History of the English Language

Old English (450-1066 A.D.)

• The Runic Alphabet
• Old English was first written in an alphabet called Runic, derived from the Scandinavian languages, but shifted to the Latin alphabet that was reintroduced to the land by Christian missionaries coming from Ireland.

Old English (450-1066 A.D.)

• Old English is mainly Germanic in grammar (syntax and morphology) and lexicon (words) the core of or modern English is vastly influenced by this early linguistic “DNA”

Old English (450-1066 A.D.)

• Old English vocabulary
• an Anglo Saxon (German) base
• borrowed words from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norse)
• sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die, they, their, them
• borrowed words from Latin
• street, kitchen, kettle, cup, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, martyr, candle
• surviving Celtic words (mainly place names and river names)
• Devon, Dover, Kent, Trent, Severn, Avon, Thames

• Many pairs of English and Norse words coexisted giving us two words with the same or slightly differing meanings. Examples below.

Norse	English
anger	wrath
nay	no
fro	from
ill	sick
bask	bathe
skill	craft
ski	hide
skirt	shirt
scatter	shatter
skip	shift