2.2.

Old English Lexicon

Introduction

- OE vocabulary was extremely rich even though we know just a small portion of it
(certain words may have existed but not in written texts).
- It seems that one of the causes for such richness was the fact that OE poetry was
alliterative.
- A poet needed a variety of synonyms for the same concept in order to have words
beginning with the same sound.
- In addition, OE poetry made extensive use of variation (the repetition of the same
idea in different words).
- We know that the OE language had at least 14 words to refer to “messenger” and
though they were not probably absolute synonyms, many of them were
interchangeable for poetic purposes.
- Hundreds of the OE surviving words appear in poetry only.
- The great majority of “poetic” words were compounds because very often the first
element in the compound was replaced by another for the sake of alliteration.

Loanwords

- Most OE words were native either of IE or Gmc origin. IE lexicon includes the most
essential vocabulary, such as numbers from 1 to 10 kinship terms, words meaning
sun, water, to eat, tree, etc.
- Gmc terms are recognizable because they appear in other Gmc languages but not in
non-Gmc ones.
- Such is the case of flc “folk”, grund “ground”, swellan “to swell”, wif “woman”.
- However, other languages had some kind of influence on the vocabulary of the
Anglo-Saxons.

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Greek
- Elements of Greek origin often entered the OE vocabulary through Gothic. Some of
these elements are still used in PE, for instance.
- cirice “church”
- deofol “devil”
- engel “angel”
- Greek influence on OE is not as important as that of Latin.

Latin
- Latin was considered the language of a superior civilization by the Anglo-Saxons.
However, not all Latin loans entered the language during the OE period.
- Words that have a Latin origin may have been taken over by OE speakers in 3
different periods.

Period 1: Continental borrowings

- Those taken over before the Germanic tribes (Saxons, Jutes and Angles) when they
left the continent in the 5th century, that is to say in the Common Gmc period.
- We know this contact between Gmc, tribes and Romans took place thanks to Tacitus’
Germania.
- To decide whether a Latin word entered OE before or after the Gmc settlement in
England, we must look for that word in some other Gmc languages. If we find it, we
may assume that it was already used when the Gmc tribes were on the continent.
- Continental borrowings occur in all Gmc dialects. These loans belong to 2 fields:
- Words related to war, as the Gmc tribes, apart from fighting the Romans,
were also mercenaries in the Roman legions: camp “battle” from L. campus
“battlefield”; weall “wall” from L. vallum; stræt “road” from L. via strata.
- Words related to trade: market from L. mercatus; mynet “coin” from L.
moneta; win “wine” from L. vinus.

Period 2: Early Latin borrowings

- Those acquired in England through the contact with the Roman troops established
there after Julius Caesar and Claudius conquered part of the island. Most of them
appear in place-names as part of hybrids.
- chester: Dorchester, Gloucester, Manchester

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 - caster: Doncaster, Lancaster
- port: “harbour, gate”

Period 3: Late Latin borrowings

- Those acquired after the year 650 thanks to the contact with the Irish and Roman
missionaries who Christianised the Island.
- In this period we find words related to religion (minister, priest) to learning and
culture (school, master) to household and clothing (chest, sock, silk, plant).

Celtic
- Celtic influence on OE was not very important.
- Evidence of the contact between the Celtic tribes and the Anglo-Saxons survive
mainly in place-names.
- Thus, for instance, the kingdom of Kent owns its name to the Celtic word Canti (of
unknown meaning).
- The two ancient Northumbrian kingdoms, Benicia and Deira, also bear Celtic names.
- But Celtic names survive mainly in names of rivers and of mountains.
- Thames is a Celtic name, like Tamar, a river in Cornwall.
- These names derive from the Celtic root *tam-, meaning “stream of water” (cf. also
Galician river names Tambre or Támega).
- Various Celtic names of rivers or streams of water are kept in place-names such as
Avon, Exe, Esk, Dover…etc.
- Other place-names of Celtic origin are Pendle or Brendon, both meaning “hill” (cf.
Welsh pen or bre “hill”);
- Torcross or Torhill, including the element torr “high rock”;
- The noun cumb “deep valley” appears in Duncombe, Holcombe;
- The first syllable of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester or
Linchfield is traceable to Celtic source.

Apart from those nouns denoting geographical features, which were probably learnt
through everyday contact with the natives, a second group of Celtic loans are introduced
by the Irish missionaries in the North and are mainly connected with religious activities:
cross, clugge, “bell”, dry “magician”, etc.

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 - The Celtic element is not very important in OE or in English in general as compared
to others, which were geographically more distant.
- This may be due to the kind of relationship that existed between the Celtic tribes and
the Germanic newcomers, which was one of conquered and conqueror.
- There are also three waves, so to speak, of Celtic influence on OE.
- The first one, contituting part of the substratum can be seen in the first
element of river nouns such as Thames or Thamar seems to be related to a
Celtic -tam meaning “stream of water”. Another example is OE rice “reign”.
- The second wave or period compromises loans taken after the settlement of
the Germanic tribes in England in the 5th century. Such loans are, for instance:
- dunn “dark”
- mattuc “mattock”
- bratt “cloak”
- The third stage is related to those same Irish missionaires that brought
Latin words with them. They introduced words such as cross “cross”
(ultimately L).

Old Norse
- Scandinavian loans and their dating is a question that has worried many of us, mainly,
because though the contact between the English and the Danes takes place in the Old
English period, there seems to be no real effect on the language until IOE or
Middle English.
- In fact, the first loans appear in the Treaty of Wedmore, signed between Alfred and
Guthrum.
- OE liesing “freedman”
- OE healf meark “half a mark”
- In OE, Scandinavian loans are mainly words denoting ideas, persons or things.
- They appear mainly in late texts, for instance in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle after
1000.
- When other loans denoting social realities for instance, appear, these is a frequent
assimilation to native sound patterns. This is the case of:
- ON vapnaták > OE wæpentæc
- Some examples of these early Scandinavian loans are:
- ON løg > OE lagu “law”

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 - ON lið > OE lið “fleet”
- ON víkingr > OE wicing “pirate”
- ON Knørr > OE cnearr “ship”
- ON níðing > OE niðing ”evil man”
- ON þræll > OE þræl “thrall”
- ON útlagi > OE utlaga “outlaw”
- However, the majority of such a loans will not be in full use until the ME period.
- Scandinavian influence on OE is traceable in:
- Place-names: there are around 4k places in Britain bearing Scandinavian
names. They are mainly placed in the western part of the island (Danelaw)
- -by “town”: in Whitby, Derby, Rugby… The word by meant “town”. It is still
kept with that meaning in by-lay “local law”. In this compound, both elements
are Scandinavian.
- -thorpe “village” in Linthorpe
- -thwaite “isolated piece of land” in Applethwaite
- -toft “measure of land” in Norsoft.
- Family names ending in -son, such as Stevenson, Johnson, are of
Scandinavian tradition (in Iceland, family names end in -son for men
and in -dottir for women).

It is in ME that loads of these Scandinavian loans appear in texts. Many of them belong to the
core vocabulary of the English language. In a sentence like They gave them their laws, all the
words are Scandinavian.
Words like take, get, give, skin, sister, window (OE eagþyrl ON vindauga), skirt, egg,
die, slaughter, sky, ill… But apart from these loans, what is more important and what shows
to which extent Scandinavian languages influenced English is the fact that even function
words were borrowed: pronouns like they, their, them, both; the preposition till; the
conjunctions though and although are all of Scandinavian origin.

- The easy introduction of Scandinavian terms is due to the similarity between the two
languages. Sometimes it is impossible to tell whether a word is English or
Scandinavian. Sometimes, semantic contamination in the meanings of related words.
- OE dream “joy” vs. ON draumr “vision in sleep”
- OE hlaf “bread” vs. ON bread “fragment”

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 - OE eorl “warrior” vs. ON jarl “governor”
- Some ON loans were conformed to English sound and inflectional system. Words
starting with /sk/ are Scandinavian because in OE they were /sc/ (skirt vs. shirt).
- /g/ and /k/ before front vowels as in gear, geld, gill, kick, kilt, kindle.

French
- In OE no loans that can be certainly regarded as French occur in texts before 1066
except prud “proud”.
- Some can be thought of equally a derived from Latin and from French. Even after
1066 they are not very often found.

Formation of new words

- By the time we have the first written records in OE the main ways in which the
language enlarged its vocabulary (besides loanwords) were compounding and
derivation. Both devices were inherited from IE.
- Compounding: The great majority of compounds are nouns and adjectives in OE.
- Nouns:
- Noun + noun: sunbeam “sun-beam”
- Adj + adj: yfwkweorc “evil deed”
- Adv + noun: innefeoh “inside property (household)”
- OE was innovative compared to other Gmc languages in that it sometimes
used triple compounds such as biterwyrdrenc “drink of bitter herbs”.

Adjectives
- They normally have and adj as the second element. However, there is one type of
compound here formed by adj + noun that has been lost in PE.
- Noun + adj: isceald “ice-cold”
- Ajd + adj: heahsteap “high-steep” (very high)
- Adv + adj: þurhhefig “extremely heavy”
- There were not many compound adverbs i OE and there were some verbs

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Derivation
- Also called affixation.
- This was by far the commonest way to obtain new words in OE. As in PE, prefixes
usually changed the meaning of the word, whereas suffixes changed the class to
which the word belonged.
- The commonest of all OE prefixes was ge-. So common that it came to lose its
original meaning so that witan and gewitan may mean the same.
- There were many suffixes in OE:
- To form abstract nouns: -nes, -ung, -scipe
- To form agent nouns: -end, -ere, -estre
- To form adjectives: -ig, -ful, -leas, -isc.
- Many of the most frequent affixes in OE are still familiar in PE.

Old English semantics

- The basic meanings of the OE core vocabulary seem to have remained relatively
stable over the centuries, though individual items may have developed extended
meanings. For instance, the meanings of mother, son, tree, sun, good, have, and be,
seem to be very similar in OE and in PE.
- Semantic shifts may take place due to several reasons and in different ways.

Generalization of Narrowing
- Generalization (extension of meaning) is well represented by OE gesund “safe,
unbroken”. PE has added the more abstract meaning of “thorough, unbroken, reliable,
sensible” as in the following examples: a sound scold, sound sleep, sound investment,
sound advice.
- It is easier to find examples of narrowing, maybe because the use of loanwords
reduces the semantic domain covered by one single word. For instance, OE weed was
used to refer to any kind of clothing, whereas PE weeds is used for mourning clothing
only.

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Melioration and pejoration
- Amelioration, the process of which the meaning of a word acquires a positive
connotation.
- It is illustrated by OE prætig “tricky, sly, wily”, but that is not the meaning of
PE pretty.
- Pejoration is the opposite process and a negative connotation is acquired.
- It is much more common that amelioration as exemplified by OE sælig
“happy, prosperous” which as become PE silly.

Strengthening and weakening

- Strengthening or intensification is a rare type of semantic change, and the stronger
meaning only is kept.
- One example is OE wrencan (as in wreak vengeance). The OE word could be
used in its strong sense of “avenger, punish”, but it also had a milder meaning
of “push” or “relate, pronounce”.
- Weakening is more often found, and it involves a swift from a stronger meaning to a
more general or milder one.
- OE hraðor “hastily, immediately” came to be PE rather.

Abstraction and concretization

- The change from a concrete to a more abstract meaning can be seen i OE grund
“ground, the bottom of something” to PE ground as “basis, foundation”.
- Concretization is seen in OE hlafordscipe “authority, rule” that in ME began to be
used as a title Your Lordship.

Denotation and connotation

- Shift in denotation
- OE dwellan meant “to deceive, err”. The PE meaning was probably influenced
by a similar sounding ON verb dvelja “delay, remain”.
- Another surprising example is the change in denotation from OE clud “hill,
rock” to PE cloud.
- Shift in connotation
- Many changes in connotation are related to amelioration or pejoration. Some
others are not and are more complex:

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 - OE fægr “beautiful, attractive”. By the end of the 12 th century, (eME)
it was used to mean “legal”.
- By the 16th century, it also came to mean “blond”.
- In the 18th century, a weakening of the basic meaning took place when
fair and fairly came to mean “adequate”

Old English dialects

- We may be tempted to think about dead languages as something even and

homogeneous, but this is not so.
- Many changed occurred in the language from the coming of the Saxons in 450 and the
Battle of Hastings in 1066.
- One of the most important changes was the reduction of all unstressed vowels to
schwa.
- But there was also some diatopic (geographical) changes.
- Many dialectal differences may have been introduced in 450 with the Gmc tribes,
whereas some others probably developed on the Island.
- It seems that there were 4 main dialectal areas: Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish,
and West Saxon. We must take into account that dialectal borders are not sharp.
- The most important differences between dialects were to be observed in phonology,
mainly in vowels.
- There were also vocabulary differences that became more striking after the permanent
settlement of the Scandinavians.
- The morphology was similar though the Northern dialects lost their endings before the
ones in the South, and there was not much difference in syntax.