The History of English language - Old English period

Introduction:-

            According to the historians of English language, history of English language can be divided into three main stages in its development.

1. Old English period (Anglo-Saxon) ( A.D. 600 to 1100)
2. Middle English period (1100 to 1500)
3. Modern English period (1500 onwards)

          It's must not imagined that in any of these years there was a complete or sudden change. During this period a person would quite unaware of any differences. He might denied to agree with these changes. The reason of all these things are that language is evolutionary not static. But in some ages the development is more rapid than others. For the sake of convenience, the historians of the language has to erect landmark somewhere and the dates chosen are not altogether arbitrary. According to this concept.,

• By 600, the invading tribes Angles and Saxons had succeeded to establish power and implanting their language in Britain. For that reason this formate suitable starting point.
• In 1066, there was Norman invasion and conquest. By 1100 the Normans had strengthen their power and their language was beginning to influence the native Saxon tongue.
• 1500 marks a similar turning point because of Renaissance. It alters the character of English Church and the establishment of Tudor dynasty which made England a nation in a real sense.

             All these things had their influence on the language. And it becomes clear justification for selecting these years as the great landmarks in the development of our language. 

 

         Earlier inhabitants of this islands were Britons and their tongue was Celtic, that had relation with Norman France which now called Brittany. This was in Roman occupation from 55 BC to AD 410. Therefore it mixed with latin elements. Afterwards Angles, Saxons and Jutes came from North Germany and the language of this invaders become the language of Britain which is now called England.

Anglo-Saxon language:-

            Old English or Anglo Saxon was not a single homogeneous language, but it had many dialects, like modern time, which differs from different areas but the West Saxon dialect become the most important for two main reasons.,

1. It was the highly civilized Kingdom and was the first that attained political unity with a fairly ordered system of government.
2. Most of the literature of the period was written in the wessex dialect. The main works which survives today are Beowulf, translation of religious books and anglo-saxon chronicles.

       But the English of today is descended the language of Wessex. It also traces other dialects. Their chief legacy to us is the existence of doublets, means two words that differs in meaning but has same origin. For instance,

# Whole and Hale both have same origin of the word hal. 

Anglo-Saxon grammar:-

           Anglo Saxon had very complicated grammar. By AD. 1000, considerable simplification took place and many inflections disappeared. There were a number of different declensions of noun and adjectives. In noun for example the nominative and accusative plural ended in -as and genitive singular in -es. But majority modern words form the plural by adding -s and genitive with an apostrophe -s.

         We can also see two other characteristics which affect present day speech. which are., 

 

1. Gradation:-

   

          The graduation is a scale of changes in parts of verbs according to stressed and an unstressed syllable, that change vowel sound. In the same way, the addition of a suffix lead to the root of a verb, which shifting accent and lead to modified in the root of syllable. For example.,

• drifan - drove - driven
• ridan - rode- ridden

        A shifting of stress cause verbal changes in some of these verbs, which is inherited by anglo-saxon ancestors, which still persist in our language.

 

           In modern English a list of verbs which show gradation would be extensive but It wouldn't include every one of those which appeared in Anglo Saxon. Today some words dispense with the gradation by the addition of the syllable -ed, like, to jump, to lock... In short , graduation is simplification of verbs rather than complex system.

2. Mutation:-

      

       Mutation simply means change. There is a change in vowel. The modification in vowel take place like.,

ā, æ, ō, ū, â, â, īō,...

By the modification to back vowels word fronted.

ā > ē, ā > æ, ō > æ, ō > ē

There are many anomatals in plural forms, like, foot-feet, goose-geese, but not foots or gooses. So, there are five main heads to justify this.

1. Mutated plurals
2. Mutated abstract nouns derived from adjectives
3. Verbs derived by mutation from cognate nouns
4. Verbs derived from adjectives by mutation
5. Mutated comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives.    

Dictionary:-

      Anglo-Saxon dictionary contains about twenty thousand words while our modern English recorded by the Oxford dictionary is over 400,000 words. But it might belong to the Angle and Saxon's dictionary. There was a foreign influence in it. Majority of this words may noticed and named by primitive tribes.

For example.,

»The name of common animals because Nomadic tribes would have an association with these animals in their daily lives.

»Indo European tribes knew little about agriculture so that the word like to plough can be traced back to the parent tongue.

»Indo European have given us the words for red and yellow, but they hadn't described green. Red of the sunset and yellow of the autumn leaves.

         Original language of Britain was Celtic but it is neglected because of the invaders in 5th or 6th century but a few survivors persisted mainly refer to natural features of the landscape.

★Danish and Norse elements:-

          The Danish and the Norse element in old English is also very important to the future development of English language. The invasion of the Danes started towards the end of the 8th century, when Norse invaders attacked and plundered the east coast and established a few settlement there. As a result of irregular attacks, these settlement become more numerous. They also carry out the Southern and Northern part of England. Due to the Treaty of Wedmore in 878, England divided into two parts. Southern part is of Danes territory, and Northern part was left under Saxons jurisdiction. In 1017 to 1035, a Danish king sat on the English throne.

The influence of these events upon Anglo-Saxon language present three directions.,

1. Place names in the territory settled by the Norsemen

2. The introduction of new words of Danish or Norse origin

3. Modification of existing language

                      According to Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, five hundred words are still in usage, which have Norse origin or it's influence. But comparatively, small part of it still existed, so Danish influence was fairly whispered and went deep.

Representative words of Danish and Norse origin or influence.

★ Danish influence in place names:-. This is to be found mainly in the termination -by, - toft, -thwaite, and -thrope. For example, Whitby, Selby, Grimsby, Lowestoft, Slaithwaite, Mablethorpe, Nortgorpe, etc. 

★ Danes got some words which were adopted into English language like, flit which is used for to move one's residence or place of business, it is of Norse origin. The two most common and most frequently used verbs are get and take are introduced by Danish and of Norse origin. 

★ Husband is of a Norse origin. Modern sister is taken from Norse syster. Knife, Big and most of the names of the days and of the week enshrine remnants of Norse mythology and folk-lore. 

★ We can see the Norse influence upon the native tongue in the direction of a modification of pronunciation. Like c and k, g, y etc.

              But in spite of this foreign influences, English as it is spoken and written today is still for the most part a Saxon tongue. According to "The history of the English language" by professor Emerson, the great English writers have mainly written his works in language of native origin. The following table gives result of his investigations.,

     

              He further analyses that probably the English language despite of all its borrowings and all the foreign influence, is predominantly Anglo-Saxon in character. Generally the Saxon words in a language come very near to our daily life and concern some of the most common and essential things of existence as well as the most elementary occupation and the more obvious natural phenomena. Like the closer family relationship like, father, mother, brother, etc. existed in old English and have handed down to the present day.  The names of most of our staple food like, bread, butter, milk, meat etc. House and home are of native origin. 

Conclusion:-

            After analysing a brief history of the old English (Anglo-saxon) period, we come to know that old English or the Anglo-saxon language is still in existence, it's also true that some modifications came due to foreign invasions and their influence upon the language, but the native tongue still persisted and preserved in one way or the other. Our Anglo-saxon ancestors have left a huge legacy of language for us.

                  

        

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