The English Language During the Anglo-Saxon Period

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The English Language during The Anglo-Saxon Period

Transcript of The English Language During the Anglo-Saxon Period

Page 1: The English Language During the Anglo-Saxon Period

The English Language during The Anglo-Saxon Period

Page 2: The English Language During the Anglo-Saxon Period

The Antecestor of English

Proto-Indo-European

Language:

Common ancestor of the

Indo-European languages

It was discovered by Sir

William Jones.

It is estimated that PIE may

have been spoken as a single

language around 3700 BC.

Origin:

Near the Caspian Sea.

It began spreading through

Turkey, Iran, India and most of

Europe.

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Old English:

Britons Anglo-Saxons

There is little early Celtic influence on English language.

Otherwise, Latin was very influential.

The language spoken by the Germanic peoples who migrated to

Britain was the same as that spoken by the people they left behind

on the continent.

But between the time of the migration and the appearance of the

earliest written records in the first years of the eighth century, the

language of the Anglo-Saxons came to differ from that of the people

they had left behind.

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Old English: Characteristics The vocabulary of Old English

consisted mainly of Anglo-Saxon words.

Pronunciation:stān (Old English) stone (Modern

English)fōt (Old English ) foot (Modern

English)cēne (Old English ) keen (Modern

English)hū (Old English ) how (Modern

English) Old English was fully inflected with

five grammatical cases: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and instrumental

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Old English: Characteristics It assigned gender to all nouns:

sēo sunne : the Sun was femininese mōna : the Moon was masculin

It used endings:Example, bat ("boat") (a masculine, strong a-stem noun):

•SingularNominative: batAccusative: batGenitive: batesDative: bate•Plural

Nominative: batasAccusative: batasGenitive: bataDative: batum

Old English was spelled essentially as it was pronounced. It had four forms in present tense:

Ic ride I rideū ridest you rideHē ride he ridesWē ridon we ride

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The Anchor Riddle: 8th century Often I must war against the

wave and fight against the wind. I strive against them together when, shrouded by the sea, I go to seek the earth.

My homeland is strange to me. If I become still, I am mighty in the conflict.

If I do not succeed in that, because they are stronger than me, at once with rending they will put me to flight.

They want to carry off what I must keep safe.

I defeat them in that, if my tail endures and the stones are able to hold fast against me in my strength. Ask what is my name.

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