Old English.

Old English dialects.

OLD ENGLISH (450-1150) - is the earliest historical
form of the English language, spoken in England and
southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages.
 Historical Events

During the 5th Century AD three Germanic tribes (Saxons,

Angles, and Jutes) came to the British Isles from various parts
of northwest Germany as well as Denmark.

These tribes were warlike and pushed out most of the original,
Celtic- speaking inhabitants from England into Scotland, Wales,
and Cornwall. 

When the Anglo-Saxons first came to England from northern

Germany (Saxony) in the fifth and sixth centuries, they brought
their language with them. It is a Germanic language and has
some fundamental similarities to Modern German.
 Historical Events

Through the years, the Saxons, Angles and Jutes mixed their
different Germanic dialects. This group of dialects forms what
linguists refer to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon. The word
"English" was in Old English "Englisc", and that comes from
the name of the Angles. The Angles were named from Engle,
their land of origin.

The language spoken in what is now England was a mixture of

Latin and various Celtic languages which were spoken before
the Romans came to Britain (54-5BC). The Romans brought
Latin to Britain, which was part of the Roman Empire for over
400 years.
The Germanic tribes who settled in Britain in the 5th and 6th c. spoke closely related tribal dialects
belonging to the West Germanic subgroup. Later these dialects were transformed into a single tongue -
English. OE dialects acquired certain common features which distinguished them from continental Germanic
tongues. Initially these
dialects were tribal, but gradually, due to the development of the feudal system they were transformed into
local or regional
The following dialects.
four principal OE dialects are commonly distinguished:
Kentish, a dialect spoken in the area known now as Kent and Surrey and in the Isle of Wight. It had
developed from the tongue of the Jutes and Frisians.
West Saxon, the main dialect of the Saxon group, spoken in the rest of England south of the Thames and
the Bristol Channel. Other Saxon dialects in England have not survived in written form and are not known
to modern scholars.
Mercian, a dialect derived from the speech of southern Angles and spoken chiefly in the kingdom of
Mercia, that is, in the central region, from the Thames to the Humber.
Northumbrian, another Anglian dialect, spoken from the Humber north to the river Forth {hence the
name — North-Humbrian).
The boundaries between the dialects were uncertain and probably movable. The dialects freely passed into
one another.
 Origin

The influence of Celtic upon Old English was slight. In fact,

very few Celtic words have lived on in the English language.
But many of place and river names have Celtic origin.

Many of the words passed on from this era are those coined by
Roman merchants and soldiers.
The arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the
introduction of Christianity into Saxon
England brought more Latin words into the
English language.
Around 878 AD Danes and Norsemen, also called Vikings,
invaded the country and English got many Norse words into the
language, particularly in the north of England. The Vikings,
being Scandinavian, spoke a language (Old Norse) which, in
origin at least, was just as Germanic as Old English.

Several written works have survived from the Old English

period. The most famous is a heroic epic poem called
"Beowulf". It is the oldest known English poem and it is notable
for its length - 3,183 lines. Experts say "Beowulf" was written
in Britain more than one thousand years ago. The name of the
person who wrote it is unknown