📗 Started reading The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition by Seth Lerer

cover of The History of the English Language by Seth Lerer

I’d gone through the first edition several years back and thought I’d do a quick review, particularly in relation to some history of memory I’ve been working on and thinking about.

Throughout the day and commuting in the car to class, I’ve listened through lecture 4.

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Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

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  1. Listened to Chapter 7: The Old English Worldview from The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition by Seth Lerer from The Great Courses

    The focus of this lecture is the loan words that came into the Germanic languages during the continental and insular periods of borrowing. You’ll also see how the first known poet in English, Caedmon, used the resources of his vocabulary and his literary inheritance to give vernacular expression to new Christian concepts.

    Compounding
    Four kinds
    Determinitive compounding

    bone locker
    middle Earth (Tolkien)

    Kenning noun metaphor that exppresses a familiar idea

    road of the whale – the sea
    road of the swan
    bath of the gannett
    sea steed – ship

    repetitive compounding
    going about weaver – the swift moving one – spider in OE

    Caedmon’s Hymn

    West Saxon version
    Known as the first English poem

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  2. Listened to Lecture 8: Did the Normans Really Conquer English? from The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition by Seth Lerer from The Great Courses

    Witness language change in action as English shifts from an inflected to a relatively uninflected language, and as word order takes precedence over case endings and the determiner of meaning. Also, consider how a language builds and forms its vocabulary through building new words out of old ones, or by borrowing them.

    Shift from an inflected language into an uninflected one
    Syncretism
    Emphasis of archaeolinguistics based on the barely literate. What are they writing so as to capture the daily change of language over time. Linguists look for writing that can be dated and localized.

    example: Peterborough Chronicle showing changes over time through the years

    “word horde” is kenning for mind, so unlocking one’s word horde is to speak one’s mind (example from Beowulf)
    Sound changes hl-, hr-, hn-, and fn- level out to l-, r-, n, and sn-
    Compression of syllables occurred in such terms as hlaf weard, the guardian or warden of the loaf, which was shortened to become Lord.
    “Who is the guardian of the loaf? The hlfaf weard << The hlaweard << the laword << the lord. This is the etymology of the word lord. Lord is the guardian of the lord, the mete-er out of bread in a cereal society.”
    metathesis (/mɪˈtæθɪsɪs/; from Greek μετάθεσις, from μετατίθημι “I put in a different order”; Latin: trānspositiō) is the transposition of sounds or syllables in a word or of words in a sentence. Most commonly, it refers to the interchange of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis[1] or local metathesis:[2]

    ask / aks in modern English (Southern US)
    brid / bird
    axion / ask
    thork / through
    The Old English beorht “bright” underwent metathesis to bryht, which became Modern English bright.

    The Owl and the Nightingale[edit]

    early middle-English poem c. 1200 in 2 handwritten manuscripts from 13th c.
    octosylabic rhymed couplets
    Old English words held in a francophone container (French style poetic structure)

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  3. Listened to Lectures 9 and 10 from The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition by Seth Lerer from The Great Courses

    Lecture 9: In this fascinating lecture, Professor Lerer looks closely at the changes wrought by the French in English during the 11th to the 14th centuries. In the process, he raises questions about what we might call the “sociology” of language change and contact.
    Lecture 10: This lecture presents the central features of Chaucer’s English. Its goal is not only to address a particular period in the history of the language (or even in the history of literature) but to allow you to recognize and appreciate the force of Chaucer’s poetry and its indelible impact on English linguistic and literary history.

    Lecture 9: What did the Normans do to English?
    Words borrowed for two reasons

    prestige
    vacant slots with no native words

    English words for animals in the countryside, but the words for cooked meats are French

    cow/beef
    deer/venison
    sheep/mutton

    Trilingualism: English, French, Latin

    Lecture 10 Chaucer’s English

    This lecture presents the central features of Chaucer’s English. Its goal is not only to address a particular period in the history of the language (or even in the history of literature) but to allow you to recognize and appreciate the force of Chaucer’s poetry and its indelible impact on English linguistic and literary history.
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  4. Listened to Lecture 11: Dialect Representations in Middle English from The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition by Seth Lerer from The Great Courses

    Learn about some of the major differences in Middle English speech and writing. The goals of this lecture are threefold: to look at some of the linguistic features of the dialects themselves; to illustrate some of the recent methodologies of dialect study; and to appreciate the literary presentation of dialects in Middle English poetry and drama.

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  5. Listened to Lecture 12: Medieval Attitudes toward Language from The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition by Seth Lerer from The Great Courses

    Here, unpack some attitudes toward language change and variation during the Middle Ages in an effort to understand how writers of the past confronted many of the problems regarding social status and language. Many of these problems, you’ll discover, are similar to those we still deal with today.

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  6. Listened to Lecture 13: The Return of English as a Standard from The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition by Seth Lerer from The Great Courses

    This lecture surveys the history of English from the late 14th to the early 16th centuries to illustrate the ways in which political and social attitudes returned English to the status of the prestige vernacular (over French). In addition, you’ll look at institutions influential in this shift, examine attitudes toward the status of English in relationship to French, and more.

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