HOW ENGLISH BECAME AN APHONETI ((NON-PHONETIC) LANGUAGE

English spelling is the despair of many a foreign learner of English. This is because English is an aphonetic language. In other words there is no one-to-one correspondence  between letters and sounds they represent.

Old English that is English spoken at the time of King Alfred was a fairly phonetic language. But the Norman Conquest of 1066 marked a turning point in the history of English language. English language was never to be the same again!French replaced Anglo-Saxon words and several Old English words were spelt in the French way!  The influence of French is unparalled in the history of any language.Except for a few basic constructions and basic vocabulary English seems like French even at the micro level. The influence of French on English is wider and deeper than acknowledged by historians of English language It would be no exaggeration  to say that English is French differently  pronounced!

During its transition from Middle English to Modern English words changed their pronunciation, but the spelling has remained the same That is the reason for English being an aphonetic language 

THANKINGYOU

tPFOF V.P.RAJAPPAN


   AN APPEAL

As you know Kerala state was recently devastated by a catastrophic flood . Hundreds of people were killed in the flood and the homesteads of many were washed away.The victims of the flood have to build their lives from the scratch. The government is engaged  in the Herculean task of re-building 
 a ravaged state 
I  request my readers to make your contribution to the Chief Minster's Distress Relief Fund PLEASE visit   Kerala government's website for guidance in the matter 
PROF V.P.RAJAPPAN

What is vowel reduction in English speech?

English speech  in made up of 44 phonemes , of which 12 are pure vowels and 8 are diphthongs . In the word pin the letter i represents a pure vowel and in the word fine the same letter i represents a diphthong . What is a diphthong? It is a combination of two vowel sounds  In the word fine  i is a combination of two vowels - a+i . 
The most frequently heard vowel sound in English speech is the central vowel . You may hear this vowel sound as the initial sound in the word -a.bout . Why is it called the central vowel ? It occupies the central position in the vowel chart . It lies midway between back vowels and front vowels and between open vowels and close vowels . 

English is a stressed language . The various syllables in an English word receive  different degrees of stress . Foreigners who are not accustomed to stress will find it difficult to follow  English speech on account of the stress .There is no stress in French such as in English . Foreign learners of French often  find it difficult to follow French speech for other reasons . In French words seem to agglutinate . so to speak . and the learners  of French will experience considerable difficulty  in following french speech . What I mean to say is that each language presents its own difficultis  to the non- native learners . 

According to the principle of vowel reduction all vowels , whether they are pure vowels or diphthongs, are reduced to the central vowel if there is no stress  on the syllables  involving  .the vowel .

Vowel reduction is the most salient feature of English speech . and this causes a lot of difficulties to the foreign learners of English .Thus in the word tortoise  the second syllable - toise  carries the diphthong oi , but as there is no stress it is pronounced as the central vowel . 


Thanking you 
 PROF . V.P.RAJAPPAN 

how did the past tense of verb go become went ?

In English past tense of weak verbs is formed by adding -ed to the base -form of the verb and through a process called vowel-change in the case of strong verbs . Students of English are unable to understand  how the past tense of the verb go became went . .

The evolution of a language is influenced by the changing speech -rhythm of the native speakers of the language . A  language drops certain words and takes a fancy to other words in accordance with this  general trend . The Old English word wendan  (go) had the past tense form went and English preferred this word as the past tense of go . . This happened during the Middle English period and it has continued to our day! 

The old word  wendan continues as wend in present  -day English  in such expressions as to wend one's way . 

Thanking you 

PROF.V.P.RAJAPPAN 

Why is First Person Singular I always written with a Capital Letter in English ?

We may wonder   why first person singular is always written with a capital letter in English unlike  other important languages like French or German Some people believed that it showed the Englishman's  love of self-assertion and self glorification !   But  the  great savant Otto Jespersen strongly  disagrees with this view and he considers it as little short of calumny!  .  According to him this practice of using capital letter is simply an orthographic habit .

In Anglo-Saxon ic was the spelling of first person singular . During the 13 th century  c got dropped off and i was left alone. The scribes who copied manuscripts  used capital letter lest the small letter i should be easily missed by reader of the manuscripts . Thus the convention of using capital letter for I began in the 13th century which has continued to our day !

William Caxton introduced   printing in England in the 15th century and his use of capital letter for first person singular in his books  must have made the practice universal .


Thanking  you ,

PROF.V.P.RAJAPPAN

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Does English have a Future Tense?

It has been said that English has no future tense. What on earth does it mean? It simply means that English does not have an inflected form  of the verb to indicate future tense. In modern languages like French we can see separate forms of verbs  to indicate future tense . In French parlerai indicates future tense of the verb parler used with first person singular.There is no such inflection in English for future tense .

The Anglo-Saxons in their wisdom did not think it necessary to evolve inflected forms to indicate future .After all , future is full of uncertainties and one can look at it in different ways . An inflected form to express such a thing as future seemed untenable to the Anglo-Saxons!Simple present forms of verbs with future time reference were  enough to express future .  This way of expressing future still continues in English when we express planned future. Example: The President goes to Britain next year .

It seems that all  Germanic people think alike  In Modern German,too, simple present is used with future time reference to indicate future tense in the informal style . Modern English has only  a made-up future  tense  will+base form of the main verb . In German ,too,future is expressed with the help of the auxiliary werden followed by the infinitive of the main verb . . Look at the following examples


I will  play tennis(English)
Ich werde  Tennis spielen (German)

This shows that English is basically a Germanic language , though it often seems to shine in borrowed French feathers!

THANKING YOU
PROF. V.P.RAJAPPAN

Why were is used with singular subjects in subjunctive mood ?

Question Why do we use were with singular subjects in the subjunctive mood?
 

Answer The use of were with singularsubjects has puzzled  many a foreign learner of English.They may understand  the use of past tense was in subjunctive mood  because that is the way of the English language  !But why were?

There was a time when two words existed side by side in English - was and were .  They were derived from the root word wesan which means to be in Anglo-Saxon.The  word was became were due to the operation of Verner's Law.

In course of time were came to be associated with subjunctive mood and was with indicative mood . This  practice has survived to our days , at least in formal style!

In my next blogs I will try to answer some commonly asked questions about the English language.   thanking you

Prof V.P.Rajappan

Mystery of the Grammatical Gender

A student of primitive languages is often baffled when he or she  is  confronted with the phenomenon of grammatical gender . Why did the ancients ascribe sex to inanimate objects? What made the Anglo-Saxons consider stone as masculine and gift (giefu) as feminine? The purpose of this post is to demystify as  far as possible grammatical gender and clarify matters for the benefit of students of primitive and ancient languages .
The practice of using labels like masculine and feminine  to designate classes of nouns was started by Panini who wrote Ashtadhyayi 2500 years ago . Grammarians since Panini have followed his example,  and this has caused a lot of confusion  to students . Panini could have used labels like Class A  Nouns  and Class B nouns nstead of masculine and feminine . He used the labels masculine and feminine most probably  because . the two lists of  nouns were dominated by nouns with identifiable natural gender   Besides, masculine and feminine are the universal criteria of classification . The basis for classification was , of course, their identical grammatical behaviour ( which may not be noticeable to modern students ) .  You may not fault the ancients with bungling sex anymore! The  fault lies in later grammarians and not the founding fathers of the ancient languages !

How  did these nouns which fall under two separate heads behave in an identical manner ? If you look at the list of Old English masculine nouns . you won't see anything common  which should make them members of a class . Then how come these disparate nouns behaved in an identical fashion ? We should credit the ancients with some reason ! They could not have done anything without valid reason . , particularly because they were free from the compulsion of prescriptive grammar . and prescriptive phonetics .   The only compulsion they worked under  must have been clarity and ease of pronunciation . 

Why did the primitive people find it expedient to make their nouns  terminate  in easily articulated vowel sounds like  a: , i: and o? Rhyme and rhythm must have  fascinated  these men  in the infancy of their languages . A clue is provided by modern languages like Spanish ( which descended from Latin) and Hindi which descended from Sanskrit, a member of the Indo- European family of languages . 
Look at the following Spanish sentences 

La puerta está cerrada

Las puertas están cerradas 

Nobody can read these sentences without being struck by their internal rhyme . This internal rhyme must have ensured greater ease of articulation  and better clarity in communication of thoughts . Even a casual listener could get the message right thanks to the internal rhyme .  As man's cognitive powers increased his language no longer needed internal rhyme and  so it became  more and more restricted to the language of poetry .

 That grammatical gender makes for better clarity goes without saying .   .As for the ease of pronunciation there is nothing in the modern survivals of  these nouns to suggest  that the nouns belonging to one class made for greater ease of pronunciation than the other These words have changed so muh from their original forms  In some languages like Spanish , Sanskrit and its descendants the change is not so drastic as in the case of  English and French . .  Besides,  Old English and its parent Indo-European  had some phonetic  feature or features  like voicing, nasalization, aspiration  stress etc ,  which are  now lost to us . In short, we do not know for sure how the ancients  actually pronounced the words . So we cannot say with any certainty how  ease of pronunciation and clarity of expression   were  achieved  in connected speech  except in terms of internal rhyme . . We cannot reconstruct the pronunciation of Old English  or its ancestor Proto- Germanic with as much certainty as we reconstructed the pronunciation of Elizabethan English .  We can only grope in the dark and make intelligent and informed guesses ! 

Thank you for visiting

Prof V.P.Rajappan  





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