Old English

Vocabulary
• The surviving vocabulary of Old
English (OE) is relatively small.

• The Thesaurus of Old English

(TOE), = 34,000 different word
forms,

• a modern desk dictionary might

contain 80,000.
• The OE vocabulary was almost
purely Germanic;
• except for a small number of
borrowings, it consisted of
native words inherited from PG
or formed from native roots
and affixes.
 Native words
• Native OE words can be subdivided
into a number of etymological
layers from different historical
periods.
• The 3 main layers in the native OE
words are:
• a) common IE words / CIE/;
• b) common Germanic words / CG);
• c) specifically OE words.
• 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.
 Among these words we find names of

• some natural phenomena: mere

(sea), mōna (moon), niht (night)
• plants: trēow (tree)
• animals: eolh (elk)
• agricultural terms: sāwan (sow)
• parts of the human body: næʒl
(nail), tunʒe (tongue), fōt (foot),
hēorte (heart)
• terms of kinship: broðor, mōdor,
sunu.
• verbs that denote the basic
activities of a man: dōn, bēon,
sittan, licʒan, beran.
• adjectives that indicate the most
essential qualities: nīwe, lonʒ,
ʒeonʒ.
• personal and demonstrative
pronouns and most numerals: twā,
þæt, mīn, ic.
• The common Germanic layer includes
words which are shared by most
Germanic languages,
• 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 connected
with nature, with the sea and everyday
life.
• CG words originated in the common
period of Germanic history i.e. in
PG when the Teutonic tribes lived
close together. Semantically these
words are connected with nature
with the sea and everyday life
• (hand, sand, eorþe, sinʒan, findan,
ʒrēne, macian, finger, cealf, land,
earm).
• specifically OE words - words
which do not occur in other
Germanic or non-Germanic
languages.
• These words are few:
OE clipian ‘call’, OE brid (NE
bird) wimman ( woman),
hlāford [hlaf + weard (keeper)],
hlāf + diʒe, diʒan (to knead) > NE
lady (bread-kneading)
• However, they are far more
numerous if we include in this layer
OE compounds and derived words
formed from Germanic roots:
• . 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.
 Examples of Old English Core Vocabulary
• abutan, adv., about, around
ac, conj., but, however
acennan, verb, bring forth, give birth to
acwellan, verb, to kill
adl, noun, f., sickness, disease
agen, adj., own
aglæca, noun, m., monster, combatant,
the terrible one (poet.)
ahwær, adv., anywhere
alimpan, verb, befall, come to pass
alyfan, verb, to permit, allow
amyrran, verb, to wound (cp. MnE to
mar)
 • Foreign elements in the OE
vocabulary
• 600 borrowed words - in OE
vocabulary
• OE borrowings come from three
sources:
• Celtic
• Latin.
• Scandinavian
• In the course of the first 700
years of its existence in England it
was brought into contact with at
least three other languages, the
languages of the Celts, the
Romans, and the Scandinavians.
• From each of these contacts it
shows certain effects, especially
additions to its vocabulary.
 Celtic borrowings:

• 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.
• We should find in the Old English
vocabulary numerous instances of
words that the Anglo- Saxons
heard in the speech of the native
population and adopted.
• For it is apparent that the Celts
were by no means exterminated
except in certain areas, and that in
most of England large numbers of
them were gradually assimilated
into the new culture.
• Abundant borrowing from Celtic is
to be found only in place-names.
• The OE kingdoms Kent, Deira and
Bernicia derive their names from
the names of Celtic tribes.
• Place Names: Thames, Kent, York,
Avon, Dover, Cumberland.
• Loan Words: binn 'basket, crib,'
crag, cumb 'valley,' torr
'projecting rock,' dun 'dark-
colored,' etc.
• Devonshire contains in the first
element the tribal name Dumnonii,
• Cornwall means the ‘Cornubian
Welsh’,
• the former country Cumberland
(now part of Cumbria) is the ‘land
of the Cymry or Britons’.
• Many place-names with Celtic
elements are hybrids;
• the Celtic component, combined with a
Latin or a Germanic component, makes
a compound place-name,
• Celtic plus Latin: Man-chester, Win-
chester, Lan-caster;
• Celtic plus Germanic: York-shire,
Corn-wall, Devon-shire, Canter-bury.
• But it is in the names of rivers and
hills and places in proximity to
these natural features that the
greatest number of Celtic names
survive.
• Thus the Thames is a Celtic river
name, and various Celtic words for
river or water are preserved in the
names Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk, Dover,
and Wye.
• Outside of place-names, however,
the influence of Celtic upon the
English language is almost
negligible.
• Not more than a score of words in
Old English can be traced with
reasonable probability to a Celtic
source.
• Within this small number it is possible to
distinguish 2 groups:
• (1) those that the Anglo Saxons learned
through everyday contact with the
natives,
• (2) those that were introduced by the
Irish missionaries in the north.
• The former were transmitted orally and
were of popular character;
• the latter were connected with religious
activities and were more or less learned.
• As a result of their activity the words
• ancor (hermit),
• Dry (magician),
• cine (a gathering of parchment leaves),
• clugge (bell),
• gabolrind (compass),
• mind (diadem), and perhaps
stoer(history) and cursian (to curse),
• came into at least partial use in Old
English.
• There are about 12 secure Celtic
loans in OE; most of these are
from Brythonic (P) Celtic - the
dialect group spoken by the larger
number of British inhabitants:
• binn "bin", bannoc "bit", dunn
"dun, grey", broc "badger", bratt
"cloak", carr "rock", luh "lake",
torr "rock", cumb "deep valley".
 • LATIN and OLD ENGLISH

• Latin was not the language of a

conquered people.
• It was the language of a highly regarded
civilization, one from which the Anglo-
Saxons wanted to learn.
• Latin words entered the English language
at different stages of OE history.
• Chronologically they can be divided into
several layers.
• The first Latin words to find their
way into the English language owe
their adoption to the early contact
between the Romans and the
Germanic tribes on the continent.
• In general, if we are surprised at
the number of words acquired from
the Romans at so early a date by
the Germanic tribes that came to
England, we can see nevertheless
that the words were such as they
would be likely to borrow and such
as reflect in a very reasonable way
the relations that existed between
the two peoples.
• I. The Period of Continental
Borrowing. ( I - Vth c. A.D – zero
period)
• appr. 50 words came into the
language through Germanic contact
with Rome before the invasion and
settlement of Britain.
• At best, however, the Latin influence
of the First Period remains much the
slightest of all the influences that
Old English owed to contact with
Roman civilization.
• War: camp (L. campus) 'battle,' pil
(L. pilum) 'javelin,' straet (L. strata)
'road,' mil (L. milia) 'mile;'
• Trade: ceap (L. caupo) 'bargain,'
pund (L. pondo) 'pound,' win (L.
vinum) 'wine,' mynet (L. moneta)
'mint, coin;'
• Domestic Life: cuppe (L. cuppa)
'cup,' disc (L. discus) 'dish,' pyle (L.
pulvinus) 'pillow,' cycene (L. coquina)
'kitchen,' linen (L. linum) 'linen,'
gimm (L. gemma) 'gem;'
•
• Foods: ciese (L. caseus) 'cheese,'
butere (L. butyrum) 'butter,' pipor
(L. piper) 'pepper,' senep (L.
sinapi) 'mustard,' cires (L. cerasus)
'cherry,' pise (L. pisum) 'pea,'
minte (L. mentha) 'mint.' e.
• Other: mul 'mule,' pipe 'pipe,'
cirice 'church.'
• II. The Period of Celtic Transmission.
(Latin words held over from the Roman
occupation of Britain which ended in 410
A.D.
• Almost nothing remains outside a few
elements found in place names: ceaster (L.
castra 'walled encampment') found in
names such as Dorchester, Winchester,
Manchester, Lancaster, and wic (L. vicum)
'village,' found in Greenwich, etc.
 III. The Period of the
Christianizing of Britain. (7-
10th c. A.D)
• The greatest influence of Latin upon Old
English was occasioned by the conversion
of Britain to Roman Christianity
beginning in 597.
• There was in the kingdom of Kent, in
which they landed, a small number of
Christians.
• By the time Augustine died seven years
later, the kingdom of Kent had become
wholly Christian.
But the great majority of words in Old
English having to do with the church and
its services, its physical fabric and its
ministers, when not of native origin were
borrowed at this time.

• 1) words pertaining to religion

• 2) words connected with learning.

Examples below are given in modern

form since most of these words
have altered only slightly in form.
• Religion: abbot, alms, altar, angel,
anthem, candle, collect, creed, deacon,
demon, disciple, hymn, martyr, mass,
nun, offer, organ, palm, pope, priest,
prime, prophet, psalm, relic, rule,
sabbath, temple, tunic.
• . Domestic Life: cap, sock, silk, purple,
chest, sack.
• Foods: lentil, pear, oyster, lobster,
mussel, millet.
• Plants: coriander, cucumber, fennel,
ginger, periwinkle, pine, aloes, balsam,
cedar, cypress, fig, savory, plant.
• Learning: school, master, Latin,
verse, meter, circe, history, paper,
title, grammatical, accent, brief (vb).
f.
• Other: fever, cancer, paralysis,
plaster, place, sponge, elephant,
scorpion, camel, tiger, giant, talent.
 • pinsian (to weigh; L. pēnsāre),
• pyngan (to prick; L. pungere),
• sealtian (to dance; L. saltāre),
• temprian (to temper; L. temperāre),
• trifolian (to grind; L. trībulāre),
• tyrnan (to turn; L. tornāre),
• crisp (L. crispus, ‘curly
• The influence of Latin upon the
English language rose and fell with
the fortunes of the church and the
state of learning so intimately
connected with it.
• As a result of the renewed literary
activity just described, a new
series of Latin importations took
place.
•
• These differed somewhat from
the earlier Christian borrowings
in being words of a less popular
kind and expressing more often
ideas of a scientific and learned
character.
Literary and learned words
predominate
• Of the former kind are accent, brief
(the verb), decline (as a term of
grammar), history, paper, pumice,
quatern (a quire or gathering of leaves
in a book), term(inus), title.
• A great number of plant names are
recorded in this period. Many of them
are familiar only to readers of old
herbals.
• Some of the better known include
celandine, centaury, coriander,
cucumber, ginger
• The words that Old English borrowed in
this period are only a partial indication
of the extent to which the introduction
of Christianity affected the lives and
thoughts of the English people.
• The English did not always adopt a
foreign word to express a new concept.
• The Anglo-Saxons, for example, did not
borrow the Latin word deus, because
their own word God was a satisfactory
equivalent.
• When, for example, the Latin noun
planta comes into English as the noun
plant and later is made into a verb by
the addition of the infinitive ending -ian
(plantian) and other inflectional
elements, we may feel sure that the
word has been assimilated.
• This happened in a number of cases as
in gemartyrian (to martyr), sealmian (to
play on the harp), culpian (to humiliate
oneself), fersian (to versify), glēsan (to
gloss), and crispian (to curl).
• The Latin impact on the OE
vocabulary was not restricted to
borrowing of words.
• There were also other aspects of
influence.
• The most important of them is the
appearance of the so-called
“translation-loans” – words and
phrases created on the pattern of
Latin words as their literal
translations.
• The earliest instances of
translation-loans are names of the
days of the week found not only in
OE but also in other Old Germanic
languages.
• OE Mōnan-dæз (Monday) ‘day of
the moon’, L Lunae dies.
• SCANDINAVIAN: mid 9- mid 11th c
• The Anglo -Saxons and the Vikings =
quite similar culture.
• similar languages = similar traditions
→ the integration of the Vikings with
the Anglo - Saxons.
• Scandinavian vocabulary penetrated
nearly every area of the English
language
• most words of Scandinavian origin in
English are concrete everyday words.
• Old English is largely known through the
work of 10th and 11th century scribes,
working in the South and West of the
country.
• These scribes would be unlikely to use
loanwords that were in use in the
Scandinavian settlement area,
• thus of the 900 attested North Germanic
loans into English, only 150 appear in Old
English sources.
• The rest only manifest themselves in the
12th and 13th centuries in Middle English
texts even though they must have been
around earlier.
• The words that do appear --
mostly in late texts -- are mostly
concerned with the administrative
and social systems of the Danelaw,
for example:
• hūsbonda "householder"
• wǽpentæc "wapentake" a
subdivision of a shire
• hūsting "court, tribunal"
• ūtlaga "outlaw"
Examples: / in modern form/
• Nouns: band, bank, birth, booth, bull,
calf (of leg), dirt, egg, fellow, freckle,
guess, kid, leg, race, root, scab, score,
scrap, seat, sister, skill, skin, skirt,
sky, steak, trust, window.
• Adjectives: awkward, flat, ill, loose,
low, meek, muggy, odd, rotten, rugged,
sly, tattered, tight, weak.
• Verbs: bait, call, cast, clip, cow, crave,
crawl, die, droop, gasp, get, give,
glitter, lift, raise, rake, scare, screech,
take, thrive, thrust.
• The fact that even the Norse
pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ were
accepted into English is remarkable; it
is very unusual that grammatical items
are borrowed.

• extensive contact between the Anglo

Saxons and the Vikings and a gradual
integration of the two groups.
• OLD NORSE VS OE
• the Vikings (9th-11th century)
• given high degree of mutual intelligibility
of OE and ON
• some ON words came to be used
synonymously with OE cognates
• eventually either one or the other may
have dropped out of use (as in the case
of OE ey and ON egg, which co-existed
until well into the fifteenth century);
• semantic differentiation may have
taken place (as in the case of cognate OE
shirt and ON skirt, both of which
originally meant ‘garment’).
• OE borrowed Norse third person plural th-
forms
• prepositions such as till and fro
• ‘everyday’ lexical items such as sister,
fellow, hit, law, sky, take, skin, want,
and scot ‘tax’ (as in scot-free)
Some Scandinavian suffixes are found in
the geographical names:
-by (byr-town) – Derby;
-dale (dalr-valley) –Avondale;
-toft (toft-grassy spot) – Langtoft;
-ness (nes-cape) – Inverness;
-beck (bakkr-rivulet) – Trontbeck;
-wick/wich (vik-bay) – Greenwich
 Hints of recognition of
Scandinavian loan words in
English
• 1. Germanic /sk/ became / / (sh)
in all positions. This change
occurred later in Scandinavia, and
therefore words like shall, shoulder
and shirt are native English words
whereas skin, sky and skirt are
Scandinavian words.
• 2. In early Old English the Germanic /g/
before front vowels became /j/, and /k/
became / /. In Old Norse /g/ and /k/
remained. Thus, child, choose and yield are
all native words, while give, gift, kid and
kindle are Scandinavian.
• Date of first appearance.
• E.g. the Old English word for ‘take’ was
niman, but in late Old English tacan is
found. The Old Norse word was taka,
which shows that it must have been
borrowed from the Scandinavians.
• the Scandinavian influence not only
affected the vocabulary but also
extended to matters of grammar.

• A certain number of inflectional

elements peculiar to the Northumbrian
dialect have been attributed to
Scandinavian influence, among others the
-s of the third person singular, present
indicative, of verbs and the participial
ending -and (bindand), corresponding to
-end and -ind in the Midlands and
South, and now replaced by -ing.
 Word-building means in Old English
• 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,
- land, зōd.
• 2) derived words consisting of one root-
morpheme and one or more affixes,
be-зinnan.
• 3) compound words, whose stems were made
up of more than one root-morpheme,
• mann-cynn.
• Ways of word-formation
• OE employed two ways of word-
formation:
• Derivation (affixation, sound
interchange)
• word-composition/ compounding.
• Semantic shift
• 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:
• 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).
 Affixation
• OE words could be formed from existing
ones with the addition of prefixes or
suffixes.
• Prefixes tend to affect meaning, for
instance by reversing or intensifying the
application of the original word (e.g.
excusable, inexcusable; sound, unsound).
• Suffixes are used to change one type of
word into another: for instance, to create
a noun from a verb (e.g. sing, singer), or an
adverb from an adjective (e.g. sad, sadly).
• Common OE prefixes include:
mis- defective (dǣd ‘deed’, misdǣd
‘misdeed’; faran ‘to go’, misfaran
‘to go astray’)
ofer- excess (ǣt ‘eating’, oferǣt
‘gluttony’; fyllan ‘to fill’, oferfyllan
‘to fill to overflowing’)
un- negative (cūþ ‘known’, uncūþ
‘unknown’; riht ‘right’, unriht
‘wrong’)
• However, prefixes sometimes have
little if any effect.
• giefan and forgiefan = mean ‘to give’.
• Many verbs can occur with or without
the prefix ge-; niman and geniman
both mean ‘to take’.
• This is sometimes summarized in
dictionaries and grammars of OE as
(ge)niman, and the ge is ignored when
the words are alphabetized.
 Prefixation
ā- (out of) – ārīsan;
for- (destruction) – fordōn;
ʒe- (collectivity, perfection) - ʒemynd,
ʒefēra;
mis- (bad quality) – misdǣd;
on- (change, separation) – onbindan;
un- (negative) – uncuƀ (unknown).
 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 / not a means
of dertivation/
• derivational suffixes proper inherited
from PIE and PG;
• new suffixes which developed from root-
morphemes in Late PG and OE in the
course of morphological simplification of
the word.
• Adjectives were usually derived
from nouns, rarely from verb stems
or other adjectives.
• Common adjective suffixes include:
-ful (cearu ‘care, sorrow’, cearful
‘sorrowful’)
-ig (blōd ‘blood’, blōdig ‘bloody’)
-isc (cild ‘child’, cildisc ‘childish’)
-lēas (hlāford ‘lord’, hlāfordlēas
‘lordless’)
-lic (wundor ‘wonder, miracle’,
wundorlic ‘wonderful, miraculous’)
• Many adverbs end in:
-e (heard ‘hard, fierce’, hearde
‘fiercely’)

• -līce (hrædlic ‘quick’, hrædlīce

‘quickly’)
• Substantive suffixes:
-ere (m)- fiscere, wrītere;
-estre (f)- spinnestre;
-e/ond (m) - frēōnd;
-inʒ - cyninʒ ; adj+inʒ=noun lӯtlinʒ,
earminʒ;
-linʒ (with emotional colouring) - dēōrlinʒ;
-en (m. stems > f nouns) – ʒyden (ʒod,
fyxen (fox)
-nis/nes (abstr. nouns)ʒōdnis, ƀrenēs;
-unʒ (f verbal nouns) - leornunʒ,
rǣdinʒ;
-dōm - wisdōm, frēōdōm;
-hād – cīldhād;
-lāc – wedlāc;
-scipe - frēōndscipe
These suffixes were originally nouns
Dōm - doom;
hād - title;
lāc - gift.
• Word-composition was a highly
productive way of developing the
vocabulary in OE.

• As in other OG languages, word-

composition in OE was more
productive in nominal parts of
speech than in verbs.
• N +N = the most efficient type of
all: mann-cynn (NE mankind).
• Adj + N = less productive, e.g. wīd-
sǽ ‘ocean’ (wide sea).
• Compound adjectives were formed by
joining a noun-stem to an adjective:
• Adj + N = dōm-зeorn (“eager for
glory”). “bahuvruhi type” – adjective
plus noun stem as the second
component of an adjective, e.g. mild-
heort ‘merciful’.
Semantic shift

• evolution of word meaning,

e.g.: Easter was the name of a pagan
Goddess of spring, however, due to the
Roman influence and Christianization the
meaning changed.
LUNEDI Mōnandæg Monday Montag

MARTEDI Tīwesdæg Tuesday Dienstag

MERCOLEDI Wōdnesdæg Wednesday Mittwoch

GIOVEDI Þūnresdæg Thursday Donnerstag

VENERDI Frīgedæg Friday Freitag

SABATO Sæturnesdæg Saturday Sonnabend (Samstag)

DOMENICA Sunnandæg Sunday Sonntag