Language

"Language is a purely human and non instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols."

The History of English Language

When we learn about a language, the essential thing we should have in mind is that "language is primarily something that is spoken, not written." At the same time, we know that without any written or printed records, we should be ignorant of the history and the development of that language. Another thing we have to realize is that language is evolutionary, it is not static. It is always susceptible to changes. It can be seen that the English language used in various periods differed much. The difference between Anglo-Saxon and Chaucer's English measures roughly the same when we compare Chaucer's English to Modern English. The alteration is visible more or less in pronunciation, grammar and spelling. There is one more thing is to be realized without which our concept of language may be incomplete. The language or speech is the distinguishing characteristic of man which differentiates man from other animal species. Then surely the discovery of speech marked the beginning of man.

It is still a matter of dispute about the origin of speech. There are many theories regarding the beginning of speech. The important theories among them are the following:

• The bow-wow theory which holds the view that the earliest speech was produced by man's attempting to imitate characteristic sounds of creature or thing to which he was referring. The exponents of this theory point out that he is reproducing the behaviour of his adult ancestors. For him the bark of a dog is the thing that distinguishes a dog from other animals. So he begins to call a dog, a bow-wow considering the noise it makes.
• The ding-dong theory is associated with the famous German Scholar and philologist, Max Muller. This theory says that the beginning of language is to be found in the sense of rhythm which is innate in man since his existence.
• The pooh-pooh theory holds the view that all forms of speech utterance are due to emotional interjections evoked by pain, surprise, pleasure, wonder, etc., or to anticipations of them and convinces us that our more rational language is a refinement upon these cries far removed from the brute noises.
• The gesture theory propounded by Wilhelm Wundt and Sir Richard Paget shows that the earliest method of communication was by sign and gesture made with the hands. This type of language was natural and spontaneous as in the case of beckoning a person. According to the theorists, every gesture of the hand is accompanied by a corresponding movement of the tongue, the lips or the jaws, and gradually the hand-gesture came to be displaced by the corresponding tongue, lip or jaw gesture, and so man passed from sign-language to spoken language.
  
  

The present form of English Language is different from the earlier forms in the past. A diachronic study of English Language can lead to its evolutionary stages through the centuries. At present we see a multitude of languages which may not find any common factor. When we trace back their ancestors in remote times, we group them in different language families. There are many language families, such as, Indo-European, Semitic, Hamitic, Ural-Altaic, Sino-Tibetan, Dravidian, etc. Among them, Indo-European family of language is the ancestor of many European languages including English and some of the Asian languages.

When you are eager to know more about English language, you have to know the various milestones in the history of English Language. The period from 450A.D. to 1050 A.D. is known as Old English Period or Anglo-Saxon period. The first important event that took place in that period is the coming of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes to Britain in the second half of the fifth century A.D. and establishing their kingdoms there. The second event is the conversion of the English to Christianity from 597A.D. Old English Literature, which is enriched with an amazing power, is related with these two events, ie., either it is inherited from the tradition which the heathen invaders brought with them from their Continental Germanic homes or it is inspired by the newly introduced Christianity. Thus Old English literature falls into two categories - heathen and Christian.

Old English Dialects

Old English had four principal dialects - Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish. Northumbrian and Mercian were the dialects of the Angles and are often classed together as Anglian. West Saxon represents the language of the Saxons and Kentish that of the Jutes. Thefirst dialect to produce a literature was Northumbrica. A rich body of Old English poetry was produced in this dialect towards the end of the seventh centuary. Caedmon and Cynewulf wrote in this dialect, and Beowulf, the great epic, was composed in it. But Northumbrian could not long retain its pre-eminence. During the reign of Alfred the Great in the West Saxon Kingdom,West Saxon became the standard literary language of England.Even the older Northumbrian poetry was recopied into standard West Saxon speech. Nearly all Old English literature is preserved in manuscripts transcribed in this dialect. It is for this reason that West Saxon has been made the basis of the study of Old English.

The literary ascendancy of West Saxon was interrupted by the overthrow of Wessex by the Danes who began their raids towards the close of the eighth century which continued till 878 when King Alfred signed the treaty of Wedmone, giving them more than half of England. Even then it might have retained its importance. But the Norman Conquest reduced all dialects to a common level of unimportance. And it was on the basis of Mercian (called Midland in the Middle English period) that in the Middle English period a standard English once again began to rise. "The interesting thing is that, although West Saxon became the literary standard of united English in the Anglo-Saxon period, it is not the direct ancestor of modern standard English, which is mainly derived from an Anglican dialect."