Presents

Old English
Part 1

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 Introduction
Old English is a West Germanic language of the
Germanic branch of Indo European. It was spoken by
the people known as the Anglo-Saxons roughly
between 400-1066 CE. Most records we have date
from the mid seventh century until 1066, which is the
official cut-off date for Middle English, although that
transition was gradual.

Family
Being a West Germanic language means that it is
closely related to Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian and its
descendent, Modern English. It is also related to Old
Norse and its successors: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian
and Icelandic. Due to Viking raids and settlement in
England, there is even an Old Norse influence in Old
(and Modern) English. Being an Indo European
language means it is also related to the Romance,
Slavic and Celtic languages.

Grammar
Old English is an inflected language like German and
other Indo European languages. It also uses declension
to mark the role of nouns in a sentence. There are 5
cases in Old English, although one of them was
relatively rare. It also has grammatical gender (with 3
genders), and two numbers for nouns (singular and
plural) and three numbers for pronouns (singular, dual
and plural). It also has a well developed conjugation
system with two tenses formed without an auxiliary
and four tenses that use an auxiliary.

Phonology
Old English features 7 short and 7 long monophthongs
(single vowels). It has 2 long and 2 short diphthongs.
Old English has 25 consonant phonemes (speech
sounds) which makes it about average compared to
world languages.

Spelling
Old English spelling is inconsistent throughout the time
it was used. It also used a script known as the insular
script, which was largely the Roman alphabet with
some alterations and the addition of þ, ð and ƿ. It is
standard practice to use w instead of ƿ, but Icelandic
maintains þ and ð in its keyboard, thus enabling Old
English learners to have access.
In the same way, Old English uses macrons over vowels
(ī, ȳ, ē, ǣ, ā, ō, and ū), but some prefer to use an acute
accent (í, ý, é, ǽ, á, ó, and ú) because it is easier to use
the Icelandic keyboard. These texts will use the
macron, but both or none are acceptable (they are not
found in the manuscripts).

Grammatical Gender
Old English is an Indo European language and like
almost all Indo European languages, it has grammatical
gender. There are 3 genders in Old English: masculine,
feminine and neuter. The gender of a noun must be
learned with the noun, but there are some patterns
that may give insights into the gender of some nouns.

Pronouns
Nominative (subject)
I - iċ we two - wit we - wē
you (s) - þú you two - ġit you (pl) - gé
he - hē she - hēo it - hit they - hīe
 Phrases
The IPA transcription appears after the phrase
Eala /eːala/ - Hello
Hū gǣþ hit þē? /huː gæːθ hit θɛː/ - How are you?
Hit gǣþ wel /hɪt gæːθ wɛl/ - Fine
Hu hātest þu? /huː haːtɛst θuː/ - What is your name?
Iċ hāte ___ /ɪtʃ͡ haːtɛ/ - My name is ___
Gēse /jeːzɛ/ - Yes
Nēse /neːzɛ/ - No
Iċ ne mæġ (Eald)1 Englisc spreċan /itʃ͡ nɛ mæj (ɛald)
eŋglɪʃ sprɛt͡ʃan/ - I can not speak (Old) English.
Iċ (ne) þæt underġiete /itʃ͡ nɛ θæt ʊndɜrjɪɛtɛ/ - I (don’t)
understand
͡ man (niːw) eŋglɪʃ
Spriċþ man (Nīw) Englisc hēr? /sprɪtʃθ
her/ - Is there someone here who speaks (Modern)
English?
Hwanen cymst þu? /ʍanɛn kʏmst θu/ - Where are you
from?
Iċ cume of ___ /itʃ͡ kʊme of/ - I am from ___

1
To the Anglo-Saxons, it wasn’t Old English, it was just English. Just like we don’t necessarily think of Modern
English as “Modern” so much as just English.
This concludes Part 1. New parts are made available on
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