OLD ENGLISH PERIOD Plan Periodisation of the History

OLD ENGLISH PERIOD Plan Periodisation of the History of English. Pre-Germanic Britain. Germanic settlement of Britain. Writings in Old English alphabet and pronunciation.

Periodisation of the History of English I II Early OE (also: Pre-written OE) OE (also: Written OE) с. 450 - с. 700 - 1066 OLD ENGLISH III Early ME с. 1066 - с. 1350 IV ME (also: Classical ME) c. 1350 – с. 1475 MIDDLE ENGLISH V Early NE VI Normalisation Period (also: Age с. 1660 - с. 1800 of Correctness, Neo-Classical period) Late NE, or Mod E (including с. 1800. . . Presentday English since 1945. . VII с. 1476 - с. 1660 NEW ENGLISH

Commonly accepted traditional periodisation divides the History of English into three periods: Old English, Middle English, New English, with boundaries attached to definite dates and historical events affecting the language. OE begins with the Germanic settlement of Britain (5 th c. ) or with the beginning of writing (7 th c. ) and ends with the Norman Conquest ; ME begins with the Norman Conquest and ends on the introduction of printing (1475), which is the start of the Modern or New English period (Mod E or NE); the New period lasts to the present day. Henry Sweet’s phono-morphological periodisation is based on the state of unstressed endings. OE – the period of full endings: singan, sunu (‘sing’, ‘son’)/ ME – the period of levelled endings: singen, sune. Mod. E – the period of lost endings –sing, son.

Historical Background and Linguistic Situation 1. When the first people arrived to Britain around 50000 B. C. it was still part of the continent. Later, in 5000 B. C. , at the end of the Ice Age, Britain became an island separated from the rest of Europe by the English Channel. 2. The first distinctive inhabitants of the British Isles were the Iberians who came from the territory of present-day Spain around 3000 B. C. They were known for their stone work and battle axes made of stone. 3. The Picts came around 1000 B. C. They were considered to be a mixture of the Celts and the Iberians and were called so because they were covered all over with paintings and tattoos. Their language is still a mystery for the scholars – it can be easily read but the scholars cannot decode it (cannot understand what is written).

The next to come were the Celts. They arrived in 700 B. C. from the territory of Central and Northern Europe. There were 2 main Celtic tribes that settled in the British Isles: Tribe Place of Settlement Celtic Languages Scots Britons first they settled in and settled in the south-east then moved to and of intermixed with the Picts The Gaelic Branch The Britonnic Branch 1. Irish/Erse (Ireland) 2. Scotch Gaelic (the Scottish Highlands 3. Manx (dead; the Isle of Man) 1. Breton (Brittany, modern France) 2. Welsh (Wales) 3. Cornish (dead; Cornwall)

The Roman occupation in Britain. 55 B. C. – Julius Caesar attacked Britain. Reasons: economic (tin ore, corn, slaves); political (the Romans fought with the Celts of Gaul on the continent who found shelter in Britain and were supported by the Celts of Britain). Soon after his arrival, Julius Caesar left Britain with many slaves and riches. 43 A. D. – Emperor Claudius conquered Britain and it became a province of the Roman Empire. Contributions: paved roads; cities (trading centres); walls (protection from the Celts – e. g. Hadrian’s Wall between England Scotland); Latin language (literacy). 410 A. D. – the Roman Empire began to collapse and the Roman troops were withdrawn from Britain and sent home to help and preserve the Empire.

Germanic settlement of Britain. Wave Tribe 1 st Jutes or/and Frisians Kingdoms Kent, Isle of Sussex Wight 2 nd 3 rd Saxons Angles Essex Wessex East Merc Northu Anglia ia mbria

Old English Dialects Kingdom Dialect Kent Wessex Mercia Northumbria Kentish West Saxon Mercian Northumbrian Spoken the between the in Kent, Surrey, along the Isle of Thames and the Thames and Humber and the Wight the Origin from the a Saxon dialect tongues of Jutes/ Frisians a dialect of south north Angles 9 th c. – Wessex was the centre of the English culture and politics. West Saxon – the bookish type of language. 8 th c. – was the centre of the English culture Remarks

th Christianity – 597 (6 c. ) There were 2 forces that worked together to spread Christianity in Britain: missionaries from Rome (founded the religious centre in Canterbury); missionaries from Ireland (the Celts were already christened). Consequences: centralization of the country; development of the culture and learning (monasteries, schools, etc. ); Latin was the language of the church and learning.

Scandinavian invadors. In the 8 th – 9 th c. Britain was raided and attacked by the Danes/Scandinavians/Vikings. The struggle lasted over 300 years. The only king who was able to keep them at bay was Alfred the Great of Wessex. In 878 the Treaty of Wedmore was signed and England was divided into Wessex (belonged to Alfred) and Danelaw (belonged to the Danes). But as soon as the Scandinavian dialects also belonged to the Germanic group, the Danes soon linguistically merged into the local Old English dialects leaving some Scandinavian elements in them. In 1017 under Canute, the Danish king, England became a part of Danish Empire. On Canute’s death in 1035 England regained political independence.

Economic, historic and cultural situation. The period from the 5 th till the 11 th century was a transitional period from the tribal and slave-owning society to feudalism. The basic economic unit was the feudal manor, a self-contained economic unit. Tribal division was gradually superseded by local division into shires and townships.

Alphabets The first Old English written records are considered to be the runic inscriptions. To make these inscriptions people used the Runes/the Runic Alphabet – the first original Germanic Alphabet. Runes/Runic Alphabet: appeared in the 3 rd – 4 th c. A. D. ; it was also called Futhark (after the first 6 letters of this alphabet); the word “rune” meant “secret, mystery” and was used to denote magic inscriptions on objects made of wood, stone, metal; each symbol indicated a separate sound (one symbol = one sound); the symbols were angular due to the fact that they had to be carved on hard materials;

Best known Runic Inscriptions: Franks Casket – a box with 4 sides made of whale bone, each side contained a picture in the centre and runic inscriptions around the picture that told the story of the whale bone in alliterative verse. Ruthwell Cross – was found near the village of Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, it is a 15 feet tall stone cross ornamented in all sides with runic inscriptions that are actually a passage from a religious poem “The Dream of the Rood”.

Old English written records Our knowledge of the OE language comes mainly from manuscripts written in Latin characters. The first English words to be written down with the help of Latin characters were personal names and place names inserted in Latin texts; then came glosses and longer textual insertions. Among the earliest insertions in Latin texts are pieces of OE poetry. Bede’s HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM (written in Latin in the 8 th c. ) contains and English fragment of five lines known as “Bede’s Death Song” and a religious poem of nine lines, “Cadmon’s Hymn”. It was translated into Kentish dialect. The greatest poem of that time was BEOWULF, an epic of the 7 th or 8 th c. It was originally composed in the Mercian or Northumbrian dialect, but has come down to us in a 10 th c. West Saxon copy. It is valued both as a source of linguistic material and as a work of art; it is the oldest poem in Germanic literature. BEOWULF is built up of several songs arranged in three chapters. It is based on old legends about the tribal life of the ancient Teutons. The author is unknown. Religious poems paraphrase, more or less closely, the books of the Bible – GENESIS, EXODUS (written by Cadmon, probably in Northumbrian dialect). CHRIST, FATE OF THE APOSTLES tell the lifestories of apostles and saints or deal with various subjects associated with the Gospels.

OE poetry is characterized by a specific system of versification and some peculiar stylistic devices. Practically all of it is written in the OG alliterative verse: the lines are not rhymed and the number of stressed syllables being fixed. The style of OE poetry is marked by the wide use of metaphorical phrases or compounds describing the qualities or functions of the thing. OE prose is a most valuable source of information for the history of the language. The earliest samples of continuous prose are the first pages of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES. It was written in West Saxon dialect. By the 10 th c. the West Saxon dialect had firmly established itself as the written form of English.