230419 History of the English Language (S) (SoSe 2017)

Have you ever noticed that English is strikingly similar to German in some aspects but confusingly different in others and sometimes even closer to French than to German? Have you ever wondered why we say ‘one spoon – two spoons’ but ‘one child – two children’? Why are some verbs regular whereas others have a so-called irregular paradigm? Have you ever read a text by Shakespeare and had the feeling that although the words look familiar the overall sense remained somehow unclear to you?

This class is designed to give you answers to these questions and to many others you haven’t even thought of asking yourself. It will provide you with an overview of the diachronic development of the English language and its periodisation, and will familiarise you with previous forms of Present-day English, such as Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. However, the main intention of this class is to explain features of Present-day English by intra-linguistic developments as well as past extra-linguistic developments, such as language and culture contact and societal changes. We will therefore combine historical linguistics with sociolinguistic issues.