Philology 2: Introduction to Old English Language and Literature - Summary
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Course
Philology 2 (5621VPOE)
Institution
Universiteit Leiden (UL)
In this summary I have summarized all the content that has been discussed during the lectures and the seminars, focussing on the Anglo-Saxon time period.
What is Old English?
Old English is the direct ancestor of Modern English. Many similarities (vocab) between
Dutch and Old English. Different forms of ‘our’ because of cases: urne, ure, urum.
Why is Old English so much like Dutch in terms of vocab and German in terms of
cases?
Old English: Germanic language. Close to modern-day Frisian. Speakers of Old English: The
Anglo-Saxons (450-1100).
Why study Old English?
If you know Old English, you can understand Modern English.
- Irregular words are remnants from Old English.
- Silent letters (e.g. knee, knight, comb).
- Structures like ‘methinks’, ‘if I were you’, ‘rest in peace’.
Old English literature, e.g. Beowulf. Important authors studied Old English (J.R.R. Tolkien,
J.K. Rowling, etc.)
First inhabitants of Britain
Four invasions of England. Who are these invaders, when do they arrive and what do they
leave behind?
Cheddar man (ca. 7,000 BC). He belongs to the first inhabitants of Britain (cavemen,
cannibals). Remains were found (cups out of skulls, etc.). DNA still lives on in indegenous
population according to recent DNA testing.
First migration/invasion: Indo-Europeans
- Started migrating around 8,000 BC
- Reached Britain around 5,000 BC
Stone-age monuments by the Indo-Europeans were found in India and also in other places in
Europe. Stonehenge was also left by Indo-Europeans
Second invasion: Celtic tribes
- Celtic tribes reach Ireland and Britain (came from the continent) around 600- 500 BC.
- Spoke Celtic languages (e.g. Welsh, which still survives today)
The celtic tribes left a lot of place names. Britain is because a celtic tribe was known as Britos
(i.e. tattooed people). Another celtic tribe: Albion (alb-o: means white). The Alps (meaning
The Whites). Also the placename London and river Thames.
Third invasion: Romans
- Attempts by Julius Caeser in 55 and 54 BC – no success.
- Claudius succeeds in 43 AD.
,- Britain is a Roman province, 43-410 AD.
They left quite a lot.
What did the Romans ever do for us?
Houses built of stone. They made aquaducts, roman walls. They also made roads. Many of the
Roman roads are converted to the present-day motorways. A town with the name ‘chester’
you know that a Roman army pack ‘castrum’ used to be there. The Romans introduced
Christianity. They built churches. Roman was a nice place to be in.
End of Roman Britain
In c. 410, Emperor Honorius calls Roman back to Rome. The Roman troops left Britain. The
Britons were left to their own devices. They were threatened by the celtic tribes of the Picts
and the Scots and the Irish. Britons begged the Picts for help. Angeln (where the Angles
lived). Britons asked the help of the Angles. Big mistake, because the Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes come to Britain and later decide to stay because the Britons were ‘so weak’.
Conclusion
Remember the four invasions. (Romans: Hadrian’s wall)
Book Chapter 1
The Anglo-Saxons and their language
Who were they?
Anglo-Saxon: the English-speaking inhabitants of Britain from around the middle of the 5th
century until the time of the Norman Conquest. According to Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica
Gentis Anglorum the A-Ss arrived during the reign of Marian ±449. Before that time Britain
had been inhabited by Celtic language speakers. The Scots and Picts and the groups united
under Roman rule. In AD 410 the last of the Roman troops were withdrawn and the Britons
had to defend themselves. They asked Germanic mercenaries to come and fight the Picts and
Scots. These mercenaries were Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Soon they broke contract and made
an alliance with the Picts and conquered the territory now known as England.
Note that Bede’s account cannot be accepted without reservation, but it does tell us that the A-
Ss considered themselves a warrior people. The British population has kept pretty stable for
thousands of years, the rulers were often replaced but the greatest proportion of the population
remained. The A-S kingdoms converted to Christianity in the late 6th and early 7th centuries.
Most authors of this time wrote in Latin but also created an extensive body of vernacular
literature. Most vernacular manuscripts date from the late 9th, 10th and 11th century but they
already wrote in their own language starting from the early 7th century.
Where did their language come from?
The A-Ss came from Germania, a vast and ill-defined territory east of the Rhine and north of
the Danube. It was inhabited by numerous tribes which were closely related culturally and
linguistically.
Their language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. Most of the present-day
European languages come from this old language. The Germanic branch of the Indo-European
family is usually divided into 3 groups:
North Germanic: Scandinavian
East Germanic: Gothic
West Germanic: High German, English, Dutch, etc.
, High German: Modern German
Low German: English and others (was originally spoken in the low country near the
North Sea)
The language of the A-Ss came to differ from the people they left behind, this language is
called Old English.
What was Old English like?
Every language has his own repertoire of sounds, its own rules for accentuating word and its
own patters of intonation, its own way of signalling how words function in utterances. So
what makes Old English an Indo-European language, a Germanic language, a West Germanic
and Low Germanic language?
All Indo-European languages share some basic vocabulary, Latin p will for instance almost
always correspond to the EN f. All Indo-European languages add endings to words and they
all signal the function of a word in a sentence of clause by inflecting it for case.
It is a Germanic Language because of the change earlier mentioned from p to f. This is part of
the change called Grimm’s Law and affected all of the stop consonants
Unvoiced stops: p, t, k f, (unvoiced) th, x
Voiced stops: b, d, g p, t, k
Voiced aspirated stops: bh , dh , gh b, d, g
Also with Germanic Languages the stress shifted to the 1st syllable, even with prefixes unless
it was (OE) ge- (g with dot). And OE puts the accent after the prefix of verbs. The Germanic
Languages also had a simplification of the inflectional system. They have only 4 cases and the
verbs have just 2 tenses.
The Germanic Languages were also beginning to rely on a relatively fixed ordering of
sentence elements to do some of the inflectional work.
In North and West Germanic the consonant z became an r and in West Germanic it
disappeared at the end of unstressed syllables.
Low Germanic also did not have the High German consonant shift.
Low Germanic also did not distinguish person in plural Vs. Old English changed the vowel
that in other Germanic languages is represented as a (to ash).
Old English also had i-mutation (see chapter 2).
In OE only 3 vowels could appear in inflectional endings: a, e and o/u, Also there were
changes in the unaccented syllables to simplify the inflectional system.
The changes that turned OE into ME and ME into ModE were gradually.
The rules for spelling in OE was less fixed than in ModE.
The 3 vowel that could appear in inflections in OE reduced to 1 in ME.
Most case distinctions and endings added to verbs were lost while the order of words got
more fixed.
The OE vocabulary was more Germanic which changed with the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Old English dialects:
There were 4 major dialects:
Northumbrian: north
Mercian: Midlands
Kentish: Kent
West Saxon: south-west
, Most OE literature is in West Saxon but we owe most of our spelling to Mercian since that
was the language of London.
Book Chapter 2
Pronunciation
Quick start:
We reconstructed the pronunciation with what we know of Latin, comparison with other
Germanic languages and with later stages of EN also the accentuation and quantity of
syllables in OE poetry. There were 7 simple vowels a, ash, e, i, o, u and y. 2 diphthongs: ea
and eo and long vowels which made an actual difference in OE since long vowels carried a
different meaning than short ones.
OE vowel ModE word that represents old pronunciation
a father
ash cat
e fate
ea diphthong starting with ash and ending in a
eo diphthong starting with e and ending with
o/u i feet
ie sit
o boat
u fool
y German über
c cow
c dot chew
cg edge
f fox (between voiced sounds v)
g good
g dot yes (after an n sounds line angel)
h German ch (only within words or finally)
s sin (between voiced sounds z)
sc show
thorn/eth thin (between voiced sounds then)
In unaccented syllables few vowel sounds were distinguished but they were distinguishable,
so it is important to pronounce them. Extra information:
1. thorn/eth can both represent voiced and unvoiced th.
2. There are no silent consonants.
3. When written double consonants must be pronounced double or held longer
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