Old English Period

1
Old English Period

• By Gulnara Kashaf

2
We are going to talk about

1. Old English Phonetics.
2. Old English Dialects.
3. Old English Written Records.
4. Old English Grammar.
5. Old English Vocabulary.

3
Old English Phonetics

• In OE a syllable was made prominent by an
  increase in the force of articulation.
• In disyllabic and polysyllabic words the accent
  fell on the root-morpheme or on the first
  syllable.
• Word stress was fixed.
• Polysyllabic words, especially compounds, may
  have had two stresses, chief and secondary, e.g.
  nor?ryhte nor?,ryxte.

4
Old English Phonetics

• Sound changes, particularly vowel changes, took
  place in English at every period of history. The
  development of vowels in Early OE consisted of
  the modification of separate vowels, and also of
  the modification of entire sets of vowels.

5
Old English Dialects

• The Germanic tribes
• who settled in Britain in the 5th and 6th c.
  spoke closely related tribal dialects belonging
  to the West Germanic subgroup.

6
OLD ENGLISH DIALECTS
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 and are 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 Anglian dialect, spoken from the Humber north to the river Forth (hence the name North-Humbrian).
7
Old English Written Records

• Runic Inscriptions
• The earliest written records of English are
  inscriptions on hard material made in a special
  alphabet known as the runes.
• The two best known runic inscriptions in England
  are the earliest extant OE written records
  "Franks Casket and "Ruth-well Cross".

8
Old English Written Records

• Old English Manuscripts
• Our knowledge of the OE language comes mainly
  from manuscripts written in Latin characters.
• The greatest poem of the time was BEOWULF, an
  epic of the 7th or 8th c.
• The earliest samples of continuous prose are the
  first pages of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES

9
Old English Grammar

• OE was a synthetic, or inflected type of
  language it showed the relations between words
  mainly with the help of simple (synthetic)
  grammatical forms.

10
Old English Grammar

• Inflected parts of speech possessed certain
  grammatical categories, which are usually
  subdivided into nominal categories, found in
  nominal parts of speech (the noun, the adjective,
  the pronoun, the numeral) and verbal categories
  found mainly in the finite verb.

11
Old English Grammar

• There were 5 nominal grammatical categories in
  OE number, case, gender, degrees of comparison,
  and the category of definiteness/indefiniteness.

12
Old English Grammar

• Verbal grammatical categories
• were not numerous tense and mood verbal
  categories and number and person, showing
  agreement between the verb-predicate and the
  subject of the sentence.

13
Old English Vocabulary

• The etymological survey of the OE vocabulary
  shows that it was almost purely Germanic except
  for a small number of borrowings, it consisted of
  native words inherited from PG or formed from
  native roots and affixes.

14
Old English Vocabulary

• Native OE words can be subdivided into a number
  of etymological layers coming from different
  historical periods.
• The three main layers in the native OE words
• common IE words
• common Germanic words
• specifically OE words.

15

• There were two sources
• of borrowings in Old English
• Celtic
• Latin

16
Old English Vocabulary

• Borrowings from Celtic
• There are very few Celtic loan-words in the OE
  vocabulary, since there must have been little
  intermixture between the Germanic settlers and
  the Celtic in Britain.
• Most borrowings from Celtic are to be found only
  in proper names. Such names as Thames, Avon,
  Dover, Kent, York and perhaps London are of
  Celtic origin (Celtic dun meant hill).

17
Old English Vocabulary

• Latin Influence on the English Vocabulary
• The role of the Latin language in Medieval
  Britain was determined by such historical events
  as
• the Roman occupation of Britain
• the influence of the Roman civilization
• the introduction of Christianity.

18
Questions

1. Name the principal OE written records.
2. What are the best known runic inscriptions in
   Britain?
3. Give the examples of the OE poetry and prose.
4. What are the OE dialects?
5. Speak on the system of word accentuation in Old
   English.
6. What grammatical categories did the nominal and
   verbal parts of speech possess?
7. What are the three main etymological layers in
   the native OE words?
8. What sources do OE borrowings come from?

19
??????????

• ???????? ??????? ??????????
• ??????????? ?.?. ??????? ??????????? ?????
  ??????? ??? ????? ?. ???????, 2003 (??-5,
  ??-15).
• ??????? ?., ?????? ?., ??????? ?. ???????
  ??????????? ????? ???????. ???????????. ???????/
  ?.???????, ?.??????,?.??????? ???. ????, 2006
  (??-5, ??-17).
• ?????????????? ??????? ??????????
• ?????? ?.?. ??????????? ???????
  ????????????????? ??????? / ??? ???.
  ?.?.??????? ?. ??????? ?????????? ????????????,
  2000 (??-3).
• ?rosscultural Aspects of The English Language
  History (Historical, social and cultural
  backgrounds of the English language history)
  ??????? ??????? ?? ????? ??????? ???????????
  ?????/ ????. ?.?. ????????, C.?. ????????
  ??????. ??? ??-?. ?????? ???-?? ?????, 2003
  (????????? ????).