LINGUIST List 25.3042
Thu
Jul 24 2014
Review: Historical
Linguistics: Miller (2012)
Editor for this issue:
Malgorzata Cavar <gosialinguistlist.org>
Date: 01-Mar-2014
From: Maria Volkonskaya
<mary.volkonskaya
gmail.com>
Subject: External Influences
on English
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Book announced at
http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-4080.html
AUTHOR: Gary D. Miller
TITLE: External Influences on English
SUBTITLE: From its Beginnings to the
Renaissance
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2012
REVIEWER: Maria Volkonskaya, National Research
University Higher School of Economics
SUMMARY
This book is aimed at virtually anyone
interested in the history of English, for it
complements the existing internal studies and
discusses the external influences on the
English language from its beginnings up to the
end of the Renaissance. As stated in the
preface (p. x), throughout the book Miller
employs the framework of Trudgill (2010, 2011a,
2011b) to examine different types of language
contact, distinguishing between adult
second-language acquisition and continuing
contact leading to child bilingualism. The
former results in simplifications, whereas the
latter brings about complexifications. Within
this framework, the author’s main focus is on
“the constituent ingredients of contemporary
English” (p. x). To this end, he examines the
influence of Celtic, Latin and Greek (early and
later), Scandinavian, and French on English
lexis, phonology, morphology, and syntax,
providing a variety of examples and detailed
case studies to illustrate the point at issue.
The chapters that follow are mostly organized
chronologically.
In the introduction (Chapter 1) Miller situates
English within the Indo-European and Germanic
families. He briefly describes the main
constituents of Germanic and Celtic, giving
numerous examples of borrowings from North
Germanic, Continental Germanic, Insular and
Continental Celtic into the English language.
The majority of these loanwords, however, is
relatively recent and often fulfills a
terminological function, such as ‘fjord’ (1674)
from Norwegian (p. 5), ‘pumpernickel’ (1738)
and ‘shiksa’ (1892) from German and Yiddish,
respectively (p. 7), or ‘banshee’ (1771) from
Irish (p. 11).
Chapter 2 reviews the Celtic, Roman, and
Germanic background of English. Miller starts
by discussing the genetic evidence for the
pre-Celts, the subsequent Celtic settlement of
the British Isles and its mark on place names
and other loanwords in English. Next, several
periods of contact with the Romans and the
influence of Latin both on the British Celts
and the early Germanic tribes are mentioned,
though the latter is described in detail in
Chapter 4. In the following sections Miller
discusses the arrival of the pre-English tribes
in c.5 and provides linguistic and
archeological evidence for the survival of
Celtic population in many areas around England
after the Anglo-Saxon settlement. He argues
that “the initial contacts between Celts and
speakers of pre-Old English were based on
equality” (p. 40), resulting in
complexifications. Miller claims that the two
Old English paradigms of ‘to be,’ ‘it’-clefts
and the English aspect system are all examples
of this development. The enslavement of
Brittonic women by the invading Germanic tribes
and the following language shift, on the other
hand, led to simplifications, as “in [slave]
communities... children would not have been
exposed to Brittonic but would have learned the
imperfectly acquired (non-native) English from
their mothers and/or the female slaves as their
first language” (p. 40). According to Miller,
these morphosyntactic simplifications became
manifest in Middle English.
Chapter 3, entitled “English: The early
period”, provides a short overview of the main
events of the external history of English from
c.6 to c.10-11. Although this chapter somewhat
overlaps with the previous one, its main focus
is shifted towards Latin influences. Miller
emphasizes the importance of Christianization
for the English language, as it resulted both
in the several layers of Christian borrowings
and a revival of Roman culture, the Roman
alphabet, and the use of Latin.
Continuing the previous discussion, Chapter 4
is a careful study of early English loanwords
from Latin and Greek. This chapter falls into
two parts. In the first part Miller discusses
the dating of loanwords on the basis of their
phonological shape and gives a brief outline of
sound changes (a) from Latin to Romance and (b)
from West Germanic to Old English. The second
part of this chapter is a comprehensive
chronological list of Old English borrowings
arranged according to their sphere of use.
However, one has to be careful when trying to
narrow a loanword down to a particular period,
and Miller puts considerable emphasis upon
(re)borrowing, which “occurred over the course
of a millennium” (p. 53), as in the case of,
for instance, ‘sponge’ (p. 68). This chapter
ends with a succinct appendix offering an
overview of Latin and pre-Old English sound
changes.
Chapter 5 is dedicated to the Scandinavian
legacy of the English language. It begins with
a discussion of the history of Scandinavians in
England, from the Viking raids in c.8 to
complete assimilation to the English in c.12.
The account that follows traces Scandinavian
influence on toponyms, the lexicon, phonology,
morphology, and syntax. Norse-derived words
have considerably enriched the English
language, even though the types of contact
between Scandinavians and the English seem to
be different, depending on the area and period.
Miller believes that the initial borrowings are
the result of adult contact, whereas the later
loans testify to bilingualism and
code-switching (p. 106). The profound lexical
influence also led to some phonological
differences between southern and northeastern
English; depalatalization of native palatals in
the northeast is a case in point, cf. native
‘church’ and Danelaw ‘kirk(e)’ (p. 121). As for
the morphological influence, Miller attributes
the following changes to Scandinavian-English
contact: the borrowing of the pronoun ‘they’,
the diffusion of the northern present
participle ‘-and(e)’, and the generalization of
nominal ‘-ing’ to participles. Moreover, East
Norse (in particular, early Jutland Danish) and
English share a number of morphosyntactic
innovations, such as noun plural and genitive
singular ‘-(e)s,’ phrasal genitive, reflexive
‘(-)self’, omission of the conjunction ‘that’,
relative ellipsis, preposition stranding with
pronominal ‘wh’-words, preposition stranded
passives, adoption of V2 order in the north,
and the shift from SOV to SVO. “The fact that
Scandinavian and English were closely related
provided for a higher degree of hybridization
than occurs with more distantly related
languages or dialects,” concludes Miller (p.
147).
Chapter 6 examines French influence on English,
which, according to Miller, was mostly lexical.
He criticizes the traditional view that
loanwords from Central French followed those
from Norman French and agrees with Rothwell’s
assertion (1996, 1998) that the division
between these two periods is rather artificial
(p. 150), for central and northern forms often
coexist in one text. Furthermore, due to the
imperfect learning of French, an insular
variety, Anglo-French, appeared. Loans after
the conquest easily fall into groups according
to cultural domains (for instance, titles of
nobility, law, government, religion) and
reflect borrowing from a superstrate; however,
“one must distinguish terms superimposed by the
Norman conquerors... from the later borrowings
that reflect cultural prestige” (p. 167). It is
particularly noteworthy that Miller pays
special attention to the literary and stylistic
status of French words in English texts (pp.
162-164), a topic that rarely comes under
careful scrutiny. The period of continued
bilingualism was followed by the gradual
decline and death of Anglo-French c.1400, which
correlates with “the increase (by double) of
French suffixes in English hybrids” (p. 176).
Therefore, English was left with a large number
of derivational affixes. Whereas the
morphological legacy of French is described in
great detail (pp. 176-184), the discussion of
French impact on English syntax is rather brief
(pp. 185-187), as Miller believes that the
influence is “very limited” (p. 185). The
appendix to this chapter presents an overview
of major sound changes from Latin to
French.
The title of Chapter 7, which deals with later
Latin and Greek influences, is “Continuity and
revival of classical learning”. Therefore, the
first part of this chapter is dedicated to the
emergence of a liberal arts education, the
works of influential Christian writers of
c.2-8, and the history of Latin in the Middle
Ages, though the latter account slightly
overlaps with the previous sections of the
book. The second part of the chapter covers the
Middle English period, the humanistic movement,
and the Renaissance (c.1300-1600) as the peak
period for Latinisms. A detailed survey of
Latin and Greek influence on English word
formation is offered towards the end of this
chapter. All in all, Miller argues that the
legacy of Greek and Latin is restricted only to
the lexicon and word formation (pp. 219,
221-223).
The final chapter, “External linguistic input
to English,” summarizes the main argument of
the book: 1) French borrowings reflect “a
substratal situation in which English borrowed
heavily from the dominant language” (p. 228).
Furthermore, French, Latin and Greek influence
is restricted to the lexicon and morphology; 2)
the contact with Scandinavian was mixed,
leading to a considerable number of loanwords,
whereas the contact with Celtic was substratal.
However, “for both, the major influence has
been structural” (p. 232). Miller also raises
some remaining problems and identifies areas
that are understudied, such as the loss of
gender in English, acknowledging the need for
further research. He uses the last page to
restate his key point, “A typical family tree
of the Indo-European languages lists English on
a terminal node in the Germanic subfamily,
which is really relevant only for Old English.
Syntactically, morphologically, and lexically,
Modern English reflects multiple input
languages” (p. 236).
EVALUATION
Miller’s account of the external influences on
English is striking. As his book puts together
the bulk of recent studies in etymology,
linguistics, archeology, history, and genetics,
we should acknowledge the mere body of
scholarship that he takes into consideration
while discussing a myriad of phonological,
lexical, morphological and syntactical
influences. Furthermore, far from being just a
summary of previous research, the consistent
application of Trudgill’s theory of
sociolinguistic typology even to some
frequently disputed or obscure cases, as well
as the sharp focus on external impact, make his
work a notable contribution to current studies
on English historical linguistics.
However, a book that has to tackle such a vast
and complex subject is bound to contain a few
irrelevant details. Occasionally, random
associations, which are due to the sheer
vastness of the topic, lead the author astray
and confuse the reader, as the above-mentioned
borrowings from Germanic and Celtic in Chapter
1 that fall beyond the time scale of the
present study, or a rather redundant list of
the Church Fathers in Chapter 8. There is also
a slight degree of overlap in the chapters
discussing classical background to English
(Chapters 2, 3, 7).
On the other hand, while Miller’s account is
highly accurate and detailed, a few items are
noticeably missing. For instance, one component
that seems to be lacking from Chapter 2 is a
discussion of possible Celtic influences on
English phonology, though several studies have
recently addressed this issue (Laker 2009;
Minkova 2011). Another example is the case of
Old English ‘cirica’ from Greek ‘kuriakon.’
Though Miller uses this loanword as an
illustration a number of times (pp. 45, 81,
121), never does he mention the later form
‘cyrice,’ which was probably a learned
reborrowing. Furthermore, whereas a number of
Latin and French suffixes are being described
in great detail, ‘-or’ of agent-nouns is only
mentioned in passing (p. 174). A final instance
of such omissions occurs when Miller discusses
the later Latin and Greek influence, which he
believes to be lexical only, and overlooks the
fact that some borrowings are not fully
morphosyntactically integrated and preserve
their original plurals (Nevalainen 1999, p.
366).
Besides, Miller makes several claims that are
quite controversial. He notes, for instance,
that pre-Christian oral works, such as
“Beowulf”, were written down in c.7/8 (p. 47).
However, there is no consensus view on the
issue in recent scholarship (Bjork &
Obermeier 1997, pp. 18-28). Kiernan in
particular argued for a late date for the poem,
claiming that “the last poet of ‘Beowulf’ was
the second scribe” (Kiernan 1996, p. 278).
Indeed, whether epic poetry could be among the
first texts to be written down in Christian
monasteries seems rather doubtful.
Miller also suggests that /a/ in such words as
‘man’, ‘bank’, ‘land’, is due to Scandinavian
influence (pp. 119-120). However, Middle
English dialect maps (cf. “MAN: ‘mon’ type” in
eLALME) clearly demonstrate that the /o/ vowel
was restricted to the West Midlands, whereas
the /a/ vowel was present outside the
Scandinavian-English contact area, which does
not support Miller’s hypothesis.
Overall, the book is systematically structured,
concise and quite easy to read. All chapters
are divided into subsections according to the
topic, and most of them have both introductions
and conclusions; as a result, the text is not
difficult to follow. The appendices are handy
and to the point. However, there are some
aspects of this book that could be improved
upon. On the one hand, the list of
abbreviations is somewhat obscure as several
abbreviations are sometimes used for one term,
for instance both ‘E’ and ‘Eng.’ for ‘English’
or ‘F’ and ‘fem.’ for ‘feminine’ (pp.
xvi-xvii). On the other hand, the book could
benefit from a more elaborate word index,
divided into subsections to include not only
Modern English, but also Old and Middle English
words as well as those of Celtic, Latin, Greek,
Scandinavian, and French origin.
To conclude, Miller’s comprehensive account of
external influences will make a highly useful
resource for both academics and advanced
students of the history of the English
language. Even though for the most part it
requires a solid background in English
historical linguistics, even interested
laypersons have something to gain by leafing
through this illuminating volume.
REFERENCES
Bjork, Robert E. & Anita Obermeier. 1997.
Date, provenance, author, audience. In Robert
E. Bjork & John D. Niles (eds.), A Beowulf
handbook, 13-34. Lincoln, Nebr.: University of
Nebraska Press.
Kiernan, Kevin S. 1996. Beowulf and the Beowulf
manuscript. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Laker, Stephen. 2009. An explanation for the
early phonemicisation of a voice contrast in
English fricatives. English Language and
Linguistics 13(2). 213-226.
eLALME = Benskin, Michael, Margaret Laing,
Vasilis Karaiskos & Keith Williamson. 2013.
An electronic version of a linguistic atlas of
Late Mediaeval English. Edinburgh.
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/elalme/elalme.html.
(15 January, 2014.)
Minkova, Donka. 2011. Phonemically contrastive
fricatives in Old English? English Language and
Linguistics 15(1). 31-59.
Nevalainen, Terttu. 1999. Early Modern English
lexis and semantics. In Roger Lass (ed.), The
Cambridge history of the English language, vol.
3, 332-458. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Trudgill, Peter. 2010. Investigations in
sociohistorical linguistics: Stories of
colonisation and contact. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Trudgill, Peter. 2011a. Sociolinguistic
typology: Social determinants of linguistic
complexity. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Trudgill, Peter. 2011b. A tale of two copulas:
Language-contact speculations on
first-millennium England. NOWELE 62/63.
285-320.
Rothwell, William. 1996. Playing ‘follow my
leader’ in Anglo-Norman studies. Journal of
French Language Studies 6(2). 177-210.
Rothwell, William. 1998. Arrivals and
departures: The adoption of French terminology
into Middle English. English Studies 79(2).
144-165.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Maria Volkonskaya is a Senior Lecturer at
National Research University Higher School of
Economics and Moscow State University (Russia).
Her research interests include the history of
the English language (with particular attention
to the Old English and Middle English periods),
the historical development of Scots, Historical
Sociolinguistics and Stylistics, as well as
Applied Linguistics (especially English for
Academic Purposes).
Page Updated: 24-Jul-2014