Leitmotif
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For the album of the same name, see Leitmotif (album).

Leitmotif associated with Siegfried in Richard Wagner's opera (see below)

A leitmotif (pronounced /ˌlaɪtmoʊˈtiːf/), sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term (though occasionally used in theatre or literature), referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe. The term itself comes from the German Leitmotiv, literally meaning "leading motif", or, perhaps more accurately, "guiding motif."

In particular such a theme should be 'clearly identified so as to retain its identity if modified on subsequent appearances' whether such modification be in terms of rhythm, harmony, orchestration or accompaniment. It may also be 'combined with other leitmotifs to suggest a new dramatic condition' or development.[1] The technique is notably associated with the operas of Richard Wagner, although he was not its originator, and did not employ the word in connection with his work.

Although usually a short melody, it can also be a chord progression or even a simple rhythm. Leitmotifs can help to bind a work together into a coherent whole, and also enable the composer to relate a story without the use of words, or to add an extra level to an already present story.

By extension, the word has also been used to mean any sort of recurring theme, (whether or not subject to developmental transformation) in music, literature, or (metaphorically) the life of a fictional character or a real person. It is sometimes also used in discussion of other musical genres, such as instrumental pieces, cinema, and video game music, sometimes interchangeably with the more general category of 'theme'. Such usages typically obscure the crucial aspect of a leitmotif, as opposed to the plain musical motif or theme - that it is transformable and recurs in different guises throughout the piece in which it occurs.Contents [hide]
1 Classical Music
1.1 Early usage in classical music
1.2 Wagner
1.3 After Wagner
2 Literature, drama and film
3 Critique of the leitmotif concept
4 In popular culture
5 References
6 See also

[edit]
Classical Music
[edit]
Early usage in classical music

The use of characteristic, short, recurring motives in orchestral music can be traced back to the late eighteenth century. In French opera of this period (such as the works of Grétry and Méhul), "reminiscence motives" can be identified, which may recur at a significant juncture in the plot to establish an association with earlier events. Their use, however, is not extensive or systematic. The power of the technique was exploited early in the nineteenth century by composers of Romantic opera, such as Carl Maria von Weber, where recurring themes or ideas were sometimes used in association with specific characters (e.g. Sammael in Der Freischütz is coupled with the chord of a diminished seventh).[2] Indeed, the first use of the word "leitmotif" in print was by the critic F. W. Jähns in describing Weber's work, although this was not until 1871.[3] Motives were also important in purely instrumental music of the romantic period. The related idea of the musical idée fixe was coined by Hector Berlioz in reference to his Symphonie fantastique (1830). This purely instrumental, programmatic work (subtitled 'Episode in the Life of an Artist') features a recurring melody representing the object of the artist's obsessive affection and depicting her presence in various real and imagined situations.
[edit]
Wagner

The 'Siegfried' leitmotif from Act III of Wagner's opera, the third of his 'Ring' cycle; the theme is broader and more richly orchestrated than its earlier appearances (see above), suggesting the emergence of Siegfried's heroic character

Richard Wagner is the composer most often associated with leitmotifs. His cycle of four operas, Der Ring des Nibelungen (the music for which was written between 1853 and 1869), uses dozens of leitmotifs, often related to specific characters, things, or situations. While some of these leitmotifs occur in only one of the operas, many recur throughout the entire cycle.[4][5]

Wagner had raised the issue of how music could best unite disparate elements of the plot of a music drama in his essay Opera and Drama (1851); the leitmotif technique corresponds to this ideal.[6] Some controversy surrounded the use of the word in Wagner's own circle: Wagner never authorised the use of the word "leitmotiv", using words such as "Grundthema" (basic idea), or simply "Motiv". His preferred name for the technique was Hauptmotiv (principal motif), which he first used in 1877; the only time he used the word 'Leitmotiv', he referred to 'so-called Leitmotivs'.[7]

The word became controversial among Wagnerians because of its early association with the overly literal interpretations of Wagner's music by Hans von Wolzogen, who in 1876 published a "Leitfaden" (guide or manual) to the "Ring". In it he claimed to have isolated and named all of the recurring motives in the cycle (the motive of "Servitude", the "Spear" or "Treaty" motive, etc.), often leading to absurdities or contradictions with Wagner's actual practice.[8] Some of the motifs he identified began to appear in the published musical scores of the operas, arousing Wagner's annoyance; his wife Cosima Wagner quoted him as saying 'People will think all this nonsense is done at my request!'.[9] In fact Wagner himself never publicly named any of his leitmotifs, preferring to emphasise their flexibility of association, role in the musical form, and emotional effect. The practice of naming leitmotifs nevertheless continued, including in the work of prominent Wagnerian critics Ernest Newman, Deryck Cooke and Robert Donington.[10]

The resulting lists of leitmotifs also attracted the ridicule of anti-Wagnerian critics and composers (such as Eduard Hanslick, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky). They identified the motif with Wagner's own approach to composing, mocking the impression of a musical "address book" or list of "cloakroom numbers" it created.[11]
[edit]
After Wagner

Since Wagner, the use of leitmotifs has been taken up by many other composers. Richard Strauss used the device in many of his operas and several of his symphonic poems. Despite his sometimes acerbic comments on Wagner, Claude Debussy utilised leitmotifs in his opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902). Arnold Schoenberg used a complex set of leifmotifs in his choral work Gurre-Lieder (completed 1911). Ruggero Leoncavallo used leitmotifs in his opera Pagliacci (1892), using melodies from the opera's arias in the overture, intermezzo and the overall orchestral accompaniment. Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck (1914–1922) also utilises leitmotifs.
[edit]
Literature, drama and film This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008)


'Leitmotif' is often used to refer to the significant repetition of any element in a book, play, novel, film, or other artistic works. In literature, a leitmotif is used as a recurring event, image, object or character in a story, poem or play. Leitmotifs (or motifs) become significant to the meaning of the overall work when they develop thematic importance. In film, a motif is most frequently a plot device, image, character trait, or element of the mise en scène.

Leitmotif-like techniques, with word patterns replacing melodies, are said to be used in the "Sirens" chapter of Ulysses by James Joyce (chapter 11). Critics argue that there are recurring themes of music that begin at the beginning of the chapter and continue throughout the rest of the chapter, and also the book.

The "leitmotif" is also present in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The themes of the Virgin Mary and the Greek myth of Stephen's namesake, Daedalus, are some of the more noticeable leitmotifs throughout the work. The leitmotif in this novel provides unity as the character of Stephen matures.

Samuel Beckett uses leitmotifs throughout his body of works. Other writers who have used similar techniques include Virginia Woolf, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Thomas Mann, Chuck Palahniuk, and Julian Barnes in his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters.
[edit]
Critique of the leitmotif concept

The critic Theodor Adorno, in his book In Search of Wagner (written in the 1930s), expresses the opinion that the entire concept of the leitmotif is flawed. The motif cannot be both the bearer of expression and a musical 'gesture', because that reduces emotional content to a mechanical process. He notes that 'even in Wagner's own day the public made a crude link between the leitmotivs and the persons they characterised' because people's innate mental processes did not necessarily correspond with Wagner's subtle intentions or optimistic expectations. He continues:

The degeneration of the leitmotiv is implicit in this [...] it leads directly to cinema music where the sole function of the leitmotiv is to announce heroes or situations so as to allow the audience to orient itself more easily'[12]
[edit]
In popular culture This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)


Leitmotifs in Adorno's 'degenerated' sense frequently occur in movie scores, and have done since the early decades of sound film. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's 1938 score for Robin Hood, for example, can be heard to attach particular themes and harmonies to individual characters: Robin, Will, Much, and Gisbourne are all accompanied by distinctive musical material.[citation needed] A more modern example is the Star Wars series, in which composer John Williams uses a large number of themes specifically associated with people and concepts (for example, a particular idea attaches to the idea of the Force).[citation needed]
[edit]
References
^ New Grove Dictionary, Leitmotif
^ Oxford Concise, Leitmotiv
^ New Grove Dictionary, Leitmotif
^ Millington (1992), 234-5
^ Grout (2003), Chapter 22
^ Burbidge and Sutton, (1979), pp. 345-6
^ Oxford Concise , Leitmotiv
^ See Thorau, 2009
^ Cosima Wagner,(1980), II, 697 (1 August 1881)
^ See e.g. Donnington (1979), passim
^ Rehding (2007), 348
^ Adorno (205), pp.34–36
Theodor Adorno,tr. Rodney Livingstone , In Search of Wagner, London 2005 (ISBN 9781844673445)
Peter Burbidge and Richard Sutton, The Wagner Companion, London, 1979. ISBN 0571 114504
R. Donnington, Wagner's 'Ring' and its Symbols, London, 1979
Donald Jay Grout and Hermine Weigel Williams (2003). A short history of opera (4rth ed.). Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231119585
H. Rosenthal and J. Warrack (eds.), Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, Oxford 1979
Barry Millington (ed.), The Wagner Compendium, London 1992
Alexander Rehding, review of Christian Thorau, Semantisierte Sinnlichkeit: Studien zu Rezeption und Zeichenstruktur der Leitmotivtechnik Richard Wagners in Opera Quarterly vol. 23 (Oxford, 2007) pp. 348–351
Stanley Sadie, ed., New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Leitmotif (by John Warrack).
Christian Thorau, Guides for Wagnerites: Letimotifs and Wagnerian Listening, in T. Grey, (ed.), Richard Wagner and his World, (pp. 133–150) Princeton 2009 ISBN 9780691143668
Cosima Wagner, tr. Geoffrey Skelton, Cosima Wagner's Diaries (2 vols.), London 1980.
[edit]
See also Look up leitmotif in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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Categories: German loanwords | Motifs | Musical form | Opera terminology | Literary motifs | Richard Wagner
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German language


("He did not know that the agent had had a picklock made")
Vocabulary

Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, although there are significant minorities of words derived from Latin and Greek, and a smaller amount from French[27] and most recently English.[28] At the same time, the effectiveness of the German language in forming equivalents for foreign words from its inherited Germanic stem repertory is great. Thus, Notker Labeo was able to translate Aristotelian treatises in pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000. Overall, German has fewer Romance-language loanwords than English or even Dutch.[citation needed]

The coining of new, autochthonous words gave German a vocabulary of an estimated 40,000 words as early as the ninth century.[citation needed] In comparison, Latin, with a written tradition of nearly 2,500 years in an empire which ruled the Mediterranean, has grown to no more than 45,000 words today.[citation needed]

Even today, many low-key non-academic movements try to promote the Ersatz (substitution) of virtually all foreign words with ancient, dialectal, or neologous German alternatives.[29] It is claimed that this would also help in spreading modern or scientific notions among the less educated, and thus democratise public life, too.

The modern German scientific vocabulary has nine million words and word groups (based on the analysis of 35 million sentences of a corpus in Leipzig, which as of July 2003 included 500 million words in total).[30]
Orthography
Main articles: German orthography and German alphabet

German is written in the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as the Eszett or scharfes s (sharp s), ß.

Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and certain orthographical features—German is the only major language that capitalizes all nouns—and the frequent occurrence of long compounds (the longest German word is made of 63 characters).
Present

Before the German spelling reform of 1996, ß replaced ss after long vowels and diphthongs and before consonants, word-, or partial-word-endings. In reformed spelling, ß replaces ss only after long vowels and diphthongs. Since there is no capital ß, it is always written as SS when capitalization is required. For example, Maßband (tape measure) is capitalized MASSBAND. An exception is the use of ß in legal documents and forms when capitalizing names. To avoid confusion with similar names, a "ß" is to be used instead of "SS". (So: "KREßLEIN" instead of "KRESSLEIN".) A capital ß has been proposed and included in Unicode, but it is not yet recognized as standard German. In Switzerland, ß is not used at all.

Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly transcribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard used (but see below regarding the use of non-German QWERTY keyboards to type umlauted characters and the Eszett). In the same manner ß can be transcribed as ss. German readers understand those transcriptions (although they look unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available because they are considered a makeshift, not proper spelling. (In Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, city and family names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld [ˈraːsfɛlt], Coesfeld [ˈkoːsfɛlt] and Itzehoe [ɪtsəˈhoː], but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns.)

There is no general agreement on where these umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e. Some dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel, but more commonly words with umlauts are ordered immediately after the same word without umlauts. As an example in a telephone book Ärzte occurs after Adressenverlage but before Anlagenbauer (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary Ärzte comes after Arzt, but in some dictionaries Ärzte and all other words starting with "Ä" may occur after all words starting with "A". In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial Sch and St are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after S, but they are usually treated as S+C+H and S+T.

It is possible for those using Microsoft Windows programmes on PCs that have non-German QWERTY keyboards to type letters with umlauts, be they capitalized or lower-case, as well as the Eszett (ß), by following a convention pre-programmed via the number keys as well as the number lock (Num Lock) and Alt keys. (There may be alternatives, depending upon the software being used, see e.g., the article on the Eszett, ß). Ensuring that the Num Lock key light is on above the said key on the right-hand side, one can depress the Alt key either side of the spacebar and then simultaneously enter a four-digit number using the number keys. The character will be revealed on screen immediately after the Alt key is released.

The sequence for the lower-case letter “a” with an umlaut (that is, ä) would therefore involve typing in the four-digit number 0228, i.e., Num Lock (light on) + Alt (depressed) + 0228 (manually entered) + release of Alt Key. The four-digit numbers and other characters are therefore: 0196 for an umlauted upper-case A (Ä), 0214 for an umlauted upper-case O (Ö), 0220 for an umlauted upper-case U (Ü), 0223 for the Eszett (ß), 0246 for an umlauted lower-case o (ö), and 0252 for an umlauted lower-case u (ü).

Such a convention can also be used for the opening inverted commas (quotation marks) that appear in the guise of a “99” on the bottom of the line (rather than as a “66” at the top as in English) at the beginning of a sentence or clause by using the four-digit number 0132, as in „Guten Morgen!”.
Past
Further information: 2nd Orthographic Conference (German), Antiqua-Fraktur dispute, German orthography reform of 1944, and German orthography reform of 1996

Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also in Schwabacher) and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans serif Antiqua typefaces used today, and particularly the handwritten forms are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms however were claimed by some to be actually more readable when used for printing Germanic languages.[31] The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher since they were considered Aryan, although they later abolished them in 1941 by claiming that these letters were Jewish. The Fraktur script remains present in everyday life through road signs, pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain rusticality and oldness.

A proper use of the long s, (langes s), ſ, is essential to write German text in Fraktur typefaces. Many Antiqua typefaces include the long s, also. A specific set of rules applies for the use of long s in German text, but it is rarely used in Antiqua typesetting, recently. Any lower case "s" at the beginning of a syllable would be a long s, as opposed to a terminal s or short s (the more common variation of the letter s), which marks the end of a syllable; for example, in differentiating between the words Wachſtube (=guard-house) and Wachstube (=tube of floor polish). One can decide which "s" to use by appropriate hyphenation, easily ("Wach-ſtube" vs. "Wachs-tube"). The long s only appears in lower case.
Phonology
Main article: German phonology
Vowels

German vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) come in short and long varieties, as detailed in the following table: A Ä E I O Ö U Ü
short /a/ /ɛ/ /ɛ/, /ə/ /ɪ/ /ɔ/ /œ/ /ʊ/ /ʏ/
long /aː/ /ɛː/ /eː/ /iː/ /oː/ /øː/ /uː/ /yː/


Short /ɛ/ is realized as [ɛ] in stressed syllables (including secondary stress), but as [ə] in unstressed syllables. Note that stressed short /ɛ/ can be spelled either with e or with ä (hätte 'would have' and Kette 'chain', for instance, rhyme). In general, the short vowels are open and the long vowels are closed. The one exception is the open /ɛː/ sound of long Ä; in some varieties of standard German, /ɛː/ and /eː/ have merged into [eː], removing this anomaly. In that case, pairs like Bären/Beeren 'bears/berries' or Ähre/Ehre 'spike (of wheat)/honour' become homophonous.

In many varieties of standard German, an unstressed /ɛr/ is not pronounced [ər], but vocalised to [ɐ].

Whether any particular vowel letter represents the long or short phoneme is not completely predictable, although the following regularities exist:
If a vowel (other than i) is at the end of a syllable or followed by a single consonant, it is usually pronounced long (e.g. Hof [hoːf]).
If the vowel is followed by a double consonant (e.g. ff, ss or tt), ck, tz or a consonant cluster (e.g. st or nd), it is nearly always short (e.g. hoffen [ˈhɔfən]). Double consonants are used only for this function of marking preceding vowels as short; the consonant itself is never pronounced lengthened or doubled, in other words this is not a feeding order of gemination and then vowel shortening.

Both of these rules have exceptions (e.g. hat [hat] 'has' is short despite the first rule; Mond [moːnt], 'moon' is long despite the second rule). For an i that is neither in the combination ie (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule. In some cases, there are regional differences: In central Germany (Hessen), the o in the proper name "Hoffmann" is pronounced long while most other Germans would pronounce it short; the same applies to the e in the geographical name "Mecklenburg" for people in that region. The word Städte 'cities', is pronounced with a short vowel [ˈʃtɛtə] by some (Jan Hofer, ARD Television) and with a long vowel [ˈʃtɛːtə] by others (Marietta Slomka, ZDF Television). Finally, a vowel followed by ch can be short (Fach [fax] 'compartment', Küche [ˈkʏçə] 'kitchen') or long (Suche [ˈzuːxə] 'search', Bücher [ˈbyːçər] 'books') almost at random. Thus, Lache is homographous: (Lache) [laːxə] 'puddle' and (lache) [laxə] 'manner of laughing' (coll.), 'laugh!' (Imp.).

German vowels can form the following digraphs (in writing) and diphthongs (in pronunciation); note that the pronunciation of some of them (ei, äu, eu) is very different from what one would expect when considering the component letters:spelling ai, ei, ay, ey au äu, eu
pronunciation /aɪ̯/ /aʊ̯/ /ɔʏ̯/


Additionally, the digraph ie generally represents the phoneme /iː/, which is not a diphthong. In many varieties, an /r/ at the end of a syllable is vocalised. However, a sequence of a vowel followed by such a vocalised /r/ is not considered a diphthong: Bär [bɛːɐ̯] 'bear', er [eːɐ̯] 'he', wir [viːɐ̯] 'we', Tor [toːɐ̯] 'gate', kurz [kʊɐ̯ts] 'short', Wörter [vœɐ̯tɐ] 'words'.

In most varieties of standard German, word stems that begin with a vowel are preceded by a glottal stop [ʔ].
Consonants

With approximately 25 phonemes, the German consonant system exhibits an average number of consonants in comparison with other languages. One of the more noteworthy ones is the unusual affricate /p͡f/. The consonant inventory of the standard language is shown below. Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Plosive p b t d k ɡ
Affricate p͡f t͡s t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Fricative f v s z ʃ ʒ x h
Nasal m n ŋ
Approximant l j
Rhotic r

/x/ has two allophones, [x] and [ç], after back and front vowels, respectively.
/r/ has three allophones in free variation: [r], [ʁ] and [ʀ]. In the syllable coda, the allophone [ɐ] is found in many varieties.
The voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/ are aspirated except when preceded by a sibilant.
The voiced stops /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ are devoiced to /p/, /t/, /k/, respectively, in word-final position.
Where a stressed syllable has an initial vowel, it is preceded by [ʔ]. As its presence is predictable from context, [ʔ] is not considered a phoneme.
/d͡ʒ/ and /ʒ/ occur only in words of foreign origin.
Consonant spellings
c standing by itself is not a German letter. In borrowed words, it is usually pronounced [t͡s] (before ä, äu, e, i, ö, ü, y) or [k] (before a, o, u, and consonants). The combination ck is, as in English, used to indicate that the preceding vowel is short.
ch occurs most often and is pronounced either [ç] (after ä, ai, äu, e, ei, eu, i, ö, ü and consonants; in the diminutive suffix -chen; and at the beginning of a word) or [x] (after a, au, o, u). Ch never occurs at the beginning of an originally German word. In borrowed words with initial Ch there is no single agreement on the pronunciation. For example, the word "Chemie" (chemistry) can be pronounced [keːˈmiː], [çeːˈmiː], or [ʃeːˈmiː] depending on dialect.
dsch is pronounced [d͡ʒ] (like j in Jungle) but appears in a few loanwords only.
f is pronounced [f] as in "father".
h is pronounced [h] as in "home" at the beginning of a syllable. After a vowel it is silent and only lengthens the vowel (e.g. "Reh" = roe deer).
j is pronounced [j] in Germanic words ("Jahr" [jaːɐ]). In younger loanwords, it follows more or less the respective languages' pronunciations.
l is always pronounced [l], never *[ɫ] (the English "dark L").
q only exists in combination with u and appears in both Germanic and Latin words ("quer"; "Qualität"). The digraph qu is pronounced [kv].
r is usually pronounced in a guttural fashion (a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] or uvular trill [ʀ]) in front of a vowel or consonant ("Rasen" [ˈʁaːzən]; "Burg" [buʁk]). In spoken German, however, it is commonly vocalised after a vowel ("er" being pronounced rather like [ˈɛɐ]—"Burg" [buɐk]). In some varieties, the r is pronounced as a "tongue-tip" r (the alveolar trill [r]).
s in Germany, is pronounced [z] (as in "Zebra") if it forms the syllable onset (e.g. Sohn [zoːn]), otherwise [s] (e.g. Bus [bʊs]). In Austria and Switzerland, it is always pronounced [s]. A ss [s] indicates that the preceding vowel is short. st and sp at the beginning of words of German origin are pronounced [ʃt] and [ʃp], respectively.
ß (a letter unique to German called "scharfes S" or "Eszett") was a ligature of a double s and of a sz and is always pronounced [s]. Originating in Blackletter typeface, it traditionally replaced ss at the end of a syllable (e.g. "ich muss" → "ich muß"; "ich müsste" → "ich müßte"); within a word it contrasts with ss [s] in indicating that the preceding vowel is long (compare "in Maßen" [in ˈmaːsən] "with moderation" and "in Massen" [in ˈmasən] "in loads"). The use of ß has recently been limited by the latest German spelling reform and is no longer used for ss after a short vowel (e.g. "ich muß" and "ich müßte" were always pronounced with a short U/Ü); Switzerland and Liechtenstein already abolished it in 1934.[32]
sch is pronounced [ʃ] (like "sh" in "Shine").
tion in Latin loanwords is pronounced [tsion].
v is pronounced [f] in words of Germanic origin (e.g. "Vater" [ˈfaːtɐ]) and [v] in most other words (e.g. "Vase" [ˈvaːzə]).
w is pronounced [v] as in "vacation" (e.g. "was" [vas]).
y only appears in loanwords and is traditionally considered a vowel.
z is always pronounced [t͡s] (e.g. "zog" [t͡soːk]). A tz indicates that the preceding vowel is short.
Consonant shifts
For more details on this topic, see High German consonant shift.

German does not have any dental fricatives (as English th). The th sounds, which the English language still has, survived on the continent up to Old High German and then disappeared in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and the 10th centuries.[33] It is sometimes possible to find parallels between English and German by replacing the English th with d in German: "Thank" → in German "Dank", "this" and "that" → "dies" and "das", "thou" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → "du", "think" → "denken", "thirsty" → "durstig" and many other examples.

Likewise, the gh in Germanic English words, pronounced in several different ways in modern English (as an f, or not at all), can often be linked to German ch: "to laugh" → "lachen", "through" and "thorough" → "durch", "high" → "hoch", "naught" → "nichts", etc.
Cognates with English This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2009)


A sizable fraction of English vocabulary is cognate with German words, although the common ancestry may be somewhat obscured by various shifts in phonetics (e.g. the High German consonant shift), meaning and orthography.

For example:
the High German consonant shift *p→ff led to such cognates as German Schiff with English ship.
Ger. Baum (meaning "tree") is cognate with the English word beam, as may be seen in the name of trees such as the hornbeam and the whitebeam.
Words borrowed by English
For a list of German loanwords to English, see Category:German loanwords.

English has taken many loanwords from German, often without any change of spelling:German word English loanword Meaning of German word
Abseilen abseil to descend by rope / to fastrope
Angst angst fear
Ansatz ansatz onset / entry / math. approach
Anschluss anschluss connection / access / annexation
Automat automat automation / machine
Bildungsroman bildungsroman novel concerned with the personal development or education of the protagonist
Blitz Blitz flash / lightning
Delikatessen delikatessen/delicatessen delicate / delicious food items
Doppelgänger doppelgänger lit. "double going/living person alive", look-alike of somebody
Edelweiß edelweiss edelweiss flower
Fest fest feast / celebration
Gedankenexperiment Gedankenexperiment thought experiment
Geländesprung gelandesprung ski jumping for distance on alpine equipment
Gemütlichkeit gemuetlichkeit snug feeling, cosiness, good nature, geniality
Gestalt Gestalt form or shape / creature / scheme; refers to a concept of 'wholeness'
Gesundheit! Gesundheit! (Amer.) health / bless you! (when someone sneezes)
Heiligenschein heiligenschein meteo. "holy shine" / gloriole
Hinterland hinterland lit. mil. "area behind the front-line": interior / backwoods
kaputt kaput (ethymology unclear, possibly French, Yiddish or Latin) out of order, not working
Katzenjammer katzenjammer lit. "cats' lament": hangover, crapulence
Kindergarten kindergarten lit. "childrens' garden" - nursery or preschool
Kitsch kitsch fake art, something produced exclusively for sale
Kraut kraut herb, cabbage in some dialects
Leitmotiv leitmotif guiding theme (the verb "leiten" means "to guide, to lead")
plündern (v.) to plunder lit. "taking goods by force" (original meaning "to take away furniture" shifted in German and was borrowed by English both during the Thirty Years War)
Poltergeist poltergeist lit. "rumbling ghost" (artificial compound, not originally German)
Realpolitik realpolitik diplomacy based on practical objectives rather than ideals
Reich reich empire or realm
Rucksack rucksack backpack (Ruck→"Rücken" which means "back")
Schadenfreude schadenfreude taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune
Sprachraum sprachraum lit. "place/area/room of a language": area where a certain language is spoken
Übermensch ubermensch superhuman
verklemmt verklemmt lit. "jammed": inhibited, uptight
Waldsterben waldsterben lit. "forest dieback", dying floral environment
Wanderlust wanderlust desire, pleasure, or inclination to travel or walk
Weltanschauung weltanschauung lit. "perception of the world": ideology
Wunderkind wunderkind lit. "wonder child": child prodigy, whiz kid
Zeitgeist zeitgeist lit. "spirit of the times": the spirit of the age; the trend at that time

Promotion of the German language

The use and learning of the German language are promoted by a number of organisations. The government-backed Goethe Institut[34] (named after the famous German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) aims to enhance the knowledge of German culture and language within Europe and the rest of the world. This is done by holding exhibitions and conferences with German-related themes, and providing training and guidance in the learning and use of the German language. For example the Goethe Institut teaches the Goethe-Zertifikat German language qualification.

The German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle is the equivalent of the British BBC World Service and provides radio and television broadcasts in German and a variety of other languages across the globe. Its German language services are tailored for German language learners by being spoken at slow speed.
See also Austria portal
Germany portal
Switzerland portal
Language portal

Deutsch (disambiguation page)
Category:German loanwords
German as a minority language
German exonyms
German family name etymology
German in the United States
German language literature
German name
German placename etymology
German spelling reform of 1996
Germanism (linguistics)
List of German expressions in English
List of pseudo-German words adapted to English
Missingsch
Names for the German language
Umlaut, ß
Various terms used for Germans
References
Notes
^ a b c National Geographic Collegiate Atlas of the World. Willard, Ohio: R.R Donnelley & Sons Company. April 2006. pp. 257–270. ISBN Regular:0-7922-3662-9, 978-0-7922-3662-7. Deluxe:0-7922-7976-X, 978-0-7922-7976-1.
^ SIL Ethnologue (2006). 95 million speakers of Standard German; 95 million including Middle and Upper German dialects; 120 million including Low Saxon and Yiddish.
^ "Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung - Über den Rat". Rechtschreibrat.ids-mannheim.de. Retrieved 2010-10-11.
^ EUROPA - Allgemeine & berufliche Bildung - Regional- und Minderheitensprachen der Europäischen Union - Euromosaik-Studie
^ Support from the European Commission for measures to promote and safeguard regional or minority languages and cultures - The Euromosaic sutdy: German in Denmark (engl.). Letzter Zugriff am 13. November 2009
^ EC.europa.eu
^ "KAZAKHSTAN: Special report on ethnic Germans". Irinnews.org. Retrieved 2010-10-11.
^ "Deutsch in Namibia" (in German) (PDF). Supplement of the Allgemeine Zeitung. 2007-08-18. Retrieved 2008-06-23.
^ "CIA World Fact book Profile: Namibia" cia.gov'.' Retrieved 2008-11-30.
^ "Map on page of Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration (MSWiA)". Retrieved 2010-03-15.
^ "SbZ - Deutsche Minderheit in Rumänien: "Zimmerpflanze oder Betreuungs-Objekt" - Informationen zu Siebenbürgen und Rumänien". Siebenbuerger.de. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
^ "Geschichte". Rusdeutsch.EU. Retrieved 2010-10-11.
^ EUROPA - Allgemeine & berufliche Bildung - Regional- und Minderheitensprachen der Europäischen Union - Euromosaik-Studie
^ Verein Deutsche Sprache e.V. (2006-06-15). "Verein Deutsche Sprache e.V. - Prominente Mitglieder und Ehrenmitglieder". Vds-ev.de. Retrieved 2010-03-15.[dead link]
^ http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm
^ a b "Table 5. Detailed List of Languages Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over by State: 2000" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-03-15.
^ a b "Statistics Canada 2006". 2.statcan.ca. 2010-01-06. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
^ Global Statistics, Global Reach.
^ Internet Languages, NVTC.
^ a b "Distribution of languages on the Internet". Netz-tipp.de. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
^ Palmares, Internet Society.
^ Funredes.
^ Vilaweb.
^ Ulrich Ammon, Hans Bickel, Jakob Ebner, et al.: Variantenwörterbuch des Deutschen. Die Standardsprache in Österreich, der Schweiz und Deutschland sowie in Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Ostbelgien und Südtirol. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2004.
^ After English; "Europeans and Language" (PDF). European Commission. 2005. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
^ "Languages in Europe". European Commission. 2007. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
^ some of which might be reborrowings from Germanic Frankish
^ a phenomenon known in German as Denglisch or in English as Germish or Denglisch
^ Verein Deutsche Sprache e.V.. "Verein Deutsche Sprache e.V. - Der Anglizismen-Index". Vds-ev.de. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
^ "Ein Hinweis in eigener Sache". Wortschatz.informatik.uni-leipzig.de. 2003-01-07. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
^ Adolf Reinecke, Die deutsche Buchstabenschrift: ihre Entstehung und Entwicklung, ihre Zweckmäßigkeit und völkische Bedeutung, Leipzig, Hasert, 1910
^ "Mittelschulvorbereitung Deutsch". Mittelschulvorbereitung.ch. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
^ For a history of the German consonants see Fausto Cercignani, The Consonants of German: Synchrony and Diachrony, Milano, Cisalpino, 1979.
^ http://www.goethe.de/enindex.htm
General references
Fausto Cercignani, The Consonants of German: Synchrony and Diachrony, Milano, Cisalpino, 1979.
Michael Clyne, The German Language in a Changing Europe (1995) ISBN 0521499704
George O. Curme, A Grammar of the German Language (1904, 1922) — the most complete and authoritative work in English
Anthony Fox, The Structure of German (2005) ISBN 0199273995
W.B. Lockwood, German Today: The Advanced Learner's Guide (1987) ISBN 0198158505
Ruth H. Sanders. German: Biography of a Language (Oxford University Press; 2010) 240 pages. Combines linguistic, anthropological, and historical perspectives in a "biography" of German in terms of six "signal events" over millennia, including the Battle of Kalkriese, which blocked the spread of Latin-based language north.
External links German language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: German language
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of
German
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of
BLL German
German language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: German proverbs

German (language) at the Open Directory Project
The Goethe Institute: German Government sponsored organisation for the promotion of the German language and culture.
Online German Language Course An online German language course that includes lessons covering pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
German phrasebook at Wikitravel
Learn to Speak German Student Resource
Free German Language Course
The Leo Dictionaries: A German language portal featuring German-English, German-French, German-Spanish, German-Italian, German-Chinese and German-Russian dictionaries, with forums and a search function
Texts on Wikisource:
“German language,” Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911
Mark Twain, The Awful German Language, 1880
Carl Schurz, The German Mothertongue, 1897[show]
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Disclaimers

English language
nd beef; swine/pig and pork; and sheep/lamb and mutton. This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England, where an Anglo-Norman-speaking elite were the consumers of the meat, produced by lower classes, which happened to be largely Anglo-Saxon[citation needed], though this same duality can also be seen in other languages like French, which did not undergo such linguistic upheaval (e.g. boeuf "beef" vs. vache "cow"). With the exception of beef and pork, the distinction today is gradually becoming less and less pronounced (venison is commonly referred to simply as deer meat, mutton is lamb, and chicken is both the animal and the meat over the more traditional term poultry. (Use of the term mutton, however, remains, especially when referring to the meat of an older sheep, distinct from lamb; and poultry remains when referring to the meat of birds and fowls in general.)

There are Latinate words that are used in everyday speech. These words no longer appear Latinate and oftentimes have no Germanic equivalents. For instance, the words mountain, valley, river, aunt, uncle, move, use, push and stay ("to remain") are Latinate. Likewise, the inverse can occur: acknowledge, meaningful, understanding, mindful, behaviour, forbearance, behoove, forestall, allay, rhyme, starvation, embodiment come from Anglo-Saxon, and allegiance, abandonment, debutant, feudalism, seizure, guarantee, disregard, wardrobe, disenfranchise, disarray, bandolier, bourgeoisie, debauchery, performance, furniture, gallantry are of Germanic origin, usually through the Germanic element in French, so it is oftentimes impossible to know the origin of a word based on its register.

English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and often imports new words and phrases. Examples of this phenomenon include contemporary words such as cookie, Internet and URL (technical terms), as well as genre, über, lingua franca and amigo (imported words/phrases from French, German, Italian, and Spanish, respectively). In addition, slang often provides new meanings for old words and phrases. In fact, this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage.
See also: sociolinguistics
Number of words in English

The General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary states:

The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference.

The current FAQ for the OED further states:

How many words are there in the English language? There is no single sensible answer to this question. It's impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it's so hard to decide what actually counts as a word.[76]

The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages such as French (the Académie française), German (Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung), Spanish (Real Academia Española) and Italian (Accademia della Crusca), there is no academy to define officially accepted words and spellings. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science, technology and other fields, and new slang is constantly developed. Some of these new words enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might or might not be widely considered as "English".

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (OED2) includes over 600,000 definitions, following a rather inclusive policy:

It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933).[77]

The editors of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (475,000 main headwords) in their preface, estimate the number to be much higher. It is estimated that about 25,000 words are added to the language each year.[78]

The Global Language Monitor announced that the English language had crossed the 1,000,000-word threshold on June 10, 2009.[79] The announcement was met with strong scepticism by linguists and lexicographers,[80] though a number of non-specialist reports[81][82] accepted the figure uncritically.

Comparisons of the vocabulary size of English to that of other languages are generally not taken very seriously by linguists and lexicographers. Besides the fact that dictionaries will vary in their policies for including and counting entries,[83] what is meant by a given language and what counts as a word do not have simple definitions. Also, a definition of word that works for one language may not work well in another,[84] with differences in morphology and orthography making cross-linguistic definitions and word-counting difficult, and potentially giving very different results.[85] Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum has gone so far as to compare concerns over vocabulary size (and the notion that a supposedly larger lexicon leads to "greater richness and precision") to an obsession with penis length.[86]
Word origins
Main article: Lists of English loanwords by country or language of origin

One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words that are Germanic (mostly West Germanic, with a smaller influence from the North Germanic branch) and those that are "Latinate" (derived directly from Latin, or through Norman French or other Romance languages). The situation is further compounded, as French, particularly Old French and Anglo-French, were also contributors in English of significant numbers of Germanic words, mostly from the Frankish element in French (see List of English Latinates of Germanic origin).

The majority (estimates range from roughly 50%[87] to more than 80%[88]) of the thousand most common English words are Germanic. However, the majority of more advanced words in subjects such as the sciences, philosophy and mathematics come from Latin or Greek, with Arabic also providing many words in astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry.[89]
Source of the most frequent 7,476 English words 1st 100 1st 1,000 2nd 1,000 then on
Germanic 97% 57% 39% 36%
Italic 3% 36% 51% 51%
Hellenic 0 4% 4% 7%
Others 0 3% 6% 6%
Source: Nation 2001, p. 265


Numerous sets of statistics have been proposed to demonstrate the proportionate origins of English vocabulary. None, as of yet, is considered definitive by most linguists.

A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973)[90] that estimated the origin of English words as follows:

Influences in English vocabulary
Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English; does not include Germanic words coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages): 25%
Greek: 5.32%
No etymology given: 4.03%
Derived from proper names: 3.28%
All other languages: less than 1%

A survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:[91]
French (langue d'oïl): 41%
"Native" English: 33%
Latin: 15%
Old Norse: 2%
Dutch: 1%
Other: 10%
French origins
Main article: List of French words and phrases used by English speakers

A large portion of English vocabulary is of French or Langues d'oïl origin, and was transmitted to English via the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the upper classes in England in the centuries following the Norman Conquest. Words of French origin include competition, mountain, art, table, publicity, police, role, routine, machine, force, and thousands of others, most of which have been anglicised to fit English rules of phonology, pronunciation and spelling, rather than those of French (with a few exceptions, for example, façade and affaire de cœur.)
Old Norse origins
Main article: List of English words of Old Norse origin

Many words of Old Norse origin have entered the English language, primarily from the Viking colonisation of eastern and northern England between 800–1000 CE during the Danelaw. These include common words such as anger, awe, bag, big, birth, blunder, both, cake, call, cast, cosy, cross, cut, die, dirt, drag, drown, egg, fellow, flat, flounder, gain, get, gift, give, guess, guest, gust, hug, husband, ill, kid, law, leg, lift, likely, link, loan, loose, low, mistake, odd, race (running), raise, root, rotten, same, scale, scare, score, seat, seem, sister, skill, skin, skirt, skull, sky, stain, steak, sway, take, though, thrive, Thursday, tight, till (until), trust, ugly, want, weak, window, wing, wrong, the pronoun they (and its forms), and even the verb are (the present plural form of to be) through a merger of Old English and Old Norse cognates.[92] More recent Scandinavian imports include angstrom, fjord, geyser, kraken, litmus, nickel, ombudsman, saga, ski, slalom, smorgasbord, and tungsten.
Dutch and Low German origins
Main article: List of English words of Dutch origin

Many words describing the navy, types of ships, and other objects or activities on the water are of Dutch origin. Yacht (jacht), skipper (schipper), cruiser (kruiser), flag (vlag), freight (vracht), furlough (verlof), breeze (bries), hoist (hijsen), iceberg (ijsberg), boom (boom), and maelstrom (maalstroom) are examples. Other words pertain to art and daily life: easel (ezel), etch (etsen), slim (slim), staple (Middle Dutch stapel "market"), slip (Middle Dutch slippen), landscape (landschap), cookie (koekje), curl (krul), shock (schokken), aloof (loef), boss (baas), brawl (brallen "to boast"), smack (smakken "to hurl down"), coleslaw (koolsla), dope (doop "dipping sauce"), slender (Old Dutch slinder), slight (Middle Dutch slicht), gas (gas). Dutch has also contributed to English slang, e.g. spook, and the now obsolete snyder (tailor) and stiver (small coin).

Words from Low German include trade (Middle Low German trade), smuggle (smuggeln), and dollar (daler/thaler).
Writing system
Main articles: English alphabet and English orthography

Since around the 9th century, English has been written in the Latin alphabet, which replaced Anglo-Saxon runes. The spelling system, or orthography, is multilayered, with elements of French, Latin and Greek spelling on top of the native Germanic system; it has grown to vary significantly from the phonology of the language. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken.

Though letters and sounds may not correspond in isolation, spelling rules that take into account syllable structure, phonetics, and accents are 75% or more reliable.[93] Some phonics spelling advocates claim that English is more than 80% phonetic.[94] However, English has fewer consistent relationships between sounds and letters than many other languages; for example, the letter sequence ough can be pronounced in 10 different ways. The consequence of this complex orthographic history is that reading can be challenging.[95]

It takes longer for students to become completely fluent readers of English than of many other languages, including French, Greek, and Spanish.[96] "English-speaking children take up to two years more to learn reading than do children in 12 other European countries."(Professor Philip H K Seymour, University of Dundee, 2001)[97] "[dyslexia] is twice as prevalent among dyslexics in the United States (and France) as it is among Italian dyslexics. Again, this is seen to be because of Italian's 'transparent' orthography." (Eraldo Paulesu and 11 others. Science, 2001)[97]
Basic sound-letter correspondence
See also: Hard and soft C and Hard and soft GIPA Alphabetic representation Dialect-specific
p p
b b
t t, th (rarely) thyme, Thames th thing (African American, New York)
d d th that (African American, New York)
k c (+ a, o, u, consonants), k, ck, ch, qu (rarely) conquer, kh (in foreign words)
ɡ g, gh, gu (+ a, e, i), gue (final position)
m m
n n
ŋ n (before g or k), ng
f f, ph, gh (final, infrequent) laugh, rough th thing (many forms of English language in England)
v v th with (Cockney, Estuary English)
θ th thick, think, through
ð th that, this, the
s s, c (+ e, i, y), sc (+ e, i, y), ç often c (façade/facade)
z z, s (finally or occasionally medially), ss (rarely) possess, dessert, word-initial x xylophone
ʃ sh, sch (some dialects) schedule (plus words of German origin), ti (before vowel) portion, ci/ce (before vowel) suspicion, ocean; si/ssi (before vowel) tension, mission; ch (esp. in words of French origin); rarely s/ss before u sugar, issue; chsi in fuchsia only
ʒ medial si (before vowel) division, medial s (before "ur") pleasure, zh (in foreign words), z before u azure, g (in words of French origin) (+e, i, y) genre, j (in words of French origin) bijou
x kh, ch, h (in foreign words) occasionally ch loch (Scottish English, Welsh English)
h h (syllable-initially, otherwise silent), j (in words of Spanish origin) jai alai
tʃ ch, tch, t before u future, culture t (+ u, ue, eu) tune, Tuesday, Teutonic (several dialects – see Phonological history of English consonant clusters)
dʒ j, g (+ e, i, y), dg (+ e, i, consonant) badge, judg(e)ment d (+ u, ue, ew) dune, due, dew (several dialects – another example of yod coalescence)
ɹ r, wr (initial) wrangle
j y (initially or surrounded by vowels), j hallelujah
l l
w w
ʍ wh (pronounced hw) Scottish and Irish English, as well as some varieties of American, New Zealand, and English English

Written accents This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011)

Main article: English words with diacritics

Unlike most other Germanic languages, English has almost no diacritics except in foreign loanwords (like the acute accent in café), and in the uncommon use of a diaeresis mark (often in formal writing) to indicate that two vowels are pronounced separately, rather than as one sound (e.g. naïve, Zoë). Words such as décor, café, résumé/resumé, entrée, fiancée and naïve are frequently spelled both with or without diacritics.

Some English words retain diacritics to distinguish them from others, such as animé, exposé, lamé, öre, pâté, piqué, and rosé, though these are sometimes also dropped (for example, résumé/resumé, is often spelt resume in the United States). To clarify pronunciation, a small number of loanwords may employ a diacritic that does not appear in the original word, such as maté, from Spanish yerba mate, or Malé, the capital of the Maldives, following the French usage.
Formal written English
Main article: Formal written English

A version of the language almost universally agreed upon by educated English speakers around the world is called formal written English. It takes virtually the same form regardless of where it is written, in contrast to spoken English, which differs significantly between dialects, accents, and varieties of slang and of colloquial and regional expressions. Local variations in the formal written version of the language are quite limited, being restricted largely to the spelling differences between British and American English, along with a few minor differences in grammar and lexis.
Basic and simplified versions

To make English easier to read, there are some simplified versions of the language. One basic version is named Basic English, a constructed language with a small number of words created by Charles Kay Ogden and described in his book Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar (1930). The language is based on a simplified version of English. Ogden said that it would take seven years to learn English, seven months for Esperanto, and seven weeks for Basic English. Thus, Basic English may be employed by companies that need to make complex books for international use, as well as by language schools that need to give people some knowledge of English in a short time.

Ogden did not include any words in Basic English that could be said with a combination of other words, and he worked to make the vocabulary suitable for speakers of any other language. He put his vocabulary selections through a large number of tests and adjustments. Ogden also simplified the grammar but tried to keep it normal for English users. Although it was not built into a program, similar simplifications were devised for various international uses.

Another version, Simplified English, exists, which is a controlled language originally developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals. It offers a carefully limited and standardised[98] subset of English. Simplified English has a lexicon of approved words and those words can only be used in certain ways. For example, the word close can be used in the phrase "Close the door" but not "do not go close to the landing gear".
See also England portal
Language portal
Writing portal
Book: English language
Wikipedia Books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Changes to Old English vocabulary
English for Academic Purposes
English language in Europe
English language learning and teaching
Language Report
Lists of English words
Teaching English as a foreign language
The Adventure of English (film)
The Story of English
References
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^ see: Ethnologue (1984 estimate); The Triumph of English, The Economist, Dec. 20, 2001; Ethnologue (1999 estimate); "20,000 Teaching Jobs". Oxford Seminars. Retrieved 2007-02-18.
^ a b c "Lecture 7: World-Wide English". EHistLing. Retrieved 2007-03-26.
^ Ethnologue (1999 estimate);
^ Ammon, pp. 2245–2247.
^ Schneider, p. 1.
^ Mazrui, p. 21.
^ Howatt, pp. 127–133.
^ Crystal, pp. 87–89.
^ Wardhaugh, p. 60.
^ a b "Ethnologue, 1999". Web.archive.org. Retrieved 2010-10-31.
^ "English — Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary". Merriam-webster.com. 2007-04-25. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
^ a b "Old English language — Latin influence". Spiritus-temporis.com. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
^ "Words on the brain: from 1 million years ago?". History of language. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
^ Albert C. Baugh & Thomas Cable (1978). "Latin Influences on Old English". An excerpt from Foreign Influences on Old English. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
^ "How many words are there in the English Language?". Oxforddictionaries.com.
^ "Vista Worldwide Language Statistics". Vistawide.com. Retrieved 2010-10-31.
^ "Global English: gift or curse?". Retrieved 2005-04-04.
^ a b c d e f David Graddol (1997). "The Future of English?" (PDF). The British Council. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
^ "The triumph of English". The Economist. 2001-12-20. Retrieved 2007-03-26.(subscription required)
^ Graphics: English replacing German as language of Science Nobel Prize winners. From J. Schmidhuber (2010), Evolution of National Nobel Prize Shares in the 20th Century at arXiv:1009.2634v1
^ Crystal, David (2002). Language Death. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.2277/0521012716. ISBN 0521012716.
^ Cheshire, Jenny (1991). English Around The World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.2277/0521395658. ISBN 0521395658.
^ Blench, R.; Spriggs, Matthew (1999). Archaeology and language: correlating archaeological and linguistic hypotheses. Routledge. pp. 285–286. ISBN 9780415117616.
^ "The Roman epoch in Britain lasted for 367 years", Information Britain website
^ "Anglik English language resource". Anglik.net. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ "Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England | Christian Classics Ethereal Library". Ccel.org. 2005-06-01. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote. "Engla land". An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Online). Prague: Charles University.
^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote. "Englisc". An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Online). Prague: Charles University.
^ Collingwood, R. G.; et al (1936). "The English Settlements. The Sources for the period: Angles, Saxons, and Jutes on the Continent". Roman Britain and English Settlements. Oxford, England: Clarendon. pp. 325 et sec. ISBN 0819611603.
^ "Linguistics research center Texas University". Utexas.edu. 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ "The Germanic Invasions of Western Europe, Calgary University". Ucalgary.ca. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ David Graddol, Dick Leith, and Joan Swann, English: History, Diversity and Change (New York: Routledge, 1996), 101.
^ See Cercignani, Fausto, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.
^ A History of the English Language|Page: 336 | By: Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable | Publisher: Routledge; 5 edition (March 21, 2002)
^ Curtis, Andy. Color, Race, And English Language Teaching: Shades of Meaning. 2006, page 192.
^ CIA World Factbook, Field Listing — Languages (World).
^ Languages of the World (Charts), Comrie (1998), Weber (1997), and the Summer Institute for Linguistics (SIL) 1999 Ethnologue Survey. Available at The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages
^ Mair, Victor H. (1991). "What Is a Chinese "Dialect/Topolect"? Reflections on Some Key Sino-English Linguistic Terms" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers.
^ "English language". Columbia University Press. 2005. Retrieved 2007-03-26.
^ 20,000 Teaching [dead link]
^ Crystal, David (2003). English as a Global Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 69. ISBN 9780521530323., cited in Power, Carla (7 March 2005). "Not the Queen's English". Newsweek.
^ "U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003, Section 1 Population" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. pp. 59 pages. Table 47 gives the figure of 214,809,000 for those five years old and over who speak exclusively English at home. Based on the American Community Survey, these results exclude those living communally (such as college dormitories, institutions, and group homes), and by definition exclude native English speakers who speak more than one language at home.
^ a b "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Second Edition, Crystal, David; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, [1995] (2003-08-03)". Cambridge.org. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ Population by mother tongue and age groups, 2006 counts, for Canada, provinces and territories–20% sample data, Census 2006, Statistics Canada.
^ Census Data from Australian Bureau of Statistics Main Language Spoken at Home. The figure is the number of people who only speak English at home.
^ Figures are for speakers of Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based pidgin or creole. Ihemere gives a range of roughly 3 to 5 million native speakers; the midpoint of the range is used in the table. Ihemere, Kelechukwu Uchechukwu. 2006. "A Basic Description and Analytic Treatment of Noun Clauses in Nigerian Pidgin." Nordic Journal of African Studies 15(3): 296–313.
^ Census in Brief, page 15 (Table 2.5), 2001 Census, Statistics South Africa
^ "About people, Language spoken". Statistics New Zealand. 2006 census. Retrieved 2009-09-28.[dead link] (links to Microsoft Excel files)
^ Subcontinent Raises Its Voice, Crystal, David; Guardian Weekly: Friday 19 November 2004.
^ Yong Zhao; Keith P. Campbell (1995). "English in China". World Englishes 14 (3): 377–390. Hong Kong contributes an additional 2.5 million speakers (1996 by-census).
^ Table C-17: Population by Bilingualism and trilingualism, 2001 Census of India [1]
^ Tropf, Herbert S. 2004. India and its Languages[dead link]. Siemens AG, Munich
^ For the distinction between "English Speakers" and "English Users", see: TESOL-India (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages). Their article explains the difference between the 350 million number mentioned in a previous version of this Wikipedia article and a more plausible 90 million number:

Wikipedia's India estimate of 350 million includes two categories - "English Speakers" and "English Users". The distinction between the Speakers and Users is that Users only know how to read English words while Speakers know how to read English, understand spoken English as well as form their own sentences to converse in English. The distinction becomes clear when you consider the China numbers. China has over 200~350 million users that can read English words but, as anyone can see on the streets of China, only handful of million who are English speakers.
^ a b c "Ethnologue report for Philippines". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
^ "Australian Bureau of Statistics". Censusdata.abs.gov.au. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ Nancy Morris (1995). Puerto Rico: Culture, Politics, and Identity. Praeger/Greenwood. p. 62. ISBN 0275952282.
^ Languages Spoken in the US[dead link], National Virtual Translation Center, 2006.
^ U.S. English Foundation, Official Language Research – United Kingdom.
^ "U.S. English, Inc". Us-english.org. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ [2], Language Policy Research Center
^ "International Maritime Organisation". Imo.org. Retrieved 2010-04-21.[dead link]
^ 2006 survey by Eurobarometer, in the Official EU languages website
^ "Microsoft Word — SPECIAL NOTE Europeans and languagesEN 20050922.doc" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ David Crystal (2000) Language Death, Preface; viii, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
^ a b Jambor, Paul Z. 'English Language Imperialism: Points of View', Journal of English as an International Language, April 2007 - Volume 1, pages 103-123 (Accessed in 2007)
^ Albert C. Baugh & Thomas Cable (1993), A history of the English language, page 50, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London
^ Aitken, A. J. and McArthur, T. Eds. (1979) Languages of Scotland. Edinburgh,Chambers. p.87
^ Second Report submitted by the United Kingdom pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the framework convention for the protection of national minorities[dead link]
^ Peter Trudgill, The Dialects of England 2nd edition, page 125, Blackwell, Oxford, 2002
^ Cox, Felicity (2006). "Australian English Pronunciation into the 21st century" (PDF). Prospect 21: 3–21. Archived from the original on July 24, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
^ Oxford English Dictionary, see entry "contract"
^ Oxford English Dictionary, see entry "civilisation"
^ For the processes and triggers of English vocabulary changes cf. English and General Historical Lexicology (by Joachim Grzega and Marion Schöner)
^ Baugh, Cable, A History of the English Language Fifth Edition, 50.
^ "How many words are there in the English language?". Oxford Dictionaries Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
^ It went on to clarify,

Hence we exclude all words that had become obsolete by 1150 [the end of the Old English era]... Dialectal words and forms which occur since 1500 are not admitted, except when they continue the history of the word or sense once in general use, illustrate the history of a word, or have themselves a certain literary currency.
^ Kister, Ken. "Dictionaries defined." Library Journal, 6/15/92, Vol. 117 Issue 11, p43, 4p, 2bw
^ By John D. Sutter CNN (2009-06-10). "'English gets millionth word on Wednesday, site says'". Edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ Jennifer Schuessler (2009-06-13). Keeping it Real on Dictionary Row "The Challenges of Counting Words — Keeping It Real on Dictionary Row". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-09-22.
^ Winchester, Simon (2009-06-06). "1,000,000 words!". Telegraph. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
^ "Millionth English word' declared'". BBC News. 2009-06-10. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ Sheidlower, Jesse (10 April 2006). "How many words are there in English?". Retrieved 17 September 2010.
^ Liberman, Mark (1 June 2010). "Laden on word counting". Language Log. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
^ Liberman, Mark (28 December 2006). "An apology to our readers". Language Log. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
^ Pullum, Geoffrey K. (8 December 2006). "Vocabulary size and penis length". Language Log. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
^ Nation 2001, p. 265
^ "Old English Online". Utexas.edu. 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ "From Arabic to English", www.america.gov
^ Finkenstaedt, Thomas; Dieter Wolff (1973). Ordered profusion; studies in dictionaries and the English lexicon. C. Winter. ISBN 3-533-02253-6.
^ "Joseph M. Willams, Origins of the English Language". Amazon.com. p.[page needed]. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ "Are". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 27 October 2010.
^ Abbott, M. (2000). Identifying reliable generalisations for spelling words: The importance of multilevel analysis. The Elementary School Journal 101(2), 233–245.
^ Moats, L. M. (2001). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Company.
^ Diane McGuinness, Why Our Children Can't Read (New York: Touchstone, 1997) pp. 156–169
^ Ziegler, J. C., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1), 3–29.
^ a b "Media centre". Spelling Society. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ "Official page of ASD Simplified Technical English Maintenance Group (STEMG)".
Bibliographic
Ammon, Ulrich (2006). Sociolinguistics: an international handbook of the science of language and society. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3110184184.
Baugh, Albert C.; Thomas Cable (2002). A history of the English language (5th ed.). Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28099-0.
Bragg, Melvyn (2004). The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. Arcade Publishing. ISBN 1-55970-710-0.
Cercignani, Fausto, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.
Crystal, David (1997). English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-53032-6.
Crystal, David (2003). The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-53033-4.
Crystal, David (2004). The Stories of English. Allen Lane. ISBN 0713997524.
Halliday, MAK (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.). London: Edward Arnold. ISBN 0-340-55782-6.
Hayford, Harrison; Howard P. Vincent (1954). Reader and Writer. Houghton Mifflin Company. "Internet Archive: Free Download: Reader And Writer". Archive.org. 2001-03-10. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
Howatt, Anthony (2004). A history of English language teaching. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0194421856.
Kenyon, John Samuel and Knott, Thomas Albert, A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English, G & C Merriam Company, Springfield, Mass, USA,1953.
Mazrui, Alamin (1998). The power of Babel: language & governance in the African experience. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0852558074.
McArthur, T. (ed.) (1992). The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-214183-X.
McCrum; Robert MacNeil, William Cran (1986). The Story of English (1st ed.). New York: Viking. ISBN 0-670-80467-3.
Nation, I.S.P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge University Press. p. 477. ISBN 0521804981
Plotkin, Vulf (2006). The Language System of English. BrownWalker Press. ISBN 1-58112-993-9.
Robinson, Orrin (1992). Old English and Its Closest Relatives. Stanford Univ. Press. ISBN 0-8047-2221-8.
Schneider, Edgar (2007). Postcolonial English: varieties around the world. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521831407.
Wardhaugh, Ronald (2006). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 140513559X.
External links Look up Appendix:List of Proto-Indo-European roots in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikiversity has learning materials about Topic:English Language
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: English language
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: English language
English language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus

Accents of English from Around the World (University of Edinburgh) Hear and compare how the same 110 words are pronounced in 50 English accents from around the world – instantaneous playback online
Dictionaries
Collection of English bilingual dictionaries
dict.org
Dictionary of American Regional English
English language word roots, prefixes and suffixes (affixes) dictionary
Oxford's online dictionary
Merriam-Webster's online dictionary
Macquarie Dictionary Online[show]

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Great Vowel Shift
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011)


The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in Southern England between 1450 and 1750.[1] The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term.[2]Contents [hide]
1 Effect
1.1 Exceptions
2 History
3 Other languages
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links

[edit]
EffectThis article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.


The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English and Modern English, and the Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical events marking the separation of Middle and Modern English. Previous to the Great Vowel Shift, these vowels had "continental" values much like those remaining in Italian and liturgical Latin. However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels became diphthongs, and the other five underwent an increase in tongue height with one of them coming to the front.



The principal changes (with the vowels shown in IPA) are roughly as follows.[3] However, exceptions occur, the transitions were not always complete, and there were sometimes accompanying changes in orthography:
Middle English [aː] (ā) fronted to [æː] and then raised to [ɛː], [eː] and in many dialects diphthongised in Modern English to [eɪ] (as in make). Since Old English ā had mutated to [ɔː] in Middle English, Old English ā does not correspond to the Modern English diphthong [eɪ].
Middle English [ɛː] raised to [eː] and then to modern English [iː] (as in beak).
Middle English [eː] raised to Modern English [iː] (as in feet).
Middle English [iː] diphthongised to [ɪi], which was most likely followed by [əɪ] and finally Modern English [aɪ] (as in mice).
Middle English [ɔː] raised to [oː], and in the eighteenth century this became Modern English [oʊ] or [əʊ] (as in boat).
Middle English [oː] raised to Modern English [uː] (as in boot).
Middle English [uː] was diphthongised in most environments to [ʊu], and this was followed by [əʊ], and then Modern English [aʊ] (as in mouse) in the eighteenth century. Before labial consonants, this shift did not occur, and [uː] remains as in soup).

This means that the vowel in the English word date was in Middle English pronounced [aː] (similar to modern dart); the vowel in feet was [eː] (similar to modern fate); the vowel in wipe was [iː] (similar to modern weep); the vowel in boot was [oː] (similar to modern boat); and the vowel in house was [uː] (similar to modern whose).

The effects of the shift were not entirely uniform, and differences in degree of vowel shifting can sometimes be detected in regional dialects both in written and in spoken English. In Northern English, the long back vowels remained unaffected, the long front vowels having undergone an earlier shift.[4] In Scotland, Scots differed in its input to the Great Vowel Shift, the long vowels [iː], [eː] and [aː] shifted to [ei], [iː] and [eː] by the Middle Scots period, [oː] had shifted to [øː] in Early Scots and [uː] remained unaffected.[5]
[edit]
Exceptions

Not all words underwent certain phases of the Great Vowel Shift. ea in particular did not take the step to [iː] in several words, such as great, break, steak, greaves, swear, and bear. Other examples are father, which failed to become [ɛː] / ea, and broad, which failed to become [oː] (except when used as a proper noun, as in "Eli Broad").

Shortening of long vowels at various stages produced further complications. ea is again a good example, shortening commonly before coronal consonants such as d and th, thus: dead, head, threat, wealth etc. (This is known as the bred-bread merger.) oo was shortened from [uː] to [ʊ] in many cases before k, d and less commonly t, thus book, foot, good etc. Some cases occurred before the change of [ʊ] to [ʌ]: blood, flood. Similar, yet older shortening occurred for some instances of ou: country, could.

Note that some loanwords, such as soufflé and Umlaut, have retained a spelling from their origin language that may seem similar to the previous examples; but, since they were not a part of English at the time of the Great Vowel Shift, they are not actually exceptions to the shift.
[edit]
History This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2010)


The exact causes of the shift are continuing mysteries in linguistics and cultural history. But some theories attach the cause to the mass migration to the southeast part of England after the Black Death, where the difference in accents led to certain groups modifying their speech to allow for a standard pronunciation of vowel sounds. The different dialects and the rise of a standardised middle class in London led to changes in pronunciation, which continued to spread out from that city.

The sudden social mobility after the Black Death may have caused the shift, with people from lower levels in society moving to higher levels (the pandemic also having hit the aristocracy). Another explanation highlights the language of the ruling class: The medieval aristocracy had spoken French, but, by the early fifteenth century, they were using English. This may have caused a change to the "prestige accent" of English, either by making pronunciation more French in style or by changing it in some other way, perhaps by hypercorrection to something thought to be "more English" (England being at war with France for much of this period). Another influence may have been the great political and social upheavals of the fifteenth century, which were largely contemporaneous with the Great Vowel Shift.

Because English spelling was becoming standardised in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling. Spellings that made sense according to Middle English pronunciation were retained in Modern English because of the adoption and use of the printing press, which was introduced to England in the 1470s by William Caxton and later Richard Pynson.
[edit]
Other languages

German and Dutch also experienced sound changes resembling the first stage of the Great Vowel Shift. In German, by the 15th or 16th centuries, long [iː] had changed to [aɪ], (as in Eis, 'ice') and long [uː] to [aʊ] (as in Haus, 'house'), though some Alemannic dialects resist those changes to this day. In Dutch, the former became [ɛi] (ijs), and the latter had earlier become [yː], which became [œy] (huis). In German, there also was a separate [yː], which became [ɔʏ], via an intermediate similar to the Dutch. In the Polder Dutch pronunciation, the shift has actually been carried further than in Standard Dutch, with a very similar result as in German and English.

German has, like English, also shifted common Germanic *[oː] to [uː], as in Proto-Germanic *fōt- 'foot' > German Fuß (as well as the rare secondary *[eː] to [iː]). However, this similarity turns out to be superficial on closer inspection. Given the huge differences between the structures of Old English and Old High German vowel phonology, this is hardly surprising. There is no indication that English long vowels other than [iː uː] did anything but just move up in tongue-body position. (There is no hint, for example, of the diphthongal features of Modern bee, bay, bone in any of the orthoepic pronunciation manuals of the 17th and 18th centuries.)

In German, the process was totally different, as well as much earlier than the English developments: In the very earliest Old High German texts (9th cent.; note: Old Bavarian is an exception), the vowel in question is already consistently written -uo-. That is, it had 'broken' into a nucleus with a centering glide. This complex nucleus smoothed, as the term has it in Middle High German, becoming the [uː] of Modern German around the same time as the long high vowels diphthongized.

The [oː] of Modern German has a variety of sources, the oldest of which is Proto-Germanic *aw, which smoothed before /t d r x/ (so rot 'red', Ohr 'ear', Floh 'flea', etc.) Elsewhere the sound was written -ou- in OHG.

In similar manner, original *ai became [eː] before /r x w/, remaining what was written -ei- elsewhere. In some German dialects, original /oʊ eɪ/ remain distinct from these new diphthongs, but, in standard German, they fell together with the newly created /aʊ/ and /aɪ/, respectively. The latter is still somewhat eccentrically written -ei- as a rule, a holdover of the days when /eɪ/ was the only such diphthong. Otherwise, German spelling has been kept far more consistent than the spelling of English.
[edit]
See also
Chain shift
History of the English language
International Phonetic Alphabet
Phonological history of English vowels
[edit]
Notes
^ Robert Stockwell (2002). "How much shifting actually occurred in the historical English vowel shift?". In Donka Minkova; Stockwell, Robert. Studies in the History of the English Language: A Millennial Perspective. Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3110173689
^ William Labov (1994). Principles of Linguistic Change. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 145. ISBN 0-6311-7914-3.
^ L. Kip Wheeler. "Middle English consonant sounds" (PDF).
^ Wales, K. (2006) Northern English: a cultural and social history, Cambridge: Cambridge University. p.48
^ A History of Scots to 1700, DOST Vol. 12 pp. lvi-lix
[edit]
References
George L. Dillon. "Studying Phonetics on the Net".
See especially the section on American English vowels
Bill Rogers. "A Simplified History of the Phonemes of English".
Baugh, Alfred C. and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language, 4 ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1993.
Cable, Thomas. A Companion to Baugh & Cable's History of the English Language. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1983.
Cercignani, Fausto. Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.
Dobson, E. J. English Pronunciation 1500-1700, 2 ed. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. (See vol. 2, 594-713 for discussion of long stressed vowels)
Freeborn, Dennis. From Old English to Standard English: A Course Book in Language Variation Across Time. Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa Press, 1992
Görlach, Manfred. Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Kökeritz, Helge. Shakespeare's Pronunciation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953.
Millward, Celia. A Biography of the English Language, 2 ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1996.
Pyles, Thomas, and John Algeo. The Origins and Development of the English Language, 4 ed. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1993. This article's section called "History" needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2010)

[edit]
External links
Great Vowel Shift website, Furman University
"What is the Great Vowel Shift?" from the same site
"The Great Vowel Shift" page from the Geoffrey Chaucer section of the Harvard University website[show]
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History of the English language

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Middle Scots
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [hide]
Scots language

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Middle Scots

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Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 13th century its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English. Subsequently its orthography differed from that of the emerging Early Modern English standard. Middle Scots was fairly uniform throughout its many texts, albeit with some variation due to the use of Romance forms in translations from Latin or French, echoes of Chaucerian words, turns of phrases and grammar in recensions of southern texts or the writings of Scots in exile in England influenced by southern forms, misunderstandings and mistakes made by foreign printers in Paris or the likes of Chepman and Myllar’s English craftsmen in Edinburgh and the use of archaisms in poetry.Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Orthography
3 Phonology
4 Literature
4.1 Sample text
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links

History

The now established Stewart identification with the lowland language had finally secured the division of Scotland into two somewhat antagonistic parts, the Gaelic Highlands and the Anglic Lowlands. The adherence of many Highlanders to the Catholic faith during the Reformation led to the 1609 Statutes of Iona forcing Clan chiefs to establish Protestant churches, send their sons to Lowland schools and withdraw their patronage from the hereditary guardians of Gaelic culture – the bards. This was followed in 1616 by an act establishing parish schools in the Highlands with the aim of extirpating the Gaelic language. Just over a hundred years later this endeavour gained almost genocidal proportions after the Jacobite uprisings.

The Danish dependency of Orkney and Shetland had been held by Scottish magnates from the late 14th century. These had introduced the Lowland tongue which then began to replace Norn. In 1467 the islands became part of Scotland.

By the early 16th century Scottis (previously used to describe Gaelic in Ireland as well as Scotland) had been adopted for what had become the national language of the Stewart kingdom. The term Erse (Irish) was used instead for Gaelic, while the previously used term Inglis was increasingly used to refer to the language south of the border. The first known instance of this terminology was by an unknown man in 1494. In 1559 William Nudrye was granted a monopoly by the court to produce school textbooks, two of which were Ane Schort Introduction: Elementary Digestit into Sevin Breve Tables for the Commodius Expeditioun of Thame That are Desirous to Read and Write the Scottis Toung and Ane Intructioun for Bairnis to be Learnit in Scottis and Latin but there is no evidence that the books were ever printed.

From 1610 to the 1690s, during the Plantation of Ulster, some 200,000 Scots settled in the north of Ireland, taking what were to become the Ulster Scots dialects with them.

Later in the period southern influence on the language increased, owing to the new political and social relations with England prior to and following the accession of James VI to the English throne. By the Union of Parliaments in 1707 southern Modern English was generally adopted as the literary language though Modern Scots remained the vernacular.
Orthography

On the whole Middle Scots scribes never managed to establish a single standardised spelling for every word, but operated a system of free variation based on a number of spelling variants. Some scribes used their own variants, but this was relatively rare. The least variation occurred in the later 16th century as printers moved towards fixed spellings. This ended in the 17th century when printers began to adopt imported English conventions. Middle Scots used a number of now obsolete letters and letter combinations:[1]
þ (thorn) was equivalent to the modern th as in thae. þ was often indistinguishable from the letter y and often written so.
ȝ (yogh) in nȝ was /ɲ/ as in the French Bretagne. It later changed to /ŋ/ or /nj/ leading to the modern spellings with z and y as in Menzies /ˈmɪŋʌs/ and Cunyie /ˈkʌnjiː/.
quh [xw] was equivalent to the modern wh.
sch was equivalent to the modern sh.
A ligature of long s and short s, similar to German ß, is sometimes used for s.
The initial ff was a stylised single f.
The inflection -ys, -is was realised /ɪz/ after sibilate and affricate consonants and other voiced consonants, and /ɪs/ after other voiceless consonants,[2] later contracted to /z/ and /s/ as in Modern Scots -s. The spelling -ys or -is also occurred in other words such as Inglis [ˈɪŋlɪs] and Scottis [ˈskotɪs] . The older Scots spelling surviving in place names such as Fowlis [fʌulz], Glamis [ɡlɑːmz] and Wemyss [wimz].
d after an n was often (and still is) silent i.e. barrand is [ˈbarən] = barren.
i and j were often interchanged.
h was oftten silent.
l after a and o had become vocalised and remained in use as an orthographic device to indicate vowel length. Hence the place names Balmalcolm /ˈbɑːməkoːm/, Falkirk /ˈfɑːkɪrk/, Kirkcaldy /kərˈkɑːdi/, Culross /ˈkuːrəs/ and Culter /ˈkuːtər/.
i after a vowel was also used to denote vowel length, e.g. ai /aː/, ei /eː/ oi /oː/ and ui /øː/.
u, v and w were often interchanged.
After -ch and -th, some scribes affixed a pleonastic final -t (-cht, -tht); this was unpronounced.
The word ane represented the numeral ane as well as the indefinite article an and a, and was pronounced similar to Modern Scots usage. For example, Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis was pronounced a satyre o the thrie estaits.
The verbal noun (gerund) -yng (-ing) differentiated itself from the present participle -and /ən/,[3] in Middle Scots, for example techynge, cryand and bydand—-the motto of the Gordon Highlanders. Both the verbal noun and present participle had generally merged to /ən/ by 1700.[4]
Phonology

The development of Middle Scots vowels:[5] Middle Scots
Early
Scots Early
c1575 Late
c1600
Long Vowels
1: iː → ei → ɛ(ː)i
2: eː → iː → i(ː)
↗
3: ɛː → eː
↘
4: aː → ɛː → e(ː)
5: o̞ː → oː → oː
6: uː → uː → u(ː)
↗
6a: u̞lː#, u̞lːC → u̞l → öl
7: øː → ø(ː) (iː) → øː
Diphthongs
8a: ai# → ɛi → ɛi
8: aiː → æi → ei
8b: ?äː#, ?ɑː# → aː → e̞ː
9: o̞i → o̞i → oɪ
10: ui → u̞i → öi
11: ei → eː → iː → i#
12: au → ɑː(aː) → ɑː(aː)
12a: al#, alC# ↗ → al → al
13: o̞u → o̞u → o̞u
13a: ol ↗ → ol
14a: iu → iu → iu → iu, ju
14b: ɛːu → ɛu ↗
Short Vowels
15: ɪ → ɪ (ɛ̽) → ɪ(ɛ̽)
16: ɛ → ɛ → ɛ
17: a → a → a
18: o̞ → o → o
19: u̞ → u̞ → ö


The Scottish Vowel Length Rule is assumed to have come into being between the early Middle Scots and late Middle Scots period. Here vowel length is conditioned by phonetic and morphemic environment. The affected vowels tended to be realised fully long in end-stressed syllables before voiced oral continuants except /l/, in hiatus, before word or morpheme boundaries and before /rd/ and /dʒ/.

The major differences to contemporary southern English were the now well established early merger of /ei/ with /e/ (dey 'die', ley 'lie'), early 15th century l-vocalisation where /al/ (except intervocalically and before /d/), /ol/ and usually /ul/ merged with /au/, /ou/ and /uː/, medial and final /v/ was lost (deil 'devil', ser 'serve'). The Great Vowel Shift occurred partially, /u/ and /øː/ remained unaffected, /ɔː/ became /oː/, /iː, eː, ɛː/ and /aː/ became /ɛi, iː, eː/ and /ɛː/.
Literature
Main article: Scottish_literature#Late_medieval_Anglo-Scottish_literature
Sample text

On Praying in Latin. by Nicol Burne (1581)
An anti-reformation pamphlet printed abroad and circulated in Scotland.

B. Thair be tua kynd of prayeris in the kirk, the
ane is priuat, quhilk euerie man sayis be him self, the
vthir is publik, quhilk the preistis sayis in the name of
the hail kirk. As to the priuate prayeris, na Catholik
denyis bot it is verie expedient that euerie man
pray in his auin toung, to the end he vndirstand that
quhilk he sayis, and that thairbie the interior prayer
of the hairt may be the mair valkinnit, and conseruit
the bettir; and gif, onie man pray in ane vther toung,
it is also expedient that he vnderstand the mening of
the vordis at the lest. For the quhilk caus in the
catholik kirk the parentis or godfatheris ar obleist
to learne thame quhom thay hald in baptisme the
formes of prayeris and beleif, and instruct thame
sufficiently thairin, sua that thay vndirstand the
same: Albeit the principal thing quhilk God requiris
is the hairt, that suppois he quha prayis vndirstand
nocht perfytlie the vordis quhilk he spekis, yit God
quha lukis in the hairt, vill nocht lat his prayer be in
vane. As to the publik prayeris of the kirk, it is not
necessar that the pepill vndirstand thame, becaus it
is nocht the pepill quha prayis, bot the preistis in the
name of the hail kirk, and it is aneuche that thay
assist be deuotione liftand vp thair myndis to God or
saying thair auin priuate oraisonis, and that be thair
deuotione thay may be maid participant of the kirk.
As in the synagogue of the Ieuis, the peopill kneu not
quhat all thay cerimonies signifeit, quhilk vas keipit
be the preistis and vtheris in offering of thair sacri-
fices and vther vorshipping of god, and yit thay
did assist vnto thame; ye, sum of the preistis thame
selfis miskneu the significatione of thir cerimoneis
Than gif it vas aneuche to the pepill to vndirstand
that in sik ane sacrifice consisted the vorshipping of
God, suppois thay had not sua cleir ane vndirstand-
ing of euerie thing that vas done thairin, sua in the
catholik kirk, quhen the people assistis to the sacrifice
of the Mess, thay acknaulege that thairbie God is
vorshippit, and that it is institute for the remem-
brance of Christis death and passione. Albeit thay
vndirstand nocht the Latine toung, yit thay ar not
destitut of the vtilitie and fruit thairof. And it is
nocht vithout greit caus that as in the inscrptione
and titil quhilk pilat fixed vpone the croce of Christ
Iesus thir thre toungis var vritt in, Latine, Greik,
and Hebreu, sua in the sacrifice and the publik prayeris
of the kirk thay ar cheiflie retenit for the con-
seruatione of vnitie in the kirk and nationis amang
thame selfis; for, gif al thingis var turnit in the
propir langage of euerie cuntrey, na man vald studie
to the Latine toung, and thairbie al communicatione
amangis Christiane pepil vald schortlie be tane auay,
and thairbie eftir greit barbaritie inseu. Mairatour
sik publique prayeris and seruice ar keipit mair
perfytlie in thair auin integritie vithout al corrup-
tione; for gif ane natione vald eik or pair onie
thing, that vald be incontinent remarkt and reprouit
be vther nationis, quhilk culd not be, gif euerie
natione had al thai thingis turnit in the auin propir
langage; as ye may se be experience, gif ye vald
confer the prayeris of your deformit kirkis, togidder
vith the innumerabil translationis of the psalmes,
quihlk ar chaingit according to euerie langage in
the quhilk thay ar turnit. It is not than vithout
greit caus, and ane special instinctione of the halie
Ghaist, that thir toungis foirspokin hes bene,
as thay vil be retenit to the end of the varld. And
quhen the Ieuis sall imbrace the Euangel than sall
the sacrifice and other publik prayeris be in the
Hebreu toung, according to that quhilk I said befoir,
that on the Croce of Christ thai thrie toungis onlie
var vrittin, to signifie that the kirk of Christ suld
vse thay thre toungis cheiflie in his vorshipping, as
the neu and auld testament ar in thir thre toungis
in greitast authoritie amangis al pepill.
See also
History of the Scots language
Phonological history of the Scots language
Dictionary of the Scots Language
References
^ Smith, G. Gregory (1902). Specimens of Middle Scots. Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
^ King A. The Inflectional Morphology of Older Scots in Jones C. (ed) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Edinburgh,University of Edinburgh Press. p.161
^ King A. The Inflectional Morphology of Older Scots in Jones C. (ed) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Edinburgh,University of Edinburgh Press. p.180
^ Beal J. Syntax and Morphology in Jones C. (ed) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Edinburgh,University of Edinburgh Press. p.356
^ Aitken, A.J. (2002) Macafee C. (Ed) The Older Scots Vowels: A History of the Stressed Vowels of Older Scots From the Beginnings to the Eighteenth Century. Edinburgh, The Scottish Text Society. ISBN 1-897976-18-6
Further reading
A History of Scots to 1700 in A Dictionary of Older Scots Vol. 12. Oxford University Press 2002.
Aitken, A.J. (1977) How to Pronounce Older Scots in Bards and Makars. Glasgow, Glasgow University Press.
Jones C. (ed) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh Press. ISBN 0-7486-0754-4
External links
Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd
The Palaeography of Scottish Documents 1500 - 1750
Reading Older Scots
Teaching Package
The Scottish Text Society
Categories: Scots language | Medieval languages
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