An Exploration of Old English

Here's a brief school report, detailing - indeed, Old English.

I chose to study Old English, not simply because things of such old age as Old English utterly fascinate me, but also because I am deeply engrossed in the Latin language as well, and knew, on the outset, that the two were inevitably linked. Without Latin, Old English would still likely have existed, yea, too, modern English, but in a far more Germanic form: it likely would be considerably different from what we, as English speakers, have accustomed ourselves to. But the paper will explore more than this simple enigma; first will come the history of the language, followed by such information as general structure and vocabulary, and then a quick section on usage during the time of its use, especially detailing oral poetry. And, through this, I hope to relay, within five pages, as much about the Old English language as I have learned through my research.
Here shall begin the brief detailing of the history of the language. English as a whole can be broken into three segments of history – Old English, Middle English, and Modern English, the latter of which can be subdivided into Early Modern English, which is what Shakespeare used, and Late Modern English, our own dialect. Old English, also widely called Anglo-Saxon, can be dated from about ad 449 to 1066 or 1100. In fact, Modern and Old English vary to such a degree, that on occasion it is appropriate to call the languages separate, but linked by time. “Old English, a variant of West Germanic, was spoken by certain Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) of the regions comprising present-day southern Denmark and northern Germany who invaded Britain in the 5th century AD. According to tradition, the Jutes were the first to arrive, in 449. Settling in Britain, the invaders drove the indigenous Celtic-speaking peoples, notably the Britons, to the north and west. As time went on, Old English evolved further from the original Continental form, and regional dialects developed” (“English Language”). These dialects included Kentish, which was originally spoken by the Jutes, first to arrive in Britain; West Saxon, a branch of the dialect spoken by the Saxons; and Northumbrian and Mercian, which were subdivisions of the dialects spoken by the Angles. By the ninth century CE, the West Saxon became prevalent in prose and literature, influenced very likely by the influence of King Alfred, king of the West Saxons and first ruler of all of England. Such great works as the epic poem Beowulf and even contemporary elegiac were written in a mixed Mercian dialect.
Old English can truly be called a Germanic language (derived from a group of languages spoken across northwestern Europe that form a branch of Indo-European), heavily influenced by Latin; and albeit influenced by the Romans it is necessary knowledge that English, as a whole, is not a Romance language (though about 75% of its vocabulary was derived from Latin, as well as considerable grammatical sense). However, its primary grammatical concepts were derived from this Germanic sense, and give English today such things today as ambiguity in verbs and adjectives (as the genders are undefined), and verbs without declensions – ‘he walked’ are two separate words, instead of ‘walkedhe’ or ‘hewalked’. In all, Old English was far more inflected than Modern English – there were strong and weak verbs, a dual number for pronouns (such as the difference between ‘we two’ and ‘we (as a whole)’); adjectives were twice-declined, likely being masculine and feminine, depending on the gender of the noun coupled with it. Structure such as this can still be seen in modern Romance languages. Old English had something of an original vocabulary dearth. What words the language itself had coined, in other words, were few. Many proper nouns, especially those that may have described landforms, came from the language of the conquered Celts, Celtic. And ten words, three of which are cart, down, and clock, surely derived from Celtic use in Old English, and survive today. Surprisingly, the number of estimated borrowed Latin words at the time of Old English was about one hundred forty; a few were likely introduced through, again, the Celtic language, but others brought to Britain by the latter Germanic invaders, who had previously come into contact with Roman culture. Such words included not only ecclesiastical terms – altar, mass, priest, psalm, temple – but also many other of less specialized significance – cheese, wine, street. (Most Latin words spread as a result of the spread of Christianity, which fell between the end of the Old English period and uptake of Middle English – this may even have been the instigator for the change; with a new need for others beyond only the aristocrats to read such texts as the Bible a new language, or new dialect of an old language, would be needed, something easier to learn, and less difficult to pronounce; something more organized and less sloppy – for that really was what Old English was: a hodgepodge of its Germanic base and heavy Latin influence, which was very rough. Perhaps Middle English came to be a bit more organized and original.) About forty Scandinavian, or Old Norse, words were introduced into Old English by the Norsemen – Vikings – who invaded Britain periodically form the late eighth century onwards; first introduced were words pertaining to the sea, and to battle, but after these initial invasions other words were used in the Scandinavian social and administrative system: the word law entered the language, as well as the verb form ‘are’ and other such commonplace words as ‘take’, ‘cut’, ‘both’, ‘ill’, and ‘ugly’.
“Old English poetry was meant to be declaimed aloud before an audience, the poet, or ‘scop’, being both a creative and a performing artist. Accompanied by harp he would entertain the guests of his patron with tales of past deeds, battles of old and the prowess of his lord's ancestors” (Ða Engliscan Gesiþas). In this manner was history kept alive for the Anglo-Saxons. The scop had to be a master of his art, being able to recite thousands of lines from memory (the epic Beowulf alone has three thousand one hundred eighty-two lines) and no doubt poor performances would mean ridicule for the scop and the withdrawal of patronage. This is not to mean that the scop worked purely from memory, as there is evidence that the swift composition of fitting verse was also the mark of a skilled man. Old English poetry was very formulaic, with the same patterns being re-used with variations time and again. Additionally, alliteration and stress were used in the place of rhyme, which can sound strange but powerful to the modern ear. Another striking feature of Old English poetry was the use of many metaphors or ‘kennings’ for common subjects: the sea could be referred to as the ‘whale's way’, ‘gannet's bath’, ‘swan's riding’ et cetera. Unfortunately, being an almost purely oral tradition, only about thirty thousand lines of Old English poetry remain today.
Through this I have learned a fair amount about Old English, about its origins, its structure, its vocabulary, some about lyric poetry and its important role in the preservation of Old English and history for the time period, and, of course, even a little concerning Modern English. My hopes are that your reading experiences were worthwhile, and that you learned something, as a reader, quite practical and applicable to your life. Thus we reach the end of my knowledge concerning Old English.