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Language: The First Information Technology
GreekEnaDioTriaTesseraPenteHexaHeptaOktoEnneaDeka
RussianOdinDvaTriChetyrePyatShestSemVosemDyevyatDyesyat
LatinUnusDuoTresQuattuorQuinqueSexSeptemOctoNovemDecem
KurdishEgDuShayCharPenchShashHayshHeftNa Da
GermanEinsZweiDreiVierFunfSechsSiebenAchtNeunZehn
EnglishOneTwoThreeFourFiveSixSevenEightNineTen
Language FamiliesArabicWahidIthnainThalathaArba’aKhamsaSittaSabaThamanyaTisaAshra
KurdishEgDuShayCharPenchShashHayshHeftNa Da
EnglishOneTwoThreeFourFiveSixSevenEightNineTen
TurkishBirIkiUcDortBesAltiYediSekizDokuzOn
The Indo-European LanguagesGermanic– English, German, Dutch, Scandinavian
Romance (From Latin)– French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian
Slavic– Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian
Others: Hellenic, Iranian, Indian, etc.
Tracking Language Evolution• Historical Documents• Words resistant to borrowing (small
numbers, self, mother, sun, etc.)• Patterns of Sound Change• Grammatical Structures• Genetics• Search for the Proto-Language
A Modern Idea?• Alfa Hotel Oscar Victor• Bravo India Papa Whiskey• Charlie Juliet Quebec X-Ray• DeltaKilo Romeo Yankee• Echo Lima Sierra Zulu• Foxtrot Mike Tango• Golf November Uniform
The Oldest Idea in the Book
Hebrew 1000 B.C.Aleph - OxBeth - HouseGimel - CamelDaleth - Door
Old Slavic 1000 A.D.Az (I)Buki (Beech Tree)Vedi (Know)Glagol (Word)Dobro (Good)
In a pre-literate world, the best way to learn the alphabet is to use words as mnemonics, not meaningless syllables
How We Got English• Pre-Roman Britain was Celtic– Only a few place names are relics (Ben for
mountain, glen for valley)
• Romans occupied Britain– Castra, military camp, survives in Lancaster,
Worcester, Manchester
• Angles and Saxons invaded starting in the 5th Century– Largely wiped the linguistic slate clean
English is a Germanic Language
• Closest language is Frisian, spoken by 300,000 in Holland and Germany
• Closest national language to English is Dutch• About 80% of our small everyday words (day,
word, father, mother, sun, moon) are Germanic• Sometimes the relationship is hard to see: Vogel
isn’t much like bird but very similar to fowl
Word EndingsThe Dog Bites the Man
is not the same asThe Man Bites the Dog
-but-Der Hund beisst den Mannmeans exactly the same asDen Mann beisst der Hund
Dropping the Endings
• Languages that use word endings for meaning are called inflected
• England was partly occupied by the Vikings beginning in 865 A.D.
• Vikings and Anglo-Saxons spoke Germanic languages but differed in word endings
• We just dropped the word endings (except for plural s, possessive ‘s, and a few others)
The French Influence• In 911 the King of France gave part of
France to a Viking chief in return for protection
• This region, settled by the “Norsemen,” came to be called Normandy
• In 1066, William of Normandy (a Viking descendant) defeated Harold (also a Viking descendant) and conquered England
• By this time, the Normans spoke French
A Double LanguageMore earthy terms tend to be Anglo-Saxon,
more abstract synonyms French:Friendship AmityFreedom LibertyLove Affection
A Double Language
Rural and small-town occupation names are often English, more urban or technical ones French:
Baker CarpenterMiller PainterWeaver Mason
A Double LanguageFrench government terms reflect a more
complex society than Anglo-Saxon termsKing GovernorQueen Parliament
A Double LanguageThe English grew it, the French cooked it
Sheep MuttonCow BeefDeer Venison
Of course, many cooking terms are French:Fry, Broil
Prerequisites for PrintingPaper!
Cheap, abundant, smooth and absorbent.
Far better for printing than papyrus or vellum.
Means of printing impressions.
Chinese wood-block printing.
Wood block used in Europe in 14th century for religious pictures and cards.
Laurenz Janzoon (1420-30) used blocks for individual letters.
Press
adapted from wine-making, book-binding, paper-making
Advent of movable type Metal type used ca. 1430 in Holland to
stamp copper plates. Lead poured on to copper to make printing face
Gutenberg ca. 1450 used dies as masters to cast copies of letters.
• Early type letters Pb-Sn (for corrosion resistance) - Sb (for hardness). Basically modern composition. Type metal is one of the oldest unchanged industrial materials.
The Spread of Printing
By 1480, there were printing presses in 110 towns.
Ten million books in print by 1500. Aldus Manutius of Venice (d. 1515). First
cheap mass-market books. William Caxton, 1476, first press in England
The Great Vowel Shift• Almost all English “long” vowels are diphthongs or blends of vowel sounds– “a” in “bay” = a + i as in “bait”– “i” as in “bite” = e + i as in “height”– “o” as in “go” = o + u as in “though”
• We also dropped or changed guttural “gh”: cough, through, light, sight
Why English Spelling is so Chaotic• Great Vowel Shift happened just as English
was first being printed• Caxton used the spelling system of Chaucer
(ca. 1400)• Result: English was set into print with an
already-obsolete spelling system• Also, English has borrowed from just about
every other language and preserved their spelling
Effects of printing
Vast increase in literacy. Rapid dissemination of ideas. Standardization and simplification of spelling.
(& from Latin et and % from p/c are relics of pre-printing days)
• Stimulus toward accuracy.
Change in our concept of "fact" Before printing, documents were suspect as too easily
forged. Eyewitnesses and personal testimony were considered more reliable.
Printing made documents more authoritative than personal testimony. Hard to fake printed documents.
Before printing, people relied on memory to store facts. Printing changed the concept of "fact" to "printed fact";
"show me in black and white.” Electronic forgery: we have come full circle from pre-
printing days
The printed image Wood-cut along with type. Itaglio-engraved metal. Copper plates with
engraved lines did for pictures what type did for text.
Lithography. Zinc plate, 1868. Photography-halftone method. Xerography, computer graphics, etc.