the modern english period.pdf

THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD (1700- present day)

I. 1700-1800: The Age of Lexicography and Prescriptivism

- N. Bailey, Universal Etymological English Dictionary , 1721.

- An English Academy (cf. Italy 1582/1612; France 1635/1694): John Dryden (1631-1700),

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

- Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of The English Language (1755); R. Lowth, Short

Introduction to English Grammar (1762); L. Murray, English Grammar (1794); T. Sheridan

(1780); J. Walker (1791)

ã Two conflicting schools of thought : description (e.g. J. Priestley, Rudiments of

English Grammar , 1761) vs. prescription (e.g. R. Lowth; G. Campell, Philosophy of Rhetoric ,

1776)

- aims of the 18 th -c. grammarians: ã codify principles of the language, reduce to rule

ã settle disputes regarding usage

ã highlight common errors

II . 1800-1900: ã purism victorious

ã a new prestige ‘dialect’

III. English as a World Tongue

“The voice of this society should be sufficient authority for the usage of words, and

sufficient also to expose the innovations of other men’s fancies; they should preside

with a sort of judicature over the learning of the age, and have liberty to correct and

censure the exorbitance of writers, especially of translators. The reputation of this

society would be enough to make them the allowed judges of style and language; and

no author would have the impudence to coin without their authority. (…) There

should be no more occasion to search for derivations and constructions, and it would

be as criminal then to coin words as money.” (D. Defoe, Essay upon Projects , 1697)

“How then shall any men, who hath a genius for history equal to the best of the

ancients, be able to undertake such a work with spirit and cheerfulness, when he

considers that he will be read with pleasure but a very few years, and in age or two

shall hardly be understood without an interpreter.” (J. Swift, Proposal for

Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue , 1712).

“Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, require that it should fix

our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto

been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess

that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged

expectation with neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see men grow

old and die at a certain time form one another, from century to century, we laugh at

the exlixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice

may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation

that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that this

dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it

is in his power to change subulunary nature, or clear the world at once from folly,

vanity, and affectation.” (S. Johnson, Dictionary , preface)

cough : A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity.

to fart . To break wind behind.

As when we gun discharge,

Although the bore be ne're so large,

Before the flame from muzzle burst,

Just at the breech it flashes first;

So from my lord his passion broke,

He farted first, and then he spoke - Swift

lexicographer : A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge

net : Anything reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the

intersections.

Oats : a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the

people.

Puberty : The time of life when the two sexes begin first to be acquainted.

Shrew : A peevish, malignant, clamorous, spiteful, vexatious, turbulent woman

Smoke : The visible effluvium, or soothy exhalation from anything burning.

Words excluded by Johnson:

beau monde (1714)

bouquet (1716)

bourgeois (1564)

casserole (1706)

champagne (1664)

clique (1711)

concierge (1646)

corsage (1481)

cortège (1679)

coterie (1738)

cutlet (1706)

debris (1708)

envelope (1707)

esprit (1591)

façade (1656)

faux pas (1676)

meringue (1706)

picturesque (1703)

riposte (1707)

roulette (1734)

spa (1626)

unique (1602)

vampire (1734)

Words included by Johnson:

denominable

opiniatry

areolation

clancular

comminuible

conclusible

detentition

digladiation

dignotion

cubiculary

discubitory

exolution

exenterate

incompossible

indigitate

LANGUAGE STATISTICS

Total Living Languages: between 3,000-7,000 (M. Ruhlen, A Guide to the World's

Languages, Stanford University Press, 1987: 5,000; Ethnologue : 6,809)

The Americas: 1,013

Africa: 2,058

Europe: 230

Pacific: 1,311

( Ethnologue )

- 417 of the languages listed in Ethnologue are classified as nearly extinct:

Africa: 37

Americas: 161

Asia: 55

Europe: 7 (e.g. Yiddish in Germany, Saami varieties in Norway, Russia and

Sweden)

Pacific: 157

- Half of the languages in the world today are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people

and a quarter by less than 1,000.

- 90% are spoken by fewer than 100,000 speakers.

- 30 languages with about 100,000 speakers

- 357 languages with fewer than 50 speakers;

- 46 languages have only one speaker

- 150-200 languages with more than 1 million speakers

- over the past 500 years: 4.5% of the world’s languages have disappeared.

- Over the last 400 years, Europe has lost ca. 12 languages; North America 52.

- Australia has only 20 left of the 250 spoken at the end of the 18th century.

- In Brazil, about 540 (three-quarters of the total) have died out since Portuguese

colonization began in 1530.

Asia: 2,197

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: