The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language

by David Crystal

  The invaders were first called ‘Saxons’, but Latin writers later began to refer to them as ‘Angles’ (Angli), regardless of which tribe they belonged to. Until around AD 1000, the nation was called Angelcynn (nation of the Angles), and then Englalond (land of the Angles). The language was always referred to as Englisc (the sc spelling was used for the sound sh), and this has led to the modern name.

  During those early centuries, the name ‘Anglo-Saxon’ did not exist. This label began to be used after the Renaissance, when it referred to all aspects of the period – people, culture, and language. It is still the usual way of talking about the cultural history, but since the nineteenth century, when the history of languages came to be studied in detail, ‘Old English’ has been preferred for the name of the language. This name reflects a view which emphasizes the continuing development of the language from Anglo-Saxon times through ‘Middle English’ (see Chapter 11) to the present day.

  So do we call the language ‘Old English’ or ‘Anglo-Saxon’? If we want to stress the continuity, the points of similarity between the modern and older periods of the language, we will use the first term. If we want to stress the contrast between Anglo-Saxon and present-day culture, and the linguistic differences, we will use the second. This book is emphasizing the theme of continuity, so the chapter is headed ‘Old English’. But this mustn’t tempt us to play down the differences.

  Some features of Old English

  In fact, it is the differences which strike us most forcibly when we first encounter Old English. The language looks alien because of its distinctive spelling, there is a great deal of unfamiliar vocabulary, and there are many points of grammatical difference. On the other hand, with a relatively small amount of training, it proves possible for English-speakers to ‘translate’ Old English quite well. As we become used to the appearance of the texts, we begin to note a very large number of points of similarity. And even a word-for-word gloss of an extract (below) quickly develops in an English reader an immediate ‘feel’ for the language.

  The extract is taken from the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (Book IV, Chapter 24). It tells the story of Caedmon, the unlettered cowherd who became England’s first Christian poet, some time in the seventh century. The translation into Old English may have been made by King Alfred, in the ninth century.

  The extract is printed here in an edited form. In the original manuscript, which dates from around the end of the ninth century, there are no punctuation marks or capital letters, and there were many variations in the spaces between words. Compound words are sometimes divided differently from the way they would be today. Also, the Anglo-Saxon scribes used a number of abbreviations, to speed up the copying of manuscripts, and these have here been replaced by the full words. For example, the word ond (and) was often written with a shorthand sign 7, much as we use ‘&’ today, and this time-saver was carried through to other words – andswarede, for example, was often written 7swarede. Other graphic differences, such as the use of the runic symbol ρ (wyn) for w, and the use of 3 (yogh) for g, are also not shown in this extract, as is standard practice in editions of Old English texts.

  wæs he se mon in weoruldhade geseted oð þa tide þe he

  Was he the man in secular life settled until the time that he

  wæs gelyfdre ylde; ond næfre nænig leoð geleornode, ond he

  was of-infirm age; and never any poem learned, and he

  for þon oft in gebeorscipe, þonne þær wæs blisse intinga

  therefore often at banquet, when there was of-joy occasion

  gedemed, þæt heo ealle sceolden purh endebyrdnesse be hearpan

  decided, that they all should by arrangement with harp

  singan, þonne he geseah þa hearpan him nealecan, þonne aras he

  to sing, when he saw the harp him approach, then arose he

  for scome from þæm symble, ond ham eode to his huse. þa he

  for shame from the feast, and home went to his house. When he

  þæt þa sumre tide dyde, þæt he forlet þæt hus þæs

  that a certain time did, that he left the house of the

  gebeorscipes, ond ut wæs gongende to neata scipene,

  banquet, and out was going to of-cattle stall

  þara heord him wæs þære neahte beboden; þa he ða þær

  of which keeping him was that night entrusted; when he there

  in gelimplice tide his leomu on ræste gesette ond onslepte,

  at suitable time his limbs at rest set and fell asleep,

  þa stod him sum mon æt Þurh swefn, ond hine halette

  then stood him a certain man beside in dream, and him hailed

  ond grette, ond hine be his noman nemnde, ’Cædmon, sing me

  and greeted, and him by his name called. ’Cædmon, sing me

  hwæthwugu.’ þa ondswarede he, ond cwæð, ‘Ne con ic noht

  something.’ Then answered he, and said, ‘Nor can I nothing

  singan; ond ic for þon of þeossum gebeorscipe ut eode ond hider

  sing; and I for that from thisbanquet out went and hither

  gewat, for þon ic naht singan ne cuðe.’ Eft he cwæð,

  came, because I nothing to sing not knew how.’ Again he spoke,

  se ðe wið hine sprecende wæs, ‘Hwæðre þu me meaht

  he that with him speaking was, ‘However you for-me can

  singan.’ þa cwæð he, ‘Hwæt sceal ic singan?’ Cwæð he, ’Sing

  sing.’ Then said he, ‘What shall I sing?’ Said he, ‘Sing

  me frumsceaft.’ þa he ða þas andsware onfeng, þa ongon he

  me creation.’ When he this answer received, then began he

  sonasingan in herenesse Godes Scyppendes, þa fers

  immediately to sing in praise of God Creator, these verses

  ond þa word þe he næfre gehyrde…

  and these words that he never had heard…

  The word-by-word translation needs to be polished up, of course, before it reads acceptably in modern English. One such version of the story goes like this:

  He was a man settled in the secular life until he was of an advanced age; and he had never learned any poems. He therefore often found himself at a banquet, when there was to be a time of joyfulness, and they all had to take it in turns to sing with the harp. When he saw the harp approach him, then out of shame he arose from the feast, and went home to his house. On one occasion when he did this, he left the house of the banquet, and went out to the cattle stall, which had been entrusted to him to look after for the night. At a suitable time he settled down to rest and fell asleep. Then in a dream someone stood beside him, who hailed him and greeted him by his name, calling, ‘Caedmon, sing me something.’ Then he answered, and said, ‘I cannot sing anything; and for that reason I left the banquet and came here, because I did not know how to sing.’ The one who was speaking to him spoke again, ‘However, you can sing for me.’ Then he said, ‘What shall I sing?’ He said, ‘Sing me the Creation.’ When he received this answer, he immediately began to sing in praise of God the Creator these verses and words, which he had never before heard…

  If we look at these three versions together – the Old English, the literal translation, and the free translation – it’s possible to see some of the important similarities and differences between the language then and now.

  The spelling has an alien appearance, but this is a fairly superficial difference. Most of the strangeness is due to the use of the symbols representing sounds not present in the Latin alphabet (p. 78: þ (known as ‘thorn’), ð (now known by its Scandinavian name, ‘eth’), and æ (‘ash’). The first two had the sounds of the th letters in this and thin, and have since been replaced by th. The sound æ was mid-way between a and e – to modern ears, more like the vowel of set than of sat. If we were to replace the Old English letters by modern ones, turning pæs (p. 165) into was, pæt into that, and so on, the spelling immediately becomes less fearsome.

  The vocabula
ry presents a mixed picture. The majority of the words in the extract are closer than we might think to present-day English. The similarity is sometimes obscured by the spelling, or by the use of a prefix or suffix that has since disappeared. There would be little difficulty over recognizing singan as sing, or grette as greeted, for instance. Ondswarede is very close to answered, onslepte to asleep, and geleornode (beginning with the prefix ge-, still used in modern German) to learned. If the geprefix is dropped from geseted, we are very close to seated; geseah is close to saw; and gehyrde to heard. Most of the prepositions and pronouns in the extract are identical in form (though not always in meaning): for, from, in, æt (‘at’), he, him, his. On the other hand, some of the words look very strange, because they later fell out of use. Gelimplice, which means ‘fitting’ or ‘suitable’, has disappeared from the language, as has neata ‘cattle’, swefn ‘dream, sleep’, bedoden ‘entrusted’, and frumsceaft ‘beginning, creation’, as well as some of the ‘small’ words, like þa ‘when’ and se ‘the’. Some words begin to make sense only when we take them apart: for example, gebeorscripe seems to have nothing to do with ‘banquet’, until we see that beor is the Old English word for ‘beer’. Likewise, endebyrdnesse ‘arrangement, order’ is based on a combination of ende ‘end’, byrd ‘birth’ or ‘rank’, and the noun ending -ness. The language contains many long compound words, especially in its poetry, where the coining of vivid figurative phrases (or ‘kennings’) was a particular feature – the sea is described as a ‘whale-road’ (hronrad), a person’s body as a ‘bone-house’ (banhus), and a sword as a ‘battle light’ (beadoleoma). Unless one becomes a specialist, it is always necessary to have an Old English dictionary to hand to cope with these coinages when reading the literature of the age.

  From the point of view of grammar, the extract shows a fascinating mixture of (to modern eyes and ears) the familiar and the unfamiliar. The word order is much more varied than it would be in present-day English, but there are several places where it is strikingly similar. Adjectives usually go before their nouns, as do prepositions, articles and similar words (the, this, etc.), just as they do today. Sometimes, whole sentences are identical in the order of words – or nearly so.

  Hwæt sceal ic singan?

  What shall I sing?

  þonne aras he for scome from þæm symble

  then arose he for shame from the feast

  The main differences in word order affect the placing of the verb in the sentence. Quite often, the verb appears before the subject (especially when the sentence begins with such words as ‘then’ or ‘when’ (þa)):

  wæs he was he (= he was)

  þa ongon he singan then began he to sing (= he began)

  And the verb is also often put at the end, with the object and other parts of the sentence coming before it. This is probably the most noticeable feature of the language of the Caedmon story.

  þa he þæt þa sumre tide dyde

  when he that a certain time did

  ond hine be his noman nemnde

  and him by his name called

  In present-day English, word order is relatively fixed. The reason why the order in Old English could vary so much is that the relationships between the parts of the sentence were signalled by other means. Old English was an inflected language: the job a word did in the sentence was signalled by the kind of ending it had. Today, most of these inflections have died away (p. 23). The difference between the man saw the messenger and the messenger saw the man is now signalled solely by the order of the words. The person doing the action (the ‘subject’ of the sentence) comes first; the person receiving the action (the ‘object’) comes last. In Old English, the endings would vary. The first sentence would be se guma geseah þone bodan; the second would be se boda geseah pone guman. There are two changes to note. The word for the changes from se to þone, and the nouns add an -n ending when they change from subject to object. As a result, it is always clear who is doing what to whom, regardless of the order in which the words appear: se guma geseah pone bodan would mean the same as þone bodan geseah se guma, or any other sequence. There would be some change of emphasis, but there would be no real ambiguity.

  Getting used to the word endings is the main problem facing anyone wanting to learn Old English grammar. It is necessary to learn the different forms taken by the verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and the definite article. The irregular verbs, which change their form from present to past tense (e.g. see – saw), are a particular nuisance – as indeed they continue to be for foreign learners of modern English. There are far more irregular verbs in Old English than in the language today. But it should none the less be plain from reading the glosses to the Caedmon extract that present-day English speakers already have a general grasp of the ‘feel’ of Old English grammar. We know more of the ancestral language than we think.

  The story of Old English

  Before the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the languages of Britain were Celtic, spoken in many dialects by people who had themselves invaded the islands several centuries before. Many Celtic tribes had in turn been subjugated by the Romans, but it is not known just how much Latin – if any – was spoken in daily life in the province. When the Roman legions left, in the early fifth century (to help defend other parts of the Roman Empire), the only permanent linguistic sign of their presence proved to be the place names of some of their major settlements – such as the towns now ending in -chester (derived from the Latin word for ‘camp’, castra), and a small number of loan words, such as stræt (street, road).

  The linguistic effects of the Anglo-Saxon wars were just as clear-cut. Many Celtic communities were destroyed, assimilated, or gradually pushed back westwards and northwards, into the areas we now know as Cornwall, Wales, Cumbria, and perhaps also Scotland. Here the Celtic dialects were to develop in separate ways, resulting in such modern languages as Welsh and Gaelic. We do not know if many Celts stayed in the east and south, but if they did, they would soon have lost their identity within the dominant Anglo-Saxon society. One thing is clear: the Celtic language of Roman Britain had hardly any influence on the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. Only a handful of Celtic words came into English at the time – such as crag, combe, bin, cross, brock (badger), and tor (peak). And there are even very few Celtic place names in what is now southern and eastern England (though these are much more common in Cornwall and Devon, and of course in Wales and Scotland). They include such river names as Thames, Avon (from the word for ‘river’), Exe, Usk, and Wye. Town names include Dover (water), Pendle (pen is ‘top’ in Welsh), and Kent (whose meaning is unknown). It is possible that a number of other words of uncertain etymology may be Celtic in origin (ass, clock, and cog are among several suggested), but the total is still tiny compared with the lexical influxes of later centuries.

  There is a ‘dark age’ between the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and the first Old English manuscripts. There are a few scattered inscriptions in the language, dating from the sixth century, and written in the runic alphabet which the invaders brought with them (p. 179), but these give very little information about what the language was like. The literary age began only after the arrival of the Roman missionaries, led by Augustine, who came to Kent in AD 597. Large numbers of Latin manuscripts were produced, especially of the Bible and other religious texts.

  Old English manuscripts also began to be written. The earliest texts are glossaries of Latin words translated into Old English, and a few early inscriptions and poems, dating from around AD 700. But very little material remains from this early period. Doubtless many manuscripts were burned during the eighth-century Viking invasions. The main literary work of the period, the heroic poem Beowulf, survives in a single copy, made around AD 1000 – possibly some 250 years after it was first composed (see p. 172). Most extant Old English texts date from the period following the reign of King Alfred (849–899), who arranged for many Latin works to be translated – including the Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. But the total cor
pus is extremely small. The total number of words in the Toronto corpus of Old English texts, which contains all the texts (but not all the alternative manuscripts of a text) is only three and a half million – the equivalent of about thirty medium-sized modern novels.

  The texts which have survived come from all over the country, and from the way they are written they provide evidence that there were several dialects of Old English. There was no single system of spelling at the time. Scribes would spell words as they sounded, and these spellings suggest different accents. Thus in the south-east of the country, the word for ‘evil’ was written efel, whereas in other places it was written yfel. Hundreds of such spelling differences exist.