Old English

The English language of today is very different from its early avatar.  The transition from Old English to its present form has been gradual.  The evolution of the language and its variations in patterns and forms has found the influence of other languages such as Greek and Latin.  English has its origins in the Indo-European family of languages with the West Germanic language being its closest relative. 

There are three main stages or periods in the development of English language.  The first is the Old English or the Anglo –Saxon period that dates back from 600 to 1100AD.  The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes influenced the literacy of the period.  The three dialect forms overlap each other and the result was the Old English.  The Old English dialect was predominantly Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish.  Old English grammar was highly inflected.  So, this period has been described as the “period of full inflections”.  There were four cases – nominative, accusative, genitive and dative, with an illogical three gender system.

 Let’s look at pronunciation of that time now. We find that its spelling and pronunciation were closely related.  The Germanic tribes used the Runic Alphabet.  The Old English spelling was phonetic in character, each letter representing a sound and it contained no silent letters.  The vocabulary of the period was enriched by Indo-European words, Celtic influence, Latin and Scandinavian.  Words as moon, sun, earth, fire etc. are from the Indo-European family.  Words like dun,-cumb are of Celtic origin.  Latin words included those from commodities and items of food.  The Danish influence mainly contributed common words used in the society, as fellow, sister, black, dirt etc.

The Anglo-Saxon influence saw words undergoing changes in meaning.  Some words such as lord and lady were elevated and others such as knave and silly suffered degradation.  Other words as thrill and riddle were associated with other meanings. 

The Norman Conquest brought in remarkable changes in Old English and embarked upon a new phase of development. A study into the history of the English language is interesting and inspiring.

Join Englishprep.com to widen the horizons of your knowledge about the origin, structure and influence of the English language. Englishprep, an online tutoring company, will help you research the fascinating journey of the English language.