The English Language Before England

This pioneering work explores epigraphic evidence for the development of English before the Anglo-Saxon period, bringing together linguistic, historical and archaeological perspectives on early inscriptions, making them more accessible to a wider audience. The volume offers a new account of the Germanic development of Anglo-Saxon England, beginning with an examination of the earliest inscriptions from northern Europe and the oldest inscriptions preserving Germanic names, many of which have only been discovered since the 1980s. The book charts the origins of key terms such as Angle, Saxon and Jute and early writing systems used by Germanic peoples. Drawing on epigraphic evidence from northwestern Germany through to southwestern Denmark and sub-Roman Britain, Mees situates the analysis within historical and linguistic frameworks but also provides archaeological contextualisations, assessed chronologically, for the inscriptions. Taken together, the work re-examines existing models of the early development of English through the lens of contemporary approaches, opening paths for new directions in research on historical dialectology. This book is key reading for students and scholars interested in the history of English and historical linguistics.

This book presents a new interpretation of the history of English. Access to large corpuses of English has allowed scholars to assess the minutiae of linguistic change with much greater precision than before, often pinpointing the beginnings of linguistic innovations in place and time. The author uses the findings from this research to relate major historical events to change in the language, in particular to areas of linguistic inquiry that have been of particular importance in recent years, such as discourse analysis, stylistics and work on pidgins and creoles. The book does not attempt to chronicle changes in syntax or pronunciation and spelling, but is designed to complement a corpus-based study of formal changes. The story of English is brought up to the late 1990s to include, amongst other things, discussions of Estuary English and the implications of the information superhighway.

The Earliest English provides a student-friendly introduction to Old English and the earliest periods of the history of the English Language as it evolved before 1215. Using non-technical language, the book covers basic terminology, the linguistic and cultural backgrounds to the emergence and development of OE, and the OE vocabulary that students studying this phase of the English language need to know. In eight carefully structured units, the authors show how the vocabulary of Old English contains many items familiar to us today; how its characteristic poetic form is based on a beautiful and intricate simplicity; how its patterns of word building and inflectional structure are paralleled in several present day languages and how and why the English language and its literature continued to change so that by the mid-12th century the English language looks more like the 'English' that we are familiar with in the 21st century. Features of the book include: the provision of accessible guides to some important 'problem topics' of classical OE stimulating cross-linguistic comparisons, e.g. the pronoun system of OE as compared with the pronoun system of present day Dutch cleverly laid out translation exercises, with structural help in the form of selective glossaries careful division into eight units, designed for both classroom use and self-study Written in a clear and accessible manner, The Earliest English provides a comprehensive introduction to the evolution of Old English language and literature, and will be an invaluable textbook for students of English Language and Linguistics.

This comprehensive history of the English language was first published in 1992. It features carefully chosen extracts that illustrate the development of English, examining particularly the stylistic variety of the language.

Born as a Germanic tongue with the arrival in Britain of the Anglo-Saxons in the early medieval period, heavily influenced by Norman French from the 11th century, and finally emerging as modern English from the late Middle Ages, the English language has grown to become the linguistic equivalent of a superpower, and is now sometimes described as the world's lingua franca. Worldwide, some 380 million people speak English as a first language and some 600 million as a second language. A staggering one billion people are believed to be learning it. English is the premier international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, and diplomacy and also on the Internet. It has been one of the official languages of the United Nations since its founding in 1945. It is considered by many good judges to be well on the way to becoming the world's first universal language Author Philip Gooden tells the story of the English language in all its richness and variety. From the intriguing origins and changing definitions of common words such as OK, berserk, curfew, cabal, and pow-wow, to the massive transformations wrought in the vocabulary and structure of the language by Anglo-Saxon and Norman conquest, through to the literary triumphs of Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales and the works of Shakespeare. The Story of English is a fascinating tale of linguistic, social and cultural transformation, and one that is accessibly and authoritatively told by an author in perfect command of his material.

The first theoretically informed study of the relationship between an academic discipline and what the Nazis termed their Weltanschauung. The first study of Sinnbildforschung, German ideograph or swastika studies, though more broadly it tells the tale of the development of German antiquarian studies (ancient Germanic history, archaeology, anthropology, folklore, historical linguistics and philology) under the influence of radical right wing politics, and the contemporary construction of 'Germanicness' and its role in Nazi thought. The swastika and similar symbols were employed by the ancestors of the modern day Germans. As these had also become emblematic symbols of the forces of German reaction, Sinnbildforschung became intrinsically connected with the National Socialist regime after 1933 and disappeared along with the Third Reich in 1945.