II B.A Linguistics, Unit I

MAJOR II

UNIT – I

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

1)      What is language or define the character of a language. (2 marks)

a)      Language is the expression of human personality in words, whether written or spoken.

b)      It is the universal medium to convey the common facts and feelings of everyday life.

c)       Modern philosophers doubt the skill of language while the thinkers and poets consider the language as bearer of all kinds of truth and reality.

2)      What is the difference between language and speech? (2 marks)

Language can mean a language in general or any particular language while the speech refers to the words used by individuals in a less precisely known situation or context.

            The scholars term this language as ‘outer’ language and speech as ‘inner’ language.

3)      Distinguish between ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ language (2 marks)

Outer language is a speech or writing without consciousness of any particular individual or situation whereas inner language is that of a particular speaker or writer in a set of known circumstances or in a given context.

Eg: - horse – the word horse can be translated but the inner language may vary according to individual’s understanding.

4)      What is the recent approach of study of language? (5 marks)

Language is categorized into

1)      Indicative - denotes fact

2)      Emotive   - expresses feelings

3)      Symbolic – expresses the truth or emotions through symbols

Indicative and emotive can overlap each other. Always both need to be in a distinct form.

Eg: - for the over lapping of indicative and emotive language is the following lines of Shelley,

“Life, like a dome of many-colored glasses, stains the white radiance of eternity”

 5)   What is the idea about the origin of language? (2 marks)

              Thoughts and language cannot be clearly separated so, the origin of language seems to be bound with human thoughts.

6) General character of English (or) the characters that makes the English as outstanding language (10 marks)

·         Its quality to be receptive and adaptable heterogeneousness.

(i.e). English readily absorbs materials from all the other language and turns its own.

·         English that remained as a ‘pure’ or ‘unmixed’ language before Anglo-Saxons later become a language that would assimilate many foreign elements converting into its own character.

·         English is also well known for its simplicity of inflexion - the ease with which it indicates the relation of words in a sentence with only the minimum changes in their shapes or variety of ending.

·         English has relatively a fixed word – order. Due to the available freedom made by the system of inflections there is always a fixed word order.

·         Due to the loss of inflections the use of periphrases way of saying things and the use of prepositions made the language mush easier. Instead of case endings tense and auxiliary verbs highly turned the language into a convenient form.

·         The method of expressing meanings by intonation of a monosyllabic word or sentence is the fifth quality of English. This is often compared with Chinese.

           Eg: - the words ‘do’ 

                       All the above qualities alone cannot be attributed to the success of English. The highest contribution of sues can be attributed to its quality of receptiveness and simplicity of inflexion.

                       However on the other hand, the heterogeneous quality sometimes has led to the vagueness and lack of clarity. There are various phenomenon like ‘pidgin English’, ‘journalese’, ‘jargon’, woolliness of expression and slatternly speech.

                       As C.L.WRENN states “English is the easiest of all the languages to speak badly, but the most difficult to use well”

FAMILY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

THE INDO–EUROPEAN FAMILY

        1) Write a detailed note on the indo–European family. (5 marks)

           A language that has common relationship with some other language can be categorized under one family. Based on the strong probability from where they must be a descent, it is possible to brace the prehistoric origin. This supposed origin of language can be considered as the oldest with a strongly supported hypothesis.

         Eg: - the word ‘is’ in English language is started in various other language in the following ways:-

                                  

                                   Latin – est

                                   Greek – esti

                                   Sanskrit – asti

                                   Russian – est’ [jest]

                                   German – ist

                                   Italian – ‘e

                       Now from the above forms the indo – European family of languages. It was formerly called as indo – German and still earlier Aryan.

2. Define Indo-European language. (2 marks)

                       Indo-European language is the name given to the set of linguistic forms from which nearly all European as well as those of Persian and large part of India is said to have descended.

 3. Division in indo – European language (10 marks)

                       The indo – European language spread widely and mixed with non- indo- European tongues. Their successive growth led to the modern languages of Europe, Persia and India as we now know them.

                       The indo - European languages are basically divided into eight main groups

¨      The four fall under the category of eastern set of groups.

¨      The other four belongs to the western set of groups.

            Western languages are commonly referred as ‘centum language’

            Eastern languages are commonly referred as ‘satem – languages’

            The primitive form for the numeral 100 is kmt’om western language eg. Latin called the loo as centum.

            Eastern language eg: - Sanskrit called the l00 as satam.

            The four eastern groups are

   1) Balto Slavic – includes all the Slavonic tongues (ancient and modern)

            2) Baltic countries such as lithuania and Latvia.

            3) Indo – Iranian – old and new India’s Sanskrit, Iran- Persia, American (ancient and modern)

            4) Albanian – spoken only in a small.

              The four western groups are

·         Greek – ancient and modern with many dialects.

·         Latin and its derivatives

·         Celtic – ancient inscriptions, medieval and modern languages of Wales, Ireland, the Scottish highlands and Brittany. Formerly existed in Cornwall and the Isle of Man.

·         Germanic – Germany, scandinavia, Holland and the Flemish part of Belgium as well as English and includes some ancient and medieval forms also.

English

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Germanic

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Indo – European

Germanic belongs to indo – European in the sense they use the part of speech, sometimes like ancient forms they may have full of inflexions or the reduced inflexions like modern Dutch or English. Secondly Germanic shares a fundamental nucleus of the vocabulary with other indo – European tongues.

The German family

        1)  Define Germanic family (2 marks)

A type of indo – European group that belong to the northern Europe prior to the Christian era from which all those languages came is called as Germanic.

        2)  What are the other names of Germanic family? (2 marks)

It is usually referred as ‘primitive Germanic’ and other terms used are ‘common Germanic’. This Germanics has certain quality that differentiates themselves from other indo – European groups.

        3) What is the unique quality of Germanic family? (2 marks)

                                                                               I.            They have a strong tendency to fix a stress on word with its root syllable.

                                                                            II.            The building up of a ‘two-tense’ system in verb.(present, past)

        4) What are the three different groups in Germanic family? (5 marks)

                        The three different groups in Germanic family are

                                    1) Eastern

                                    2) Northern and

                                    3) Western

                        Eastern group has left only the gothic translation of bible. It was written during the end of 4^th century A.D.

                        After the fourth century northern group has given us the scandinavian tongues with great monuments, in written form. English belongs to western group and from it evolved the language of Germany, Holland, Friesland, Flemish, Belgium and English with historical records.

      5) What was the effect of using two tense in Germanic family? (2 marks)

                           There are only two primary forms of verb; the other tenses are shown by means of auxiliary verbs and common tense. The language has been greatly affected because of the extreme simplification. The compound tense multiplied. There was a great increase in flexibility of expression, greater subtlety and at time it also led to the loss of the language.

     6) What is the other peculiar characteristic feature of Germanic language?(5 marks)

                                                                                i.            The development of verbs in to strong and weak kinds.

                                                                              ii.            Strong verbs term was first used by Jacob Grimm of the fairy tales. Strong verbs can denote the change in tense eg. Drink

                                                                            iii.            Weak verbs are those that are secondary or derived. There is no change in vowel ‘ed, ‘is added at the end. Eg: - love – loved.

However there is still a conflict in the sharp division   between strong verb and weak verb. Eg : - buy - bought  

7) What are the other notions that prevail about Germanic language? (2 marks)

                                    Germanic at times believed to be a language spoken by Celts in Germanic dialect roman historians Tacitus has already made a reference to it. The older name of Germanic language is Teutonic and still this term is in vogue.

Important Landmarks in the Evolution of English

1. What are the important landmarks in the evolution of English? (2 marks)

The important landmarks are

1.      Old English (from the earliest writing till 1100)

2.      Middle English (from 1100 till middle age)

3.      Modern English (after the age of Middle English onwards)

2. What is the difference between Anglo Saxon and modern literary English? (2 marks)

Anglo-Saxon is largely derived from the south-south west whereas Modern literary English is much more derived from a Modern literary English is much more derived from a midland (East of the country mixed with earlier south-eastern).

3. Describe the term Anglo-Saxon. (2 Marks)

The term Anglo-Saxon came into vogue only during the late seventeenth century. Originally this term ‘Anglo-Saxones’ was used to distinguish the English Saxons from their kinsmen who remained in German midland.

4. Who introduced the word English? (2 marks)

King Alfred who was first introduced himself in English culture called the general language of England as Englise. Thereafter all people kike Angles, Saxons or Jutes were also referred as Englise. The expression of the word ‘Old English’ was found in early thirteenth century.