English before Old English

Throughout history, the English language has witnessed periods of enrichment due to the
influences of different civilizations and their languages, but also a great number of words, and
grammatical structures have vanished.
In order to understand Old English, it is essential for us to have some knowledge of what
happened before this major period of development. Therefore, we will be speaking about
Proto-English, in historical terms and later we will be focusing on runes and vocabulary.
The Anglo-Saxon monk Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation , written
in Latin, states that the island contains five nations: the English, Britons (or Celts), Scots,
Picts and Latins each with a peculiar dialect. According to Bede, the first arrivals were the
Britons, who gave their name to the land. Then came the Picts from Scythia, via northern
Ireland, who settled in the north. The last but not least to appear were the Scots who secured
their settlements in the Pictish regions. Later in 43 AD (in the year of Rome 798) were to
arrive those who ruled in Britain until the 5th century : the Romans.
As numerous sources present it, the Roman Empire ruled much of Europe until 476,
when it collapsed. Due to the political power of the Roman Empire, Latin was spoken in parts
of Britain and the European continent and it also had a great impact on the Celtic and
Germanic languages. Many words were borrowed from Latin into Germanic and through
Germanic into English (e.g wall, kitchen, mile, wine and street). Even after the troops were
withdrawn from Britain (around 410), the Latin influence did not perish. It continued through
the medieval and renaissance times, taking a more subtle shape The Catholic Church, but
also through intellectual developments such as Humanism and the Renaissance.
But when does the English language officially start? It begins when the Germanic tribes
and their languages reach the British Isles. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports their landing in
Ebbsfleet in 449 AD.
The English language is well-known for its complex and increasing vocabulary and its
Germanic origins. Vocabulary or the Everest of language, as David Crystal calls it, can be a
considered an index of the languages identity. The British linguist also speaks about the
metaphor of a vacuum-cleaner when referring to the lexis, since the speakers suck in words
from any language they encounter, leading to variety. Another interesting fact is that some 80
per cent of English vocabulary is not Germanic at all. Apparently it may seem surprising, but
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judging by the way English has travelled the world, the courtesy of its soldiers, sailors,
traders and civil servants, there is no doubt that almost a hundred languages have contributed
to its lexical character.
What is left, which is the 20 per cent of English vocabulary has to do with the languages
Germanic origins. We know that the earliest Germanic texts are runic inscriptions, the oldest
dating from about third century AD. Runes are found on weapons, monuments, ornaments and
many other objects. Of course, these remains are fragmentary, very short and sometimes
unintelligible, but they give us a picture of how Germanic looked like back then. Below we
have an example of one of the earliest runes from North Jutland, Denmark, from about AD
200. (Lass, 12)

We can also find traces of the Germanic character of English in place-names of ancient
Britain. Lea is a word that was commonly used when someone referred to a place. It comes
from the Old English word leah, pronounced lay-ah and it means a pasture or a meadow.Of
course, beside lea, which is an Anglo-Saxon word, there are other elements such as: ham,
meaning homestead, as in Birmingham or Nottingham; ing, meaning people of, as in
Reading and Worthing; ceaster, meaning Roman town or fort, as in Chester or Lancaster;
tun, meaning enclosure or village as in places ending in ton or town. The Vikings settled
on the eastern side of England and they gave names to hundred of villages ending in by ,
such as Derby, Rugby and Grimsby.
And is an early abbreviation from the 8 th century. Although they are not given the same
amount of attention, linking words like and have an interesting story. It is said that the monks
of the St. Augustune monastery from Canterbury wrote a long list of English words translated
from Latin in alphabetical order. One of them was ultroque-citroque, translated into Modern
English as hither and thither. But since it was wronly glossed, it became hider ond hider, the
second h should have been a d. The phrase is interesting from another point of view: ond was
the old way of spelling and.
Another common word with and unexpected origin is loaf. A word from the Bible,
manna, was translated as heofenlic hlaf, meaning heavenly bread. So, hlaf is what we call
today loaf. The h was dropped at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period.
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The word riddle took a while to develop the meaning that it has today, that of enigma. It
was translated into Old English from Latin, and it had the form raedels, which was a
combination of reading with the els ending. It meant reading or an opinion about something,
then it broaded its meaning to an interpretation of something. In the end it became saying
that defies easy interpretation.
These are just few examples of the fascinating realm of the English vocabulary, which
should by all means be explored in depth.

Works Cited
1. Crystal, David. The story of English in 100 words. Great Britain: PROFILE BOOKS LTD,
2011.
2. Gelderen, Elly van. A History of the English Language. Arizona State University. John
Benjamin Publishing Company, 2006.
3. Hogg, Richard. An introduction to Old English. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
4. Lass, Roger. Old English: A historical Linguistic Companion. Cambridge University Press,
1994.
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