The History of the English Language Origin as a Clue to Understanding its Current Status
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2024-4-75-83
The paper draws comparisons between the stages in the history of the English language developing in the multilingual environment and its status of a macromediator in the modern world. The research is based on two fundamental methods: the comparative historical method that assists in observing the development of English in the diachronic perspective and its co-existence with other languages in anisotropic linguistic situation of that time and the dialectical one directed at identifying such contradicting directions of the language system evolution as integration and disintegration, standardization and individualization, centrism and acentrism. The evolution of classifying English language origin (Teutonic group in the 17th and 18th centuries, Anglofrisian group in the 19th century and West Germanic group in the 20th century) is rooted in the changes of intralinguistic nature caused by a range of extralinguistic factors. On the one hand, island distribution of the language areal, hard accessibility of the territory, and therefore their isolation, and on the other hand, attractiveness of this land due to favorable conditions (mild climate, diverse landscape, rich flora and fauna), Christianization, active trade relationships leading to permanent polyglossia of linguistic environment (Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian dialects, classical and vulgar Latin, various languages of Roman legionaries, French) were the reasons why the English language obtained and has maintained till the present time such peculiar distinctive properties as acentrism, high level of lexical mobility, substantial derivational potential, economy of linguistic means and rather free manipulations with language standards. The latter is also connected with long-term absence of the unified national, political and language center in Britain and mostly marginal usage of the language predominantly in the oral form. The authors also insist on the need to further look into the grammatical structure of the English language throughout its evolution in order to better understand the consequences of the polyglossian environment not only on its vocabulary but also the status constituent.
Keywords: English language, historical development, status, periodization, glottogenesis, polyglossia, substrate
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Issue: 4, 2024
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: GERMAN LANGUAGES
Pages: 75 — 83
Downloads: 1401