thy, thee were used when addressing social inferiors, children, and close friends. The forms (ye, your, you) were a sign of respect. Eventually the thou forms disappeared from speech.ending of the third person singular verb in Middle English was -eth. In XVI-th century it became -s and both endings coexisted for some time, but by the eighteenth century, -eth had been lost from all speech.
THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF ENGLISH
history english language
As English has spread throughout the world certain dialects and speech forms have become more prestigious than others. In England Received Pronunciation (RP) is the dialect form of the Royal Family, the elite schools, the government, and the courts. RP marks the speaker as educated and socially important. However, RP is viewed with suspicion in some places. So, even politicians switch to the dialects of their own regions when speaking for the home audience. Some research has shown that people evaluating oral arguments in legal cases rated the arguments in the regional accent as more persuasive than those made in RP.explains why prestige dialects have not overwhelmed regional variants throughout the world, and why people persist in using regional forms of language. the one hand, a person can adopt the prestige dialect and avoid the more stigmatized form. It is the sign of education and cultural connections. On the other hand, a parson can choose the dialects of solidarity, trying to sound trustworthy and friendly. When people switch from one dialect to another, they are said to practice code switching.switching is a very complicated process that allows individuals to mediate their own identities. A person s attitude toward identity is extremely significant in regional dialect performance. These attitudes toward identity explain why dialect forms whose speakers are discriminated against nevertheless persist.development of regional and class variations of English, and the persistence of stigmatized forms of the language, tell us some very important things about the future of English. This language is spoken in various forms by nearly one fifth of the population of the earth. And there is a network effect: the more people speak it, the more valuable it is to learn to speak it. For native English speakers this is obviously a good thing, as their natural linguistic ability, acquired in childhood, provides advantages in the worlds of commerce, entertainment, technology, and other areas where English is now a global standard. But the success of English has cost many other languages ??a lot. Scholars are worried that the more than six thousand living languages ??will be radically reduced in the next century, and only few major languages ??will survive the next five hundred years. This would be a tragic loss of human accomplishment no less horrible than the loss rare species.the spread of new dialect forms, the diversification of English, and the persistence of even the most stigmatized variants give us reasons for optimism. seems that we humans preserve our native languages, even under an intense pressure. We may switch codes, adopt prestige dialects, but still we retain the ability to speak in the languages ??that make us feel solidarity and comfort. Even if our language starts from the same root, it seems to have a drive to diversify, and to continual changes. The story of English has been one of change and diversity, and hopefully its future will be also.
CONCLUSIONS
the English language is one of the dominant languages ??in the modern world. However its history is full of rises and falls. Over the centuries, English was influenced by several other languages. Old English, for example, was affected by the Latin and Celtic languages ??and the dialects of the tribes of Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. when Vikings, invaded England, the English language borrowed many Norse words, particularly in the north of England. the second period of its development the English language (Middle English) was affected and even almost completely replaced by Old French and Latin. The proper English language was considered to be a language of the lower class. Middle English is also characterized for the beginning of the Great Vowel Shift, a massive sound change that affected the long vowels. English developed after the establishment of the printing press in 1476. This invention made books available to more people, who now could learned to read.English language continues to change and develop, with hundreds of new words appearing every year. But despite all the borrowings from other languages ??the heart of the English language remains the Anglo-Saxon of Old English.
REFERENCES
, Albert C., and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 5th ed. New York: Routl...
