Oe Pronouns. Personal Pronouns

1St person 2 person 3rd person

S i n g u l a r masc. neut femin.

Nom. Ic ou he hit heo, hio

Gen. min oin his his hire, hiere

Dat. me oe him him hire, hiere

Acc. me, mec oec, oe hine hit hie, hi, hy

D u a l

Nom. wit zit

Gen. uncer incer

Dat. unc inc

Acc. uncit incit, inc

P l u r a l

Nom. we ze hie, hi, hy, hyra

Gen. ure, use eower hira, heorahiera, hyra

Dat. us eow/iow him, heom

Acc. usic, us eoc, eow hie, hi, hy, heo

Oe Vocabulary. Etymological Composition

The total vocabulary (recorded and preserved in written monuments) range from 30,000 words (some even claim 100,000). It is mainly homogeneous. Loan words are fairly insignificant, and are grouped und some spheres of life.

Native words, in their turn, can be subdivided into: Common Indo-European words, which were inherited from the common Indo-European language. They are the oldest layers and denote the names natural phenomena, plants, and animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship; verbs denoting the basic activities of OE man, adjectives indicating the basic qualities, personal and demonstrative pronouns and most numerals are of this origin too.

They are faeder (father), modor (mother), eatan (eat), sitan (sit), slepan (sleep), cwanan(to know) ceald (cold) cwene (wowman), dor (door), waeter (water)heorte (heart).

Other words of common Indo-European origin are daez (day), ford (Greek poros – ferry), fisc (fish), freond (friend, Ukr. Приятель), zuma (man, human, Lat. homo), oorn (thorn, Ukr. терен).

The majority of pronouns and numerals also spring mainly from the same source:

Twa (two), oreo (three), eahta (ei). Ou (thou), oat (that), hwa (who; Lat. quis), hwaet (what; Lat. quod).

Common Germanic words – those that can be found in all Germanic language, old and new, eastern, western and northern:

eoroe (earth Goth. Airoa, OHG erda, OSax e, OIcel joro, M German Erde)

zrene (green – OHG gruoni, OSax groin, OFr grene, OScand groene, MGerm grun)

hand (hand – Goth handus, OHG hant, OSax hand, OFr hand, hond, Mn Germ Hand

Lexical borrowings in OE

Loan words were not so frequent in OE. They are mostly Celtic and Latin.

Celtic element is not very significant:

Dun (down), dun (dun), binn (bin). They may occur as separate words but usually elements of place-names: uisge (water) in the names beginning with Exe-, Usk-, Esk-, (later whiskey); dun, dum (hill) Dumbarton, Dund, Dunstable, Dunleary; inbher (mountain – Inverness, Inverurfe, coil (forest) Killbrook, Killiermore. Some common names of people are of Celtic gin – Arthur (noble), Donald (proud chief), Kennedy (ugly head).

Latin words in OE are normally classified into two layers. Some were taken into Germanic languages in pre-British period during contacts of Germanic tribes trough was and trade; these words are found in many Germanic languages. They are:

Castel (castle – Lat. castellum)

Cealc (chalk – Lat. calcium)

Ciese (cheese – Lat. caseus, Mn G Kaese)

Cytel (kettle 0 Lat. catillus, MnG Kl)

Myln (mill – Lat. molinum)

Pipor (pepper – Lat. piper)

Straet (street – Lat. strata)

Ynce (ounce – Lat. uncial)

Traditionally this first layer comprises the place names containing Latin stems cester – Lat. castra(camp) – Chester, Manchester, Winchester, Worcester, Leicester, Lancaster;

Coln – Lat. colonia (from colere - to cultivate, inhabit)Lincoln, Colchester, port –Lat. port (gate) – Portsmouth, Bridport, Devonport.

The second layer of Latin borrowings is connected with the introduction of Christianity and denotes religious notions plus some notions connected with cultural and social phenomena which appeared in society after this event. A significant number of religious terms came from Greek, so they are not specifically Latin:

OE NewE Latin Greek

Apostol apostle apostolus apostolos

Biscop bishop episcopus episcopos

Deofol devil diabolus diabolos

antefn anthem antifona antiphona

Translation loans are also found in the names of days of the week (Monan-daez, Tiwes-daez, Wodnes-daez, ou(n)re-daez, Frize-daes.

Nowadays, all grammatical terms of English are replaced by Latin borrowings, but in the times of Aelfric’s Grammar an attempt was made to find an English way of rendering the new notions (compare it with similar terms in Ukrainian sub (під)+ ject (метати)=підмет,

pre (при) + dicere(судити) = присудок.