HISTORY

OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES
 Contents

1. Introduction.................................................................................................................................3

2. LIST OF ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES....................................................................5

3. THE SUBJECT AND AIMS OF THE HISTORY OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES.........7

4. THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE HISTORY OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES

.........................................................................................................................................................8

5. THE INDO-EUROPEAN GROUP........................................................................................13

6. GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL SURVEY OF GERMANIC DIALECTS.........16

7. DIFFERENTIATION OF COMMON GERMANIC AND HISTORY OF GERMANIC

LANGUAGES..............................................................................................................................20

8. HISTORY OF GERMANIC WRITING...............................................................................24

9. PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF GERMANIC PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY....30

10. PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF GERMANIC WORDSTOCK...........................................35

11. OLD ENGLISH VOCABULARY, ITS GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. WAYS OF

ENRICHING IT..........................................................................................................................39

11.1. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE OLD ENGLISH VOCABULARY.............................................39

11.2. NATIVE WORDS.................................................................................................................40
11.3. FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN THE OLD ENGLISH VOCABULARY...............................................44
11.3.1. Borrowings from Celtic.............................................................................................44
11.3.2. Latin influence on the OE vocabulary.......................................................................44
11.3.3. Scandinavian Loans..................................................................................................46
11.4. WORD-BUILDING MEANS IN OLD ENGLISH.......................................................................47
11.4.1. Word Structure..........................................................................................................47
11.4.2. Ways of word-formation............................................................................................47

Themes for Reports........................................................................................................................49

2
 1. INTRODUCTION

Among the Indo-European languages the Germanic ones stand first as to the number of
people speaking them, more than 400 million speakers of different Indo-European languages.
To modern Germanic languages one can refer:
1. The English language (English) spoken in Great Britain, USA, Australia, New
Zealand, Oceania. In these countries it is the national language, that is the language of the
overwhelming majority of the population. In Canada – English is one of the two state languages
alongside with French. The English speaking Canadians make up more than 40% of the
population. In the South African Republic, English is also one of the state languages together
with Affricans. English was introduced by force as the language of colonial domination in the
former colonies and dominions of the UK (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland). There existed local languages of the population of these countries and functioned as
state languages. In the countries which obtained freedom, English lost the dominant status and
gradually was squeezed by the local languages. English is spoken by more than 300 mln. people.
2. German is spread in Germany, Austria, North and Central Switzerland, in Luxemburg,
on the territory of France in Alsace and Lorraine. It is also spread in different regions on the
territory of Europe and USA. German is spoken by approximately 100 mln. people.
3. The Dutch (Netherlandish) is the language of the population of Netherlands and
Flanders, uniting the northern provinces of Belgium; it is also spread in USA, and West India.
The Dutch language is spoken by more than 19 mln. people.
4. Affrikans – Boer [buə] is the language of descendents of Duch colonists, one of the
two state languages of the South African Republic, the second being English. About 3.5 mln.
people speak it.
5. Yiddish – the New Jewish language is spread in different countries among the Jewish
population.
6. Frisien (friziană) is not an independent national language, it is spoken on the Frisien
islands, on the northern coast of the Netherlands and in a small region of north-west of Germany.
About 370 thousand people speak this language. The above-mentioned languages refer to the
West Germanic subgroup.
The North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroup includes the following language:
1. Icelandic is the language of Ireland and about 215 thousand people speak it.
2. Norwegian is the language of Norway with the population of nearly 4 mln. people.
3. Faeroes (fareză) is the language of the Faeroes islands with a population of 35
thousand people.

3
 4. Swedish is the language of the population of Sweden with more than 8 mln. people
and part of the population of Finland including 400 thousand people speaking this
language.
5. Danish is the language of Denmark, having more than 5 mln. people. It is also spread
in Greenland and on the Faeroes islands.
The Scandinavian languages – Swedish, Norvegian as well as Danish are spread in some
states of the USA and Canada among immigrants of the Scandinavian countries. Being in the
media of the people speaking other languages, these languages undergo considerable changes.
The East Germanic subgroup included the Gothic and Burgundian languages, the first
being the most important which at present is dead.

4
 2. LIST OF ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES

This is a list of countries where English is considered to be the official language or the de
facto language, that is the language used by the majority of speakers but not considered the
official language (non-sovereign entities are not included):
Country Region Population
Antigua and Barbuda Caribbean 85,000
Australia Australia 22,374,370
Bahamas, The Caribbean 331,000
Barbados Caribbean 294,000
Belize Central America / Caribbean 288,000
Botswana Africa 1,882,000
Cameroon Africa 18,549,000
Canada North America 33,531,000
Dominica Caribbean 73,000
Eritrea Africa 5,224,000
Ethiopia Africa 82,101,998
Fiji Oceania 827,900
The Gambia Africa 1,709,000
Ghana Africa 23,478,000
Grenada Caribbean 106,000
Guyana South America / Caribbean 738,000
India Asia 1,143,540,000
Ireland Europe 4,581,269
Jamaica Caribbean 2,714,000
Kenya Africa 37,538,000
Kiribati Oceania 95,000
Kingdom of the Netherland Caribbean (and Europe) 17,000,000
Lesotho Africa 2,008,000
Liberia Africa 3,750,000
Malawi Africa 13,925,000
Malta Europe 412,600
Marshall Islands Oceania 59,000
Mauritius Africa / Indian Ocean 1,262,000
Federated States of Micronesia Oceania 111,000
Namibia Africa 2,074,000
Nauru Oceania 10,000
New Zealand Oceania 4,294,350
Nigeria Africa 148,093,000
Pakistan Asia 165,449,000
Palau Oceania 20,000
Papua New Guinea Central America / Caribbean 6,331,000
Philippines Asia 90,457,200
Rwanda Africa 9,725,000
Saint Kitts and Nevis Caribbean 50,000
Saint Lucia Caribbean 165,000
Saint Vincent and the Grenadine Oceania 120,000
Samoa Oceania 188,359

5
Seychelles Africa / Indian Ocean 87,000
Sierra Leone Africa 5,866,000
Singapore Asia 4,839,400
Solomon Islands Oceania 506,992
South Africa Africa 47,850,700
South Sudan Africa 8,260,490
Sudan Africa 31,894,000
Swaziland Africa 1,141,000
Tanzania Africa 40,454,000
Tonga Oceania 100,000
Trinidad and Tobago Caribbean 1,333,000
Tuvalu Oceania 11,000
The United Kingdom Europe 61,612,300
The United States North America 309,442,000
Uganda Africa 30,884,000
Vanuatu Oceania 226,00
Zambia Africa 11,922,000
Zimbabwe Africa 13,349,000

6
 3. THE SUBJECT AND AIMS OF THE HISTORY OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES

Languages can be studied in various aspects: its phonetics, morphology, wordstock and
so on. In modern times languages are studied synchronically, they are regarded as fixed
unchangeable system. The synchronic approach may be contrasted to the diachronic one, in
which no element of the language is treated as fixed or stable. When considered diachronically,
every linguistic fact can be interpreted as a stage or a step in the never ending evolution of the
language. The contrast between diachronic and synchronic study is not so marked in practice as
it is in theory. In studying Modern Germanic languages we often resort to history to explain
current phenomena (spelling, an unusual form, vocabulary, etymology of words, etc.); in
investigating the history of the language the diachronic and synchronic approaches are
commonly combined – the development of the language can be presented as a series of
synchronic cross-sections – the language of a certain age.
The history of a language is of considerable interest to everybody, it shows the ties of a
language with other languages of the Germanic group as well as with languages of other groups,
e.g. (for example) French and Latin.
The history of the language shows that linguistic alteration may be dependent or caused
by events in the history of people (the influence of on language on another, the appearance of
new word to name new objects, etc.). A study of the phonetical, grammatical and lexical
evolution of the language enables of a language and its interdependence with others. One of the
primary aims of history of Germanic language is to provide students with some knowledge about
the essential features and characteristics of a modern language.

7
4. THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE HISTORY OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES

The history of a language, a group of languages or a family of languages gives us

information on the appearance of a language, its development stage by stage, its characteristic
features.
The history if Germanic languages is connected, first of all, with the bearers of these
languages, ancient Germans, their setting on the appearance of tribal formations or joinings and
the creation of first barbarian kingdoms, that is social division, of the tribes.
The second stop in the history of Germanic languages refers to the history of Germanic
Philology, that is, the way they spoke, as they used only the oral form of the language in the pre-
written period. The concepts of the comparative historical method is of significant importance,
because on the basis of such investigations, the peculiarities of the Germanic languages could be
determined as to the similar and distinctive characteristic, their relation to other groups of
languages of the Indo-European family of languages, special attention being paid to the
phonological and morphological systems of languages, thus introducing the concept of related
and unrelated languages, the key pillar for this being the common ancestor – common proto-
language.
With the introduction of the writing system interest presents the alphabets the Germanic
group used, their characteristic features.
In the 16th-17th centuries during the epoch of nations and national languages formation –
(languages spoken by the majority of the population of a country (nation), whereas literary
languages, having a standard norm, the languages of educated people, the languages of printing,
prose, poems, great interest aosein European countries referring to these problems. Investigations
of the Germanic languages – English, Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish, Norvegian, Icelandic
were undertaken. The grammarians discussed the problems of orthography (writing),
pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, the demands on purifying the native language from foreign
borrowings (loan words) were advanced.
In England dictionaries of "difficult" words appeared in 1755 – the etymological
dictionary of S.Johnson was published; the etymological dictionary of the Dutch language was
issued by Kilianus in 1599; in Germany the explanatory dictionary of the German language
made up by K.Shriller appeared in 1691.
The growth of national self-consciousness accompanied by the development of capitalist
relations awoke the interest to national values, to written monuments (works) in native
languages, so the most precious manuscripts in Old and Middle. German languages were
published at that period.

8
 The theoretical linguistic conception of that period was influenced by the philosophical
trends of – rationalism and empiricism. The supporter of the first trend was R. Decarte who
made attempts to elaborate rational, logical grammars. A bright representative of this trend was
the famous German mathematician and philosopher G.Leibniz, F.Bekon, G.Gobbs and D.Lock
paid much attention to empirical investigations and aimed at the live use of the language, at the
natural live speech.
Among the 18th century scientists who advanced the idea of genetical connections of
languages and their historical changes were G.Leibniz and the great Russian scientist
M.Lomonosov.
The elaboration of the comparative-historical method in the 19 th century gave the
possibility of explaining many similiarities of Indo-European languages and follow the process
of their development. The founders of this method were the German linguist Franz Bopp and
Rasmus Rask, a Danish scientist.
Franz Bopp was the first to describe the system of conjugation of Sanskrit in comparison
with Greek, Latin, Persian, and Germanic languages. He convincingly showed that the systemic
similiarity in the conjugation of the verb in these languages could be explained only by one
reason – their common origin.
Rasmus Rask proved the community of Germanic languages. The book German
grammar by Jacob Grimm had great importance in working out the comparative-historical
method. In his book for describing the German language grammar he used (applied) the method
of comparison with other Germanic languages.
The founders of the comparative-historical method not only grounded the concept on the
relationships of languages but laid the base of scientific approaches of the comparative-historical
analysis of facts of related languages. The prerequisite of applying the comparative historical
method is the possibility of languages separation, the possibility of related language appearance
from one source.
The common language from which related languages developed got the name of parent
language – proto language. In separate cases the parent language is known, as for example, Latin
for the Romance group, but more often the parent-language is a restored language model
obtained with the help of the comparative-historical method.
On the basis of the comparative-historical method the following Indo-European
languages and language groups are distinguished:

9
 Indo-European languages
Hellenic
Italic later Germanic
Indian Iranian Armenian or Albanian Celtic Baltic Slavonic Hittite Focarian
Romanic (Teutonic)
Greek
Old Old Indian Avesta Ancient Oscan Latin Gallic Prussian Old or Gothic,
languages Greek Church Old Norse,
Slavonic Old English,
Old Saxon,
Old Dutch,
Old German
Dates of 2nd ab. ab. ab. 6th century 2nd, 2rd, 4th, 2nd A.D.
some millennium 1000 A.D. 700 B.C. 7th century millenniu 600
early texts B.C. B.C. 500 B.C. m B.C.
Modern Hindi Persian Armenian Greek Albanian French, Irish- Latvian, Polish, Swedish, no loving no loving
languages Bengali and Italian, Gaelic, Lithuanian Czech, Icelandic, language language
and other others Spanish, Scotch, Bulgarian, Danish,
languages Portuguese, Gaelic, Russian, Norwegian,
of India Roumanian, Welsh, Ukrainian, Faroese
and Catalon, Cornish, Belorussian, English,
Pakistan Rheto- Breton etc. High
Romanic German,
Yiddish,
Low German,
Dutch,
Frisian,
Afrikaans,
Flemish

Note: B.C. = Before Christ [bi'fɔ: kraist] – (înaintea erei noastre, înainte de Cristos)
A.D. = 'ei di: ['ænou dɔminai] – (era noastră)
11
 The present classification of Indo-European languages is genetical as it is based on the
principle of the origin from a common Indo-European parent-language (parent language).
At the initial stage of applying the comparative-historical method much material, factual
material was gathered. Franz Bopp published the first comparative grammar of Indo-European
languages (1833-1852): (Sanskrit, Arminian, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slavic, Gothic,
German). In the 20s of the 19th century great work on investigating the Germanic languages from
the historical point of views (diachronically) began. It was Jacob Grimm who wrote the first
comparative grammar of Germanic languages.
In the second half of the 19th century the philologists-comparativists concentrated their
attention on the investigation of concrete phonetical, grammatical and lexical phenomena and
considerably improved the method of comparative-historical analysis.
The young grammatical, not by age but by their practice, advanced the idea that each
phonetical change took place according to laws without any exceptions, but if there still occurred
deviations, then they were caused by the action (function) of some other law. In search of
explanations to exceptions in phonetics laws, the grammarians turned their attention to the
influence of analogy in the development of languages, as well as to the borrowings from other
languages.
In the last, third period of the 19th century the scientists started paying special attention
to the questions of syntax and lexical semantics (meaning), mainly from the historical point of
view.
One can't but mention the contribution of such great researches as B. Delbruck with his
collection of materials Syntactical investigations; Breal who published the work Semantic
descriptions. In 1879 the work of the famous Swiss linguist F. de Saussure Memoirs on the very
first system of vowels in Indo-European languages appeared; in which the description of separate
facts of the young grammarians gave way to the investigation of systemic links and inetractions.
The advantages of the comparative-historical analysis are:
1) The proof of material relationship of language facts, by regular and systemic
similiarities.
Sanskrit Greek Latin Russian Gothic
bhrătar phrător frăter брат brăpar
2) Internal or comparative, reconstruction or external reconstruction.
External reconstruction is the determination of the first source, archetype is based on the
comparison of lexical units of related languages, internal reconstruction is the comparison of
facts of one language at different stages.
3) The determination of chronology, is the consequitivity and simultaneosness of

12
language respectively to each other. The change of p, t, k in Germanic languages into f, ϸ, h or
b, ð, g, depending on stress which was free in Germanic as well as in Indo-European languages.
4) The determination of the area of language phenomena. Each language phenomenon
has its boundaries of distribution and one of the demands of the comparative-historical method is
this. For example:
Gothic Old Germanic Danish Old Frisian Old Swedish
fimf finf, funf fif fif fif
After the application of the comparative-historical method in practice, some weak points
were pointed out:
1) the method is good for investigating the similiarities but it is little effective for
studying differences between languages;
2) comparing facts of related languages very often facts project on one period of the
parent language;
3) some peculiarities traced in several related languages , which are probably innovations,
can be wrongly taken for characteristics inherited from one common origin;
4) not all the levels of the language system can be analysed, with the comparative-
historical method, to the same extent.
In the 20th century the comparative-historical method was closely connected with other
trends, first of all linguistic geography and historical typological investigations. Both these
directions are based on the facts found by using the comparative-historical method, the results of
which create conditions for undertaking typological investigations of Germanic languages at
different stages of their development and doing historical-typological descriptions of Germanic
languages.

13
 5. THE INDO-EUROPEAN GROUP

Most of the territory of Europe and some parts of Asia are today occupied by the same
group of languages that attracted the attention of Franz Bopp and Resmus Rask and Jacob
Grimm, Karl Verner and others and this is of course the Indo-European group.
In very ancient times an offshoot (lăstar) was attested in India and Persia. The two
languages were formed from this offshoot (branch) in these two countries. They were so similar
from the beginning that they were named by a single term: Indo-Iranian. But the histories of
these countries later led to great difference. Today the main Iranian dialect is written in Arabic
characters. The Indian branch was normalised, the norm of the language was in Sanskrit, the
language of ancient religious texts from the 9th century AD (our era), earlier than the Persian
language. The Indian ancient language spread over a wide area of modern India. Written
documents show relation with other languages in Europe. For example: duo (two), tres (three),
quattuor (four), quinque (five).
One of the closest relatives of ancient Indian is rather curiously, a pair of modern worth-
central European languages, Lithuanian and Lettish which form a separate group – Baltic. The
occupy a relatively limited geographical area.
The neighbouring Slavic group is on the contrary widely extended over Eastern Europe
and into Asia. It may be subdivided into three subgroups: Western (Polish, Czech and Slovak);
Southern or Balkan (Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian) and Eastern (Russian, White Russian
(Belorussian) and Ukrainian).
The Germanic group today occupies a considerable territory and includes several national
languages. They may be separated into Scandinavian and non-Scandinavian. The first is called
North Germanic. They had many common characteristics at the beginning, but the modern
languages very greatly. Icelandic, a non-Scandinavian language is the most archaic and
conservative what concerns its vocabulary. Swedish occupies a middle position, while Danish
and Norwegian show the greatest innovations in structure and pronunciation. Outside of
Scandinavia, Germanic languages are spoken in England, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and
Austria. There are many common peculiarities between the languages of the West Germanic but
there are many differences too. The modern languages of this subgroup are: Flemish, Dutch,
Low German and High-German, Frisian, English. The term Low-German and High-German is
purely geographical and has nothing to do with moral values.
Another group, the Celtic, was at one time an important member of the Indo-European
family. It was spoken in territories extending from today Czech and Slovak – countries through
Austria, Southern Germany, Northern Italy, France and the British Isles. Today Celtic is greately

14
restricted. It is divided into two groups. One exists on the West coast of Ireland and northern
Highlands of Scotland. The second exists in Wales and in the French province of Brittany. Both
branches are interesting for specialists and have valuable early texts. The Gothic language which
belonged to the East Germanic subgroup is now dead.
Among living languages there are two isolated ones: Albanian and Armenian. Old
Armenian is attested in early religious writings. Derived forms of it are spoken in Asia Minor
(Southeast of the Black Sea), in Armenia and in Scattered territories of other republics. Albanian
is attested only since early modern times and because of its complex and modified character it
was one of the last European languages to be correctly classified.
There are groups that played an outstanding role in ancient times. This is the Hellenic
(Greek) group. It included a number of Greek dialects. Greek was for a long time used as an
international means of communication. The high quality of Greek literature and education
naturally increased its prestige. Oscan and Umbrian are preserved on inscriptions.
Another group appeared a little later, it was italic. It had a diversity of related forms of
speech. But Latin completed both related and unrelated forms not only in the peninsula but
throughout most of the known world.
There were two variants of Latin "classical" and "popular". The first was used by
cultivated writers, poets, historians, while the second was used in provinces by buyers and
sellers, soldiers, workers.
Latin came into contact with various types of native languages extending from Britain to
Africa and Asia Minor. This, in the course of centuries brought to the appearance of some
leading languages today. They are: Romanian, Italian, French, Spanish. Collectively all are
known as the Romance group of languages.
Among the Indo-European languages no longer spoken, some are known to us from
inscriptions or rare manuscripts (Tocharian in eastern Turkestan). Ancient Hittite, the language
of a people frequently mentioned in the Biblical Old Testament – is preserved in numerous
inscriptions in present-day Turkey. This language was a very ancient representative of the Indo-
European family of languages.

15
16
 6. GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL SURVEY OF GERMANIC DIALECTS

All Germanic dialects and languages are related through common origin and joint
development at the early stages of their history. The earliest period in the development of the
Germanic group dates back to pre-written stages of human history. Historical and archaeological
evidence (facts) proved that before Germanic had formed a separate linguistic group, it had
entered larger speech communities; it constituted a dialectal group of Indo-European, to be more
exact, its western area. It was then that the Indo-European languages developed their common
linguistic features, some of which can still be found in most modern Indo-European languages
including Germanic.
It is generally believed that the Germanic group of dialects developed the specific
features during the first millennium – BC (before Christ). On these grounds one can assume that
groups of tribes speaking the would-be (future) Germanic dialects split from other west Indo-
European tribes at that tie. It is this event that (anume acest eveniment) is the separation from
other tribes, that marks the beginning of Germanic linguistic history.
They (the Germanic tribes) must have lived on a small territory because their spoken
dialects were very much alike. Unfortunately, these closely related dialects have not been
preserved (kept) in written form. The essential features have been reconstructed from later
written sources and the language of this group is commonly known as the Common Germanic
Parent Language or simply Common Germanic (also Primitive Germanic). Its earlier stage
differs from he later Common Germanic because of great dialectal variations. The Common
Germanic period lasted approximately till the beginning of our era.
The splitting of the Germanic group from other Indo-European groups does not mean loss
of contacts with them, as in the course of their migrations, the Germanic tribes got in touch with
their former (foştii) neighbours, consolidated into larger groups or separated again. These
movements were reflected in their speech. If the tribes mixed again or came into closer contact,
their dialects got linguistic features common to the newly formed group.
The Germanic group at the beginning belonged to the western area of Indo-European. At
the stage of their separate history the Germanic tribes were close to some East European tribes,
whose language later formed the Baltic and Slavonic groups. Later the Germanic tribes
established closer ties with the Italic tribes living in Southern Europe. They were also closely
connected with the Celtic tribes who inhabited vast areas in Western Europe.at the end of the
Common Germanic period the ancient Germans again came into closer contact with the Italic
group, namely with the Latin language. Thud the separation of the Germanic dialects from other
Indo-European dialects was followed by new contacts with relates tongues. On the other hand,

17
due to their movements the Germanic tribes speaking non-Indo-European languages and joined
with them. The Germanic linguistic innovations are explained by the influence of the unknown
non-Indo-European languages in the zones of Germanic expansion. Their external history can be
reconstructed with great accuracy from Roman and Greek sources.
The Ancient Germans
The Germanic Peoples (also called Teutons) are a historical ethno-linguistic group,
originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic
languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
The descendants of these peoples became, and in many areas contributed to, the ethnic groups of
North Western Europe: the Germans, Norwegians, Swedish, Finland-Swedes, Danish, Faroese,
English, Icelanders, Austrians, Dutch and Flemish, and the inhabitants of Switzerland, Alsace,
Lorraine (German: Lothringen) and Friesland on the continent.
During the last few centuries B.C. the Germanic tribes inhabited the western coast of the
Baltic Sea and the southern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The first mention of the tribes is
found in a description of a voyage to the Baltic Sea made by Pytheas, a Greek historian and
geographer, in 325 B.C.
At the beginning of our era the great part of modern France, Italy and pain was populated
by the Celts. The Romans tried to expand (enlarge) their territories northeast but they met strong
resistance of barbarian tribes who they called Germanic or Teutons (applying the name of one
tribe to the whole group).
Julius Ceasar, in his History of the Gallic War, described some militant Germanic tribes,
whose attacks he had to beat off; some hundred years later Pliny the Elder, a great Roman
scientist and writer, described them in his Natural History; in the 1st century AD (our era) all the
existing data at the time were incorporated by Tacitus in his book Germany. He made a list of all
the Germanic tribes and classified them in a way, which points to certain dialectal grouping.
In those days the Germans maintained close contacts with the Romanized Celts and
trough them or directly with the Romans. From them they learned, among other things, the use of
oney, better agricultural techniques, food processing (procesare) and others.
The second and third centuries marked a turning point in the history of the Germanic
tribes, the period of the so-called "great migrations" began.
They lived in the lands extending from the North Sea and the Baltic on the North, to the
Danube River on the South, and from the Rhine on the West to the rivers Elbe and Oder on the
East.
In this wild country, for many years, the Germans had room to live their own life. To the
East were the Slavs, a people still ruder and more uncivilized than themselves. To the West were

18
the Gauls, in what is now France. To the South were provinces of the Roman Empire, separated
from them by the broad stream of the river Danube.
The houses in which the Germans lived were mere cabins or huts mad of wood.
Sometimes a cave would be used for a dwelling, and often a house of timber would have an
underground room attached to it for warmth in winter and for protection against their enemies. In
summer the people made huts of twigs woven the same way that a basket. The advantage it was
that it could be easily moved from place to place.
The Germans got their living partly from hunting and partly from tilling the soil. They
also depended greatly upon their herds and flocks for meat, as well as for milk and the foods
which they made from milk.
They paid great respect to their women who encourage them to the battles. They were
warriors (fighters) more than anything else. The Romans had reason to know that the Germans
were very stubborn fighters; indeed, the Romans never did conquer Germany. The Romans were
short and dark, while the Germans were tall – very tall, with fair skin, light hair, and clear blue
eyes. The clothing of the Germans, unlike that of the Romans, was made chiefly from the skins
of animals, which did not cover the whole body, the arms and shoulders at least being left free.
The Romans had the advantage of better weapons with which to fight, but the Germans
had very good tactics of fighting. Among the Germans no man dared to flee from the field of
battle, it was punished with death.
Some tribes of Germans had kings, but others had not, and were ruled by persons chosen
in the meetings of the people, or "folk." The power of the king was less than that of the
assembly, because it could depose (sa elibereze) as well as elect him.
The Germans did not believe in one God as we do, but many. The names of their gods are
preserved in the names which we have for the days of the week. From the god Tius comes
Tuesday, from Woden comes Wednesday, and from Thor comes Thursday. When missionaries
went among them, they became Christians. This shows one of the greatest qualities which they
possessed. They were willing and able to learn from other peoples, and to change their customs.
The Germans could learn from the Greeks and the Romans; so they grew from a rude, half-
barbarous people, into great and civilized nations.
The Germans were brave in war, faithful to their lords and friends, to their wife and
family, but the care of the household and children, the cultivation of crops was left in the hands
of the women. From their own grain and honey the Germans brewed strong beer. The woman
ruled in the house and filed, superintending the work of slaves, bringing up children and cared of
the sick.
Men seldom married before thirty or women before twenty years of age. The bride did

19
not bring dowry (zestre) to her husband, but, on the contrary, was purchased from her relatives
by gifts of cattle or land. The bridegroom presented to her for her own use a shield (scut) and a
spear (suliţă), the signs of her future companionship in war, even to the fiercest (fioros) fight she
followed encouraging her husband and her sons to deeds (fapte).

Germanic Languages
East Germanic North Germanic West Germanic
Old Germanic dialects Gothic (9th century), Old Norse Anglican,
(2nd-3rd century)
(with the dates of the Vandalia, Frisian,
Old Icelandic,
earliest records in Burgundian Saxon,
Ole Swedish,
each group) Franconian,
Old Danish,
High German,
Old Norwegian
Old English
(7th century),
Old High German,
Old Saxon,
Old Dutch
Modern languages, none Swedish, English,
dialects Danish, High German,
Norwegian, Yiddish,
Icelandic, Low German,
Faroese Dutch,
Frisian,
Afrikaans,
Flemish

20
 7. DIFFERENTIATION OF COMMON GERMANIC AND HISTORY OF GERMANIC
LANGUAGES

The Common Germanic Parent language was never a uniform language, it was made up
of closely related spoken dialects which differed to a great extinct towards the beginning of our
era. The migrations led to the geographical separation of tribal groups and then to the
development of their tongues. All Germanic language, old and new, are traditionally divided into
three subgroups: North, East and West.
East Germanic Group
The East Germanic languages, a group of long extinct (dead) Germanic languages once
spoken by the Germanic tribes that lived between the middle Oder and the Vistula, some of the
tribes that migrates from Scandinavia. The Goths were the most numerous and powerful of these
tribes, the name of the other tribes are the Vandals and the Burgundians. According to Tacitus
the whole group was called "Vindils". Some knowledge of Vandalic, Visigothic and especially
Ostrogothic is provided by the names recorded in Greek and Latin writing. The only East
Germanic language on which there is extensive information is the Gothic. The Western branch of
the Goths travelled west from the coast of the Black Sea and traversed the Balkans. In 410 AD
they captured Rome, but they did not stop there and moved to southern France and Spain. They
formed there the first powerful barbarian kingdom in Medieval Europe, but they were soon
linguistically absorbed by the native population, the Romanized Celts.
The eastern branch of the Goths, the Ostrogoths consolidated into a powerful tribal
alliance in the basin of the Nistru River in the 4 th century, and some hundred years later attacked
Rome. They created their kingdom in Northern Italy was soon included in the Eastern Roman
Empire, Byzantium. The gothic language though is dead, is even now being studied by linguists,
for it is the earliest written language in the Germanic group.
The Goths were the first of the Old Germanic tribes to be Christianized. In the 4 th century
Ulfilas, a West Gothic bishop made a translation of the Gospel (Bible) from Greek into Gothic,
using a modified form of the Greek alphabet. Fragments of this Gospel reached us and are
preserved in Uppsala. It is a manuscript of about two hundred pages of red parchment with silver
and gold letters called Silver Codex (Codex Argentous). It was published in the late 17th century.
Minor non-biblical texts include a fragment of a calendar, a 10 th Salzburg manuscript that
gives the Gothic alphabet, a few Gothic words with Latin transliteration and some phonetic
remarks with illustrative examples.
In the 4th and 5th centuries Gothic (Visigothic and Ostrogothic) must have spread to some
degree throughout much of southern Europe, but there is no evidence for its survival in Italy after

21
the fall of the Ostrogothic kingdom and in Spain it is doubtful that the Usigoths retained their
language until the Arab conquest.
The Gothic language bore a strong resemblance to the English language of the pre-written
period; although it is not an ancestor (strămoş) of English.
North Germanic Group
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic
languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic
languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is sometimes referred to
as Nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among Danish, Faroese,
Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish scholars. In Scandinavia, the term "Scandinavian languages"
refers specifically to the generally mutually intelligible languages of the three continental
Scandinavian countries and is thus used in a more narrow sense as a subset of Nordic languages,
leaving aside the insular subset of Faroese and Icelandic, being grouped as insular Nordic
languages.
The term Scandinavian arose in the 18 th century as a result of the early linguistic and
cultural Scandinavist movement, referring to the people, cultures, and languages of the three
Scandinavian countries and stressing their common heritage (moştenire).
In Scandinavia proper the main dialectal division which became more marked after the 9th
century roughly corresponded to the political division into Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The
three kingdoms constantly fought for dominance. The positions of the languages changes as one
or another of the powers prevailed over its neighbours.
Denmark was the most powerful kingdom for many hundred years: it annexed Southern
Sweden, the Southern Baltic coast up to the Gulf of Riga and most of the British Isles; Norway
fell under Danish rule too by the 14th century. Sweden regained its independence in the 16 th
century, while Norway remained a backward province politically dependent on Denmark until
the beginning of the 19th century. As a result, both Swedish and Norwegian were influence by
Danish.
In the Late Middle Ages first Danish and then Swedish developed into national
languages, the latter retaining some traces of the Danish. The development of Norwegian was
considerably hindered by the political dependence of Norway on Sweden and Denmark. In the
19th century there developed two variants of the Norwegian language: one as a blending of
literary Danish with Norwegian town dialects, the other – made up of local, Norwegian elements
and strongly sponsored by Norwegian philologists and writers. At present the two variants tend
to fuse into a single national literature Norwegian.
The term "North Germanic languages" is used in comparative linguistics, whereas the

22
term "Scandinavian languages" appears in studies of the modern standard languages.
Approximately 20 million people in the Nordic countries speak a Scandinavian language as their
native language, including an approximately 5% minority in Finland. Languages belonging to
the North Germanic language three are also commonly spoken in Greenland and to a lesser
extent by immigrants in North America.
West Germanic Languages
The West Germanic Languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the
Germanic family of languages, the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East
Germanic languages. The three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English, German
and Dutch. The family also includes other High and Low German languages including Afrikaans
and Yiddish (which are daughter languages of Dutch and German respectively), in addition to
other Franconian languages, like Luxembourgish and Ingvalonic (North Sea Germanic)
languages next to English, such as the Frisian language and Scots.
Additionally, several creoles and pidgins are based on Dutch, English and German as
they were languages of colonial empires. the West Germanic languages share many lexemes not
existing in North Germanic or East Germanic – archaisms as well as common neologisms.
English is an official language of Canada, Nigeria, Falkland Islands, Malta, New Zealand,
Ireland, South Africa, Philippines, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Singapore, Pakistan, India,
the Solomon Islands and former British colonies in Asia, Africa and Oceania. Furthermore, it is
the de facto language of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. It is also a
recognized language in Nicaragua and Malaysia. American English-speakers make up the
majority of all native Germanic speakers, including the bulk of West Germanic speakers.
German is an official language of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg and
Switzerland and has regional status in Italy, Poland, Namibia and Denmark. German also
continues to be spoken as a minority language by immigrant communities in North, South and
Central America, Mexico and Australia. Dutch is an official language of Aruba, Belgium,
Curacao, the Netherlands, Sint Maarten, and Suriname. The Netherlands also colonised
Indonesia, but Dutch was scrapped as an official language after Indonesian independence and
today it is only used by older or traditionally educated people. Dutch was until 1925 an official
language in South Africa but evolved in and was replaced by Afrikaans, a language of Dutch.
Afrikaans is one of the 11 official languages in South Africa and is a lingua franca of
Namibia. It is used in other Southern African nations, as well. Low German is a collection of
very diverse dialects spoken in the northeast of the Netherlands and northern Germany. Scots is
spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster (where the local dialect is known as Ulster
Scots). Frisian is spoken among half a million people who live on the southern fringes of the

23
North Sea in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. Luxembourgish is a Moselle Franconian
dialect that is spoken mainly in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, where it is considered to be an
official language. Similar varieties are spoken in small parts of Belgium, France and Germany.
Yiddish, once a native language of some 11 to 13 million people, remains in use by some 1.5
million speakers in Jewish communities around the world, mainly in North America, Europe,
Israel and other regions with Jewish populations.
In conclusion it is to be said that all Germanic languages are thought to be descended
from a hypothetical Proto-Germanic, united by subjection to the sound shifts of Grimm's Law
and Verner's Law. From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic varieties are divided
into three groups: West, East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine
from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions. The western group would have formed in the late
Jastorf culture, and the eastern group may be derived from the 1 st century variety of Gotland,
leaving southern Sweden as the original location of the northern group. The East Germanic
languages were marginalized from the end of the Migration Period. The Burgundians, Goths and
Vandals became linguistically assimilated by their respective neighbours by about the 7 th
century, with only Crimean Gothic lingering on until the 18 th century. The North Germanic
languages, on the other hand, remained unified until well past 1000 AD, and in fact the mainland
Scandinavian languages still largely retain mutual intelligibility into modern times. The
Germanic languages have a very large history of development that makes the Germanic
languages stay more firm at its base of growing.

24
 8. HISTORY OF GERMANIC WRITING

An alphabet is a standard set of letters) that represent the phonemes (basic significant
sounds) of any spoken language; it is used to write.
Germanic tribes used three alphabets for their written records:
- the Runic Alphabet
- the Gothic Alphabet
- the Latin Alphabet
The Runic alphabet i the oldest of these alphabets for the Germanic tribes. It was created
in the II-III centuries AD and was applied till the Late Middle Ages. This alphabet is a common
Germanic script, it was used by all Germanic tribes: East Germanic, North Germanic, as well as
West Germanic tribes. It is a specifically Germanic alphabet, not to be found in languages of
other groups.
The letters of the alphabet are unusual form for those who are accustomed to European
alphabet. The order of letters is also unusual from the point of view of European alphabets (F, U,
Þ, A, R, K) and form. They (the runes) were made of straight lines. Traditionally, the rune
characters were mostly carved into stones, wood but can be also found in bones, metal, coins,
medals, jewellery, walls of caves, swords, knives or on other similar hard surfaces. Of course, it
was impossible for one to use an ink or pen and draw the symbols on parchment.
The runic inscriptions usually included:
1. Inscriptions on walls, large rocks and buildings;
2. Grave stone monuments (names of who carved the runes, who was buried);
3. Religious or magic inscriptions: prayers, curses, amulets;
4. Trade inscriptions: stock exchange, excuses for not having paid on time, trade name;
5. Political inscriptions: the scripts of the law, secret messages;
6. Personal letters: love letters, greetings, invitations, proposals.
There are numerous runic alphabets to be distinguished, of which only three are of
significant importance:
1. Elder Futhark: 150 AD – 800 AD (Common or Teutonic)
2. Anglo-Saxon Futhark: 400 AD – 1100 AD (Anglian)
3. Younger Futhark: 800 AD – 1100 AD (Nordic or Scandinavian).
The first letters of the first six letter (runes) made up the so-called futhark: Fehu, Uruz,
Thurisaz, Anzus, Raidho, Kenaz. The rune meant something secret, mysterious, magic.

25
 Elder Futhark
This version of the runic alphabet is thought to be the oldest one, used by the Germanic
people from Scandinavia and other parts of the Europe. This was the first fully-formed runic
alphabet. It contained 24 runic characters. It was formed by the 5th century.
Anglo-Saxon Futhark
The Anglo-Saxon Futhark emerged from the first one, Elder Futhark, at about 400 AD,
with the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Gradually, it developed into 33 runic characters, and it was
thought to be the only runic alphabet of the English origin.
Younger Futhark
It is believed that the Younger Futhark gradually diverged from the Elder Futhark at the
beginning of the Viking Age, 800 AD. It comprised only 16 runic characters, and it replaced the
original alphabet in Scandinavia.

The science of runology, a branch of Germanic linguistics deals with the study of runic
alphabets. There are several theories as to the origins of the runic alphabet. Scholars believe that
the real origins date back from the Greek or Latin alphabets from the period of the 6 th century BC
to the 5th century AD. They think that the futhark was developed by the Goths, a Germanic
people, from the Etruscan alphabet of the northern Italy and therefore also influenced by the
Latin alphabet. There are two inscriptions from the 2nd century BC in Etruscan script with the
singular form of the runes.
The History of the Gothic and Latin Alphabets, their Use at Present
The Goths were one of the most important "barbarian" tribes responsible for the downfall
of the Roman Empire and the politics of early Medieval Europe. By the 4th century CE (Common

26
Era), the Goths were becoming Christianized. At this time, the Goths wrote their language using
their version of the Runic alphabet, but it was deemed to be a pagan invention. Instead, Bishop
Wulfila (or Ulfilas), a Greek missionary responsible for the conversion of the Goths to
Christianity, took the Greek alphabet, added letters from Latin and Runic alphabets, and created
a new alphabet to write the Gothic language for the purpose of translating the Bible.
The earliest known inscriptions in the Latin alphabet date from the 6th century BC. The
Romans used just 23 letters – not 26! – to write Latin; that's after they added the Greek letters Y,
X and Z to the alphabet they inherited from the Etruscans. There were no lowercase letters.
The Latin alphabet was originally adapted from the Etruscan alphabet to write Latin.
Since then, it has had many different forms, and been adapted to write many other languages.
Latin alphabet spread, along with Latin language, from the Italian Peninsula to the lands
surrounding the Mediterranean Sea with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The eastern half of
the Empire, including Greece, Turkey, the Levant, and Egypt, continued to use Greek as a lingua
franca, but Latin was widely spoken in the western half, and as the western Romance languages
evolved out of Latin, they continued to use and adapt the Latin alphabet.
Latin was original written either from right to left, left to right, or alternating between
those two directions.
The modern Latin alphabet is used to write hundreds of different languages. Each
language uses a slightly different set of letters, and they are pronounced in various ways. Some
languages use the standard 26 letters, some use fewer, and others use more.

This is the Gothic Alphabet

27
 Note that there are two letters that don't stand for any sounds. This is because they were
originally adopted from Greek only for their numeric value. The Classical Greek alphabet
doubled as a number system, and each letter had a number associated with it. The Gothic
alphabet continued this tradition, and so in the case of Gothic, the first row of letters has numeric
values of 1 to 9, the second row from 10 to 90, and the third row from 100 to 900.
The Goths spoke a Germanic language, unique not only in that it is the earliest
documented Germanic language, but also in that it
is the only language in a completely separate
branch of the Germanic family unrelated to any
other surviving Germanic languages.
In most of Europe, the Gothic alphabet and
language slowly faded into obscurity by the 9th
century CE. The Gothic language survived in the
Crimea but it too became extinct around the 17th
century CE.

28
 The Gothic Alphabet
The Gothic alphabet had 27 letters, 20 of which were derived from Greek script, 5 were
slightly modified from Latin a 2 either borrowed from runic script or invented independently by
Ulfilas, an Arian bishop in the 4th century AD. The writing system generally corresponded to
Latin or Greek scripts.
Ulfilas translated the Bible into Gothic using this alphabet. Although his original
translation has not survived, several documents of the 5th and 6th centuries reproduce fragments
of his work. The most important of these is the Codex Argentens, which is written in gold and
silver letters on purple-red parchment. Of the original 336 folios, 188 have been preserved.
These written materials in Gothic not only preserve the Gothic alphabet but are also the only
record of the Gothic language, which is now extinct.
The Latin Alphabet
It spread among Germanic tribes alongside their conversion into Christianity. The Roman
Catholic church banned religious services in other languages, therefore in countries, where
Christianity penetrated directly from Rome, religious services were conducted in the Latin
language. At churches and monasteries, special schools were founded were the language of
instruction was Latin. The very first Germanic words written in the Latin script were place
names and proper names. The first written records in the Latin script appear from VII-IX
centuries in the West Germanic languages, while the North Germanic language start using Latin
for their writings from XII-XIII centuries as a result of later Christianization of Scandinavian
countries.
The Latin alphabet was created in the VIII-VII centuries BC on the basis of Western
Greek and Etruscan alphabets. The first written records reveal that initially the Latin alphabet
was used unaltered by Germanic tribes, later the Latin alphabet was adjusted to the needs of
sound systems of different Germanic languages and new letters appeared to render specifically
Germanic sounds foreign for the Latin language. Some letters were introduced from the Runic
script. One of the ancient varieties of the alphabet is scriptura capitalis – capital letters. From
scriptura capitalis in the III-IV centuries appeared the so-called scriptura uncialis, the origin of
several small letters of the alphabet. The variety of the Latin alphabet scriptura minusculis, from
which small letters of the Latin alphabet originated, was used by the Germanic tribes.
The classical Latin alphabet consisted of 23 letters, 21 of which were derived from the
Etruscan alphabet.
The Latin alphabet is the basis of all Western languages, such as Italian, French, Spanish,
Dutch. The German language changed from a Gothic script to a Latin script around 1900, with
minor variations. Many of the languages that use the Latin alphabet use diacritical marks to

29
modify pronunciation or accents. The Latin alphabet has the added advantage of being the native
alphabet for several of the most widely used languages: English, Spanish, French, Romanian,
Italian, German all use the Latin alphabet.
The modern Latin alphabet is used to write hundreds of different languages. Each
language uses a slightly different set of letters, and they are pronounced in various ways. Some
languages use the standard 26 letters, some use fewer and others use more.

30
 9. PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF GERMANIC PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY

All Germanic languages of the past and present have common linguistic features. Some
of them are shared by other linguistic groups of the Indo-European family, others are specifically
Germanic, the latter distinguish Germanic from other Indo-European languages. The Germanic
languages acquired their common features before the disintegration of Common Germanic into
Old Germanic dialects. Later separate dialectal groups and languages developed along different
lines: they have lost / some of their common features and developed new, individual ones.
The Germanic system with its characteristic word accent is one of the distinguishing
features of the group. It is assumed that in Indo-European, when the Germanic group separated
from other dialects there were to ways of syllable stress: musical (tonic) pitch and force stress.
The word stress was free or movable, it could fall on different syllables: root-morpheme or
affixes (suffixes and prefixes) and could change in form-building and word-building. It follows
that stress was meaningful, it had a distinctive function. For example: Sanscrit: várah – circle;
varáh – choice; Greek: tómos – piece; tomós – sharp. Both these properties of Indo-European
accent changed already at the Common Germanic stage.
Force stress, also called dynamic stress from the very start in the Germanic group was the
main kind of word accent. As to its place it is believed that it was as free and movable as in other
Indo-European languages. Sometime later, stress became fixed on the first syllable which is, as a
rule, the root, its position in the word became stable. The root-morpheme had the heaviest stress,
others (suffixes and prefixes) and endings remained unstressed. Stress did not any longer change
in form-building or word-building. These features were inherited (moştenire) by all the Old
Germanic dialects. The use of the force stress brings to a contrast of stressed and unstressed
syllables and sounds.
The examples of native English words (i.e. = that is of Germanic origin) and German
words demonstrate this.
English German
Form-building love, loves, loving lieben, liebt, geliebt
Word-building lovely, lovingly, beloved, loveliness beliebt, lieberhaft, liebling

Compare to some modern English words borrowed from non-Germanic languages where
stress regularly changes in word-building but remains fixed in form-building.
Form-building exhibit [ig'zibit], exhibits, exhibited, exhibiting
export [eks'pɔ:t], exports, exported
Word-building exhibition [eksi'biʃən], export ['ek'pɔ:t]
One can conclude that the Germanic stress was a factor of historical development and the
sound system was affected by it.

31
 1. The history of Germanic languages from Common Germanic period to nowadays has
shown that the vowels in Germanic languages, including English, as it is Germanic origin were
on the whole very unstable. They underwent different changes: qualitative and quantitative;
dependent and independent.
2. The most important feature of Germanic vowel development at all periods was its
dependence on the Germanic word stress.
In stressed position the differences between vowels were strictly preserved and showed
the contrast of long and short vowels (opposition through quantity); as to quality, new qualitative
difference developed and the number of vowels occurring in stressed syllables gradually
increased.
In unstressed position the original contrasts between vowels were original contrasts
between vowels were weakened and many of the former distinctions lost: the opposition of long
vowels to short ones was neutralized as both long and short vowels appeared as short. In final
unstressed syllables some short vowels were completely dropped. The qualitative differences
between vowels were reduced as most vowels developed in the direction of neutral sounds.
The difference between the treatment of vowels in stressed and unstressed position in
relation to quality and quantity can be shown in the following scheme:
Stressed position Unstressed position
Long  Short Long  Short
New qualitative differences Short  Zero
arising in each set Quantitative distinctions reduced or lost

We may also say that in Germanic languages gradually developed two distinct
subsystems of vowels: one functioning in stressed syllables, the other – in unstressed ones each
characterized by its own distinctive features and tendencies of evolution.
3. The changes of separate vowel in Germanic languages were very numerous and varied.
The division of vowels into long and short in stressed syllables was supported by some
independent qualitative historical changes: short vowels generally tended to become more open
[ɔ], long vowels [ɔ:] on the contrary were narrower.
4. The development of vowels in the Germanic group was characterized by a strong
tendency of assimilation, caused by the influence of the following or preceding consonants and
even more by the succeeding vowels.

Principal Peculiarities of the Morphology of Germanic Languages,

the Morphological Structure

32
 To understand the grammatical and lexical features of the Germanic group it is necessary
to examine the morphological structure of the word in Common Germanic. In all periods of
history, words in Germanic languages could be divided into three types according to the number
and character of their components: simple, derived and compound. The root-morpheme together
with the word-building affixes and some form-building affixes is termed the stem (rădăcină).
The stem may be equal to the root as in simple words (a), may contain word-building affixes as
in derived words (b) or may have a more complicated structure: it can contain more than one
root-morpheme and word-building affixes in addition (c).
When we analyse the words from the diachronical point of view (historical point of
view), it is not easy to distinguish between the three main structures, because derived words
could change into simple by losing the suffix: OE – fisc [ian] and NE – fish; while compound
words could develop into derived, if their second root – morpheme was transformed into a suffix
or fused with the root. Consider the simplification in OE. scěap – hyrde "herdsman of sheep",
NE – shepherd.
It has been discovered that the Early Germanic morphological structure of words was
more complicated than that of written periods. In Common Germanic the stem consisted of two
components, the root-morpheme and the stem-forming suffix and to these elements a third
morpheme, the grammatical ending was added.
Thus the Common Germanic "fiskas" – (the prototype of the Gothic word "fisks", OE
"fisc", NE "fish" consisted of the following morphemes.
Stem Grammatical
Root Stem suffix
ending
fisk a s

Stem-forming suffixes originally performed a word-building (or sometimes a form-

building) function. In such a way the Gothic noun fiskjan was formed from the root fisk with the
Common Germanic suffix -jan- which showed that the noun denoted a person a doer of the
action (a fisherman). The same root with the Germanic stem suffix -a- (dropped in Gothic and
Old English) meant fish. Stems could be formed by separate vowels or consonants of by their
combinations.
In later Common Germanic and in Old Germanic dialects the morphological structure of
the word was considerably simplified: the stem-suffix disappeared as a separate morpheme in the
word structure. It fused with the root-morpheme or with the original grammatical ending and the
three basic components were thus refused to two. Compare Common Germanic fisk-a-s and the
Gothic fisk-s.
Sound Alterations in the Root-Morpheme
33
 A characteristic feature of the Germanic group is the variability of the root-morpheme
which is rather changeable as far as vowels are concerned, that is different vowels could be
found in the same root-morpheme at one and the same historical period. The differences between
the variants of the root-morpheme must be attributed to vowel alterations, which differ between
grammatical forms of the word. Compare the word-forms with the Common Germanic root ber.

Old Germanic Modern Germanic

Old Old
Gothic Swedish German English
Icelandic English
Forms of bairam bera beran bära gebären bear
bar bar bær bar gebar bore
the verb
baúr borinn boren buren geboren born
to bear birt ber birp bär gebär bears

The earliest and the most vividly and systematically employed interchange preserved in
the Germanic group from ancient Indo-European was a vowel interchange called "ablaut" or
"vowel gradation". It was a Common Indo-European not a specific Germanic feature, it was
found in other Indo-European languages. This kind of graduation is called qualitative because
only the quality of the vowel is changed. An example of such changes serves the irregular verb
in English: begin – began – begun. The other kind of ablaut known as "quantitative" is a
difference based in quantity, long vowels alternate with short ones: be [bi:] – was [wɔz] etc.
Form-building in Common Germanic
All the Indo-European languages were synthetic, that is they showed the relation between
words in a sentence by adding inflection and changing the stem rather that by word order or
auxiliary words which are employed language with a more analytical structure. English is an
analytical language, there are few inflexions and the word order is as a rule fixed.
Various means of form-building were used, all of them were synthetical. They were:
1) Sound alteration. At the beginning it was applied to verbs, especially strong verbs
(now irregular), later is spread to other parts of speech: nouns (man-men, child-
children(; adjectives: good-better-best; numerals: three-third.
2) Grammatical endings or suffixes were the most widely used means of form-building
in all parts of speech both alone and in combination with other means. The formation
of a grammatical ending was a very complicated process, the old ending fused with
the stem-suffix and both elements together were reduced.
3) In contrast to endings, grammatical prefixes were hardly (rarely) ever employed.
They were confined (limited) to the verb system used to mark Participle II or to
express a perfective meaning associated with the category of aspect. Common aspect

34
 – sagen Perfective – gesagt; machen – gemacht.
4) Another means of form-building, supplitive forms, was inherited by Germanic from
Indo-European. In Germanic it was restricted to some personal pronouns, a few verbs
and adjectives. Supplitivism means the formation of a form of one and the same word
from different roots or stems, the differences are seen far beyond alternations.
For example:
I – my, mine, me
Old – elder – eldest
Eu – mie, al meu
Хороший– лучший
Later a new kind of forms, analytical, developed in addition to synthetic ones.
The tendency to analytical form-building was very strong. It functioned in all the
Germanic group and is an important distinguishing mark in the group. Nowadays the proportion
of synthetical and analytical forms in the languages of the group varies.

35
 10. PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF GERMANIC WORDSTOCK

Etymology (Origin)
To investigate the origin of words presents great interest because in such a way the
interrelations between languages (determined). This shows that some languages are related
(înrudite), have a common ancestor, while others came into contact at different stages of history.
The etymology of wards throws light on the history of the people; the words found in
Common Germanic dialects is proof that the Germanic tribes lived together at earlier periods of
history.
If the words referring to a concrete period of time are studied from the semantic
(meaningful) point and social conditions of life. If there are borrowings, but they are sure to
exist, this enables us to determine that contacts people kept, with whom and in what field (area)
of life.
Examining the history of words we can find lexical parallels, words that have the same
root.
For example:
English – two, French – deux, Russian – два
English – wine, German – Wein, Latin – vinum, Russian – вино.
Parallels of this type are called related (înrudite) words. Each of these words is natuve in
its language and has undergone all kind of historical changes characteristic of the linguistic
group.
By common wordstock (vocabulary) we mean roots rather than words and consider them
parallels if their root-morphemes go back to the same root.
The term "Common Germanic Wordstock" is connected with which are found in all or
almost part of all Germanic languages and which can be traced back to Old Germanic Stage and
to Common Germanic period. All modern Germanic languages have kept a number of words
from Common Germanic.
Common Words in Modern Germanic Languages
Swedish Danish Norwegian Icelandic Dutch Afrikaans German Yiddish English
land land land land land land Land land land
fader fader fader faðir vader vader Vater fater father

The proportion of Common Germanic words which exist in modern Germanic languages
varies. Still descendants of Common Germanic words constitute the most ancient part of the
wordstock, they form the backbone of the vocabulary and the main material for word-formation
in later periods.

36
 The Common Germanic Wordstock (vocabulary) was built in successive layers. That's
why we can distinguish the following:
1. Common Indo-European Words in Germanic
In the Common Germanic vocabulary existent words whose parallels can be found in
most Indo-European languages. These words refer to a number of spheres: names of natural
phenomena, plants and animals, agricultural terms, name of verbs denoting the activities of man.
2. Words found in Germanic and a few other Indo-European
Of course, we rarely can find parallels in all the linguistic group of the Indo-European
family. They are parallels found in Germanic, Slavonic and Baltic, Germanic and Itlic, Germanic
and Celtic. These etymological layers refer to the time of the formation of the Germanic group,
to be more exact, to the earliest stage of the Common Germanic language (parent language). The
ancient Germans must have been (probably) most closely connected with their eastern
neighbours – the Baltic and Slavonic tribes; then they formed closer ties with the Italic tribes in
the south, later towards the time of differentiation – with the Celts in West and South-west
Europe and finally with the Italic group again. The later Italic-Germanic parallel are social and
legal terms belonging to the epoch of class society.
3. Specifically Germanic Words
These are words that are found in Germanic languages and are not found in other Indo-
European groups.
Specifically Germanic word
Old Germanic Modern Germanic
Old Old High Old
Gothic Swedish German English
Icelandic German English
hŭs hús hûs hŭs hus Haus house
drigkan drekka trinkan drincan dricka trinken drink

The Germanic wordstock is made up of about 2/3 (two thirds) of Indo-European roots
and 1/3 (one third) of specifically Germanic roots. Later investigations have shown, however,
that this traditional figure is an exaggeration. Many word believed to be specifically Germanic
appear to have parallels in at least one more Indo-European group.

4. Borrowing in Common Germanic

At the time of differentiation or a little time after it there appeared another layer of words:
borrowings made by ancient Germans while they occupied a small territory around the Baltic
Sea. The majority of borrowings came from Latin, a few – from Celtic. The borrowings shoe the
multiline of the Germans, they are the words connected with trade and crafts, agriculture

37
products, household articles, warfare terms. Borrowings from Celtic refer to later Common
Germanic. The best known of them is the name of the metal iron:
Old Old New
Celtic Gothic
Icelandic English English
isarno eisarn ísarn ĭren iron
ĭsen

This testifies (confirms) that the ancient Germans first learnt iron – processing (procesare,
prelucrare a fierului) from the Celts.

Etymological Layers in Common Germanic Wordstock

Germano-Slavonic,
Common Indo- Germano-Baltic, Borrowings from
Specifically Germanic
European Germano-Celtic, Latin and Celtic
Germano-Italic

Word-formation
We have seen that in every period of development the words of Germanic languages were
divided into simple, derived and compound. That means that like other Indo-European
languages, Germanic used word-derivation and word-composition as the main word-building
means. in modern Germanic languages the system of word-building is different in different
languages, innovations of their own have been introduced. For example, German uses very
widely word-composition (compounding), whereas English developed new word-building
means, e.g. conversion, shortening, klipping etc.; many affixes of English have been borrowed
from non-Germanic languages: French, Latin.
Word-derivation
Words could be built from one root-morpheme with the help of various affixes and by
means of variations of root-morphemes (sound alterations). This occurred in words of the same
root in Old Germanic dialects, the root had different vowels or consonants, sometimes both. For
example Old English: wyrcan, New English – work; OE – wyrhta (worker), they have different
consonants in the root.
Sound alternations almost never were used alone in Germanic, they were used in
combinations with other word-building means (suffixes and prefixes): man-men, child-children,
mouse-mice.
The formation of words from one root both in Common Germanic and Old Germanic
dialects was primarily achieved by means of suffixation and prefixation. They could be used

38
either alone or in combination with other devices: drink-drunken; geeslish; man-men-menly.
Reflexes were never as numerous as suffixes in Germanic. They were more characteristic
of verbs, though one could employ them with other parts of speech.
The suffixes have always been widely used in all the languages of the Germanic group,
being the most productive in building nouns.
In Common Germanic the suffixes were not classified very distinctly as to their meaning,
most of them were polysemantic, many of them even synonymous. Less productive suffixes
were phonetically reduced, simplified and sometimes lost, but the system of suffixes was
enriched due to a few borrowings.
Word-composition
Common to all Indo-European languages is the formation of new words by compounding
two or more stems. The Germanic compounds could be formed either 1) by combining two roots
with or without a connecting vowel: nowadays or 2) by combining two words after the model of
a free word combination (a noun modifying another noun) grammar rules, class work. Of all the
parts of speech the compound noun was the most productive, both ways being used.
Old Old High Old New
Icelandic German English English
Combining roots or stems bruð-gumi brûti-gomo bryd-zuma bride-groom
Combining words on the model
– nahti-gala nihte-zale night in gale
of a free word combination

gale = joy in night

Of great interest are cases of word-composition bordering on affixation, that is, the
combination of two root-morphemes in a compound word, but the second component changed
into a word-building suffix. This happened when the word was used very often as a second
component that its lexical meaning changed.
Old Old High Old New
Example:
Icelandic German English English
wisdom
Second root or suffix wis-dómr wis-tuom wis-dom
(judecată)

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 11. OLD ENGLISH VOCABULARY, ITS GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. WAYS OF
ENRICHING IT

11.1. General Overview of the Old English Vocabulary

Examination of Old English and Modern English seems to indicate that many of the
words we use today find their roots in the vocabulary of Old English. Some estimates claim that
about half of the words used today have their roots in Old English. This should not be that
surprising since English has its roots in the Germanic languages.
Some Old English words like mann, hus and drincan hardly need translation. Old English
is also known as Anglo-Saxon (from the names of two of the Germanic tribe that invaded
England during the fifth century).
The surviving vocabulary of Old English (OE) is relatively small. The Thesaurus of Old
English (TOE), with which you will be working, contains almost 34,000 different word forms,
whereas a modern desk dictionary might contain 80,000. Some of these words have more than
one meaning, i.e. they are polysemous: TOE contains just over 50,000 meanings altogether.
Many words that existed in Old English did not survive into Modem English. There are
also many words in Modem English that bear little or no resemblance in meaning to their Old
English etymons. Some linguists estimate that as much as 80 percent of the lexicon of Old
English was lost by the end of the Middle English period, including a large number of words
formed by compounding, e.g. bōchūs ('bookhouse', 'library'), yet we still retain the component
parts Tx)ok’ and 'house'. Certain categories of words seem to have been especially vulnerable.
Nearly all words relating to sexual intercourse and sexual organs were supplanted by words of
Latin or Ancient Greek origin. Many, if not most, of the words in Modem English that are used
in polite conversation to describe body parts and bodily functions are of Latin or Greek origin.
The words which were used in Old English for these same purposes are now mostly either
extinct or considered crude or vulgar, such as arse/ass.
Some words became extinct while other near-synonyms of Old English origin replaced
them ('limb' survives, yet lid is gone or survives dialectally as lith). Many of these linguistic
changes were brought on by the introduction of Old Norse and Norman French words, while
others fell away due to the natural processes of language evolution.
Much of the vocabulary of Mod. E. derives from OE. This applies particularly to our core
vocabulary: common words in everyday use for fundamental concepts. Examples include the
natural world (earth, sea, wind, fire, water; sun, moon, star); people (man, woman, child, father,
mother, brother, daughter); the body (hand, arm, elbow, finger, foot, nose, mouth); and other
basic concepts such as food, drink; heaven, hell; friend, neighbour; love, good, evil; hot, cold;

40
after, over, under. However, not all words which look alike necessarily refer to the same thing –
such misleading words are often called false friends. An example pair is OE bēor / Mod.E. beer.
Although both refer to alcoholic drinks, the nature of the drink is quite different.
The examples above are all typical of OE words in being one or two syllables in length.
Where there are two syllables, the stress is on the first. Initial stress is a characteristic feature of
the Germanic languages as a group and remains the most common type of word structure in
Mod. E.
We have also retained from OE many of the ways of making new words, but at the same
time English has borrowed numerous words from other languages, notably French and Latin.
Thousands of French words were brought into English after the Norman Conquest of 1066,
which ended the rule of the Anglo-Saxon kings and introduced considerable social change.
The OE vocabulary was almost purely Germanic; except for a small number of
borrowings. It has been estimated only about 3 percent of OE vocabulary is taken from non-
native sources and it is clear that the strong preference on OE was to use its native resources.
We can classify Old English vocabulary into the following four types. Firstly, native
core vocabulary; secondly, affixation, the process by which a native affix is attached to an
existing word to create a new word; thirdly, compounding, the process by which two
independent words are joined together to create a new third word; fourthly, borrowings, that is
to say introducing non-native words into the language. Such words are often called loan word.
Affixation and compounding can be taken together as word-formation.

OLD ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Common IE words Celtic Loans

Common Germanic Words Latin Loans
Specifically of Words Scandinavian Loans

11.2. Native words

Native OE words can be subdivided into a number of etymological layers from different
historical periods. The three main layers in the native OE words are:
a) common IE words;
b) common Germanic words;
c) specifically OE words.

41
 Words belonging to the common IE layer constitute the oldest part of the OE vocabulary.
Among these words we find names of some natural phenomena, plants and animals, agricultural
terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship, etc.; this layer includes personal and
demonstrative pronouns and most numerals. Verbs belonging to this layer denote the basic
activities of man; adjectives indicate the most essential qualities.

Common Indo-European Words

Natural Plants and Agricultural

Phenomena Animals Terms

Verbs
Parts of Adjectives Terms of
Human Body Pronouns Kinship
Numerals

COMMON INDO-EUROPEAN IN OE
Terms of Kinship
OE German Greek Latin
foeder Vater pater pater
bropol Bruder frater
modor Mutter meter mater
Natural phenomena, everyday objects and things
mona Mond mene
hiht Nachst nox
woeter Wasser hydoe unda
treo drus-oak

In the IE stock we find such English words as:

 bull, crow, cat, fish, hare, hound, goose, mouse, wolf
 hard, light, quick, right, red, slow, raw, thin, white
 to bear, to come, to know, to lie, to mow, to sit, to sow, to stand, to work, to tear

The common Germanic layer includes words which are shared by most Germanic
languages, but do not occur outside the group. Being specifically Germanic, these words
constitute an important distinctive mark of the Germanic languages at the lexical level. This
layer is certainly smaller than the layer of common IE words. Semantically these words are

42
connected with nature, with the sea and everyday life.

Word of Common Germanic Stock

OE NE
hand hand
sand sand
grene green
singan sing
eorpe earth
findan find
steorfan starve

The third etymological layer of native words can be defined as specifically OE, that is
words which do not occur in other Germanic or non-Germanic languages. These words are few,
if we include here only the words whose roots have not been found outside English: OE clipian
‘call’, OE brid (NE bird) and several others. However, they are far more numerous if we include
in this layer OE compounds and derived words formed from Germanic roots in England, e.g. OE
wīfman or wimman (NE woman) consists of two roots which occurred as separate words in other
OG languages, but formed a compound only in OE.

The ratio between common IE words, common Germanic and common IE words is:
2:1:0.5

NATIVE WORDS CLASSIFICATION

Words of Indo-European stock Words of Common Germanic stock
(having cognates in the vocabularies of (having parallels in German, Norwegian etc.
different IE languages) but none in French)
1. Terms of kinship: 1. Nouns:

43
 father, mother, son, brother, daughter apple, calf, child, summer, bath, bread, boy,
bear, storm, ice, dog, house, room, rest, need,
shirt, life, bridge, ground, shoe, winter
2. Calendar: 2. Verbs:
sun, moon, day, month, year bake, shoot, rise, see, send, meet, make,
learn, keep, hear, draw, drive, come, can,
break, buy, bind
3. Names of animals and birds: 3. Adjectives:
bull, horse, sheep, dog, hen, cock, goat, cold, brown, dead, deep, broad, damp,
beaver, swine, wolf, goose, crow cunning, deaf
4. Parts of the body: 4. Adverbs:
arm, hand, foot, eye, heart, chin, bone behind, but, still, well, yet
5. Common verbs: 5. Pronouns:
be, do, go, have, come, ask, eat, see, sit, sell, I, he, we, you, it, self, this
think, bear, stand, love, kiss, drink, swim
6. Common adjectives: 6. Prepositions:
dark, long, bare, wide, black, white, quick, by, for, in, of, to, with
hard
7. Most numerals 7. Most numerals
8. Words naming the most important objects and phenomena of nature:
star, wind, water, wood, hill, stone, door, tree

NATIVE WORDS. CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES

Characteristic feature Illustration
1. High frequency value They constitute 80% of the 500 most frequent
words
2. Wide range of lexical and grammatical Heel of Achilles; head over heels; cool one's
valency heels; take to one's heels; show a clear pair of
heels
3. Developed polysemy Finger:
1) part of body
2) part of a glove
3) hand of a clock
4. Monosyllabic structure sun, go, do, door, tree
5. Great word-building power watch, watcher, watchful, watchfulness,
watchward, watch-out, watch-dog
6. Enter a number of set expressions be on the watch, keep watch, watch one's
step, watchful as a hawk

11.3. Foreign Elements in the Old English Vocabulary

Although borrowed words constituted only a small portion of the OE vocabulary – all in
all about six hundred words, – they are of great interest for linguistic and historical study. OE
borrowings come from two sources: Celtic and Latin.

44
 11.3.1. Borrowings from Celtic
There are very few Celtic loan-words in the OE vocabulary, for there must have been
little intermixture between the Germanic settlers and the Celtic in Britain. Though in some parts
of the island the Celts population was not exterminated during the WG invasion, linguistic
evidence of Celtic influence is meager. It is true that many place-names, of river, for example,
retain their Celtic name; in the case of Avon that name is widespread throughout Britain. There is
a sociolinguistic explanation for this, namely that the Celtic peoples formed a subordinate group
within the new Anglo-Saxon society, and hence their language was shunned.
The OE kingdoms Kent, Deira and Bernicia derive their names from the names of Celtic
tribes. The name of York, the Downs and perhaps London have been traced to Celtic sources.
Various Celtic designations of ‘river’ and ‘water’ were understood by the Germanic invaders as
proper names: Ouse, Esk, Exe, Avon; Thames, Stour, Dover also come from Celtic. Many place-
names with Celtic elements are hybrids; the Celtic component, combined with a Latin or a
Germanic component, makes a compound place-name, e.g.: Celtic plus Latin: Man-chester, Win-
chester, Lan-caster; Celtic plus Germanic: York-shire, Corn-wall, Devon-shire, Canter-bury.

Some personal names from Celtic

(The Celtic names used by Anglo-Saxon nobility)
Coedwalla (king of Essex in 685), Ceadda, Cedd, Cealwin, Cerdic, Cumbra, Caedmon
(the first Christian poet of the 7th c.)
Not a great influx of Celtic loanwords into OE.

11.3.2. Latin influence on the OE vocabulary

As it's mentioned before, there was in Old English only a very limited use of words taken
from other languages, i.e. borrowed or loan words, and those words were primarily from Latin.
Apart from Latin, Old English borrowed words from the Scandinavian languages after the
Viking invasions, from the Celtic languages.
Writers often talk about Latin loans being in three groups:
1) continental period;
2) settlement period;
3) Christian period (divided in two periods).
Firstly, however, let us examine the first group. This consists of words borrowed from
about the time of Julius Caesar. Clearly they are the result of contact between the Germanic
tribes and the expanding and dominating Roman Empire. These loan words come from diverse
areas of vocabulary, which is a good indication of the widespread influence of the Empire. A

45
representative listing of words would include, perhaps, candel – candle, catte – cat, elpend –
elephant, planta – plant, g – road and, a verbal example, cypan – buy.
Many such examples come not from classical Latin, but from Vulgar Latin, the form of
the language likely to have been used by the ordinary soldiers and camp-followers. It is
estimated that Old English contained about 170 Latin loans due to pre-settlement, that is
continental, borrowing. During the first two or three centuries following the settlement of
Britain, rather fewer Latin loans were borrowed. The extent to which the settlement period
should be distinguished from the continental period remains an open question. A best known
word from this period is undoubtedly ceaster – castle, because of its frequent use in place-names.
The loans from the period of Christianity can usefully be divided into two groups. The
first group belongs to the first two or three centuries after the wholesale adoption of Christianity
in the 7th century. The Latin loans borrowed in this period are mostly of a political nature, that is
to say they tend to be forms associated with the organisation of the church, rather than with the
concepts of the new faith itself. Thus we find words such as abbod – abbot, maesse – mass,
offrian – offer. An extension of this consists of words related to learning, e.g. scol – school,
together with a few words of a more general nature, e.g. caul – cabbage.
The second group of post-settlement Latin loans are associated with the period of the
Benedictine monastic revival. These loans are normally quite different in character from any of
the earlier loans, they reflect a form of language most suited to formal and highly educated
language, rather than the language of everyday speech. These new loans regularly come not from
Vulgar Latin, as previously, but rather from the writers of Classical Latin. They are part of the
written rather than the spoken language, what's why these new loans are not always well
assimilated into the language.
Although many of these new loans are religious in nature, e.g. apostate – apostate, others
reflect the general world of learning. Borrowings from Latin can take other forms. One particular
type is that of semantic loans. The basic shape of such a loan is where the meaning of a Latin
word is transferred to an English word which did not originally have that meaning. For example,
the word tunge – tongue had at first only the meaning of the body part, but under the influence of
Latin lingua, which has not only that meaning but also the meaning language, it also acquired
the meaning language.
Early Latin Loans during the continental period
Old English New English Latin
catt cat cattus
camp field, battle campus
cupp cup cuppa
piper pepper piper
win wine vinum
46
 Some of the words borrowed from Latin 450-460
pere pear pirum
forca fork furca
torr tower tunis
renge spider aranea
segn sign signum

Some of the words borrowed from Latin 650-1100

Altar alter altar
Cucumber cucumber cucumber
Scol school scola
Philosoph philosopher philosophus
Fers verse versus

11.3.3. Scandinavian Loans

The other substantial groups of loans are from Scandinavian. It is well-known that
eventually English acquired a great many important words, including even function words such
as are, from the Scandinavian languages. But is also well-known that the majority of these words
only begin to be found after the end of the OE period. Any discussion of Scandinavian loans is
complicated by the fact that two closely-related languages are involved. On the one hand there is
Danish, on the other is Norwegian. Perhaps the first substantial evidence of Scandinavian
influence is to be found with place-names. The place-names evidence is important proof of the
degree of contact between the English and the Scandinavians.
Many of the early Scandinavian loans are naturally associated with seafaring, so we found
baefene - haven, lending - a landing, steoresman - pilot. Others are legal terms, as a result of the
Danelaw settlement, including the word lagu - law. Many of these words are to become
common, e.g husbonda – house - holder, but others have either been lost or become restricted in
use e.g. carl - man. There are a few verbs which have been borrowed, e.g. bittan – hit.

11.4. Word-building means in Old English

11.4.1. Word Structure

According to their morphological structure OE words fell into three main types:
1) simple words (“root-words”) containing a root-morpheme and no derivational affixes,
e.g. land, зōd.
2) derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes, e.g. be-
зinnan.
3) compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one root-morpheme, e.g.

47
mann-cynn.

11.4.2. Ways of word-formation

OE employed two ways of word-formation: derivation (affixation) and word-
composition.
Word-derivation
Affixation I by far the nost frequent method for creating new vocabulary in OE.
Derived words in OE were built with the help of affixes: prefixes and suffixes; in addition
to these principal means of derivation, words were distinguished with the help of sound
interchanges and word stress.
Sound interchanges
The earliest source of root-vowel interchanges employed in OE word-building was ablaut
or vowel gradation inherited from PG and IE. Ablaut was used in OE as a distinctive feature
between verbs and nouns and also between verbs derived from a single root. The gradation series
were similar to those employed in the strong verbs: rīdan v – rād n [i:~a:], NE ride, raid. Many
vowel interchanges arose due to palatal mutation; the element [i/j] in the derivational suffix
caused the mutation of the root-vowel; the same root without the suffix retained the original non-
mutated vowel, e.g.:
a) nouns and verbs: fōd – fēdan (NE food – feed)
b) adjectives and verbs: full – fyllan (NE full – fill)
c) nouns and adjectives: long – lenзþu (NE long, length).
Word stress
The role of word accentuation in OE word-building was not great. Like sound
interchanges, the shifting of word stress helped to differentiate between some parts of speech
being used together with other means. The verb had unaccented prefixes while the corresponding
nouns had stressed prefixes, so that the position of stress served as an additional distinctive
feature between them.
Prefixation
Genetically, some OE prefixes go back to IE prototypes, e.g. OE un-, a negative prefix.
Many more prefixes sprang in PG and OE from prepositions and adverbs, e.g. mis-, be-, ofer-.
Prefixes were widely used with verbs but were far less productive with other parts of speech. The
most frequent and probably the most productive OE prefixes were: ā-, be-, for-, fore-, зe-, ofer-,
un-. The prefix modified the lexical meaning of the word, usually without changing its reference
to a part of speech, e.g. spēdiз – unspēdiз. Some prefixes, both verbal and nominal, gave a more
special sense to the word and changed its meaning very considerably, e.g.: weorðan – for-

48
weorðan v, forwyrð n (become, perish, destruction).
Some prefixes had a very weak of general meaning bordering on grammatical, e.g. зe-,
the commonest verb orefix, conveyed the meaning of result or completion and was therefore
often used as a marker of the Past Participle – sittan - зe-sett.
Among prefixes the most common of all is the prefix ge.
Suffixation
Suffixation was by far the most productive means of word derivation in OE. Suffixes not
only modified the lexical meaning of the word but could refer it to another part of speech.
Suffixes were mostly applied in forming nouns and adjectives, seldom – in forming verbs.
Etymologically OE suffixes can be traced to several sources: old stem-suffixes, which had lost
their productivity, but could still be distinguished in some words as dead or non-productive
suffixes.

49
 THEMES FOR REPORTS

1. Modern Germanic Languages and their spreading in the world, their function.
2. The appearance of the Common Germanic Language its importance and necessity.
3. Ancient Germans, their social system, way of life, customs and traditions.
4. History of Germanic writing, the importance of orthography.
5. Form-building and word-building, the ways of forming new forms of the word in Old
English and the means of forming new words in OE and MnE.
6. The characteristic features of the Runic alphabet, works preserved in Runic inscriptions.
7. The history of the Gothic and Latin alphabets, their use at present.
8. The Germanic Group of Languages, its division into three subgroups: East, West and North.
9. The appearance of the Comparative-historical method, its importance for investigation.
10. Principles of forming new words in the English language: affixation (suffixation and
prefixation) and composition in OE and MnE.
11. Classification of ancient Germanic tribes, their distribution and languages.
12. Three main types of words, their division according to the morphological structure.
13. History of Germanic languages, their future development.
14. The North (Scandinavian) Germanic subgroup, languages entering it.
15. The Etymology (Origin) of the Old English vocabulary, four layers of words.
16. The West Germanic subgroup of languages, the languages of this subgroup.
17. The System of Consonants in Common Germanic. The First Consonant Shift. Iacob Grimms
Law.
Word Accent (Stress) in Germanic languages, opposition of stressed and u

50