Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon or Old English (A.S. Englisc) is the ancestor of Modern English. It is a West Germanic Language and like Dutch and Low Saxon (Low German) it did not go through the High German Consonant Shift.

The People and Literature

The Saxons were invited to Britain to help fight off the Picts. A large migration of Saxons then moved from modern Northern Germany and Holland to England. The next few centuries they expanded westward constantly and gained more land. The people then became mixed with the Romano-British people already living there.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, Danish Vikings invaded parts of England. The Old Norse influence can still be seen today.

The most well known text in Anglo-Saxon is that of the Heroic Epic, Beowulf. Old English literature is known for alliteration, and there are many Anglo-Saxon riddles. A chronicle known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was a chronicle of the events of the Kingdom, and was likely started in the 10th century and was continually updated into the 12th.

Orthography and Phonology

Runic

Anglo-Saxon Runic alphabet

Early forms of Anglo-Saxon writing was in Runic. It was an expansion of the original 24 rune Fuþark, and had become Fuþorc. Because the language had shifted to include new sounds, the alphabet itself shifted and included several new letters that had not been in the Elder Fuþark. However they did not develop the one Staff system similar to the runic designs in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

When the Latin Alphabet was introduced, Anglo-Saxon added two symbols to the Latin alphabet from Runic, those would be "þ" /θ/ and "Ƿ" /w/ from runic, called Thorn and Wynn respectively.

Alphabet

The Old English Alphabet was a Latin based alphabet and included a few extra symbols that modern English speakers would not necessarily recognize. The diagraphs were also quite different than modern spelling and included cg /ʤ/ and c /ʧ/ and sc /ʃ/. The latter two only become those sounds before or after a front unrounded vowels, otherwise they are /k/ and /sk/ respectively. The letter g becomes /j/ next to front vowels. This is how gear becomes year. The common verbal prefix for the past participle is ge- which was pronounced /jə/ and this sound was preserved into Middle English as y- such as in Geoffrey Chaucer with words like yronne (ran).

Old English did not use the letters v and z, because f and s became /v/ and /z/. The letters þ and ð both represented the inter-dental fricative /θ/ (initially and finally) and /ð/ (between vowels). This would mean that that all the fricatives would be voiced between vowels, and voiceless in other cases.

Morphology

Nouns

Gender and Number

There are there Genders in Old English: Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter. These are the same genders in Latin, as well as modern Russian and German. Like most languages which have genders, Nouns which reflecting living things are usually indicated in the Gender of the noun, but a majority is completely random.

The two numbers of Anglo-Saxon are Singular and Plural. Pronouns have the Dual number as well.

Cases

Unlike Modern English, Anglo-Saxon was filled with noun inflections denoting the case of the noun. The only one that survived through the Middle English era was the -'s ending denoting the original Genitive case. The cases were Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, and Dative.

Strong and Weak

Like with Verbs, Anglo-Saxon had many nouns which changed their stems, both in the plural and sometimes during some of the cases of the singular. These are the reasons for irregular nouns in Modern English with stem changes, such as Man-Men (AS Mann-Menn in Nom.). This is often how Anglo-Saxon nouns are categorized.

Example charts

Masculine:

Cases	Dæg¹ 'Day'	Dagas 'Days'	Stān 'Stone'	Stānas 'Stones'
Nominative	dæg	dagas	stān	stānas
Genitive	dæges	daga	stānes	stāna
Dative	dæge	dagum	stāne	stānum
Acustive	dæg	dagas	stān	stānas

¹Dæg was pronounced much like the word "Die" in Modern English, or the Australian/Cockney pronunciation of "Day."

Feminine:

Cases	Hond² 'Hand'	Honda 'Hands'	Ƿynn³ 'Joy'	Ƿynna 'Joys'
Nominative	hond	hondu	Ƿynn	Ƿynna
Genitive	honda	honda	Ƿynne	Ƿynna
Dative	honda	hondum	Ƿynne	Ƿynnum
Acustive	hond	honda	Ƿynne	Ƿynna

²Hond could also be spelt/pronounced Hand.
³Ƿ could also be spelt w, so Ƿynn could easily be Wynn.

Neuter:

Cases	Scip⁴ 'Ship'	Scipu 'Days'	Dēor⁵ 'Animal'	Dēor 'Animals'
Nominative	scip	scipu	dēor	dēor
Genitive	scipes	scipa	dēores	dēora
Dative	scipe	scipum	dēor	dēorum
Acustive	scip	scipu	dēore	dēor

⁴Scip is pronounced the same way as the modern equivalent, Ship.
⁵Dēor, related to the German word Tier (animal) slow became used strictly with game animals, and later becomes Deer in Modern English.

Articles

During the earlier ages of the Anglo-Saxon language, there were no articles. Later, especially after the Viking invasion and towards the end of the Anglo-Saxon era, articles were developed. They too declined by case and number, and included the Instrumental case, which was the same as Dative Nouns. Here are the articles:

Cases	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural (all Genders)
Nominative	se	sēo	ðæt	ðā
Genitive	ðæs	ðǣre	ðæs	ðāra, ðǣra
Dative	ðǣm	ðǣre	ðǣm	ðǣm, ðām
Acustive	ðone	ðā	ðæt	ðā
Instrumental	ðē, ðon	ðǣre	ðē, ðon	ðǣm, ðām

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns in Anglo-Saxon are quite different than Modern English. They too are declined according to the four major cases, but also have an extra number illustration when there 2, Dual. With the dual, the verbs take the plural endings, and it only applies to the first and second person pronouns. Here are the the Charts for the Pronouns: First person:

Cases	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ic	Ƿit, wit	Ƿē, wē
Genitive	mīn	uncer	ūre
Dative	mē	unc	ūs
Acustive	mē	unc	ūs

Second person:

Cases	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	þū	git	gē
Genitive	þīn	incer	ēoǷer, ēower
Dative	þē	inc	ēoǷ, ēow
Acustive	þē	inc	ēoǷ, ēow

Third person:

Cases	Mascu. Sing.	Fem. Sing.	Neut. Sing.	Plural
Nominative	hē	hēo	hit	hīe
Genitive	his	hiere	his	hiera
Dative	him	hiere	him	him, heom
Acustive	hine	hīe	hit	hīe

Adjectives

Adjectives also decline by gender, number, and case. Because one adjective has to cover all three genders, two numbers, and four (five with the Strong) cases, there are more adjective forms than there are any other part of speech, with the possible exception of the verb. They too have Strong and Weak forms and can have root vowel stems which are umlauted. The plurals of the Weak forms are uniform across genders, but not in the Strong forms. The same adjective could be Weak or Strong depending on context and the noun.

Examples

Gōd = Good Weak:

Cases	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural (all Genders)
Nominative	gōda	gōde	gōde	gōdan
Genitive	gōdan	gōdan	gōdan	gōdena
Dative	gōdan	gōdan	gōdan	gōdum
Acustive	gōdan	gōdan	gōde	gōdan

Strong:

Cases	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Pl. Masc.	Pl. Fem.	Pl. Neut.
Nominative	gōd	gōd	gōd	gōde	gōda	gōd
Genitive	gōdes	gōdre	gōdes	gōdra	gōdra	gōdra
Dative	gōdum	gōdre	gōdum	gōdum	gōdum	gōdum
Acustive	gōdne	gōde	gōd	gōde	gōda	gōd
Instrumental	gōde	gōdre	gōde	gōdum	gōdum	gōdum

Sources and External Links

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/runic.htm#futhorc

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/engol-0-X.html

http://members.tripod.com/babaev/archive/grammar43.html

http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/index.htm

Page written by Timothy Patrick Snyder.