Anglo-Saxon migration to England

The English language belongs to the Anglo-Frisian sub-group of the Low West Germanic
sub-family of the Indo-European family. Three main stages are usually recognized in the
history of the development of the English language: 1) AD 449 to 1066 or 1100- Old English
(Anglo-Saxon) Period 2) from AD 1066 or 1100 to 1450 or 1500– Middle English Period 3) 1500
AD onwards – Modern English period. These divisions are not altogether arbitrary as they
represent certain landmarks in the evolution of the English language demarcated by historical
incidents. 5th Century is the time when the Romans left Britain and the Anglo-Saxons migrated
there. 1066 AD marks the Norman Invasions and roughly in 1500 AD renaissance reaches the
English shores. In view of the simplification of accidence over the 1500 years the history of
the English language the Old English Period is called the Period of Full Inflections, the Middle
English Period, the Period of Levelled Inflections and the Modern English Period, the Period of
Lost Inflections
The history of the English language can be traced back to the arrival of the Germanic
tribes, mainly the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians to the British Isles during the 5th and
6thCenturies AD. By the 5th Century AD the Anglo-Saxons had succeeded in establishing their
power and implanting their language almost throughout England. The invaders drove the
indigenous Celtic-speaking peoples to the north and west. Up to that point, in Roman Britain
the native population is assumed to have spoken the Celtic language ‘Brythonic’ alongside the
influence of Latin, from the 400-year Roman occupation. This was quickly displaced. The
Angles were named from Angeln, the land of their origin. Their language was called Englisc
from which the word, English derives and their land Anglaland or Englaland (the Land of the
Angles), later shortened to England.
Old English
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest form of the English language that was spoken
and written by the Anglo-Saxons at least from the 5 thcentury to the 11thcentury in England.
Old English might have had around 20,000 words most of which are native words. Old
English had seven simple vowels, with short and long versions and two diphthongs and had a
sixteen consonant system. Old English had a grammar similar in many ways to Classical Latin.
It was highly inflected. So the old English period is called the period of full inflections.
Old English nouns have several declensions and had five cases. Numbers could be
either singular or plural. There were three genders and they did not necessarily correspond to
natural gender. For example, wīf 'woman' is neuter and wīfman 'woman' is masculine; sēo sunne
(the Sun) was feminine and se mōna (the Moon) was masculine. Verbs came in nine main
conjugations. Old English had a greater proportion of strong verbs (sometimes called irregular
verbs in contemporary grammars) than does Modern English. Many verbs that were strong in
Old English are weak (regular) verbs in Modern English (e.g., Old English verb help; healp, past
tense; healp/hulpon, past participle holpen versus Modern English help, helped, helped,
respectively). The weak verbs form the past tense and past participle using a suffix with a
vowel followed by -d-, which is the ancestor of the modern inflection -ed. Thus lufian (love,
shows past singular lufode.
Adjectives could be weak or strong. They along with pronouns agreed in gender, case
and number with the nouns they described. The default word order was verb-second (V-2
word order). There was no do-support in questions and negatives. Multiple negatives could
stack up in a sentence, and intensified each other (negative concord).
Old English dialects
Old English had four major dialects: Northumbrian, spoken north of the river Humber
(in northern England and south-eastern Scotland), Mercian, spoken in the midlands (in central
England); Kentish, spoken in Kent (south-eastern England); and West Saxon, spoken in Wessex
(southern and south-western England). Mercian and Northumbrian are often classed together
as the Anglian dialects. Modern English spelling, owes most to the Mercian dialect, since that
was the dialect of London. From the time of King Alfred (reigned 871-899) until the Norman
Conquest the West Saxon dialect was the dominant dialect and it soon became the official
language of Britain.
Written Old English is mainly known from this period. Most of the surviving literature
of the times has been recorded in West Saxon. The epic Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicles are examples. Nearly all Old English poetry is in West Saxon.
During the 9th Century the Vikings invaded the North and this too had a marked
influence on the language.
Old English vocabulary
The vocabulary of Old English was, of course, Germanic, more closely related to the
vocabulary of such languages as Dutch and German than to French or Latin. That is, the core
Old English word-stock was shared with the other West Germanic languages and like theirs,
was subject to the sound changes of Grimm's Law and Verner's Law.
Norse English
anger wrath
nay no
fro from
raise rear
ill sick
bask bathe
skill craft
skin hide
dike ditch
The vocabulary of Old English consisted of an Anglo Saxon base with some borrowed
words from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norse) and Latin. Many pairs of English
and Norse words coexisted giving us two words with the same or slightly differing meanings
(Examples are given in the table). To enlarge its vocabulary, Old English depended mainly on
its own resources and a few borrowings. But often an old word was applied to a new thing and
by a slight adaptation made to express a new meaning. Instead of borrowing the Latin word,
the idea of God the Creator was expressed by scieppend (one who shapes or forms), fruma
(creator, founder), or metod (measurer).
From Indo-European the Germanic languages had inherited a whole set of words along
with some prefixes and suffixes which were quite useful for forming new words. Thus we have
pairs like true (treowe) & truth (treowð) with the addition of the suffix -ðu. Derivation was
quite common: for example, with the prefix for-, as in forlorenness (utter lostness), the suffix
-end, as in wïgend (warrior) from wïg meaning war.
 Compound words were common, including as personal names: JElfred, (Elf Council -
original form of Alfred), Ætheldreda, (Noble Strength- original form of Audrey), Bretwalda (ruler
of Britain- a title for the foremost king of his time).
Other compounds were also numerous: ealdormann (nobleman– ancestral form of
alderman), séèweall(sea wall), stormsoe (stormy sea), sweordbora (sword-bearer)
A range of compounds and derivatives was created as loan translations of Latin terms,
such as tôcyme (to-come) to match Lt. adventus (advent), gôdspel (good news: the ancestral form
of gospel) to match Lt. evangelium, and þrlnnys (threeness) to match Lt. trinitas (trinity).
Now relatively few Modern English words come from Old English; but the words that do
survive are some of the most common in the language, including almost all the "grammar
words" (articles, pronouns, prepositions etc.) and a great many words for everyday concepts.
Examples are about by, from, now, these, almost, speak, friend, year, all, and, are, as etc. In fact
more than eighty percent of the thousand most common words in modern English come from
Old English. A few examples are given below;
• Nouns: cynn 'kin', hand, god, man(n), word.
• Pronouns: hē, ic 'I', mē, self, wē.
• Verbs: beran 'bear', cuman 'come', dyde 'did', sittan 'sit', wæs 'was'.
• Adjectives: fæst 'fast', gōd 'good', hālig 'holy', rīce 'rich', wīd 'wide'.
• Adverbs: ær 'ere', alle 'all', nū 'now', tō 'too', ðǣr 'there'.
• Prepositions: æfter 'after', for, in, on, under.
• Articles: ðæt 'that', ðis 'this'.
• Conjunctions: and, gif 'if'.
Old English shows kennings of a simple type, possessing just two elements. A kenning is
a type of circumlocution, in the form of a compound (usually consisting of two words) that
employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. It is a stylistic
device that describes an object through metaphors. It’s more of a compressed metaphor. E.g.
for “sea”: seġl-rād (sail-road”, swan-rād “swan-road”, bæð-weġ “bath-way”, hron-rād
“whale-road”, hwæl-weġ “whale-way”, for sun: "heofon-candel (sky-candle) or heofones ġim (sky’s
jewel).
Latin the official language of the Catholic Church, which the missionaries brought to
England, was still only used by the educated ruling classes and Church functionaries, and
Latin was only a minor influence on the English language at this time, being largely restricted
to the naming of Church dignitaries and ceremonies (priest, vicar, altar, mass, church, bishop,
pope, nun, angel, verse, baptism, monk, Eucharist, candle, temple and presbyter came into the
language this way). However, other more domestic words (such as fork, spade, chest, spider,
school, tower, plant, rose, lily, circle, paper, sock, mat, cook, etc.) also came into English from
Latin during this time, albeit substantially altered and adapted for the Anglo-Saxon ear and
tongue. More ecclesiastical Latin loanwords continued to be introduced, even as late as the
11th Century, including chorus, cleric, creed, cross, demon, disciple, hymn, paradise, prior,
sabbath, etc.
The End of Old English
The conventional dividing date of approximately 1150 between Old English and Middle
English reflects (very roughly) the period when these changes in grammar and vocabulary
begin to become noticeable in most of the surviving texts (which are not very numerous from
this transitional period). In what is often called ‘transitional English’ the number of distinct
inflections becomes fewer, and word order takes on an increasing functional load. At the
same time borrowings from French and (especially in northern and eastern texts) from early
Scandinavian become more frequent. All of these processes were extremely gradual, and did
not happen at the same rate in all places. Therefore any dividing date is very arbitrary, and
can only reflect these developments very approximately.