V. Types of me Literary Documents

1. ME literature is extremely rich and varied. We find here the most dif­ferent kinds and genres represented, both in verse and in prose.

There was in the 13th century, the religious poem Ormulun, named af­ter its author the monk Orm, who at great length retells in a popular style events of Bible and Gospel history, addressing his narration to his brother, also a monk.

About the same time another monk, Layamon, composed a long poem_, «Brut», about the early history of Britain. This was partly a translation, or para­phrase, of Wace^’s Anglo-Normal poem Brut, and Layamon also used some other sources. The origins of the Britons are traced back to Troy and the flight of some Trojans after its fall.

2. There are several historical chronicles, such as Robert of Gloucester's Rhymed Chronicle, Barbour’s Bruce, etc.

Invaluable documents of the spoken language of the time are the various col­lections of Miracle Plays, such as the Towneley Plays, the York PIqys_t and the Chester Plays.

And of course we must mention the famous Vision Conerning Piers the Plowman by William Langlade (or Langley), a 14th- century picture of the so­cial conditions in the country, invaluable also as a historical document

And we close this enumeration by the two great names of John Cower, author of the long poem Confessio Amantis (besides Latin and French works), and the greatest of all, Geoffrey Chaucer, author of Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales, and a number of other poems.

As far as prose goes, there is perhaps less variety and no prose fiction in the true sense of the word. The two prose pieces of The Canterbury Tales are not really stories but rather religious or philosophical treatises.

As an important prose document we must note Ranulphus Higden's Polychronicon, translated by John Travis with added passages from other saucers. This is a history book containing much useful information about the England of his time, with a most valuable passage on the dialects of the 14th century.

In the 15th century, towards the ME period, we come across the first prose fiction in English. Here we have Sir Thomas Mallory’s Morte d'Arthur, a long prose work summing up a number of legends about king Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and at about the same time prose translations made by William Caxton, the first English printer.

Seminar 4. ME Phonetics and Orthography

1. Middle English Alphabet.

2. Changes in Spelling habits.

3. Changes in phonetics. Vowels. Consonants.

.4.Types of ME literary documents.

Lecture 5

NEW ENGLISH PERIOD.

FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE.

Contents

1. Spreading of London dialect in the 15^th century

2. Phonetic Changes. Vowels.

1. The Vowel Shift.

2. Influence of – “R”.

3. Special cases.

4. Other changes.

3. Phonetic changes. Consonants.

1. Development of [h].

2. Loss of [l] before [k,m,f,v].

3. [j] Merged with Preceding Consonant.

I. Spreading of London dialect in the 15th century.

In the course of the 15^th century the London literary language gradually spread over the country superseding local dialects. Spoken English in various parts of Britain gradually approaches the literary norms, and differences between the norms and popular speech tend to become obliterated (стираться). This process has been carefully studied by the eminent British scholar Henry Wyld. According to his classification, written documents of the 15^th century can be classified into three types:

1-official documents; 2 -literary texts; 3 -private letters.

The most significant event of the period was War of Roses (1455 -1485), which marked the decay of feudalism and the birth of a new social order. Feudal law came to an end in the battle of Bosworth, when Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor, who became king of England as Henry VII. The political result of this struggle was the rise of an absolute monarchy. That meant a high degree of political centralization and thus contributed to centralization in language as well, that is, to a predominance of the national language over local dialects.

Another great event was the introduction of printing. Printing was invented in Germany by Johann Gutenberg in 1438. The Englishman William Caxton (1422 – 1491) learnt about printing when he was in Netherlands. He published the first English printed book in Netherlands. Returning to England, he founded the first English printing office in London in 1478, and in 1477 the first book was printed in England, namely, “The Dictes and sayings of the Philosophers”. The spread of printed books encouraged the normalization of spelling and grammatical norms.

Caxton was a native Kent, but he knew the London dialect. In spelling he adhered closely to the tradition of the scribes. Having completed his book he submitted it to the princess Margaret, sister of King Edward IV (reigned 1461 – 1483) and “she found a default in my English which she commanded me to amend”. So his book was written in London dialect.

Introduction of printing contributed to normalization of spelling. Standards adopted by to the first printers have basically survived up to our days. Phonetic changes which have occurred since then have hardly been reflected in the spelling. As a result the vowel letters in English acquired meanings different from those they have in French, German, Italian and other European languages, besides, each vowel letter acquired different sound values depending on its environment. Thus letter “a” denotes different vowel sounds in the words: “make”, “cat”, “water”, any.

In the 17^th and 18^th century a great number of grammarians and orthoepists appeared, they understood their task was to establish literary language forms.