Characteristics of Old English:

Index:

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………......3

Historical background: the origins and development of Old English…………...…4

- the settlement in Britain of Jutes, Saxons and Angles……………………………….…..….4

- the arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the conversion to Christianity…………….…….6

- the Viking invasions of the 9th century………………………………………………….……7

- the Norman Conquest of 1066………………………………………………………….……..8

Characteristics of Old English………………………………………………..….……9

- Vocabulary…………….……………………………………………….………………………10

- Grammar……………………………………………………………….………………………13

- Spelling and Pronunciation………………………………………….………………………15

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………18

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….19

Appendix I ………………………………………………………………….…………..20

Appendix II ……………………………………………………………………………..21

Appendix III ……………………………………………………………………………22

Appendix IV ……………………………………………………………………………23
Introduction

The English language belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family

of languages. The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken

by a population of approximately 500 million people mainly in North America, Oceania, Western

and Northern Europe. The West Germanic branch includes the two most widely spoken Germanic

languages: English, with approximately 300–400 million native speakers, and German, with over

100 million native speakers; other major West Germanic languages are Dutch with 23 million

speakers, Low German with approximately 5 million in Germany and 1.7 million in the

Netherlands.1 (Appendix I, picture 1)

Over the centuries, the English language has been influenced by a number of other

languages and the historical events. The history of the English language has traditionally been

divided into three main periods: Old English (450-1100 AD), Middle English (1100-circa 1500 AD)

and Modern English (since 1500).

Old English is the name given to the earliest recorded stage of the English language,

approximately up to 1150 AD. It refers to the language as it was used in the long period of time

from the coming of Germanic invaders and settlers to Britain, the period following the collapse of

Roman Britain in the early fifth century, up to the Norman Conquest of 1066, and beyond into the

first century of Norman rule in England. It is the language of the people normally referred to by

historians as the Anglo-Saxons

In this paper I will to analyze the beginnings of English language through its origins and

history; I will examine the main characteristics of Old English, its structure and peculiarities as well

as its similarities to other languages of the same family and its specific features.

Old English (450 - 1100 AD): Historical Events

1
The Germanic Languages" by Ekkehard Konig, Johan van der Auwera (p.1)

2
 The language we now know as Old English is a product of the numerous invasions of

warlike tribes into the British Isles. English language has faced many morphological, structural, and

even phonetic changes because of the influences impact on it from other languages. The history of

the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain

during the 5th century AD. And further, in the 8th century, was influenced by another invasion of an

aggressive Germanic people - the Vikings. As a result Anglo-Saxon underwent considerable

assimilation and change as it was mixed with Old Norse. What we now know as Old English is a

hybrid of different Germanic dialects with traces of Latin, brought by the previous Roman rulers

of Britain and many words from Old Norse language. Among highlights in the history of Old

English language the following events stand out clearly:

- the settlement in Britain of Jutes, Saxons, and Angles in the 5th and 6th centuries;

- the arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the subsequent conversion of England to Latin

Christianity;

- the Viking invasions of the 9th century;

- the Norman Conquest of 1066;

The Anglo-Saxon Settlement

The conquest of the Celtic population in Britain by speakers of West Germanic dialects

primarily Angles, Saxons, and Jutes eventually determined many of the essential characteristics of

the English language. During the 5th Century AD three Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes)

came to the British Isles from various parts of northwest coastline of continental Europe, what today

is Denmark and northern Germany (see Appendix I, Picture 1). These tribes were warlike and

despite continued resistance (the legends and folklore of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round

Table date from this time), the Celts were pushed further and further back by the invaders into the

wilds of Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland, although some chose to flee to the Brittany region

3
of northern France (where they maintained a thriving culture for several centuries) and even further

into mainland Europe.

According to the Venerable Bede, the first historian of the English people, the first Jutes,

Hengist and Horsa, landed at Ebbsfleet in the Isle of Thanet in 449; and the Jutes later settled in

Kent, southern Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. The Saxons occupied the rest of England south of

the Thames, as well as modern Middlesex and Essex. The Angles eventually took the remainder of

England as far north as the Firth of Forth, including the future Edinburgh and the Scottish

Lowlands. The Angles came from Engla land and their language was called Englisc - from which

the words England and English are derived.

When the Anglo-Saxons came to England from northern Germany they brought their

language with them. 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 (their land of origin).

As time went on, Old English evolved further from the original Continental form, and

regional dialects developed. The four major dialects recognized in Old English are:

- Kentish, originally the dialect spoken by the Jutes;

- West Saxon, a branch of the dialect spoken by the Saxons;

- Northumbrian and Mercian, subdivisions of the dialects spoken by the Angles.

The Celtic language survives today only in the Gaelic languages of Scotland and Ireland, the

Welsh of Wales, and the Breton language of Brittany (the last native speaker of the Cornish

language died in 1777, and the last native speaker of Manx, a Celtic language spoken on the tiny

Isle of Man, died as recently as the 1960s, and these are now dead languages).

The Germanic tribes settled in seven smaller kingdoms, known as the Heptarchy: the Saxons

in Essex, Wessex and Sussex; the Angles in East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria; and the Jutes in

Kent (Appendix II, picture 1). Evidence of the extent of their settlement can be found in the number

4
of place names throughout England ending with the Anglo-Saxon “-ing” meaning people of (e.g.

Worthing, Reading, Hastings), “-ton” meaning enclosure or village (e.g. Taunton, Burton, Luton), “-

ford” meaning a river crossing (e.g. Ashford, Bradford, Watford) “-ham” meaning farm (e.g.

Nottingham, Birmingham, Grantham) and “-stead” meaning a site (e.g. Hampstead).

The conversion to Christianity

The evolution of Old English during the Anglo-Saxon period was influenced profoundly by

two historical and cultural events: the spread of Christianity (the second Latinate influence) and the

Vikings invasion and settlement. Although many of the Romano-Celts in the north of England had

already been Christianized, St. Augustine and his 40 missionaries from Rome brought Christianity

to the pagan Anglo-Saxons of the rest of England in 597 AD. After the conversion of the influential

King Ethelbert of Kent, it spread rapidly through the land, carrying literacy and European culture in

it wake. Augustine was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 601 AD and several great monasteries

and centers of learning were established particularly in Northumbria (e.g. Jarrow, Lindisfarne).

The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, which began in the late sixth century

and was largely complete by the late seventh century, was an event of huge cultural importance.

One of its many areas of impact was the introduction of writing extensive texts in the Roman

alphabet on parchment (as opposed to inscribing very short inscriptions on wood, bone, or stone in

runic characters). Nearly all of our surviving documentary evidence for Old English is mediated

through the Church, and the impress of the literary culture of Latin Christianity is deep on nearly

everything that survives written in Old English. The great number of Latin words was introduced as

a result of the spread of Christianity. Such words included not only ecclesiastical terms but many

others of less specialized significance.

5
The Viking invasions of the 9th century

By the late 8th Century, the Vikings (or Norsemen) began to make sporadic raids on the

east cost of Britain. They came from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, although it was the Danes

who came with the greatest force. Notorious for their ferocity, ruthlessness and callousness, the

Vikings pillaged and plundered the towns and monasteries of northern England - in 793, they

sacked and looted the wealthy monastery at Lindisfarne in Northumbria - before turning their

attentions further south. By about 850, the raiders had started to over-winter in southern England

and, in 865, there followed a full-scale invasion and on-going battles for the possession of the

country.

Viking expansion was finally checked by Alfred the Great and, in 878, a treaty between the

Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings established the Danelaw, splitting the country along a line roughly

from London to Chester, giving the Norsemen control over the north and east and the Anglo-Saxons

the south and west (see Appendix II, picture 2). Although the Danelaw lasted less than a century, its

influence can be seen today in the number of place names of Norse origin in northern England (over

1,500), including many place names ending in “-by”, “-gate”, “-stoke”, “-kirk”, “-thorpe”, “-

thwaite”, “-toft” and other suffixes (e.g. Whitby, Grimsby, Ormskirk, Scunthorpe, Stoke Newington,

Huthwaite, Lowestoft, etc), as well as the “-son” ending on family names (e.g. Johnson, Harrison,

Gibson, Stevenson, etc) as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon equivalent “-ing” (e.g. Manning, Harding,

etc).

Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse were both spoken widely side-by-side between 700 and 900. 

As a result Anglo-Saxon underwent considerable assimilation and change as it was mixed with old

Norse. The mixing of Norse and Anglo-Saxon, which produced the language known to us as Old

English, is a good example of the phenomenon of dialect mixing. 

The Norman Conquest of 1066

6
 The year 1066 is one of the most pivotal dates in English history. In that year, William the

Bastard invaded from Normandy, seized the crown and became the first Norman king of England

(see Appendix III, picture 1). Unlike the Viking invasions that had preceded it the Norman

Conquest brought lasting changes in government, culture and language, shaping the way we think

and our attitudes right up to the present day. England now entered Europe at center stage.

Thus, the Norman Invasion was characterized by the death of the King Harold at the Battle

of Hastings, and William of Normandy was crowned the King of England. Over succeeding

decades, Norman French becomes the language of the courts and of the upper classes; English

remains the language of the majority. Latin is used in churches and schools. For the next century,

English, for all practical purposes, is no longer a written language.

The Norman French in 1066 differed more strikingly linguistically as well as culturally

from the Anglo Saxons than did the Danish conquerors of a few centuries earlier.  Unlike the

situation with the Norse invasions, the Normans looked upon the conquered Anglo-Saxons as social

inferiors.  French became the language of the upper class; Anglo-Saxon of the lower class. 

The Norman French spoken by the invaders became the language of England's ruling class.

The lower classes, while remaining English-speaking, were influenced nevertheless by the new

vocabulary. French became the language of the affairs of government, court, the church, the army,

and education where the newly adopted French words often substituted their former English

counterparts. The linguistic influence of Norman French continued for as long as the Kings ruled

both Normandy and England.

The Conquest was recorded in an amazing piece of pictorial history, the Bayeux Tapestry,

which has come down to us as a unique reminder of the events of 1066. It describes the Norman

invasion of England and the events that led up to it. It is believed that the Tapestry was

commissioned by Bishop Odo, bishop of Bayeux and the half-brother of William the Conqueror.

The Tapestry contains hundreds of images divided into scenes each describing a particular event.

The scenes are joined into a linear sequence allowing the viewer to "read" the entire story starting

7
with the first scene and progressing to the last. The Tapestry would probably have been displayed in

a church for public view.

Characteristics of Old English

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Modern English is approximately a quarter Germanic (Old English,

Scandinavian, Dutch, German) and two-thirds Italic or Romance (especially Latin, French, Spanish,

Italian), with copious and increasing importations from Greek in science and technology and with

considerable borrowings from more than 300 other languages. An examination of the words in an

Old English dictionary shows that about 85 percent of them are no longer in use. Those that survive

are basic elements of our vocabulary and they express fundamental concepts like mann (man), wīf

(wife, woman), cild (child), hūs (house), weall (wall), mete (meat, food), gœrs (grass), lēaf (leaf),

fugol (fowl, bird), gōd (good), hēah (high), strang (strong), etan (eat), drincan (drink). From Old

English or Anglo-Saxon have also come: heaven and earth, love and hate, life and death, beginning

and end, day and night, month and year, heat and cold, way and path, meadow and stream.

(“English Language”, Encyclopedia Britannica) But the fact remains that a considerable part of the

vocabulary of Old English is unfamiliar to the modern reader.

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). ("Language Timeline", The British Library

Board)

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. In addition, those that survive in modern

8
English include brock (badger), and coomb a type of valley, alongside many place names. The

reason for the lack of borrowings seems to reflect the nature of the Anglo-Saxon conquest. The

Anglo-Saxons did not integrate with the Britons, instead they conducted a war of extermination.

Thus, the Britons were forced to die or flee into the remote west. This probably explains the lack of

Celtic words entering Old English. However, there were some Celtic words that entered Old

English after the conquest. This was the influence of Irish monks that participated in the

Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons. The important word "cross" from the Celtic-Gaelic "crois",

was used alongside the Old English "rood" for several centuries before it eventually became an

English word.

The arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the introduction of Christianity into Saxon

England brought more Latin words into the English language. The introduction of Christianity

meant the building of churches and the establishment of monasteries. Latin, the language of the

services and of ecclesiastical learning, was once more heard in England. From the introduction of

Christianity in 597 to the close of the Old English period is a stretch of more than 500 years. During

all this time Latin words must have been making their way gradually into the English language. It is

obvious that the most typical as well as the most numerous class of words introduced by the new

religion would have to do with that religion and the details of its external organization. Words are

generally taken over by one language from another in answer to a definite need. They are adopted

because they express ideas that are new or because they are so intimately associated with an object

or a concept that acceptance of the thing involves acceptance also of the word. The great majority of

words in Old English having to do with the church and its services, its physical fabric and its

ministers, when not of native origin were borrowed at this time. Because most of these words have

survived in only slightly altered form in Modern English, the examples may be given in their

modern form. The list includes abbot, alms, altar, angel, anthem, Arian, ark, candle, canon,

chalice, cleric, cowl, deacon, disciple, epistle, hymn, litany, manna, martyr, mass, minster, noon,

nun, offer, organ, pall, palm, pope, priest, provost, psalm, psalter, relic, rule, shrift, shrine, shrive,

9
stole, subdeacon, synod, temple, and tunic. Some of these were reintroduced later. (“English

Language”, Encyclopedia Britannica)

But the church also exercised a profound influence on the domestic life of the people. This

is seen in the adoption of many words, such as the names of articles of clothing and household use

—cap, sock, silk, purple, chest, mat, sack; 9 words denoting foods, such as beet, caul (cabbage),

lentil (OE lent), millet (OE mil), pear, radish, doe, oyster (OE ostre), lobster, mussel, to which we

may add the noun cook;10 names of trees, plants, and herbs (often cultivated for their medicinal

properties), such as box, pine,11 aloes, balsam, fennel, hyssop, lily, mallow, marshmallow, myrrh,

rue, savory (OE sæþrige), and the general word plant. A certain number of words having to do with

education and learning reflect another aspect of the church’s influence. Such are school, master,

Latin (possibly an earlier borrowing), grammatic(al), verse, meter, gloss, notary (a scribe). Finally

we may mention a number of words too miscellaneous to admit of profitable classification, like

anchor, coulter, fan (for winnowing), fever, place (cf. marketplace), spelter (asphalt), sponge,

elephant, phoenix, mancus (a coin), and some more or less learned or literary words, such as

calend, circle, legion, giant, consul, and talent. The words cited in these examples are mostly

nouns, but Old English borrowed also a number of verbs and adjectives such as āspendan (to spend;

L. expendere), bemūtian (to exchange; L. mūtāre), dihtan (to compose; L. dictāre) pīnian (to

torture; L. poena), pinsian (to weigh; L. pēnsāre), pyngan (to prick; L. pungere), sealtian (to dance;

L. saltāre), temprian (to temper; L. temperāre), trifolian (to grind; L. trībulāre), tyrnan (to turn; L.

tornāre), and crisp (L. crispus, ‘curly’). (“English Language”, Encyclopedia Britannica)

Around 878 AD Danes and Norsemen (Vikings) invaded the country and English got

many Norse words into the language, particularly in the north of England. The Vikings, spoke Old

Norse which, in origin at least, was just as Germanic as Old English. 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. ("The Origin and History of the English Language",

Kryss Katsiavriades)

10
 Over time, Old Norse was gradually merged into the English language, and many

Scandinavian terms were introduced. In actual fact, only around 150 Norse words appear in Old

English manuscripts of the period, but many more became assimilated into the language and

gradually began to appear in texts over the next few centuries. In all, up to 1,000 Norse words were

permanently added to the English lexicon, among them, some of the most common and fundamental

in the language, including skull, skin, leg, neck, freckle, sister, husband, fellow, wing, bull, score,

seat, root, bloom, bag, gap, knife, dirt, kid, link, gate, sky, egg, cake, skirt, band, bank, birth, scrap,

skill, thrift, window, gasp, gap, law, anger, trust, silver, clasp, call, crawl, dazzle, scream, screech,

race, lift, get, give, are, take, mistake, rid, seem, want, thrust, hit, guess, kick, kill, rake, raise, smile,

hug, call, cast, clip, die, flat, meek, rotten, tight, odd, rugged, ugly, ill, sly, wrong, loose, happy,

awkward, weak, worse, low, both, same, together, again, until, etc.

Old Norse often provided direct alternatives or synonyms for Anglo-Saxon words, both of

which have been carried on (e.g. Anglo-Saxon craft and Norse skill, wish and want, dike and ditch,

sick and ill, whole and hale, raise and rear, wrath and anger, hide and skin, etc). Unusually for

language development, English also adopted some Norse grammatical forms, such as the pronouns

they, them and their, although these words did not enter the dialects of London and southern

England until as late as the 15th Century. Under the influence of the Danes, Anglo-Saxon word

endings and inflections started to fall away during the time of the Danelaw, and prepositions like to,

with, by, etc became more important to make meanings clear, although many inflections continued

into Middle English, particularly in the south and west (the areas furthest from Viking influence).

As I’ve mentioned before, among the most notable evidences of the extensive Scandinavian

settlement in England is the large number of places that bear Scandinavian names: Grimsby,

Whitby, Derby, Althorp, Bishopsthorpe, Gawthorpe, etc.

As we have seen the vocabulary of Old English consisted mainly of Anglo-Saxon words.

But when the Norman Conquest in 1066 brought French to England much of the English

11
vocabulary was replaced by words borrowed from French and Latin. We find theeEntire

vocabularies that were borrowed from Norman French: 

1) governmental:  count, heraldry, fine, noble, parliament.

2) military:  battle, ally, alliance, ensign, admiral, navy, aid, gallant, march, enemy, escape, peace,

war (cf. guerilla).

3) judicial system: judge, jury, plaintiff, justice, court, suit, defendant, crime, felony, murder,

petty/petit, attorney, marriage (Anglo-Saxon wedding), heir.

4) ecclesiastical:  clergy, altar, miracle, preach, pray, sermon, virgin, saint, friar/frere.

5) cuisine:  sauce, boil, filet, soup, pastry, fry, roast, toast.

6) new personal names: John, Mary (Biblical Hebrew and Greek names) and Norman French

(Charles, Richard)

Consequently, about ten thousand French words had been taken over by and most of them

have remained in the language until the present day. Aside from the already mentioned new

vocabulary, many words relating to food and fashion were introduced as well. In some fields an

original English terminology did not exist.

As a result, after the Norman invasion, many Anglo Saxon words narrowed in meaning to

describe only the cruder, dirtier aspects of life.  Concepts associated with culture, fine living and

abstract learning tended to be described by new Norman words. One example is the names of

animals and their meat. Whereas the names of the animals remained the same, their meat was

renamed according to the Norman custom. This correlated to the sociological structures: the farmers

that raised the animals were predominantly English natives and could afford to keep using their own

vocabulary while farming -- those serving the meat at the dining room table to the mainly French

upper classes had to conform to the French language. 

animal (Anglo Saxon) Meat (NormanFrench)

sheep mutton
cow beef
swine pork
deer venison
calf veal

12
Grammatical characteristics

Old English was a very complex language, at least in comparison with modern English.

There are two classes of languages in the world: synthetic and analytic. A synthetic language is one

which shows the relation of words in a sentence largely by means of inflections. An analytic

language is one which indicates the relation of words in a sentence by means of word order,

prepositions or auxiliary verbs, rather than by inflections. Old English is a synthetic language.

Old English nouns and adjectives have four cases: the nominative case, the genitive case,

the dative case and the accusative case. The pattern of inflections for the noun cyning ‘king’,

together with the corresponding forms of the determiner ‘the’, is as follows:

  Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative

þæs þǣm
Singular se cyning þone cyning
cyninges cyninge
þāra þǣm
Plural þā cyningas þā cyningas
cyninga cyningum

 Old English nouns belong to one of three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. OE cyning is a

masculine noun, and illustrates the general pattern of inflections for masculine nouns. For feminine

nouns such as cwēn ‘queen’, and neuter nouns such as wīf ‘woman’, the corresponding inflections

are as follows:

  Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative

Singular sēo cwēn þā cwēne þǣre cwēne þǣre cwēne
Plural þæt wīf þæt wīf þæs wīfes þǣm wīfe
þǣm
  þā cwēna þā cwēna þāra cwēna
cwēnum
  þā wīf þā wīf þāra wīfa þǣm wīfum

In Modern English, a noun used as a subject and object does not have different forms.

There remain today only two case forms: those of the nominative case and the possessive case:

man, man’s. Modern English depends upon word order to show the relation of words in a sentence.

Different word order may result in different meaning.

13
 Another features that distinguish Old English languages is the use of two sets of inflections

for adjectives, depending on whether they are preceded by a determiner: The good kings, as

opposed to Good kings, or The kings are good.

There were seven classes of “strong” verbs and three of “weak” verbs; strong verbs

indicate tense by a change in the quality of a vowel, while weak verbs indicate tense by the addition

of an ending. As in Present-Day English, there are two main types of verbs in Old English. ‘Strong’

verbs change their vowel in different tenses (sing/sang), while ‘weak’ verbs use inflectional endings

for the same purpose (love/loved).

Word order was much freer than today, the sense being carried by the inflections (and only

later by the use of propositions). Although it looked quite different from modern English on paper,

once the pronunciation and spelling rules are understood, many of its words become quite familiar

to modern ears. (“The Anglo-Saxon or Old English Language”, The history of English)

Old English Spelling and Pronunciation

The Old English alphabet, like the Modern English alphabet, is based on the Roman letters,

but the alphabet is slightly different than the one we use. For instance, Old English had six simple

vowels, spelled a, æ, i, o, u and y, and according to some scholars, probably a seventh, spelled ie. It

also had two diphthongs (two-part vowels), ea and eo. Each of these sounds came in short and long

versions. The Anglo-Saxons did not use the letters v and j (which were invented later), and q and z

were used only very occasionally. They also introduced three letters not present in the Roman

alphabet, called thorn, eth, and wynn. The last of these (wynn) is represented by a w in modern

editions and in this course, so need not be learned at this point. Thorn, which is Þ as a capital and þ

as a small letter, and eth, which is Ð and ð, were both developed by Anglo-Saxon scribes to

represent a sound that was not present in Latin (and for that reason was not in the Roman alphabet),

the sound that Modern English represents with the letters th. To see how the letters of the Old

English alphabet appear in a manuscript context, we can take a look at one of the most famous

14
manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon England, the Nowell Codex, which contains the poem Beowulf

composed by an unknown poet. (Appendix III, picture 2)

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’. Both initial consonants were sounded in words such as hwǣr ‘where’

and hwīt ‘white’, a pronunciation retained in some varieties of Modern English despite the later

reversal of spelling. Since Modern English no longer has the consonant clusters <hl-> or <hr->,

these have been reduced to <l> and <r> in the descendants of words such as hlāford ‘lord’ and

hræfn ‘raven’.

Letters <f> and <s> were used for the sounds represented by <v> or <z> in Modern

English. Between vowels, <f> and <s> were pronounced as in the final sounds of ModE glove and

rose. Elsewhere, they represent the initial sounds of ModE fat and sing. Thus, we can see that the

pronunciation of Old English words differs somewhat from that of Modern English words. (see

Appendix IV, Table 1)

During the 6th Century, for reasons which are still unclear, the Anglo-Saxon consonant

cluster "sk" changed to "sh", so that skield became shield. This change affected all "sk" words in the

language at that time, whether recent borrowings from Latin (e.g. disk became dish) or ancient

aboriginal borrowings (e.g. skip became ship). Any modern English words which make use of the

"sk" cluster came into the language after the 6th Century (i.e. after the sound change had ceased to

operate), mainly, as we will see below, from Scandinavia.

Then, around the 7th Century, a vowel shift took place in Old English pronunciation

(analogous to the Great Vowel Shift during the Early Modern period) in which vowels began to be

pronounced more to the front of the mouth. The main sound affected was "i", hence its common

description as "i-mutation" or "i-umlaut" (umlaut is a German term meaning sound alteration). The

15
correspondences between normal and mutated vowels are shown in the following table:

short long
unmutated mutated unmutated mutated
a æ ā ǣ
an/am en/em
æ e  
e i
ea ie (i, y) ēa īe (ī, ȳ)
eo ie (i, y) ēo īe (ī, ȳ)
o e ō ē
u y ū ȳ

Especially the long vowels have changed a great deal. The word stān is the same word as the

Modern English word stone, but the vowel is different. The a sound has shifted to the sound of o in

Modern English. Other vowels have also undergone changes:

fōt (Old English ) —— foot (Modern English)

cēne (Old English ) —— keen (Modern English)

hū (Old English ) —— how (Modern English)

Old English represented the sound of th by p and ð as in the word

wiρ (O. E.) — with (Mod. E.),

ðā (O. E.) — then (Mod. E.), the sound of sh by sc as in

scēap (O. E.) — sheep (Mod. E.) or

scēotan (O. E.) — shoot (Mod. E.), and the sound of k by c as in

cynn (O. E.) — kin (Mod. E.) or

nacod (O. E.) — naked (Mod. E.).

As part of this process, the plurals of several nouns also started to be represented by changed

vowel pronunciations rather than changes in inflection. These changes were sometimes, but not

always, reflected in revised spellings, resulting in inconsistent modern words pairings such as

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foot/feet, goose/geese, man/men, mouse/mice, as well as blood/bleed, foul/filth, broad/breadth,

long/length, old/elder, whole/hale/heal/health, etc.

The effects of i-mutation are still evident in Modern English. The vowels of such athematic

plurals as men (singular man), lice (louse) and teeth (tooth) exhibit i-mutation, as does the

comparative adjective elder (old); and i-mutation accounts for most of the verbs that both change

their vowels and add a past-tense ending (e.g. sell/sold, buy/bought, in which the present has i-

mutation but the past does not). All of these categories of Modern English words exhibiting i-

mutation were already present in Old English. I-mutation also appears in some forms of certain

nouns of relationship, some comparative adverbs, and many verb forms. Examples: the nominative

plural of mann ‘man’ is menn; the nominative plural of lūs ‘louse’ is lȳs; the comparative of eald

‘old’ is ieldra; the comparative of the adverb feor is fier; the third-person singular of the strong verb

ċēosan ‘choose’ is ċīest.

Conclusion

To sum up, Old English emerged over time out of the many dialects and languages of the

colonizing tribes. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is the language that was spoken in Great Britain

from the 5th to 11th centuries. The name English is derived from the West Germanic dialect

"Englisc". The evolution of Old English during the Anglo-Saxon period was influenced profoundly

by several historical and cultural events: Germanic invasion, the spread of Christianity (the second

Latinate influence) and the Vikings invasion and settlement. What we now know as Old English is a

hybrid of different Germanic dialects with traces of Latin, brought by the previous Roman rulers

of Britain and many words from Old Norse language.

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Bibliography:
 Barber, Charles. 1993. The English Language: A Historical Introduction. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

 Baker, P. S. 2011. Introduction to Old English. 3rd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

 Baugh, A. C. rev. Cable. 2002. History of the English Language, 5th ed. London: Routledge.

 Durkin, P. 2013. Old English—an overview. Oxford University Press.

[Link]
Accessed May 20, 2015
 Lin Chenzhang. 1997. An introduction to English lexicology Wuhan University Press.

 Nevalainen, T., & Traugott, E. C. 2012. The Oxford handbook of the history of English.
Oxford University Press.

 “History of the English Language”. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia

Foundation, Inc., 8 June 2015. [Link]
Accessed 10 June 2015
 “History of the English Language”. University of Hawai'i - Leeward Community College,
24 August 2012.
[Link]
Accessed May 27, 2015
 “History of the English Language”. University of Toronto, English Department, 2 August
2003. [Link] Accessed May 20, 2015
 “The history of English: Old English (c. 500 - c. 1100)”. The history of English. Luke
Mastin, 14 October 2014.
[Link] Accessed May 20, 2015
 “The vocabulary of Old English”. 08 April 2013.
[Link] Accessed May 22, 2015

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  “Explore the history of the Norman Invasion in 1066”. Osprey Publishing website, 26
September 2006

[Link] Accessed May 22, 2015

Appendix I
Picture 1: The Germanic Family of Languages

English is a member of the Germanic family of languages.

Germanic is a branch of the Indo-European language family.

Picture 2: Germanic invaders

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Germanic invaders entered Britain on the east and south coasts in the 5 th century.

Appendix II

Picture 1: Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (Heptarchy) c. 650

Picture 2: Area of the Viking-ruled Danelaw

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Appendix III

Picture 1: Norman conquest in 1066

Location of major events during the Norman conquest of England in 1066

Picture 2: The first folio of the heroic epic poem Beowulf (West Saxon dialect of Old English)

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Appendix IV
Table 1: Old English pronunciation

Spelling Pronunciation
a [ɑ] as in Modern English father
æ [æ] as in Modern English cat
e [e] as in Modern English fate
ea [æɑ] a diphthong, starting with [æ] and ending with [ɑ]
eo [eo] or [eʊ] a diphthong, starting with [e] and ending with [o] or [ʊ]
i [i] as in Modern English feet
ie [ɪ] as in Modern English sit
o [o] as in Modern English boat
u [u] as in Modern English fool
y [y] as in German über or Füße, French tu or dur
 
c [k] as in Modern English cow
ċ [ʧ] as in Modern English chew
cg [ʤ] like the dge in Modern English edge
f [f] as in Modern English fox; between voiced sounds [v]
g [ɡ] as in Modern English good; between voiced sounds [ɣ], a voiced velar spirant
ġ [j] as in Modern English yes; after n [ʤ] as in angel
h within words or finally, [x] or [ç] like German ch
s [s] as in Modern English sin; between voiced sounds [z]
sc [ʃ] usually as in Modern English show; occasionally [sk]
þ/ð [θ] as in Modern English thin; between voiced sounds, [ð] as in then

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