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Archaisms in literature

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Content

Introduction

1 General information about archaisms

Archaisms

Usage

The process of words aging

Alternative meanings

Neologisms

Retronym

List of archaic English words and their modern equivalents

2 Analysis of ancient texts

W. Shakespeare, Sonnet 2

“Love and duty reconcil’d” by W. Congreve

3 Archaisms in literature and mass media

Deliberate usage of archaisms

Commonly misused archaisms

Conclusion

References

Introduction

The word-stock of a language is in an increasing state of change. Words
change their meaning and sometimes drop out of the language altogether.
New words spring up and replace the old ones. Some words stay in the
language a very long time and do not lose their faculty of gaining new
meanings and becoming richer and richer polysemantically. Other words
live but a short time and are like bubbles on the surface of water —
they disappear leaving no trace of their existence. In registering these
processes the role of dictionaries can hardly be over-estimated.
Dictionaries serve to retain this or that word in a language either as a
relic of ancient times, where it lived and circulated, or as a still
living unit of the system, though it may have lost some of its meanings.
They may also preserve certain nonce-creations, which were never
intended for general use. In every period in the development of a
literary language one can find words which will show more or less
apparent changes in their meaning or usage, from full vigour, through a
moribund state, to death, i. e. complete disappearance of the unit from
the language.

Usually we do not notice the change that takes place during our own time
because it happens quite slowly. But if we take a look back over a
considerable span of time, language change becomes more obvious. If we
touch the problem of historical development we can not pass over in
silence peculiarities of early English language, and comparison between
initial and today’s English. Such line of investigation considers
diachronic approach to the main question of this course work – archaisms
in literature. It’s very important to reveal the notion of archaism, the
sphere of usage, origin and many other essential components that are
comprised by the word “Archaism”. Besides the direct investigation of
archaisms I included information about neologisms, as contrary notion,
and also about retronyms. All the aspects stated above will be
carefully investigated in this work; moreover there will be included
olden text with and analysis of poetry.

1General information about archaisms

Archaisms

Archaisms are words which are no longer used in everyday speech, which
have been ousted by their synonyms. Archaisms remain in the language,
but they are used as stylistic devices to express solemnity. Most of
these words are lexical archaisms and they are stylistic synonyms of
words which ousted them from the neutral style. Some of them are: steed
(horse), slay (kill), behold (see), perchance (perhaps), woe (sorrow)
etc. An archaism can be a word, a phrase, or the use of spelling,
letters, or syntax that have passed out of use. Because they are both
uncommon and dated, archaisms draw attention to themselves when used in
general communication.

Writers of historical novels, as well as historians and film makers, for
example, do their best to represent time and culture accurately and
avoid unintentional archaisms. Creating a fictional character from times
past may require extensive research into and knowledge of archaisms.

An example of a fairly common archaism involving spelling and letters is
businesses that include Ye Olde in their name. The word Ye does not
actually start with a y, as it may appear; it begins with the letter
thorn which has passed out of use. Thorn was a letter used to spell the
sound we now spell with the consonant digraph th. Hence, Ye is
pronounced as and means the. Olde reflects a spelling from Middle
English of the word we now write as old. Businesses may use such
archaisms to invoke a mood or atmosphere — as in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe or
The Publick Theare; or to convey something about their product — as in
Olde Musick and Cokery Books, an Australian firm specializing in sheet
music and recipes from the past.

Certain phrases are associated with rituals and traditions, and though
they would not be considered current if used in general speech or
writing, they continue to be used in the venues or situations in which
they are meaningful. For example, phrases such as “thou shalt” and “thou
shalt not” are considered archaic in general use, but being part of the
common English translation of the Ten Commandments, they continue to be
repeated and used in that context without calling attention to
themselves. Syntax falls into this category as well. Legal writs
characteristically include lists of phrases beginning Whereas, followed
by one beginning therefore — an archaic style and structure not
typically found elsewhere.

Archaisms can also be put to good use when they are carefully chosen to
create irony or humor. One could, for example, mock the triviality of an
errand run by saying, “Alas, I must away on my journey betimes. I must
traverse the roads, journeying hither and yon in search of . . .
muffins.” Used seriously in general discourse, however, archaisms can
seem affected or be misunderstood.

Sometimes a lexical archaism begins a new life, getting a new meaning,
then the old meaning becomes a semantic archaism, e.g. “fair” in the
meaning “beautiful” is a semantic archaism, but in the meaning “blond”
it belongs to the neutral style. Sometimes the root of the word remains
and the affix is changed, then the old affix is considered to be a
morphemic archaism, e.g. “beauteous” – ous was substituted by – ful,
“bepaint” – be- was dropped, “darksome” -some was dropped, “oft” -en was
added etc.

 In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that
is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately (to achieve a
specific effect) or as part of a specific jargon (for example in law) or
formula (for example in religious contexts). Many nursery rhymes contain
archaisms. Archaic elements that only occur in certain fixed expressions
(for example “be that as it may”) are not considered to be archaisms.

Usage

Archaisms are most frequently encountered in poetry, law, and ritual
writing and speech. Their deliberate use can be subdivided into literary
archaisms, which seeks to evoke the style of older speech and writing;
and lexical archaisms, the use of words no longer in common use.
Archaisms are kept alive by these ritual and literary uses and by the
study of older literature. Should they remain recognised, they can be
revived, as the word anent was in the past century.

Some, such as academic and amateur philologists, enjoy learning and
using archaisms either in speech or writing, though this may sometimes
be misconstrued as pseudo-intellectualism.

Archaisms are frequently misunderstood, leading to changes in usage. One
example is the use of the archaic familiar second person singular
pronoun “thou” to refer to God in English Christianity. Although
originally a familiar pronoun, it has been misinterpreted as a
respectful one by many modern Christians. Another example is found in
the phrase “the odd man out”, which originally came from the phrase “to
find the odd man out”, where the verb “to find out” has been split by
its object “the odd man”, meaning the item which does not fit.

The compound adverbs and prepositions found in the writing of lawyers
(e.g. heretofore, hereunto, thereof) are examples of archaisms as a form
of jargon. Some phraseologies, especially in religious contexts, retain
archaic elements that are not used in ordinary speech in any other
context: “With this ring I thee wed.” Archaisms are also used in
the dialogue of historical novels in order to evoke the flavour of the
period. Some may count as inherently funny words and are used for
humorous effect.

The process of words aging

We shall distinguish three stages in the aging process of words: The
beginning of the aging process when the word becomes rarely used. Such
words are called obsolescent, i.e. they are in the stage of gradually
passing out of general use. To this category first of all belong
morphological forms belonging to the earlier stages in the development
of the language. In the English language these are the pronouns thou and
its forms thee, thy and thine, the corresponding verbal ending -est and
the verb-forms art, wilt (thou makest, thou wilt), the ending -(e)th
instead of -(e)s (he maketh) and the pronoun ye. To the category of
obsolescent words belong many French borrowings which have been kept in
the literary language as a means of preserving the spirit of earlier
periods, e. g. a pallet (a straw mattress); a palfrey (a small horse);
garniture (furniture); to peplume (to adorn with feathers or plumes).
The second group of archaic words are those that have already gone
completely out of use but are still recognised by the English-speaking
community: e. g. methinks (it seems to me); nay (=no). These words are
called obsolete. The third group, which may be called archaic proper,
are words which are no longer recognizable in modern English, words that
were in use in Old English and which have either dropped out of the
language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they
have become unrecognizable, e. g. troth (=faith); a losel (=a worthless,
lazy fellow).It will be noted that on the diagram (p. 71) the small
circles denoting archaic and poetic words overlap and both extend beyond
the large circle “special literary vocabulary”. This indicates that some
of the words in these layers do not belong to the present-day English
vocabulary. The borderlines between the groups are not distinct. – In
fact they interpenetrate. It is especially difficult to distinguish
between obsolete and obsolescent words. But the difference is important
when we come to deal with the stylistic aspect of an utterance in which
the given word serves a certain stylistic purpose. Obsolete and
obsolescent words have separate functions, as we shall point oirt later.
There is still another class of words, which is erroneously classed as
archaic, viz. historical words. By-gone periods in the life of any
society are marked by historical events, and by institutions, customs,
material objects, etc. which are no longer in use, for example: -Thane,
yeoman, goblet, baldric, mace. Words of this typeriever disappear from
the language. They are historical terms and remain as terms referring to
definite stages in the development of society and cannot therefore be
dispensed with,, though the things and phenomena to which they refer
have long passed into oblivion. This, the main function of archaisms,
finds different interpretation in- different novels .by different
writers. Some writers overdo things in this respect, the result being
that the reader finds all kinds of obstacles in his way. Others
under-estimate the necessity of introducing obsolete or obsolescent
elements into their narration and thus fail to convey what is called
“local colour”.

Alternative meanings

In anthropological studies of culture, archaism is defined as the
absence of writing and subsistence economy. In history, archaism is used
to connote a superior, albeit mythical, “golden age.”

Neologisms

New words and expressions or neologisms are created for new things
irrespective of their scale of importance. They may be all-important and
concern some social relationships, such as a new form of state, e. g.
People’s Republic, or something threatening the very existence of
humanity, like nuclear war. Or again they may be quite insignificant and
short-lived, like fashions in dancing, clothing, hair-do or footwear, as
the already outdated jitterbug and pony-tail. In every case either the
old words are appropriately changed in meaning or new words are
borrowed, or more often coined out of the existing language material
according to the patterns and ways productive in the language at a given
stage of its development.

Retronym

A retronym is a type of neologism coined for an old object or concept
whose original name has come to be used for something else, is no longer
unique, or is otherwise inappropriate or misleading. The term was coined
by Frank Mankiewicz and popularized by William Safire in 1980 in the New
York Times. Many of these are created by advances in technology.
However, a retronym itself is a neological word coinage consisting of
the original noun with a different adjective added, which emphasises the
distinction to be made from the original form.

In 2000, the American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition was the first
major dictionary to include the word retronym. [3]

Examples of retronyms are acoustic guitar (coined when electric guitars
appeared), or Parallel ATA (necessitated by the introduction of Serial
ATA) as a term for the original Advanced Technology Attachment. World
War I was called only the Great War until World War II. The advent of
satellite radio has prompted the term terrestrial radio.

Posthumous names awarded in East Asian cultures to royalty after their
death can be considered retronyms too, although their birth names will
remain unambiguous.

Careless use of retronyms in historical fiction can cause anachronisms.
For example, referring to the “First World War” in a piece set in 1935
would be incorrect — “The Great War” and “14-18 War” were commonly
employed descriptions. Anachronistic use of a retronym could also betray
a modern document forgery (such as a description of the First Battle of
Bull Run before the second had taken place).

List of archaic English words and their modern equivalents

This is a list of archaic English words and their modern equivalents.
These words and spellings are now considered archaic or obsolescent
within the current status of the English language. Given both the
rapidity of change in modern English and the number of versions used by
nations and cultures, it should be borne in mind that dates are
approximate and that the information here may not apply to all versions
of English.

The evolution of the English language is characterised by three phases.
The first period dates from approximately 450 (the settlement of the
Angles, Saxons and Jutes in England) to 1066 AD (the Norman Conquest).
At this time the language made use of almost full inflexion, and is
called Anglo-Saxon, or more exactly Old English. The second period dates
from the Norman Conquest to probably c.1400 (though some books differ on
when this period ends) and is called Middle English. During this time
the majority of the inflections disappeared, and many Norman and French
words joined the language because of the profound influence of the
Anglo-Norman ruling class. The third period dates from about 1400 to
today (2006), and is known as Modern English, though until recently it
was called New English. During the Modern English period, thousands of
words have been derived by scholars from the Classical languages.

The impact of dictionaries in the definition of obsolescent or archaic
forms has caused the standardisation of spelling, hence many variant
forms have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

List of archaic English words and their modern equivalents

Original wordOriginMeaningExampleComments artform of the verb ‘to be’,
from Old English eartpresent second-person singular form of the verb
be.…Who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? (Psalm
76:7)used in Biblical/Shakespearian/poetical languageastoniedpast
participle of ‘astony’ from Middle English astonien

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