The Old English period (Anglo-Saxon period)

Brief survey of each period

Chronological division in the history of the English language

The task of delimiting significant periods in any kind of history is rather difficult. Perhaps most difficult of all it is in the case of linguistic history because the changes that transform any given language from one phase to another are gradual and do not occur at the same time in all historical periods. Under normal conditions the difference between the speech of one generation and the next is very slight; only after they have been accumulated for several generations they do become perceptible. At any age there are considerable overlappings (переплетения) between old and new forms. Therefore no strict demarcation lines can be drawn between the periods and consequently any divisions are quite conventional. In language history divisions into periods are used for teaching and research purposes. In tracing the history of English it is convenient to distinguish the periods in the language development. It is customary to divide the history of English into 3 main periods:

1. The old English period extends from the arrival of the Germanic tribes in Britain in the second half of the 5th century (the year 449) to the end of 11th century (1066 – the Norman Conquest).

2. The Middle English period lasts from the 12th century (after 1066) till 1475, the year of introduction of printing.

3. The New English period from the 16th century and up to now (early new English 15-17 centuries, i.e. to the Age of Shakespeare) and Modern New English (from 17th up to now).

Although the migration of the English people from the continent of Europe took place in the 5th century, the earliest records that have come down to us are dated by the 7th century, i.e. about three centuries after the beginning of the language. For this reason the OE period is subdivided into two subperiods:

a) the so–called pre-historic (pre-written, pre-literary) period which is termed Early Old English; it lasts from West Germanic invasion till the beginning of writing (5-7 centuries). The evolution of the language in this period is hypothetical. It has been reconstructed by the comparative philology on the basis of the written evidences of other Old Germanic languages, especially Gothic, and on the basis of modern languages that developed from Old Germanic dialects or have preserved common Germanic features or the features of the parent Indo-European language (Icelandic, Lithuanian and other languages of the Indo-European family). It was the period of transition from Proto-Germanic to a written Old English. Early Old English changes marked Old English off from Proto-Germanic and from other Old Germanic languages.

b) Historic or literary period (7-11 centuries) recorded in literary documents of English. This period is known to us from the study of written monuments – manuscripts and inscriptions on the stone, on the bone and on wood (7-11 centuries: in West-Saxon dialects – end of the 9th century: 871-901, King Alfred’s translation of Latin books – Pastoral Care (Cura Pastoralis), 7 books of History against the Heathens, Consolation of Philisophy by Boethius, a Roman philosopher).

Since the Germanic settlers belonged to different tribes, their language represented tribal dialects, more or less diverse. The tribal dialects in pre-written period were used in lively communication there being no written form of the language. In written period the tribal dialects were equally intelligible in oral communication while in the sphere of writing the West-Saxon dialect gained supremacy over the other dialects(Kentish, Mercian, Northumbrian). There was no common tongue, no literary language common for the whole country.

In the OE period the area where English was spoken was rather small.

The number of English-speaking people was rather limited. English was spoken on a considerably small part of the British Isles. The rest of the territory being inhabited by the Celts, who spoke various Celtic dialects.

The Old English word stock was in the main homogenous (однородный), foreign elements were rather few.

Grammatical structure of OE was characterized by a highly developed inflexional system, the latter being especially characteristic of all English declensions and verb conjugation. The first English grammarian Henry Sweet calledthis period the period of full endings.

The peculiarities of the phonetic system in Old English are connected with unstressed vowels because any vowel could occur (встречаться) in an unstressed ending of the word.

E.g. fisc (NE fish)

	Singular	Plural
Nom.	Fisc	Fiscas
Acc.	Fisc	Fiscas
Dat.	Fisce	Fiscum
Gen.	Fisces	Fisca

Thus, unstressed vowels had their own phonemic value, i.e. the forms of words were differentiated by contrastive unstressed vowels in final position (in the ending). Unstressed vowels served to distinguish between case forms.

The Middle English Period (11 – 15 c.c.)

This period is subdivided into two subperiods:

a) Early ME that starts after 1066 and covers 12th-13th and half of the 14 centuries.

b) Classical ME which starts from the late 14th century and extends till the end of the 15th century. This period is often referred to as the Age of Chaucer. During this period English regained its position as the state and literary language and French was gradually being pushed out of all spheres of life.

In the ME period the number of the English speaking people increased. English spread almost all over the British Isles and penetrated into Ireland.

Early ME starts after 1066 and covers 12-13 and half of the 14 c.

The dialectal division of the language caused by the feudal system and by the foreign influences (Scandinavian and French) remained, the dialects being characterized as local dialects (or regional dialects) in distinction to tribal dialects of the O.E. period. The dialectal division of Present-day English owes its origin to this period of history.

Still there is no common tongue, no literary standard. The existence of French beside English (Anglo-French, Anglo-Norman) is characteristic of this period. Under Norman rule French was the official language of the country, it was also the dominant language of literature. The local dialects were mainly used for oral communication and were but little employed in writing. Towards the end of this period English began to displace French in the sphere of writing and in many other spheres of life.

ME. period was a time of great changes at all the levels of language, especially in the vocabulary and grammar.

The vocabulary was increased and enriched by a considerable number of loan words from French, Latin and Scandinavian dialects.

Grammar: the highly developed inflectional system began rapidly breaking down, this calling forth the development of the analytical forms. Grammatical changes were so drastic that by the end of this period they had transformed English from a highly inflected synthetic language into an analytical one. For the most part they affected the nominal system (noun, adjective). As a result of this the English word order became fixed and the role of syntactical means of word connection grew.

The most important change in the phonetic system in M.E. was the destruction of differences in the unstressed vowels. The O.E. unstressed vowels weakened, underwent the process of levelling fusing into a reduced, neutral vowel /ə/. Thus, the unstressed vowels lost their phonemic value. This resulted in the confusion of many O.E. grammatical forms.

O.E. Gen. sg – fisc e s > M.E. fisc e s

N./Ac pl. – fisc a s > M.E. fisc e s (fishes)

Henry Sweet called this period the period of levelled endings (период нивелированных окончаний).