Meanwhile, the various Germanic dialects slowly merged into a new language that its speakers called Englisc. That's why the few Celtic languages that remain in the British Isles today (Cornish, Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic) are only found in the archipelago’s northern and western extremities. Groups like the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes and Frisians sailed to and settled in Britain, bringing their Germanic languages with them.įor obvious geographical reasons, these invaders mainly came from the southeast. Throughout the first millennium AD, the Celtic-speakers of Britain were slowly displaced by waves of immigration and invasion from the European mainland. Before English came along, most people in the British Isles spoke Celtic languages, a family whose modern descendants include Irish and Welsh. Other Indo-European branches include Slavic, Italic, and Celtic.Įnglish originated in the area now called England (duh), but it wasn’t the first language to get here. The Germanic family, however, is just one branch of the wider Indo-European language family. How was Old English written? How did it change as we shifted into middle and more modern dialects? Why doesn't “count” rhyme with the first syllable of “country”? And why do we continue to torture ESL students with bizarrities like the sentence “a rough coughing thoughtful ploughman from Scarborough bought tough dough in Slough”?īelow, I'll explore all these questions, and also tell you why you're probably pronouncing the word “ye” wrong.īut first, a short history lesson about Old English:Įnglish is a Germanic language, meaning its closest living relatives are Dutch, Frisian, and of course German. For this article I'll focus on the history of Old English writing.
(See here for an audio version of the original hymn.) Cædmon's Hymn is utterly incomprehensible to the modern English reader. There's no doubt about it: Old and Modern English might as well be two completely different languages. A few other connections shine faintly through, like hefaen for heaven, fadur for father, and uerc for work, but I can’t glean much else… and even in the modern version, I still have no idea what a “Wulder-father” is.
Only two words appear unchanged: he and his. Separated by more than a millennium, these two texts are barely recognisable as the “same” language. Now shall we praise the Warden of Heaven-Kingdom the might of the Measurer and his purpose work of the Wulder-Father as he of wonders Eternal Lord the beginning created Those are the first few lines of Cædmon's Hymn, a 7th-Century poem generally considered to be the oldest surviving work of English literature. Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard metudæs maecti end his modgidanc uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes eci dryctin or astelidæ ?Ĭan you read Old English writing? Here's a sample:
#OLD ENGLISH SENTENCES FULL#
Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
0 kommentar(er)
