Old English

Old English
English in its earliest form is known as Old English. It was spoken by the
early Germanic settlers in Britain. The systematic conquest of England by the
Germanic tribes took place in 449 A.D. By about 600 A.D. the Angles and the
Saxons established their power and settled down in Britain. This marked the
beginning of the Old English period.
The Old English period is also known as the Anglo-Saxon period. The terms
Old English and Anglo-Saxon have different connotations. While the term Anglo-
Saxon has historical and racial association. Old English stresses the evolutionary
aspect of the language.
We think that English was the language of people of Britain. However, it

was Celtic which was spoken by the Britons, the earlier inhabitants of the island.
Celtic was originally the language of several races of France, Belgium and Spain,
collectively called Celts.
Latin was used by the ruling and upper classes. But Celtic continued to be
used by the common people. After five centuries of military rule in 410 A.D. the
Roman legions were called back to Rome to defend their capital against the Goths.
As a result, the influence of Latin declined in Britain and its Celtic inhabitants
were open to attack by the Picts and Scots. In desperation, they sought the help of
the West Germanic sea-rovers. The call was answered, but the result was
disastrous to the Celts. The Germanic tribes who came to Britain were the Angles,
Jutes and Saxons. They had already begun to arrive in small groups to plunder the
island. In course of time, they subjugated the native Britons, consolidated their
settlements and ultimately set up their kingdoms. It was by the end of the sixth
century A.D. that their settlement was complete, when they had made the
conquered island their own. The land of the Angles thus became Angle-land or
England.
Old English Dialects:
During the old English period, the variety of English used differed from one
region to the other. In other words, there were dialectal variations of Old English.
The existing records of this period point to the currency of four principal dialects:
i. Kentish (the speech of the Jutes who settled in Kent)

ii. West Saxon(spoken in the region south of the Thames)
iii. Mercian(spoken in the area extending from the Thames to the
Humber)
iv. Northumbrian(spoken north of the Humber)
Of these, Mercian and Northumbrian, both spoken by the Angles, have

certain characteristics in common and are groups as Anglian. The present –day
Modern Standard English is a direct descendant of the Anglican dialect of the
Midland, though during the Old English period West Saxon was the most popular
dialect.
West Saxon Dialect:
With the ascendancy of the Wessex kingdom in the ninth and tenth century,
the West Saxon dialect attained the status of a literary standard. There were certain
factors which contributed to its popularity:
a) Wessex was a politically stable kingdom. Most of the literary

works of this period were written in this dialect. This includes
the first English epic Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
complied by King Alfred.
b) There were a number of riddles, charms, chants, religious
hymns, and medical treatises written in West Saxon.
c) It was the kings of Wessex, especially king Alfred who
managed to bring about the unification of England. This also
led to the recognition of the West Saxon dialect across the
country as the representative standard language during the Old
English period.
One of the contributions of the dialects to English language was the

prevalence (occurrence) and perpetuations (continuations) of the doublets.
Characteristics of Old English:
The outstanding characteristics old English can be traced with the following
aspects:
a. Grammar in Old English

b. Sound changes in Old English
c. Spelling in Old English
d. Vocabulary in Old English
Grammar:
Like Indo- European and Germanic, Old English was a highly inflected
language. So, the Old English period is often referred as “a period of full
inflections” (variations). The four cases distinguished during this period were –
Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, and Dative.
Nouns:
In Old English, nouns had different forms for different cases. The Old
English stan(stone), for instance was inclined thus:
Case Singular Plural

Nominative stan stanas
Accusative stan stanas
Genitive stanes stana
Dative stane stanum
Old English nouns were classified into strong and weak declensions (nouns)
according to the ending of the original Germanic stem, those stem that ended in a
vowel were called Strong Declensions and those ended in a consonant were called
the Weak Declensions. The inflections for the strong and weak nouns have been
classified as the-as and –an declensions respectively.
The general pattern of case endings of nouns in Old English can be

summarised thus:
Case Singular Plural

Nominative --- -as
Accusative --- -as
Genitive -es -a
Dative -e -um
Gender:
The old English nouns had a three gender system—masculine, feminine and
neuter. The gender of the word was fixed arbitrarily and was not based on sex as in
Modern English. There were two words for woman—Old English wif was neuter
the other old English wifman, was masculine, against all logic. The proper names
of men ended in –a, as in the names of Anglo-Saxon kings Isa, Penda .. .
Adjectives:
Old English had two forms for its adjectives—the Strong and the Weak. The
adjective was inflected according to the number, case, and gender of the noun it
qualified in strong and weak positions. The comparatives of adjectives were
formed with the addition of the suffix –ira, or –ra and the superlatives with the
addition of –ist, -ost, or –est.
Definite Article:
In old English, the definite article was also inflected. It had different forms
in the three genders –sē (masculine), sēo (feminine), and pӕt (neuter).
e.g. Old English sē guma (the man, masculine)
Old English sēo talu (the tale, feminine)
Old English pӕt scip (the ship, neuter)
Verbs:
Old English verbs, like the Germanic verbs, belonged to two group--- Strong
Verbs and Weak Verbs.
E.g. rídan rȃd ridon riden - strong verb
Dēman dēmde -weak verb (formed past by the addition of -de)
Old English verbs had only two tense forms – the present and the preterite
(past). There was no separate form for the future tense. The present form expressed
present and future. The infinitive form of the old English verb ended in –an or –ian
e.g. helpan.
Sound Changes
Certain important sound changes characterized the Old English period. They
were Gradation, i Mutation, and Fracture.
Gradation: (progression)
Old English inherited the phenomenon of Gradation from Germanic. The

German philologist Jakob Grimm made use of the term Ablaut to describe this
process. Gradation may be defined as the patterned variation of vowel sounds for
grammatical purpose. e.g. sing, sang, sung. In old English, Ablaut or Vowel
Gradation is most clearly seen in the principal parts of the verb as shown below:
Infinitive Past singular Past plural Past participle

Drífan drȃf Drifon Drifen
rídan rȃd Ridon riden
wrítan wrȃt Writon writen
In each series there is an alteration of vowels. Each member of a series is
called a Grade and the whole phenomenon is called Gradation.
i- Mutation:
A development peculiar to Primitive Old English was i- Mutation or Umlaut.

Mutation means change. The back vowels are changed to front vowels- a,o,u were
changed when a syllable with “i”was added. In course of time, the added syllable
itself disappeared. This process gives plurals “teeth”, “feet”, “mice”, “geese” from
their singular “tooth”, “foot”, “mouse” and “goose”. Similarly abstract noun were
also derived.
e.g. strong – strength
Long – length
Verbs were derived from nouns and adjectives and here also the back vowel were
changed to a front one. E.g. doom- deem, food- feed. This process of mutation
started around 600 A.D. was completed by 700 A.D.
Breaking or Fracture:
It is a major sound change in Old English. The term Breaking was first used
by Jakob Grimm in 1822. It was the English translation of the German word. In
1891 the philologist Mayhew used the term Fracture.
Old English Spelling:
The Old English alphabet was originally based on the Celtic variety of
English. The Germanic invaders of Britain brought with them the system of writing
called Runes or the Runic alphabet. Old English made use of six vowel symbols—
a,e,i,o,u,y and the seventh one, called the Ash symbol, was a combination of two
symbols—ӕ (a and e). Old English used sixteen consonant symbols. It had no
silent consonants. Double consonants were pronounced double or long. E.g. cuppe
(cup) was pronounced twice.
Vocabulary:
In vocabulary, Latin words were introduced along with Christianity as a
result of Roman occupation. Due to the invasion of Scandinavian a few words of
Scandinavian origin influenced the English vocabulary. The Anglo-Saxon
vocabulary was purely of Germanic stock with ‘native words’. The words for the
most elementary form and obvious thing, the common family relationship the
cardinal numbers 1to10, words for the common animals were all Anglo- Saxon.

Old English

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Old English

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Old English

We think that English was the language of people of Britain. However, it

i. Kentish (the speech of the Jutes who settled in Kent)

Of these, Mercian and Northumbrian, both spoken by the Angles, have

West Saxon Dialect:

a) Wessex was a politically stable kingdom. Most of the literary

One of the contributions of the dialects to English language was the

Characteristics of Old English:

a. Grammar in Old English

Case Singular Plural

The general pattern of case endings of nouns in Old English can be

Case Singular Plural

e.g. Old English sē guma (the man, masculine)

Old English sēo talu (the tale, feminine)

Old English pӕt scip (the ship, neuter)

E.g. rídan rȃd ridon riden - strong verb

Dēman dēmde -weak verb (formed past by the addition of -de)

Old English inherited the phenomenon of Gradation from Germanic. The

Infinitive Past singular Past plural Past participle

A development peculiar to Primitive Old English was i- Mutation or Umlaut.

e.g. strong – strength

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