OLD ENGLISH (Englisc) (500

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OLD ENGLISH (Englisc)(500 1100 A.D)
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OLD ENGLISH / ANGLO SAXON
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ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH

• The history of the English language really
  started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes
  who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD.
• These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the
  Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is
  Denmark and northern Germany.

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• At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a
  Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers
  were pushed west and north by the invaders -
  mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and
  Ireland.
• The Angles came from Englaland and their language
  was called Englisc - from which the words England
  and English are derived.

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• Speakers of Old English called their language
  Englisc, themselves Angle, Angelcynn or Angelfolc
  and their home Angelcynn or Englaland.
• Old English began to appear in writing during the
  early 8th century. Most texts were written in
  West Saxon, one of the four main dialects. The
  other dialects were Mercian, Northumbrian and
  Kentish.

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MAIN DIALECTS OF OLD ENGLISH

• Saxon
• Northumbrian
• Mercian
• Kentish

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• The Anglo-Saxons adopted the styles of script
  used by Irish missionaries, such as Insular
  half-uncial, which was used for books in Latin.
• A less formal version of minuscule was used for
  to write both Latin and Old English.
• From the 10th century Anglo-Saxon scribes began
  to use Caroline Minuscule for Latin while
  continuing to write Old English in Insular
  minuscule. Thereafter Old English script was
  increasingly influenced by Caroline Minuscule
  even though it retained a number of distinctive
  Insular letter-forms.

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OLD ENGLISH ALPHABETS

• Old English / Anglo-Saxon was sometimes written
  with a version of the Runic alphabet, brought to
  Britain by the Anglo-Saxons until about the 11th
  century.
• Runic inscriptions are mostly found on jewellery,
  weapons, stones and other objects. Very few
  examples of Runic writing on manuscripts have
  survived.

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RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS
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OLD ENGLISH ALPHABETS
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OLD ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION
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SAMPLE TEXT IN OLD ENGLISH (PROLOGUE FROM BEOWULF)
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• Venerable Bede was one of the important writers
  of this period.
• He wrote Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
  Ecclesiastical History of the English People,
  completed in the year 731.
• It is the most important source for the early
  history of England.

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WHO ARE THEY? 
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• The land of Britain had been inhabited by Celtic
  peoples the Scots and Picts in the north, and
  various groups in the south
• Then, the Roman invaded them and they were ruled
  by King Claudius until 43 A.D
• In 410 A.D, they were invaded by Germanic tribes
• The Celts called the invaders Anglo-Saxon

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• The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms converted to
  Christianity in the late sixth and seventh
  centuries
• By the late seventh and early eighth centuries
  had already produced two major authors
• Aldhelm, who composed his most important work,
  De Virginitate (On Virginity)
• Venerable Bede, whose vast output includes
  biblical commentaries, homilies, textbooks on
  orthography, meter, rhetoric, nature and time,
  and of course the Historia Ecclesiastica,

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• The seventh and eighth century saw the production
  vast vernacular literature works written in Latin
• Some of the famous literary works include
• Beowulf The Seafarer
• The Dream of the The Battle of
  Road Maldon
• The Wanderer

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• King Alfred (871-899) who was noted for his
  strength and far-sightedness encouraged education
• He documented many literary works and translation
  works from OE
• Two reputable scholars during his time were
  Ælfric and Wulfstan
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• Many biblical translations and adaptations, The
  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other historical
  writings, law codes, handbooks of medicine and
  magic, and much more were preserved

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• Most of the manuscripts that preserve vernacular
  works date from the late ninth, tenth and
  eleventh centuries,
• The Anglo-Saxons were producing written work in
  their own language by the early seventh century,
  and many scholars believe that Beowulf and
  several other important poems date from the
  eighth century.
• Thus, we are in possession of five centuries of
  Anglo-Saxon vernacular literature.

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WHERE DID THEIR LANGUAGE COME FROM?

• Bede tells us that the Anglo-Saxons came from
  Germania
• Germania is one of the IE languages that
  originate from one source language (proto
  language)
• From this ancient language come most of the
  language groups of present-day Europe and some
  important languages of South Asia

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1. The Celtic languages (such as Irish, Welsh and
   Scottish Gaelic), the Italic languages (such as
   French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian, descended
   from dialects of Latin), the Germanic languages,
   the Slavic languages (such as Russian and Polish)
2. The Baltic languages (Lithuanian and Latvian),
   the Indo-Iranian languages (such as Persian and
   Hindi), and individual languages that do not
   belong to these groups Albanian, Greek, and
   Armenian

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• 3. The biblical Hittites spoke an Indo-European
  language, or a language closely related to the
  Indo-European family
• 4. A number of other extinct languages (some of
  them poorly attested) were probably or certainly
  Indo-European Phrygian, Lycian, Thracian,
  Illyrian, Macedonian, Tocharian and others.

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• The Germanic branch of the Indo-European family
  is usually divided into three groups
• North Germanic,
• that is, the Scandinavian languages, Swedish,
  Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese

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• East Germanic,
• that is, Gothic, now extinct but preserved in a
  fragmentary biblical translation from the fourth
  century
• West Germanic,
• which includes High German, English, Dutch,
  Flemish and Frisian.

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WHAT WAS OLD ENGLISH LIKE?

• The following point shows what makes Old English
  an Indo-European language, a Germanic language, a
  West Germanic and a Low German language and also
  how Old and Modern English are related

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Old English is an Indo-European language 

• Proof One
• All of the Indo-European languages handle the job
  of signalling the functions of words in similar
  ways. For example, all add endings to words.
  Example
• Greek Sanskrit Latin
• pl.form of foot pódes pádas pedes
•  

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• Proof Two
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• OE is a Germanic language, for example
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• Latin OE Mod.E
• pater fæder father

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• Proof Three
• OE has similar consonants as Latin
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• Unvoiced stops
• (p, t, k) became unvoiced spirants (f,
  ?, x), so that
• Old English fæder corresponds to Latin
  pater father
• Old English þreo correspond to Latin tres
  three
• Old English habban have correspond to Latin
  capere 'take'.

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• Voiced stops
• (b, d, g) became unvoiced stops (p, t,
  k), so
• Old English deop 'deep' corresponds to
  Lithuanian dubùs,
• twa 'two' corresponds to Latin duo
• Old English æcer 'field' to Latin ager.

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The Germanic Family of Languages
The family of languages that shows genetic link
between OE and other languages in the
Indo-European tree
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Old and Modern English
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• During Old English Period, Britain was invaded
  by
• Romans
• Germanic
• Scandinavian

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• It is a period that lasted for 700 years.
• Every invasion brought socio-cultural and
  linguistic change

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ANGLO-SAXON INFLUENCE

• A large percentage of the educated and literate
  population of the time were competent in Latin
• Latin became the lingua franca of Europe at the
  time.
• As a result, there was influx of Latin words in
  OE.

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• There were at least three notable periods of
  Latin influence.
• The first occurred before the ancestral Saxons
  left continental Europe for Britain.
• The second began when the Anglo-Saxons were
  converted to Christianity
• Latin speaking priests became widespread.

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• The orthograpy changed from runic alphabet (also
  known as futhorc or fuþorc) to the Latin alphabet
• This became a significant factor in the
  developmental of Latin during OE period. Old
  English words were spelt as they were pronounced.
  The "silent" letters in many Modern English words
  were pronounced in Old English for example, the
  c in cniht, the Old English ancestor of the
  modern knight, was pronounced.

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• Another side-effect of spelling words
  phonetically was that spelling was extremely
  variable.
• A word's spelling reflected differences in
  phonetics of the writer's regional dialect.
• Words also endured idiosyncratic spelling choices
  of individual authors, some of whom varied
  spellings between works. Thus, for example, the
  word and could be spelt either and or ond.

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SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE

• The Scandinavian (the Vikings) invaded Britain in
  787 CE
• They spoke Old Norse. Along, they spread their
  influence on the English people

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• The second major source of loanwords to Old
  English was the Scandinavian words
• In addition to a great many place names, these
  consist mainly of items of basic vocabulary, and
  words concerned with particular administrative
  aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land
  under Viking control, which included extensive
  holdings all along the eastern coast of England
  and Scotland).

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• Many places in England has its names originated
  from Scandinavia
• The influence of Old Norse on the English
  language has been profound responsible for such
  basic vocabulary items as sky, leg, the pronoun
  they, the verb form are, and hundreds of other
  words

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CELTIC INFLUENCE

• The influence of Celtic on English has been
  small, citing the small number of Celtic
  loanwords taken into the language. The number of
  Celtic loanwords is of a lower order than either
  Latin or Scandinavian.
• Celtic traits were more significant on English
  syntax during post-Old English period

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• Old English should not be regarded as a single
  monolithic entity similar to Mod.E
• It consists of wide variation of languages
• However, the bulk of it was written in dialect of
  Wessex, Alfred's kingdom.
• Possibly, because he was in power and he was the
  one who made the compilation effort
• He brought many scribes to his region from Mercia
  to record previously unwritten texts.

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• The Church was affected likewise, especially
  since Alfred initiated an ambitious programme to
  translate religious materials into English.
• To retain his patronage and ensure the widest
  circulation of the translated materials, the
  monks and priests engaged in the programme worked
  in his dialect.
• Alfred himself seems to have translated books out
  of Latin and into English, notably Pope Gregory
  I's treatise on administration, Pastoral Care.

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DICTIONARY OF OLD ENGLISH (DOE)

• The Dictionary of Old English (DOE) is a
  dictionary published by the Centre for Medieval
  Studies, University of Toronto under the
  direction of Angus Cameron (1941-1983), Ashley
  Crandell Amos (1951-1989), and Antonette diPaolo
  Healey.

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• It "defines the vocabulary of the first six
  centuries (600-1150 A.D.) of the English
  language, using today's most advanced technology.
• The DOE complements the Middle English
  Dictionary (which covers the period 1100-1500
  A.D.) and the Oxford English Dictionary, the
  three together providing a full description of
  the vocabulary of English."

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• An example of a page from DOE

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SYNTAX

• WORD ORDER
• The word order of Old English is widely believed
  to be subject-verb-object (SVO) as in modern
  English and most Germanic languages.
• The word order of Old English, however, was not
  overly important because of the aforementioned
  morphology of the language.
• As long as declension was correct, it did not
  matter whether you said, "My name is..." as "Min
  nama is..." or "Nama min is..."
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• QUESTIONS
• Because of its similarity with Old Norse, it is
  believed that the word order of Old English
  changed when asking a question, from SVO to VSO
  i.e. swapping the verb and the subject.
• "I am..." becomes "Am I...?"
• "Ic eom..." becomes "Eom ic...?"

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Morphology

• Unlike modern English, Old English is a language
  rich with morphological diversity.
• It maintains several distinct cases the
  nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and
  (vestigially) instrumental, remnants of which
  survive only in a few pronouns in modern English.

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LITERATURE

• Old English was one of the first vernacular
  languages to be written down.
• Some of the most important surviving works of
  Old English literature are Beowulf, an epic poem
  the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of early
  English history the Franks Casket, an early
  whalebone artifact and Caedmon's Hymn, a
  Christian religious poem.

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• There are also a number of extant prose works,
  such as sermons and saints' lives, biblical
  translations, and translated Latin works of the
  early Church Fathers, legal documents, such as
  laws and wills, and practical works on grammar,
  medicine, and geography.
• Still, poetry is considered the heart of Old
  English literature. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon
  authors are anonymous, with a few exceptions,
  such as Bede and Caedmon.

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