What you didn't know about the origin of the English language. History of the origin of the English language

In modern business relations English is a priority. In many countries it represents the second official language It publishes newspapers, magazines, and broadcasts television and radio.

Most export products have instructions in English. Also, in many programs, from telephone to car, systems are initially installed in English.

If Russification has not yet been developed for your equipment, with a reasonable knowledge of the language you will be able to cope perfectly with all the difficulties of setting up. However, let's return to our main question: how and when did the English language appear?

In the 5th-6th centuries, the ancient Greek tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Utahns moved from the continent to Britain inhabited by the Celts. The proximity of these tribes led to the emergence of the English people, and the interaction of tribal dialects led to the gradual formation of the Anglo-Saxon language (VII-XI centuries AD).

During this period, the development of the language was significantly influenced by the Scandinavian and Latin languages.

With the beginning of the era of the penetration of Christianity into Britain, Latinisms appeared in the Old English language. First of all, these were terms directly related to the church, as well as names various types food and clothing.

From the Scandinavian tribes, the English, in turn, borrowed such grammatical words as they - they, their - theirs, same - the same.

In 1066, England was conquered by the Normans - that's what the inhabitants of France were called. This conquest ushered in a long period of bilingualism. French was the official language - this meant that all documents were written in it and government affairs were conducted.

The long-term use of the French language became the reason for the consolidation in writing of some letter combinations that did not quite correspond to the sound composition of the English language, and in oral speech a vast layer of French vocabulary appeared.

Also during this period, a number of words appeared that were obtained by borrowing from other languages. For example, the names of simple crafts and animals come from the Germanic language. During this period, a number of changes were also noted in the grammatical structure of the language. First of all, it is necessary to note the confusion of nominal and verbal endings, which subsequently completely disappear from the pages of English grammar.

In addition, the basis of literary English was the language of central London. The period of its formation is considered to be the XIII-XIV centuries.

The popularity of the works of J. Chaucer (1340-1400), who wrote in the London dialect, contributed to the consolidation and spread of London forms. And printing, which appeared in the 15th century, recorded some traditional spellings that did not reflect the pronunciation norms of the late 15th century.

This discrepancy between pronunciation and spelling is also characteristic of modern English. And it is precisely this that causes difficulties in learning to read for foreigners learning English. But this is not the only difficulty on the path of those who want to thoroughly learn English.

In addition to the official British English, there is also American English. Despite the fact that both of these languages ​​have the same progenitor, there are a lot of differences between them, both lexical and grammatical.

The history of the English language began in England. English is a West Germanic language originally spoken in England. Currently, English is the most widely used language in the world. The history of the English language includes the spread of English across a significant number of countries and continents. English is the first language of most people in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. This is the third most common native language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. English is the most popular language as a second language. The total number of people speaking English - including native and non-native speakers - exceeds the number of people speaking any other language. English is the official language of the European Union, many Commonwealth countries and the United Nations, as well as many world organizations.

History of the emergence of the English language.

The history of the English language began in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and in what is now south-eastern Scotland, but was then under the control of the kingdom of Northumbria. It was in this region that the English language originated. Thanks to the extensive influence of Great Britain from the 18th century, through the British Empire, and the United States from the mid-20th century, it was widely spoken throughout the world and became the leading language of international communication in many regions. Historically, the English language is born from a fusion of closely related dialects. Old English was brought to the east coast of Great Britain by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) settlers. Significant amount English words based on roots from Latin because Latin was used in some form Christian Church. The language was further influenced by Old Icelandic due to the Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman-French. Appeared in dictionary and spelling close connection with Romance languages. This is how Middle English was formed. Changes that began in the south of England in the 15th century led to the formation of modern English based on Middle English. Due to the assimilation of words from many other languages ​​throughout history, modern English contains a very large vocabulary. Modern English has not only assimilated words from other European languages, but also from all continents, including words of Hindi and African origin. This is the history of the English language.

We invite you to plunge into the fascinating world of the history of the English language! The British Isles, located apart from the rest European countries– conquered by many empires and tribes. This explains the diversity, beauty and complexity of learning English. Below we will tell you.

Old English (450-1100 AD)

The origin of the language begins in the 5th century, when Britain, whose population consisted of Celts and Romans, was invaded by the Germanic Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. The invaders pushed the population of Britain to the northwestern regions, into the territory of modern Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The influence of the Germanic tribes served as an impetus for the eradication of the Latin and Celtic languages. A mix of Celtic and Germanic languages ​​gave birth to Old English.

Interesting fact #1: Old English has a small percentage of similarities with modern English as we know it. Today, the English dictionary contains words from that period, for example:

• demonstrative pronouns: these, those, etc.;
• place names: London, Thames (Thames);
• degrees of comparison: biggest, greatest;
• Some words have been preserved, for example: strong, water, school, rose, art, parliament.

Interesting fact No2: During this period, parts of speech were declined according to cases and divided into masculine, feminine and neuter gender. There was also conjugation for persons, numbers, and moods.

Interesting fact No3: It was during the period of the capture that Britain was renamed "Engla-land", and the language of the English was called "Englisc". These names were adapted to the known "England" (England) and "English" (English).

Interesting fact No4: True Celtic language can be heard in Wales.

Middle English (1100-1500 AD)

Christianity was actively popularized, as a result of which the borrowing of Latin vocabulary began. The general Christianization of the population, directed by Pope Gregory, became the impetus for the replenishment of the vocabulary.

This stage ended with the invasion of the Normans in the person of the Conqueror William. Normandy, as part of the territory of France, brought with it the French language and served as the origin of the Anglo-Norman dialects.

Due to the decline of political forces, the use of Norman dialects did not gain popularity. After which, in the 14th century, the popularization of Middle English reached its apogee. This language was the language of the greatest poet Geoffrey Chaucer. We advise you to familiarize yourself with his works; you will make sure that Middle English was already more similar to modern English.

Words borrowed from French speech and remaining in English: beauty (beauty), art (art), poet (poet), parliament (parliament) and many others.

Words Latin language, which are used to this day: genius (genius), history (history) and many others.

Interesting fact No5: French has become popular in upper strata British society. However, the vast majority of the general population used English.

Interesting fact No6: The Middle English stage also describes the influence of Scandinavian and Slavic languages.

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

Towards the end of the Middle English period, vowel sounds suddenly and rapidly began to shorten. Thanks to the active contact of the British Empire with the outside world (16th century), many new foreign words appeared. During this important period for Britain, printing was invented. Literacy became available to all segments of society.

Printed publications allowed the English language to acquire established standards and fix rules in grammar and spelling.

The well-known Shakespearean monologue “To be or not to be” is characteristic of the early modern English period.

If you are somehow familiar with the English language, you will notice the similarities with the currently used language.

In the 1600s, grammatical and spelling standards were fixed, using the London dialect as a basis.

This period is characterized by the emergence of a mass of new words. The impetus for the development of modern English as we know it was the Industrial Revolution, as well as the fact that the British Empire covered more than a quarter of the entire planet. The late English period saw the global borrowing of foreign words.

Britain's entry onto the world stage brought new additions to the English language in the form of many words from Arabic, Turkish and a number of European languages: atmosphere (atmosphere), macaroni (pasta), coffee (coffee), tomato (tomatoes), tobacco (tobacco).

The Industrial Revolution gave birth to familiar words: biology (biology), bacterium (microbe), chromosome (chromosome).

Interesting fact No7: In the early 1600s, the first English dictionary appeared on the market.

Modern English and its varieties

The most important thing you need to know about modern English is that there are now two major dialects - British and American.

Interesting fact No8: The American dialect appeared due to the colonization of North America by the British.

There are also Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Indian and many other dialects of English.

Today, about 2 billion people speak English, and in 67 countries English is the official language.

Despite this long history formation and development of the English language - it is developing to this day, absorbing slangs and jargons. The English language keeps pace with modern trends.

Proficiency in English is the treasured key to success in your career and to achieving heights in life. Regardless of your goal, English will become a companion in your life, opening doors to new opportunities!

We hope that we were able to answer your main question: « How did the English language originate?" We wish you good luck in learning the most popular language in the world!

Of course, I guessed that it is not so simple, this English language, but that it is so... Okay, read for yourself, I hope this will help you in your study.

Modern English, as we know it, comes from Scandinavian, German, Celtic, Greek and Latin. Every time a new dictionary is published, there are words that need to be added because there are more and more words that the English language has absorbed. You might think that English came from England, because that language has always been spoken there, right? This is not entirely true. The English language developed with Germanic and Scandinavian settlers who settled in the British Isles. When one country invades another, their languages ​​mix and a completely new language emerges.
English is a language derived from the Anglo-Saxons and some Germanic tribes from the northwestern coast of Europe. The Anglo-Saxons were first known as Angles, then became known as Engles. This is where the word English comes from. The invasion of the Anglo-Saxons and Germanic tribes occurred in the 5th century AD. In the 8th – 9th centuries there was an invasion of Scandinavian tribes.
Before the arrival of English in the British Isles, people there spoke Celtic, but most Celts moved to Wales and Scotland. What we call Old English is an Anglo-Saxon language that also depends on the language of the invading Vikings. Old English was also influenced by the language of the Normans. It was a mixture of old French and Latin. And many of the words have been preserved in the language to this day. For example: servant, juggler, baron, dame, noble, feast, story.

Modern English has survived since about the 15th century. Between 1200 and 1600 there was a significant change in language. A Danish linguist called this phenomenon the Great Vowel Shift.

I understand perfectly well that such a portion of historical material simply must contain clear examples, here you go:
Let's look at the word "date". In modern English we pronounce the long "a" sound, but in old English, the word sounded more like "dot". Differences exist not only in written language. The spoken language also changed at the phonetic level. Phonetics changed during the transition from dialect to dialect. The dialect of people living in England and America was different from each other. Due to the introduction of many languages ​​into English, there are often many exceptions to its rules.

Learning English will help you know a lot of new and interesting things!

Invading Britain. It became native to the majority of the population of Great Britain, and with the territorial growth of the British Empire, it spread to Asia, Africa, North America and Australia. After the British colonies gained independence, English remained either the native language of the majority of the population (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), or one of the official languages(India, Nigeria).

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Linguogeography

English is the native language of about 335 million people (2003), the third native language in the world after Chinese and Spanish, and the total number of speakers (including a second language) is over 1.3 billion people (2007). One of the six official and working languages ​​of the UN.

English is the official language in 54 countries - Great Britain, USA (the official language of thirty-one states), Australia, one of the official languages ​​of Ireland (along with Irish), Canada (along with French) and Malta (along with Maltese), New Zealand (along with with Maori and sign language). Used as an official language in some countries of Asia (India, Pakistan and others) and Africa (mostly former colonies of the British Empire that are part of the Commonwealth of Nations), while the majority of the population of these countries are native speakers of other languages. Speakers of English are called Anglophones in linguistics; The term is especially common in Canada (including in political contexts, where Anglophones are in some respects contrasted with Francophones).

Dialects

The English language has many dialects. Their diversity in Great Britain is much greater than in the United States, where the basis of the literary norm until the mid-20th century was the Mid-Atlantic dialect. Since the 50s of the 20th century, the dominant role in the United States has passed to the Mid-Western dialect.

The works of modern researchers note significant variability in the English language in modern world. Braj Kachru and David Crystal identify three countries of its distribution concentrically diverging from one point in the circle. The first, internal, includes countries with a long-standing predominant number of native English speakers; in the second - the countries of the British Commonwealth, where it is one of the official languages, not being native to the majority of the population, and the third, expanding to other countries, where English becomes the language of interstate communication, including scientific. Spread of the English language to ever new territories and spheres human activity causes a mixed reaction in the modern world.

England

• Cockney is a term for a number of historical dialects of London's districts and craft guilds.
• Scouse is a dialect of the people of Liverpool
• Geordie (English)- dialect of the people of Northumberland, in particular Newcastle on Tyne
• West Country
• East England
• Birmingham (Brummy, Brummie) (Birmingham)
• Cumberland
• Central Cumberland
• Devonshire (Devonshire)
• East Devonshire
• Bolton Lancashire (Bolton in Lancashire)
• North Lancashire
• Radcliffe Lancashire
• Northumberland
• Norfolk
• Tyneside Northumberland
• Sussex (Sussex)
• Westmorland
• North Wiltshire
• Craven Yorkshire
• North Yorkshire
• Sheffield Yorkshire (Sheffield)
• West Yorkshire

Scotland, Wales and Ireland

• Lowland Scottish (lowland Scotland) is also considered a separate language (Lowland Scots).
• Edinburgh (Edinburgh) - also considered a dialect of the Lowland Scots language.
• South Wales
• Yola is a dead language, separated from medieval English.

North America

• American English (AmE, AmEng, USEng)
  • Socio-cultural dialects
    • Standard American English
  • Regional dialects
    • Northeastern dialects
      • Boston dialect
      • Dialect of Maine and New Hampshire
      • New York dialect, Northern New Jersey Dialect (New York metropolitan area)
      • Dialect of Providence, Rhode Island
      • Vermont dialect
      • Philadelphia dialect
      • Pittsburgh dialect
    • Inland Northern American dialect (includes western and central New York State)
      • Northern Pennsylvanian (Scranton, Pennsylvania)
    • Mid-Atlantic dialects
      • Washington dialect
      • Baltimore dialect
      • Tidewater dialect
      • Virginia Piedmont dialect
    • Inland northern dialects (lower Michigan, northern Ohio and Indiana, suburbs of Chicago, parts of Wisconsin and New York state)
      • Chicago dialect
      • Buffalo dialect
    • North Central American dialect (mostly Minnesota, but also parts of Wisconsin, upper Michigan, and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa)
      • • Yooper (Variety of North Central dialect, used in upper Michigan and some neighboring areas)
    • Central American English
      • North Central (thin strip from Nebraska to Ohio)
      • St. Louis dialect
      • South Central (thin strip from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania)
      • Appalachian English
    • Southern American dialects
      • Coastal Southeast (Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia)
      • Cajun (descendants of the French in Louisiana)
      • Dialect of Harkers Island (North Carolina)
      • Ozark Plateau dialect
      • Podgorny dialect
      • Southern Highland dialect
      • Florida Colonial
      • Gullah or Geechee
      • Tampa dialect
      • Yat (New Orleans)
    • Western dialects
      • Californian
      • Jutish
      • Idaho
      • Buntling
      • Hawaiian
      • Pacific Northwest
• Canadian English (CanE, CanEng)
  • Newfoundland
  • Primorsky dialect
    • Lunenburg dialect
  • Western and Central Canadian English
    • Quebec dialect
    • Ottawa twang
    • Pacific Northwest dialect

India

Indian English is one of the largest languages ​​in the world in terms of the number of speakers. It, in turn, breaks down into dialects, the most important of which are:

• Standard Indian English - used in the federal media of India, almost identical to Hinglish
• Hinglish is a dialect spoken primarily by people whose mother tongue is Hindi.
• Punjabi English
• Assamese English
• Tamil English

Others

Pseudo-dialects

Story

The ancestor of modern English - Old English - emerged from the environment in the pre-literate period of its history Germanic languages, retaining much in common with them both in vocabulary and grammatical structure. In more early era the ancient Germans themselves separated from the Indo-European cultural and linguistic community, which included the ancestors of modern peoples speaking Indo-Iranian (Indian, Iranian) and European (Celtic, Romance, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic) languages. And the Germanic languages ​​preserved ancient layers of common Indo-European vocabulary, which underwent natural (Grimm’s and Werner’s laws) historical changes in them, which continued in English after it acquired independence. Thus, the common Indo-European vocabulary traditionally includes terms of kinship and cardinal numerals.

Examples of surviving common Indo-European vocabulary [ ] :

• Latin pater“father” with the transition of the sound [p] to [f] in Germanic languages ​​corresponds to German Vater and English father; soror"sister" - Schwester - sister.
• Latin unus"one" - German ein- English an/one.

Examples of common Germanic vocabulary [ ] :

• German Haus"house" - English house,
• German Hand"hand" - English hand.

It is customary to divide the history of the English language into the following periods: Old English (450-1066, the year of the conquest of England by the Normans), Middle English (1066-1500), New English (from 1500 to the present day). Some linguists also distinguish Early Modern English (English) Russian period (end of the 15th - mid-17th centuries).

Old English period

The ancestors of the present-day English - the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes - moved to the British Isles in the middle of the 5th century. During this era, their language was close to Low German and Frisian, but in its subsequent development it moved far away from other Germanic languages. During the Old English period, the Anglo-Saxon language (as many researchers call the Old English language) changes little, without deviating from the line of development of the Germanic languages, except for the expansion of the vocabulary.

The Anglo-Saxons who moved to Great Britain entered into a fierce struggle with the indigenous local population - the Celts. This contact with the Celts had little effect on the structure of the Old English language or its vocabulary. No more than eighty Celtic words survive in the Old English language. Among them:

• words associated with the cult: cromlech - cromlech (buildings of the Druids), coronach - an ancient Scottish funeral lament;
• words of a military nature: javelin - spear, pibroch - war song;
• names of animals: hog - pig.

Some of these words have firmly established themselves in the language and are used today, for example: tory ‘member of the Conservative party’ - in Irish it meant ‘robber’, clan - tribe, whiskey - whiskey. Some of these words have become international property, for example: whiskey, plaid, clan. This weak influence of Celtic on Old English can be explained by the cultural weakness of the Celts compared to the conquering Anglo-Saxons. The influence of the Romans, who controlled part of Britain for 400 years, is greater. Latin words entered Old English in several stages. Firstly, some Latinisms were adopted by the German-speaking population of the north of continental Europe even before the resettlement of some Germans to the British Isles. Among them:

• street - from lat. strata via ‘straight, paved road’;
• wall - from lat. vallum, wall;
• wine - from lat. vinum ‘wine’.

Another part - immediately after the resettlement of the Anglo-Saxons: these are the names of the places, for example:

• Chester, Gloucester, Lancaster - from lat. castrum ‘military camp’, or
• Lincoln, Colches - from lat. colonia 'colony',
• Port-Smouth, Devonport - from lat. portus ‘harbour’ and a number of others.

The names of many types of food and clothing are also Latin in origin:

• butter - Greek-Latin butyrum'oil',
• cheese - lat. caseus ‘cheese’,
• pall - lat. pallium ‘cloak’;

names of a number of cultivated or farmed plants:

• pear - lat. pira ‘pear’,
• peach - lat. persica 'peach'.

Another layer of Latin words dates back to the era of the penetration of Christianity into Britain. There are about 150 such words. These words also entered deeply into the language and became part of it along with the indigenous Germanic words. These are, first of all, terms directly related to the church:

• apostle - Greek-Lat. apostolus ‘apostle’,
• bishop - Greek-lat. episcopus ‘bishop’,
• cloister - lat. claustrum ‘monastery’.

The era of raids, and then the temporary conquest of Britain by the Vikings (790-1042) gives the Old English language a significant number of commonly used words of Scandinavian origin, such as: call - to call, cast - to throw, die - to die, take - to take, ugly - ugly, ill - sick. Borrowing is also typical grammatical words, for example, both - both, same - the same, they - they, their - theirs, etc. At the end of this period, a process of enormous importance gradually begins to manifest itself - the withering away of inflection. It is possible that the actual bilingualism of part of the English territory under Danish control played some role in this: linguistic confusion led to the usual consequences - simplification grammatical structure and morphology. It is characteristic that inflection begins to disappear earlier in the north of Britain - the area of ​​“Danish law”.

Middle English period

The next period in the development of the English language covers the time from 1066 to 1485. The invasion of the Norman feudal lords in 1066 introduced into the Old English language a powerful new lexical layer of so-called Normanisms - words dating back to the Norman-French dialect of the Old French language spoken by the conquerors. For a long time, Norman French remained in England the language of the church, government and the upper classes. But the conquerors were too few in number to impose their language unchanged on the country. Gradually, medium and small landowners, who belonged to a relatively greater extent to the indigenous population of the country - the Anglo-Saxons, became more important. Instead of the dominance of the Norman French language, a kind of “linguistic compromise” is gradually emerging, the result of which is a language approaching the one we call English. But the Norman French language of the ruling class retreated slowly: only in 1362 was English introduced into legal proceedings, in 1385 teaching in Norman French was stopped, and it was replaced by English, and from 1483 parliamentary laws began to be published in English language. Although the basis of the English language remained Germanic, it included such a huge number (see below) of Old French words that it became a mixed language. The process of penetration of Old French words continues until the end of the Middle English period, but reaches a peak between 1250 and 1400 [ ] .

As one would expect, the vast majority of words related to government go back to Old French (with the exception of the original Germanic king, queen and a few others):

• reign - to reign, government - government, crown - crown, state - state, etc.;

most noble titles:

• duke - duke,
• peer - peer;

words related to military affairs:

• army - army,
• peace - peace,
• battle - battle,
• soldier - soldier,
• general - general,
• captain - captain,
• enemy - enemy;

court terms:

• judge - judge,
• court - court,
• crime - crime;

church terms:

• service - service (church),
• parish - parish.

It is very significant that the words related to trade and industry are of Old French origin, and the names of simple crafts are Germanic. An example of the first: commerce - trade, industry - industry, merchant - merchant. No less indicative for the history of the English language are two rows of words noted by Walter Scott in his novel Ivanhoe:

names of living animals - Germanic:

the names of the meat of these animals are borrowed from Old French:

• beef (modern French le bœuf) - beef,
• veal (modern French le veau) - veal,
• mutton (modern French le mouton) - lamb,
• pork (modern French le porc) - pork

Etc.

The grammatical structure of the language undergoes further changes during this period: nominal and verbal endings are first confused, weakened, and then, by the end of this period, almost completely disappear. Appears in adjectives, along with in simple ways formation of degrees of comparison, new analytical ones, by adding words to the adjective more'more' and most'most'. The end of this period (1400-1483) saw the victory of the London dialect over other English dialects in the country. This dialect arose from the merger and development of southern and central dialects. In phonetics, the so-called Great Vowel Shift occurs.

As a result of the migration in 1169 of some of the British to the territory of the Irish county of Wexford, the Yola language independently developed, which disappeared in mid-19th century.

New England period

The period of subsequent development of the English language, to which the state of the language belongs modern England, begins at the end of the 15th century. With the development of printing and the mass distribution of books, the normative book language is being consolidated; phonetics and spoken language continue to change, gradually moving away from dictionary norms. An important stage in the development of the English language was the formation of diaspora dialects in the British colonies.

Writing

The writing of the ancient Germans was runic; based on the Latin alphabet has existed since the 7th century (in the early Middle Ages additional letters were used, but they fell out of use). Modern english alphabet contains 26 letters.

The spelling of English is considered one of the most difficult to learn among the Indo-European languages. While reflecting relatively faithfully the English speech of the Renaissance period, it is completely inconsistent with the modern oral speech of the British, Americans, Australians and other native speakers. A large number of written words contain letters that are not pronounced when read, and, conversely, many spoken sounds do not have graphic equivalents. The so-called “reading rules” are limited by such a high percentage of exceptions that they lose all practical meaning. The student has to learn the spelling or reading of almost every new word, and therefore it is customary to indicate the transcription of each word in dictionaries. The famous linguist Max Müller called English spelling a “national disaster.”

Punctuation is one of the simplest. There are a number of differences in punctuation between British English and American English. So, for example, when using a polite form of address in a letter in the UK, a period is not placed after Mr, Mrs or Dr, unlike in the USA, where they write Mr. Jackson instead of Mr Jackson. There is also a difference in the form of quotation marks: Americans use a double apostrophe ‘‘…’’, and the British use a single apostrophe ‘…’, more active use in American serial comma, etc.

The rendering of English names and titles in the Russian text is determined quite complex system rules that compromise between the phonetic and spelling systems, for more details, see the article “English-Russian practical transcription”. Many names and titles, however, are passed down by tradition, archaically, in partial or complete contradiction of these rules.

Linguistic characteristics

Phonetics

If we take the so-called standard pronunciation of English in England, Commonwealth countries and the USA as a unit of comparison, without taking into account the peculiarities of modern dialects and adverbs of the USA and England, we can note:

• almost complete absence of “soft”, that is, palatalized consonants;
• the absence of devoicing of final voiced consonants, a phenomenon observed in the Russian language;
• assimilation and dissimilation in the English language occurs much less frequently than in Russian;
• strong reduction of vowels.

Morphology

In modern English there is no declension at all (with the exception of some pronouns). The number of verb forms is four or five (depending on the view of the 3rd person singular form with the ending -s: it can be considered a separate verb form or a variant of the present tense), this is compensated by an extensive system of analytical forms.

A fixed word order, which, as in other analytical languages, acquires a syntactic meaning, makes it possible, and even sometimes necessary, to eliminate formal-sound differences between parts of speech: "she prefers to name him by his name"- “she prefers to call him by his name.” In the first case "name"- the verb “to name”, and in the second "name"- a noun meaning “name”. Such a transition (the transformation of one part of speech into another without external changes) is called conversion in linguistics.

Typical conversion cases:

• The noun becomes a verb: “water” - “water” and “to water” - “to water”; “wire” - “wire” and “to wire” - “telegraph”; “love” - “love” and “to love” - “to love”;
• The adjective becomes a verb: “master” - “skillful, qualified, professional” and “to master” - “to master perfectly”;
• The adverb becomes a verb: “down” - “down” and “to down” - “to lower”;
• The interjection becomes a verb: “shush!” - “shhh!” (call for silence) and “to shush” - verb in the phrase “Simon shushed him quickly as though he had spoken too loudly in church”, “shush”;
• The verb becomes a noun: “to run” - “to run” and “the run” - “jog”, “race”; “to smell” - “to smell”, “to smell” and “the smell” - “smell”;
• The noun becomes an adjective: “winter” - “winter” and “winter month” - winter month;
• The adverb becomes an adjective: “above” - “above” and “the above remark” - “the above remark”.

Verb

Every English verb has four basic word forms:

1. infinitive form, infinitive: to go= “go, walk, go”;
2. form of the past indefinite tense, past indefinite: went= “went”;
3. past participle form, past participle - performs the functions of a passive participle or participle of a perfect verb: gone= "gone";
4. form of the present participle, present participle/gerund - performs the functions of a real participle, gerund or verbal noun (gerund): going= “going”, “walking”, “going”, “walking”.

English verbs are weakly inflected, most of them only take an ending -s in the third person singular.

Although most verbs form the past tense the right way- using a suffix -ed (work: worked; worked), there is a significant number irregular verbs, using suppletives ( go: went; gone).

The system of verb tense conjugation is compiled in an analytical way: one of these four forms of the main verb is joined by the corresponding forms of two auxiliary verbs to be(“to be”) and to have("have").

Based on its analyticity, there are a total of 12 grammatical tenses or tense forms in the English language. The three main tenses, as in the Russian language, are the present (present), the past (past) and the future (future; sometimes the form of the future in the conditional mood, used when coordinating tenses in complex sentences, is also considered separately - the so-called “ future in the past", future in the past). Each of these times can have four types:

1. simple, or indefinite (simple, indefinite),
2. long, or continuous (continuous, progressive),
3. perfect
4. perfect continuous ( perfect continuous/perfect progressive).

When combined, these grammatical categories form such aspectual-temporal forms as, for example, the simple present (present simple) or the future perfect progressive (future perfect progressive).

Syntax

The word order in a sentence is generally strict (in simple declarative sentences it is “subject - predicate - object”). Violation of this order, the so-called inversion, occurs in English (except for interrogative phrases, which are common) less often than in related Germanic languages. If, for example, in German an inverted sentence only changes the logical stress in it, while in English inversion gives the sentence a more emotional sound.

• For declarative sentence(both affirmative and negative) is characterized by the Direct Order of Words:

  (adverbial tense) - subject - predicate - direct object (without preposition) - indirect object(with a preposition) - circumstances - a circumstance of time, place or manner of action.

• For general interrogative sentence(General Questions) is characterized by the inverted (The Inverted Order of Words) word order:

verb (usually auxiliary) - subject - semantic verb - secondary members of the sentence.

• For interrogative sentence with a special question(Special Questions) is characterized by the fact that the question word always comes first (for example, who, whom, what, whose, which, where, when, why, how). Moreover, if the question is addressed to the subject or its definition, then further in the sentence the word order is direct. If the question is addressed to any other member of the sentence other than the subject or its definition, then the word order in the sentence is reversed.

Vocabulary

In the vocabulary, according to its origin, the most ancient Indo-European layer is distinguished, then the common Germanic vocabulary that appeared after the separation of the Germanic tribes from the rest of the Indo-Europeans, the actual English vocabulary of subsequent periods and borrowings that penetrated the language in several waves (Grecisms and Latinisms in the scientific and religious (Christianity) spheres, borrowings from Old French from the Norman Conquest).

The English language has enormous lexical richness: Webster's Complete Dictionary contains about 425,000 words. This lexical wealth according to its etymology is distributed approximately as follows: words of Germanic origin - 30%, words of Latin-French origin - 55%, words of ancient Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German, etc. origin - 15%. The situation is different if you turn from the words contained in the dictionary to a living dictionary. Regarding the oral dictionary, one can only make assumptions, but for the dictionary of written speech, such work has already been carried out in relation to some writers.

Average word length

One of the most characteristic features of the English language is the short word.

The result of counting the number of monosyllabic words in passages:

The first vertical rows are the result of counting all words, the second are the result of counting, in which repeated words are counted as one.

Already from this table it is clear that the short word predominates in the English language, but there are also long words, for example, individualisation and even antiestablishmentarianism (the longest word in the English language is considered