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História da Língua Inglesa   

Assorted Items of Interest 1

You and Thou

The German language has two forms of you: du and Sie. The difference between them in modern German is that the du form is used for informal situations: when addressing children, family members, or close friends. The Sie form is used for more formal situations: when addressing acquaintances, people you do not know, or your superiors (such as a school teacher).

In Old English, the distinction between thou and ye was simply that thou was singular, and ye was plural. However, by the time we reach Middle English, thou and ye functioned more like their modern German equivalent. The terms thou, thy, and thee were used in addressing children, your friends, and persons of inferior rank (remembering that England at that time was highly class-conscious). The terms ye, your, and you were used when addressing a superior.

While reading your Shakespeare assignment, you can see the play between the two. Shakespeare's aristocrats always use thou to refer to the lower classes, and they in turn address their betters as you.

Latin and English

Today it is easier to see the influence of Latin on English than it is to see English's relationship to the family of germanic languages. Nevertheless, English is a germanic language, not a latinate language.

Scholars and the Church

Latin left its mark on English because it was the language of the church, and therefore of scholars. When the English-speaking world became christianized, Latin was the language used by the Catholic clergy, who were also the scholars of their day. During the Renaissance, scholarship became less closely associated with the church, but Latin was still the language of choice for scientific and philosophical works. Therefore, many English words that are of Latin origin are scientific and philosophical terms. (Many scientific terms are also of Greek origin; Greek was the second scholarly language.)

The Norman Conquest

In addition to scientific terms, there are many words in modern English that are not germanic in origin. English has borrowed from Scandinavian languages, Flemish, Dutch, and even some Gaelic. However, one of the languages to have the biggest impact on English was Norman French, which is a latinate language. In 1066 A.D. William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings, and the Normans became the new ruling class of England.

As noted in our discussion of Middle English, the biggest result that the conquest had was to promote divergence in the language. With the lack of a standard spoken by the upper class, English changed a great deal, and grammar became confused.

Over time, the ruling class eventually came to speak English, but not without imparting Norman words to the language. Since the two languages lived side by side with different words for the same idea or object, this led to the adoption of both terms in some cases, with each having a different shade of meaning.

For example: beef and cow. Beef is derived from the Norman word for cow. Cow is derived from the Anglo-Saxon. In modern English, however, we understand that beef is the meat of a cow that we eat, while the cow is the living animal itself. Similar differentiation occurred for pig and pork, and so forth.

Modern English Grammar

Another less direct impact that Latin has had on modern English was the creation of rules of grammar. All that stuff your teacher made you learn, some of which simply would not apply to English the germanic language.

In the late 18th century, scholars were concerned by the rapid changes that were occurring to English. Poets such as John Milton despaired of rapid pronunciation changes that might soon render their rhymes useless. Rapid changes in spelling didn't help, either.

Of course, what really worsened matters was the incredible variety of English dialects. From region to region, pronunciation, speech patterns, spelling, etc., differed widely.

Scholars despaired. The English language was on the brink of ruin. Something had to be done.

At about this same time, the French were also despairing at the ruin of their language. They formed groups and societies in an attempt to create a standard and "preserve" the language. As did the French, so did the English. Scholars, poets, and philosophers worked together to try to create a "standard" English. Naturally, this standard was based on London English, which was the most common dialect among the priveleged or those who wished to be among the priveleged.

Many of the strange grammatical rules that English students have been stuck with came out of this era. I call these rules strange, because often they owe a great deal to Latin, but not necessarily very much to English.

For example, English speakers, we are told, should never end their sentences with a preposition. Why not? Indeed, it is common enough in the vernacular. German, our sister language, has many verbs that require a preposition, which many times (depending on tense) belongs at the end of the sentence:

English

I like him a good deal, but he does ramble on.

I don't know what you're thinking of.

German

Ich komme mit. (I'm coming/I'm coming along.)

Ich sehe dich an. (I see you/I'm looking at you.)

What is the parallel here? In all of these examples, the meaning of the verb depends on the presence of the preposition, which can fall at the end of the sentence. The meaning is clear enough. While not formal, many English speakers recognize that the phrase ramble on has a specific meaning that ramble by itself does not have. (The former means to talk and talk without end about different subjects.)

The Progressive Case

What is that, you ask? Well, the progressive case is what we English speakers use to express current and continuing action. We say:

I am carrying the suitcases downstairs.

By this we mean that we are in the process of carrying the suitcases downstairs, right now while we speak. In most other European languages, the present tense is used to mean the same thing, in addition to I carry the suitcases downstairs, meaning that this is something I do on a regular basis, and often I will carry the suitcases downstairs, which means it is something that I intend to do.

The progressive case is quite interesting; I do not know of many European languages that utilize it, although I understand that Portuguese and Spanish have a progressive case.

So how did this anomaly come about? In the late 18th and early 19th century. Novels of the Irish countryside from that time use it frequently. Jane Austen began to use it somewhat sparingly in her early novels, but her usage of it increased as the popularity of this case caught on.

Passive Progressive

The passive progressive case is somewhat odder. It allows an English speaker to effectively state the progressive action on an object without naming its subject.

In plain English, you can say things like the following:

The clock struck ten while the suitcases were being carried down.

This means that while someone (who is unnamed) was carrying down the suitcases, the clock struck ten. But before English speakers arrived at this syntax—the grand breakthrough was the use of the helping verb being—they would have handled this sentence in an interesting fashion:

The clock struck ten while the suitcases were carrying down.

To modern English ears, this sounds strange. Nonetheless, you may run across it in 18th and 19th century literature.

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