The origins of English

History of English 2019-20

English throughout the
world
The Indoeuropean language family
The Indo-European language family
• http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_indoeuro.
html
• http://www.krysstal.com/english.html
The Indo-European language family
The Indo-European language family
 SEVEN DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF GERMANIC

• Accent is mainly on the root of the word,

usually the first syllable
• Development of a preterite tense (called
weak) with a dental suffix, -d or -t (e.g. want-
wanted, love-loved, walk-walked, etc.)
• Two types of verbs, weak and strong: strong
verbs (drive-drove-driven; sing-sang-sung) and
weak verbs (love-loved)
 SEVEN DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF GERMANIC

Indo-European verbal system was simplified:

1) Only active voice

2) Mood: indicative, subjunctive and imperative

3) Tense: past and non-past

4) Indo-European distinctions of aspect

lost in Germanic
 SEVEN DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF GERMANIC

• Germanic developed two adjectival

declensions with two different sets of
endings:
- WEAK: Old English ‘þa geongan ceorlas (the
young fellows, nominative pl.)

- STRONG: Old English ‘geonge ceorlas (young

fellows, nominative pl.)
 SEVEN DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF GERMANIC

• Some vocalic changes from IE to

Germanic:
- Indo-European /a:/ > Germanic /o:/
Latin māter - Old English mōdor

- Indo-European /o/ > Germanic /a/

- Latin octo - Old English eahta (< *ahta)
 SEVEN DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF GERMANIC

Two consonant shifts occurred in Germanic:

1) First Sound Shift (Grimm's Law):
IE voiceless stops  Gmc voiceless fricatives
IE voiced stops  Gmc voiceless stops
IE voiced aspirates  Gmc voiced stops

2) The Second Sound Shift (High German Sound

Shift). Only affected Old High German
Grimm’s Law (First consonant shift)
Grimm’s Law (First consonant
shift)
IE Gmc Latin English

/p/ /f/ L. pes, pater foot, father

/t/ /Ө/ S. tres, tú three, thou
/k/ /x/ L. cornu, cors horn, heart
(/b/) /p/ S. turba thorp
/d/ /t/ S. dos, diez two, ten
/g/ /k/ S. genu-, grano knee, corn
/bh/ /b/ S. fragmento break
/dh/ /d/ G. thugater daughter
/gh/ /g/ L. hostis guest
 Glottalic theory (Hopper 1973)
• /p/ /t/ /k/ > /f/ /Ө/ /x/
• /t’/ /k’/ > /t/ /k/
• /b/ /d/ /g/ > /b/ /d/ /g/

• Crosslinguistically common type of system

• Origin of the IE languages in the area of the

Black Sea. Caucasic languages spoken there
today have glottalised stops
The origins of English
 The earliest history of Britain
• 1000 BC: Migrations of “Celtic” people to Britain

http://www.eso-garden.com/specials/historical_atlas_of_the_celtic_world.pdf

• 55-54 BC: Expeditions by Julius Caesar.

• AD 43-47 AD: Invasion under Claudius. South and East of

England brought under Roman control.

• AD 50: London (Londinium) is founded.

 The earliest history of Britain
AD 70-84: Wales,
Northern England,
and Scotland under
Roman control

AD 100-200:
Uprisings in
Scotland

AD 122: Hadrian's
Wall begins to be
built

AD 410: Romans
withdraw
 The coming of the Anglo-
Saxons: the myth
• AD 449: Hengest and
Horsa, Germanic
chieftains, invited by
Vortigern, Celtic king,
arrive in Kent to help him
fight against the Picts
and the Scots

• AD 455: Hengest rebels

against Vortigern
Where did the Germanic invaders
come from?
 Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms
477-527: The Saxons
occupied Sussex,
Wessex and Essex

550: The Angles

founded Anglian
kingdoms in Mercia,
Northumbria, and East
Anglia

Who were the Jutes?

Anglo-Saxon England (5th-11th
centuries)
 Christianity in Britain
- North of England already
Christianised by Irish and
Scottish monks in 6th /7th
centuries AD

- Iona: important centre of

early Celtic church in the
north, associated with
Saint Columba (521-597)
The Christianisation of Britain in the 6th c.
(Pope Gregory’s Mission in England)
595: Augustine sent to
England by Pope Gregory
to christianise the
Kingdom of Kent

604: Augustine made

Archbishop of Canterbury

End of the 7th century:

most of England already
Christian

- Continuity between the

Celtic and Anglo-Saxon
church
 Sources of Anglo-Saxon History:
Gildas (516-570)

• Probably born in Sthrathclyde

of a noble British family

• Educated in Wales, lived in

Ireland, built monasteries and
churches

• Author of De Excidio
Britanniae one of the few
near-contempoary accounts of
the Anglo-Saxon invasion, but
frustratingly imprecise and
scarcely a history
Gildas, De excidio et Conquestu Britanniae
(Of the Ruin and conquest of Britain)
Then all the councillors, together with that proud tyrant
Vortigern, the British king, were so blinded, that, as a
protection to their country, they sealed its doom by
inviting in among them (like wolves into the sheep-
fold), the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful
both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the
northern nations... A multitude of whelps came forth…
in three ships of war…They first landed on the eastern
side of the island… apparently to fight in favour of the
island, but alas! more truly against it…The barbarians
… obtained an allowance of provisions, which, for some
time … stopped their doggish mouths

Yet they complained that their monthly supplies

were not furnished in sufficient abundance, and they
industriously aggravated each occasion of quarrel,
saying that unless more liberality were shown them,
 Sources of Anglo-Saxon History:
Bede (673-735)
• Anglo-Saxon monk,
scholar and teacher.
Abbot of Jarrow

• Bede about himself:

- "Servant of Christ and
Priest of the Monastery
of Saints Peter and
Paul which is at
Wearmouth and
Jarrow."

- "It has always been my

delight to learn or to
teach or to write."
Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the
English People)
-Written in Latin

- Later translated
into English by King
Alfred school (9th
c.)

- Primary source for

understanding the
beginnings of the
English people and
the coming of
Christianity
 The Ecclesiastical History of the English
People
(Chapter XV)
• IN the year of our Lord 449... Then the nation of the
Angles, or Saxons, being invited by the aforesaid
king, arrived in Britain with three long ships, and had
a place assigned them to reside in by the same king, in
the eastern part of the island, that they might thus appear
to be fighting for their country, whilst their real intentions
were to enslave it. ..Those who came over were of the
three most powerful nations of Germany Saxons,
Angles, and Jutes

• From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent… From

the Saxons… came the East Saxons, the South Saxons,
and the West Saxons. From the Angles…are descended
the East Angles, the Midland Angles, Mercians, all the
Sources of Anglo-Saxon History: The Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle
- Commissioned by King Alfred
the Great (late 9th century)

- Record of Anglo-Saxon
history and testament to
English national awareness, in
English

-Copies of the ASC circulated

to institutions all over the
country 
-ASC: A number of individual
texts with a similar core, but
considerable local variation
 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
828 Her eft Wiglaf onfeng
Myrcna rice, 7 Aþelwold bisceop
forðferde. 7 þy ilcan geare lædde
Ecgbriht cing fyrde on
Norðwealas, and he hi ealle ealle
him to eaðmodre hyrsumnesse
gedyde.

A.D. 828. This year Wiglaf

recovered his Mercian kingdom,
and Bishop Ethelwald died. The
same year King Egbert led an
army against the people of
North-Wales, and compelled
them all to peaceful submission.
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=b0-N05K_MKY
Old English: 450-1150

• Old English
dialects:
- Northumbrian
- Mercian
- West Saxon
- Kentish
• West Saxon:
focused variety,
Schriftsprache
 Other languages in Anglo-Saxon England
The St Chad Gospels (http://www.lichfield-
cathedral.org/Cathedral-Treasures/st-chad-gospels.html)

- 8th - century Gospel Book housed in

Lichfield Cathedral.
-236 surviving folios, eight of which are
illuminated.
-Written in Latin.
- It includes, as marginalia, some of the
earliest known examples of written
Welsh.
Old English witnesses
About 30.000 lines of
Old English poetry
survive from 8th to
12th centuries

Poems mostly of
unknown authorship
and uncertain date and
provenance

Four books
Exeter Book
Water damage,
knife cuts & stain from
the wet base of a
drinking vessel

131 leaves (8 lost)

Largest collection of
Old English poetry in
existence, including

The Wanderer, The

Seafarer, The Ruin &
Rriddles
Exeter
Cathedral

Codex given to
the cathedral
by the first
bishop,
Leofric, c. 1050
Vercelli Book
10th century
miscellany of
religious texts
including The
Dream of the Rood
Discovered in 1822
in the in the library
of Vercelli (Italy)
Beowulf Manuscript
(Cotton Vitellius A xv)
-only copy of the
poem
- singed at the
edges
- saved from the
fire that destroyed
a quarter of the
Cotton library
collection in
October 1731
Junius
Manuscript
Poems
Genesis
Exodus
Daniel
Christ and Satan
but as with almost all
OE poems these were
invented titles
-copious illustrations
(here – Noah’s Ark)
Northumbria
 Old Northumbrian Manuscripts: Poetry
(Caedmon’s Hymn)
 Five versions.
The earliest is the
Moore MS. The
Northumbrian
poem was added
at the top of the
last page of the
manuscript.

Dated to the
8th c.

 Used as an
anchor text to
date the remaining
The Moore MS of Caedmon’s Hymn. Cambridge University Library Kk, 5,16
Who was Caedmon?
• First English poet
whose name is known
• A herdsman attached to
the double monastery
of Streonæshalch
(Whitby) during the
abbacy of St. Hilda
(657–680)
• According to Bede, he
learned to compose
poetry in the course of
a dream.
• He later became a
monk and an
Caedmon’s home (Whitby)
Caedmon’s Hymn edited
nu scylun hergan hefaen ricaes uard
metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes
eci dryctin or astelidæ
he aerist scop aelda barnum
heben til hrofe haleg scepen,
tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
eci dryctin æfte tiadæ
firum foldu frea allmectig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAZyc8M5
Q4I
 Caedmon’s Hymn (translation)
Now we must praise heaven-kingdom’s
Guardian,
the Measurer’s might and his mind’s intent,
the work of the Glory-Father, as He, Lord
eternal,
appointed the beginning of each wonder.
He first shaped, for the children of men,
heaven as a roof, the Holy Creator,
then the earth, the Protector of Mankind:
the Everlasting Lord thereafter made
the earth for men, Lord Almighty.
Old Northumbrian texts: The Lindisfarne
Glospels (7th c.)
The Old Northumbrian Gloss to the
Lindisfarne Gospels (10th c.)
- Most substantial of the Old
Northumbrian witnesses

- Written in Latin and decorated at

the end of the 7th century

-Old English gloss, the earliest

surviving example of the Gospel
in English

- The gloss was added in the

10th century by Aldred, Provost
of Chester-le-Street
-http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/
lindisfarne/accessible/introduction
.html
The Old Northumbrian Gloss to the Lindisfarne
Gospels

3. Fol.140r b12 <ic witto> L. sciam (Lk. 1.18) ‘I will

know’
Skeat (1874: 17) <witto>
The Old Northumbrian Gloss to the Lindisfarne
Gospels
The Old Northumbrian Gloss to the Durham
Collectar
 Old Northumbrian glosses

• Glossed by the same scribe (Aldred the priest/ later

provost of Chester-le-Street)

• Language of Durham Collectar more conservative

• Accommodation of Aldred to prestigious southern

dialect (West-Saxonization)? and Alignment with
Benedictine reform?

• Reaction against Scandinavian threat ?

Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet

-Runic alphabet:
brought to Britain
by the Anglo-
Saxons

-Runes designed to
be cut into wood
(no horizontal lines,
no curves)

- Runes were also

carved on stone,
bone or metal
Post- 650 runic monuments (R. I. Page 1999: 26)
 Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet
- Only about 100
runic inscriptions
have survived in
Britain

-Most of them are

found in the North
of the Island

-The majority are

Christian
 Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet
“The content of the Anglo-Saxon rune-stone
inscriptions is pretty dull (...) What they say is fairly
uninteresting. They add nothing to our knowledge of
political or administrative history, and little enough to
what we know of social history (...) They make
interesting suggestions about literacy in Anglo-Saxon
England, but prove nothing. As records of the
language, however, of what was recorded in certain
places at certain times, they are invaluable, indeed
unrivalled, though not unambiguous.”
(R. I. Page 1999: 156)
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet
Grave-markers: Lindisfarne 25 (mid 7th to mid 8th c.)

Grave-marker OE personal name:

a) (small) runes (left upper quadrant):

— o]in[.] II

Coina or Coena/

b) (elaborate) Anglo-Saxon capitals

(lower quadrant)

BEAN II N[AH]
Beanna(a)
 Northumberland: Lindisfarne 24 (mid 7th to mid 8th c.)

• Grave-marker. Old English

female personal name
repeated:

• a) runes (upper quadrants)

– os II gy?

• b) Anglo-Saxon capitals
(lower quadrants)
– +OS II GY?
Northumberland: Lindisfarne 37 (9th c.)
Northumberland: Lindisfarne 37 (9th c.)
Northumberland: Falstone stone (9th c.)
Old English memorial hogback
(carved Viking monuments. generally grave
markers)

Left panel: roman, insular majuscules

+ EO [.] | TA [.] AEFTAER | HROETHBERHTÆ |
BECUNAEFTAER | EOMAEGEBIDAEDDERSAULE

Right panel: runes

+ [–]aeftaerroe[–] tae[be]cunae[f]taere[o –
]geb[i ]daed?e[r]saule

‘<NN set up> a monument after Hroethberht

after his uncle. Pray for his soul’
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet
Durham: Hartlepool 1 & 2 (8th c.)
 Durham: Hartlepool 1 & 2 (8th c.)
OE female personal name, OE female personal name
h i l d i || þ r y þ (Hildithryth) h i l d ||d i (g) y þ' (Hilddigyth)
North Yorkshire: Yarm (first half of 9th c.)

Cross. Latin and Old English,

Insular majuscule
Code switching Latin / Old
English

M]berehct + sāc alla + signum

aefter his breoder a[s] + setae

[—]berehct the priest Alla

raised this sign in memory of
his brother/s
 The Ruthwell Cross Inscription
- Located in Ruthwell, (Dunfries,
Scotland), then part of the kingdom
of Northumbria

-5.5 metres high

- Dated to 8th/9th c

- Contains fragments of the Old

English poem The Dream of
the Rood written inscribed in the
runic alphabet.

- Smashed in 1664, and the

pieces left in the churchyard
until they were restored in 1818
 THE INSCRIPTION ON THE RUTHWELL CROSS

• ‘[+] kris[t] wæs on rodi hweþræ þer fus[æ]

fearran kw[o]mu [æ]þþilæ
• til anum ic þæt al bi[h] ((eald)) sar((r.)) ic w[æ]s
mi[þ] s[or]gu[m]
gidrœ[f.]d h[n]ag [.]’

Translation:
• Christ was on the cross. Yet to this solitary one
there came men
from afar, eager and noble. I beheld it all. I was
bitterly distressed with griefs… bowed down
 The runic inscription on the
Franks Casket
-Made of whalebone
- Now exhibited in
the British Museum
(London), named
after its donor

- Dated to the 1st half

of the 7th century
somewhere in the
North of England,
most likely in
Northumbria

- Contains images
from Germanic and
Christian sources
 Franks Casket (Left)

• ‘romwalusandreumwalustwœgen||gibroþær||
• afœddæhiæwylifinromæcæstri:||oþlæunneg’
• Romwalus and Reumwalus, twœgen gibroþær,
• afœddæ hiæ wylif in Romæcæstri, oþlæ unneg.

Translation:
• ‘Romulus and Remus, two brothers. A wolf fed
them in the city of Rome, far from their native
land’
 Runica Manuscripta
• The runic alphabet was soon replaced by the Latin alphabet, but it survived as
‘runica manuscripta’ until about the 11th century

• The Husband Message

ġehȳre iċ ætsomne .ᛋ.ᚱ. ġeador
.ᛠ.ᚹ., ond .ᛗ. āþe benemnan
þæt hē þā wǣre ond þā winetrēowe
be him lifġendum lǣstan wolde
þe ġit on ǣrdagum oft ġesprǣconn

• Translation

• ‘I conjoin S (sun) together with R (road) and EA (earth) and W(joy) and M(man) to
declare an oath that he would fulfil, by his living self, the covenant of friendship
which in former days you two often voiced’
The Fall of Old Northumbria: The Viking
raids (8th c.)
The Fall of Old Northumbria: The
destruction of Lindisfarne.
‘793. In this year fierce,
foreboding omens came
over the land of
Northumbria. There were
excessive whirlwinds,
lightning storms, and fiery
dragons were seen flying in
the sky. These signs were
followed by great famine,
and on January 8th the
ravaging of heathen men
destroyed God's church at
Lindisfarne.’
(Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
793)
Scandinavian invasions of Britain

• A.D. 839. This year there was great

slaughter in London, Canterbury, and
Rochester.

• A.D. 840. This year King Ethelwulf fought at

Charmouth with thirty-five ship's-crews,
and the Danes remained masters of the
place.
 Scandinavian invasions of Britain
• A.D. 851. This year Alderman Ceorl, with the
men of Devonshire, fought the heathen army
at Wemburg, and after making great slaughter
obtained the victory. The same year King
Athelstan and Alderman Elchere fought in
their ships, and slew a large army at Sandwich
in Kent, taking nine ships and dispersing the
rest. The heathens now for the first time
remained over winter in the Isle of Thanet.
 Scandinavian invasions of Britain
• The same year came three hundred and fifty ships
into the mouth of the Thames; the crew of which
went upon land, and stormed Canterbury and
London; putting to flight Bertulf, king of the
Mercians, with his army; and then marched
southward over the Thames into Surrey. Here
Ethelwulf and his son Ethelbald, at the head of the
West-Saxon army, fought with them at Ockley, and
made the greatest slaughter of the heathen army
that we have ever heard reported to this present day.
There also they obtained the victory.
 Scandinavian invasions of Britain
• A.D. 878. This year about mid-winter, after twelfth-night, the
Danish army stole out to Chippenham, and rode over the land
of the West-Saxons; where they settled, and drove many of
the people over sea; and of the rest the greatest part they
rode down, and subdued to their will; -- ALL BUT ALFRED THE
KING. He, with a little band, uneasily sought the woods and
fastnesses of the moors. And in the winter of this same year
the brother of Ingwar and Healfden landed in Wessex, in
Devonshire, with three and twenty ships, and there was he
slain, and eight hundred men with him, and forty of his army
 Scandinavian invasions of Britain
• [….] In the Easter of this year King Alfred with his little force
raised a work at Athelney; from which he assailed the army,
assisted by that part of Somersetshire which proceeded to
Eddington; and there fought with all the army, and put them
to flight… was nighest to it […. ] and within one night after he
Then the army gave him hostages with many oaths, that they
would go out of his kingdom. They told him also, that their
king would receive baptism. And they acted accordingly; for
in the course of three weeks after, King Guthrum, attended by
some thirty of the worthiest men that were in the army, came
to him at Aller, which is near Athelney, and there the king
became his sponsor in baptism; and his crisom-leasing was
at Wedmor.
 Scandinavian invasions of England
• Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, was the only
Anglo-Saxon leader who successfully resisted the
Viking expansion. In 878 he won the battle of
Edington a against the Vikings.
• England was divided into two administrative areas:
Viking rule was recognised in the east and north of
England and that part was called the Danelaw, i.e.
the land where the Danes imposed their law; the rest
of England was ruled by Anglo-Saxon kings.
 Scandinavian invasions of England
1016: Viking leader Knut (Canute)
• Chosen king of all England.
• Ruler of England, Norway and Denmark.
• When he died in 1035 his sons were unable to hold
the empire.
• “Had he not died at the age of 42, the Scandinavian
supremacy would probably resulted in Norse
becoming the dominant language in Western
Europe.” (Hughes 2000:100)
Scandinavian invasions of England
 Scandinavian influence on English
• Only a few dozen loanwords are identifiable
from Old Norse in Old English, whereas many
thousands were being used in the Middle
English period

• Q: Why are there so few in OE given that the

Scandinavian settlement occurred in the OE
period?