A     E     I     O     U

In my article on saying I Love you in different languages I mentioned the Great Vowel Shift (GVS) that occurred in the English language, and then I blew you all off and said that it was a discussion for another time.  Well that time has arrived now, and I shall try to explain what I was talking about.  Before I start though I shall explain that OE in my essay means Old English, that is, that which was spoken in Chaucer’s time and before, pre AD 1400.  Modern English shall be referred to simply as ME. 

When I studied Linguistics in Graduate school, we learned all about the phonetic alphabet and sounds that are made by the different parts of the mouth,  and while I think it is interesting I think I should cut to the chase here and get on with it. Most English speakers will know that the English we speak now is a hodge podge of assimilated languages from Saxon, Norse. Latin, French, Greek, and that’s not to mention the words assimilated from colonies.  What was spoken in England in the first millennium was much more of a European sounding language than what English has become today.  

What has changed about it?  Most Americans would have read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in high school senior British Lit classes, but if you were to get your hands on a Chaucer’s original manuscript you wouldn’t be able to understand it.  That’s not to say that Chaucer had bad penmanship, but that OE would almost seem like a foreign language.  You would however still recognize some of the words but you’d marvel at their spelling.

The GVS is an event that happened in the speech of OE speakers in which they shifted how they pronounced their vowels.  Linguists will say that the vowels shifted up and forward in the throat and vocal sounds.  For example, let us look at the ME word ‘wife’, and we see that in OE it was rendered ‘wyfe’.  You say so what, we can still pronounce it the same way, but herein is the GVS, it is not pronounced the same way. OE would pronounce it as  /wifə/ or in our the ME ‘whiffa’.  In the ME ‘wife’ the vowel ‘i’ sounds like ‘eye’  and the ‘e’ on the end is silent.  The ‘eye’ sound is produced in the front of the mouth by curling the lips slightly and expelling the sound from just behind the teeth.  The ‘i’ sound when it is pronounced like /hit/ is made from the back of the mouth or top of the throat.  We can see the origins of this particular word in it’s derivatives, as in midwife, which is pronounced as in ME but midwifery is like the OE pronunciation.

Some other examples of the GVS are the ME ‘stone’, which in OE was pronounced /st :n/ or /stoon/.  Here again the ‘oo’ sound that is made in the back of the throat was brought forward so that it is pronounced /stone/ in ME.  Because of my smattering of knowledge of Swedish I can see an interesting point, and that is the pronounciation of the OE ‘stoon’ is similar in vowel sound to the ‘å’ sound in that language.  One doesn’t need a PhD in Historical Linguistics to note that there are many Swedish influences in OE.

So now if you are ever at a party and someone mentions the Great Vowel Shift of the English language, you can give them a good twenty minute dissertation on the matter. The whole GVS event is still called a big mystery, and no one seems to know why the language shifted the way it did.  I tend to postulate that because English has always been an eclectic language that maybe the GVS was the beginning of the evolution of English as the most dynamic language on the earth today.  I am an Australian and at times I have to have students here in the South repeat themselves so I can understand their brand of English.  Five years ago, one of my Linguistics professors, an American, insisted that in ten years American English will be the Standard English.  Of course this brought an uproar from we students in Australia, but now that I live in USA also, I admit he may have been correct.

Modern English as a global language has over the centuries assimilated words from many different languages. Specifically, other languages have enriched and contributed the words to English. Latin, French and German are three of the most important words that were adopted into English.

Anglo-Saxon or more commonly known as Old English, was a language brought to Britain by Germanic Tribes of the Saxons, Jutes and the Angles in the 5th century AD. These invaders were said to name the England as “the land of the Angles” and simultaneously furnished the English with many common basic terms or terminology. Anglo-Saxon appeared as the first form of English which was spoken between the mid 5th century and mid 12th century. Some of the Old English are still spoken until today. The most used words came from Old English include to, should, not, from, but, father, and, fight, will, sky, ill, same, skirt, kid, law, knife, lift, raft, ransack, sale, rug, root, bag, birth, anger, both, cake, drag, wing, club, gear, want, tight, trust, ugly, wicker, get, hit, husband, call, dirt, take, leg, sly, snare, wise, wrong, they, though, till, weak, and love.

Oxford English Dictionary published in 2006 is packed with approximately 600,000 words from the Old English. Many words of the Old English are particularly notable in the works of Shakespeare. The early copy of Bede’s book which is now preserved in a library in Leningrad has the poem written in a version of Anglo-Saxon. Other good source of the Old English appeared in parts of the tale of Beowulf as: Hwat! wç Gâr-Dena in geâr-dagum, [What! We [of] Gar-Danes(lit. spear-danes) in yore-days,].

Old Norse (the ancient language of North Germanic) came into English during the 9th and 10th century, when the invaders came from Scandinavia occupied the eastern part of England. Old Norse which has a close relationship to Anglo-Saxon appears in many daily words and conversations in Modern English. Many place-names end in-by particularly found in England are originated from these invaders’ word for village. I also recommend the book written by Mary S.Serjeantson (1961, Barnes & Noble, NY) entitled “A history of foreign words in English” as it gives a lot of insight of Old Norse origin words that are no longer existed in Modern English.

The vocabulary of Modern English also shows the derivation of the earliest English like the words of bread, good, and shower. English pronouns of “them” and “they”, which are of Scandinavian origin, are another evidence of Scandinavian influence on English. Words that were adopted from Scandinavian settlers into Modern English include take, egg, root, window, birth, sky, trust, skirt, disk, and many more.

In 1066, Normans conquered Britain and made French as the official language. Shortly before the Norman Conquest, the French word such as castle was taken into English. Indeed, French language has an obvious influenced in morphological property of English. English was said to flood with many French loan-words (borrowed words) during the later middle Ages. Oxford English Dictionary accommodates with many French origin load-words and here are some of the examples:

cartouche, brigade, platoon, mêlée, envoy, and aide-de-camp, casserole, croquette, ragout, hors d’ oeuvre, liqueur, mon cher, voyag’d, Bete, honete, home, bien tourney, obligeant, charmant, ravissant, vaudeveille, dénouement, précis, brochure, critique, belles letters, connoisseur

In Modern English, approximately 10,000 French origin words, in which three-fourths of them are still in use today, particularly for the words which describe legal system, literature, government affairs, law, art as well as terms associated with cooking. “Parliament”, and “bureaucracy” are two common French words that are used in the government while the words that describe foods such as “mutton” or “bacon” are used extensively in most of the menu of the restaurants.

After the Norman Conquest for nearly hundreds of years, Modern English has a plethora of French words and phrases which clearly indicate that English was literally dominated by French. Here are some examples I found that are still used until today.

• Nom de plume: a pseudonym used by a writer: pen name
• De rigueur: required by the current fashion or custom; socially obligatory
• Je ne sais quoi: a quality or attribute that is difficult to describe or express
• Tour de force: a particularly adroit maneuver or technique in handling a difficult situation
• Bon voyage: used to express farewell and good wishes to a departing traveler
• Demitasse: a small cup of strong black coffee or espresso
• Enfant terrible: an outrageously outspoken or bold person who says and does indiscreet or irresponsible things
• Hors de combat: out of the fight; disabled; no longer able to fight
• Faux pas: a slip or blunder in etiquette, manners, or conduct; an embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion
• Par excellence: being an example of excellence; superior; preeminent
• Savoir faire: knowledge of just what to do in any situation; tact
• Carte blanche: the complete freedom to act as one thinks best
• Adieu: a farewell; good wishes at parting
• Chef d’oeuvre: masterpiece
• Comme il faut: the proper way
• Crêpe de Chine: type of silk
• Cul-de-sac: dead-end street
• En banc: the entire membership of a court is in session (legal)
• En route: on the way
• Fiancé: man
• Fiancée: woman
• Hors de combat: out of action
• Mal de mer: seasickness
• Pied-à-terre: a temporary or secondary place of residence
• Protégé: someone whose training is sponsored by an influential person
• Soigné: sophisticated, elegant, fashionable
• Soupçon: hint
• Tour de force: something which takes a great deal of strength or skill to accomplish
• Voir dire: jury selection
• Peau de soie: soft, silky fabric with a dull finish
• Pas de deux: dance with two people

English adopted words from Latin at the end of the 6th century, at a time when a group of monks came from Rome in the name of missionaries to reinforce the Christianity in Britain. Latin words that were taken into English at this moment were associated with learning and religion. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that English acquired some enrichment of the words of Latin Christianity like bishop and priest.

Latin language, a so-called dead language has left a great impact in Modern English particularly dealing with the legitimate affair. Some of the prefixes and suffixes of Latin origin words are kept alive by the legal profession. When researching through piles of lawful and legal documents, I came to realize to its existence in Modern English. Here are some examples with their respective meanings.

• Ad hoc: made or arrange for a particular purpose only
• Ad infinitum: without limit; forever
• A priori: relied on theory instead of the observation
• Caveat emptor: the principle that the buyer is responsible for checking the quality of goods that he or she buys
• De facto: Something generally accepted or agreed to without any formal decision in its favor; in fact; in reality
• Ecce homo: a depiction of Jesus wearing the crown of thorns; behold the man
• Et cetera: unspecified things of the same class; and so forth.
• Ergo: therefore; usually used to show a logical conclusion
• In absentia: while or although not present; in absence
• In memoriam: In memory of; as a memorial to
  Ad interim: in the meantime
• Carpe diem: seize the day; enjoy the present, as opposed to placing all hope in the future
• Ex cathedra: with the authority derived from one’s office or position
• Inter alia: among other things
• Modus operandi: mode of operating or working
• Ne plus ultra: the highest point; the most intense degree of a quality or state
• Per se: by, of, for, or in itself; intrinsically
• Per capita: by or for each individual person
• Persona non grata: a person who is not welcome; a diplomatic representative unacceptable to an accrediting government
• Post mortem: a medical examination of a dead body in order to find out the cause of death
• Pro rata: in proportion; according to a certain rate
• Quod vide (q.v.): what will be seen
• Sic: so; thus: usually written parenthetically to denote that a word, phrase, passage, etc.
• Sui generis: being the only example of its kind; unique
• In loco parentis: in the place or role of a parent