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Essay Topics: History of English Language, SS06 250 to 300 word paper!!!! 1. Note keywords 2. Look for examples 3. Organize text: introductory paragraph (topic and how we intend to deal with it), followed by paragraphs according to points you want to take up, ended by concluding statement. Trends in English language history There are internal and external trends and developments in a language.

Internal trend (or linguistic trends) They deal with the changes within the language system (linguistic developments). The following are examples which illustrate internal trends: -Simplification (ex. loss of cases) -Sound change (ex. Great Vowel Shift: great /greit/=modern Engl., /gr3t/=middle Eng. Ex. Loss of inflections) -Openness of English (new words easyly fit in) -Change of word order (old English: SOV, modern English: SVO) Evidence for internal changes unsually come from written documents. External trends (or causes of change) Sociolinguistics have shown that linguistic changes are often associated with particular groups in society, and thaat people tend to adopt changes introduched by more powerful or prestigious groups. So external trends focus on questions such as: Who spoke a language, where and when? The following are examples which illustrate external changes: -Invasion of the Anglo-Saxons in England, which lead to the development of the English language. -Later invasions by the Vikings and Normans. -Norman Conquest, which lead to close contact and often bitter rivalry between the English and the French. -Translations into English as a matter of power by King Alfred

-Invention of printing, which fixed the written language but not the spoken one -Spread of English through trade and colonialization. English is often used as a lingua france

among non-english speakers. English as a Germanic language (from Mossner and Graddol)

• There were (and still are) several theories about which language laid the groundwork for modern English. Whether it was Latin and Greek or Anglo-Saxon. The latter version is much more established, though.

• Today, English is seen as a Germanic language, because it shares important characteristics with German, Dutch, Danish etc.

• The origin of English is linked to the year 449 AD when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the Celtic King invited the King of the Angles to come and help defend the country. ⇒ in return they got land in SE England ⇒ Angles, Saxons and Jutes come and bring settlers with them ⇒ Celts are slowly become strangers (Wéalas ⇒Welsh) in their own country.

• The term English obviously derives from Angles. • The Old English that we study nowadays is West Saxon, the dialect of King Alfred • King Alfred (9th C): commissioning the translation of Latin texts into the West Saxon dialect of

OE (decline in knowledge of Latin) ⇒ he took a first step in centralizing the language and promoting writing and learning. ⇒ One of the works he commissioned was Caedmon’s hymn.

• It’s not clear whether there was a West Saxon standard language as we understand it nowadays, but if this was the case then it was due to the influential Benedictine monasteries (10th C.) who made a considerable effort to regularize spelling.

• Old English was mainly a spoken language, but there was a runic alphabet, called furtoc, which consisted of 24-31 letters ⇒ later invented letters give us clues about the pronunciation of Old English and how it changed over time.

• The first text, written in OE appeared around 700 AD (e.g. Ruthwell Cross, Lindisfarne Gospels, Franks Casket)

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• The main language for official and scientific texts remained Latin. ⇒ Reflects importance of the church.

• The form as well as spelling and punctuation of the early handwritten texts has largely influenced the appearance of English texts up to the present day.

• The first written evidence that has been found was in Old English. ⇒ There’s no proof of other, earlier languages, apart from Latin.

English as a Romance language

- Pre-English Period (-c. AD 450): After the Roman invasion c. 55 BC Latin becomes the dominant language of culture and government. Many communities in Britain are bilingual Celtic-Latin.

- Middle English (c. 1100-1450): Norman Conquest and Norman rule. English vocabulary and spelling now affected by French, which becomes the official language in England. Educated English people trilingual (French, Latin, English). Graddol p. 41

- After the Invasion fewer documents were written in English. Some were written in French, which became the fashionable language of the court, but even more striking was the extent to which Latin regained its position as the language of record. Graddol p. 59

- Latin: The Romans first introduced Latin to Britain when they invaded Britain in the first century BC. Even after the Roman legions left, in the early fifth century AD, Latin remained an important influence on the English language right up until the eighteenth, mainly through the church and the institutions of law, education and science.

- French: The Norman invasion of the eleventh century introduced a variety of French (Norman French) to Britain. Varieties of French remained an important linguistic influence on English up to modern times. Graddol p. 98

- The Norman Conquest and the influence of France: In 1066 a French speaking dynasty from the dukedom of Normandy was installed in England. French was the language of honour, chivalry and of justice. In the church some bilingualism seems to have been essential.

- The influence of French on the English vocabulary: A great many French words were adopted into English and such words have often been seen in a negative light. English acquired a layer of French words to refer to things that already had names. The new French words were also associated with the masters and the uses to which they put things. The earliest adoptions after the conquest were from Norman French (duc, cuntess, curt, messe, clerc). The example could be said to reflect the dominance of the Normans in powerful institutions such as the royal court and the church. But most of these words were relatively “exotic”, belonging to the specialist discourses of church law and chivalry and the running of country estates. Graddol p. 121-123

- The Christian missionaries: They brought a huge Latin vocabulary, some of which was taken over into old English. The missionary influence resulted in around 450 new words coming into the language, mainly to do with the church and its services, but including many domestic and biological words. The vast majority have survived in modern times. Graddol p. 134

- There arouse among a group of English authors the idea that the English language could be made more perfect, that it could be turned into as “eloquent” a language as classical Latin. The many Latin words introduced into English during this period made the new literary language difficult for many readers to understand. These words were called “hard words”. Graddol p. 142-144

- Lexicon/Word stock: It may strike one as odd that the largest influx of French words comes as English is regaining its status among the nobility. This occurs around the middle of the thirteenth century, and the reason for it seems to be that in seeking words to express themselves in English, nobility fell back on the French vocabulary with which they were familiar.

- French influences on vocabulary: Fewer words enter the language in the first 200 years after the Conquest than between 1250-1500 (about 900), and those that do exhibit peculiarities of Anglo-Norman phonology. The largest number of words from this period shows influence of the Church.

- Latin: The language also was importing Latin words during the Middle English period. Latin terms frequently entered the language through the process of translation. Wycliffite writings,

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for example, are credited with introducing over 1000 new words. Dan Mosser on Late Middle English

- Latin: Unlike the native Britains (Celts), the Romans represented a higher civilization with tools and knowledge worth borrowing, and with those tools and that knowledge they brought the words or names needed to express them or refer to them. The influence of Latin is usually described as resulting from three distinct periods (e.g., Baugh and Cable 75-82; many of the examples that follow are drawn from this source): 1. Romans occupy continental homes of Germanic tribes, 2. Romans under Claudius conquer Britain in 43 C.E. (influence on OE via Celtic), 3. Pope Gregory I sends mission under Augustine to Christianize the English (597 C.E.) Dan Mosser on Late Old English

Old English Historical Dimension 500-1066 Languages spoken before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons:

- Celtic - Latin (arrived in Britain in the 1st century BC and left the region in the early 5th century AD.

However, Latin had a strong influence on the English language through the church, institutions of law, education and science.)

5th century AD.: Arrival of the Anglo-Saxons (AS). They are said to have provided the core of the English language. It is not entirely clear what happened to the Celts when the AS arrived in Britain. Bede, for example, minimized in his ecclesiastical history their influence on the language and it is often assumed that the Celts were driven to the borders of the country. However, AS also absorbed words from the Celtic language, so it is imaginable that the two languages co-existed and had contact with each other. Regional dialects emerged: Mercian, Northumbrian, Wessex, Kentish and West Saxon. 9th/10th century: Viking Invasions from Scandinavia. Many words were borrowed from the Scandinavian language, especially in the regions under the Danelaw (the regions under Viking control). 878: Alfred the Great. He made the first steps into the direction of a standardization of the English language:

- He commissioned the translation of Latin texts into the West Saxon dialect, because there was a decline of the knowledge of Latin.

- He overcame the Vikings and brought about the dominance of Wessex and the West Saxon dialect. Therefore, the importance of other regional dialects declined. However, this point of view can be challenged: The victory over the Vikings was not final and it is likely that the importance of the West Saxon dialect did not emerge before the 10th century with the influence of the Benedictine monasteries.

Linguistic Dimension Vocabulary: The vocabulary has been greatly enlarged since the AS times, but Old English words often can still be found in specialized varieties of English such as regional dialects. Pronunciation: Actually, it is improvable how the AS pronounced certain sounds; however, it is assumed that the written records reflect the pronunciation; therefore, there are no silent letters. Syntax: The word order in Old English was quite free; however, the order Subject-Object-Verb seems to be the most frequently used one. Therefore, the word order changed from Old English to modern English from SOV to SVO. Inflections: Old English still had inflections, such as case endings, which were influenced by the gender of the words (Old English had three genders, masculine, feminine, neuter). Moreover, a noun could be strong or weak, which also influenced the inflection. Old English had a quite complex inflection system, which is lost by now. Why did these key features of the English language change?

Internal causes: - The stress has tended to fall increasingly on the first syllable of words. The inflected syllables at the end of the word were more weakly stressed and often reduced to a schwa sound and became redundant. - Not all cases had distinctive endings. This was inefficient and was analogical remodelled.

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External causes: - The inflectional breakdown began in the Northumbrian region. That is were the Vikings settled. Scandinavian and Old English were quite similar and it is likely that inflection differences between the two languages were simply resolved by doing them away altogether.

Middle English Historical Dimension 1066-1300 1066: Norman Invasion. Was it a milestone on the road to civilization or the wrecking of a relatively sophisticated native AS culture? That is hard to say but surely it was the beginning of a close contact between English and French which had a huge impact on the development of the English language. French in England after 1066 up to 1300:

- The king's court and a great deal of administrative writing were in French. The law was in Latin.

- French became the language of "honour" and was a sign of social aspiration, because all the teachings were done in French. It was also a sign of social stratification.

- Many people of the Norman landowning nobility learned English quite soon. There were also latimiers (interpreters) who mediated between the Norman landowners and the labourers.

- Bilingualism seems to have been essential in the church; preaching often was in English, the writing remained Latin.

- Paradoxically, the influence of French grew stronger after 1204, although the dynastic link to the Normandy had been broken. The nobility had to learn central French.

English after 1300: - English became more widely used in domains which had been hitherto dominated by French.

This is often explained with the emergence of a national identity. - Law: Statute of Pleading decreed that law-suits should be in English. The widespread

ignorance of French is used as justification for this decree. - Church: theological writing increasingly was done in English. Less and less people knew

Latin. - Literature written in English became more popular and accepted. Chaucer was praised for his

work. - Court: French still was the official language of the court; however, most courtiers and the king

himself seemed to be bilingual. - Education: English replaced French as the medium of instruction. - "Official English": English became the language of official documents. However, a particular

variety of English was chosen for this: a London variety of the south-east Midlands dialect. Linguistic Dimension Vocabulary: Many French words were adopted into English. Such words have often been seen in a negative light, because they were often used by the higher social classes and, therefore, are a sign for social stratification. Even words had been adopted to refer to things that had already English names. These French words were associated with the new French masters. "Double adoptions": the earliest adoptions were from Norman French and reflected the Norman dominance in powerful institutions such as the court. These early adoptions in some cases coexisted with their central French counterparts adopted at a later date. Pronunciation: As in Old English, it is assumed that the writing reflects the pronunciation. Syntax: The word order was essentially the same as in modern English. Inflection: Middle English still had an inflection system, which was far simpler than the Old English inflection system. It seems to have been a transitional system between Old English and Modern English. Great Vowel Shift: The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language, generally accomplished in the fifteenth century, although evidence suggests it began as early as the fourteenth century. The shift continued for some time into the sixteenth century, spreading toward the non-metropolitan and non-port areas. It represented a change in the long vowels. The principal changes: • /a:/ → /eɪ/ (as in make)

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• /ɛ:/ → /eɪ/ or /i:/ (as in break or beak) • /e:/ → /i:/ (as in feet) • /i:/ → /aɪ/ (as in mice) • /ɔ:/ → /oʊ/ (as in boat) • /o:/ → /u:/ (as in boot) • /u:/ → /aʊ/ (as in mouse)

The cause for this shift still is a mystery. For further information see and a nice vowel triangle, see: http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/, the Great Vowel Shift homepage…

Tudor English • Ca. 1450 – 1750 • Includes the Renaissance, Elizabethan era, Shakespeare • The number of English speakers during Elizabeth’s reign: 5-7 Million • Latin and French became less important during this time • Overseas colonies were established and the spread of English started • 18th century spelling and punctuation ≈ today • Latin used for legal documents + lingua franca until the 18th century • 1473: Invention of printing by William Caxton • handwriting was stratified according to class and gender • differentiation between u and v not until 1630 • Bible translated into English and Welsh • Reformation, Puritanism: move away from Latin, favour English • Until the 19th century, grammar is based on Latin models+prescriptive • Empiricist notion: use English as a starting point, use your senses • 1500 – 1700: 30’000 new words into English to make it more elaborate and variable through

borrowing, renewing obsolete terms for science • Great Vowel Shift: 12th – 18th century change of vowels that were represented by the letters

assigned to the sounds in Latin, no reason is known • Renewed interest in the classical antiquity → first printed book: The History of Troy • Freer word order e.g. the king’s crown of England • Rules for comparative and superlative forms were not fixed e.g. more tall, anxiouser, most

boldest • Adverbs = adjectives, no difference in form • Pronouns were situation-specific, they could be used to express condescendence or

politeness e.g. thou/you • Fixed expressions asked for different prepositions from today’s e.g. dreams are made on

(today: of) • There were alternative past forms for verbs e.g.fling → flang/flung,

get → gat/got, write → writ/wrote • There were alternative forms for past participles e.g. help → holpen/helped, freeze → frozen,

frore • With questions and negations, auxiliary ‘do’ was not often used e.g. why weepest thou?, I

know not • Double negation was used often e.g. nor this is not my nose either

Standards and Standardization The Process of Standardisation

1. Selection: an existing variety is chosen as the basis. It’s usually the variety used by the most powerful social or ethnic group

2. Codification: reduction of internal variability in the selected variety, and the estabilshment of grammatical norms and vocabulary. This often involves also a standard spelling for words.

3. Elaboration: ensuring that the language can be used in a wide range of functions. The linguistic resources are expanded, for example by borrowing of words or new grammatical structures. There are three means of creating new vocabulary: a) words could be invented, b) words could be adopted from other languages such as Latin and Greek and c) obsolete English words could be brought back into use.

4. Implementation: the standard language must be promoted in written language. Alternative varieties are deemed ungrammatical and inferior and people are thus discouraged to use them. The standard is associated with loyalty and pride.

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King Alfred The first tendency towards standardisation already took place in OE. King Alfred promoted one single dialect of English in order to unite the English and be able to withstand foreign influence which mainly concerned the northern part of England where Scandinavians settled and dispersed their native tongue. Alfred saw a common language as a means for unification of his realm. Written English Two major developments have contributed to the evolution of English as a standard language: the invention of the printing press and the rise of the nation state. The standard language solidarised the nation and gave an identity to its citizens. English was transformed from a vernacular into a standardised veriety that could be identified with England as a nation state. A standard language is one that provides agreed norms of usage, usually codified in dictionaries and grammars, for a wide range of institutional purposes such as education, government and science. The term “Standard English” refers to the dominant written form of English. The dialect of the south-east Midlands assumed the position of the standard form as it was predominantly used in printion. Effects of printing were:

5. Introduction of punctuation 6. New spelling 7. More conformity 8. New words

As a result written English, apart from a few minor spelling variants, formed a fairly monolithic whole across the English-speaking world. Spoken English There is, as a matter of fact, no such thing as a standard in spoken English. However, there are certain dominant varieties that are perceived as the norm. In Britain, Received Pronunciation is considered to be the “standard” showing no specific dialectual feature. It is used in the media, in education and in institutions. Will English finally become unintellibible among native speakers? There are too many centralizing factors keeping Standard English in the forefront of world attention for the old Latin scenario to obtain. And its position is being reinforced by new technologies. Satellite television is beam-ing Standard English down into pre-viously unreachable parts of the world, thereby fosterng greater levels of mutual intelligibility. And the Internet currently has a predominantly (70%) Enghlish voice &endash; though this figure is rapidly falling, as other languages come on-line. The vast majority of the World Wide Web is in Standard English, albeit in many specialized varieties. Colonial English and Language Imperialism Chapter 5 in Graddol: English – colonial to postcolonial (compare next topic) Colonial English: Experience of colonization (starts 16th cent.): establishment of communities of English speakers, sometimes forcibly. Maintained economic and cultural links with England. Positioning themselves in a relation of power with pre-existing inhabitants. 3 types of colonies: 1. Original settlement by English speakers who displaced natives (America, Australia). 2. Political incorporation/sparser colonial settlement maintained natives in subjection (learn E as a second lang.) (West Africa; Sierra Leone). 3. Nationalist reaction, sometimes leading to independence/precolonial population replaced by new labour from elsewhere/pidgins & creoles (Jamaica…). Colonists (most have low statuscolony: power): mixed origins (demographic background) but shared Christianity introduction of varieties of E. (diverse/often non-standard) Dialect levelling (encouraged by focusing agencies (Graddol p.139): education, one social group which was powerful/high status. Colony: new varieties of E. through Language contact. Internal differentiation: development of a sense local culture/linguistic identity, reinforced by contact to local languages/new social hierarchies/different forms of continuing relationship with Britain. Substrate: bilingual communities (eg. India). E has most intimate contact with other language & new forms of E arose (speakers intend to incorporate features from their first language when speaking the new imposed one). Or: local people learn E as a second language, knowledge of their first language interferesnew variety of E establishes itselfstability/coherencelearned by young people new E has a distinct identity.

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Pidgin: language for limited forms of interaction where no lingua franca is available. Small vocab./little grammatical complexity/depend heavily on context for understanding. Creoles: when pidgin becomes a first language (extending & adapting), communicate in a wide variety of contexts. Different grammar from other varieties of E. (E creole cos vocab is based on E), eg. Jamaica. Language Imperialism: Motives for colonization: 1. Economic: company owners were granted a monopoly over a certain commodity by the monarch (gained profit through taxing the profit in trading). 2. Social: England had probs with unemployment/inflation/population growthdispossessed ‘vagrants’/political dissidentsproviding labour in colonies overseas. 3. Political: colonization=Europe-wide phenomenonpartly motivated by rivalries among European states. Economic, political & social inequalities within a colonyprevileged E. & its speakers. E represents: modern life, technology, consumer goods, youth culture, personal social mobility, ethnoculture, neutrality (Fishmann). Attitudes: neutral, liberalism, westernization. Pluricentricity: assimilation of English across cultures (eg. Singlish). Material: economic gains, social status. The spread of English Chapter 5 in Graddol: English – colonial to postcolonial, especially 5.3 & 5.4 Spread of English within British Islands (model for later colonization), end 12th cent.: 2 eg. in Graddol: Ireland and Scotland. Here only Ireland. Introduction E law to protect the colonists & disadvantages the Irish. New townscentres of Anglo-Norman influence. Personal identities & loyalities change through colonization. By 14th cent.: colonists & Irish get marriedmixture. Late 15th cent.: E control limited to area around Dublin (‘the Pale’). During 16th cent.: E control reasserted (Irish: catholics, under Elizabeth I Catholicism=treachery cos of the Spanish). Irish fight against British but are eventually defeated, their land confiscated & awarded to fresh colonizers. Ireland incorporated into the United Kingdom by the Act of Union of 1800. 19th cent: Irish abandoned: 1. Depopulation: famines (death/emigration). 2. Introduction of universal E-language education. 3. link nationalism & language, catholic church & independent movementIrish Republic in 1921. Irish: part of national identity. Language was heart of Celtic culture: remove it and everything else dies. Irish E=Hiberno E became the form of E learned by monolingual E speakers in Ireland. Many grammatical patterns may derive from the many regional varieties of 17th cent. E taken to Ireland by colonists which have become obsolete. Spread of English beyond British Islands: Colonization-types see topic above, examples here: Type 1: Australia. Settlement started in 1788. Many convicts, once freed, became smallholders. Vocab to name new colonial identities & distinguish from natives (and also for Flora & Faunaadoption from natives. ‘Koori’ for Aboriginal): ‘currency’non-Aboriginal white Aussie born there. ‘Sterling’born in Britain, not a convict. Aussie pronunciation is close to Cockney (lots of convicts from there), except the initial /h/ is sounded. RP=norm in education system. Aussie E is becoming less like RP though, perhaps a desire among speakers to differentiate from the models associated with Britain (delineation). Distinctive culture has distinctive words. Type 2: West Africa. 16th cent. First slave trade from Sierra Leone. British colonies after 1880. Few E speakers. Lots of Africans use E-based pidgin+the language they spoke. Movement for African independence in E, E as a unifier/composite language, ot the product of any one people! E helps Africans to recreate their identities as members of nations rather than tribes. E ‘helped’ to modernize new culture with concepts :’freedom’, ‘national identity’. Prob: particular language encodes particular way of thinking. African writers: E=inadequate medium for expression of authentically ‘African’ experience. British English and American English American English: The History of American English (Graddol: 194) In 1607, the first permanent settlement was established in Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620, the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth, Mass.. By 1640, 25’000 Europeans migrated to that area. Not only persecuted, religious puritans emigrated to America, but also English and Welsh settlers from various religious dominions. In the colonies, the language came in contact with other occupying powers like the Dutch in the west or the French in the north-west. In the south, huge plantations developed. This area was populated by people from the south and west of England. Also, African slaves were transported to this area and influenced the new forms of English spoken. These estates formed what has come to be known as the American south.

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The variety that was imported to America was that of the early modern period. Distinguishing features like the pronunciation of the rhotic /≤/ can be attributed to the fact that the Elizabethan English exported to the colony did not develop in the same way as in Britain. This characteristic is called colonial lag. Nevertheless, the areas that maintained close cultural and trade links with England tended to become non-rhotic, like accents along the east coast, including New York, and in the south, where the African American Vernacular English developed. (Labov showed in his study of New York English that the non-rhotic tendency, spoken by lower, middle class and older speakers is being replaced by the general American rhotic tendency.) Another sound change that did not succeed in most of North America was the shift from /{/ to /α/ as in bath or dance (Wikipedia). The influence of indigenous languages on American English has been surprisingly slight. Exceptions are words which lack English counterparts like animal names or place names. The Indian language Algonquian is the exclusive

source for borrowed words like racoon, caribou, skunk, hickory, moose. Today, there are about 300 Indian loanwords in American English. Over time, the south and north developed in different directions culturally and linguistically, which finally led to the Civil War of the 1860s. Nationalists like Noah Webster saw a necessity in the uniformity of American English. His dictionary provided a powerful model for American usage. “Slowly Webster Americanized spelling. He chose s over c in words like defense; he changed the re to er in words like center; he dropped one of the l's in traveller; at first he kept the u in words like colour or favour, but he dropped it in later editions” (Wikipedia). Dialect levelling is also a factor that brought the American Accents closer together despite of the sheer diversity in the American population since the late 18th century. (Figure 5.6, page 199 in Graddol) Interesting websites you might want to look at: http://www.pbs.org/speak http://www.us-english.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English Listen to American English on National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/ English as a world language Dates and numbers:

- Only a few centuries ago, the English language consisted of a collection of dialects spoken mainly by monolinguals and only within the shores of a small island. Now it includes such typologically distinct varieties as pidgins and creoles, “new” Englishes, and a range of differing standard and non standard varieties that are spoken on a regular basis in more than 60 different countries around the world… Graddol p. 3

- Today English is used by at least 750 million people, and barely half of those speak it as a mother tongue…English at the end of the twentieth century is more widely scattered, more widely spoken and written, than any other language has ever been. It has become the language of the planet, the first truly global language. Graddol p. 12

Historical background:

- Between the end of the reign of Elizabeth I (1603) and the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth II (1952) the number of mother-tongue English speakers in the world increased from 5-7 million to around 250 million, of whom four-fifth lived outside the British Isles. This growth was largely due to the colonial expansion which began in the sixteenth century.

- It can be argued that the process of colonisation began within the British Isles themselves, when English first became established as the main language of the Celtic-speaking territories of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

- Colonies were first established beyond the British Isles at the end of the sixteenth century (economic, political, social reasons). Graddol p. 180,181

- Three types of colonies: 1. America, Australia = substantial settlement by first-language speakers of English displaced the precolonial population, 2. Nigeria = sparser colonial

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settlements maintained the precolonial population in subjection and allowed a proportion of them access to learning English as a second, or additional, language, 3. Caribbean islands of Barbados and Jamaica = precolonial population was replaced by new labour from elsewhere, principally West Africa Pidgins and Creoles. Graddol p. 181, 182

- The establishment of English-speaking colonies in North America at the beginning of the seventeenth century was the first decisive stage in the colonial expansion of England which made English an international language. Graddol p. 194

- Slave trade: influence on language in North America

Linguistic consequences of colonization: - One of the more striking linguistic consequences of colonization has been the appearance of

new varieties of English worldwide. Some of these remain local languages of relatively low social status. Others have become codified, standardized and adopted by newly independent states as an official or main language.

- The colonial conditions of language contact played an important role in shaping the new varieties of English that emerged. Graddol p. 184

Other reasons for English as a world language and links to other topics:

- English as a first / second / foreign language (Graddol Chapter 1) - English in Switzerland, India etc. - English as a lingua franca - Economic fortunes of America - Balance of world power

First language and second language Definitions

- first language, native language, mother tongue (L1): the language a person learns first ->native speaker (one might be speaker of several native languages, not only one ->bilingual, multilingualism)

- second language (L2): any language learned after the first language(s) or mother tongue(s) ->non-native language

- foreign language: ->non-native language -

Possible points / issues you could mention/analyse/discuss in your essay: problems with defining E speakers (Graddol, esp. p. 13)

- difficult to draw hard and fast boundaries between “second-language” and “foreign-langugage” speakers. -> native speakers (mother-tongue) and non-native speakers (distinction can be questioned in contexts such as India and Singapore. ->cross-reference to E in India.)

- varieties of E are now recognized as “new Englishes” - discrepancies between different estimates of the number of speakers of English

(when do you say sb speaks E? what about “varieties” of E, like dialects?) - can someone who uses English for only a restricted set of activities be deemed a

“user of English”? problems with the continuing spread of the E language, especially among non-native

speakers - the majority always decides: what if E gets out of hand and the majority of E-speakers

are non-native speakers? how is this situation going to change the E language? -> native and non-native speakers have different intuitions about the language, so non-native speakers sometimes even mix voca (borrowing, etc.) and grammar with the non-native language. ->most non-native speakers are not in constant touch with native models ->abuse, misuse of language, -> identity-loss of E native speakers .

- borrowings outside E-native speaking countries (cross-reference to Franglais, Spanglish and the like; E in India, E in Switzerland)

- do non-native speakers and native speakers who use a nonstandard variety of E (like Jamaican-E, E in India) need access to a native standard variety of the language? (Graddol, p. 26)

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- learners of E would need a native standard variety to communicate internationally, so can non-native “Englishes” be used as models for teaching and learning?(Graddol, p.26) ->non-native speakers learn E under different conditions.

- as a consequence: E language might split like Latin once did (Latin: into Spanish, Italian, French, etc.)

- example: when Filipinos speak their variety of E, they’re able to understand one another, but not native-E speaking people. ->usually you learn a language to talk world-wide, but in this case, they talk E to each other instead of their own mother-tongue -> loss of own/ minority language, -> misuse of E language (Graddol, pp. 37)

general points - E is the language of globalisation (from Fringe to World Language): extreme mobility,

im/migration, language contact, social prestige, etc. - E gives access to “a world of science, technology and commerce”. - ca. 300 million first language speakers (native),

ca. 300 million second language speakers (non-native), ca. 900 million foreign language speakers (non-native),

-> (native speakers) 1: 4 (non-native speakers) - status in Kenya: E language as an official, untainted language (because of all Kenyan

dialects) - status in Canada: bilingualism of French-speakers, monolingualism of E speakers,

pressure of Am culture. Make cross-references to other topics relevant for Dürmüller’s topic questions:

standard language/standardisation colonial English and language imperialism the spread of English English as a world language Franglais, Spanglish and the like English in Switzerland English in India pidgins and creoles (not one of the 16 topics from the list, but additional knowledge could be

quite handy) If you want to look up certain problems or issues raised, go to Graddol, Chapter 1: esp. pp. 13, 14, 20, 21, 26 and pp. 29 -> (Reading A: The English Language Today by David Crystal) Franglais, Singlish and the like In the following I will briefly outline the role of English in Asia and Europe in general and then look at more concrete examples like Franglais and Singlish. Asia and Europe: Similarities and Differences First of all the most obvious similarity is that English is spoken as an L2, both in Expanding Circle Europe as well as in Outer Circle Asia. However ‘Euro-English’ may only just be emerging as a distinctive variety, whereas Asian Englishes have accomplished an own identity, which rejects the concept of respecting the norms of Inner Circle Englishes. It is also clear that English is the new European lingua franca, which is not only restricted to commerce and business, but also evolves to be the new lingua franca of socialisation. Furthermore, both Englishes are developing in a context of bi- or multi-lingualism, which also has consequences for its use and teaching system. Hence Asian English may indicate the likely future development of “Euro-English”. The changing role of English in Europe - Euro English Although Europe has eleven official languages only three of them are dominant: English, German and French. Speaking one of those big languages provides access to material success, which establishes a certain hierarchy among the different languages. At the beginning of the twenty-first century English became more and more the biggest of the three; it became the European lingua franca. There are different explanations for the popularity of learning English among Europe’s adolescents. The most obvious reason is that it provides the best access to material success. Others claim that youngsters using code switching and mixing, have found a possibility within and through English to express emotional aspects of their social identity. However the question is still to be raised if not a speaker’s mother tongue will always stay his or her language for identification. It is too early to say how Europe’s lingua franca, Euro-English as it is often labelled, is going to develop and if it will once become capable of ‘expressing social identity as well as performing a more transactional role

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in politics, business and the like’ (Jenkins 2003: 42). Some scholars think that it will become a distinctive variety, independent from the English Standard, which contains several features from every official European language. They hope that a nativisation of English will take place and that it will be as much a native as a foreign and international language. On the Way to New Standard Englishes (=> also see “Standards and Standarization”) In order to become a widely accepted variety of English and an alternative to the British and American standard, Outer and Expanding Englishes need to undergo the process of codification, that is, they have to acquire their own variety of grammatical, lexical, discoursal and phonological characteristics, preferably compiled into a work of reference, e.g. a dictionary. However, one of the main difficulties that one might encounter doing so, is to find a compromise between a local variety’s specific lexicon and norms, and international intelligibility. The process of selection is therefore critical and difficult to define. One of the bigger hindrances in the codification of Asian English is the still prevalent attitude among certain scholars that Asian English is characterised by errors and that its speakers are rather in the interlanguage phase in their process of learning a native variety of English. However, it is often forgotten that the purpose of learning English might differ from the one traditionally assumed by those scholars, namely that: 1. the main communicative target of a learner might not necessarily be a native- speaker, but rather another non-native speaker 2. the input available to most learners is not a native variety of English, but an IVE (indigenised variety of English), which may be barely understandable to a native-speaker. 3. learners use English in a multilingual environment as a High variety in a diglossic situation (diglossic being the use of high and low varieties under different circumstances, e.g. in dialect and standard use) 4. the learner’s motivation for learning English might not be integrative, but merely instrumental for functional purpose or practical reasons Therefore, most IVEs are stable, which would allow them to be considered as a stable variety of English on their own. The main debate concerning this issue is whether they can be considered as a new variety or whether they just have reached the stage of collective ‘fossilisation’, as some scholars claim. In the process of codification there is to decide which features of a variety have to be included in the standard. Here, since the American and British standard varieties are of little significance, local educated varieties are the focus of attention. Yet, there are a number of them, which make decisions which one to choose difficult and there is still an attachment to native-speaker norms as they often seem more prestigious than a local educated variety. A second difficulty is the conflict between local needs and international intelligibility, so it can be used and understood intranationally as well as internationally. History of English in Singapore Singapore’s involvement with the English language started with Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles who, in 1819, settled officially as a tradesman on the island of Singapore in the South of Malaysia. At that time the main purpose was a strategic one because of the Dutch dominance in the archipelago e.g.Batavia. After having signed the treaty of Singapore Raffles left the young country and Major William Farquhar was in charge of the new settlement. Singapore was finally established as an important trade port in the Far East. Raffles returned to Singapore in 1822 and was shocked by the disarray of the colony. He arranged to organize Singapore into functional and ethnic subdivisions under the drafted Raffles Plan of Singapore. Still today, the remnants of this organization can be found in the ethnic neighbourhood. In 1867 the British government accepted Singapore as an official Crown Colony and since then the influence of English on the multiethnic population of this island has continued. In 1965 Singapore became independent from Malaysia. Standard English and Colloquial Singapore English (Singlish) It is an important fact that one differentiates between the Standard English and Colloquial Singapore English (Singlish). Standard English which derives from British English is seen as the educated version of English in Singapore, i.e. University of Singapore only teaches in Standard British English. In other words, the elite in Singapore use RP. Colloquial Singapore English, i.e.Singlish, is the English that is spoken on the streets and nowadays at home; despite the fact that 76.8% are Chinese, 13.9% are Malays, 7.9% are Indians and only 1.4% are others that actually need English as a home language more and more Chinese households speak English today. Today, English is

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very important in Singapore because of the multiethnicity in that small country and the debate nowadays in government is not about whether to use English or not but rather about Singlish or not. Franglais in France The fashion for English words, or for ‘franglais’, which is a mixture of English and French, is not new to the French. They have been borrowing from English in this way for at least a century, but there are now fears among those who want to protect French from Anglo-American influences. English is taught as a foreign language in schools, but is indented mainly for international communication. Further French itself, like English, serves as an international language of culture and of diplomacy. This international role of French is in decline, under pressure both from local languages and from English. And within France itself there are fears of increasing linguistic and cultural domination – of ‘contamniation’ by Anglo-American influences. English and Switzerland Urs Dürmüller: English in Switzerland: From Foreign Language to Lingua Franca? (Online Text) Historical background: Before WWII, English played a minor role in Switzerland. It was only used in the fields of tourism, namely in the Berner Oberland, Interlaken and the Alps. English words were borrowed in the fields of leisure like Sport, corner, foul, jazz, star. Generally, people had a good conduct of a second national language but not of a third language like English. After WWII, the Swiss economy exploded, many workers were sent to England as foremen, some of them returned with English women. As the American influence on Europe grew, English became the main language of science and trade, many English expressions penetrated Swiss vocabularies. The fact that the Swiss identity was and still is not connected to one language gave English here a less threatening character than in Germany or France. English today: Unlike in India, English did not develop into an individual variety and is still a foreign language. However, there is something like Swiss English, which consists of a few examples that would occur only in Switzerland (e.g. handy, dancing, wellness). Officially, English is admitted as L3 (L4 in the Italian-speaking area), unofficially, English has now won the L2 position, at least among the young. The language of science tends to be English. Today, traces of English are found virtually everywhere. Especially in advertising and product labeling, English words and expressions can e found. (The future is bright, the future’s Orange, Nespresso. What Else?, Always a Smile etc.)

The bulk of the Anglophone population is concentrated in the Lake Geneva area (31%), where the cities of Geneva and Lausanne are located. Other thriving communities also exist in large cities such as Basle (12%), Zurich or Zug (9%) (switzerland.isyours.com). English as a Lingua Franca:

Lately, there has been issued the concern that English might become a Lingua Franca, a language that is nobody’s own, in Switzerland, and that German as well as French speaking Swiss might prefer English over the other national languages. The discussion whether English should be taught in schools as L2 or L3 added to this debate, which is still going on today. There has been protest against anglicisms in German and French. However, English has a general acceptance and Dü argues that “the public is ready to accept English and that English is generally welcomed as a language one might take up into one’s repertoire.” Websites: http://www.sprachkreis-deutsch.ch/ http://www.kl.unibe.ch/kl/llbs1/Englisch/switz.htm (Dü’s text) English in India (Lea)

Some basics: Kachru’s model of the spread of English around the world: • Inner Circle: traditional historical and sociolinguistic bases of English in the areas where it is the

primary language. E.g. UK, USA, New Zealand, etc.

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• Outer Circle: regions colonised by Britain; the spread of English in non-native settings, where the language has become part of the country’s chief institutions, and plays an important “second language” role in a multilingual setting. E.g. India

• Expanding Circle: nations, which recognise the importance of English as an international language, but they do not have the history of colonisation, nor does English have any special status in their language policies. There, English is a foreign language. E.g. Switzerland

“New Englishes” are varieties which have developed in the Outer Circle, they can also be called diaspora varieties. OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: language generally used for government administration and the Higher Courts of Law, in the media and as one of the languages of education, at least of secondary and higher education on a nationwide basis. NATIONAL LANGUAGE: a language that is considered representative of a nation or nationality.

Reasons for the spread/acceptance of English in India • Historical role of England as a colonial power: The English language was the prestigious language

spoken by the Raj (the linguistic elitism strategy) in India. • English as a tool for acquiring knowledge in the sciences and the humanities. • English’s propensity for acquiring new identities. • English’s power of assimilation. • English’s adaptability to “decolonisation” as a language. • English’s manifestation in a range of lects. • English’s provision of a flexible medium for literary and other types of creativity across languages

and cultures. • English in India has not been replacive! It has enriched the Indian languages, rather than to drive

out any of the indigenous languages. • English is free from any undesirable connotations native languages may have (but this only since

a short period of time). • Hindu society (class and caste distinctions): “For the Indians the neighbours were more

unwelcome than outsiders; and the outsiders could actually help in defeating the neighbour. The outsiders were, in the end, accepted as masters; the Indians would rather be mastered by them than dominated by a rivalling family inside India”.

The Introduction of English in India Vasco da Gama: came ashore in Calicut in 1498 and restored a link between Europe and the East. After the control by the Portuguese it was annexed to Spain in 1580, which was not very interested in India, so that the Dutch arrived there in 1595 and took it from the Spain. Under Queen Elizabeth I, the East India Company was formed, whose main interest was trade. The English trade becoming more profitable than the Dutch, India gradually fell under British contact and domination. In 1818, The British Empire became the British Empire of India, instead of the British Empire in India. The diplomatic settlement remained in force until 1947. Kachru names three phases of the introduction of bilingualism in India:

1. Missionary phase: initiated by Christian missionaries around 1614. 2. Demand from the South Asian public (18th century): the spread of English as the result of the

demand and willingness of local people to learn the language. 3. Government policy: begun in 1765, when the East India Company’s authority was stabilised.

English was established firmly as the medium of instruction and administration. Lord Macaulay

There were two positions in respect to the use of English in India during the period of colonisation: • Orientalists: They were in favour of the use of classical languages of Indian tradition, such as

Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic, which were not spoken as native languages. H.T. Prinsep • Anglicists: Supported English. Lord T.B. Macaulay The Anglicists’ views were expressed in the Minute of Macaulay, which is said to mark “the real beginnings of bilingualism in India”. In Macaulay’s thinking Indian languages would be enriched by English, so that they could become vehicles for European scientific, historical and literary expression. In 1835 the Minute received a Seal of Approval from Lord William Bentick, and an official resolution on Macaulay’s resolution was passed. This resolution “formed the cornerstone of the implementation of a language policy in India and ultimately resulted in the diffusion of bilingualism in English.”

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In the following years, English was established firmly as the medium of instruction and administration by the British Raj. English became accepted as the language of the elite, of the administration, and of the pan-Indian press.

English in India after Independence in 1947 Nationalist motivations were of the opinion that an indigenous Indian language should be adopted as the official language. They chose Hindi in 1967 a law was passed which allowed the use of both Hindi and English for all official purposes. It is still the same at present.

Linguistic situation in India • There are over 900 million people and more than one thousand languages in India. • Already by the 1920s English had become the language of political discourse, intra-national

administration and law; a language associated with liberal thinking. • India’s constitution guarantees the right of all citizens to communicate in their own language with

any governmental agency. • Most people only know their mother tongue. English is the most widely spoken L2, followed by

Hindi. English is more useful as a “lingua franca”, the usefulness of Hindi as a lingua franca is regionally limited.

• 18 national languages are recognized by the Indian government. Hindi – along with English as associated official language – is the official language, which is a problem, because the states in the south of India hardly speak any Hindi. They strongly support the retention of English as an official language.

• India is divided linguistically into two major language families: the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages.

• “Three Language Formula”: People from non-Hindi areas study their regional language, Hindi and English. Hindi speakers, on the other hand, study Hindi, English and another language. Practically a failure!

• Diglossia: Relationship between different languages used in a society; one of the languages is the low variety (enjoys less social prestige), the other one is the high variety (used in formal and outgroup situations). Social structure and cultural value systems decide which language is the prestigious.

• Status of English in India

• English in India serves two purposes: it provides a linguistic tool for the administrative cohesiveness of a country and it serves as a language of wider communication. English is associate official language and it plays a dominant role in the media.

• English as L2. • English for domains in which technological vocabulary is needed that might be missing in other

Indian languages. • India is the third largest English book-producing country after the US and the UK, and the largest

numbers of books are published in English. South Asian novelists have not only nativized the language in terms of stylistic features, they have also acculturated English in terms of the South Asian context.

• Nativization: English is not anymore treated as a foreign language; it is part of the cultural identity of India.

• In the multilingual and culturally pluralistic context of India, the English language has developed its regional, social and occupational varieties: typically Indian registers of legal system, business, newspapers, creative writing.

• When studying language attitudes, the concept of motives is important. Two basic motives are called instrumental (=the knowledge in a language is considered as a “passport to prestige and success”) and integrative (=a learner of a language wishes to identify with the target community) motives.

• The study of attitudes: content analysis of social treatment; direct measurement technique or indirect measurement technique.

• Domains: Family domain: mother tongue is mostly used Friendship domain: often English, especially in personal letters Transactions: L1 and Hindi Education: English is the most common medium Government: English dominates Employment: English

• The clear majority of informants considers both Hindi and English an advantage. • Indian English is an accepted variety of English.

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• Nowadays, English has spread into many new domains, also the more personal ones, such as the family and friendship. English has, also, acquired new functions, including the self-expressive or innovative function. Today, in fact, it is hard, almost impossible to think of English as it is used in India only simply as another foreign language.

• English has traditionally been the language of the government and other domains with prestige, and still today it carries more prestige than Hindi in India and it is, too, considered important and an advantage to the country as a whole. People’s motives for supporting English are mostly instrumental.

English and one’s mother tongue are used in different domains and for different purposes in India. The status of English in India is high among the elite by which it is used mostly in the formal domains; more informal domains are reserved for the mother tongues. English writing and spelling History of the English spelling system The regular spelling system of Old English was swept away by the Norman Conquest, and English itself was eclipsed by French for three centuries, eventually emerging with its spelling much influenced by French. English had also borrowed large numbers of words from French, which for reasons of prestige and familiarity kept their French spellings. The spelling of Middle English, such as in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, is very irregular and inconsistent, with the same word being spelled differently, sometimes even in the same sentence. There was also a series of linguistic sound changes towards the end of this period, including the Great Vowel Shift, which resulted in "igh" in "night" changing from a pure vowel followed by a palatal/velar fricative to a diphthong. These changes for the most part did not detract from the rule-governed nature of the spelling system; but in some cases they introduced confusing inconsistencies, like the well-known example of the many pronunciations of "ough" (rough, through, though, trough, plough, etc.). Most of these changes happened before the arrival of printing in England. However, the arrival of the printing press merely froze the current system, rather than providing the impetus for a realignment of spelling with pronunciation. By the time dictionaries were introduced in the mid 1600s, the spelling system of English started to stabilise, and by the 1800s, most words had set spellings. Irregularities in the English spelling system The English spelling system is one of the most irregular spelling systems in current use. Although French presents a similar degree of difficulty when encoding (writing), English is more difficult when decoding (reading). English has never had any formal regulating authority, like the Spanish Real Academia Española, Italian Accademia della Crusca or the French Académie française, so attempts to regularize or reform the language, including spelling reform, have usually met with failure. The only significant exceptions were the reforms of Noah Webster which resulted in many of the differences between British and American spelling, such as center/centre, and dialog/dialogue. (Other differences, such as -ize/-ise in realize/realise etc, came about separately.) No grapheme-phoneme correspondance Besides the quirks the English spelling system has inherited from its past, there are other idiosyncrasies in spelling that make it tricky to learn. English contains 24 separate consonant phonemes and, depending on dialect, anywhere from fourteen to twenty vowels. However, there are only 26 letters in the modern English alphabet, so there cannot be a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. Many sounds are spelled using different letters or multiple letters, and for those words whose pronunciation is predictable from the spelling, the sounds denoted by the letters depend on the surrounding letters. For example, the digraph "th" represents two different sounds (the voiced interdental fricative and the voiceless interdental fricative) (see Pronunciation of English th), and the voiceless alveolar fricative can be represented by the letters "s" and "c". Correction according to the etymological origin There was also a period when the spellings of words were altered in what is now regarded as a misguided attempt to make them conform to what were perceived to be the etymological origins of the words. For example, the letter "b" was added to "debt" in an attempt to link it to the Latin debitum, and the letter "s" in "island" is a misplaced attempt to link it to Latin insula instead of the Norse word igland, which is the true origin of the English word. Furthermore, in most recent loanwords, English makes no attempt to Anglicise the spellings of these words, and preserves the foreign spellings, even when they employ exotic conventions, like the Polish

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"cz" in "Czech" or the Old Norse "fj" in "fjord". In fact, instead of loans being respelled to conform to English spelling standards, sometimes the pronunciation changes as a result of pressure from the spelling. One example of this is the word "ski", which was adopted from Norwegian in the mid-18th century, although it didn't become common until 1900. It used to be pronounced "shee", which is similar to the Norwegian pronunciation, but the increasing popularity of the sport after the middle of the 20th century helped the "sk" pronunciation replace it. Many simplifications and abbreviations are made in Instant Messaging or Chatting, for the sake of speed of messaging - e.g. "night" can be spelled as "nite" and "later" as "l8r". As examples of the idiosyncratic nature of English spelling, the combination "ou" can be pronounced in at least eleven different ways: "famous", "journey", "cough", "dough", "bought", "loud", "tough", "should", "you", "flour", "tour". Spelling reform of English: advantages

- faciliate language learning - eliminate irregular and inconsistent forms and make the spelling rules more consistent and

transparent: one grapheme should correspond with one phoneme Ideas for a spelling reform: delete superfluous or silent letters: e.g. realm, friend build relm, frend, bilt one character or grapheme corresponds with one sound. e.g. mean, seize meen, seeze introduce new letters to distinguish sounds. e.g. “th” can mean [Δ] or [Τ] Runes the runic letters had the shape that was suited for inscriptions that were carved into stone or wood. The shapes are linear and angular. runic script was logographic: one sign = one sound In England, the Futhorc was further extended to 28 and finally to 33 runes, and runic writing in England became closely associated with the Latin scriptoria from the time of Anglo-Saxon Christianization in the 7th century. The futhorc started to be replaced by the Latin alphabet from around the 9th century. In some cases, texts would be written in the Latin alphabet but runes would be used in place of the word it represented, and the þorn [Τ] and wynn [w] came to be used as extensions of the Latin alphabet. The Latin alphabet didn’t provide the capacity as a script to represent every sound occuring in English. Runes were not taken over because the only literate people were mainly members of the clergy, and the clergy favoured Latin for their writings. Latin also came to be used for legal documents and science. By the Norman Conquest of 1066 it was very rare and disappeared altogether shortly thereafter. From at least five centuries of use, less than 200 artifacts bearing futhorc inscriptions have survived. writing before printing:

• texts were produced by scribes, members of the clergy, that copied books by hand. Books were either copied letter-by-letter or they were adapted to the scribe’s own idiolect.

• the spelling continuously changed. texts were changed according to new spelling and old forms were abandonned. e.g. þ Δ

• The copysts altered and corrected the texts emendations texts underwent contant change.

• editors were also critics: they imposed their view on the texts which is ultimately reflected in the copied text. The texts were thus socially filtered.

was has come down to us in manuscripts only provides an incomplete idea of what the original text might have looked like