The Old English Period detailed summary, Unit 2 Impact of the History of English Language on Literature from 11th to 17th Century, Allied Paper, 1st semester.

 The History of the English Language

Introduction: -

There are three periods basically;

1. The Old English period (The Anglo Saxon-A.D.) (500 to 1100)

2. The Middle English period (1100 to 1500)

3. The Modern English period (1500 onwards)

The Old English (Anglo Saxon) Period

In the 500 A. D. Angles and Saxons succeeded in establishing the power over Britain. The three Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes came to the British Isles from various parts of northwest Germany as well as Denmark. These tribes were warlike and pushed out most of the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants from England into Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. One group migrated to the Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak the Celtic Language of Breton today.

Through the years, the Saxons, Angles and Jutes mixed their different Germanic dialects. This group of dialects forms what linguists refer to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon. The word "English" was in Old English "Englisc", and that comes from the name of the Angles. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin.

Before the Saxons the language spoken in what is now England was a mixture of Latin and various Celtic languages which were spoken before the Romans came to Britain (54-5BC). The Romans brought Latin to Britain, which was part of the Roman Empire for over 400 years. Many of the words passed on from this era are those coined by Roman merchants and soldiers. These include win (wine), candel (candle), belt (belt), weall (wall).

The influence of Celtic upon Old English was slight. In fact, very few Celtic words have lived on in the English language. But many of place and river names have Celtic origins: Kent, York, Dover, Cumberland, Thames, Avon, Trent, Severn.

The arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the introduction of Christianity into Saxon England brought more Latin words into the English language. They were mostly concerned with the naming of Church dignitaries, ceremonies, etc. Some, such as church, bishop, baptism, monk, eucharist and presbyter came indirectly through Latin from the Greek.

Around 878 AD Danes and Norsemen, also called Vikings, invaded the country and English got many Norse words into the language, particularly in the north of England. The Vikings, being Scandinavian, spoke a language (Old Norse) which, in origin at least, was just as Germanic as Old English.

In 886 AD King Alfred the Great defeats the Vikings but allows them to settle in Eastern England (the Kingdoms of York and East Anglia) This area on England becomes known as Danelaw and is ruled by the Viking King Guthrum.

Words derived from Norse include: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die, they, their, them.

Foreign Influences: Anglo-Saxon accepted many foreign words. The cardinal numbers are a case. Following is the list of some word which came from Indo-European languages.

· Name of nature: day, night, sun, moon, star, wind, earth…

· Animals: cow, mouse, goose, wolf..

·  Through Tree: door, timber, yoke, wheel, wagon.

·  Fighting: Shield

·  Agriculture: plough, mow

·  Colour: red, yellow...

(A)Celtic words:- The original language of Briton was Celtic, but not considerable Celtic elements are absorbed into whole English. Words related to land scope’ ‘hill’, slough’, ‘valley’ have come.

(B)Latin words:- This is very important. They came because of (a) Roman occupation and (b) Latin Christianity. The word ‘mile’, ‘wine’ etc. show this effect. 1. Words related to building: wall, road, way, street, 2. Financial: money, 3. Place names: (Chester and caster) - camp, Manchester Winchester, Lancaster etc. 4. Christianity: religious: Monastery, Mont, priest, mass, sacrifice.        

(C)Norse/Danish words: Danes invaded Anglo-Saxons and had settled themselves since 9th century. On political basis they made effect. Three way the language was influenced. (a) Place-names; settled by Norseman: Termination likes ‘toft’- ‘thwaite’ and ‘thorpe’ and ‘by’. English words ‘borough’ and ‘bury suggest ‘by’ which means a town. e.g. whit by, Selby, grmspy. ‘Thrope’- toft; thwaite – slaithwaite, Lintwhite, Lowest, Northrop, Oglethorpe.

·        Addition of verbs: ‘get’ and ‘take’.

·        Addition of pronouns: they and ‘them’.

·        Relationship: husband, sister.

·        Other: fleet, maid, knife, big, haven, skipped.

Many of the writers have adopted these changes in their language. The Bible and Shakespeare even though seem much more influenced actually are not but classical writers and modern writers are more influenced. Anglo Saxon period has given us plenty of things as permanent ones, and they still are in our language. A small list is given below.

·        Relationship: Father, mother, brother.

·        Food: bread, butter, milk, meet.

·        Weapon: sword, spear, bow, arrow, shield.

·        Other words: star, loom, steer

·        Phrases: might and main, fair and foul, kith and kin

·        suffixes: dom, hood, ing, ness, ship

·        Prefixes: forth, with

Old English Manuscript: -

        Old English poetry is of two types, the heroic Germanic pre-Christian and the Christian. It has survived for the most part in four manuscripts. The first manuscript is called the Junius manuscript (also known as the Caedmon manuscript), which is an illustrated poetic anthology. The second manuscript is called the Exeter Book, also an anthology, located in the Exeter Cathedral since it was donated there in the 11th century. The third manuscript is called the Vercelli Book, a mix of poetry and prose; how it came to be in Vercelli, Italy, no one knows, and is a matter of debate. The fourth manuscript is called the Nowell Codex, also known as the Beowulf Manuscript, a mixture of poetry and prose.

Several written works have survived from the Old English period. The most famous is a heroic epic poem called "Beowulf". It is the oldest known English poem and it is notable for its length - 3,183 lines. Experts say "Beowulf" was written in Britain more than one thousand years ago. The name of the person who wrote it is unknown.

Spelling and Pronunciation: -

        Spellings and Pronunciation of Old English words commonly differs somewhat from that of their modern equivalents. In Old English the vowels were different from that of Modern English. Old English had six simple vowels, spelled a, æ, i, o, u and y, and probably a seventh, spelled ie. It also had two diphthongs; ea and eo. Each of these sounds came in short and long versions.

Long vowels are always marked with macrons (e.g. ā) in modern editions and also in some scholarly editions. However, vowels are never so marked in Old English manuscripts. Long vowels in particular have undergone considerable modification. The Old English word stān is the same word as Modern English stone. Some other examples are: rāp—rope, bāt — boat.

          Other vowels have also undergone some changes for example; changes in fōt (foot), cēne (keen), metan (mete), but the identity of these words with their modern descendants is still readily apparent.

There was a difference of spellings in Old English as compared to Modern English. Old English made use of two characters to represent the sound of th: Þ and ð, as in the words wiÞ (with) or ðā (then). Old English represented the sounds of sh by sc, as in scēap (sheep) or scēotan (shoot), and the sound of k by c, as in cynn (kin) or nacod (naked).

        A major difference between the spelling systems of Old and Modern English is that Old English had no ‘silent’ letters. This is because the spelling system was not yet standardized, so that the language was written down as it was pronounced. The initial letters of words such as cnēow ‘knee’, gnæt ‘gnat’ and wrītan ‘write’ were pronounced, and the medial <h> was pronounced in words such as niht ‘night’.

Vocabulary: -

        The vocabulary of Old English is almost purely Germanic. A large part of this vocabulary, moreover has disappeared from the language. When the Norman Conquest brought French into England as the language of the higher classes, much of the Old English vocabulary appropriate to literature and learning died out and was displaced later by words borrowed from French and Latin. Many of these words were inherited by English together with some other Indo-European languages from the same common source.

Old English	New English	Latin	Russian
modor	mother	mater	мать
niht	night	nox	ночь
neowe	new	novus	новый
beran	bear	ferre	брать

Some words were inherited by English and other Germanic languages from the same common Germanic source.

Old English	New English	German
eorðe	earth	Erde
land	land	Land

Complicated Grammar: -

Grammar of Anglo-Saxon dialect was highly complex. Adjectives were strong and weak. Three gender system was there but ‘girl’ was neuter and ‘woman’ was ‘neuter’ and masculine’ both. By 1100 leveling began to take place and inflexion started disappearing. Many of plural nouns ended in- ‘as’ or ‘es’. That is how in modern English genitive plural is forms of ‘S’.

        One of the important features of the Old English that distinguishes it from Modern English is of its grammar. Inflectional languages falls into two classes: synthetic and analytic. A synthetic language is one which indicates the relation of words is a sentence largely my means of inflections while the languages which make extensive use of prepositions and auxiliary verbs and depend upon word order to show other relationships are known as analytic languages. Modern English is an analytic language and Old English is a synthetic language. Old English resembles Modern German in its grammar. Old English inflections can be illustrated as below:

Old English nouns have two numbers - singular and plural. It has three genders - masculine, feminine and neuter. The system of gender is irrational because it is not dependent upon the consideration of sex. In Modern English all males are said to be masculine, females feminine and inanimate things neuter.

Thus in Old English stan (stone) is masculine, German words like maegolon (girl), wif (wife), bearn (child,son) which we expect to be feminine or masculine are in fact neuter. The word wifmann (woman) is masculine because the second element of the compound is masculine.

Another feature of Old English is that the adjectives like nouns have gender. The adjective takes the gender of the noun with which it is associated.

There are four cases namely Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. The system of declension is very complex. In the Old English, noun gets inflected according to its number and case. It has chiefly four cases and the endings of these vary with different nouns. There are two chief declensions - vowel declension and consonant declension. Vowel declension is called strong declension and consonant one is weak declension.

Gradation and Mutation: -

Gradation means process and Mutation means change. Change is vowel position in verbs. Addition of suffix to the root of a verb is for modification. That’s why Anglo-Saxon verbs have changed in present and past participle forms. E.g. drive-drove-driven or ride-rode-ridden. Though ‘climb is a weak verb, it takes now-ed. But it had forms like clumb and clumben.

This tendency is gone. The following verbs have no mutation; Help, dive, lock, sulk, chew etc. The change is caused by ‘I’ mutation.

(A) Mutated Plurals: - Inflexion ‘-iz’ was added to many nouns. It results in ‘I’. So it was in plural, Because of mutation it became and in modern English ‘teeths’. Other words; mus (mouse), musiz mys= now ‘mice’ later on tendency of adding ‘s’ came. It is call ‘i' mutation.

B) Mutated Abstract Noun derived from adjectives Or Adjective to Abstract Noun: - To make abstract noun from adjective Anglo-Saxon used suffix- ‘iou’. e.g. long-longidu. It which became lengd and now length.

(C) From noun new verbs mutation Or Noun to Verb:- This is another tendency. ‘brood’ becomes ‘breed’ which is another verb. Likewise, food becomes verb ‘feed’.

(D)Adjective becomes verb by mutation or Adjective to verb:- was add suffix. e.g. ‘full’ gave us which became ultimately turning fill. The termination Jon to added certain adjective to make verb thus halijam whole some had an where our verb is heal e.g. full become and modern English ‘full’

(E) Mutated degrees:- Anglo Saxon used- ‘ira’ and ‘ist’. Both of them changed and became ‘-er’ and ‘est’. Thus eald (old) became ‘elder and ‘eldest’. But sometime mutated forms are dropped otherwise we would have words like strong. Strenger - strengest; longlenger- longest.

Change in meaning: -

Some words are there. They have lost their original meaning and acquired a new. Sometime the word has generalized or classified. Such words are: Lord, lady, steward, town, etc.

One time ‘knave’ meant ‘a boy’ but is retained in that sense in a pack of playing cards. ‘fiend’ meant ‘enemy’ but now ‘devil’. ‘silly meant ‘happily but now ‘foolish’.

Association of some words changed and gave ideas. e.g. ‘bead’. It meant small globular object. In old English it meant a prayer’ but now it is related to object only. Unkempt, uncouth, bridal, god, thrill, etc. are such words.

Geographically one world is interesting. ‘shire’ a suffix is added to many country places. ‘Shire’ is coming from a verb ‘to shear’ or ‘share’. The meaning is ‘to divide’. So one place is ‘York shire’ means York was divided into many ‘ridings’. (people division): ‘ride’ comes from thriding’. York has four ridings; west, east, north, and south.

The English language not only began to go in the establishing way but also got development. It showed flexibility for adoption which really helped English to be a language of the country and world.

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