Features of Old English |
| Old English,
also known as Anglo-Saxon is a language spoken and written after 449 A.D.
on the Island that today is called Great Britain. Before the Germanic Angles,
Jutes and Saxons migrated there from the mainland and brought their way
of expressing things there, the language of the Celts was spoken on the
island.
Obviously enough some Celtic words can be found in Old English (surprisingly only few of them survived), but more dominant are the borrowings from Latin and the influence of Vikings and missionaries. The Scandinavians and the Danish had great impact on the Lexicon of Old English as well. Core words like ‘get’, ‘to be’ or in Morphology the plural ‘s’ come from the Danish language. The <sk> sound in for example ‘ski’ comes from Scandinavia. Some native vocabulary can be traced back to Germanic roots. The “ge-“ prefix for example has its origin in Germanic languages and can be found with many words of Old English. Some examples are “geleornode” (learned), “geseted” (settled), or “geseah” (saw). As one can see Anglo-Saxon is influenced by many other languages. However, the lexicon was, like it is today in all spoken languages, dynamic. Words were formed and built. Three main forms of word building are characteristic for Old English: · Compounding
Compounds are basically two words
put together to create a new meaning. Examples for that are: (Crystal:
1995; p.22)
Kenning is a method similar to compounding. However, emphasis lies on its metaphoric usage. Kennings describe things rather indirectly and it takes imagination to grasp the correct meaning. Crystal gives the following examples: ‘Hronrad’ (wale –road) for ocean or ‘banhus’(bone-house)
for a person’s body.
Prefixiation also involves two parts to build a new word. However, only one part, the stem, can stand by itself and still be meaningful. Here some examples for Old English prefixiation according to Crystal: Stem: ‘gan’/ ‘gangan’ = go
Some of the Old English words went through several changes and today exist in a modified way in modern English. An example would be ‘gan’ for ‘go’ or ‘singan’ for ‘sing’. Other words, however are specifically Old English and have completely disappeared in the English spoken today. ‘Gelimplice’ for example once meant ‘suitable’, ‘swefn’ meant ‘dream’ and ‘frumsceaft’ is today’s ‘creation’. (Crystal: 1995) Like any other language Old English
has its distinct grammar. The word order was very similar to other Germanic
languages. Crystal provides the following example, which is a direct word-by-word
translation of an Old English passage: “Was he the man in secular life
settled until the time that he was of-advanced age;”
· Case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative
and vocative)
Old English poetry helps us today to make assumptions about and to reconstruct the sound of the language. The usage of rhyme and alliteration indicate how the vowels might have sounded. Written forms of Old English do exist, however, only few pieces are restored until today since many documents were extinct by causes like fire. The Old English alphabet includes many letters we have today in modern English, however, not the following ones: q, j, and v, x, z. It also includes letters that are no longer used today: the thorn, eth and ash. People In Anglo-Saxon times wrote
for various reasons like preserving history, “the Battle of Maldon” or
the Chronicles as examples. It was also written for educational (“Aefric’s
Colloquy”) or religious purposes (“The Lindisfarne Gospels”). Beowulf is
today the probably most widely known manuscript of Old English times.
The English language went through
many changes from 449 A.D. until today, including consonant- and vowel-shifts
and it expanded its lexicon immensely through the course of time, influenced
by other cultures and languages.
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