Old English is the language that was spoken from the middle of the fifth century to the middle of the twelfth century in what is now England and southern Scotland. There were four main dialects of Old English: West Saxon (in the south and south-west) Kentish (in the south-east), Mercian (in the centre and east), and Northumbrian (in the North).
Unlike other invaders, the Anglo-Saxons kept their own language and did not learn the language of the British Celts.
Only about twenty Celtic words are found in Old English.
Old English in the fifth and sixth centuries did have some words, that were not Germanic. These were Latin words, which the Anglo-Saxons had borrowed from the Romans before invading Britain. Most Anglo-Saxons could not read or write, but those who could write used runes. These were letters which had been used by the Germanic peoples since about the third century AD. They were cut into stone or weapons and were often used to say that someone had made or owned something.
The arrival of Augustine and about forty monks in 597 brought changes to Anglo-Saxon life in Britain and to Old English. Augustine and the monks were welcomed in Canterbury in the south-east by king Aethelbert of Kent and Queen Bertha, who was a Christian. In the following century these monks and other took Christianity over the south of the country. In the north, people learnt about Christianity from the Irish monk Aidan, who arrived there in 635. By the end of the seventh century all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were Christian.
The monks built churches and taught poetry, Greek, and Latin as well as Christianity. As a result, number of latin words entered Old English: about 450 appear in Old English literature. For example: munuc( monk) and scol (school).
At first the monks wrote only latin, but then they began to write in Old English. Learning spread and flowered among the Anglo-Saxons, and by the eight century England was a centre of learning in Western Europe. Old English was usually written with these letters:
a, ae,b,c,d,e,f, ,h,i,l,m,n,o,p,r,s,t, , ,u,.y.
Writers usually chose their own spellings of words, and they tried to show in the spelling how a Word was pronounced. All the letters in a word were pronounced.
The vocabulary of Old English was almost completely Germanic. Much of it about 85% has disappeared from modern English and has been replaced with words from Latin or French. Many of the words in Modern English that are most often used come from Old English.
Other words which survive from Old English are names of places.
Some Moderns English names for the days of the week come from the names of Anglo-Saxon gods and goddesses for example: Tuesday is named after TIW, Wednesday after Woden .
Like other Indo-European languages, Old English made new words by putting two other together. Old English also made new words by adding letters before or after the main word.
The words in a sentence in Old English often appeared in a different order from those in Modern English.
Nouns also changed their endings for the plural and the verbs changed too.
In old English there were about twice as many of these irregular verbs as there are today.
In the eight century Britain was visited by de Vikings or “Danes” as the Angle-Saxons called them. From 787 they came in many small groups from Denmark and Norway and stole gold and silver from towns and churches on the north coast. In 793 and 794 they destroyed Lindsfarne and Jarrow, two very important Christian centres of learning in the north-east of England. In 850 a large Viking army took London and Canterbury, and so a war began which continued until 878. Then King Alfred (the Anglo-Saxon) won a battle and to separate England into two parts. The northern and eastern part, known as the Danelaw, was controlled by de Vikings, and the rest of England was controlled by King Alfred.King Alfred decided to make English, not Latin, the language of education and literature, So at the age of forty he learnt Latin and began translating books into Old English.
Later he had other books translated into Old English. One of these was Historia Ecclesiastical Gentis Anglorum ( the history if the English church and people), which han been written in about 731 by a monk in Northumbria called Bede. In the translation, and in other early English writings, we begin to see the word Englisc (English) used to describe the people.
One of the greatest writers was a monk from Wessex and called Elfric (955-1010). He wrote Colloquy.
The greatest piece of literature in Old English that has survived a poem of about 3,000 lines called Beowulf. This was probably made in the middle of the eight century. It tells story of a brave man from Scandinavian called Beowulf. He fights and kills a terrible animal called Grendel, and then kills Grendel´s mother, who is just as terrible. It is a poem about life and death, bravery and defeat, war and peace. In the Danelaw the Vikings and the English were able to communicate quite well, because their two languages, Old Norse and Old English, were both Germanic. One effect of this was that Old English became simpler. Many of the different word endings disappeared.
We can see that speakers of the two languages lived together closely, because the Old Norse words that came into Old English are words from everyday life-words for the house and common verbs. Some Old Norse replaced Old English words.
The Vikings also left their mark on place names. More than 1,500 places in northern England have Scandinavian names.
Battles between the Vikings and the English continued in the tenth century. From 1016 to 1041 England had Danish kings, who were then followed by an English Kind, Edward. When Edwar died in 1066, Harlord, the leader of Wessex was chosen to be the next king. However, William, one of Edward´s cousins, said that Edward had promised that he would become king of England. William was the leader of Normandy in northern France. He decided to take an army to England and fight Harold.
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