The History of English Old English (Anglo-Saxon) c.499-1066 Middle English 1066-c.1500 Modern English c.1500-present

Old English Some Germanic tribes (mostly Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) invaded the continent of Europe during the fifth century in what is now England. The Celts were already living there. They got pushed into southern England and settled in Wales. The Vikings came later in the 9th-11th centuries bringing the Old Norse language with them. Old Norse is found primarily in Iceland.

Old English You already speak many Old English words such as our pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and many of our verbs. Some examples are he, him, and, of, on, is, am, are, etc. Many nature words (especially if they are one syllable) survive: tree, sun, moon, grass, rock, dog, deer, etc.

Old English There are strange symbols in O.E. that don’t exist in English anymore: Æ or æ is called Ash. It sounds like the “a” in ash. Þ is called Thorn. It looks like something between a b and a p. It is a “voiceless” TH sound like in the word thorn. This symbol ð does not have a name. Instead it is called “edh.” It is a “voiced” TH like there and them. Over time, the “f” sound has become “v.” heofonum = heaven

Old English Grammar OE is a heavily inflected language meaning that the endings of the words change with the function of the word. Modern German retains some of this. An example of inflection still occurs in English pronouns: he and him, she and her, they and them. Modern English relies on word order for meaning. “The boy ate the apple” would never be confused as “The apple ate the boy.” In OE, subjects (boy) and objects (apple) have different endings; therefore, there is little need for word order. The subject can begin or end the sentence.

Old English Other inflected languages are Latin, Ancient Greek, Arabic, German, and Russian. Ever wonder why we have so many words that end in silent e’s? In OE these were pronounced as long ā sounds. The word “þeode” would have been pronounced (THay-o-day). It means “people.”

Middle English ME begins roughly from the 12th century to the 15th century. In 1066 the conquers from Normandy slaughtered the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy including their king, Harold. The Normans brought their Old French (OF) language with them. The Normans demanded that every form of business be conducted in their language.

Middle English Many words dealing with government operations come to us from French. government department bureau commerce office money president appointment senate legal

Middle English But aren’t some of these words Latin? Yes, but they came to English via the Norman conquerors. ( French is a daughter of Latin.) More Latin comes into English through the Italian Renaissance which lasted roughly from the 15th to early 18th century.

Middle English There is symbol in ME that looks like sort of like a 3. The З is called “yough” and sounds like a “y.” ME has similar word order to modern English. Inflection started falling out of fashion. Word order started to matter more. In fact, English from 1235 resembles English from the present more so than 952.

Middle English ME stabilized spelling. ME got rid of many inflected endings. Beowulf is written in Old English from the eighth century; you can recognize mostly one syllable words in the text. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his famous Canterbury Tales in Middle English in the fifteenth century. You can recognize around seventy percent of the words.

Common Misconceptions No. Shakespeare did not write in Old English. Actually, that’s Modern English which began around the sixteenth century. You may not UNDERSTAND Shakespeare, but you CAN read it! We speak Contemporary American English. The British speak, well, ah, something different, but that’s another lesson…

????????? Why did our language change so much from 499 to 1066 (567 years) and so little from 1066-2012 (946 years)? This isn’t a rhetorical question…

Some answers! Lexicographers Printing presses Persnickety English teachers  Grammarians Librarians Educated people in general like RULES and STANDARDS!