William the Conqueror invades the Isles and conquers it.
ENGLISH GOES UNDERGROUND:
· three languages in one country
· numerous Middle English dialects highly diversified
Norman French borrowings (semantic classes of words): Educational, military, religious, legal terms, administrative words, dress-code, architecture, ranks.
Norman French – Parisian French etymological doublets*:
Re w ard-re g ard
Canal-channel
Captain-chieftain
Catch-chaise
French-English synonyms*:
Might-power
Ask-demand
Hair-leveret
Axe-hatchet
The dynasty of Plantagenet is established on the throne
THE ENGLISH WRITTEN TRADITION DIES
NORMAN SCRIBES INTRODUCE CHANGES INTO ENGLISH SPELLING
The loss of England in war for Normandy, England lost all her lands on the continent
THE TURNING POINT:
ENGLISH STARTS RECOVERING
THE RISE OF LONDON DIALECT
[a:]>[ᴐ:],
[ᴁ:]>[3:]
[ᴁ]>[a]
New diphthongs: [ei], [ai], [ᴐi], [au], [ou], [eu]
New consonant sounds: [ʃ], [ʒ], [ʧ],[ʤ].
Grammar: unification of the system of the quantity of nouns, loss of grammar gender, loss of agreement, appearing of analytical forms of comparison, change of case system – only two cases left, new personal pronouns appeared, appearing of articles, suffix –s spreads across the language, changes in suffixation of verbs, reduction of personal endings of verbs, perfect forms, future tense and passive forms appeared, continuous forms appeared, new sentence structure tendencies, syntactic relationships expression changed.
1337-1453
A Hundred-year war
ENGLISH HOSTILITY TO FRENCH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
1348-1350
The epidemic of Black Death brought From France
RISE IN THE PRESTIGE OF ENGLISH AS THE LANGUAGE OF WORKING CLASSES
FRENCH IS SUBSTITUTED BY ENGLISH IN TEACHING LATIN IN SCHOOLS
The law according to which all the legal proceeding should take place in English.
ENGLISH BECOMES THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
~1380
John Wycliff’s translation of the Bible into English
GOD SPEAKS TO PEOPLE IN ENGLISH NOT LATIN
Latin borrowings major, minor, filial, moderate, intelligent, permanent, to elect, to create, datum, status, phenomenon, philosophy, method, music, atom, cycle, esthete, ethics
Geoffrey Chaucer's literature
THE LONDON DIALECT BECOMES FIT FOR GREAT LITERATURE THUS RISING IN PRESTIGE
FRENCH IS STILL THE LANGUAGE OF LEGAL DOCUMENTS
Still more French borrowings(* из “Общего пролога» «Кентерберийских рассказов»):