6. The dialectal situation of English from a historical p.

The feudal system that the Germanic tribes brought with themselves had led to the isolation of each tribe and political disunity (feudal wars). As a result, this period witnessed a great dialectal diversity. The most important dialects were the dialects of the 4 most powerful kingdoms:

Kentish

West Saxon S-W d(E S d-Lond)

Mercian W/E midland

Northumbrian Northern d

In the 12^th -13^th c. the London Dialect became the literary language and the standard, both in written and spoken form. The reasons why this happened:

The capital of the country was transferred from Winchester, Wesses, to London a few years before the Norman Conquests. The East Saxon Dialect, that was the basis of the London Dialect, became the most prominent in the Middle English period. Most writers and authors of the Middle English period used the London Dialect in their works.Features of the London Dialect: The basis of the London Dialect was the East Saxon Dialect The East Saxon Dialect mixed with the East Midland Dialect and formed the London Dialect. Thus the London Dialect became more Anglican than Saxon in character  The London Dialect is an Anglican dialect.

7. Principal oe and me written records.

The first Old English written records are considered to be the runic inscriptions. To make these inscriptions people used the Runes/the Runic Alphabet – the first original Germanic Alphabet. Appeared in the 3^rd – 4^th c. A.D, the word “rune” meant “secret, mystery” and was used to denote magic inscriptions on objects made of wood, stone, metal; each symbol indicated a separate sound, the symbols were angular due to the fact that they had to be carved on hard materials. The Old English Alphabet was borrowed from Latin, but there were also some letters that were borrowed from the Runic Alphabet: thorn, wynn. Some new letters were introduced: æ = a ligature of [a] and [e]; œ = a ligature of [o] and [e]. The Old English manuscripts that give us the examples of the language of that period are:personal documents containing names and place names; legal documents (charters); glosses to the Gospels and other religious texts; pieces of poetry. They are to be found in “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People” written in Latin in the 8^th c. by Bede the Venerable, an English monk. These two pieces are: 5 lines know as “Bede’s Death Song”; 9 lines of a religious poem “Cædmon’s Hymn”. The topics of Old English poetry: heroic epic (“Beowulf”, the oldest in the Germanic literature, 7^th c., was written in Mercian or Northumbrian but has come down to us only in a 10^th c. West Saxon copy. It is based on old legends about the tribal life of the ancient Teutons and features the adventures and fights of the legendary heroes); lyrical poems (“The Wanderer”, “The Seafarer”, etc. Most of the poems are ascribed to Cynewulf); religious poems (“Fate of the Apostles” (probably Cædmon), “Dream of the Rood”, etc.). The peculiarities of Old English poetry: written in Old Germanic alliterative verse: the lines are not rhymed; the number of the syllables in a line is free; the number of stressed syllables in a line is fixes; the line is usually divided into 2 halves, each half starts with one and the same sound; this sound may be repeated also in the middle of each half. Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the most prominent authors of the Middle English Period and he set up a language pattern to be followed. He is considered to be the founder of the literary language of that period. Most authors of the Middle English Period tried to fallow this standard. Chaucer’s Language was the basis for the national literary language (15^th – 16^th c.). New spelling rules (digraphs) and new rules of reading (1 letter = several sounds) appeared as compared to the Old English. New grammatical forms appeared (Perfect forms, Passive forms, “to” Infinitive constructions, etc.). Chaucer tried to minimize the number of the French loans in the English Language. Chaucer introduced rhyme to the poetry.