2) Germanic languages possess several unique features, such as the following:

-A large class of verbs that use a dental suffix (/d/ or /t/) instead of vowel alternation (Indo-European ablaut) to indicate past tense;

-The use of so-called strong and weak adjectives

-The consonant shift known as Grimm's Law

-The shifting of word stress into word stems and later into the first syllable of the word

- the treatment of the Indo-European short vowels o and a and the long vowels o and a.

- gradation or ablaut- root vowel change in strong verbs

3) Grimm's law establishes a set of regular correspondences between early Germanic Plosives and fricatives and the Plosive consonants of certain other centum Indo-European languages.  Grimm's Law consists of three parts :

1. Proto-Indo-European voiceless Plosives change into voiceless fricatives.

2. Proto-Indo-European voiced Plosives become voiceless Plosives.

3. Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated Plosives become voiced Plosives;

bʰ → b → p → ɸ

dʰ → d → t → θ

gʰ → g → k → x

gʷʰ → gʷ → kʷ → xʷ

Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875, describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language where by voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively the fricatives *b, *d, *z, *g, *gʷ.

4) In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modernIndo-European languages. An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb sing, sang, sung and its related noun song.

5) The history of Old English can be subdivided in:

• Prehistoric Old English (c. 450 to 650); for this period, Old English is mostly a reconstructed language as no literary witnesses survive (with the exception of limited epigraphic evidence).

• Early Old English (ca. 650 to 900), the period of the oldest manuscript traditions, with authors such as Cædmon, Bede, Cynewulf and Aldhelm.

• Late Old English (c. 900 to 1066), the final stage of the language leading up to the Norman conquest of England and the subsequent transition to Early Middle English.

The Old English period is followed by Middle English (12th to 15th century), Early Modern English (ca. 1480 to 1650) and finally Modern English (after 1650).

6) As the Roman occupation of Britain was coming to an end, Constantine III withdrew the remains of the army, in reaction to the barbarian invasion of Europe.^[2][3]The Romano-British leaders were faced with an increasing security problem from sea borne raids, particularly by Picts on the East coast of England.^[4] The expedient adopted by the Romano-British leaders was to enlist the help of Anglo-Saxon mercenaries (known as foederati), to whom they ceded territory.^[4][5] In about AD 442 the Anglo-Saxons mutinied, apparently because they had not been paid.^[6] The British responded by appealing to the Roman commander of the Western empire Aëtius for help (a document known as the Groans of the Britons), even though Honorius, the Western Roman Emperor, had written to the British civitas in or about AD 410 telling them to look to their own defence.^{[7][8][9][10]} There then followed several years of fighting between the British and the Anglo-Saxons.^[11] The fighting continued until around AD 500, when, at the Battle of Mount Badon, the Britons inflicted a severe defeat on the Anglo-Saxons.

7) -Until the 9th century Anglo-Saxon England was dominated by the Heptarchy, the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex andWessex. In terms of religion the kingdoms followed Anglo-Saxon paganism during the early period, but converted to Christianity during the 7th century.  The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms eventually unified into the Kingdom of England.

The term has been in use since the 16th century, but the initial idea that there were seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is attributed to the English historian Henry of Huntingdon in the 12th century and was first used in his Historia Anglorum.^[1]

The heptarchy does not include any of the Sub-Roman Brythonic realms such as Elmet, Rheged, Strathclyde, Ebrauc, Bryneich and Gododdin, and during the same period, what are now Ireland, Scotland and Wales were also divided into comparable petty kingdoms.

-The language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons at the time of their migration to Britain was probably more or less uniform. Over time, however, Old English developed into four major dialects: Northumbrian, spoken north of the river Humber; Mercian, spoken in the midlands; Kentish, spoken in Kent (the southeastern part); and West Saxon, spoken in the southwest. All these dialects have direct descendants in modern England, and American regional dialects also have their roots in the dialects of Old English. Modern English spelling owes most to the Mercian dialect, since that was the dialect of London. Most OE literature is not in the Mercian dialect, however, but in the West Saxon, for from the time of King Alfred until the Conquest, Wessex dominated the rest of Anglo-Saxon England politically and culturally. Nearly all Old English poetry is in West Saxon, though it often contains spellings and vocabulary more typical of Mercian and Northumbrian – a fact that has led some scholars to speculate that much of the poetry was first composed in Mercian or Northumbrian and only later “translated” into West Saxon. Whatever the truth of the matter, West Saxon was the dominant language during the period in which most of our surviving literature was recorded.

8) 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 artefact; and Caedmon's Hymn, a Christian religious poem. 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.

9) The Northumbrian Renaissance or Northumbria's Golden Age is the name given to a period of cultural flowering in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, broadly speaking from the mid-seventh to the mid-eighth centuries. It is characterised by a blend of insular art, Germanic art and Mediterranean influence. Authors associated with this golden age include Bede and Alcuin; artefacts include the Lindisfarne Gospels and associated manuscripts, the Ruthwell Cross and associated sculptures, and, arguably, the Franks Casket. An illustration of the cultural activity of Northumbria during this period is given by Alcuin's De Sanctis et Pontificibus Ecclesiæ Eboracensis, which gives particular attention to Bishop Æthelbert of York.

10) Alfred the Great (Old English: Ælfrēd, Ælfrǣd, "elf counsel"; 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Danes, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great".^[1] Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons"

Alfred's educational ambitions seem to have extended beyond the establishment of a court school. Believing that without Christian wisdom there can be neither prosperity nor success in war, Alfred aimed "to set to learning (as long as they are not useful for some other employment) all the free-born young men now in England who have the means to apply themselves to it."^[69] Conscious of the decay of Latin literacy in his realm, Alfred proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin. The problem, however, was that there were few "books of wisdom" written in English. Alfred sought to remedy this through an ambitious court-centred programme of translating into English the books he deemed "most necessary for all men to know."^[69] It is unknown when Alfred launched this programme, but it may have been during the 880s when Wessex was enjoying a respite from Viking attacks.

11)

12)

13)

Short Long

Monophthongs Diphthongs Monophthongs Diphthongs

i y u i : y : u

e ( ø ) o e o e : ( ø :) o : e :o

œ A œA œ: A: œ:A

Assimilation is a common phonological process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby sound. This can occur either within a word or between words. The tendency to assimilative vowel change, characteristic of later PG and of the OG languages, accounts for many modifications of vowels in Early OE. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong. The front vowels [i], [e] and the newly developed [æ], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] plus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fracture. Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo]; they could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:], [eo:], which had developed from PG prototypes. Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects. Diphthongisation of vowels could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after palatal consonants as a sort of transition to the succeeding vowel. After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scæmu > sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”.

14)

15) 1. Only 14 phonemes: p, b, m, f, t, d, n, s, r, 1, þ, (ð), c, ƺ, h. 2. OE voiceless cons, surrounded by voiced sounds becomes voiced, and a voiced cons, when final is unvoiced. 3. Absence of affricates and fricatives (tʃ, dƺ, ƺ). 4. Dependence of quality upon environment:

1. The phonemes denoted by the letters f, þ, ð or s are voiced or voiceless depending upon their phonetic position. They are generally voiced in the so-called “intervocal position” that is between vowels, and voiceless otherwise.

2. The phoneme denoted by the letter c also gave at least two variants – palatal [k'] and velar [k]. In the majority of cases it was a velar consonant and palatal generally before the vowel i: cild (child), scip (ship); can (can), climban (to climb).

3. Similar remarks can be made about the phoneme denoted by the letter ƺ:

a) we have the voiced velar plosive variant [g] of it at the beginning of the word before back vowels or consonants or in the middle of the word after n: ƺōd (good), ƺretan (to greet, to address), ƺanƺan (to go); b) the voiced velar fricative variant [λ] in the middle of the word between back vowels: daƺas (days); c) the voice palatal fricative variant [j] before and after front vowels: dæƺ (day), ƺēar (year).

16) The OE noun had two grammatical categories: number and case. Also, nouns distinguished three genders, but gender was not a grammatical category; it was merely a classifying feature accounting for the division of nouns into morphological classes. The category of number consisted of two members: singular and plural. The noun had four cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative.

17) The OE noun had two grammatical categories: number and case. Also, nouns distinguished three genders, but gender was not a grammatical category; it was merely a classifying feature accounting for the division of nouns into morphological classes. The category of number consisted of two members: singular and plural. The noun had four cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative.

Morphological classification of nouns. Declensions

Historically, the OE system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: the stem-suffix, the gender of nouns, the phonetic structure of the word, phonetic changes in the final syllables. In the first place, the morphological classification of OE nouns rested upon the most ancient IE grouping of nouns according to the stem-suffixes. Stem-suffixes could consist of vowels (vocalic stems, e.g. a-stems, i- stems), of consonants (consonantal stems, e.g. n-stems), of sound sequences, e.g. -ja-stems, -nd-stems. Some groups of nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had a “zero-suffix”; they are usually termed “root-stems” and are grouped together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants, e.g. OE man, bōc (NE man, book). Another reason which accounts for the division of nouns into numerous declensions is their grouping according to gender. OE nouns distinguished three genders: Masc., Fem. and Neut. Sometimes a derivational suffix referred a noun to a certain gender and placed it into a certain semantic group, e.g. abstract nouns built with the help of the suffix –þu were Fem. – OE lenзþu (NE length), nomina agentis with the suffix –ere were Masc. – OE fiscere (NE fisher ‘learned man’). The division into genders was in a certain way connected with the division into stems, though there was no direct correspondence between them: some stems were represented by nouns of one particular gender, e.g. ō-stems were always Fem., others embraced nouns of two or three genders. Other reasons accounting for the division into declensions were structural and phonetic: monosyllabic nouns had certain peculiarities as compared to polysyllabic; monosyllables with a long root-syllable differed in some forms from nouns with a short syllable. The majority of OE nouns belonged to the a-stems, ō-stems and n-stems.

18) OE pronouns fell under the same main classes as modern pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. As for the other groups – relative, possessive and reflexive – they were as yet not fully developed and were not always distinctly separated from the four main classes.

Personal pronouns

In OE, while nouns consistently distinguished between four cases, personal pronouns began to lose some of their case distinctions: the forms of the Dat. case of the pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd p. were frequently used instead of the Acc. It is important to note that the Gen. case of personal pronouns had two main applications: like other oblique cases of noun-pronouns it could be an object, but far more frequently it was used as an attribute or a noun determiner, like a possessive pronoun, e.g. sunu mīn.

Demonstrative pronouns

There were two demonstrative pronouns in OE: the prototype of NE that, which distinguished three genders in the sg. And had one form for all the genders in the pl. and the prototype of this. They were declined like adjectives according to a five-case system: Nom., Gen., Dat., Acc., and Instr. Demonstrative pronouns were frequently used as noun determiners and through agreement with the noun indicated its number, gender and case.

Other classes of pronouns

Interrogative pronouns – hwā, Masc. and Fem., and hwæt, Neut., - had a four-case paradigm (NEwho, what). The Instr. case of hwæt was used as a separate interrogative word hwў (NE why). Some interrogative pronouns were used as adjective pronouns, e.g. hwelc.

Indefinite pronouns were a numerous class embracing several simple pronouns and a large number of compounds: ān and its derivative ǽniз (NE one, any); nān, made up of ān and the negative particle ne(NE none); nānþinз, made up of the preceding and the noun þinз (NE nothing).

19) The adjective in OE could change for number, gender and case. Those were dependent grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the noun it modified or with the subject of the sentence – if the adjective was a predicative. Like nouns, adjectives had three genders and two numbers. The category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition to the four cases of nouns they had one more case, Instr. It was used when the adjective served as an attribute to a noun in the Dat. case expressing an instrumental meaning.

Weak and Strong declension

Most adjectives in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the weak and to the strong declension. The formal differences between declensions, as well as their origin, were similar to those of the noun declensions. The strong and weak declensions arose due to the use of several stem-forming suffixes in PG: vocalic a-, ō-, ū- and i- and consonantal n-. Accordingly, there developed sets of endings of the strong declension mainly coinciding with the endings of a-stems of nouns for adjectives in the Masc. and Neut. and of ō-stems – in the Fem., with some differences between long- and short-stemmed adjectives and some remnants of other stems. Some endings in the strong declension of adjectives have no parallels in the noun paradigms; they are similar to the endings of pronouns: -um for Dat. sg., -ne for Acc. sg Masc., [r] in some Fem. and pl endings. The difference between the strong and weak declension of adjectives was not only formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun, an adjective did not belong to a certain type of declension. Most adjectives could be declined in both ways. The choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactical function of the adjective, the degree of comparison and the presence of noun determiners. The adjective had a strong form when used predicatively and when used attributively without any determiners. The weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the Gen. case of personal pronouns. Some adjectives, however, did not conform with these rules: a few adjectives were always declined strong, e.g. eall, maniз, ōþer (NE all, many, other), while several others were always weak: adjectives in the superlative and comparative degrees, ordinal numerals, the adjective ilca ‘same’.