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The English Language
A Historical
Introduction
The English Language A Historical Introduction
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The English Language Where does today’s English come from? This new edition of the bestseller by Charles Barber tells the story of the language from its remote ancestry to the present day. In response to demand from readers, a brand new chapter on late Modern English has been added for this edition. Using dozens of familiar texts, including the English of King Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Addison, the book tells you everything you need to know about the English language, where it came from, and where it’s going. This edition adds new material on English as a global language and explains the differences between the main varieties of English around the world. Clear explanations of linguistic ideas and terms make it the ideal introduction for students to courses in English language and linguistics, and for all readers fascinated by language.
- Charles Barber was formerly a Reader of the English Language and Literature at the University of Leeds. He died in 2000.
- Joan c. Beal is a Professor of the English Language in the School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield.
- Philip a. Shaw is a Lecturer in Old and Middle English at the School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics at the
The University of Sheffield.
The English Language
A Historical
Introduction
Second Edition
Charles Barber
- Formerly Reader in English Language and Literature, University of Leeds
Joan C. Beal
- Professor of English Language, University of Sheffield
Philip A. Shaw
- Lecturer in Old and Middle English, University of Sheffield
Contents
1. What is language? 1
2. The flux of language 31
3. The Indo-European languages 57
4. The Germanic languages 85
5. Old English 105
6. Norsemen and Normans 137
7. Middle English 161
8. Early Modern English 185
9. Late Modern English 211
10. English as a world language 239
11. English today and tomorrow 265
Figures
1. Main speech organs
2. Vowel diagram: typical tongue positions for twelve vowels of present-day English (RP) 5
3. Vowel diagram: six diphthongs of present-day English (RP) 7
4. Vowel diagram for the pure vowels of present-day English (RP) 12
5. A language network 50
6. Two intersecting isoglosses 70
7. Britain before the Vikings 109
8. The main dialect areas of Old English 111
9. The division of England between King Alfred and the Danes 139
10. The main dialect areas of Middle English 147
11. The Great Vowel Shift 202
12. Vowel diagram: the pure vowels of Standard English, c. 1700 223
Preface To The First Edition
Enormous numbers of ordinary people are fascinated by language and have views about it, often strong. This book aims to provide material that will interest these general readers and give them things to think about. Its central theme is the history of the English language, beginning with our remote Indo-European ancestors and working its way from Anglo-Saxon times down to the present day. Use is made of numerous short passages of English, to illustrate the varieties of the language in different times and places.
Preface To The Second Edition
In revising and updating Charles Barber’s The English Language: a Historical Introduction, we have tried to interfere as little as possible with the overall tone and design of what has been a very popular and successful introductory textbook. Some revision was needed because of the advances in scholarship and the opening up of new fields of research in the last decade of the twentieth century. This is particularly evident in chapters 9, 10, and 11: the study of Late Modern English gained momentum in the 1990s, and the diversity of world Englishes has received much more attention in this period; and, of course, we are now in a position to review the twentieth century as a whole.
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