Historical background and chronological divisions in the history of English.

 English belongs to the Germanic group of languages & the history of this group begins with the appearance of  the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. There are 3 types of Germanic languages East Germanic, North Germanic & West Germanic.

1. East Germanic. This subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous & powerful of them were the Goths. The other East Germanic languages (Vandalic, Burgundian), all of which are now dead, have left no written records.
2. North Germanic. Until the 9^th c. A. D. the speech of the North Germanic tribes showed little dialectal variations & there was a sort of common language called Old Norse or Old Scandinavian. Old Norse divided into 4 languages: Old Swedish, Old Norwegian, Old Danish, Old Icelandic. 
3. West Germanic. This group consists of 5 members. Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian (= Old Dutch), Old High German (OHG). 

• Old English → English;
• Old Frisian → survived in local dialects in Friesland (in the Netherlands);
• Old Saxon → also in local dialects to be found in Germany;
• Old Low Franconian → Netherlandish → Afrikaans;
• Old High German → German → Yiddish.

Table. The classification of old & modern Germanic languages.

THE CHRONOLOGICAL DIVISION OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH.

The division of the History of English into periods is based on 2 principles.

1. EXTRA LINGUISTIC – cardinal changes in the history of people.
2. LINGUISTIC PROPER – cardinal changes in the structure and status of the language itself.

Approximately covers 12 centuries. It’s divided into 3 periods. The traditional division is based on the phonetics and grammatical principles (Henry Sweet), it subdivides the history of English into seven periods differing in linguistic situation and the nature of linguistic changes.

OLD ENGLISH

 (500 – 1100:was spoken on a small territory and number of speakers was ≈ 1 mln. SINCE the Germanic settlement of Britain (5^th c.) or with the beginning of writing (7^th c.) and TILL the Norman Conquest (1066) )

It was a typical OG language, with a purely Germanic vocabulary, and a few foreign borrowings, but it displayed specific phonetic peculiarities.

OE was a synthetic language with a well-developed system of morphological categories.

Early OE (prewritten OE) from 450 – 700. It is the stage of tribal dialects (Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians), which were used for oral communication, no written form. It has been reconstructed from the written evidence of other OG languages and from later OE written records.

OE (written OE) 700 – 1066. The tribal dialects gradually changed into local and regional dialects. 

MIDDLE ENGLISH

(1100 – 1500: begins with the Norman Conquest and ends on the introduction of printing (1475))

Features: reduced inflexions, unstressed endings.

During this period 4 million people spoke Middle English Dialects.  In Middle English: Northumbrian → the Northern dialect; Mercian → East Midland and West Midland dialects; Kentish, Wessex → South Western, South eastern d-s.

East Midland became the modern language, was spoken not far from London → modern national English. Although this period was rather short the language changed greatly and was different from OE in many characteristics.

Early ME 1066 – 1350. It was the stage of the greatest dialectal divergence caused by the feudal system and by foreign influences – Scandinavian and French. 

ME (classical or late) 1350 – 1475 (the age of Chaucer) – it was the time of restoration of English to the position of the state and literary language and the time of literary flourishing. 

MODERN ENGLISH 

(1500 - ...: since the introduction of printing (1475) till the present day) loss of inflexion. Nowadays 300 million people speak English as a mother tongue

Early New English 1476 – 1660 – this period is a sort of transition between two outstanding epochs: the age of Chaucer and the age of Shakespeare. In this period the first printed book which was published by W. Caxton in 1475 appeared.

Normalization Period 1660 – 1800 (age of correctness, Neo-Classical period) – this period has been called the period of “fixing the pronunciation”. The great sound shifts were over and pronunciation was being stabilized. Word usage and grammatical constructions were subjected to restriction and normalization. The formation of new verbal grammatical categories was completed.

Late NE/Mod E (including 1800 – present day English) – by the 19^th century English had achieved the relative stability and the classical language of literature was strictly distinguished from the local dialects. The expansion of English overseas proceeded together with the growth of the British Empire in the 19^th century.