Introduction to English-2

[shipra]

                                A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

             The history of English may be divided into three periods: Old English from about 700 to 1100 AD, Middle English from 1100 to 1500 AD, and Modern English from 1500 to the present.
Old English showed considerable differentiation from the other languages of Europe. Old English was clearly Germanic, but it had borrowed many words already from Latin. Along with the words borrowed from Latin, Old English continued to coin its own words and thus remained vibrant in its usage.
From the 9th Century, West Saxon became the dominant dialect. Norse speakers acquired English at this time. They brought Norse words into their English. In addition, the English native words were also adjusted in their pronunciation by the Norse speakers. At this time, the Normans were the dominant class and so French words were accepted in the domains of administration, law, and church. Words such as felony, angel, and duke came into English. One-fifth of words used in art and science in English came from French.
London became the capital of England in early 11th Century, and its dialect, which was close to the dialect of Essex, became prestigious. Slowly, London English gave up its local peculiarities and assumed the role of a universally accepted dialect with prestige. In the Fourteenth Century, English became the medium of instruction in schools, as the language of the courts of law and the opening of Parliament. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales was written in this period, utilizing a variety of London English.
In the Fifteenth Century, many familiar Fourteenth Century words were replaced by many words which were borrowed from French and Latin. Words such as consecrate, firmament, grace, pollute, and sanctity came into English in this process.
Modern English presents a peculiar picture. It has retained the old spelling, even as it developed new pronunciation – modern pronunciation with medieval spelling. Many Latin words were borrowed into English through French. This period also saw development of regularity in vocabulary, in form and usage, grammatical forms, and in syntax.
English language developed a tendency and respect for correctness in the Seventeenth Century. “Accessions to the vocabulary in the 17th Century show the influence of French and Italian, particularly in matters of fashion and the fine arts. The 18th Century showed the influence of more distant countries such as India, and the 19th Century continued that tendency. However, scientific terms are the outstanding contribution of the 19th Century, and this has remained true in the 20th” (Encyclopedia Britannica).

[Md. Nuruzzaman Moral]

Good initiative.

[shipra]

Thank you.

[shipra]

                                          RECEPTIVITY TO LOAN WORDS

           An important characteristic of English has been its receptivity to loan words from other languages. No other language exhibits such an extraordinary receptivity. This has not resulted, however, in the loss of corresponding native words in most cases. Words were often borrowed to refine the meanings which resulted in greater clarity in the expression and creation of ideas.
Moreover, English speakers always enjoyed greater freedom in the use of their language, unlike, for instance, the users of the French language. There has been no legal provision which guided the native speakers of English in the use or non-use of words. Mostly the commonly agreed conventions, rather than deliberate enforcement of rules of usage through academies, marked the development of English and its use.
Modern, current English has over 500,000 words. If we add the scientific terms used in the language, the total would be very high indeed. It has been estimated that only 18.4 percent of these words is native to English. French vocabulary used in English is around 32.4 percent, whereas the words of Latin origin is estimated to be 14.4 percent, words of Greek origin around 12.5 percent, and other languages 23.3 percent. This does not mean that the words of foreign origin are more greatly used in English. It only suggests that more foreign words than the native ones are used to characterize, define, and describe meanings and ideas in English (Encyclopedia Britannica).

[Md. Nuruzzaman Moral]

This is very important for the learners.Thank you.

[shipra]

Thank You,Sir.

[shipra]

                                              DIALECTS OF ENGLISH

        Two principal branches of spoken English dialects are recognized by scholars. The British branch of spoken dialects include those spoken in England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The North American branch of spoken dialects include those spoken in Canada and the United States. Within each of these categories, there are different dialects, both geographical and social.
The English spoken in the Eastern Seaboard region and adjoining states in the United States have been studied in greater detail than the English spoken in other parts of the United States. Generally speaking, there are three different dialect areas: Northern dialect area consisting of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and eastern Massachusetts and Connecticut; the Midland dialect area consisting of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Maryland, and northern West Virginia is treated as North Midland dialect; and the area consisting of West Virginia, western Virginia, western North Carolina, and northwestern South Carolina is treated as South Midland. The Southern English dialect includes Delmarva, Virginia Piedmont, Northeastern North Carolina, Cape Fear and Peedee Valleys and the South Carolina country (O’ Grady, et al. 1993:445).
It is possible that these three major dialect areas in the eastern United States extend to the west in close conjunction with the history of westward movement in settlement in the U.S. However, as Gleason warned us years ago (Gleason :403), it is only “American folk-linguistics (which) recognizes two major dialect areas, ‘Southern’ and ‘Northern.’ But there is no discernible linguistic division at or near the Mason-Dixon line. ‘Southern’ dialects are exceedingly diverse. The sharpest dialect boundary in the United States runs directly through the South roughly along the Blue Ridge mountains. A ‘Northern dialect’ is as much a fiction as a ‘Southern dialect.’” Despite spoken dialectal differences, the native speakers of English have maintained a great uniformity in formal spoken English which is amazingly uniform and close to written English. An educated native speaker of English makes easy transitions from the colloquial/informal to varieties of formal English in his/her speech.
The teacher of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), who is a native of speaker of English, needs to give up the peculiarities of his/her regional and/or social dialect at the informal level, and to switch over to the standard which is closer to the ordinary, plain written English, in his/her classroom.

[Md. Nuruzzaman Moral]

Really this article is enriched with information.You can write about the dialects of Sub-Continent.

[shipra]

Thank You,Sir,for your suggestion.

[shipra]

                                                     SPELLING IN ENGLISH

      As already pointed out, modern English has retained the old spelling even as it has developed new pronunciation. English is rather “notorious” for its alleged frequent lack of correspondence between the spelling and pronunciation of a word. It has been pointed out that “there are 13.7 spellings per sound, but only 3.5 sounds per letter” in English (G. Dewy, 1971, quoted in Crystal 1987:213).
Contrary to general impression, scholars claim that 75% of English is regular. However, “the 400 or so irregular spellings are largely among the most frequently used words in the language, and this promotes a strong impression of irregularity” (Crystal 1987:214).
As Crystal (1987:214) points out, irregularities of English spelling came from several sources into the language. 26 letters are used to represent a larger number of phonemes (significant groups of sounds each of which may be represented by a separate letter for ease and convenience in a language). Borrowed words from French led to respelling of words. The printing process caused further complications. Many early printers were from Holland and they introduced their own spelling norms, and made several convenient abbreviations and additions and deletions to account for the space in a line. Then “there was a fashion to make spelling reflect Latin or Greek etymology.” And modern borrowings from other languages brought with them their own spelling. In spite of all this, English spelling gives us a lot of information about the relationship between words. And this feature is a boon both to the TESOL teacher, and the second/foreign language learner of English. One comes to recognize intuitively the relationship between words, learns to derive the nouns from the verbs and vice versa, and does a lot of other grammatical exercises which make the learning of English much simpler than learning many other languages.
English has a long history of spelling reform movements from the 16th Century. The efforts of Spelling Reform Association in the U.S. (founded in 1876) and Simplified Spelling Society in Britain (founded in 1908), along with the untiring efforts of Bernard Shaw, a great modern playwright, in recent times, are significant milestones in spelling reform movements. But almost all of these ended as futile exercise. However, some spelling changes have been effected in American English through the rules introduced by the great American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758-1843) which distinguish American English from British English. For example, use of -or for -our and -er for -re in words such as honor/honour, and theater/theatre.
We revisit the issue of spelling in a subsequent chapter which deals with orthography.

[Md. Nuruzzaman Moral]

Time-befitting article. Go on.

[shipra]

Thank You Sir for your admiration.

[shipra]

                                                    PLAIN ENGLISH

            Of great interest and relevance to the teacher of TESOL are the on-going movements against the unnecessarily complicated use of English and for the replacement of such usage by clearer forms of expression (Crystal 1987:378). Both in Britain and the United States, because of pressure from teachers, authors, writers and communicators, governments have made efforts to redesign forms and reports, etc., in plain English which could be understood with ease.
President Carter issued an Executive Order in March 1978 requiring regulations to be written in plain English. This order was revoked by President Reagan in 1981, but “it promoted a great deal of legislation throughout the country, and an increase in plain English usage among corporations” (Crystal 1987:378).
As a consequence of growing interest in Plain English, instruction manuals, government forms and documents, and many other materials for public use have been greatly simplified. Medical labels, Nutrition Facts, etc., are presented in readable and easily understandable form. Corporations have begun to use the services of skilled technical literature writers for this purpose. There has, however, been continued objection from legal professions based on “the risk of ambiguity inherent in the use of every day language” which, they claim, makes it unsuitable for precision.
Dayananda (1986:13) presents the following as the characteristics of Plain English:
1.   Prefer the shorter word to the longer one.
2.   Use simple, everyday words rather than fancy ones.
3.   Prefer verbs over nouns and adjectives.
4.   Prefer the specific word to the general.
5.   Write short sentences with an average of no more than 20 words.
6.   Use the active voice rather than the passive.
7.   Be a miser with compound and complex sentences and a spend thrift with simple sentences.
8.   Write short paragraphs with an average of about 765 words.
9.   Avoid paragraphs that exceed five typed lines for business letters and ten lines for longer compositions.
10.   Write with the ear. A sentence may look good on paper but its cadence may be jarring. Listen to your sentences in your head as you write, and do not write anything that you could not comfortably say.
11.   Write for the eye as well as the mind. Prepare an overall design, positioning understandable headings, subheadings, and captions for each segment, showing the organization of the text. Make the whole document visually appealing.
12.   Use appropriate underlining, ink color that contrasts sharply with the paper, lists, boxes or panels, bold or other typefaces to emphasize points.
13.   Use ‘white space’ in margins, between sections, paragraphs, and lines to make the document look good. (Cited from Crystal 1987:379).
The English taught, spoken, and written in the Third World countries is often not plain, simple, and straightforward. As in the Indian sub-continent, it is derived, more often than not, from the English style spoken and written a century ago, in some instances. We certainly need to emphasize grammatical correctness in learning English, but it is equally important to cultivate in our learners a sensitivity and skill to use natural, simple, and straightforward English. Indian newspapers in English and the radio news broadcasts should take the initiative in simplifying the usage.

[Nahid Kaiser]

Thank you Shipra for a good attempt, I think the students will be greatly profited by it.

[shipra]

Thank you madam.I also think if the students read these,they will get a lot of valuable information.