Old English Period

 

Periods in the History of English

The evolution of English has been an unbroken one. With this development, however, it is possible to recognize three main periods.

• v  The period 450- 1150 is known as the Old English Period. The Anglo-Saxon Conquest marks the beginning of this period. It is called the period of full inflections, since during this period inflections were preserved more or less unimpaired.
• v  The period from 1150 to 1500 is known as the Middle English Period. The Norman Conquest marks the beginning of this period. During this period, the inflections became gradually reduced and so it is known as the period of leveled inflections.
• v  The period since 1500 is known as the Modern English Period. The Renaissance marks the beginning of this period. It is called the period of lost inflections because a large part of the original inflectional system disappeared.

 

Old English Period

Old English Dialects

There were a number of kingdoms during the Old English Period. Hence there were a number of dialects in Old English. Out of these the four prominent dialects were Kentish, West Saxon, Mercian and North Umbrian. During the Old English Period, the West Saxon dialect gained supremacy. There were many reasons for the popularity of the West Saxon dialect.

1.       Wessex being the most civilized kingdom among the rest, there was political stability there whereas peace in other kingdoms was destroyed by wars.

2.       Most of the important literary works of the period- Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was written in West Saxon dialect.

3.       Other kinds of important writings like Charms, Riddles, and Treatises were written in West Saxon dialect.

4.       West Saxon kings including King Alfred who strove for the unification of England spoke the West Saxon dialect.

Old English Grammar

The most fundamental feature that distinguishes Old English from Modern English is its grammar. Old English is a synthetic language whereas Modern English is an analytical language. Synthetic language is one which indicates the relation of words in a sentence by means of inflections. Analytical language is one which makes extensive use of prepositions and auxiliary verbs and depends upon word order to show the relation between words in a sentence.

 

Nouns

The inflections of the Old English Noun indicate the distinction of number and case. Old English noun had two numbers- Singular and Plural. It had four cases- Nominative, Accusative, Genitive and Dative. The endings of these nouns vary with different nouns but they fall into certain broad categories or declensions. There is a vowel declension (strong) and a consonant declension (weak), according to whether the stem ended in Germanic in a vowel or a consonant.

Eg:

Stone – stān- consonant declension

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	Stān	Stānas
Accusative	Stān	Stānas
Genitive	Stānes	Stāna
Dative	Stāne	Stānum

 

Gift- giefa- vowel declension

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	Giefa	Giefa
Accusative	Giefu	Giefa
Genitive	Giefu	Giefa
Dative	Giefu	Giefum

 

Grammatical Gender

In Old English, all nouns had grammatical gender. Grammatical gender had no necessary connection with sex. So the names of inanimate objects could be masculine or feminine and the names of sexed creatures could be neuter.

Example:

Stān  (stone) -masculine

Mōna (moon)- masculine

Sunne (sun)- feminine

Mœgden (girl)-neuter

Wīf (wife)- neuter

Wīfmann (woman)- masculine

 

Adjective

Another important feature of Old English is the development of a twofold declension of the adjective- the strong declension and the weak declension. The strong declension was used when the adjective was not preceded by anything. The weak declension was used when the adjective was preceded by articles, demonstratives or possessives.

Eg:

 gōd mann (good man)- Strong form

 se gōda mann (the good man)- Weak form

 

Definite Article

In Old English, the definite article showed three genders- sē (masculine), sēo (feminine) and þœt (neuter) and was inflected through all cases and numbers.

Personal Pronouns

The personal pronouns in Old English had a fairly complete system of inflections. There were pronouns of the first, second and third persons.

	Nominative	Accusative
First person	ic, wē (I, We)	Mē, ūs (me, us)
Second person	Þū, ye (you)	Þē,ēow (you)
Third person	Hē,hēo, hit, hīe (he, she, it, they)	Him, hie, hit, hīe (him, her, it, them)

 

Verb

Old English distinguished only two simple tenses of inflections, present and past. It recognized three moods- Indicative, Subjunctive and Imperative. In the principal parts of the Old English strong verbs, we have four forms- the infinite, the preterite singular, preterite plural and past participle. In Old English, the strong verbs can be grouped into six general classes.

	Infinite	Preterite Singular	Preterite Plural	Past Participle
Class I To drive	Drifan	Drāf	Drifon	Drifen
Class II To choose	Cēosan	Cēas	Curon	Coren
Class III To help	Helpan	Healp	Hulpon	Holpen
Class IV To bear (endure)	Beran	Bœr	Bœron	Boren
Class V To speak	Sprecan	Sprœc	Spœcon	Sprecen
Class VI To go	Faran	Fōr	Foron	Faren

 

The weak verbs in Old English form their past tense by adding ede, ode, de to the present stem and their past participle by adding ed, od or d.

	Infinitive	Preterite	Past Participle
To perform	Fremman	Fremede	Gefremed
To love	Lufian	Lufode	Gelufod
To live	Libban	Lifde	Gelifd

 

Old English Spelling and Pronunciation

v   Used seven vowel symbols- a,e,i,o,u,y,  (ash, made by combining two symbols)

o   Either long or short sounds

o   All were pure vowels

o   Y was pronounced by first rounding the lips as if for the sound /u:/ and then spreading the lips to produce /i:/

v  Diphthongs- Anglo-Saxons used diagraphs, that is sequences of two symbols (eo, io, ie etc)

v  Consonants- b, c, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, þ, ð, w

 

o   OE did not have the symbol ‘v’. ‘f’ for /f/ and /v/ (/v/ in the middle of a word)

o   Þ (thorn) and ð (eth) represented /Ѳ/ and / ð/ respectively

o   ‘s’ - /s/ and /z/

o   ‘c’ -/k/ normally, /t∫/ before front vowels.

o   ‘sc’ for  /∫/ (scip)

o   G for /g/ and /j/

o   ‘cg’ for /dζ/ (ecg-edge)

o   N pronounced /ŋ/ before /k/ or /g/ (sing- /sıŋg/)