From the 9th century, Old English experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages.

The chronological divisions in the history of English: the Middle English period.

According to English scientists Henry Sweet the periods of the English development may be classified with the development of English endings: 1.The Period of Full Endings 2.The Period of Levelled Endings in reality contains the levelled vowel in the ending, but at the same time lots of endings were already lost; 3.The Period of Lost Endings. Generally held classification is as follows:1)Early Old English (5^th cent-7^th cent.) 2)Old English or Anglo-Saxon(8^th cent. – 11^th cent.) 3)Early Middle English(1066(Norman Conquest) - middle oh 14^th cent.) 4)Late or classical Middle English (2^nd half of 14^th cent. -15^th cent.) 5)Early New English (1475 (introducing of printing) – 1660(Age of Shakespeare)) 6)The age of normalization&correctness(mid 17^th cent. – end 18^th) 7)New English(from 19^th cent.)

In the course of ME many new devices were introduced into the system of spelling. In ME the runic letters passed out of use.Thorn – þ – and the crossed d – đ, ð – were replaced by the digraph th, which retained the same sound value: [Ө] and [ð]; the rune “wynn” was displaced by “double u” – w – ; the ligatures æ and œ fell into disuse. After English regained its prestige as the language of writing. Therefore many innovations in ME spelling reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The digraphs ou, ie, and ch which occurred in many French borrowings and were regularly used in Anglo-Norman texts were adopted as new ways of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:], and [t∫]. A wider use of digraphs. (ch, ou, ie, th, d sh-later) digraph wh replaced the OE sequence of letters hw as in OE hwæt, ME what [hwat]. Long sounds were shown by double letters, e.g. ME book [bo:k], though long [e:] could be indicated by ie and ee, and also by e. The letter y came to be used as an equivalent of i and was evidently preferred when i could be confused with the surrounding letters m, n and others. Sometimes, y, as well w, were put at the end of a word, so as to finish the word with a curve, e.g. ME very [veri], my [mi:]; w was interchangeable with u in the digraphs ou, au, e.g. ME doun, down [du:n], and was often preferred finally, e.g. ME how [hu:], now [nu:].

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.004 сек.