Characteristics of Old English

Old English – The development of English language was a process of

continuous transition. This continuous development has been recognized to
have three periods, each period marks certain characteristics and certain
development.
Celtic was the first Indo-European tongue to be spoken in England.
Settlement of Teutonic tribes: Angles, Saxons and Jutes, was the most
decisive moment in the history of English.
There are four old English dialects: Northumbria, Mercian, West Saxon and
Kentish.
The three of the English language are: Old English (450 – 1150), Middle
English (1150 -1500) and Modern English (since 1500..).
Old English wasn’t uniform as it differed somewhat from one locality to
another.
King Alfred’s writings are among the earliest records of Old English.
Both in spelling and pronunciation old English words differed considerably
from their modern equivalents:
Old English Modern Equivalent
stan Stone
halig Holy
Gan Go
Fot Foot
Fyr Fire
Hu How
riht right
Beowulf is the greatest simple work of old English literature. It is a folk epic
poem with an excellent expression of the heroic ideal.
Characteristics of Old English
English language has undergone considerable change in the course of its
development.
The difference between Old English and Modern English can be found at all the
levels of language like- structure, especially spelling and pronunciation, vocabulary
and grammar.
Spelling and Pronunciation
Old English used certain characteristic of spelling conventions which are no longer
found in Modern English.
Old English had two separate letters for the "th" sound. The first is written
like this: þ. It is called thorn, the other letter is ‘ð’ and the capital ‘Ð’ (eth).
The diagraph æ in Old English is pronounced the same way as the "a" in
the words "bat" or "cat."
Old English represented the sound of ‘sh’ by ‘sc’ as ‘sceap’ for ‘sheep’ and the
sound of ‘K’ by ‘C’ as in cynn’ for ‘kin’ or ‘nacod’ for ‘naked’.
The soft ‘g’ sound was represented by the ‘cg’ as in ‘bricg’ for ‘bridge’.
The old English was phonetic in nature so every letter was pronounced as ‘h’ in
‘niht’ for ‘night’, the ‘r’ in ‘burn’.
The pronunciation differences between Old and Modern English largely concerns
the pronunciation of certain vowels especially the long vowels as in:
Stan-stone, bat-boat, ban- bone, gan- go,
Certain other vowels also has undergone changes as in: fot-foot, cene- keen, riht-
right.
The change is a result of contraction which represents a difference of
pronunciation.
The consonants changed which is known as Great Vowel Shift.
English vowels, particularly long ones became almost completely transformed
during the history of the language.
The ‘c’ in old English words ‘cumin’ –’come’ and ‘cyrice’- church’ had approximately
the sound of ‘k’.
The alphabet of Old English is an adaptation of Roman letters and had five vowels ‘a,
e, i, o, u’ besides sixth one ‘y’ pronounced as ‘ash’.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary of Old English was almost purely Germanic. A large part of this
vocabulary has disappeared from the language. This happened because of the
domination of French after the Norman Conquest.
It has been found that only 15% of the Old English vocabulary has survived. The thing
here to notice is that the words which have survived form the basic elements of the
vocabulary.
Together with such basic grammatical categories as Pronouns, Prepositions,
conjunction, auxiliary verbs, Old English words express such fundamental concepts as:
 wif-wife, cild-child, hus-house, mete-meat, eaten- eat, drican-drink, god- good,
libban-line, mann-man.
 Grammar
The most fundamental feature that distinguishes Old English from Modern
English is its grammar.
The Old English indicated the relation of words in a sentence largely by
means of inflections.
These inflections most commonly take the form of endings on the noun and
the pronoun, the adjective and the verb.
Ex: The word ‘stan’ takes forms such as
Singular Plural
Nominative (noun) stan stan-as
Genitive (Noun/pronoun showing possession) stan-es stan-a
Dative (indirect object) stan-e stan-um
Accusative (object of an action) stan stan-as
Thus Old English exploited its own potential in a crucial context before taking
in foreign sources. It has the quality of self creation by combining two words
to make a new compound word or to absorb foreign elements wherever
necessary.