Anglo-Saxon

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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

Scip is pronounced the same way as the modern equivalent, Ship.
Dēor, 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 unc ūs
Acustive unc ūs

Second person:

Cases Singular Dual Plural
Nominative þū git
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 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

Prepositions and Conjunctions

Verbs

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.