History of English

The 3rd seminar

1.Talk about the general linguistic features of Old English (with examples).
Where does it belong in the Indo-European family tree? What languages are its
closest relatives?
Old English is the language of the Germanic inhabitants of England, dated from the time of their
settlement in the 5th century to the end of the 11th century.  It refers to the language as it was used in
the long period of time from the coming of Germanic invaders and settlers to Britain—in the period
following the collapse of Roman Britain in the early fifth century—up to the Norman Conquest of
1066, and beyond into the first century of Norman rule in England. It is thus first and foremost the
language of the people normally referred to by historians as the Anglo-Saxons.
Old English itself has three dialects: West Saxon, Kentish, and Anglian.
Old English is a Germanic language, meaning its closest living relatives are Dutch, Frisian, and of
course German. The Germanic family, however, is just one branch of the wider Indo-European
language family.  (Old English is a Germanic language: that is, it belongs to a group of related
languages with a common ancestor known as Proto-Germanic or Primitive Germanic. It’s relative of
German, Dutch, Frisian etc. Its closest affinities are with Old High German, Old Saxon and Old
Frisian, as all four are West Germanic languages. The other main branches are North Germanic,
represented by Old Norse, and East Germanic, represented by Gothic. Proto-Germanic appears to
have originated in the areas now comprising southern Scandinavia and northern Germany, but was
no longer spoken after about the fourth century AD. No written records survive, and so its
reconstruction is based on correspondences between the various languages descended from it. The
Germanic language group in turn is part of a wider ‘family’ of Indo-European languages)
-розширений варіант
An example is the word for ‘night’. From similarities between Old English niht, Old High German
naht, Old Norse nátt and Gothic nahts, we can deduce the existence of a common ancestor in Proto-
Germanic.
In grammar, Old English is chiefly distinguished from later stages in the history of English by greater
use of a larger set of inflections in verbs, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, and also (connected with
this) by a rather less fixed word order; it also preserves grammatical gender in nouns and adjectives.

An example: The following couple of lines from Ælfric’s De temporibus anni:

‘Ðunor cymð of hætan & of wætan. Seo lyft tyhð þone wætan to hire neoðan & ða hætan ufan.’
may be translated word-for-word as:
Thunder comes from heat and from moisture. The air draws the moisture to it from below and
the heat from above.
The nouns hæte, ‘heat’, and wæta, ‘moisture’, both have the inflection –an in the first sentence,
because both are in the dative case, governed by the preposition ‘from’.
In the second sentence they both again have the inflection –an, but this time they are in the
accusative case, as the direct objects of tyhð ‘draws’.
The forms of the definite article agree with these nouns, but you will note that they are different in
each instance, þone wætan ‘the moisture’ (direct object), but ða hætan ‘the heat’ (also direct object).
The difference arises because wæta ‘moisture’ is masculine but hæte ‘heat’ is feminine, and the
article (like other adjectives) agrees in gender as well as case.
For another example of gender agreement, look at the pronoun hire (i.e. the antecedent of modern
English her) referring to seo lyft (feminine) ‘the air’.
2. Talk about changes in Old English alphabet. What was the earliest writing
system? How was the Latin alphabet adopted? What special letters were
introduced? Are they used in present day English?
When the Germanic invaders arrived in Britain, they had a writing system known as runes. These
were straight-sided characters primarily suitable for carving on hard surfaces such as wood, bone or
stone. The Latin alphabet, with rounded letter-forms more suited to writing on parchment, was
introduced by Roman missionaries towards the end of the sixth century, and is used in all
manuscripts of Old English. Although some of the letters are written differently, the alphabet is
similar to that of Present-Day English, except that <j>, <k>, <q>, <v> and <z> are rarely if ever
used, and there are three extra letters that have since fallen out of use. The majority of Old English
records are written in the insular alphabet based on the Latin alphabet with the addition of a number
of signs taken from the Runic alphabet (w, , þ, ð).
Old English Alphabet
a, æ, b, c [k] or [k’] (soft), e, f [f] or [v],  [g], [g’], [γ] or [j], h [x], [x’] or [h], i, k, l, m, n [n], [ŋ], o,
p, r, s [s] or [z], t, þ [ð] or [θ], u, w, x, y [y] (front labialized).
Anglo-Saxon scribes added two consonants to the Latin alphabet to render the th sounds: first the
runic thorn (þ), and later eth (ð).
Another added letter was the ligature ash (æ), used to represent the broad vowel sound now rendered
by 'a' in, e.g., the word fast.
A letter wynn was also added, to represent the English w sound, but it looks so much like thorn that
modern transcriptions replace it with the more familiar 'w' to eliminate confusion.

3. Talk about Old English phonetics. What consonants and vowels did Old
English have? Which ones of them are different from present day English?
Old English is so far removed from Modern English that one may take it for an entirely different
language. This is largely due to the peculiarities of its pronunciation. The survey of Old English
phonetics deals with word stress, the system of vowels and consonants and their origin.
The Old English sound system developed from the Proto Germanic system. It underwent multiple
changes in the pre-written periods of history, especially in Early Old English. The system of word
stress inherited from Proto Germanic underwent no changes in Early Old English. Word stress was
fixed. It remained on the same syllable in different grammatical forms of the word and, as a rule, did
not shift in word building either. The development of vowels in Early Old English consisted of the
modifications of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels.
The Old English vowel system displayed an obvious tendency towards a symmetrical, balanced
arrangement since almost every long vowel had a corresponding short counterpart. On the whole,
consonants were historically more stable than vowels, though certain changes took place in all
historical periods. The system of Old English consonants consisted of several correlated sets of
consonants. All the consonants fell into noise consonants and sonorants. The noise consonants were
subdivided into plosives and fricatives. Plosives were further differentiated as voiced and voiceless,
the difference being phonemic. The fricative consonants were also subdivided into voiced and
voiceless. In this set, however, sonority was merely a phonetic difference between allophones. The
most universal distinctive feature in consonant system was the difference in length. During the entire
Old English period long consonants are believed to have been opposed to short ones on a phonemic
level. They were mostly distinguished in intervocal position.

Most Old English consonants are pronounced as in Modern English.A major difference between the
spelling systems of Old and Modern English is that Old English had no ‘silent’ letters. This is
because the spelling system was not yet standardized, so that the language was written down as it was
pronounced. And most of the differences from Modern English are straightforward:
1. Old English scribes wrote the letters þ (“thorn”) and ð (“eth”) interchangeably to represent [θ] and
[ð], the sounds spelled th in Modern English. Examples: þing ‘thing’, brōðor ‘brother’.
2. There are no silent consonants. Old English cniht (which comes to Modern English as knight)
actually begins with [k]. Similarly hlāf (Modern English loaf) and hring (ring) begin with [h]. Some
Old English consonant combinations may be difficult to pronounce because they are not in Modern
English
3. The consonants spelled f, s and þ/ð are pronounced as voiced [v], [z] and [ð] (as in then) when they
fall between vowels or other voiced sounds. For example, the f of heofon ‘heaven’, hæfde ‘had’ and
wulfas ‘wolves’ is voiced. So are the s of ċēosan ‘choose’ and the ð of feðer ‘feather’. This
distinction remains not only in such Modern English singular/plural pairs as wolf/wolves, but also in
such pairs as noun bath and verb bathe, noun cloth and derivative clothes.
4. When written double, consonants must be pronounced double, or held longer. We pronounce
consonants long in Modern English phrases like “big gun” and “hat trick,” though never within
words. In Old English, wile ‘he will’ must be distinguished from wille ‘I will’, and freme ‘do’
(imperative) from fremme ‘I do’.
5. Undotted c is pronounced [k]; dotted ċ is pronounced [ʧ], like the ch in Modern English chin. This
letter is never pronounced [s] in Old English. It has a special function in the combination sc (
6. The letter g, like c, is sometimes printed with a dot and sometimes without. Dotless g is
pronounced [ɡ], as in good, when it comes at the beginning of a word or syllable. Between voiced
sounds dotless g is pronounced [ɣ], a voiced velar spirant. This sound became [w] in Middle English,
so English no longer has it. Dotted ġ is usually pronounced [j], as in Modern English yes, but when it
follows an n it is pronounced [ʤ], as in Modern English angel.
7. The combination cg is pronounced [ʤ], like the dge of Modern English sedge. Examples: hrycg
‘ridge, back’, brycg ‘bridge’, ecg ‘edge’.
8. Old English h is pronounced [h], as in Modern English, at the beginnings of syllables, but
elsewhere it is pronounced approximately like German ch in Nacht or ich—that is, as a velar [x] or
palatal [ç] unvoiced spirant (pronounced with the tongue against the velum [soft palate] or, after front
vowels, against the hard palate). Examples: nēah ‘near’, niht ‘night’, þēah ‘though’, dweorh ‘dwarf’.
9. The combination sc is usually pronounced [ʃ], like Modern English sh: scip ‘ship’, æsc ‘ash
(wood)’, wȳscan ‘wish’. But within a word, if sc occurs before a back vowel (a, o, u), or if it occurs
after a back vowel at the end of a word, it is pronounced [sk]: ascian ‘ask’ (where sc was formerly
followed by a back vowel), tūsc ‘tusk’. When sc was pronounced [sk] it sometimes underwent
metathesis (the sounds got reversed to [ks]) and was written x: axian for ascian, tux for tusc.
Sometimes sc is pronounced [ʃ] in one form of a word and [sk] or [ks] in another: fisc ‘fish’,
fiscas/fixas ‘fishes’.
4. Talk about Old English word stock. How much of it survived to the present
day? What changed in the Old English vocabulary during the Old English
period? Give examples.
The full extent of the Old English vocabulary is not known to present-day scholars. There is no doubt
that many words have not been recorded in the extant texts at all. The evidence of the records has
been supplemented from other sources: from the study of the words of closely related Old Germanic
languages and from later, more extensive Middle English texts. Modern estimates of the total
vocabulary of Old English range from about thirty thousand words to almost one hundred thousand –
the latter figure being probably too high and unrealistic. Despite the gaps in the accessible data,
philological studies in the last centuries have given us a fairly complete outline of the Old English
vocabulary as regards its etymology, word structure, word-building and stylistic differentiation. The
Old English vocabulary was almost purely Germanic. Except for a small number of borrowings, it
consisted of native words inherited from Proto Germanic or formed from native roots and affixes.
Native Old English words can be subdivided into a number of etymological layers coming from
different historical periods. The three main layers in the native Old English words are: - common
Indo-European words; - common Germanic words; - specifically Old English words.
Although borrowed words constituted only a small portion of the Old English vocabulary, they are of
great interest for linguistic and historical study. The borrowings reflect the contacts of English with
other tongues resulting from diverse political, economic and cultural events in the early periods of
British history. Old English borrowings come from two sources – Celtic and Latin. In the course of
the Old English period the vocabulary grew. It was mainly replenished from native sources, by means
of word formation. The Old English vocabulary, like that of any other language, develops in two
ways: (1) by forming new words from elements existing in the language, (2) by taking over words
from other languages. In OE the first of these is by far more important.
Many of the most basic and common words in use in English today have their roots in Old English,
including words like water, earth, house, food, drink, sleep, sing, night, strong, the, a, be, of, he, she,
you, no, not, etc.
There are also words that are sometimes called "false friends", words that appear to be similar in Old
English and modern English, but whose meanings have changed, words such as wif (wife, which
originally meant any woman, married or not), fugol (fowl, which meant any bird, not just a farmyard
one), sona (soon, which meant immediately, not just in a while), won (wan, which meant dark, not
pale) and fæst (fast, which meant fixed or firm, not rapidly).
It is estimated that about 85% of the 30,000 or so Anglo-Saxon words gradually died out under the
cultural onslaught of the Vikings and the Normans who would come after them, leaving a total of
only around 4,500. This represents less than 1% of modern English vocabulary, but it includes some
of the most fundamental and important words (e.g. man, wife, child, son, daughter, brother, friend,
live, fight, make, use, love, like, look, drink, food, eat, sleep, sing, sun, moon, earth, ground, wood,
field, house, home, people, family, horse, fish, farm, water, time, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, strong,
work, come, go, be, find, see, look, laughter, night, day, sun, first, many, one, two, other, some, what,
when, which, where, word, etc), as well as the most important “function” words (e.g. to, for, but, and,
at, in, on, from, etc).
Because of this, up to a half of everyday modern English will typically be made up of Old English
words, and, by some estimates, ALL of the hundred most commonly-used words in modern English
are of Anglo-Saxon origin (although pronunciations and spellings may have changed significantly
over time).
Old Norse often provided direct alternatives or synonyms for Anglo-Saxon words, both of which
have been carried on (e.g. Anglo-Saxon craft and Norse skill, wish and want, dike and ditch, sick
and ill, whole and hale, raise and rear, wrath and anger, hide and skin, etc). Unusually for language
development, English also adopted some Norse grammatical forms, such as the pronouns they, them
and their, although these words did not enter the dialects of London and southern England until as
late as the 15th Century. Under the influence of the Danes, Anglo-Saxon word endings and
inflections started to fall away during the time of the Danelaw, and prepositions like to, with, by, etc
became more important to make meanings clear.

5. Talk about Old English morphology and morphological categories (nouns,

pronouns, adjectives, verbs etc.). What is different from present day English?
Give examples.
Old English was a synthetic, or inflected type of language. It showed the relations between words
and expressed other grammatical meanings mainly with the help of simple (synthetic) grammatical
forms. In building grammatical forms Old English employed grammatical endings, sound
interchanges in the root, grammatical prefixes. Grammatical endings (inflections) were certainly the
principle form-building means used. They were found in all the parts of speech that could change
their forms. They were usually used alone but could also occur in combination with other means.
Sound interchanges were employed on a more limited scale and were often combined with other
form-building means, especially endings. Vowel interchanges were more common than interchanges
of consonants. The use of prefixes in grammatical forms was rare and was confined to verbs.
The parts of speech to be distinguished in Old English are as follows: the noun, the adjective, the
pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction and the interjection.
Grammatical categories are usually subdivided into nominal categories, found in nominal parts of
speech, and verbal categories found chiefly in the finite verb. There were five grammatical
categories in Old English: number, case, gender, degrees of comparison, and the category of
definiteness / indefinitness. Each part of speech had its own peculiarities in the inventory of
categories and number of members within the category. The noun had only two grammatical
categories proper – number and case. The adjective had the maximum number of categories – five.
Verbal grammatical categories were not numerous: tense and mood – verbal categories proper – and
number and person, showing agreement between the verb-predicate and the subject of the sentence.
The distinction of categorical forms by the noun and the verb was to a large extent determined by
their division into morphological classes – declensions and conjugations.
In contrast to Modern English, Old English had three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) in the
noun and adjective, and nouns, pronouns, and adjectives were inflected for case. Noun and adjective
paradigms contained four cases—nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative—while pronouns also
had forms for the instrumental case.
Grammatical gender of noun persisted throughout the Old English period. Just as Germans now say
der Fuss, die Hand, and das Auge (masculine, feminine, and neuter terms for “the foot,” “the hand,”
and “the eye”), so, for these same structures, Aelfric said sē fōt, sēo hond, and thaet ēaġe, also
masculine, feminine, and neuter.
Pronouns
Pronouns were typically suppletive in their declension, meaning inflectional rules did not account
for many forms, so each form had to be memorized (as is true of modern English I/me, you,
he/she/it/his/her, etc). The pronouns of the 1st and 2nd persons still had distinctive dual forms.

Articles
There were two demonstratives: sē, sēo, thaet, meaning “that,” and thes, thēos, this, meaning “this,”
but no articles, the definite article being expressed by use of the demonstrative for “that” or not
expressed at all. Thus, “the good man” was sē gōda mon or just gōd mon. The function of the
indefinite article was performed by the numeral ān “one” in ān mon “a man,” by the adjective-
pronoun sum in sum mon “a (certain) man,” or not expressed, as in thū eart gōd mon “you are a
good man.”

Verbs
 Verbs had two tenses only (present-future and past), three moods (indicative, subjunctive, and
imperative), two numbers (singular and plural), and three persons (1st, 2nd, and 3rd). There were
two classes of verb stems.
One type of verb stem, called vocalic because an internal vowel shows variations, is exemplified by
the verb for “sing”: singan, singth, sang, sungon, gesungen.
The word for “deem” is an example of the other, called consonantal: dēman, dēmth, dēmde, dēmdon,
gedēmed.
Such verbs are called strong and weak, respectively.
Old English verbs were conjugated according to person (1st, 2nd, or 3rd), number (singular or
plural), tense (present or past/preterite), mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive), etc.
Most verbs were either "strong" or "weak" in conjugation; there were seven classes of strong verbs
and three classes of weak verbs.
A few other verbs, including modals (e.g. for 'can', 'must'), belonged to a special category called
"preterit-present," where different rules applied, and yet others (e.g. for 'be', 'do', 'go') were
"anomalous," meaning each form had to be memorized.
Verbs were weak and strong, in accordance with their means of producing the preterite (i.e. past)
tense. This was produced by addition of a suffix -de (or -te) in weak verbs, e.g. hīere, hīerde 'hear,
heard', or by internal vowel change called ablaut in strong verbs, e.g. binde, band 'bind, bound'.
Many verbs that were strong in Old English are weak (regular) verbs in Modern English (e.g., Old
English helpan, present infinitive of the verb help; healp, past singular; hulpon, past plural; holpen,
past participle versus Modern English help, helped, helped, helped, respectively).
Passives were formed with the auxiliaries bēon 'be', wesan 'be', and also with weorðan 'become' plus
the infinitive.
There were two tenses: present and preterite; three moods: indicative, subjunctive, and imperative
(plus sometimes optative), each with two numbers: singular and plural.
There were also three "nominal" forms: the gerund, present participle, and past participle.

6.Talk about Old English sentence structure. How was it different from present
day English? Give examples.
Old English was a "synthetic" language, meaning inflectional endings signalled grammatical structure
and word order was rather free. Modern English, by contrast, is an "analytic" language, meaning word
order is much more constrained (e.g., with clauses typically in Subject-Verb-Object order). In prose
texts, the word order was similar to Modern English (only verbs were sometimes moved, like in
Modern German). However, in poetry, a sentence could have any order for emphasis. Because of the
greater use of inflections in Old English, word order was freer than today. The sequence of subject,
verb, and complement was normal, but when there were outer and inner complements the second was
put in the dative case after to: Sē biscop hālgode Ēadrēd tō cyninge “The bishop consecrated Edred
king.”
After an introductory adverb or adverbial phrase the verb generally took second place as in modern
German: Nū bydde iċ ān thing “Now I ask [literally, “ask I”] one thing”; Thȳ ilcan gēare gesette
Aelfrēd cyning Lundenburg “In that same year Alfred the king occupied London.”
Practical task