Lecture №6. Old English Historical Background

Pre- Germanic Britain. Germanic Settlement of Britain. Beginning of English. Events of External History between the 5^th and 11^th c. Old English Dialect. Linguistic Situation.

Literature:

Аракин В. Д. Очерки по истории английского языка. М., 1955.

Бруннер К. История английского языка. Пер. с нем. М.: Иностранная литература, т. I-II, 1955-1956.

Введение в германскую филологию/Арсеньева М. Г., Балашова С. П., Берков В. П., Соловьева Л. Н./-М., 1980.

Иванова И. П., Чахоян Л. П. История английского языка. М., 1976.

Ильиш Б. А. История английского языка. Л., 1973.

Линский С. С. Сборник упражнений по истории английского языка. Л., 1963.

Плоткин В. Я. Очерк диахроничекой фонологии английского языка. М., 1976.

Смирницкий А. И. Древнеанглийский язык. М., 1955.

Смирницкий А. И. История английского языка (средний и новый период). Курс лекций. М., 1965.

Смирницкий А. И. Хрестоматия по истории английского языка. М., 1938, 1939, 1953.

Швейцер А. Д. Литературный английский язык в США и Англии. М., 1971.

Ярцева В. Н. Развитие национального литературного английского языка. М., 1969.

Barber Ch. Linguistic Change in Present-Day English. London, 1964.

Baugh A., Cable Th. A History of the English Language. New York, 1978.

Campbell A. Old English Grammar. Oxford, 1959.

Jespersen O. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Oxford, 1935.

Morton A. L. A People’s History of England. New York, 1968.

Mosse F. A Handbook of Middle English. Baltimore, 1952.

Schlauch M. The English Language in Modern Times (since 1400). Warszawa, 1964.

Serjeantson M. History of Foreign Words in English. London, 1935.

Strang B. A History of English. London, 1974.

Sweet H. A New English Grammar. Logical and Historical. Oxford, 1930.

Sweet H. An Anglo- Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse with Grammar, Notes, Metre and Glossary. Oxford, 1925.

Williams J. M. Origins of the English Language, A Social and tory. New York, 1975.

Wyld H. C. A History of Modern Colloquial English. Oxford, 1936.

Pre-Germanic Britain

The history of the English language begins with the invasion of the British Isles by Germanic tribes in the 5th c. of our era. Before describing these events it is essential to recall a few preceding facts of history relevant to the development of English.
Prior to the Germanic invasion the British Isles must have been inhabited for at least fifty thousand years. Archeological research has uncovered many layers of prehistoric population. The earliest inhabitants whose linguistic affiliation has been established are the Celts. The Celts came to Britain in three waves and immediately preceded the Teutoris.
Economically and socially the Celts were a tribal society made up of kins, kinship groups, clans and tribes; they practised a primitive agriculture, and carried on trade with Celtic Gaul.
The first millenium B.C. was the period of Celtic migrations and expansion. Traces of their civilisation are still found all over Europe. Celtic languages were spoken over extensive parts of Europe before our era; later they were absorbed by other IF languages and left very few vestiges behind. The Gaelic branch has survived as Irish (or Erse) in Ireland, has expanded to Scotland as ScotCh-GzBlic of the Highlands and is still spoken by a few hundred people on the Isle of Man (the Manx language). The Britonnic branch is represented by Kytnric or Welsh in modern Wales and by Breton or Armorican spoken by over a million people in modern France (in the area called Bretagne or Brittany, where the Celts came as emigrants from Britain in the 5th c.); another Britonnic dialect in Great Britain, Cornish, was spoken in Cornwall until the end of the 18th c.
In the first century B.C. Gaul was conquered by the Romans. Having occupied Gaul Julius Caesar made two raids on Britain, in 55 and 54 B.C. The British Isles had long been known to the Romans as a source of valuable tin ore; Caesar attacked Britain for economic reasons — to obtain tin, pearls and corn, and also for strategic reasons, since rebels and refugees from Gaul found support among their British kinsmen. Although Caesar failed to subjugate Britain, Roman economic penetration to Britain grew; traders and colonists from Rome came in large numbers to settle in the south-eastern towns. In A.D. 43 Britain was again invaded by Roman legions under Emperor Claudius, and towards the end of the century was made a province of the Roman Empire.
The province was carefully guarded and heavily garrisoned: about 40,000 men were stationed there. Two fortified walls ran across the country, a network of paved Roman roads connected the towns and military camps. Scores of towns with a mixed population grew along the Roman roads — inhabited by Roman legionaries and civilians and by the native Celts; among the most important trading centres of Roman Britain was London.
Evidently, the upper classes and the townspeople in the southern districts were to a considerable extent Romanised, while the Romanisation of rural districts was far less thorough. The population further north was but little affected by the Roman occupation and remained Celtic both in language and custom. On the whole, the Romanisation of distant Britain was more superficial than that of continental provinces (e.g. Gaul and Iberia, where the complete linguistic conquest resulted in the growth of new Romance language, French and Spanish).
The Roman occupation of Britain lasted nearly 400 years; it came to an end in the early 5th c. In A.D. 410, the Roman troops were officially withdrawn to Rome by Constantine. This temporary withdrawal turned out to be final, for the Empire was breaking up due to internal and external causes, particularly the attacks oF barbarian tribes (including the Teutons) and the growth of independent kingdoms on former Roman territories. The expansion of Franks to Gaul in the 5^th c. cut off Britain from the Roman world.
After the departure of the Roman legions the richest and most civilised part of the island, the south-east, was laid waste. Many towns were destroyed. Constant feuds among local landlords as well as the increased assaults of the Celts from the North and also the first Germanic raids from beyond the North Sea proved ruinous to the civilisation of Roman Britain.
Since the Romans had left the British Isles some time before the invasion of the West Germanic tribes, there could never be any direct contacts between the new arrivals and the Romans on British soil. It follows that the elements of Roman culture and language which the new invaders learnt in Britain were mainly passed on to them at second hand by the Romanised Celts. It must be recalled, however, that the West Germanic tribes had already come into contact with the Romans, and the Romanised population of continental provinces, prior to their migration to Britain: they had met Romans in combat, had gone to Rome as war prisoners and slaves, had enlisted in the Roman troops, and had certainly traded with Roman, or Romanised Celtic merchants. Thus, in a number of various ways they had got acquainted with the Roman civilisation and the Latin language.

 

2. Germanic Settlement of Britain.
Beginning of English

Undoubtedly, the Teutons had made piratical raids on the British shores long before the withdrawal of the Romans in A.D. 410, but the crisis came with the departure of the last Roman legions. The Britons fought among themselves and were harried by the Picts and Scots from Scotland. Left to their own resources, they were unable to offer a prolonged resistance to the enemies attacking them on every side. The 5th c. was the age of increased Germanic expansion. About the middle of the century several West Germanic tribes overran Britain and, for the most part, had colonised the island by the end of the century, though the invasions lasted well into the 6th c.
Reliable evidence of the period is extremely scarce. The story of the invasion is told by Bede (673-735), a monastic scholar who wrote the first history of England, HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLQRUM.
(Acording to Bede the invaders came to Britain in A.D. 449 under the leadership of two Germanic kings. Hengist and Horsa; they had been invited by a British king, Vortigern, as assistants and allies in a local war. The newcomers soon dispossessed their hosts, and other Germanic bands followed. The invaders came in multitude, in families and clans, to settle in the occupied territories; like the Celts before them, they migrated as a people and in that the Germanic invasion was different from the Roman military conquest, although if as by no means a peaceful affai,tj
The invaders of Britain came from the western subdivision of the Germanic tribes. To quote Bede, “the newcomers were of the thзe strongest races of Germany, the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes (See an extract from his work — in the Appendix.) Modern archeological and linguistic research has shown that this information is not quite precise. The origin and the linguistic affiliation of the Jutes appears uncertain:
some historians define them as a Frankish tribe, others doubt the participation and the very existence of the Jutes and name the Frisians as the third main party in the invasion. It is also uncertain whether the early settlers really belonged to separate tribes, Saxons and Angles, or, perhaps, constituted two mixed waves of invaders, differing merely in the place and time of arrival. They were called Angles and Saxons by the Romans and by the Celts but preferred to call themselves Angelcyn (English people) and applied this name to the conquered territories:
Angelcy nes land (‘land of the English’, hence England).
The first wave of the invaders, the Jutes or the Frisians, occupied the extreme south-east: Kent and the Isle of Wight.
The second wave of immigrants was largely made up of the Saxons, who had been expanding westwards across Frisia to the Rhine and what is known Normandy. The final stage of the drift brought them to Britain by way of the Thames and the south coast. They set up their settlements along the south coast and on both banks of the Thames and, depending on location, were called South Saxons, West Saxons and East Saxons (later also Mid Saxons, between the westcrn and eastern groups). The Saxons consolidated into a number of petty kingdoms, the largest and the most powerful of them being Wessex, the kin,gdom of West Saxon’J
Wast came the Angles from the lower valley of the Elbe and southern Denmark; they made their landing on the east coast and moved up the rivers to the central part of the island, to occupy the districts between the Wash and the Humber, and to the North of the Humber. They founded large kingdoms which had absorbed their weaker neighbours: East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria.
There was, probably, little intermixture between the newcomers and the Celtic aborigines, though there is a wide difference of opinion among modern historians as to their relative proportion in the population. Gildas, a Celtic historian of the day, alluded to the settlement as the “ruin of Britain” and described the horrible devastation of the country: the invaders pulled down British villages and ruined the Roman British towns. They killed and enslaved the Britons or drove them to the distant parts of the country. The Britons found refuge in the mountainous districts of Cornwall and Wales; some Britons fled to Armorice (later called Small Britaany or Bretagne, in Modern France). Celtic tribes remained intact only in Scotland and Ireland
The bulk of the new population sprang from the Germanic invaders, though, to a certain extent, they intermixed with the Britons. Gradually the Germanic conquerors and the surviving Celts blended into a single people.
The invaders certainly prevailed over the natives so far as language was concerned; the linguistic conquest was complete. After the settlement West Germanic tongues came to be spoken all over Britain with the exception of a few distant regions where Celts were in the majority:
ScotlandVales and Cornwall.
The migration of the Germanic tribes to the British Isles and the resul’ting separation from the Germanic tribes on the mainland was a decisive event in their linguistic history. Geographical separation, as well as mixture and unification of people, are major factors in linguistic differentiation and in the formation of languages. Being cut off from related OG tongues the closely related group of West Germanic dialects developed into a separate Germanic language, English. That is why the Germanic settlement of Britain can be regarded as the beginning of the independent history of the English language.

3. Events of External History between the 5th and 11th c.
The history of Anglo-Saxon Britain from the 5th to the 11th c. has been reconstructed from multiple sources: Bede’s ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon historical chronicles and legal documents. Some events of external history have a direct bearing on the development of the language and therefore must be recalled here. They are: the economic and social structure of society, the introduction of Christianity and the relations between the kingdoms.
The period from the 5th till the 11th c. (which is called Old English in the history of the language) was a transitional period from the tribal and slave-owning system to feudalism.
The basic economic unit was the feudal manor; it was a self-contained economic unit, as it grew its own food and carried on some small industries to cover its needs. Consequently, there was little social intercourse between the population of neighbouring areas. Tribal and clan division was gradually superseded by townships and shires, which were local entities having no connection with kinship. The new economic and geographical groupings and barriers did not necessarily correspond to the original areas of tribal settlement.
These conditions were reflected in the development of the West Germanic tongues brought to Britain. The economic isolation of the regions as well as the political disunity of the country led to the formation of new geographical boundaries between the speech of different localities. The growth of feudalism was accompanied by the rise of regional dialectal division replacing the tribal division of the Germanic settlers. These forces, however, worked together with the unifying force: the complete separation from related continental tribes (and tongues) united the people into one corporate whole and transformed their closely related dialects into a single tongue different from its continental relations.
The relative weight of the OE kingdoms and their inter- influence was variable. Four of the kingdoms at various times secured superiority in the country: Kent, Northumbria and Mercia — during the Early OE, pre-written period, and Wessex — all through the period of \Vritten OE.
The supremacy of Kent to the south of the Humber lasted until the early 7th c.; it is attributed to the cultural superiority of Kent and its close contact with the mainland. The 7th and the 8th c. witnessed the temporary rise of Northumbria, followed by a period of balance of power of the three main rivals (Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex) and the dominance of Mercia, large and prosperous kinguom in the rich Midland plains. Yet already during Mercia’s supremacy Wessex had secured the control of Sussex and Kent, and was growing more influential. The conquest of Mercia by Wessex in the early 9th c. reversed the position of the two kingdoms: Wessex was brought to the fore and acquired the leadership unsurpassed till the end of the OE period (11th c.). Wessex was a kingdom with good frontiers and vast areas of fertile land in the valley of the Thames; the control of London and the lower Thames valley (formerly part of Essex) as well as the growing contacts with the Franconian Empire contributed to the rise of Wessex. Apart from internal reasons the unification of England under the leadership of Wessex Was speeded up by a new factor: the pressure of a common enemy.
In the 8th c. raiders from Scandinavia (the “Danes”) made their first plundering attacks on England. The struggle of the English against the Scandinavians lasted over 300 years, in the course of which period more than half of England was occupied by the invaders and reconquered again. At first the Danes came in small bands, ravaged the district and escaped with the booty to their ships. About the middle of the 9th c. the raids increased in frequency and entered upon a new phase; great war hosts began to arrive making attempts at conquest and settlement. The Scandinavians subdued Northumbria and East Anglia, ravaged the eastern part of Mercia, and advanced on Wessex. Like their predecessors, the West Germanic invaders, the Scandinavians came in large numbers to settle in the new areas. They founded many towns and villages in northern England; in many regions there sprang up a mixed population made up of the English and the Danes. Their linguistic amalgamation was easy, since their tongues belonged to the same linguistic group. The ultimate effect of the Scandinavian invasions on the English language became manifest at a later date, in the 12th- 13th c., when the Scandinavian element was incorporated in the central English dialects; but the historical events that led to the linguistic influence date from the 9th and 10th c.
Wessex stood at the head of the resistance. Under King Alfred of Wessex, one of the greatest figures in English history, by the peace treaty of 878 England was divided into two halves: the north-eastern half under Danish control called Danelaov and the south-western half united under the leadership of Wessex. The reconquest of Danish territories was carried on successfully by Alfred’s successors but in the late 10th c. the Danish raids were renewed again; they reached a new climax in the early 11th c. headed by Sweyn and Canute. The attacks were followed by demands for regular payments of large sums of money (called Danegeld “Danish money”), which was collected from many districts and towns; about one eighth of Danegeld came from London, the largest and wealthiest of English towns. In 1017 Canute was acknowledged as king, and England became part of a great northern empire, comprising Denmark and Norway. On Canute’s death (1035) his kingdom broke up and England regained political independence; by that time it was a single state divided into six earldoms.
A most important role in the history of the English language was played by the introduction of Christianity. The first attempt to introduce the Roman Christian religion to Anglo-Saxon Britain was made in the 6th c. during the supremacy of Kent. In 597 a group of thissionaries from Rome despatched by Pope Gregory the Great (“St. Augustine’s mission”) landed on the shore of Kent. They made Canterbury their centre and from there the new faith expanded to Kent, East Anglia, Essex, and other places. The movement was supported from the North; missionaries from Ireland brought the Celtic variety of Christianity to Northumbria. (The Celts had been converted to Christianity during the Roman occupation of Britain.) In less than a century practically all England was Christianised. The strict unified organisation of the church proved a major factor in the centralisation of the country.
The introduction of Christianity gave a strong impetus to the growth of culture and learning. Monasteries were founded all over the country, rith monastic schools attached. Religious services and teaching were conducted in Latin. A high standard of learning was reached in the best English monasteries, especially in Northumbria, as early as the 8th and 9th c. There was the famous monastery of Lindisfarne, founded by Aidan, who had come with the Irish priests; the monastery of Jarrow, where the Venerable Bede, the first English historian, lived and worked. During the Scandinavian invasions, the Northumbrian culture was largeiy wiped out. The monastery at Lindisfarne was destroyed by the Danes in one of their early plundering attacks. English culture shifted to the southern kingdoms, most of all to Wessex, where a cultural efflorescence began during the reign of Alfred (871-901); from that time till the end of the OE period Wessex, with its capital at Winchester, remained the cultural centre of England.

4. Old English Dialects. Linguistic Situation.

The Germanic tribes who settled in Britain in the 5th and 6th c. spoke closely related tribal dialects belonging to the West Germanic subgroup. Their common origin and their separation from other related tongues as well as their joint evolution in Britain transformed them eventually into a single tongue, English. Yet, at the early stages of their development in Britain the dialects remained disunited. On the one hand, the OE dialects acquired certain common features which distinguished them from continental Germanic tongues; on the other hand, they displayed growing regional divergence. The feudal system was setting in and the dialects were entering a new phase; tribal dialectal division was superseded by geographical division, in other words, tribal dialts were transformed into local or regional dialects.
The following four principal OE dialects are commonly distinguished:
Kentish, a dialect spoken in the area known now as Kent and Surrey and in the Isle of Wight. It had developed from the tongue of the Jutes and Frisians.
West Saxon, the main dialect of the Saxon group, spoken in the rest of England south of the Thames and the Bristol Channel, except Wales and Cornwall, where Celtic tongues were preserved. Other Saxon dialects in England have not survived in written form iLr.not known to modern scholars.
Mercian, a dialect derived from the speech of southern Angles and spoken chiefly in the kingdom of Mercia, that is, in the central region, from the Thames to the Humber.
Northumbrian, another Anglian dialect, spoken from the Humber north to the river Forth (hence the name — North-Humbrian).
The distinction between Mercian and Northumbrian as local OE dialects testifies to the new foundations of the dialectal division: regional in place of tribal, since according to the tribal division they represent one dialect, Anglian.
The boundaries between the dialects were uncertain and probably movable. The dialects passed into one another imperceptibly and dia-Latin or, perhaps, many CE texts have perished. In the 9th c. the political and cultural centre moved to Wessex. Culture and education made great progress there; it is no wonder that the West Saxon dialect has been preserved in a greater number of texts than all the other CE dialects put together. Towards the 11th c. the written form of the West Saxon dialect developed into a bookish type of language, which, probably, served as the language of writing for all English-speaking people.
It follows from the above description that the changes in the linguistic situation justify the distinction of two historical periods. In Early CE from the 5th to the 7th c. the would-be English language consisted of a group of spoken tribal dialects having neither a written nor a dominant form. At the time of written OE the dialects had changed from tribal to regional; they possessed both an oral and a written form and were no longer equal; in the domain of writing the West Saxon dialect prevailed over its neighbours. (Alongside CE dialects a foreign language, Latin, was widely used in writing.)