Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon,^[1] Englisc by its speakers) is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and southern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old Frisian. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of Languages and include languages such as English Old Frisian was the West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries by the people who had settled in the area between the Rhine It also experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them

Development

Further information: History of the English language

Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of approximately 700 years (see Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon invasion and takeover of Britain) – from the Anglo-Saxon migrations that created England in the fifth century to some time after the Norman invasion of 1066, when the language underwent a dramatic transition. English is a West Germanic language which originated from the Anglo-Frisian Dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers Constructing a chronology of the early Anglo-Saxon period is highly complex and the limitations of our source material place restrictions on just how accurate any chronology can be For their language see Anglo-Saxon language. Anglo-Saxon is the term usually used to describe the invading Tribes in the south During this early period it assimilated some aspects of the languages with which it came in contact, such as the Celtic languages and the two dialects of Old Norse from the invading Vikings, who were occupying and controlling large tracts of land in northern and eastern England, which came to be known as the Danelaw. The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic" a branch of the greater Indo-European Language family. A Viking is one of the Norse ( Scandinavian Explorers Warriors Merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas The Danelaw, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (also known as the Danelagh; Old English: Dena lagu; Danish:

Germanic origins

The most important force in shaping Old English was its Germanic heritage in its vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar which it shared with its sister languages in continental Europe. Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the Continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European Some of these features were specific to the West Germanic language family to which Old English belongs, while some other features were inherited from the Proto-Germanic language from which all Germanic languages are believed to have been derived. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of Languages and include languages such as English Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family.

Like other West Germanic languages of the period, Old English was fully inflected with five grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental, though the instrumental was very rare), which had dual plural forms for referring to groups of two objects (but only in the personal pronouns) in addition to the usual singular and plural forms. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of Languages and include languages such as English In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the Dual is a Grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and Plural. It also assigned gender to all nouns, including those that describe inanimate objects: for example, sēo sunne (the Sun) was feminine, while se mōna (the Moon) was masculine (cf. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong The Sun (Sol is the Star at the center of the Solar System. modern German die Sonne vs. der Mond).

Latin influence

A large percentage of the educated and literate population (monks, clerics, etc. MONK is a Monte Carlo software package for simulating nuclear processes particularly for the purpose of determining the neutron multiplication factor or k-effective A cleric ( Ancient Greek κληρικός - klērikos clergyman (pl ) were competent in Latin, which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Europe at the time. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. A lingua franca (from Italian, literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology under Sabir and Italian below is any Language widely It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for the entry of individual Latin words into Old English based on which patterns of linguistic change they have undergone. There were at least three notable periods of Latin influence. The first occurred before the ancestral Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. The Saxons or Saxon people were a Confederation of Old Germanic tribes. The second began when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became widespread. The third and largest single transfer of Latin-based words happened after the Norman invasion of 1066, after which an enormous number of Norman words entered the language. Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. The northern Norman can be classified in the septentrional Oil languages with Picard and Most of these Oïl language words were themselves derived from Old French and ultimately from classical Latin, although a notable stock of Norse words were introduced, or re-introduced in Norman form. Langues d'oïl is the linguistic and historical designation of the Gallo-Romance languages originating from the northern territories of Roman Gaul, Old French was the Romance Dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium Classical Latin is the form of the Latin language used by the ancient Romans in what is usually regarded as "classical" Latin literature. The Norman Conquest approximately marks the end of Old English and the advent of Middle English. Middle English is the name given by Historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of

One of the ways the influence of Latin can be seen is that many Latin words for activities came to also be used to refer to the people engaged in those activities, an idiom carried over from Anglo-Saxon but using Latin words. This can be seen in words like militia, assembly, movement, and service.

The language was further altered by the transition away from the runic alphabet (also known as futhorc or fuþorc) to the Latin alphabet, which was also a significant factor in the developmental pressures brought to bear on the language. Futhorc, a Runic alphabet used by the Anglo-Saxons, was descended from the Elder Futhark of 24 runes and contained between 26 and 33 characters Old English words were spelt as they were pronounced; the "silent" letters in many Modern English words, such as the k in knight, were in fact pronounced in Old English. For example, the c in cniht, the Old English ancestor of the modern knight, was pronounced. Another side-effect of spelling words phonetically was that spelling was extremely variable – the spelling of a word would reflect differences in the phonetics of the writer's regional dialect, and also idiosyncratic spelling choices which varied from author to author, and even from work to work by the same author. Thus, for example, the word and could be spelt either and or ond.

Old English spelling can therefore be regarded as even more jumbled than modern English spelling, although it can at least claim to reflect some existing pronunciation, while modern English in many cases cannot. English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. Most present-day students of Old English learn the language using normalised versions and are only introduced to variant spellings after they have mastered the basics of the language.

Viking influence

The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century:       Old West Norse dialect       Old East Norse dialect       Old Gutnish dialect       Crimean Gothic       Old English       Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility

The second major source of loanwords to Old English were the Scandinavian words introduced during the Viking invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse that was spoken on the island of Gotland. Crimean Gothic was a Germanic dialect spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea (now in Ukraine) until the late 18th The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age A Viking is one of the Norse ( Scandinavian Explorers Warriors Merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas In addition to a great many place names, these consist mainly of items of basic vocabulary, and words concerned with particular administrative aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land under Viking control, which included extensive holdings all along the eastern coast of England and Scotland). Toponymy refers to the scientific study of place-names ( toponyms) their origins meanings use and Typology. The Danelaw, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (also known as the Danelagh; Old English: Dena lagu; Danish: The Vikings spoke Old Norse, a language related to Old English in that both derived from the same ancestral Proto-Germanic language. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English It is very common for the intermixing of speakers of different dialects, such as those that occur during times of political unrest, to result in a mixed language, and one theory holds that exactly such a mixture of Old Norse and Old English helped accelerate the decline of case endings in Old English. A mixed language is a Language that arises through the fusion of two source languages normally in situations of thorough Bilingualism. Apparent confirmation of this is the fact that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the North and latest in the Southwest, the area farthest away from Viking influence. Regardless of the truth of this theory, the influence of Old Norse on the English language has been profound: responsible for such basic vocabulary items as sky, leg, the pronoun they, the verb form are, and hundreds of other words. In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or

Celtic influence

Traditionally, many maintain that the influence of Celtic on English has been small, citing the small number of Celtic loanwords taken into the language. The number of Celtic loanwords is of a lower order than either Latin or Scandinavian; distinctive Celtic traits have been argued to be clearly discernible from the post-Old English period in the area of syntax. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation ^[2]

Dialects

To complicate matters further, Old English had many dialects. The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian (known collectively as Anglian), Kentish, and West Saxon. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of Northumbrian, also known as Ynglis and Inglis, is a Dialect of the Old English language spoken in the Angle Kingdom of Northumbria Anglian is a cover term used to refer to two Dialects of Old English, namely the Northumbrian and Mercian dialects ^[3] Each of those dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. Mercia (ˈmɝsiə was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. The portion of Mercia and all of Kent that were successfully defended were then integrated into Wessex. The Kingdom of Kent was a kingdom of Jutes in southeast England and was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the so-called Anglo-Saxon heptarchy. West Saxon redirects here For other meanings of Wessex or West Saxon see Wessex (disambiguation.

After the process of unification of the diverse Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 878 by Alfred the Great, there is a marked decline in the importance of regional dialects. Alfred the Great (also Ælfred from the Old English Ælfrēd ˈælfreːd (c This is not because they stopped existing; regional dialects continued even after that time to this day, as evidenced both by the existence of middle and modern English dialects later on, and by common sense – people do not spontaneously develop new accents when there is a sudden change of political power.

The first page of the Beowulf manuscript

However, the bulk of the surviving documents from the Anglo-Saxon period are written in the dialect of Wessex, Alfred's kingdom. Beowulf is an Old English Heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between It seems likely that with consolidation of power, it became necessary to standardise the language of government to reduce the difficulty of administering the more remote areas of the kingdom. As a result, paperwork was written in the West Saxon dialect. Not only this, but Alfred was passionate about the spread of the vernacular and brought many scribes to his region from Mercia in order that previously unwritten texts be recorded. Vernacular refers to the Native language of a country or a locality

The Church was affected likewise, especially since Alfred initiated an ambitious programme to translate religious materials into English. As a Christian Ecclesiastical term Catholic —from the Greek adjective, meaning "general" or "universal"—is described In order to retain his patronage and ensure the widest circulation of the translated materials, the monks and priests engaged in the programme worked in his dialect. Alfred himself seems to have translated books out of Latin and into English, notably Pope Gregory I's treatise on administration, "Pastoral Care". Pastoral care is the ministry of care and Counseling provided by Pastors Chaplains and other religious leaders to members of their Church,

Because of the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions, there is little or no written evidence for the development of non-Wessex dialects after Alfred's unification.

Grammar

Phonology

Main article: Old English phonology

The inventory of classical Old English (i. The Phonology of Old English is necessarily somewhat speculative since it is preserved purely as a Written language. e. Late West Saxon) surface phones, as usually reconstructed, is as follows. Within Phonetics, a phone is a speech sound or gesture considered a physical event without regard to its place in the Phonology of a Language

The sounds marked in parentheses in the chart above are allophones:

• [dʒ] is an allophone of /j/ occurring after /n/ and when geminated
• [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ occurring before /k/ and /g/
• [v, ð, z] are allophones of /f, θ, s/ respectively, occurring between vowels or voiced consonants
• [ç, x] are allophones of /h/ occurring in coda position after front and back vowels respectively
• [ɣ] is an allophone of /g/ occurring after a vowel, and, at an earlier stage of the language, in the syllable onset. In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless In Phonology, a syllable coda comprises the Consonant sounds of a Syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a Vowel

The front mid rounded vowels /ø(ː)/ occur in some dialects of Old English, but not in the best attested Late West Saxon dialect. A monophthong ( Greek μονόφθογγος "monophthongos" = single note) is a "pure" Vowel sound one whose articulation at In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an In Phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the Lips during the articulation of a Vowel. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of

Morphology

Main article: Old English morphology

Unlike modern English, Old English is a language rich with morphological diversity and is spelled essentially as it is pronounced. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in Phonology that determines Syllable weight (which in turn determines stress The morphology of the Old English language is quite different from that of Modern English, predominantly by being much more highly inflected. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words It maintains several distinct cases: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and (vestigially) instrumental, remnants of which survive only in a few pronouns in modern English. The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given The instrumental case (also called the eighth case) is a Grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the

Syntax

Word order

The word order of Old English is widely believed to be subject-verb-object (SVO) as in modern English and most Germanic languages (not including German and Dutch). In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object The word order of Old English, however, was not overly important due to the aforementioned morphology of the language. So long as declension was correct, it didn't matter whether you said "My name is. . . " as "Mīn nama is. . . " or "Nama mīn is. . . "

Questions

Due to its similarity with Old Norse, it is believed that the word order of Old English changed when asking a question, from SVO to VSO; i. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age Verb Subject Object ( VSO) is a term in Linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these e. swapping the verb and the subject.

"You are. . . " becomes "Are you. . . ?"

"Þū bist. . . " becomes "Bist þū. . . ?"

Orthography

The runic alphabet used to write Old English before the introduction of the Latin alphabet.

Old English was at first written in runes (futhorc), but shifted to the Latin alphabet, with some additions, after the Anglo-Saxons' conversion to Christianity. Futhorc, a Runic alphabet used by the Anglo-Saxons, was descended from the Elder Futhark of 24 runes and contained between 26 and 33 characters The letter yogh, for example, was adopted from Irish; the letter eth was an alteration of Latin d, and the runic letters thorn and wynn are borrowings from futhorc. Not to be confused with the unrelated ʒ. For the rune transcribed as ȝ, see Gyfu. Irish (ga ''Gaeilge'' is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish. Eth ( Ð, ð; also spelled edh or eð) is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese (in Thorn, or þorn (Þ þ is a letter in the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic Alphabets It was also used in Medieval Scandinavia Wynn ( (also spelled wen, ƿynn, or ƿen) was a letter of the Old English alphabet. Also used was a symbol for the conjunction and, a character similar to the number seven (⁊, called a Tironian note), and a symbol for the relative pronoun þæt, a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender (''). Tironian notes ( la notae Tironianae) is a system of Shorthand said to have been invented by Cicero 's scribe Marcus Tullius Tiro. A relative pronoun is a Pronoun that marks a Relative clause within a larger sentence. Also used occasionally were macrons over vowels, abbreviations for following m’s or n’s. A macron, from Greek el μακρόv ( makrón) meaning "long" is a Diacritic ¯ placed over or under a Vowel which was originally All of the sound descriptions below are given using IPA symbols.

The alphabet

• a: /ɑ/ (spelling variations like land/lond "land" suggest it may have had a rounded allophone [ɒ] before [n] in some cases)
• ā: /ɑː/
• æ: /æ/
• ǣ: /æː/
• b: /b/
• c (except in the digraphs sc and cg): either /tʃ/ or /k/. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond The /tʃ/ pronunciation is sometimes written with a diacritic by modern editors: most commonly ċ, sometimes č or ç. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation Before a consonant letter the pronunciation is always /k/; word-finally after i it is always /tʃ/. Otherwise a knowledge of the historical linguistics of the word in question is needed to predict which pronunciation is needed. Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change (See The distribution of velars and palatals in Old English for details. The Phonology of Old English is necessarily somewhat speculative since it is preserved purely as a Written language. )
• cg: [ddʒ] (the surface pronunciation of geminate /jj/); occasionally also for /gg/
• d: /d/
• e: /e/
• ē: /eː/
• ea: /æɑ/; after ċ and ġ, sometimes /æ/ or /ɑ/
• ēa: /æːɑ/; after ċ and ġ, sometimes /æː/
• eo: /eo/; after ċ and ġ, sometimes /o/
• ēo: /eːo/
• f: /f/ and its allophone [v]
• g: /g/ and its allophone [ɣ]; /j/ and its allophone [dʒ] (when after n). In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. The /j/ and [dʒ] pronunciations are sometimes written ġ or ȝ by modern editors. Before a consonant letter the pronunciation is always [g] (word-initially) or [ɣ] (after a vowel). Word-finally after i it is always /j/. Otherwise a knowledge of the historical linguistics of the word in question is needed to predict which pronunciation is needed. Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change (See The distribution of velars and palatals in Old English for details. The Phonology of Old English is necessarily somewhat speculative since it is preserved purely as a Written language. )
• h: /h/ and its allophones [ç, x]. In the combinations hl, hr, hn and hw, the second consonant was certainly voiceless.
• i: /i/
• ī: /iː/
• ie: /iy/; after ċ and ġ, sometimes /e/
• īe: /iːy/; after ċ and ġ, sometimes /eː/
• k: /k/ (rarely used)
• l: /l/; probably velarised (as in Modern English) when in coda position.
• m: /m/
• n: /n/ and its allophone [ŋ]
• o: /o/
• ō: /oː/
• oe: /ø/ (in dialects with this sound)
• ōe: /øː/ (in dialects with this sound)
• p: /p/
• q: /k/ – Used before u representing the consonant /w/, but rarely used, being rather a feature of Middle English. Middle English is the name given by Historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of Old English preferred cƿ or in modern print cw.
• r: /r/; the exact nature of r is not known. It may have been an alveolar approximant [ɹ], as in most Modern English accents, an alveolar flap [ɾ], or an alveolar trill [r]. The alveolar approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The alveolar tap or flap is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The alveolar trill is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental
• s: /s/ and its allophone [z]
• sc: /ʃ/ or occasionally /sk/
• t: /t/
• ð/þ: /θ/ and its allophone [ð]. Both symbols were used more or less interchangeably (to the extent that if there was a rule, it was to avoid using ð word-initially, but this was by no means universally followed). Eth ( Ð, ð; also spelled edh or eð) is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese (in Many modern editions preserve the use of these two symbols as found in the original manuscripts, but some attempt to regularise them in some fashion, for example using only the þ. Thorn, or þorn (Þ þ is a letter in the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic Alphabets It was also used in Medieval Scandinavia See also Pronunciation of English th. In English the digraph 〈th〉 represents in most cases one of two different Phonemes the Voiced dental fricative /ð/ (as in th is
• u: /u/
• ū: /uː/
• ƿ (wynn): /w/, replaced in modern print by w to prevent confusion with p. Wynn ( (also spelled wen, ƿynn, or ƿen) was a letter of the Old English alphabet.
• x: /ks/ (but according to some authors, [xs ~ çs])
• y: /y/
• ȳ: /yː/
• z: /ts/. Rarely used as ts was usually used instead, for example bezt vs betst "best", pronounced /betst/.

Doubled consonants are geminated; the geminate fricatives ðð/þþ, ff and ss cannot be voiced. In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant.

Literature

Main article: Anglo-Saxon literature

Old English literature, though more abundant than literature of the continent before AD 1000, is nonetheless scanty. Anglo-Saxon literature (or Old English literature) encompasses Literature written in Anglo-Saxon (Old English during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon In his supplementary article to the 1935 posthumous edition of Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader, Dr. James Hulbert writes:

In such historical conditions, an incalculable amount of the writings of the Anglo-Saxon period perished. What they contained, how important they were for an understanding of literature before the Conquest, we have no means of knowing: the scant catalogs of monastic libraries do not help us, and there are no references in extant works to other compositions. . . . How incomplete our materials are can be illustrated by the well-known fact that, with few and relatively unimportant exceptions, all extant Anglo-Saxon poetry is preserved in four manuscripts.

Old English was one of the first vernacular languages to be written down. Vernacular refers to the Native language of a country or a locality 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; and Caedmon's Hymn, a Christian religious poem. Beowulf is an Old English Heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of Annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. Cædmon (ˈkædmɒn is the earliest English poet whose name is known 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 to be the heart of Old English literature. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous, with a few exceptions, such as Bede and Caedmon. Bede (ˈbiːd (also Saint Bede, the Venerable Bede, or (from Latin Beda (beda (c Cædmon (ˈkædmɒn is the earliest English poet whose name is known

Comparison with other historical forms of English

Old English is often erroneously used to refer to any form of English other than Modern English. Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550 The term Old English does not refer to varieties of Early Modern English such as are found in Shakespeare or the King James Bible, nor does it refer to Middle English, the language of Chaucer and his contemporaries. Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period (the latter half of the 15th century to 1650 William Shakespeare ( baptised Middle English is the name given by Historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of Geoffrey Chaucer (c 1343 – 25 October 1400? was an English author poet Philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and Diplomat. The following timeline helps place the history of the English language in context. English is a West Germanic language which originated from the Anglo-Frisian Dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers The dates used are approximate dates. It is inaccurate to state that everyone stopped speaking Old English in 1099, and woke up on New Year's Day of 1100 speaking Middle English. Language change is gradual, and cannot be as easily demarcated as are historical or political events. Language change is the manner in which the phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of a language are modified over time

450–1100 Old English (Anglo-Saxon) – The language of Beowulf. Beowulf is an Old English Heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between

1100–1500 Middle English – The language of Chaucer. Middle English is the name given by Historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of Geoffrey Chaucer (c 1343 – 25 October 1400? was an English author poet Philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and Diplomat.

1500–1650 Early Modern English (or Renaissance English) – The language of Shakespeare. Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period (the latter half of the 15th century to 1650 The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere William Shakespeare ( baptised

1650–present Modern English (or Present-Day English) – The language as spoken today. Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550

Examples

Beowulf

The first example is taken from the epic poem Beowulf. Beowulf is an Old English Heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between The translation is quite literal and represents the original poetic word order. As such, it is not typical of Old English prose. The modern cognates of original words have been used whenever practical to give a close approximation of the feel of the original poem. The words in brackets are implied in the Old English by noun case and the bold words in parentheses are explanations of words which have slightly different meanings in a modern context. Notice how what was used by the poet where a word like lo or behold would be expected.

The Lord's Prayer

This text of The Lord's Prayer is presented in the standardised West Saxon literary dialect:

Charter of Cnut

This is a proclamation from King Canute the Great to his earl Thorkell the Tall and the English people written in AD 1020. } Canute the Great, also known as Cnut in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, or Knut ( Old Norse: Knútr inn ríki, Norwegian Earl was the Anglo-Saxon form and jarl the Scandinavian form of a title meaning " Chieftain " and referring especially to chieftains Thorkell the Tall, also known as Thorkell the High in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles ( Old Norse: Þorke(till inn hávi; Norwegian: Torkjell Høge Unlike the previous two examples, this text is prose rather than poetry. For ease of reading, the passage has been divided into sentences while the pilcrows represent the original division. The pilcrow (¶ Unicode U+00B6 HTML entity &para also called the Paragraph sign or the alinea (

Bibliography

Sources

• Whitelock, Dorothy. (1955). English historical documents c. 500-1042. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.

General

• Baker, Peter S. (2003). Introduction to Old English. Blackwell Publishing. Blackwell Publishing Ltd was a Learned society publishing company based in Oxford, England. ISBN 0-631-23454-3.  
• Baugh, Albert C. ; & Cable, Thomas. (1993). A history of the English language (4th ed. ). London: Routledge.
• Earle, John (2005). A book for the beginner in Anglo-Saxon. Bristol, PA: Evolution Publishing. Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 23 miles (37 km northeast of Philadelphia opposite Burlington N ISBN 1-889758-69-8.  
• Hogg, Richard M. (Ed. ). (1992). The Cambridge history of the English language: The beginnings to 1066 (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hogg, Richard; & Denison, David (Eds. ). (2006). A history of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jespersen, Otto. (1909-1949). A modern English grammar on historical principles (Vols. 1-7). Heidelberg: C. Winter.
• Lass, Roger. (1987). The shape of English: Structure and history. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
• Lass, Roger (1994). Old English: A historical linguistic companion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The city of Cambridge (ˈkeɪmbrɪdʒ is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP is a Publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534 ISBN 0-521-43087-9.  
• Millward, Celia (1996). A Biography of the English Language. Harcourt Brace. Harcourt Trade Publishers is a US Publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for children and adults ISBN 0-15-501645-8.  
• Mitchell, Bruce, and Robinson, Fred C. (2001). A Guide to Old English, 6th edition, Oxford: Blackwell. Oxford is currently bidding for the 2010 Wikimania Conference Oxford () is a city, and the County town of Oxfordshire, ISBN 0-631-22636-2.  
• Quirk, Randolph; & Wrenn, C. L. (1957). An Old English grammar (2nd ed. ). London: Methuen.
• Strang, Barbara M. H. (1970). A history of English. London: Methuen.

External history

• Robinson, Orrin W. (1992). Old English and Its Closest Relatives. Stanford University Press. The Stanford University Press is the Publishing house of Stanford University. ISBN 0-8047-2221-8.  
• Stenton, F. M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed. ). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Orthography/Palaeography

• Bourcier, Georges. (1978). L'orthographie de l'anglais: Histoire et situation actuelle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Campbell, A. (1959). Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Elliott, Ralph W. V. (1959). Runes: An introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Keller, Wolfgang. (1906). Angelsächsische Paleographie, I: Einleitung. Berlin: Mayer & Müller.
• Ker, N. R. (1957). A catalogue of manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Page, R. I. (1973). An introduction to English runes. London: Methuen.
• Scragg, Donald G. (1974). A history of English spelling. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Phonology

• Anderson, John M; & Jones, Charles. (1977). Phonological structure and the history of English. North-Holland linguistics series (No. 33). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
• Brunner, Karl. (1965). Altenglische Grammatik (nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers neubearbeitet) (3rd ed. ). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Campbell, A. (1959). Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Girvan Ritchie. (1931). Angelsaksisch Handboek. E. L. Deuschle (Transl. ). Oudgermaansche Handboeken (No. 4). Haarlem: Tjeenk Willink.
• Halle, Morris; & Keyser, Samuel J. (1971). English stress: Its form, its growth, and its role in verse. New York: Harper & Row.
• Hockett, Charles F. (1959). The stressed syllabics of Old English. Language, 35 (4), 575-597.
• Hogg, Richard M. (1992). A grammar of Old English, I: Phonology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Kuhn, Sherman M. (1961). On the syllabic phonemes of Old English. Language, 37 (4), 522-538.
• Kuhn, Sherman M. (1970). On the consonantal phonemes of Old English. In J. L. Rosier (Ed. ), Philological essays: Studies in Old and Middle English language and literature in honour of Herbert Dean Merritt (pp. 16-49). The Hague: Mouton.
• Lass, Roger; & Anderson, John M. (1975). Old English phonology. Cambridge studies in linguistics (No. 14). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Luick, Karl. (1914-1940). Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache. Stuttgart: Bernhard Tauchnitz.
• Maling, J. (1971). Sentence stress in Old English. Linguistic Inquiry, 2, 379-400.
• McCully, C. B. ; & Hogg, Richard M. (1990). An account of Old English stress. Journal of Linguistics, 26, 315-339.
• Moulton, W. G. (1972). The Proto-Germanic non-syllabics (consonants). In F. van Coetsem & H. L. Kurfner (Eds. ), Toward a grammar of Proto-Germanic (pp. 141-173). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Sievers, Eduard. (1893). Altgermanische Metrik. Halle: Max Niemeyer.
• Wagner, Karl Heinz. (1969). Generative grammatical studies in the Old English language. Heidelberg: Julius Groos.

Morphology

• Brunner, Karl. (1965). Altenglische Grammatik (nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers neubearbeitet) (3rd ed. ). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Campbell, A. (1959). Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Wagner, Karl Heinz. (1969). Generative grammatical studies in the Old English language. Heidelberg: Julius Groos.

Syntax

• Brunner, Karl. (1962). Die englische Sprache: ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung (Vol. II). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• van Kemenade, Ans. (1982). Syntactic case and morphological case in the history of English. Dordrecht: Foris.
• MacLaughlin, John C. (1983). Old English syntax: A handbook. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Mitchell, Bruce. (1985). Old English syntax (Vols. 1-2). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. (1972). A history of English syntax: A transformational approach to the history of English sentence structure. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Visser, F. Th. (1963-1973). An historical syntax of the English language (Vols. 1-3). Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Lexicon

• Bosworth, J. ; & Toller, T. Northcote. (1898). An Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Cameron, Angus, et al. Dictionary of Old English. The Dictionary of Old English ( DOE) is a Dictionary published by the Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto under the direction of Toronto: Published for the Dictionary of Old English Project Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto by the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1986/1994.
• Campbell, A. (1972). An Anglo-Saxon dictionary: Enlarged addenda and corrigenda. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Clark Hall, J. R. ; & Merritt, H. D. (1969). A concise Anglo-Saxon dictionary (4th ed. ). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Toller, T. Northcote. (1921). An Anglo-Saxon dictionary: Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Notes

See also

• Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law
• Anglo-Saxon literature
• Beowulf
• Old English declension
• Old English pronouns
• Dictionary of Old English
• Exeter Book
• Go (verb)
• Grendel's mother
• History of the English language
• History of the Scots language
• I-mutation
• List of generic forms in British place names
• List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents

External links

• Old English/Modern English Translator
• The Electronic Introduction to Old English
• First steps in Old English - a course for absolute beginners
• Old English (Anglo-Saxon) alphabet
• Bosworth and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon dictionary
• Downloadable Bosworth and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon dictionary Application
• Old English - Modern English dictionary
• The Origins of Old English
• Old English Glossary
• Shakespeare's English vs Old English
• Guide to using Old English computer characters (Unicode, HTML entities, etc. In Historical linguistics, the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law (also called the Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic nasal spirant law) is a description Anglo-Saxon literature (or Old English literature) encompasses Literature written in Anglo-Saxon (Old English during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon Beowulf is an Old English Heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between Old English nouns were declined – that is the ending of the noun changed to reflect its function in the sentence The Dictionary of Old English ( DOE) is a Dictionary published by the Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto under the direction of The Exeter Book, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501 also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth century Book or Codex which is an Anthology The Verb to go is irregular and apart from be is the only suppletive verb in the English language Grendel's mother ( Old English: Grendles modor) is one of three Antagonists (along with Grendel and the Dragon) in the work of English is a West Germanic language which originated from the Anglo-Frisian Dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers The history of the Scots language refers to how Anglic varieties spoken in parts of Scotland developed into modern Scots. I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or i/j-umlaut) is an important type of Sound change The study of place names is called Toponymy; for a more detailed examination of this subject in relation to British place names please refer to British toponymy. This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form )
• The Germanic Lexicon Project
• Text Collections - Texts and Translations
• An overview of the grammar of Old English