Old English

The Old English language was used in parts of the British isles till the
end of the eleventh century. As it was a very tempestuous period of
time characterized by numerous wars and invasions the language at that
time undergone various changes and was influenced by several other
tongues. The facts that Old English used a runic alphabet and that there
are not many clear inscriptions which could be analyzed make it
difficult for linguists to describe that period of the history of
language with certainty. However, there are many findings by and large
accepted as conclusive.

The first important impact on the English
language was made by the Celtic languages and the words borrowed from
them to English. Because of the Roman invasion, however, only a few
words originating in Celtic still remain in the Modern English, but
there are also several Celtic-based place names, such as Dover, London,
Kent, and names for rivers: Thames, Avon, Exe.

Much bigger
influence on the English lexis was made by Latin, as Romans who invaded
the British isles and settled there for about half a century introduces
new laws using their language, which necessarily had to impact the local
tongue. Latin exerted its influence on the English language not only
during the Roman rule in Britain, but also long afterwards, therefore
its borrowings differed depending on the time in which they entered
English. Before the year 1000 there was a tendency to borrow words
relating to everyday issues, while after the year 1000 more words from
written sources were borrowed and those related to scholarly and
technical matters. Throughout the Latin influence also many words
relating to Christianity were borrowed: altar, monk, sacrifice, Mass,
demon, paradise and so on. Among the general words borrowed before 1000
there are: letter, plant, rose; and after the 1000: philosopher, dish,
grammar.

In the period of Old English usage there were no unified
rules of writing. Capitalization, spaces between words, punctuation as
well as line division were absent. There were some symbols in the
alphabet that are no longer used. Other signs such as e, f, s had a bit
different shape. Yet the majority of symbols are very similar to the
ones used in contemporary English. The Old English alphabet had 24
letters.

The analysis of the Old English is made on the basis of
the few pieces of literary works created at that time which survived to
our times. Although such writings need translation because of changing
meanings of words, the grammar of Old English has been thoroughly
described. It is now clear that there are many similarities between Old
and Modern Englishes, such as placing articles and prepositions before
nouns. But there are also numerous differences as in the word order
which due to the inflection in Old English was more flexible than it is
now.

Thanks to the Old English literature and poems, such as The
battle of Maldon, the sounds of Old English could be reconstructed and
accounted for. Although there are not any writings devoted solely to the
Old English phonetic system created at the time it was used scholars
found some evidence thanks to which the sound values were deducted. It
is assumed that there were not too many changes in the pronunciation of
consonants, although w (as in writan – the ancestor of write) for
example was always pronounced unlike in Modern English, but it is more
difficult to state anything certain about the vowels