Biblioblog

Indo-European

(1) Vaclav Blazek “From August Schleicher to Sergei Starostin: On the development of the tree-diagram models of the Indo-European Languages” p. 82-109 The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Volume 35, no. 1 and 2, Spring/Summer 2007.

It was interesting to see a more graphic representation of the relations of languages in the Indo-European model and see the differences in the trees that were proposed. The article mentions glottochronology often, which is an estimation of the time a language time divides, “based on the assumption that the basic (core) vocabulary of a language changes at a constant average rate.”

More representations of language development can be found at these websites:

(2) http://www.danshort.com/ie/timeline.htm This one is interesting because it shows different periods of influence from other languages through conquest contact and their combination with English. And also here: (3) http://softrat.home.mindspring.com/germanic.html

(4) Joel Christensen’s Review of Don Ringe’s A Linguistic History of English, vol. I. From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic p.399-408. The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Volume 35, no. 3 and 4, Spring/Summer 2007. This is a review and therefore its scope is rather limited, but I found The Journal of Indo-European Studies an excellent resource for especially specific articles that concern both Proto-Indo-European and Indo-European concerns. I found it interesting that in the Proto-Germanic accent system; there were deaccented forms of vocatives and finite verbs in main clauses, but not in subordinate clauses and in initial positions. I wondered if vocatives show up in any other place besides initial positions in English and other Germanic languages today. It’s interesting that they are set off by commas and that the accent pattern is maintained through this punctuation. It seems that much of the discussion is based on findings from Early Runic evidence.

Germanic

(5) This brief description of 7 distinctive features of Germanic languages provides a good transition from Indo-European to Germanic, elucidating on some features of Germanic languages that don’t have cognate properties in other Indo-European languages. http://pages.towson.edu/duncan/germanic.html

(6) Germanic Invasions of Western Europe: The website also includes links to maps and other useful websites. I didn’t realize before investigating this website that the Germanic tribes that invaded western Europe were so small—less than 100,000 people. http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/firsteuro/invas.html

(7) Verner’s Law was the other important consonant shift besides Grimm’s law that affected PIE consonant stops in certain contexts. More specifically, the law affected Germanic voiceless fricatives that became voiced stops. The article that Verner wrote noting this exception can be found at the following website: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/books/read11.html. There are several very specific examples noted and the law seems to be quite well-supported.

Old English

(8) The site http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/1001Encyclopedia.htm had a lot of great links, including an interesting article called, “Christian Terminology in the OE Lexicon before the Christianization Period.” I found the discussion of Celtic religious terms (from language contact of Irish Missionaries in the seventh century) particularly fascinating, including the Celtic loan word cros (“cross”).

(9) An article by a professor here at BYU (Don Chapman) that appeared in the Journal of Historical Pragmatics called “’You Belly-Guilty Bag: Insulting Ephithets in Old English” caught my eye because it’s concentrating on insults alone. I learned that insulting ephithets occurred in four different kinds of contexts: sermons, between saints and judges, between the soul and body, characters addressing devils. I was struck with the similarity of conventions between insults in old English and present day English—and I imagine they would be the same in other languages. Some of the insults themselves were just plain funny, too, such as ‘maggot-food’ or ‘belly-sinful.’ Chapman’s discussion of the pragmatic value of insults was also fascinating. “In most of the Old English epithets, the value of the insult comes from its easily recognized status as an insult, not from its creativity” (14). (Journal of Historical Pragmatics; 2008, Vol. 9 Issue 1, p1-19)

Middle English

(10) http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361russell.htm goes into some detail about Wycliffe and the English Language. Wycliffe’s importance in elevating the level of English by allowing a vernacular theology to be expressed through the translation of the Latin Vulgate to English bible is discussed, as well as his importance in establishing a uniform English dialect. I found more information about Wyclif(fe) at this website (11) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wyclif/ where I was impressed to realize that Wycliffe’s philosophies included a complete and total dedication to God and to the inerrancy of the Bible. He believed that the Bible contained the whole truth and that imperfections that were found in the Bible were man-made because of man’s imperfect understanding of the Bible.

I was really interested in the history of the English Bible, and found that this site (12) http://www.williamtyndale.com/0biblehistory.htm was useful. One article went so far as to call Tyndale “The Father of English Prose”: (14) http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6362Ward1.htm. And for more information about the history of the Douay-Reims Bible, I looked at this website to put the English Bible used by the Catholics into context (14): http://www.douaybible.com/DouayHistory/douayhistory.html .

I liked the breakdown of the sub periods of Middle English on this website (15) http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/worldlit/teaching/upperdiv/mideng.htm. This seems to be the period of the English language with the most historical and socio-political influence on language. I was interested especially in the loss of Normandy by King John of England, and how, consequently, the importance and influence of France and French declined in England. As a result, I read more about King John—who seemed to be a rather poor leader. This website provided the most details that I could find, (16) http://historymedren.about.com/library/who/blwwjohnlackland.htm.

Early Modern English

I am completely entranced by the history of dictionaries. A lexicographical timeline can be found here: (17) http://angli02.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/b_history.html. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary may be called the most influential, since it was among the first of important dictionaries. The plan for his dictionary, written by Johnson, can be found at this website: (18) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/plan.html.

I was also interested in the development of orthography. This was obviously effected by the advent of printing and a need for stability and consistency in communication. This article (19) http://www.indiana.edu/~reading/phonics/u2/whistory.pdf referred to Richard Mulcaster’s Elementarie as a step in spelling conventions. These conventions included removing unnecessary letters, including phonological morphemes where they didn’t exist, and using a final “e” to represent long vowels.

Any mention of Early Modern English would not be complete without also mentioning Shakespeare, and I found this article (20) http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/chwp/mutanda/apocrypha_madrigal.pdf on “The Shakespeare Apocrypha in the Time of Google” to be an enticing discussion of some of the plays that are traditionally rejected by Shakespeare scholars.

Present Day English

As for PDE and World Englishes, I found English in Russia to be pretty fascinating because I was in Russia teaching English for five months. There is not too much written on this topic, but the(21) journal World Englishes (24.2, 2005, pp. 239-251), “English in Russia,” by Ustinova interesting. She talks about the three circles of English, and how English is on the outer edge of the “Expanding Circle” because it’s starting to move into other domains besides being a ‘foreign language.’ I noticed this process occurring more even in the short time that I was there. Especially in the big cities, English is becoming more and more used and more popular, even though a majority of the population still knows little to no English functionally.

In general, I found these websites to be extraordinarily useful in providing links and whatnot:

http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/hel/hel.html

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/helhome.htm