OLD ENGLISH – Seminar 1

Introduction to Old English. Origin and Position of English. General Characteristics of

Old English.

1.0. Introduction
Language is associated with writing and calls up a picture of the printed page. We get
an impression that language is something uniform and relatively fixed. However, writing is
only a conventional device for recording sounds and language is primarily speech. The Latin
of Cicero or the French of Voltaire is the product of centuries of development and language as
long as it is in actual use is in a constant state of change.
Where constant communication takes place among the people speaking a language,
individual differences become merged in the general speech of the community and a certain
conformity prevails. However, if any separation of one community from another takes place
and lasts for a considerable length of time, differences grow up between them. The
differences may be slight if the separation is slight, and we have merely local dialects. On the
other hand, they may become more considerable as to render the language of one district
unintelligible to the speakers of another. In this particular case we are dealing with the
development of separate languages. Even if the differentiation has gone too far, it is usually
possible to recognize a sufficient number of features which the resulting languages still retain
in common to indicate that at one time they were one.
For instance, it is easy to perceive the close kinship between English and German.
(milch=milk, brot=bread, fleisch=flesh, wasser=water)These words have obviously diverged
from a common form. In the same way a connection between English and Latin is indicated
by such correspondences as (pater=father, frāter=brother), although the difference in the
initial consonants tends somewhat to obscure this relationship.
When we notice that father corresponds to the Dutch vader, Gothic fadar, Old Norse
faðir, German vater, Greek patēr, Sanskrit pitar-, and Old Irish athir (with loss of the initial
consonant), or that English brother corresponds to Dutch broeder, German bruder, Sanskrit
bhrātar-, Old Slavic bratǔ, Irish brathair, we are led to the hypothesis that languages of a
large part of Europe and part of Asia were at one time identical.
1.1. The discovery of Sanskrit
The most important discovery that led to this hypothesis was the recognition that
Sanskrit, a language of ancient India, was one of the languages of the group. The extensive
literature of India, reaching back further than that of any of the European languages, preserves
features of the common language much older than most of those of Greek or Latin or German.
It is easier, for example, to see the resemblance between the English word brother and the
Sanskrit bhrātar-, than between brother and frāter. What is even more important is the fact
that Sanskrit preserves an unusually full system of declensions and conjugations by which it
became clear that the inflections of these languages could likewise be traced to a common
origin.

Compare the following forms of the verb to be:

Old English Gothic Latin Greek Sanskrit
eom (am) im sum eimi asmi
eart (art) is es ei asi
is (is) ist est esti asti
sindon (are) sijum sumus esmen smas
sindon (are) sijuþ estis este stha
sindon (are) sind sunt eisi santi

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 The Sanskrit forms particularly permit us to see that at one time this verb had the same
endings (mi, si, ti, mas, tha, nti) as were employed in the present tense of other verbs, e.g.:
Sanskrit Greek
dádāmi dídōmi (I give)
dádāsi dídōs
dádāti dídōsi
dadmás dídomen (dial. didomes)
datthá dídote
dáda(n)ti dídóāsi (dial. didonti)

2. The languages in England before English.

English has been the language of England for a comparatively short period of time in
the world’s history. What we know of the earliest inhabitants of England is derived wholly
from the material remains that have been uncovered by archaeological research. The
classification of these inhabitants is based upon the types of material culture that characterized
them in their successive stages. Before the discovery of metals man was dependent upon stone
for the fabrication of such implements and weapons as he possessed. Generally speaking, the
Stone Age is thought to have lasted in England until about 2000 B.C., although the English
were still using some stone weapons in the battle of Hastings 1066. Stone, however, gradually
gave way to bronze, as bronze was eventually displaced by iron about 500 or 600 B.C.
The first people in England about whose language we have definite knowledge are the
Celts. It used to be assumed that the coming of the Celts to England coincided with the
introduction of bronze into the island. But the use of bronze probably preceded the Celts by
several centuries. The Celtic languages were divided into two major branches: the Gaelic or
Goidelic branch and the Cymric or Britannic branch. Celtic was the first Indo-European
language to be spoken in England and it is still spoken by a considerable number of people.
One other language, Latin, was spoken rather extensively for a period of about four centuries
before the coming of English. Latin was introduced when Britain became a province of the
Roman Empire.

2.1. The Latin language in Britain.

After the Roman conquest in A.D. 43, there followed a period of Romanization of the
province and among other evidence of Romanization one must include the use of the Latin
language. A great number of inscriptions have been found, all of them in Latin. The majority
of these proceed no doubt from the military and official class and being in the nature of public
records, were therefore in the official language. They do not indicate, however, a widespread
use of Latin by the native population. Latin did not replace the Celtic language in Britain as it
did in Gaul. Its use by native Britons was probably confined to members of the upper classes
and the inhabitants of the cities and towns.

2.2. The Germanic conquest

In 449 began the invasion of Britain by certain Germanic tribes, the founders of the
English nation. For more than a hundred years bands of conquerors and settlers migrated from
their continental homes in the region of Denmark and the Low Countries and established
themselves in the south and east of the island, gradually extending the area which they
occupied until it included all but the highlands in the west and north.
The traditional account of the Germanic invasions goes back to Bede and the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle. Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731,
tells us that the Germanic tribes which conquered England were the Jutes, Saxons, and

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Angles. It seems that the Jutes and the Angles had their home in the Danish peninsula, the
Jutes in the northern half (hence the name Jutland) and the Angles in the south. The Saxons
were settled to the south and west of the Angles, roughly between the Elbe and the Ems,
possibly as far as the Rhine. A fourth tribe, the Frisians, some of whom almost certainly came
to England, occupied a narrow strip along the coast from the Weser to the Rhine together with
the islands opposite. But by the time of the invasions the Jutes had apparently moved down to
the coastal area near the mouth of the Weser, and possibly also around the Zuyder Zee and the
lower Rhine, thus being in contact with both the Frisians and Saxons.
The Celts had come to depend on Roman arms for protection so when the Romans
withdrew in 410 the Celts found themselves at a disadvantage unable to keep out the warlike
tribes of the Picts and the Scots. When Roma refused assistance, Vortigern, one of the Celtic
leaders entered into an agreement with the Jutes whereby they were to assist the Celts in
driving out the Picts and Scots. The Jutes were a match for the Picts and the Scots but
recognizing the superiority of England over their continental home, decided to stay in the
island making a forcible settlement in the southeast, in Kent. The example of the Jutes was
followed by the invasion of other continental tribes who drove out the Celtic population.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle some of the Saxons came in 477, landed on the
south coast and established themselves in Sussex. In 495 further bands of Saxons settled a
little to the west in Wessex. Finally in the middle of the next century the Angles occupied the
east coast and in 547 established an Anglian kingdom north of the Humber. Thus, there were
Saxons north of the Thames, as the names Essex and Middlesex (the districts of the East
Saxons and Middle Saxons) indicate, and the Angles had already begun to settle in East
Anglia by the end of the fifth century.

Cognates

English I me is mother brother ten

Sanskrit aham ma asti matar bhratar daca

Iranian azem me asti matar bratar dasa
Greek ego me esti meter phrater deka
Latin ego me est mater frater decem
Old English ic me is moder brothor tien
Old Irish me is mathir brathir deich
Lithuanian asz mi esti mote broterelis deszimtis
Russian ia menya jest' mat' brat' desiat'

Annex

Anglo-Saxon Society and Literature

Salient characteristics of the early Anglo-Saxon society in England:

- the major influx of Germanic immigration into England came in the mid 5th century; the
Saxons were invited by Celtic leaders to help their people resist attacks from the barbarian
Picts and Scots of the North, but the Germanic tribes soon became more of a threat than
the peoples they had been brought in to fight.
- In the latter part of the 6th century, apparently after an important victory in 571, the pace
of the Anglo-Saxon conquest speeded up again, and by 600 a great deal of southern
Britain was in Anglo-Saxon hands

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- The Anglo-Saxons had two possessions to which they clung tenaciously: language and
their individual conception of government, law and society
- The Anglo-Saxon king was a respected figurehead who had to be able to trace his ancestry
back to Woden; he was subject to approval of the council of the elders, the witan, who
represented the opinion of the tribe
- The ruling class of the historical Anglo-Saxon tribes was comprised of the eorlas (all of
those who could trace their descent from Mannus – “the first man”); those whose ancestry
was not pure were freomen “freemen” (few in number); the lower class of bounded
peasant descendant mainly from captives of the tribe were the ceorlas “churls”.
- It was a fundamentally agricultural society made to function through the unremitting
labour of churls, who ploughed, hunted, fished and fowled, forged metals and wove
garments.
- The earl had the responsibility of protecting his own and his inferiors; every human being
in the society had an intrinsic economic value which could be translated into monetary
terms; if this particular human being should be damaged or removed from the scene
through the wilful act of another, the remover was liable to pay a price, to the full
economic value of his victim – the wergild.
- Women were household functionaries, marriageable commodities, biological accessories;
but they were respected.

Historical background

- Bede ( Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 731) speaks about the coming of the
Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes: “They came from three very powerful Germanic tribes,
the Saxons, Agnles and Jutes. The people of Kent and the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight
are of Jutish origin, and also those opposite the Isle of Wight, that part of the kigdom of
Wessex which is still today called the nation of Jutes. From the Saxon country, that is, the
district now known as Old Saxony, came the East Saxons, the South Saxons and the West
Saxons. Besides this, from the country of the Angles, that is the land between the
kingdoms of the Jutes and the Saxons, which is called Angulus, came the East Angles, the
Middle Angles, the Mercians and all the Northumbrian race (that is those people who
dwell north of the river Humber) as well as the other Anglian tribes. Angulus is said to
have remained deserted from that day to this.”
Modern research disagrees, first of all because archaeological evidence points almost to a
certainty that a large number of Frisians are to be included among the invading tribes.
Bede’s distinction has a great deal of truth, but it is slightly exaggerated.
- the Jutes were the first to come and also the first to disappear as a political unity
- all of the Germanic population north of the Thames was of Anglian stock:
- (N) Northumbria
- (SW) Mercia
- (SE) East Anglia
- to the south, the Saxons took over nearly all of the island (except for Wales and
Cornwall): Wessex (most important historically), Essex, Sussex.
- There existed for a time 7 distinct units (the so-called Heptarchy): Northumbria, Mercia,
Wessex, Essex, Sussex, East Anglia, Kent.
- There were too many highly individualistic rulers, who were far too close in tradition to
the former isolated, self-sufficient kingship enjoyed on the Continent to be able to
envisage an integrated English nation; to the early Anglo-Saxons, the concept of a
national unity was of far less importance than the integrity of their local organization

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- Before the Norman Conquest (1066), the history of the Anglo-Saxons is the story of the
rise and fall of kingdoms, with the final emergence of an ultimately unified realm.

Northumbria
- the most northerly of kingdoms, was the first to gain a political, social and cultural
ascendancy, which lasted from 588 to 670
- Northumbria’s greatness was clearly due to her Christianization, to the fact that the Irish
missionaries of Lindsifarne had planted well, though they did not reap the harvest; abbeys,
churches and monasteries (Lindsifarne, Jarrow, Durham, Wearmouth, York) flourished
and with them – learning

Christianization – “a tale of two missions” (Bede):

- 6th century, Irish missionaries under the leadership of St. Columba founded the abbey at
Iona in the north of England.
- 597, a mission from Rome under St. Augustine arrived in Kent (sent by Pope Gregory to
found “the Church of the English” at Canterbury). The two missionary forces met in
conflict in Northumbria and the supremacy of the Roman mission was settled by the
Council of Whitby (664), though, according to Bede, the Irish mission made a more
pronounced impact than the Roman one.
- The 7th century saw the establishment of Christianity through the whole of England. The
Anglo-Saxon conversion had important implications for the development of a vernacular
literature.

Northumbria gave Anglo-Saxon society:

- the first English scholars (Aldhelm, Cuthbert, Bede, Alcuin, Caedmon)
- the first English historian (Bede)
- the first English translation of the Gospels (The Lindsifarne Gospels – famous for their
decorations)
- the first English literary school (Caedmon)
- the greatest centre of Anglo-Saxon christendom (Lindsifarne – the abbey and bishopric
founded by missionaries from Iona in 635)

The collapse of the first important Anglian kingdom (mostly as a result of Viking menace)
involved the general collapse of the highest state of culture which the British Isles were to
know for nearly 200 years; the scholars fled elsewhere and much of the literature was to be
rediscovered and redisseminated at a later date.

Mercia
The Mercians under Offa (d.685)
Unfortunately, they were unable to carry on the tradition of their Northumbrian predecessors.
They had never been a cultured or enlightened people; one of their most celebrated kings
(Penda) was an implacable enemy of Christianity.
Even if the Mercians had possessed a Bede or a Caedmon, it is doubtful whether they would
have had the opportunity to make use of such men as they were threatened from the North by
the Vikings and from the South by the West Saxons.

Wessex
- the Mercians were defeated by the West Saxons in 825
- they had to fight for existence against the Viking Danes (Danish marauders had virtually
surrounded England)

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- King Alfred is the one who makes the Danes receive their first setback; the Danish
concession ( the Danelagh) restrained itself to the region north of the line from London to
Chester – this had considerable effect upon the later English language

King Alfred (871 – 899)

- the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon kings, wise in politics, able in war, and provident of the
intellectual and social needs of his people
- founded the strong kingdom of Wessex and accomplished more than anyone else before
the Norman conquest. The revival of at least part of the cultural splendor of Northumbria
- set himself to the task of translating and adapting for use of his people the literary classics
of his immediate age (Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care, Bede’s History, Boethius’ The
Consolation of Philosophy, St. Augustine’s Soliloquies)
- revised the law-codes of Wessex
- reformulated the ancient chronicles of his people (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)
- strove for the literacy of Wessex, a nation he considered Angelcynn: when he came to the
throne, he found that the learning which in the 8th century, in the days of Bede and Alcuin
(scholar sought out by Charlemagne), had placed England in the forefront of Europe, had
greatly decayed. King Alfred launched his educational programme in his preface to his
translation of Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care. The intention was that people should gain
wisdom through access “to what is most necessary to all men to know”. It was lack of
wisdom that had brought down punishment in this world (i.e. the Viking invasions): “all
the youth that are English freemen, those that have the means… should be committed to
learning… until they can read English writing well; one can then teach Latin speech to
those who wish to learn further and to go on to higher orders.”
- Much of the OE prose writing was public and official, in a way that prose seldom was to
be again after the Conquest until the late 14th century.
- His daring, ambitious attempt to render philosophy, history, legend, science, and biblical
exegesis in vernacular – helped the resistance to Latin prose as a model (contrary to what
was happening on the Continent, say, in Charlemagne’s court)
- Encouraged the development of a learned vocabulary from native resources and the
building of a system of syntax and sentence structure based on native idiom (it is
remarkable that English possessed a considerable body of prose and literature in the 9 th
century, at a time when most other modern languages in Europe had scarcely developed a
literature)
- The traditional language of vernacular poetry was often an influence, but there was an
evident degree of resistance to this, too
- The language of literary prose was recognizably different from the spoken language of the
time.
- Two problems here:
- 1. Developing a vocabulary that could cope with the intellectual and technical
demands of their subjects and still be generally understood
- 2. Developing techniques of grammatical relations and sentence structure to
organize complex thought, without the benefit of either stress-distinctions
important in speech or the partially metrical patterns additional in verse.
- There is also the concern with establishing a standard form of the language, governed by
recognized rules, and a growing interest in the possibilities of stylistic ornament.
- wrt. the Latin translations, apparently there was surprisingly little suggestion of any
difficulty in rendering Latin thought in the vernacular. King Alfred discusses the
principles of translation in his preface to the Pastoral Care, translating, he says,
“sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense”.