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The evolution of language fascinates me. English has a fascinating history. 1000 years ago Old English and Althochdeutch (Old High German) were almost interchan

by cletus 8y ago

The evolution of language fascinates me. English has a fascinating history. 1000 years ago Old English and Althochdeutch (Old High German) were almost interchangeable (AFAIK). The really fascinating part was the period after 1066 for several centuries where English wasn't the court language of England. Now this period and lack of centralization is probably responsible for the many dialects (which now are mostly just different accents for other reasons). But the language changed so much over this period. Middle English is largely readable (but weird) to the modern reader. Old English is basically a different language. In this period English lost of what I like to call the bullshit like gender of (non-person) nouns. Case of nouns (other than pronouns) also basically disappeared. It still had the formal/informal distinction of the second person that so many other European languages had (but we lost that later). Verbs and nouns became way more regular. None of this happened with German (although Germany as a country didn't really exist until the 19th century and was at best a collection of city-states prior to that) but German in its various forms was still the ruling language (although Latin always had a certain preeminence what with the Holy Roman Empire and the Electors and all). Compare modern German grammar (where nouns and adjectives have to agree with case, number, gender and article). It strongly suggests that the ruling class seems to embody conservatism and traditions, which is unsurprising given that the status quo is pretty good if you're the ruling class. You see this in England where the precursor to modern French was the court language of England for hundreds of years. This has the effect of keeping commoners out (even more than they already are by virtue of hereditary title). It's almost like without central control English became more democratized. Obviously the printing press had a massive effect in standardizing spelling (other posters have mentioned that u and v were largely interchangeable). Radio (and later TV) had a massive effect on standardizing pronunciation. But still English has rapidly changed. One example I remember is if you go back and listen to early speeches by Churchill you'll here him say "nazi" not as "natsi" but as "nazzi" (much like the non-American ss in "aussie"). But by later in the war (IIRC) the "ts" phenom had pretty much been imported into English. Another thing I read was the mathematical model for how verbs become regular [1]. Basically, the less a verb is used, the sooner it becomes regular but how long it takes is quite predictable. Apparently "to wed" is the next verb to become regular. "To be" should take about 44,000 years. It makes you realize just how rapidly language changes and how grammar really is descriptive not prescriptive and why it's completely pointless to get your pedantic about "literally", less vs fewer, "very unique" and so on. [1] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2009/09/29/the-evolution-of-the-past-tense-how-verbs-change-over-time/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2009/09/2...

jcranmer 8y ago
There's a lot of misonceptions in here, some major, some minor. English derives from a more coastal dialect of Germany, and is closest to Frisian and Dutch (the latter more by convergent evolution). Modern German comes from a High German dialect, which is much more different (although still West Germanic). In 1000, English and Frisian would likely have been mutually intelligible--particularly since they would have been visiting the same markets as traders--but the same would not be true for English and Dutch or English and Germanic. Old English lost its inflection and became highly synthetic. This is primarily due to the influence of Old Norse, a North Germanic language, and the process would have begun some time before the Norman invasion in 1066. Note that a large Danish population settled in England in the 800s (the Great Dane Army invaded, and Alfred the Great ultimately let the settlers they brought with them stay), and they eventually brought Swein Forkbeard into England in response to Æthelred the Unready, which eventually leads to William's conquest in 1066 after several successive kings find themselves dead with no sons. The loss of inflection made it easier for North Germanic and West Germanic speakers to understand each other, since the roots were largely the same but the inflectional bits were different. Your characterization of the Holy Roman Empire is wildly inaccurate. While there were several independent cities of the Holy Roman Empire, there were several large duchies and kingdoms--most notably Brandenburg, Bohemia, Saxony, the Palatinate (the four secular electors), as well as Bavaria and Austria. It was by no means "at best a collection of city-states." Regularization is not an inherent process of language evolution. Actually, English isn't really systematically regularizing: American English has transformed the past participle of "dive" from "dived" to "dove", and there is effectively a movement to make the plural of "octopus" into "octopi" as opposed to the correct, regular "octopuses" (or the actual Greek plural "octopodes").

by cletus 8y ago

jcranmer 8y ago

There's a lot of misonceptions in here, some major, some minor. English derives from a more coastal dialect of Germany, and is closest to Frisian and Dutch (the latter more by convergent evolution). Modern German comes from a High German dialect, which is much more different (although still West Germanic). In 1000, English and Frisian would likely have been mutually intelligible--particularly since they would have been visiting the same markets as traders--but the same would not be true for English and Dutch or English and Germanic. Old English lost its inflection and became highly synthetic. This is primarily due to the influence of Old Norse, a North Germanic language, and the process would have begun some time before the Norman invasion in 1066. Note that a large Danish population settled in England in the 800s (the Great Dane Army invaded, and Alfred the Great ultimately let the settlers they brought with them stay), and they eventually brought Swein Forkbeard into England in response to Æthelred the Unready, which eventually leads to William's conquest in 1066 after several successive kings find themselves dead with no sons. The loss of inflection made it easier for North Germanic and West Germanic speakers to understand each other, since the roots were largely the same but the inflectional bits were different. Your characterization of the Holy Roman Empire is wildly inaccurate. While there were several independent cities of the Holy Roman Empire, there were several large duchies and kingdoms--most notably Brandenburg, Bohemia, Saxony, the Palatinate (the four secular electors), as well as Bavaria and Austria. It was by no means "at best a collection of city-states." Regularization is not an inherent process of language evolution. Actually, English isn't really systematically regularizing: American English has transformed the past participle of "dive" from "dived" to "dove", and there is effectively a movement to make the plural of "octopus" into "octopi" as opposed to the correct, regular "octopuses" (or the actual Greek plural "octopodes").