(Solved): History of the English Language: Writing Assignment #4

Part A of the assignment focuses on Baugh and Cable, Chapters 5 and 7. Part B of the assignment requires that you watch a video titled “The Adventure of English: Episode 2, English Goes Underground,” accessible from the course D2L web page, or from youtube.com. A. Baugh and Cable, Chapter 5, “The Norman Conquest and the Subjection of English, 1066-1200” 1. How would the English language have been different if the Norman Conquest had never occurred? 2. What was the decisive battle between the Normans and the English? How did the Normans win it? 3. What happened to Englishmen in positions of Church and state under William’s rule? 4. What was generally the attitude of the French kings and upper classes to the English language? 5. In general, which parts of the population spoke English, and which French? 6. To what extent did the upper classes learn English? What can one infer concerning Henry II’s knowledge of English? 7. How complete was the fusion of French and English peoples in England? 8. What accounts for the –e in modern English stone, the Old English form of which was stān in the nominative and accusative singular? 9. What two methods of indicating the plural of nouns remained common in early Middle English? 10. What happened to the articles sē, sēo, þæt, þēs, þēos, and þis in Middle English? 11. What were the principal changes to the verb in the Middle English period? 12. How many of the Old English strong verbs remain in the language today? 13. In the borrowing of French words into English, how is the period before 1250 distinguished from the period after? B. Video: “The Adventure of English: Episode 2, English Goes Underground” 1. What was the Peterborough Chronicle, and why is it significant? 2. Why wasn’t English entirely replaced by French in England? 3. How did the Black Death affect the history of the English language? 4. Which English dialect did Chaucer use? 5. The video explains how Chaucer relies on words of French origins in one of his literary works, and relies on words of English origins in the Miller’s tale. a. Why did Chaucer use so many French words in the dialogue between animals described in the video? b. Why did Chaucer use so many native English words In the Miller’s tale?

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