instrumental meaning, indicating the means or manner of an action.

Borrowings in NE.

In addition to the three main sources — Greek, Latin and French, English speakers of the NE period borrowed freely from many other Ls. It has been estimated that even in the 17th c. the English vocabulary contained words derived from no less than fifty foreign tongues. The main contributors to the vocabulary were Italian, Dutch, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Russian. A number of words were adopted from Ls of other countries and continents, which came into contact with English: Persian, Chinese, Hungarian, Turkish, Malayan, Polynesian, the native Ls of India and America.

Borrowings from Germanic Ls are of special interest as English is a Germanic L too. The influence of Scandinavian in Early ME has certainly remained unsurpassed and the unique conditions of close L contacts were never repeated. By the 15th— 16th c. the Germanic Ls had driven far apart;

Dutch made abundant contribution to English, particularly in the 15th and 16th c, when commercial relations between England and the Netherlands were at their peak. They specialised in wool weaving and brewing, which is reflected in the Dutch loan-words: pack, scour, spool, stripe (terms of weaving); hops, tub, scum. Extensive borrowing is found in nautical terminology: bowline, buoy, cruise, deck, dock, freight, keel, skipper. The flourishing of art in the Netherlands accounts for some Dutch loan-words relating to art: easel, landscape, sketch.

The earliest Russian loan-words entered the English L as far back as the I6th c, when the English trade company (the Moskovy Company) established the first trade relations with Russia. English borrowings adopted from the 16th till the 19th c. indicate articles of trade and specific features of life in Russia, observed by the English:, beluga, intelligentsia, muzhik, rouble, samovar, troika, tsar, vodka.

The loan-words adopted after 1917 reflect the new social relations and political institutions in the USSR: bolshevik, Komsomol, Soviet. Some of the new words are translation-loans: collective farm, Five-Year-Plan, wall newspaper.

The Old Germanic Ls, their classification and principal features.

1. East Germanic Ls

The East Germanic tribes were known as the Goths. One of the most numerous and powerful Germanic tribes, returned form Scandinavia around 200 A.D. and settled in the east of Europe. two major branches: Visigotæ (lived on present-day France) – Celtic Dialects; Ostrogotæ (lived on present-day northern Italy) – the Gothic L (dead).

Other East Germanic tribes (Burgundians, Vandals, Langobards) also had their Ls.

The Gothic L was the most important of the old germanic Ls because: Oldest written records – 4^th – 6^th c. A.D. The Goths were the first Germans to become Christians. The Gothic, having the earliest written records among the Germanic Ls, is considered to be very close to the Proto-Germanic L and throws some light on the history of this common Proto-Germanic L.

2. North Germanic Ls

The North Germanic tribes settled on the southern coast of Scandinavia and in Northern Denmark (since the 4^th c. A.D.). They lived relatively isolated and showed little dialectal variation at that time.

One common L – Old Norse/Old Scandinavian:

It used the original Germanic Alphabet called the Runes/the Runic Alphabet. It appeared in the 3^rd – 4^th c. A.D. It has come down to us in runic inscriptions – separate words written/carved on objects made of wood, stone, metal. It was spoken by all North Germanic tribes.

In Scandinavia the linguistic division = the political division: there were 3 kingdoms (Sweden, Denmark and Norway) that were constantly fighting for dominance and they had 3 respective Ls (earliest records in these Ls date back to the 13^th c.): Old Danish – later it developed into Danish; Old Swedish - later it developed into Swedish; Old Norwegian – was the last to develop, later transformed into Norwegian

In the 8^th c. A.D. sea-rovers and merchants founded numerous colonies on the islands in the North Sea and in the Atlantic Ocean (the Shetland Islands, the Orkneys, the Faroe Islands) and reached even Iceland and Greenland. Thus two more North Germanic Ls appeared: Faroese (In the Faroe Islands the writing was done in Danish for centuries. The first written records in Faroese appeared only in the 18^th c.); Icelandic (9^th c. A.D.)

The Icelandic L was the most important of all north Germanic Ls because:

1. The isolation of Iceland caused the preservation of archaic vocabulary and grammatical system.

2. The preservation of archaic vocabulary and grammatical system makes this L very close to Old Norse and helps to reconstruct this ancient common Germanic L.

3. Icelandic has the largest body of written texts (12^th – 13^th c.), e.g.: “The Elder Edda” (12^th c.) – a collection of heroic songs; “The Younger Edda” (13^th c.) – a text-book for poets; Old Icelandic Sagas.

3. West Germanic Ls

The West Germanic tribes lived between the Oder and the Elbe and they never left the mainland.

· the Franconians (Low, Middle and High Franconians) – settled the lower basin of the Rhine and with time began to speak the L of the Romanised Celts,

· the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Frisians – settled the coastal territories of the Netherlands, Germany, the south of Denmark and the British Isles. The Ls they spoke were: OE – later developed into à English (national L – 16^th c.; first written records – 7^th c.); Old Saxon – later developed into a territorial dialect in Germany; Old Frisian – later developed into à Frisian

· High Germans – settled the southern mountainous areas of Germany and spoke Old High German that later developed into two distinctive Ls: German and Yiddish.