Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language spoken in England some 1000 years ago. It is a West Germanic language and was very similar to Old Norse. Unlike modern English, Old English os a language rich with morphological diversity, and is still pronounced as spelled. It maintains several distinct cases, such as the dative, genitive and instrumental, which are only marginally marked today.
Old English was not a static form. Its usage covered a period of some 700 or so years from approximately 450 AD to some time after the Norman invasion in 1066 when the language underwent a major and dramatic transition, during a period which is (generally) now referred to as Middle English. During the 700 years in which it was in use it assimilated some aspects of the indigenous pre-Celtic languages, some of the Celtic languages which it came into contact with, some of the two variants of the invading Scandinavian languages occupying and controlling the Danelaw, and Norman French in the wake of 1066.
Further, the influence of Latin on Old English should not be ignored. A large percentage of the educated and literate population, monks, clerics, etc, were competent in what was then the prevalent lingua franca. This influence predates the insular incursions of the Anglo-Saxons in their original continental language.
The language was further altered by the transition away from the runic futhark alphabet to the Latin alphabet, which was also a significant factor in the developmental pressures brought to bear on the language. Words were spelled as they were pronounced. Silent letters therefore did not often exist in Old English: for example, the Old English word for a "knight", cniht, had four distinct consonants.
The Scandinavian loanwords which were to impact on the emergent Anglo-Saxon language tend to be everyday words and those which are concerned with particular administrative aspects of the Danelaw.
The number of Celtic loanwords is of a much lower order than either Latin or Scandinavian. As few as twelve loanwords have been identified as being entirely secure.
Dialects
To further complicate matters, Old English was rich in dialect forms. This diversity was particularly marked until after the process of unification of the diverse Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 878 by Alfred the Great.
The four principal dialect forms of Old English were: Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon.
It it appears after a vowel, the letter h is a velar or palatal fricative(a normal h sound is a glottal fricative), the actual sound being contingent upon the preceding vowel.
If it comes between vowels or a vowel and a consonant that is voiced then it is pronounced like the letter z in Modern English.
Old English did not use v and j since these were later additions to the alphabet; q and z are sparingly found.
To further complicate the matter, prepositions may appear after their object, though they are not postpositions, as they may occur in front of the noun too, and usually do(eg.
Strong verbs are further subdivided into seven separate classes and weak verbs into three.
Additionally there is a further group of four verbs which are anomalous, the verbs "will", "do", "go" and "be".
Pronunciation
Vowels
Æ/æ (called ash) is a as in "bat"Consonants
Consonants equivalent to Modern English
b, d, k, l, m, n, p, r, t, xh
If the letter h appears at the beginning of a word it is pronounced as it would be in Modern English.s
s is pronounced as the Modern English equivalent if it is at the beginning of a word, the end of a word, or if it is adjacent to an unvoiced consonant.Consonant pairs
þ and ð
Thorn and eth are used interchangeably to represent both voiced and unvoiced "th" sounds (the sound at the beginning of "the" is voiced; the sound at the end of "with" is unvoiced). Eth was usually used when the diagraph was voiced (as in "the" or "that").sc
sc is pronounced as the "sh" sound, as in "ship". (The OE word for a ship is scip...)c
c can be rendered either a soft consonant pair as in "child" (OE cild) or a hard single as in "king" (OE cyning). The sound is largely determined by the word itself and the vowels adjoining it in that word.Old English Grammar
Characters
In addition to most of the characters in the current alphabet, Old English supported three other characters:Syntax
As a West Germanic language, Old English syntax has a great deal of common ground with Dutch and German. Old English is not dependent upon S (subject), V (verb), O (object) or "SVO" word order in the way that Modern English is. The syntax of an Old English sentence can be in any of these shapes: SVO order, VSO order, and OVS order. The only constant rule, as in German, is that the verb must come as the second concept. That is, in the sentence 'in the town, we ate some food', it would appear as 'in the town, ate we some food', or 'in the town, ate some food we'. God cwæð him þus to
(lit) God said him thus to
i.e. God said thus to him
)
Verbs
Verbs in Old English are divided into strong or weak verbs. Strong verbs, which are in the majority, use the Germanic form of conjugation (known as Ablaut). Weak verbs are formed principally by adding endings to past and participles. Nouns
Old English nouns are divided as either strong or weak. Strong nouns have branched declensions, with particular and specialised endings for different numbers and cases. The weak declension nouns were those nouns which had begun to lose their declensional system. It should be pointed out that the majority of noun stems in Old English were in the strong grouping. Adjectives
Adjectives in Old English may be declined strong or weak. The strong or weak form is determined by the strength or weakness of the noun which it is qualifiying.
| 1st Person | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural | Dual |
| Nominative | ic, íc | wé | wit |
| Genitive | mín | úre | uncer |
| Dative | mé | ús | unc |
| Accusative | mec, mé | úsic, ús | uncit, unc |
| 2nd Person | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural | Dual |
| Nominative | þú | gé | git |
| Genitive | þin | éower | incer |
| Dative | þe | éow | inc |
| Accusative | þéc, þé | éowic, éow | incit, inc |
| 3rd Person | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural | Dual |
| Nominative | hé m., héo f., hit n. | hié m., héo f. | |
| Genitive | his m., hire f., his n. | hiera m., heora f. | |
| Dative | him m., hire f., him n. | him | |
| Accusative | hine m., híe f., hit n. | hié m., hío f. | |
Many of the forms above bear strong resemblances to their contemporary English language equivalents: for instance in the genitive case éower became "your", úre became "our", mín became "mine".
Prepositions often follow the word which they govern, in which case they are called postpositions.
See also Old English language (list of prepositions)
A particular class of nouns contain an "i" in the dative singular and plural nominative accusative forms. Consequent upon front mutation, irregular singular/plural oppositions therefore occur such as fot and fet, and mus and mys.
See also: Old English poetryPrepositions
Front Mutation
Front Mutation (also known as "I/J Mutation") has the effect that if a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable which contained a letter "i" or "j",
then the previous stressed vowel is fronted or raised. The "i" or "j" is dropped from the word or changes to "e". Old English examples
A sample of Old English can be found in the Beowulf article.