Old English

For several centuries before our era, Celtic people had lived in western Europe and Britain, so that the earliest Indo-European languages spoken in England were Celtic. But starting in A.D. 43, the Romans gradually conquered most of what is now England, bringing with them Latin, an Italic language.

Although the Romans occupied England for some four hundred years, they did not dislodge the Celtic language. While the Celts who were members of the upper classes probably learned Latin as a second language, they took only a few hundred Latin words into their native Celtic. And only a few of these survive today; port, meaning ‘a harbour’, is one of the best known of this handful.

Another thing the Romans never succeeded in dislodging was the warlike northern tribes, the Picts and the Scots. From the time the Romans came to England, these Celtic tribes harassed both the Romans and the British Celts, periodically raiding settlements. When the gradual withdrawal of Roman legions reached its peak in A.D. 410, the Picts and Scots increased their raids. The British Celts soon found themselves without Roman protection and in desperation appealed to some Teutonic tribes for help.

According to the earliest written history of this period, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the monk Venerable Bede, the first Teutonic invaders arrived in A.D. 449. These first invaders were probably the Jutes, who, having readily subdued the Picts and the Scots, decided to settle in the southeast area known as Kent. Unlike the Romans, the Jutes did not come just to colonize; they came to possess. Somehow, word of their success must have reached the continent, for some thirty years later they were joined by another tribe known as the Saxons, who settled in the south in the area known as Sussex. And about eighty years later, in the middle of the sixth century, the Angles came to occupy the eastern coast.

By the end of the 6^th century Kent was the only kingdom of the Jutes while the Angles and Saxons formed six kingdoms: three kingdoms of the Angles in the north-eastern and central parts of the island (Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia /ˈmɜ:ʃiə/), and three of the Saxons in the southern part (Essex, Sussex, Wessex).

These three tribes, the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles, all spoke slightly different Germanic dialects. These dialects are now grouped into the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. It is this group of Germanic dialects which is the ancestor of Old English, or, as it is sometimes called, Anglo-Saxon.

All this is not to suggest, however, that with the decisive conquest by the Germanic tribes, Old English achieved some final form. There were two important events in the Old English period that had an important effect on the language. The first was the Christianizing of England. Although the Germanic tribes had had some contact with Christianity in Europe, for the most part they practised a pagan religion. During the latter part of the sixth century, Christian missionaries began to arrive from Ireland and from Rome. By the middle of the seventh century, the people had largely converted to Christianity, although pagan customs continued to survive. Christianity had an important effect on Old English, for it marked the true beginning of word–borrowing in English. Old English began this process by borrowing the Latin words necessary for the practice of Christianity. Monk, minister, bishop, and priest are examples.

The second major event was a series of raids by the Danish Vikings which began in the ninth century. Alfred, the great West Saxon king, held the Danes at bay, finally concluding a treaty of peace with them which gave the Danes land in the northeastern part of England. The dialect the Danes spoke merged gradually with English, and English enriched its vocabulary by adding many Scandinavian words to its native stock. Birth, dirt, fellow, scrub, freckle, race, ransack, call, get, egg, leg, take and give are all very common words borrowed from the Danes during this period.

Despite these borrowings from Latin and Danish, Old English was primarily and essentially a development from some Germanic dialects spoken by those settlers who came to England during the fifth century. The influence of other languages was limited to adopting certain vocabulary terms; the grammar and phonology of Old English were entirely home-grown.

What was this home-grown language like? That’s a difficult question to answer because language changes constantly in time and place. Therefore, Early Old English is different from Late Old English. In general, however, we can distinguish four principal Old English dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. As is often the case, a major river separated the two northern dialect areas. Although most of the area north of the Thames River was settled by Angles, there were sufficient differences in the Anglian dialect spoken north of the Humber River to distinguish it from the Anglian dialect spoken in the region between the Thames and Humber rivers. The Jutes who settled in the southeast spoke the Kentish dialect, and the Saxons who settled in the southwest spoke another distinct dialect called West Saxon.

Which of the four dialects shall we describe? In a way, history has answered the question for us. During the reign of Alfred (871 – 900) and for many years after, the area where West Saxon was spoken became the centre of English culture. As a consequence, much important Old English literature was written or later transcribed in the West Saxon dialect, and it is these literary texts that constitute our best sources for the study of Old English. Since most of these texts date from about A.D. 900, we shall have to describe the West Saxon dialect as it must have existed about that time.

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1630