AUTHOR’S NOTE

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Acc. = Accusative

A.D. = Anno Domini (of our era)

AmE = American English

B.C. = Before Christ

BrE = British English

c. = century

cf. = confer

Dat. = Dative

E = English

e.g. = exempli gratia = for instance

Fr = French

G = German

Gc = Germanic

Gen. = Genetive

Gk = Greek

Gt = Gothic

i.e. = id est = that is

IE = Indo-European

Instr. = Instrumental

L = Latin

ME = Middle English

ModE = Modern English

NE = New English

Nom. = Nominative

OE = Old English

Obj. = Objective

OFr = Old French

OGc = Old Germanic

OHG = Old High German

OIcel = Old Icelandic

OSc = Old Scandinavian

PG = Proto-Germanic

pl = plural

R = Russian

Sc = Scandinavian

sg = singular

Skt = Sanskrit

sth = something

Sw = Swedish

U = Ukranian

viz. = videlicet = namely

SIGNS

> developed into

< developed from

*hypothetical

PREFACE

The manual on the History of the English Language is intended for students of the Departments of Foreign Languages. It is based on periods in the history of the English language, which enables to show the uninterrupted evolution and gradual transition from Old English to Modern English.

The manual consists of four parts: a short description of the Germanic languages, a detailed description of the English language in the Old English period, a description of the development of the English language in the Middle English period, a description of the New English changes.

The manual also contains a discussion of some theoretical aspects of language evolution and a brief surway on the history of the English people.

The material in the manual is subdivided into short paragraphs, which makes it easier for a student of English to master the laws of language development.

In conclusion I should like to thank professors L.I. Sidorova and E.N. Luchinskaya, who reviewed the manual, for valuable suggestions.

A.P.Tikhonova

INTRODUCTION

History of the English language as a scientific discipline presents a systematic description of the language development and the establishment of laws of its development.

It enables the student to understand the English language of today as a result of complex development and interplay of different factors.

At the beginning of the XIX century with the help of the so-called comparative-historical method it was proved that there was remarkable affinity between certain languages now called Indo-European (IE), to indicate their geographical extent. They have much in common both in the phonetic and grammatical structures.

As we see from the words above, certain sounds are approximately the same in all the languages, e.g. the sound [n] in the adjective, the sound [r] in the noun. Other sounds differ, but this difference is, so to say, regular. Thus, the sound [d] of the numeral in Russian, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit corresponds to the sound [t] in English and Gothic and this correspondence is regularly observed, e.g.

These languages have not only the same parts of speech and parts of the sentence but the same grammatical categories, e.g. nouns posses the categories of case and number, verbs – the categories of tense and person, etc. Even of greater significance is the fact that irregularities of certain verbs, nouns and pronouns often coincide. Thus, the English be and iscorrespond to the Russian быть and есть. Similarly, the English I-me corresponds to the Russian я –меня. All these similarities and differences can be explained only from the historical point of view.

Part 1

GERMANIC LANGUAGES