Theme 6. The history of Old English and its development

 

Chronological division of the English language:

1.Old English (c.450-1066): from the 1^st Germanic tribes up to the Norman conquest;

2.Middle English (c. 1066-1475): from the Norman conquest up to the 1^st printed book by W. Caxton;

3.New English (c. 1476 – now).

From the 5^st century BC the British Isles were inhabited by the Celts. At the time the Celts reached Britain they spoke the common language, close to Gaulish in France. But later, when the Celtic tribes occupied Ireland, Northern England, and Wales, their tongues were divided according to tribal divisions. The group that settled the southern England and Wales spoke Brythonic (Welsh, Breton, Cornish); those who settled in Scotland and Ireland spoke Gaelic (Irish, Scotch-Gaelic, Manx).

Not much is left from the Celtic languages in English. Though many place names and names for rivers are surely Celtic (like Usk - from Celtic usce "water", Avon - from awin "river”, Dundee - from dun “a hill”, Llandaff – from llan “church”, Ballantrae – from bail “house”). The Thames, Mersey, Severn, London and Leeds are also of Celtic origin. And, certainly, the word whiskey which means the same as Irish uisge "water". But this borrowing took place much later.

From the 1^st century AD the British Isles were colonized by the Romans. Their rule is marked by the 1^st layer of Latin loanwords in the English language:names of cities, places and hills (Dorchester, Winchester, Lancaster ← Lat. camp, castra (fort, castle); Portsmouth, Bridport ←Lat. portus; Stratford ←Lat. strata; Fossway, Fosbrook ←Lat. fossa (ров)), many names of goods (wīn (wine←Lat. vinum), pere (pear←Lat. pirum), piper (pepper←Lat. piper),words denoting things and institutions with which the Germans got acquainted after the contact with Roman civilization: (stræt (street←Lat. strata), weall (wall ←Lat. vallum), cycene (kitchen ←Lat. coquina), myln (mill←molinum)

The 2^nd layer of Latin loanwords refers to the 6th century when Christianity starts activities in Britain. The Bible is translated into Old English, and quite a lot of terms are borrowed from Latin at that time: many bishops, missionaries and Pope's officials come from Rome taking their vocabulary with them. They are mostly of Greek origin and connected with religious sphere: biscop (bishop)←Lat. episcopus, apostol (apostle) ←Lat. apostolus, dēofol (devil) ←diabolus, mæsse (mass) ←missa, munuc (monk) ← monachus, māgister (master) ←magister.

The 3^rd layer of Latin loanwords is associated with the New English period - since approximately the 16^th century - with development of science. The words of this period are mainly abstract and scientific (e.g., nylon, molecular, vaccine, phenomenon, and vacuum).

Roman control of Britain came to an end when the Roman Empire began to collapse. In AD 409 Rome withdrew its last soldiers from Britain and the Romano-British, the Romanized Celts, or Romanized Britons, were left to fight alone against the raiders from Germany. In 449 AD the Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frises) from Southern Scandinavia and Northern Germany pushing from their densely populated homelands achieved British shores on their ships. The Anglo-Saxon conquest lasted for several centuries, and all this period Celtic aborigines moved farther and farther to the west of the island until they managed to fortify in mountainous Wales, in Cornwall, and preserved their kingdoms in Scotland.

Anglo-Saxon culture was very strong. The names of week days were named after Germanic Gods: Tiw - the violent God of War (Tuesday), Wodin - King of the Gods (Wednesday), Thor\ Thunor - the fierce Thunder God (Thursday), Frei - the Mother Goddess (Friday). New place-names appeared. The ending - ing meant folk or family, therefore " Reading " is the place of the people or family of Reada, “ Hasting " of the people or family of Heasta. Ham means farm and ton means settlement, thus Wokimgham means the farm of Wocca's people. Birmingham, Nottingham, Southampton, Kingston are Anglo-Saxon place-names.

Over the course of the next century-and-a-half the newcomers established seven kingdoms known as the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex.

There were four principal Old English dialects:

1. Kentish – developed from the language of the Jutes, Frisians;

2. West Saxon – the main dialect of Saxons, the rest not survived;

3. Mercian - central region (southern Anglia and the kingdom of Mercia)

4. Northumbrian – another Anglian dialect

 

Dialects existed in the kingdoms until they were independent. Due to domination of the dialects the Old English period may be divided into historically demarcated periods:

1. Northumbrian efflorescence: During the 7th and 8th centuries Northumbria's culture and language dominated in Britain. This period was marked by a rich religious and literary culture. The monasteries of Northumbria produced beautiful manuscripts of the Bible, providing the contexts for writing of historical and intellectual texts. The Nothumbrian dialect was the most interesting of the dialects of Old English. First of all, it reflected the ancient speech of Angles, which is still poorly studied. Another interesting moment is that Northumbrian collected a rather wide vocabulary of borrowed words, mainly from Old Scandinavian, which really influenced Northern English greatly, and from Celtic.

The Viking invasions of the 9th century brought this domination to an end. Only Wessex remained as an independent kingdom. By the 10th century the West Saxon dialect became the official language of Britain.

The Viking invasions remained an essential trace in the English language. The next groups of foreign loanwords were taken from Scandinavian dialects. They are words beginning with sk-: skin, skirt, sky, skip, skull, scant, score, steak, skill, slam; pronouns they, their, them. Others are: bag, cake, die, egg, get, give, husband, leg, neck, same, take, window, muggy, ill, till (together with OE tō), ugly, rugged, bark, hit, loft (чердак), odd (нечетный),thrive, want (недостаток), weak, wrong. The words of martial stratum and the things associated with it: ship, fellow, club (дубина), and knife. There are some synonymous words in Modern English of OE and Old Norse origin: blossom – bloom, from – fro (to and fro), shirt – skirt, scot – shot, evil – ill, heaven – sky. Over six hundred end in -by which means “farm” or “town” (Witby), others end in -thorpe (small village), -toft (piece of land): Scanthorpe, Blacktoft.

2. Wessex efflorescence: During the period of the 9^th and early 10^th centuries, Wessex became the seat of Anglo-Saxon intellectual, literary, and political life.

3. Disappearance of Old English: During the 11^th century a new set of teachers and scholars set up schools for educating students in English and Latin. By the end of the 11^th century, however, within a generation or two of the Norman Conquest, much of this literary and intellectual activity was gone. Anglo-Saxon bishops and priests were replaced by Norman French ones. By the middle of the 12th century, Old English was gone.