Modern English is significantly different from its original form - Old English, or Anglo-Saxon. A vivid example of this is the ancient monuments of literature. They are unlikely to be understood by a person who is far from studying ancient literature. The picture below shows the changes in Psalm 23 over 1000 years.
What contributed to such a clear change in language? How is the modern version different from the original?
What periods is English divided into?
The history of the Old English language began in the V century along with the first Germanic settlements on the territory of modern Britain. Over time, under the influence of the socio-political situation, the language underwent various changes and was divided into:
- the Old English period of the English language was distributed from the 5th to the 7th centuries, marked by the arrival of Germanic tribes and the advent of writing;
- Mid-English period of the English language - from the 5th to the 15th centuries. At this time, Britain was conquered by the Normans, and in 1475 the era of printing began;
- modern English - XV century - to this day.
The Old English language is characterized by the presence of dialects that appeared after the conquest of Britain by the Angles, Saxons and Utahs. There were 4 dialects in total: Northumbrian, Mercian, Wessex and Kent. The first two were spoken by the Angles, but due to the fact that the territories of their residence were far from each other, a number of distinctive features appeared in each of them. Wessex was spoken by Saxons, and Kent was spoken by jutes.
How was the language dictionary formed?
Scientists suggest that the dictionary of the Old English language totaled from 30,000 to 100,000 words. They are divided into 3 groups:
- specific Old English words are found only in this language;
- Indo-European - the oldest words denoting the names of plants, animals and body parts, action verbs and a wide range of numerals;
- Germanic - words that are found only in this group and are common only in the languages of their group.
In Old English, there were approximately 600 borrowings from the Celtic and Latin languages, which appeared under the influence of the following historical events.
- I century AD e. The Roman Empire under the emperor Claudius conquered Britain and made it its colony. The territories divided into military camps later became English cities: Lancaster, Manchester, Lincoln. The endings “caster” and “chester” in translation from Latin meant “camp”, and the ending “koln” - “settlement”.
- V century. Britain is captured by the Germanic tribes of the Saxons, Angles and Utah, whose dialect supplanted the Celtic language. Germanic tribes brought to the Old English language not only their vocabulary, but also borrowings from Latin: silk, cheese, wine, pound, butter and others.
- 597 year. The spread of Christianity led to the need to borrow words to denote religious concepts: bishop, candle, angel, devil, idol, anthem, monk and others. Also, the names of plants, diseases, medicines, animals, clothes, household items, dishes and products were borrowed from Latin: pine, plant, lily, fever, cancer, elephant, camel, cap, raddish and others. In addition to direct borrowing, tracing was widely used - literally translated words. For example, Monday is short for Monadie, the literal translation of Lunae Dies (“Moon Day”).
- 878 year. Anglo-Saxons and Danes sign a peace treaty, as a result of which the latter receive part of the British lands. This fact also influenced the language in which words such as axle, anger, and the letters sc- and sk- appeared. Examples: skin, skull, sky.
- 790 year. Viking raids led to the adoption of the words cast, call, take, die. ill, ugly, they, their. both. The death of flexions also belongs to this period.
Old English Grammar
Old English had a more complex grammar compared to modern English.
- when writing, they used the runic, gothic and latin alphabets.
- the pronoun, noun and adjective have varied by gender.
- in addition to the singular and plural, there was also the dual plural: ic (i) / we (we) / wit (we two).
- 5 cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and instrumental.
- glaed - joyful;
- glades - joyful;
- gladum - joyful;
- glaedne - joyful;
- glade - joyful.
- nouns, adjectives and pronouns tended depending on the ending.
What is the difference between a verb system?
Verbs in Old English represented a complex grammatical system.
- Verbs were divided into strong, weak and others. The strong had 7 conjugations, the weak 3, and the others 2.
- There was no future tense, only the present and the past.
- The verb changed in persons and numbers.
What is the difference between modern English and Old English?
Due to historical events, the Old English language underwent a number of changes before it acquired a modern form. What is the difference between the modern form of language from the original?
Of the 5 cases, only 2 remained - this is common and possessive.
There are no conjugations in the modern verb system; irregular verbs are left instead .
The future tense appeared, which differs from the past and present by the absence of its verb form. This means that in this form the verb does not change, and the word will will be the assistant verb.
Gerund appeared - an impersonal form of a verb with the properties of a noun and a verb.
What words were included in the dictionary of the Old English language?
The British lands at different times belonged to the Romans, Scandinavians and Germanic tribes. What words were included in the dictionary?
- mona - moon - moon;
- brodor - brother - brother;
- modor - mother - mother;
- sunu - son - son;
- beon - be - to be;
- don - do - do;
- ic - I - i;
- twa - two - two;
- pet - that - that;
- handus - hand-hand;
- clipian - call - call;
- brid - bird - bird.
Despite the fact that Old English and modern English are fundamentally different from each other, the first one had a great influence on the formation of the second.