The Old English Period

1. Historical Background. Old English Dialects.

2. Old English Written records. Old English Alphabets.

3. Linguistic Features of Old English

   1. Old English Phonetics.

   2. Old English Grammar.

   3. Old English Vocabulary.

1. Historical Background. Old English Dialects.

The Germanic tribes who settled in Britain in the 5^th and 6^th centuries spoke closely related tribal dialects belonging to the West Germanic subgroup. Their common origin and their separation from other related tongues as well as their joint evolution in Britain transformed them eventually into a single tongue, English.

Yet, at the early stages of their development in Britain the dialects remained disunited. On the other hand, the Old English dialects acquired certain common features which distinguished them from continental Germanic tongues. On the other hand, they displayed growing regional divergence. The feudal system was setting in and the dialects were entering a new phase. Tribal division was superseded by geographical division, in other words, tribal dialects were transformed into local dialects.

The following principal Old English dialects are commonly distinguished:

1. Kentish, a dialect spoken in the area known now as Kent and Surrey and the Isle of Wight. It had developed from the tongue of the Jutes and Frisians.

2. West Saxon, the main dialect of the Saxon group, spoken in the rest of England south of the Thames and the Bristol Channel, except Wales and Cornwall, where Celtic tongues were preserved. Other Saxon dialects in England have not survived in written form and are not known to modern scholars.

3. Mercian, a dialect derived from the speech of southern Angles and spoken chiefly in the kingdom of Mercia, that is, in the central region, from the Thames to the Humber.

4. Northumbrian, another Anglian dialect, spoken from the Humber north to the river Forth (hence the name – North-Humbrian).

The boundaries between the dialects were uncertain and probably movable. The dialects passed into one another imperceptibly and dialectal forms were borrowed from one dialect into another. However, information is scarce and mainly pertains to the later part of the Old English period. Throughout the Old English period the dialects enjoyed relative quality. None of them was the dominant form of speech, each being main type used over a limited area.

By the 8^th century the center of English culture had shifted to Northumbria, which must have brought the Northumbrian dialect to the fore. Yet, most of the writing at that time was done in Latin, or, perhaps, many Old English texts have been perished. In the 9^th century the political and cultural center moved to Wessex. Culture and education made great progress there. It is no wonder that the West Saxon dialect has been preserved in a great number of texts than all the other dialects put together. Towards the 11^th century the written from of the West Saxon dialect developed into a bookish type of language, which, probably, served as the language of writing for all English-speaking people.

The changes in the linguistic situation justify the distinction of two historical periods. In Early Old English from the 5^th to the 7^th century the would-be English language consisted of a group of spoken tribal dialects having neither a written nor a dominant from. At the time of written Old English the dialects had changed from tribal to regional. They passed both an oral and a written form and were no longer equal. In the domain of writing the West Saxon prevailed over its heighbours. Alongside Old English dialects a foreign language, Latin, was widely used in writing.

2. Old English Written records. Old English Alphabets.

The records of Old English writing embrace a variety of matter. They are dated in different centuries, represent various local dialects, belong to diverse genres and are written in different scripts. The earliest written records of English are inscriptions on hard material made in a special alphabet known as runes ("rune" originally meant "secret", "mystery").

The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet, not to be found in the languages of other groups. The letters are angular. Straight lines are preferred, curved lines are avoided. This is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone, wood. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant Old English records. One of them is an inscription on a box called the "Frank's Casket". The other is a short text on a stone cross in Dumfriesshire nar the village of Ruthwell known as the "Ruthwell Cross". Both records are in the Northumbrian dialect.

The knowledge of Old English comes mainly from manuscripts written in Latin characters. Like elsewhere in Western Europe Latin in England was the language of the church and also the language of writing and education. The monks were practically the only literate people. They read and wrote Latin and therefore began to use Latin letters to write down English words. The use of Latin letters in English differed in some points from their use in Latin, for the scribes made certain modifications and additions in order to indicate Old English sounds.

Old English writing was based on a phonetic principle: every letter indicated a separate sound. This principle, however, was not always observed, even at the earliest stages of phonetic spelling. Some Old English letters indicated two or more sounds, for example, stood for four different phonemes. Some letters indicating distinct sounds stood for positional variants of phonemes [a] and [æ]. A careful study of the Old English sound system has revealed that a set of letters – s, f, þ (also shown as ð) – stood for two sounds each: a voiced and voiceless consonant. The letters could indicate short and long sounds The length of vowels is shown by a macron: bát [ba:t] (Modern English "boat"), or a line above the letter: bāt. Long consonants are indicated by double letters. The difference between long and short sounds is important for the correct understanding of the Old English sound system and sound changes, but need not be observed in reading.

In reading Old English texts one should observe the following rules for letters indicating more than one sound. The letters s, f, and þ ð) stand for voiced fricatives between vowels and also between a vowel and a voiced consonant. Otherwise they indicate corresponding voiceless fricatives. The letter stands for [g] initially before back vowels, for [j] before and after front vowels, for [ ] between back vowels and for [g'] mostly when preceded by c. The letter h stands for [x] between a back vowel and a consonant and also initially before consonants and for [x'] next to front vowels. A distinction of [h] is uncertain. The letter n stands for [n] in all positions except when followed by [k] or [g]. In this case it indicates [ŋ]. For example: ofer, selfa [v] ("over', "self"); feohtan, oft [f] ("fight", "often"); rísan [z] ("rise"); rás, āst [s] ("rose", "ghost"); ōðer, wirþe [ð] ("other", "worthy"); ðæt, lēōþ [ ] ("that", "song");

ān [g] ("go"); ēār [j] ("year"); dæ [j] ("day"); da as [ ] ("days"); sec an [g'] ("say"); hlœne, tāhte [x] ("learn", "taught"); hē [x] or [h] ("he"); sin an [ŋ] ("sing").

Old English Alphabet

a, æ, b, c [k] or [k'], d, e, f [f] or [v], [g], [g'], [ ], [j], h [x], [x'], [h],

i, l, m, n [n], [ŋ], o, p, r, s [s] or [z], t, þ, ð [ð], [ ], u, w, x, y.

The letters of the Old English alphabet are supplied with transcription symbols, if their sound values differ from the sound values normally attached to them in Latin and other languages. The following line from Orosius' "World History" is given with transcription into Modern English to illustrate the use of the alphabet in Old English (West Saxon dialect, 9^th century):

"Ōhthere sæde his hlāforde Ælfrēde…"

['o:xtxere 'sæ:de his 'xlavorde 'æ:lfrede]

"Ohthere said (to) his lord Alfred …"