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I-Sem (Old English)

 

Old English (450-1150)

Anglo Saxon is the earliest recorded form of the English language spoken in England, Southern and eastern Scotland from 5th Century to 10th Century.

Old English was developed from the Languages brought to Great Britain b Anglo Saxon migrants in the 5th Century and the first Old English literary work dates from the 7th century onwards. Old English was a set of Anglo – Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their Language replaced the languages of Romano Britain, which was commonly known as Britionic or Celtic. During the Old English Period, There were four major Dialects associated with Anglo Saxon Kingdoms. They were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon.

It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English Period. As a matter of fact, Germanic languages were divided into three parts.

 

They were

1.North Germanic

2.west Germanic

3.East Germanic

 

North Germanic was the sub family of indo European Languages. People who lived in Danish, Norwegian and Sweden, etc spoke Nordic Languages.

 

West Germanic Languages have three Sub Divisons. They are

1.Ingvaeonic

2.Istvaeonic

3.Irminonic

Out of these three, Old English is closely related to Ingvaeonic. It is also linked to Frisian languages. Whereas the Third part called East Germanic is almost all extinct now.

Old English is different from Modern English and Modern Scots like other old Germanic languages. It is largely in comprehensible for Modern English or modern Scot Speakers without study.

Within Old English Grammar, nouns, Adjectives, Pronouns and Verbs have many inflectional endings and forms and word order is much freer. The oldest inscriptions were written b using Runic System, but from 8th century onwards, Runic System was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet.

During the old English time Pronunciation differences were found when compared to modern equivalents. The Long vowels have undergone considerable modifications. Old English made use of two characters to represent the sound ‘th’. The sound of ‘th’ was represented with ‘þ’ and ‘ð’   

Example : wiþ – with  

                     ðā – then

 

The usage of ‘þ’ and ‘ð’ is no longer employed in the written part now.

Old English represents the sound ‘sh’ by ‘sc’

 Example : Sceap – sheep & Sceotan – shoot

 

And the sound of ‘k’ by ‘c’

Example : Cynn – kin & Naced – Naked

Old English Grammar has only four cases. They are Nominative, Genetive, Accusative and Dative. Usage of Gender in English was quiet illogical.

 

Example: mægden -  (girl),   wif -  (wife),  cild  -  (child)

 

The above examples were expected to be masculine or feminine but according to Old English they were neuter.

 

Example:

 

Wifmann (woman) was masculine because of the second element.

 

As far as literature is concerned, Bede in 731 wrote ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English Language’. It tells us the history of Teutonic tribes like Jutes, Saxons and Angles and their conquest in England.

 

The greatest single work of Old English was ‘Beowulf’. It is a poem of some 3000 lines belonging to the type known as Folk Epic.

 

Writers like Caedom, Cynewulf, Alfred the Great, etc also contributed to the writings of Literature during the Old English Period. It was a period of Inflections. Most probably 85 % of Old English words are no longer in use. According to Toronto University’s Dictionary of Old English Corpus, The entire surviving of Old English materials from 600 to 1150 consist of 3037 texts (excluding Manuscripts with Minor Variants) amounting to mere 3 Million words. But, the words which survived have formed base for the Modern English Vocabulary.

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