It is amazing topic.

I thing there are two reasons which participated in creating how old English different from middle and modern English;

The first one is developing of sound system of English participated in creating a clear difference to what is called Old English to be different a lot from Middle English and Modern English,

the second one is Shakespeare's role can not be forgotten in bringing many new vocabulary to old English and using in English literature.

Israa: Well stated. I agree.

Author: "we must consider [...] language typology (synthetic languages vs. analytic languages)." It is totally unclear in mainstream linguistics what exactly synthetic languages vs. analytic languages should mean! And why a "synthetic language" may turn into an "analytic language". But, in fact, why and how Old English lost perfectivity in verbs, and then Middle English and later Modern English gradually acquired articles (first a definite one, then an indefinite one) is perfectly explained in what I call (in publications) Leiss-Kabakciev's theory. Both Leiss' and my own relevant publications are covered in RG - see Leiss' anno-2000 book Artikel und Aspekt: Die grammatischen Muster von Definitheit and my own (also anno-2000 book, coincidence) Aspect in English: a "common-sense" view of the interplay between verbal and nominal referents. Tragically, the huge majority of linguists in both the West and the East (I have in mind the Slavic world) simply do not read. Hence, they do not understand - and do not know. In the long run, things can be described in a very simple way (though in the details they are monstrously complex): gradually losing perfectivity in verbs, Proto-Germanic languages developed, again gradually, a definite article first and then an indefinite one, English being perhaps the most representative example of this development. Why did this happen? Because perfectivity/imperfectivity, i.e., aspect, is a universal and absolutely indispensable tool for human communication. You cannot lose perfectivity in verbs without making up for this loss (in one way or another). All languages possess aspect, but in different ways. Aspect comes in two major disguises: compositional and verbal, whereby compositional aspect is a mirror image of verbal aspect (and vice versa). Verbal aspect has been well-known (and generally well understood) for centuries. Compositional aspect, a hugely important language phenomenon, was discovered by Henk Verkuyl in 1971 (Verkuyl is also on RG), but the phenomenon of compositional aspect and the theory (theories) behind it is (are) severely misunderstood and misconceptualized.

Krasimir: Extremely insightful, and very well presented. Your arguments are totally convincing. Thanks.

Language is closely tied with the upper or official class. Old English I think is more affected by French and Latin since at that time the social status of Anglo-Saxons was relatively low.

1066.

Ting and Brian: Right. 1066 was when William the Conquoror conquored England, and we developed such Anglo-Saxon vs. French pairs as pig-porc, deer-vennison, cow-beef, etc. The language of the court was French, and the language of the farmer was English. But things have chnged, now the "Lingua Franca" is English.

Hello everybody,

To ask why a language changes is the same to ask why people use language to communicate! Unstability of states is natural. And to try to list the reasons for language change is meaningless. One should ask rhetorically: what is the factor that does not help create change?

Regards

One way to look at language change is to consider conceptual metaphors (George Lakoff used the term "metaphors we live by." There are three things to consider when dealing with a Conceptual Metaphor, the Source, the Target, and the Ground (what the source and the Target have in common). Metaphor Sources tend to be the common, ordinary, old, prototypical, simple, and concrete aspects of life. Common metaphor sources are body parts, animals, plants, weather, containers, up/down, journeys, hot/cold, building, food, war, etc. Typical metaphor targets are abstract, complex, and new. These include new technology (e.g. computers), social change, religious change, exploration, invention, discovery, macrocosm, microcosm, life, war, love, happiness, morality, anger, fear, politics, etc. The Metaphor Ground is what the Metaphor Source and the Metaphor Target have in common. “Kidney beans” are the same color and same shape as “Kidneys”; but their size is different, and so is their texture and taste. “A Head of Lettuce” is the same size and shape as a human “Head”; but is different in color and intelligence. As a third example, consider “Elbow Macaroni,” which is the same shape and color as a human “Elbow,” but differs in size and taste. Check out the following PowerPoint. Thanks.

Your answers are really interesting, Based on my knowledge. The difference between the results from the other languages' influences: old English had a Latin influence, middle English had a French influence, and modern English developed as a language influenced by society's evolution. There are many words added years until now, and they will continue changing.

Grammar. Old English was written according to grammatical rules, but Middle and Modern follow a fundamental sentence pattern according to the language's structure.

Finally, when it comes to pronunciation, Old English has silent letters. At the same time, Middle English pronounces every letter, but Modern English displays some letters as silent letters, such as K in the verb know.

Ketty: Very insightful. One further point about pronunciation. Old English had a full set of inflections on nouns and verbs (the suffixes). By Middle English times, all of these suffixes became written as e, and pronounced as schwa. By Modern English Times the letter e was still written at the ends of words, but was no longer pronounced. This is the famous "silent e" in English.

Old English is different from the modern one because of the contribution of many tribes in building the English civilization as the Angles and the Jutes. This created the Anglo-saxon lge ..They also affected the evolution of old English literature which adopted that old English lge.

Fatima: Thanks for your insights.

What has changed and what has remained constant wrt the expression of core propositional content in sentence structure, incl. the expression of the distinctions of aspect, modality, case (focusing more on what is expressed vs. what is not expressed)? Would the changes have come from the phonological-level "erosion" of the expressive devices, or from influences due to language contact? What was happening in the speech community between the OE and the ME periods?

Thanks for your insights. Much appreciated. In reference to your questions, what happened phonologically is that Old English changed from a syllable-timed language to a stress-timed language. In a syllable-timed language, only the most important syllables are stressed, so that the word itself is stressed, and the prefixes and suffixes are not stressed. So the unstressed suffixes changed from a, e, i, o, u, consonant to only schwa by Middle English times. By Modern English times, even the schwa was no longer pronounced, so this gives us our "silent e".

My tiny point of view will be more toward "evolution". When we talk about Old English, Middle and Modern, we can clearly see that there is a huge gap in the time frame between one and another period. So, between these gaps of time frame, the human does evolve, in terms of moving from one area to another area, so it could lead toward changes in terms of the language because these people would try their best to convey the messages, hence they might be inclined to towards the changes directly or indirectly to convey the message and to be understood.

Don L. F. Nilsen

I sound diffƏrent when I'm strʌssed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But not always. It sometimes varies with the illocutionary or perlocutionary context or with the idiomatic phrase in which a particular word is used. (I speak Boomer 2 era, or Generation Jones, Winnipeg Canadian English; I am actually a Boomer 1 by birth, but my first language was German.)

Karl: The rising inflection in your statement (not question) above shows that you also might be able to speak "Silicon Valley Speech," and/or Australian speech. In both cases, the rising inflection is for deferance, rather than for asking a question.

Don L. F. Nilsen

Funny you should mention "Silicon Valley Speech". Australians here in Melbourne who are somewhat familiar with such matters place my accent as either Canadian or Californian. However, Australian speech is really a nonstarter for me.