OLD ENGLISH
(Englisc)
(500 – 1100 A.D)
OLD ENGLISH / ANGLO SAXON
ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT
OF ENGLISH
• The history of the English language really started
with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who
invaded Britain during the 5th century AD.
• These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes,
crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark
and northern Germany.
• At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic
language. But most of the Celtic speakers were
pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into
what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
• The Angles came from Englaland and their language
was called Englisc - from which the words England
and English are derived.
• Speakers of Old English called their language
Englisc, themselves Angle, Angelcynn or Angelfolc
and their home Angelcynn or Englaland.
• Old English began to appear in writing during the
early 8th century. Most texts were written in West
Saxon, one of the four main dialects. The other
dialects were Mercian, Northumbrian and Kentish.
MAIN DIALECTS OF OLD
ENGLISH
1)
2)
3)
4)
Saxon
Northumbrian
Mercian
Kentish
• The Anglo-Saxons adopted the styles of script used by
Irish missionaries, such as Insular half-uncial, which was
used for books in Latin.
• A less formal version of minuscule was used for to
write both Latin and Old English.
• From the 10th century Anglo-Saxon scribes began to
use Caroline Minuscule for Latin while continuing to
write Old English in Insular minuscule. Thereafter Old
English script was increasingly influenced by Caroline
Minuscule even though it retained a number of
distinctive Insular letter-forms.
OLD ENGLISH ALPHABETS
• Old English / Anglo-Saxon was sometimes written
with a version of the Runic alphabet, brought to
Britain by the Anglo-Saxons until about the 11th
century.
• Runic inscriptions are mostly found on jewellery,
weapons, stones and other objects. Very few
examples of Runic writing on manuscripts have
survived.
RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS
OLD ENGLISH ALPHABETS
OLD ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION
SAMPLE TEXT IN OLD ENGLISH
(PROLOGUE FROM BEOWULF)
• Venerable Bede was one of the important writers
of this period.
• He wrote Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
[Ecclesiastical History of the English People],
completed in the year 731.
• It is the most important source for the early history
of England.
WHO ARE THEY?
• The land of Britain had been inhabited by Celtic
peoples: the Scots and Picts in the north, and
various groups in the south
• Then, the Roman invaded them and they were ruled
by King Claudius until 43 A.D
• In 410 A.D, they were invaded by Germanic tribes
• The Celts called the invaders Anglo-Saxon
• The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms converted to
Christianity in the late sixth and seventh centuries
• By the late seventh and early eighth centuries had
already produced two major authors:
I.
Aldhelm, who composed his most important work, De
Virginitate (On Virginity)
II. Venerable Bede, whose vast output includes biblical
commentaries, homilies, textbooks on orthography,
meter, rhetoric, nature and time, and of course the
Historia Ecclesiastica,
• The seventh and eighth century saw the production
vast vernacular literature works written in Latin
• Some of the famous literary works include:
Beowulf
The Seafarer
The Dream of the
The Battle of
Road
Maldon
The Wanderer
• King Alfred (871-899) who was noted for his strength
and far-sightedness encouraged education
• He documented many literary works and translation
works from OE
• Two reputable scholars during his time were Ælfric and
Wulfstan
• Many biblical translations and adaptations, The AngloSaxon Chronicle and other historical writings, law
codes, handbooks of medicine and magic, and much
more were preserved
• Most of the manuscripts that preserve vernacular
works date from the late ninth, tenth and eleventh
centuries,
• The Anglo-Saxons were producing written work in their
own language by the early seventh century, and many
scholars believe that Beowulf and several other
important poems date from the eighth century.
• Thus, we are in possession of five centuries of AngloSaxon vernacular literature.
WHERE DID THEIR LANGUAGE COME FROM?
• Bede tells us that the Anglo-Saxons came from
Germania
• Germania is one of the IE languages that originate
from one source language (proto language)
• From this ancient language come most of the
language groups of present-day Europe and some
important languages of South Asia:
1. The Celtic languages (such as Irish, Welsh and
Scottish Gaelic), the Italic languages (such as
French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian, descended
from dialects of Latin), the Germanic languages,
the Slavic languages (such as Russian and Polish)
2. The Baltic languages (Lithuanian and Latvian), the
Indo-Iranian languages (such as Persian and Hindi),
and individual languages that do not belong to
these groups: Albanian, Greek, and Armenian
3. The biblical Hittites spoke an Indo-European
language, or a language closely related to the IndoEuropean family
4. A number of other extinct languages (some of them
poorly attested) were probably or certainly IndoEuropean: Phrygian, Lycian, Thracian, Illyrian,
Macedonian, Tocharian and others.
• The Germanic branch of the Indo-European family is
usually divided into three groups:
North Germanic,
that is, the Scandinavian languages, Swedish,
Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese;
East Germanic,
that is, Gothic, now extinct but preserved in a
fragmentary biblical translation from the fourth
century;
West Germanic,
which includes High German, English, Dutch,
Flemish and Frisian.
WHAT WAS OLD ENGLISH LIKE?
• The following point shows what makes Old
English an Indo-European language, a
Germanic language, a West Germanic and a
Low German language; and also how Old and
Modern English are related
Old English is an Indo-European language
Proof One
• All of the Indo-European languages handle the job
of signalling the functions of words in similar ways.
For example, all add endings to words. Example:
Greek
Sanskrit Latin
pl.form of foot
pódes
pádas
pedēs
•
Proof Two
• OE is a Germanic language, for example
Latin
pater
OE
fæder
Mod.E
father
Proof Three
• OE has similar consonants as Latin
Unvoiced stops
([p], [t], [k]) became unvoiced spirants ([f], [θ], [x]), so that
Old English fæder corresponds to Latin pater
“father”
Old English þrēo correspond to Latin tres
“three”
Old English habban “have” correspond to Latin capere 'take'.
Voiced stops
([b], [d], [g]) became unvoiced stops ([p], [t], [k]), so
Old English dēop 'deep' corresponds to Lithuanian
dubùs,
twā 'two' corresponds to Latin duo
Old English æcer 'field' to Latin ager.
The Germanic Family of Languages
The family of languages that shows genetic link
between OE and other languages in the Indo-European
Old and Modern English
During Old English Period, Britain was invaded by:
1. Romans
2. Germanic
3. Scandinavian
• It is a period that lasted for 700 years.
• Every invasion brought socio-cultural and
linguistic change
ANGLO-SAXON INFLUENCE
• A large percentage of the educated and literate
population of the time were competent in Latin
• Latin became the lingua franca of Europe at the
time.
• As a result, there was influx of Latin words in OE.
• There were at least three notable periods of Latin
influence.
i. The first occurred before the ancestral Saxons
left continental Europe for Britain.
ii. The second began when the Anglo-Saxons
were converted to Christianity
iii. Latin speaking priests became widespread.
• The orthograpy changed from runic alphabet (also
known as futhorc or fuþorc) to the Latin alphabet
• This became a significant factor in the
developmental of Latin during OE period. Old
English words were spelt as they were pronounced.
The "silent" letters in many Modern English words
were pronounced in Old English: for example, the c
in cniht, the Old English ancestor of the modern
knight, was pronounced.
• Another side-effect of spelling words phonetically
was that spelling was extremely variable.
• A word's spelling reflected differences in phonetics
of the writer's regional dialect.
• Words also endured idiosyncratic spelling choices of
individual authors, some of whom varied spellings
between works. Thus, for example, the word and
could be spelt either and or ond.
SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE
• The Scandinavian (the Vikings) invaded Britain
in 787 CE
• They spoke Old Norse. Along, they spread
their influence on the English people
• The second major source of loanwords to Old
English was the Scandinavian words
• In addition to a great many place names, these
consist mainly of items of basic vocabulary, and
words concerned with particular administrative
aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land
under Viking control, which included extensive
holdings all along the eastern coast of England
and Scotland).
• Many places in England has its names originated
from Scandinavia
• The influence of Old Norse on the English
language has been profound: responsible for such
basic vocabulary items as sky, leg, the pronoun
they, the verb form are, and hundreds of other
words
CELTIC INFLUENCE
• The influence of Celtic on English has been small,
citing the small number of Celtic loanwords taken
into the language. The number of Celtic loanwords
is of a lower order than either Latin or
Scandinavian.
• Celtic traits were more significant on English syntax
during post-Old English period
• Old English should not be regarded as a single
monolithic entity similar to Mod.E
• It consists of wide variation of languages
• However, the bulk of it was written in dialect of
Wessex, Alfred's kingdom.
• Possibly, because he was in power and he was the
one who made the compilation effort
• He brought many scribes to his region from Mercia
to record previously unwritten texts.
• The Church was affected likewise, especially since
Alfred initiated an ambitious programme to
translate religious materials into English.
• To retain his patronage and ensure the widest
circulation of the translated materials, the monks
and priests engaged in the programme worked in
his dialect.
• Alfred himself seems to have translated books out
of Latin and into English, notably Pope Gregory I's
treatise on administration, Pastoral Care.
DICTIONARY OF OLD ENGLISH
(DOE)
• The Dictionary of Old English (DOE) is a
dictionary published by the Centre for
Medieval Studies, University of Toronto under
the direction of Angus Cameron (1941-1983),
Ashley Crandell Amos (1951-1989), and
Antonette diPaolo Healey.
• It "defines the vocabulary of the first six centuries
(600-1150 A.D.) of the English language, using
today's most advanced technology.
• The DOE complements the Middle English
Dictionary (which covers the period 1100-1500
A.D.) and the Oxford English Dictionary, the three
together providing a full description of the
vocabulary of English."
• An example
of a page
from DOE
SYNTAX
WORD ORDER
• The word order of Old English is widely believed to be
subject-verb-object (SVO) as in modern English and
most Germanic languages.
• The word order of Old English, however, was not overly
important because of the aforementioned morphology
of the language.
• As long as declension was correct, it did not matter
whether you said, "My name is..." as "Mīn nama is..."
or "Nama mīn is..."
•
QUESTIONS
• Because of its similarity with Old Norse, it is
believed that the word order of Old English changed
when asking a question, from SVO to VSO; i.e.
swapping the verb and the subject.
"I am..." becomes "Am I...?"
"Ic eom..." becomes "Eom ic...?"
Morphology
• Unlike modern English, Old English is a language
rich with morphological diversity.
• It maintains several distinct cases: the nominative,
accusative, genitive, dative and (vestigially)
instrumental, remnants of which survive only in a
few pronouns in modern English.
LITERATURE
• Old English was one of the first vernacular
languages to be written down.
• Some of the most important surviving works of Old
English literature are Beowulf, an epic poem; the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of early English
history; the Franks Casket, an early whalebone
artifact; and Caedmon's Hymn, a Christian religious
poem.
• There are also a number of extant prose works,
such as sermons and saints' lives, biblical
translations, and translated Latin works of the early
Church Fathers, legal documents, such as laws and
wills, and practical works on grammar, medicine,
and geography.
• Still, poetry is considered the heart of Old English
literature. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are
anonymous, with a few exceptions, such as Bede
and Caedmon.
THE END