The Evolution and Spelling of the English Language: From Europe to America, Study notes of Geography

Download The Evolution and Spelling of the English Language: From Europe to America and more Study notes Geography in PDF only on Docsity! The English Language: From Europe to the USA Language Geography • Languages diffuse by migration • Languages evolve by isolation English Language • Indo-European language family • Germanic language branch English Spelling • Why is English spelled the way it is? • Spellings reflect migrations and isolation • Geography helps explain the spelling of English • Migration of Germanic Tribes o Migrations of Angles, Jutes, and Saxons to England from Mainland Europe around 450 AD o Different Germanic dialects to different parts of England, become Old English (Anglo-Saxon) o England named after the Angles (Angle-land) o Migrants displace Celts and their languages (Celtic Fringe) 2 • Roman missionaries used Latin alphabet to write English o Latin had 23 letters (u = v, i = j, no w) o Old English had about 40 different sounds o How to write 40 sounds with 23 letters? • Other symbols (from runes) (þ, ð, æ) • Letter combinations (ch, sh) • Letters with more than one sound (c, g) • Norman Conquest (1066) and French scribes o French orthography (way of writing) • qu for cw, as in queen • gh for h, as in night • ou for u, as in house o Changes for clarity in handwriting • u confused with v, n, or m, so changed to o (love, one, son) • The “Great Vowel Shift” (1300s) o Pronunciation of some vowels changed • name was pronounced “nahm-uh” • knee was pronounced “kuh-nee” o No one knows why this happened o Spellings remained the same o Compare pronunciation of “route” and “vase” today • Invention of printing (1400s) o William Caxton, London printer, selected standards based on London, chose some spellings over others o Dictionaries helped standardize spellings o Attempts at spelling reform, such as Webster’s Dictionary in the United States • changed re to er, as in theatre / theater