There was once a language called Old English. Contrary to what it may seem, she wasn’t old at the time. In fact, she was born from languages of Indo-European roots around the 5th century. That was when Germanic tribes decided to migrate to the islands where the Celts, previously ruled by the Romans (explaining early Latin influence), were living. Thus, she originated from a melding of dialects in the Germanic and Celtic language families under Roman rule. Between the 5th and 10th centuries, she matured into a fully functional and grammatically sound language, and became the language of the Anglo-Saxons who occupied the British Isles.
By simply interacting, Old English adopted and fused her sounds and words with other languages and cultures. For a couple of centuries, the Germanic and Celtic tribes co-existed alongside one another while the Romans continued occupation. As a result, Old English became friends with languages of the Celtic tribes and also gained some early Latin loan words from the occupying Roman culture. For example, words starting with the letter “v” such as veal, vase, virtue were added to Old English’s lexicon from Latin. Men from Germanic tribes joined the Roman army putting them in daily contact with Roman soldiers. Borrowings from Celtic languages were mainly names and locations such as Avon, Dover, and Dorchester. As a result, new sounds from new words affected Old English and over time, she began to undergo many phonological changes such as voicing and palatalization. However, despite the exposure to new languages and cultures, Old English maintained her strong Germanic roots and consequently still used many Germanic words and grammatical systems.
During the 8th and 9th century, the Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish people began to migrate to various locations in Europe including the British Isles. As more and more Scandinavian groups came, the Anglo-Saxons became discontent. King Alfred, who was the ruler of the Anglo-Saxons in the region of Wessex during the 9th century, chose to defend all territories on the British Isles and became known as King Alfred the Great. At the end of battle, a law called “Danelaw” was established which allowed the Danes to stay in the northern territories of the British Isles, but if they chose to settle in the southern portion, they had to learn the language and culture of the Anglo-Saxons and assimilate. Thus, Old English had frequent interactions with the language of the Danes who settled on their land. The additional presence of Old Norse, the language the Scandinavians spoken during this time, passed on many words such as “skirt” and other words starting with “sk.” Old English also gained more words starting with the “th” sound as she got to know Old Norse. As the Danes settled, the mixing of the two languages contributed to the growth of Old English.
After his victory, King Alfred made sure that Old English was preserved by translating Latin documents into his beloved mother tongue. King Alfred’s drive to record as much as he could is largely why today we can dive into Old English’s journey and chart the phonetic syntactic changes she endured. She carried inflections and case, or endings that were attached to nouns, verbs and adjectives to denote meaning, a mechanism that has largely been lost in her prodigy, Modern English. For example, alfred cyning means “King Alfred.” To indicate that something is given to him, Old English uses the Dative Case ending turning alfred cyning into alfrede cyninge.
The Danes and the Anglo-Saxons eventually began to inter-marry and all was peaceful in the land where Old English prospered. However, that did not stop other kings and their languages from trying to conquer the British Isles. Eagerness for power and royal recognition impassioned rulers to claim thrones that they saw as their own through intermarrying of monarchies. Old English was threatened when William II, the Duke of Normandy, decided to invade England to claim what he thought was rightfully his. The Norman Conquest was won by the Duke in 1066 at the bloody Battle of Hastings. Old English was about to face a battle of prestige as the Norman French took hold of their newly conquered land. Which language would the people choose? Would Old French choose to intermingle with Old English or would Old French force herself upon Old English? Find out what happens to Old English in next month’s Language of the Month: The Epic of English -Part 2!
(Click here for Part 2)
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