‘caught a’, whilst in some Northern areas ‘water’ rhymes with ‘matter’. This was probably the original pronunciation (p.114, Chapter 3).
4. GRAMMAR
On examining the Caedmon passage on page 111 of the course book you will be able to see several instances where the Anglo Saxon word order is identical to that of modern day English:
‘Caedmon sing me hw@e $wugu’ – Caedmon sing me something
‘ Hw@t scealic singan?’ – What shall I sing?
The main similarity in the grammatical structure between Old English and modern English is that both languages use a subject, verb and object. Both varieties of English also use the same verb tenses. Later, we will look at the differences between Old English and modern English syntax.
CHANGES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
One of the most significant changes in the English language since the Old English period can be found in the pronunciation of vowels. In Old English the vowels a and u which were found in words such as ‘halig’, ‘swa’, ‘ut’ and ‘hus’ have now become o and ou as in ‘holy’, ‘so’, ‘out’ and ‘house’. However, in Scotland ‘house’ is still pronounced ‘hus’, thus the link to Old English can still be heard. Vowel sounds such as those found in ‘house’ gradually became diphthongised in what became known as the ‘Great Vowel Shift’. The ‘Great Vowel Shift’ seems to have occurred partly due to an obsession with social status. To speak ‘correctly’ was seen as a sign of good social standing. These changes to pronunciation took place mostly in the South East where London was regarded as an important commercial city. The ‘Great Vowel Shift’ slowly affected other areas but, as we have discussed, some regional dialects still mirror the sounds of Old English even today.
Another significant change to the English language is found within the grammatical structure of the language. The word order, as already mentioned, was subject-object-verb in Old English, whereas in contemporary English it is subject-verb-object. If we look at the Caedmon passage on p.112, you can see the word order in the sentence:
‘$a aras he from $aem sl@pe’
which translates into ‘then arose he from that sleep’ whereas the contemporary English translation would be ‘then he arose from that sleep’.
Old English had great flexibility in its word order, whilst Modern English has a more fixed word order.
In Caedmon’s Story we can also see examples of the use of inflections in Old English, as in line 26 where ‘word’ is shown as both ‘word’ and ‘wordum’. Although the use of inflections still occurs in Modern English there were many more uses of inflections in Old English to show the use of ‘case’. Some languages today, such as Russian, still use many inflections. Nouns in Old
English were masculine, feminine or neuter and had different endings depending on whether they were used in the Nominative, Accusative, Dative or Genitive case. In Modern English nouns are not subject to case differentiations.
Another grammatical structure which no longer exists in contemporary English is the use of double negatives. Again in the Caedmon passage we can see:
‘Ne con ic noht singan’ – Not now I not (how) to sing.
Old English incorporated the use of double negatives, as do many modern languages such as Spanish. In contemporary English it would be regarded as grammatically incorrect to say ‘I didn’t light no fire’ whereas in Old English that would have been perfectly acceptable.
CAUSES OF CHANGE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
There are many different reasons for changes in a language. New words are invented as technology progresses, for example ‘email’ and the ‘internet’.
New words are also created by shortening existing words such as ‘gym’ from ‘gymnasium’ or by combining words such as ‘brunch’ from breakfast and lunch (ref: ). Teenagers tend to use words in ways which differ greatly from their original meaning such as ‘wicked’ or ‘cool’. Some of these words may disappear but others may affect the language as a whole.
I have discussed the internal history of the English language and will now move on to look at the external history of the language. People in society are themselves responsible for changes to a language. Different groups use language to define their needs and mark their own identity. When English comes into contact with other languages many changes can occur both in grammar and vocabulary.
The arrival of Christian missionaries from Rome introduced many Latin words into the English vocabulary, particularly words associated with the church. The Vikings invasion of the North East of England may have led to the loss of inflections in the English language due to the mixing of Scandinavian and English groups. Thousands of Scandinavian words were incorporated into the English language. One of the most significant is the verb ‘to be’. ‘Are’ is of Scandinavian origin (p.135, course book). The Norman Conquest resulted in the adoption of many French words into the English language such as:
Modern English French
saint - saint
duke - duc
peace - pais
clerk - clerc
(Freeborn, 1998, p.96)
Eventually, the differing dialects caused by the combining of different languages in the north and south of England became evident. The southern dialect was regarded as socially superior to the north and was eventually accepted as the standard for legal documents.
Another area where the English language was affected by contact with another language occurred in the British colonies. There, several different varieties of English were often joined together to create yet another variety of English. The language is taken through a process of dialect levelling where the language merges into one and the differences between the languages eventually disappear (p.184, course book).
The arrival of English speakers in North America and Australia resulted in new varieties of English being formed in those countries. The slave trade resulted in the creation of English pidgins and Creoles which are created when speakers of different languages try to communicate. A kind of makeshift language is developed between the different languages being used, called a pidgin. The pidgin language is then adopted by the children as their first language and becomes known as a Creole (p.208, course book).
The invention of printing also brought many changes to the English language. Printers wanted to be able to print texts that could be read by everyone. However, this was very difficult due to the number of dialects found in
England at that time. It was therefore necessary to choose one dialect for printing which eventually led to the beginning of the standardization of English.
I have discussed the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation aspects which have derived from Old English and, as one can see, there are a mixture of both similarities and differences between Old and Modern English. Overall, a great deal of Modern English vocabulary appears to be derived from Old English, but then again all languages have evolved from the same Indo-European root. It would be interesting to carry out a similar exercise looking at whether Spanish and Old English could be regarded as the same language. Perhaps there would be more similarities between those languages, particularly in the syntax and the phonetic pronunciation.
There is very little similarity between the syntax of Old and Modern English, apart from the continued use of a subject, verb and object in the sentences. Although there is some continuity in the vocabulary of Modern English I feel that overall there are more differences than similarities, especially in the basic structure and pronunciation. I feel that it is very unlikely that a speaker of Old English would be able to understand a speaker of Modern English. It is for these reasons that I suggest that Old and Modern English, although similar in some ways, should be regarded overall as different languages.
Bibliography
GRADDOL, D., LEITH, D., and SWANN, J., (eds) (1996) English: history, diversity and change, Routledge in association with The Open University (course book)
FREEBORN, D. (1998), From Old English to Standard English, MacMillan Press Ltd
Linguistic Society of America website () B Birner (ed), updated 16/04/2002
(Word Count: 1678)