LECTURE 2
THE BEGINNING OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
PLAN
1. People
 Who were the ancient inhabitants of Britain?
 The Roman conquest of Britain
 Germanic invaders of Britain
2. Early politics
 Kingdoms of the Germanic tribes in Britain
 How did Christianity spread in England?
 Anglo-Saxon Social Organisation
3. Language
 Periods in the history of the English language and their brief
characteristics
 What is Old English?
 Why learn Old English?
 Old English dialects
Who were the ancient
inhabitants of Britain?
• England has been inhabited for at least 50,000
years, although the repeated Ice Ages made
much of Britain uninhabitable for extended
periods until as recently as 20,000 years ago.
Stone Age hunter-gatherers eventually gave way
to farmers and permanent settlements, with an
advanced megalithic civilization arising in
western England some 4,000 years ago. It was
replaced around 1,500 years later by Celtic
tribes migrating from Western and continental
Europe, mainly from France. These tribes were
known collectively as "Britons“.
The Celtic
tribes
the Britons
the Scotts
the Picts
Celtic British place-names
 London,
Dumbarton, York,
Dorchester, Dover and Colchester
 place-name elements Brythonic in
origin: bre-, bal-, and -dun for hills,
carr for a high rocky place, coomb
for a small deep valley.
 Welsh legacy of their meaning for
England "Lloegr" translated as "lost
lands".
The Roman conquest of Britain
• Julius Caesar's raid in 55 BC
• the Emperor Claudius' conquest in
the following century (in the 1st
century B.C.)
Influence of Roman civilization
The Romans brought to 'barbarian' Britain
their administration, their way of life and their language:
• built London (Londinium)
• founded military settlements or camps ('castra'
surviving in some place-names: MANCHESTER,
LANCASTER, etc.);
• built their famous Roman roads;
• set up towns for the retired soldiers or
'colonies'(surviving as part of place- names:
COLCHESTER, LINCOLN).
Germanic invaders of Britain
 The invaders fell into three
main groups: the Jutes, the
Saxons, and the Angles.
 An OE monastic scholar Bede
the Venerable (about 673735) who wrote the first
history of Britain, tells a
popular legend about the
origin of the English
Kingdoms of the Germanic
tribes in Britain
1. Kent,
2. Sussex,
3. Essex,
4. Wessex,
5. Mercia,
6. East Anglia,
7. Northumbria, which consisted of
two regions, Bernicia and Deira.
How did Christianity spread in
England?
• In 597 Pope Gregory I sent a mission to England in
order to spread Christianity among the Germanic
conquerors and to include England into the sphere of
his political influence.
• Christianity also penetrated into England from Ireland,
which had not been invaded by Germanic tribes. Irish
monks had great influence in Northumbria under king
Oswine (642-670).
• In the 7th century Christianity spread all over England.
The Anglo-Saxon community
The boy's Father and
Mother
The young boy's
Grandfather and
pregnant Aunty
The young son of a Gebur
farmer
His elder brother
examines his new shield
whilst his Grandfather
takes his neighbour to
set some traps.
Anglo-Saxon Social Organisation
witenagemot
high council
æðelings
king and princes
bishops and archbishops
Eoldermen
Church aristocracy
the ruling nobility
Ðegns
the backbone of the
Anglo-Saxon army
ceorls,
independent landed householdersgeneat,
freemen kotsetla, and farmers gebur
ðeow
slaves or bondsmen
Periods in the history of English

OLD ENGLISH - from the 5th century to
the end of the 11th (the dates of its end
range from 1066 to 1150) ;
 MIDDLE ENGLISH - from the 12th to the
15th century (1475);
 NEW ENGLISH - the English of the last six
centuries: Early New English from the 15th
century to the 17th, up to the age of
Shakespeare and Modern English.
Henry Sweet’s classification
– OE - the period of full endings. This means that
any vowel may be found in an unstressed
ending: SINʒ AN 'sing‘, SUNU 'son'
– ME - the period of levelled endings. SINGEN,
SUNE,(also spelt SONE).
– NE - the period of lost endings: sing, son.
What is Old English?
OE represents the stage of Old Germanic
dialects in the history of English; common
Germanic features then still prevailed over
its newly developed individual
characteristics. Most of our records of the
Old English language date from the period
between about 875 and about 1100
Why learn Old English?
If you
► have
curiosity about the past,
► interest in language,
► taste for experiencing cultures that are
different from your own,
► find stretching your mind to meet new
challenges pleasant,
then you will
almost certainly be happy with this course.
Old English dialects
The 4 main dialects in OE were:
 West Saxon, or the Wessex dialect, the principal
dialect of the Saxon group.
 Kentish dialect, spoken in Kent. It had developed
from the speech of the Jutes.
 Mercian, spoken in the kingdom of Mercia; this
dialect had developed from the tongue of the
Angels.
 Northumbrian, another Anglian dialect, spoken
to the north of the Humber river.
The Northumbrian dialect is
represented by:
Bede the
Venerable's
DYING
SONG.
the runic texts
of the Ruthwell
Cross.
West Saxon
The statues of
King Alfred the Great
Old English kingdoms and
dialects
Tribe
The Jutes
The
Frisians
The
Saxons
Tribal
dialect
Jutish
Kingdom
OE dialect
Kent
Kentish
Frisian
Kent
Kentish
Saxon
Essex
Wessex
Wessex
Sussex
Mercia
Mercian
Northumbria Northumbrian
The Angles Anglian