HELL LECTURE 2

OLD ENGLISH(AD 449 - 1050)

THE GERMANIC SPLIT

OLD ENGLISH CHRONOLOGY

• AD 449 – 700 PRE-OLD ENGLISH

• 700 – 900 – EARLY OLD ENGLISH

• 900 – 1100 – LATE OLD ENGLISH

OLD ENGLISH DIALECTS

• NORTHUMBRIAN *– North England

• MERCIAN *– the Midlands

• WEST SAXON – West England

• KENTISH – Kent----* = ANGLIAN

THE INTERNAL & EXTERNAL HELL

• The internal development = the evolution of language structure (i.e., phonology, grammar, vocabulary, and writing)

• The external development = non-structural factors & their influence on both development and course of the lg. development:

EXTERNAL FACTORS

• POLITICAL• SOCIAL• ECONOMIC• SCIENTIFIC• CULTURAL

SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR HELL

• HISTORIES• GRAMMARS• WRITTEN RECORDS = Latin-English

bilingual texts

THE GERMANIC INVASION & CONQUEST OF BRITAIN

• AD 449 – the beginning of the Germanic invasion• c. 429 – Prosper Tiro• 5th c. – Anonymous Gaullish chronicler• c. 548 – Gildas’ Liber querulus de excidio Britanniae

(Welsh)• Nennius’ Historia Britonum (Welsh)• c. 500 – Zosimos/Olypiodonus (Greek/Byzantine)• C. 550 – Procopius of Cesarea• c. 731 – Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum • End of the 9th c. – the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (449 -

473)

OLD – MIDDLE – MODERN ENGLISH

ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN (ENGLAND)

ENGLISH < Englisc

ENGLAND < Englaland

The race of Angles = Angelcynn

CHRISTIANITY

• AD 597 – St. Augustine on a mission in Britain• 601 – the Archbishopric of Canterbury• 604 – Kent is christianised• Essex & East Anglia• 625 – 627 – York• 635 – Wessex• 681 – Sussex• 633-650 – Northumbria• 655 – Mercia• 664 – the Synod of Whitby• 700 – all Britain is Christian

EARLY LATIN BORROWINGS

• Apostol• Pāpa• Munuc• Abbot• Mæsse• Fers• Scōl• Mægester

NATIVE CHRISTIAN LEXIS

• Hēahfᴂder• Gōdspell• Hælend• Heofon• Gāst• Hālga

THE VIKING INVASIONS

• AD 787 – 1042 - Scandinavians raid Britain# 1 – Danish invaders#2 – Norwegian invaders

1st period – 787 – 850 – Danish invasions2nd period – 865 – 973 – Danish raids; - Guthrum’s Danelaw - King Alfred the Great (886 - London)3rd period – 991 – 1042 – Danish and Norwegian Invasions

ONE NATION

• The assimilation of the Vikings and the English

• Viking settlements in Northern England:

Cumberland, Westermoreland, Lancashire, Cheshire

Cultural similaritiesLinguistic similaritiesMixed marriages

VIKING LINGUISTIC INFLUENCES

#1 Viking personal names: Harold, Swegen, Tostig, Gunhild, Hacun, Ulf

#2 loanwords: bull, egg, fellow, gap, keel, law, sister, sky, window, call, get, take, want

#3 grammatical modifications = a simplified grammar

# 4 Placenames in: -by; -thorp(e); -thwaite; -toft

# 5 Hybrids: Goldcytel, Leofstegen, Swartric

THE RUNES – 1ST C. AD

OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE• Extremely rich – charters, wills, documents & literature• The early period: • Pagan poetry on heroic adventure, war and its aftermath• Christian poetry on Old and New Testament themes & lives of

saints• 8-9th c. Boewulf• Cædmon – 1st English poet• Cynewulf – Anglian poetry

The 9th c. - the beginning of English prose:

• ælfric – prose• Wulfstan – The Sermon to the English • Alfred the Great – Latin translations into Old English

WEST SAXON

• Standard Old English (10th – 11th c.)

• Winchester: the Old Minster scriptorium (Benedictine monastery: ælfric and Wulfstan

• SOE is used across England

• Declines after AD 1066

OE LEXICONLexicon• Basic words inherited from IE or Germanic:• - 1-10 numerals (an, twegen, þrie, feower, fif, syx, seofon, eahta, nigon, tyn), • - kinship terms (modor, faeder); • - some Germanic/West Germanic-only languages: baec "back”, ban "bone“) folc "folk“) grund "ground", rotian "to rot”, seoc "sick”, swellan "to swell“) werig "weary", wif wife“) blod "blood",

cniht "young man," "knight“)• - miscellaneous vocabulary: cyning ("king"), fierd ("English army"), here ("Viking army"), scop ("poet"), scyppend ("Shaper," "Creator," "God"), Metod ("Measurer," "God"), rice ("kingdom"), wig

("battle"), wiga ("warrior"), feond ("enemy")• - a few Celtic borrowings, some place names: Thames, Dover, London, Cornwall, Carlisle, Avon, others: dunn "dun“) binn "bin," "basket, hogg "hog“)• - some Scandinavian influence: e.g. ran "rapine“) ha "rowlock”, cnearr "small ship”, orrest "battle“)• - Latin influence words for religious, intellectual concepts/activities, plants: e.g. abbod ("abbot"), engel ("angel"), candle ("candle"), martir ("martyr"), scol ("school") peru ("pear"), persic

("peach"), lilie ("lily")• - calques or loan translations: Latin unicornis, OE anhorn ("unicorn"); Latin evangelium, Old English godspell ("gospel")Word-formation:• - Compounding: noun+noun, e.g. sunbeam ("sunbeam," "sunshine"), • adjective+noun, e.g. yfelweorc ("evil-work," "wrongdoing")), • adverb+noun, e.g. innefeoh ("inside-treasure," "household property"), • compound adjectives, e.g. isceald ("ice-cold"), wishydig ("wise-thinking"), some compound adverbs, eg. neafre (ne-aefre, "not-ever," "never"), eallmaest (eall-maest, "all-most," "almost"), • compound verbs, e.g. goldhordian (gold-hordian, "to hoard gold") • ge-, a very frequently used prefix; employed to create new words from existing ones (nouns and verbs) and to denote some past participles:

– broðor (brother), gebroðor (member of a religious community)– nipan (to grow dark), genip (darkness)– sprecan ("to speak"), gesprecen ("spoken")

• -nes, -ung, -dom, -scipe to form abstract nouns, etc.; examples: wis ("wise"), wisdom ("wisdom"); freond ("friend"), freondscipe ("friendship"); leornian ("to learn"), leornung ("learning") hard-ness, wis-dom, friend-ship); heah ("high"), heahnes ("highness")

• -ere, -end, -a, -bora to derive agent nouns, e.g.: ridan ("to ride"), ridere ("rider"); beran ("to carry," "to bear," "to support"), berend ("carrier"); wig ("battle"), wiga ("warrior"); mund ("trust, "protection"), mundbora ("protector")

• -ig, -lic, -ful, -leas, -ed, -isc, -sum to form adjectives, etc.; examples: freond ("friend"), freondlic ("friendly"), freondleas ("friendless"); miht ("might," "power," "strength"), mihtig ("mighty," "powerful"); (cf. speedy, manly, bountiful, mindless, bow-legged, childish, handsome)

• un-, in-, ofer-, æfter-, fore-, mis-, under-, etc. e.g: unræd ("without wisdom," "un-ready"); ingangan ("to go in"); ofermod ("over-mood," "pride"); misdon ("to do evil"); understandan ("to understand")

• loss in PDE of large part of OE vocabulary (50-80 %)Prosody = stress patterns• major stress in the root syllable, e.g. mórgen "morning”• compounds stressed on the 1st element e.g. hwáelweg ("whale-way" "ocean")

OLD ENGLISH – TEXT SAMPLE

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (867 A.D.):• Her for se here of East Englum ofer Humbremuþan to

Eoforwicceastre on Norþhymbre, ond þær wæs micel ungeþuærnes þære þeode betweox him selfum, ond hie hæfdun hiera cyning aworpenne Osbryht, ond ungecyndne cyning underfengon Ællan; ond hie late on geare to þam gecirdon þæt hie wiþ þone here winnende wærun, ond hie þeah micle fierd gegadrodon, ond þone here sohton æt Eoforwicceastre, ond on þa ceastre bræcon, ond hie sume inne wurdon, ond þær was ungemetlic wæl geslægen Norþanhymbra, sume binnan, sume butan; ond þa cyningas begen ofslægene, ond sio laf wiþ þone here friþ nam

OLD ENGLISH - TRANSLATION

• Here the Viking army travelled from East Anglia over the mouth of the Humber River to the castle of York in Northumbria. And there was much discord of the people amongst themselves; and they overthrew their king Osbryht; and accepted instead as king Allan who was of ignoble descent. And they, late that year, turned toward the Vikings so that they engaged them in fighting. And although they gathered a great army and sought the Vikings at York and broke into the castle and some of them got inside, there was unmeasurable slaughter of Northumbrians, some within, some without. And the kings both were slain and the rest made peace with the Vikings.

OE GRAPHICS• Graphics• the beginning of Christian era - the alphabet employed by the Germanics was the Futhorc/Runic

alphabet; • the 6th-century Christianization of England - adoption of Latin/Roman alphabet; • handwriting in EOE manuscripts - Irish scribes’ influence ( = Insular hand)

• Special characters in OE writing:• thorn: þ (th) - derived from the runic alphabet, e.g.: þæt = "that"• eth: ð (voiced th), e.g.: ðeoden = "prince”• ash: æ - the name "ash“ comes from the name of a runic symbol but the runic character is

different, e.g.: ælf ="elf"• wen/wynn: (w) - example; æpen = "weapon" • the OE grapheme for “g” was

• Punctuation: • - raised point, semicolon, and inverted semicolon = pause; • - no capitals/lowercase distinctions

OE MORPHOLOGY I - TENDENCIES

• Loss of inflections: - reduction of vowels in unstressed inflectional

endings,

- need for syntactical support (word order) and prepositions

OE MORPHOLOGY - NOUNSOE nouns had: • grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), • singular and plural number, • "strong" or "weak" classification according to the distinctness of their inflectional endings• specific inflectional endings in each of the cases used in Old English: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative + (instrumental)

E.g., bāt ("boat") (SM):• Singular• Nominative: bāt

Accusative: bāt Genitive: bātesDative: bāte

• Plural• Nominative: bātas

Accusative: bātasGenitive: bātaDative: bātum

• Sample sentence:• se bāt seglode fīf dagas = "the boat sailed for five days„• Bātes segl is lytel = "the boat's sail is small [little]”• fīf bātas seglodon ofer brim = "five boats sailed over the sea”• seglas bāta sind lytele = "the sails of the boats are small”

OE ADJECTIVES•

inflected in 2 ways:

• 1) weak (when accompanied by a demonstrative, numeral, or possessive pronoun), • 2) strong (when it was accompanied by no supporting words).

• An adjective had to agree with its noun in gender, number, and case.

E.g.:• wiga stag readne bāt = "the warrior boarded the red boat”

• Weak forms: sēo blinde mūs ="the blind mouse”, þrēo blindan mýs = "three blind mice“

• Strong forms: blind mus ="blind mouse”, blinda mýs = "blind mice"

OE PRONOUNS• Personal Pronouns

- 1st, 2nd and 3rd person forms; • - singular, dual, and plural numbers; • - declined according to the standard cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative• In the OE nominative case, they are:• ic = ”I“, þū = "you”-sing., hē = "he", hēo = "she”, hit = "it”, • wē = "we", gē = "you”plur., hīe = "they"

• E.g.: ic lufie þē = "I love you“

• Demonstrative pronouns/adjectives- se = "that," "the”

• - þes = " this“ • - inflected for gender, number, and case + some instrumental forms.• - agreed with their referents and with any nouns or other adjectives when used adjectivally.

• The basic nominative forms are:

• "that": se (masc. sing.), þaet (neuter sing.), seo (fem. Sing.), þa (plural)• "this": þes (masc. Sing.) , þis (neuter sing.), þeos (fem. sing.), þas (plural)

• E.g: þeos wīf is fæegere = "this woman is beautiful [fair]”

• Interrogative pronouns- hwā = "who”

• - hwæt ="what” - both inflected according to gender and case.• E.g. : hwā eart þū = "who are you?"

• Other pronouns- þe (= a relative pronoun) = "the one that")

• - indefinite pronouns: ælc ("each"), hwilc ("which"), aenig ("any", eall ("all"), nan ("none"), swilc ("such"), sum ("some"), man ("one")

OE VERBS – STRONG : WEAK• Verbs

- the infinitive: -an e.g, faran = "to travel”• - inflected for tense, person, number, and mood• - two tenses: present and preterite• - strong and weak classification according to how they formed their past tenses:

• STRONG VERBS:

• - 7 classes• - ablaut system = vowel-root change• - strong verbs : 4 principal parts:• Inf.: singan = "to sing”• past sing.: sang = "[she] sang”• past plur.: sungon = "[they] sang”• past part.: (ge)sungen = "sung”• E.g.: þaet leoð wæs gesungen = "the song was sung”

OE VERBS – WEAK & IRREGULARWeak verbs:

• - a Germanic innovation = "dental preterite" verbs• - their past tense was formed with a dental suffix [d] > ModE. regular verbs• E.g.: seglan = "to sail” > seglode = "sailed”

Other verbs: • Irregular: beon/wesan = "be", dōn = "do”, willan ="will", gān ="go"• ”preterite-present verbs” - their present tense forms = past tenses in

earlier stages of the language) • E.g: sculan, cunnan, magan, agan, dearr, durfan > ModE. modal auxiliaries:

shall, can, may, ought, dare, must – magan ="be able", mæg = "may”, meahte = "might”– sculan = "be obliged", sceal = "shall", sceolde ="should”

OE UNINFLECTED WORD1. prepositions (governing the case): - to ("to"), for ("for"), be ("by"), in ("in"), under ("under"), ofer ("over"), mid ("with"), wiþ ("against" or "with"), fram ("from"), geond ("throughout"), þurh

("through"), ymbe ("around"), of ("of")

E.g.: heo seglode ofer brim = "she sailed over the sea”

("brim“ = Acc. recquired by "ofer“)

2. conjunctions: • - and ("and"), ac ("but"), gif ("if") , þeah ("although"), forþæm ("because")3. adverbs: • - often formed with –e / -lice + an adjective, e.g.: riht = ”right” > rihte / rihtlice = "rightly”4. interjections: la = "lo!", eala = "alas!”, hwæt = "what!”, "ah!" "behold!"

OE SYNTAX• modifiers close to modified word• prepositions precede objects• interrogative formed by inverting the subject and the verb• Subject-Verb-Object order in main declarative clauses, • Verb-Subject-Object in interrogative and imperative clauses

• parataxis: phrases often strung together with simple conjunctions, e.g.: • and ("and"), ac("but"), þa ("then"); • (hypotaxis) subordination: þa, gif, forþan

• examples:• seamannan waeron meðe and scipu ne seglodon = "the sailors were tired and the ships did not

sail")• forþan seamannan meðe waeron, scipu ne seglodon = "because the sailors were tired, the ship did

not sail"

• idioms: genitive + numerals: (twentig geara, "twenty of years")

OE PHONOLOGY• Old English consonants: • [p]: pat, [b]: bat, • [t]: time, [d]: dime, • [k]: came, [g]: game, • [ ʧ]: chump, [ʤ]: jump, • [f]: fat, [θ]: thigh • [s]: sap, [ʃ] : glacier/mesher, • [h]: ham, [m]: man, [n]: nun, [l]: lamp, [r]: ramp, [w]: world, [j]: yore/you

• The sounds [ʧ ], [ʃ ], [ʤ ] were Old English innovations derived from CG [sk], [k], [gg]. Germanic [g] > [j], e.g.:– clǽne ("clean"), crypel ("cripple"), corn ("corn"), cyning ("king") ( original Germanic [k], before a consonant / back vowel) – ceap ("cheap"), cild ("child"), dic ("ditch") ( new sound [ʧ], next to a front vowel; < Germanic [k]) – fisc ("fish"), wascan ("wash"), scearp("sharp") (new sound [ʃ] in all environments; < Germanic [sk]) – græs ("grass"), god ("god"), gyltig ("guilty") (original Germanic [g] before consonants and back vowels) – brycg ("bridge"), secg ("sedge"), mycg ("midge") (new sound [ʤ ] < Germanic [gg]; in medial / final position) – gear ("year"), giet ("yet"), gellan ("yell") (semi-vowel [j] before / between front vowels)

• no phonemic voiced fricatives in Old English ([v], [ð], [z], [ ])• OE [h] always distinctly pronounced, e.g.: hræfn = "raven", hand = "hand”, sihþ = "vision," "sight”, eahta = "eight”, heah = "high", þurh = "through”

• Distinctly pronounced consonant clusters (/hr/, /hl/, /hn/, /hw/, /kn/, /gn/) • E.g.: hlaford = "lord”; hlæfdige = "lady”; hræfn = "raven”; hlūd = "loud”; sometimes still spelled, but not pronounced in modern English: what, whale, whistle, knee, gnat

• Old English Vowels

• a, e, i, o, u had sounds = modern Spanish, Italian, German

• Vowel length = phonemic, e.g. OE god = "god“ : gōd ="good“

• Some phonological changes from Common Germanic to Old English:• Front mutation ( = i-umlaut / i-mutation): if stressed syllable + unstressed syllable with [i] or [j], the stressed vowel was fronted /raised:

– e.g. Gothic: doms ="judgment," "doom”, domjan ="to judge”, OE: dōm, dēman > ModEng: doom, deem– Germanic plural endings with i > OE fōt, fēt, ModEng foot, feet; others: man/men, tooth/teeth, goose/geese, louse/lice; in comparatives/superlatives: old/elder; derived verbs, sit/set, lie/lay, fall/fell

• !Reduction of vowels in unstressed inflectional endings!