Linguistic characteristics of the German and English languages - Шпаргалка

Nacht Indo-European long o and a appear as long o in Germanic languages: IE Germanic IE Germanic Lat. Frater goth. Broqar lat. Flos OE bloma Greek. Phrator rodOE bro Thus, as a result of these changes, there was neither a short o nor a long a in Germanic languages. Later on these sounds appeared from different sources. Another phenomenon common for Germanic languages is gradation or ablaut- root vowel change in strong verbs etc. Another common phenomenon is Germanic Fracture that concerns 2 pairs of vowels: the pair E and I and the pair U and O. 2. Spelling changes in ME and NE. Rules of reading The most conspicuous feature of Late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms of the words in ME texts resemble their modern forms, though the pronunciation of the words was different. In ME many new devices were introduced into the system of spelling; some of them reflected the sound changes which had been completed or were still in progress in ME; others were graphic replacements of OE letters by new letters and digraphs.In ME the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn - ? - and the crossed d - d, ? - were replaced by the digraph th, which retained the same sound value: [?] and [?]; the rune “wynn” was displaced by “double u” - w - ; the ligatures ? and ? fell into disuse. After the period of Anglo-Norman dominance (11th-13th c.) English regained its prestige as the language of writing. ME ship (from OE scip), dg to indicate [dз] alongside j and g; the digraph wh replaced the OE sequence of letters hw as in OE hw?t, ME what [hwat]. Long sounds were shown by double letters, e.g. ME book [bo:k], though long [e:] could be indicated by ie and ee, and also by e. Some replacements were probably made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: thus o was employed not only for [o] but also to indicate short [u] alongside the letter u; it happened when u stood close to n, m, or v, e.g. OE lufu became ME love [luv?]. The letter y came to be used as an equivalent of i and was evidently preferred when i could be confused with the surrounding letters m, n and others. Sometimes, y, as well w, were put at the end of a word, so as to finish the word with a curve, e.g. ME very [veri], my [mi:]; w was interchangeable with u in the digraphs ou, au, e.g. ME doun, down [du:n], and was often preferred finally, e.g. ME how [hu:], now [nu:]. For letters indicating two sounds the rules of reading are as follows. G and с stand for [dз] and [s] before front vowels and for [g] and [k] before back vowels respectively. Linguistic features of Germanic languages: consonants The consonants in Germanic languages are characterized by a number of specific traits which constitute what is perhaps the most remarkable feature of the group. At first sight it may appear that Germanic consonants are similar to those of other Indo-European languages. Yet, comparison of Germanic and non-Germanic words going back to the same Indo-European root shows that Germanic consonants do not correspond to the same consonants in other languages. Thus whenever we have the sound (p) in Latin or Russian, we find (f) in its place in parallel words from Germanic languages. At present Icelandic is spoken by over 200 000 people. Old Icelandic written records date from the 12th and 13th c, an age of literary flourishing. The most important records are: the ELDER EDDA (also called the POETIC EDDA) - a collection of heroic songs of the 12th c, the YOUNGER (PROSE) EDDA (a text-book for poets compiled by Snorri Sturluson in the early 13th c.) and the Old Icelandic sagas. West Germanic The dialectal differentiation of West Germanic was quite distinct even at the beginning of our era since Pliny and Tacitus described them under three tribal names On the eve of their great migrations of the 4th and 5th c. the West Germans included several tribes. The Franconians (or Franks) subdivided into Low, Middle and High Franconians. The Angles and the Frisians (known as the Anglo-Frisian group), the Jutes and the Saxons inhabited the coastal area of the modern Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany and the southern part of Denmark.