What according to Jerperson are the salient features of English Language?
Answer
The English Language belongs to the Teutonic or Germanic branch of the Indo-European family language. The English Language today reflects many centuries of development and historical, political and economic factors that have contributed to the wide expansion of English. The following are some of the characteristics and features which have made the English Language is certainly The mixed character of its Vocabulary. It is perhaps the most mixed and cosmopolitan language, that has shown a marked tendency to go outside its own linguistic resources. In a word, "The English Language reflects in its entire development the political, social and cultural history of the English people" said A.C. Baugh
Receptiveness And Heterogeneousness Of The Language:
English has mixed characters of its vocabulary which easily assimilates materials from almost everywhere in the world and making this new elements its own. With extraordinary receptivity it has absorbed elements adding richness and variety. The Anglo-Saxon first conquered England in the 5th and 6th centuries. Before that English was almost pure or unmixed language utilising the native resources to make new words for new ideas. But now English has become the most mixed and cosmopolitan of all languages in the world. In the language of A.C.Baugh "English has built up an unusual capacity for assimilating otherwise elements."
Inflectional Simplification:
English Language prossesses to a pre-eminent degree inflectional simplicity. This implies "the ease with which it indicates the relationship of words in a sentence with only the minimum change in their shapes or variations of endings" (Wrenn). The classic languages like Greek and Latin have inflection of the nouns ,the adjective, the verb and even pronoun. Such inflection are not found in English. The elaborate tutonic inflection of the adjective has been completely eliminated except for the simple indication of the comparative and the superlative degrees. The verb has been simplified by the loss of practically all the personal endings.
Masculinity
According to Jesperson "English Language is positively and expressly masculine, it is the language of grown up man and has very little childish or feminine about it." Some of the qualities of the simplicity of inflections and fixed-word order are features which speak to the masculinity of the language. But, there are other features like the sound-system, sobriety, and business-like brevity of expression, monosyllabism, logical consistency in using tense forms and freedom from pedantry which also are signs of the masculinity of the language.
Relatively Fixed Word Order
Another quality of English is it's relatively fixed word order. In the English Language there is a clear consistent word order in which the subject, the verb and the object have their own regular positions. A change in their positions in fact alters the entire meaning of the sentence. For example "The hunter killed the tiger." is the expression in which the subject, the verb and the object stands together in a fixed order. If the position of the noun 'Tiger' and 'hunter' is changed then the meaning becomes completely different.
Use Of Periphrases And Preposition
Another consequence of the loss or reduction to the minimum of the inflection which English once had, is the growth of the use of periphrases or roundabout ways of saying things, and of the use of prepositions to take the place of lost inflections. The English simplified verb uses, periphrases and compound tenses made with auxillary verbs to replace the more elaborate system of tense that once existed (C.L.Wrenn)
Almost every shade of thought which was expressed in Old English by inflectional endings in nouns and verbs is now indicated by means of prepositions and auxillary verbs.
Development Of New Varieties Of Intonation
Another quality of English Language is the development of new verietes of information to express shades of meaning which were formerly indicated by varying the shapes of words. This is perhaps somewhat comparable to the vast use of information in Chinese as a method of expressing meaning in sentences which would otherwise seem like series of unvarying monosyllabic roots. Thus, we may make the words expressing a variety of meaningful ideas merely by varying intonations pitch and intensify of the voice.
Natural Gender
English enjoys an exceptional advantage over all other major European Language in having adopted natural in place of grammatical gemder. Thus in German Sonne (Sun) is feminine, Mond (Moon) is masculine, but Kind (Child), Madche (Maiden), and Weib (Wife) are neuter. But gender in English is determined by meaning. All nouns naming living creatures are masculine or feminine according to the sex of the individual and all other nouns are neuter.
Conclusion
Not all the aforesaid characteristics of English it is adoptable receptiveness and inflectional simplicity which have contributed most to the general success of English. The cosmopolitan vocabulary of the English Language is an undoubted asset that seeks to attain international use. Of course, as Jesperson has rightly claimed "It is impossible to characterize a language in on formation - yet different aspects and tenders in a language severe to build up its nature. The very copiousness and heterogeneousness of English add to its splendor. Its resources are so vast that the language is often called as the language of the intellectual elites. To quote C.L. Wrenn "English is among the easiest language to speak badly but the most difficult to use well."
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