Beowulf, the oldest narrative poem in the English language, begins: Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon, hu þa æþelingas ellen fremedon. There’s not much here that looks anything close to the language we speak today. How can this be called English!? But, upon closer inspection, there are certain recognizable words: weremains unchanged in Modern English as a plural pronoun; hwæt, though it uses a strange letter in the middle, becomes “what,” as spelling conventions switched around the “h” and “w”; the “g” in gear was pronounced with a “y”-sound, and when spelling caught up with pronunciation, became “year.” Though these lines look like a completely different language, there are hints of the English we speak today even within this excerpt. How did the English of Beowulf become the language that we use daily? How did its sounds, spellings, syntax, and vocabulary change so drastically over time? These are the key questions of this course, which introduces students to basic linguistic concepts while we explore the constantly changing English language from its earliest forms, stretching back around fourteen hundred years ago, to its variations and dialects spoken in the present. As we journey through this long history together, we’ll consider topics such as: why does Old English look like a foreign language? What are English’s closest linguistic relatives? How did contact with other languages and cultures shape English throughout its history? Is English more difficult than other languages? Why do people always complain about English spelling? Where does the idea of “proper” English come from?

As with any language, English is constantly changing, and attention to the circumstances that brought about its changes can alert us to the ways that English may shift in the future. Our course will trace the historical route of English as it developed from a tongue spoken in only a small corner of the North Atlantic to the most widely spoken language in the world by means of readings from This Language, A River (Smith and Kim), in addition to a few supplementary readings posted as pdfs on the course website. Several assessments punctuate the course throughout the semester including semi-regular tests and problem sets, a midterm and final, as well as two projects (the expectations for which will be clearly communicated beforehand!). By the end of the course, you will understand where English came from, where it is presently, and where it might go, in addition to having a broader understanding of language change and the relationship between language and culture.