The History of English in Ten Minutes
- At June 28, 2011
- By gloria
- In Linguistics
0
I have just come across these interesting videos by the Open University: 10 videos of about 1 minute each which tell the history of the English language as it unfolded over the centuries.
Of course it’s not an in-depth treatment of this fascinating matter, but it is certainly a neat way to introduce it.
This is the first video, Anglo-Saxon – The History of English (1/10):
The other ones can be found here:
The Norman Conquest – The History of English (2/10)
Shakespeare – The History of English (3/10)
The King James Bible – The History of English (4/10)
The English of Science – The History of English (5/10)
English and Empire – The History of English (6/10)
The Age of the Dictionary – The History of English (7/10)
American English – The History of English (8/10)
Internet English – The History of English (9/10)
Global English – The History of English (10/10)
If you are looking for something along the same lines to read while on vacation, The Stories of English by David Crystal is an interesting read.
Can “ish” be used as a free word? Well… ish…
- At June 02, 2011
- By gloria
- In Linguistics
0
I have just read a really interesting discussion about the degrammaticalization of the morpheme -ish (as in red >> reddish).
The question is whether ish can be considered as a “liberated word form” or if it can only be used on its own when the word it should be attached to can be easily recovered in the context as in:
- Is he rich?
- Ish.
In the example above, of course, it means “richish”. But what about this example:
- Can I punch anyone on earth?
- Yes, ish.
Is ish referring to anyone or to the entire speech act? You can read the entire discussion here. I agree with those who claim that in this case ish has scope over the entire speech act. It should be interpreted to mean “sort of” and therefore it is used as a free word form to mitigate the illocutionary effect. Any other examples?