Pruncu Alina-Maria

Spanish-English, L831
3rd year

English before Old English

Old English is one of the Germanic group of Indo-European languages. It was

spoken, and written, in England before about 1100AD. It is sometimes referred to as AngloSaxon. The term Old English itself, however, is not unproblematical. There is no single or
uniform corpus of Old English, but rather a collection of texts from about the seventh to the
eleventh centuries, representing dialects spread out from the North of England to the West
Country and Kent. This collection is extremely heterogeneous, as the range suggests: runic
OE of the seventh century is in many ways as different from classical literary OE of the
eleventh as Chaucer's language is from Shakespeare's. Mercian OE of the ninth century is at
least as different from West Saxon of the same period as the local dialects of Staffordshire
now are from those of Hampshire or Dorset.
Old English is the name given to the earliest recorded stage of the English
language, up to approximately 1150AD (when the Middle English period is generally taken
to have begun). It refers to the language as it was used in the long period of time from the
coming of Germanic invaders and settlers to Britainin the period following the collapse of
Roman Britain in the early fifth centuryup to the Norman Conquest of 1066, and beyond
into the first century of Norman rule in England. It is thus first and foremost the language of
the people normally referred to by historians as the Anglo-Saxons.
Before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, the majority of the population of
Britain spoke Celtic languages. In Roman Britain, Latin had been in extensive use as the
language of government and the military and probably also in other functions, especially in
urban areas and among the upper echelons of society. However, it is uncertain how much
Latin remained in use in the post-Roman period.
During the course of the next several hundred years, gradually more and more of
the territory in the area, later to be known as England, came under Anglo-Saxon control
Precisely what fate befell the majority of the (Romano-)British population in
these areas is a matter of much debate. Certainly very few words were borrowed into English
from Celtic (it is uncertain whether there may have been more influence in some areas of
grammar and pronunciation), and practically all of the Latin borrowings found in Old English
could be explained as having been borrowed either on the continent (i.e. beforehand) or
during or after the conversion to Christianity (i.e. later).

The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, which began in the late

sixth century and was largely complete by the late seventh century, was an event of huge
cultural importance. One of its many areas of impact was the introduction of writing
extensive texts in the Roman alphabet on parchment (as opposed to inscribing very short
inscriptions on wood, bone, or stone in runic characters). Nearly all of our surviving
documentary evidence for Old English is mediated through the Church, and the impress of
the literary culture of Latin Christianity is deep on nearly everything that survives written in
Old English.
Conflict and interaction with raiders and settlers of Scandinavian origin is a
central theme in Anglo-Saxon history essentially from the time of the first recorded raids in
the late eighth century onwards. However, the linguistic impact of this contact is mainly
evident only in the Middle English period. Likewise, the cataclysmic political events of the
Norman Conquest took some time to show their full impact on the English language.
There were four distinct dialects of Old English: Northumbrian, Mercia, Kentish
and West-Saxon. This is known through differences in spelling. After 900AD West-Saxon
became widely used as a standard written language, and is sometimes referred to as 'Classic
West-Saxon'.
Two stages of the West-Saxon dialect can be distinguished - early West Saxon
(eWS), which is the language of the time of King Alfred (c. 900), and late West Saxon (lWS),
which is seen in the works of lfric (c. 1000). The most important difference is that in
eWS ie and e appear in lWS texts as y and (for example, eWS fierd becomes fyrd in lWS).
Another is that ea may be spelt e in lWS (for example, eWS scap becomes scp in lWS).