LECTURE 3

Old English
Period
General Overview
• West Germanic
invaders from
Jutland and
southern
Denmark: the
Angles, Saxons
and Jutes began
to settle in the
British Isles in
the 5th century
AD.
• 4 major dialects
of OE emerged:
Northumbrian, •These invaders pushed the original Celtic-
Mercian, West speaking inhabitants into Scotland, Wales,
Saxon and Cornwall and Ireland.
Kentish in the • These Celtic languages survive today in Gaelic
Southeast languages of Scotland and Ireland and in Welsh.
 Old English (Ænglisc, Anglisc, Englisc) or
Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English
language that was spoken and written by the
Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts
of what are now England and southeastern
Scotland between the mid-5th century and
the mid-12th century.
 2. Reading in OE
• In PIE the stress was musical, i.e. free, so, it
could fall on any syllable in the word, like in
modern Ukrainian;
• in PG the stress was dynamic and it began to
be fixed mainly upon the 1st syllable (root). (In
verbs with prefixes – the 1st root syllable was
stressed, while in nominal words – the prefix
was stressed).
• PIE *pǝtǝr, pitar Gt fadar
• PIE *mātēr OHG muoter
1. Vowels e, o in Germanic languages were long.
2. Digraph ei is read like /i:/ Fæder u̅ re,
3. a and u can be long and short; i – only short
4. digraph ai could be: þu̅ þe eart on heofonum,
(1) diphthong /aɪ/;
(2) short, open /e/ in front of r, h (with the exception si̅ þi̅ n nama geha̅ lgod.
of air, haihs);
(3) long, open /æ/ in front of vowels;
(4) separately if belonging to different syllables; To̅ becume þi̅ n ri̅ ce.
5. digraph au:
(1) diphthong /aʊ/; Gewurþe ði̅ n willa on eorðan swa̅ swa̅ on
(2) short, open /ↄ/ in front of r, h (with the exception
of hauhs, gaurs, tauh) heofonum.
(3)long, open /ↄ:/ in front of vowels;
(4) separately if belonging to different syllables;
U̅ rne gedæghwa̅ mli̅ can hla̅ f syle u̅ s to̅ dæg.
6. b, d
(1) at the beginning of the word and after
consonants are voiced stops; And forgyf u̅ s u̅ re gyltas, swa̅ swa̅ we̅
(2) after vowels are voiced fricative, labio-dental /v/,
interdental /ð/ forgyfað u̅ rum gyltendum.
7. f in intervocal position /v/;
8. gg, gk – back palatal nasal /ŋg/, /ŋk/; And ne gelæ̅ d þu̅ u̅ s on costnunge,
9. cluster ggw - /ŋgw/;
10. q – labiovelar voiceless stop /kw/;
ac a̅ ly̅ s u̅ s of yfele.
11. ligature ƕ – labiovelar voiceless fricative /xw/;
 3. Development of Vowels
• Nearly all OE phonetic changes appear to be
due to one common principle, that of
assimilation.
• Assimilation can be progressive, when the
preceding sound causes the change, or
regressive, if the following sound causes the
change.
 (A) OE i-Umlaut

WHY ??? In modern English MAN (sg) but MEN (pl) ?????
1. in ancient Germanic, the plural had the same vowel, but also a plural suffix -iz.
2. the suffix caused fronting of the vowel Germanic Old English Modern English
3. the suffix disappeared
4. the mutated vowel remained Sg *mūs mūs /maʊs/ 'mouse’
as the only plural marker: men.
Pl *mūsi mȳs > mīs /maɪs/ 'mice’
Sg *fōt fōt /fʊt/ 'foot’
Pl *fōti fēt /fiːt/ 'feet’

Monophthongs:
ā, ō, ū before i, j > æ, œ, y
Eg. Lat anglus – OE engle, Fin kuningas – OE cyninȝ, Gth laisjan – OE læran
Diphthongs:
• ea > ie, y eald – ieldra – ieldest
• eo > ie, y ȝeonȝ - ȝienȝra - ȝienȝest
• eā > iē, ӯ hēāh – hӯrra – hӯhst
 (B) Breaking (Fracture)

Breaking – is diphthongization
æ > ea e > eo i > io ā > ēā
when followed by /h/ or by /r/ /l/ + consonant.
• /werpan/ weorpan "to throw"
• /wærp/ wearp [wæarp] "threw (sg)"
• /feh/ feoh [feox] "money"
• /fæht/ feaht [fæɑxt] "fought (sg)"
• /ferr/ feorr [feorr] "far"
• /fællɑn/ feallan [fæɑllɑn] "to fall"
• /elh/ eolh [eoɫx] "elk"
• /hælp/ healp [hæaɫp] "helped (sg)"

NB! /e/ → /eo/ does not happen before /l/ plus consonant unless
the cluster is /lh/
 (C) Palatal Mutation before x’

• eo, ea > ie, i before ‘ht’

Eg: cneht > cneoht > cniht;

naht > neaht > nieht
 (D) Diphthongization due to
Initial Palatal Consonant
ie/īe and ea/ēa occur in OE after ċ, ġ, sċ where the
vowels e/ē and æ/ǣ would be expected.
Eg:
• sċieran "to cut", sċear "cut (past sg)", sċēaron "cut
(past pl.)", which belongs to the same conjugation class (IV)
as beran "to carry", bær "carried (sing.)", bǣron "carried
(pl.)"
• ġiefan "to give", ġeaf "gave (sing.)", ġēafon "gave (pl.)",
ġiefen "given", which belongs to the same conjugation class
(V) as tredan "to tread", træd "trod (sing.)", trǣdon "trod
(pl.)", treden "trodden"
 (E) Back Mutation (Back Umlaut)

e > eo i > io
in the position before back vowels u, o, a

Eg: hefon > heofon

silufr > siolufr
(F) Contraction
e (æ) + h + vowel > ea
eo + h + vowel > eo
 (G) Lengthening of
vowels
• OE vowels were lengthened:
• Before fricatives f, ð, s due to rejection of nasals;
• Due to the loss of /x/ after a vowel in the
immediate proximity of l, r or n;
• In the final position when stressed;
• Before -ld, -nd, -mb (IX century)
 4. Development of Consonants
• Palatalization:
k, g, ʒ changed into palatal after or before a front vowel
• Assibilation:
palatal consonants became affricates and sibilants
g' > dʒ, k > tʃ, sc' > ʃ
eg. bryʒʒe > bridge, cild > child, scirt > shirt
• Metathesis:
r + vowel > vowel + r
eg. hros > hors
• Change of consonant groups /xs/ > /ks/
Eg. Gt wahsjan > weaxan
• Shortening of long consonants in the final position
 The Major Linguistic Features
• Old English was a very complex language, at least in comparison
with modern
English. Like all the Germanic languages, Old English had
declensions for nouns,
adjectives, demonstrative and interrogative pronouns. They could
be inflected for up to five cases (nominative, accusative, genitive,
dative, and instrumental). To signal relationships in a sentence,
endings (not prepositions) were added to the words. These are
known as case endings. Old English used more grammatical endings
in words and was less dependent on word order and function words
than Modern English.
There were seven classes of 'strong' verbs and three of 'weak' verbs,
and their
endings changed for number, tense, mood, and person. Word order
was much freer than today, the sense was carried by the inflections
(and only later by the use of
propositions).
 The Major Linguistic Features
• Old English differs markedly from Modern English in
having grammatical
gender in contrast to the Modern English system of
natural gender. The three genders (masculine,
feminine, and neuter) were characteristic of Indo-
European and were preserved in Germanic. They
survived in English into the Middle English period. Old
English wῑf ‘wife, women’ (German cognate Weib) and
mægden ‘maiden,’ (German Mädchen) are neuter,
bridd ‘young bird’ and drēam ‘joy’ are masculine,
strengþu‘strength’ and eaxl ‘shoulder’ are feminine.
Old English nouns were in different groups or classes
(or stems) and had a large
number of patterns for declining or declensions.
 The adjectives in Old English
• The adjectives in Old English agreed with the noun it modified in
gender, case,
and number; but Germanic had developed a distinctive adjective
declension – the weak declension, used after the two demonstratives
(1) se, ꝥaet, seo, ꝥa and (2) ϸēs, ϸis, ϸēos and after possessive
pronouns, which made the following noun definite in its reference.
Adjectives were inflected for definiteness as well as for gender, number,
and
case. The so-called weak declension of adjectives was used to indicate
that the
modified noun was definite. The weak form occurred after a
demonstrative or a
possessive pronoun, as in “se gōda dǣl” (‘that good part’) or “hire
geonga sunu” (‘her young son’). The strong declension was used when
the modified noun was indefinite because not preceded by a
demonstrative or possessive or when the adjective was in the
predicate, as in “gōd dǣl” (‘a good part’) or “se dǣl wæs gōd” (‘that
part was good’).
 Vocabulary

• The vocabulary of Old English differed from that of later

historical stages of
English in two main ways: it included relatively few
loanwords (3%), and the gender of nouns was more or
less arbitrary, in other words grammatical gender.
• Many Old English words of Germanic origin were
identical to the corresponding
Modern English words – for example, god, gold, hand,
helm, land, oft, under, winter, and word. Others have
changed in meaning. Thus, Old English brēad meant ‘bit,
piece’ rather than ‘bread’, similarly, drēam was ‘joy’ not
‘dream,’ dreorig ‘bloody’ not ‘dreary,’ hlāf ‘bread’ not
‘loaf,’ mōd ‘heart, mind, courage’ not ‘mood,’ scēawian
‘look at’ not ‘show.’
 Vocabulary

• Some Old English words and meanings have survived in Modern English
only
in set expressions. Thus, Old English guma ‘man’ (cognate with the Latin
word from which human have been borrowed) survives in the
compound bridegroom, tῑd ‘time’ when used in the proverb ‘Time and
tide wait for no man.’
In the Anglo-Saxon period, there were two major influences on early
English
vocabulary. First, the Christian missionaries from Ireland and Rome
brought with them a huge Latin vocabulary, mostly related to the
Church and learning. The second big linguistic invasion came as a result
of the Viking raids on Britain.
Latin loan words for newer religious concepts, older Celtic terms from
the
indigenous Celtic peoples living in the British Isles, and words from the
Scandinavian languages of Viking and Danish raiders in England came
into the Germanic languages.