To what extent can Old English be regarded as the same language as contemporary English?

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To what extent can Old English be regarded as the same language as contemporary English?

The English Language is a language that is continually changing, even today.  It is spoken throughout the world and there are many different varieties of English.  Many aspects of Modern English can be seen to derive from Old English; nevertheless, there are also many differences between them.  In this essay I will be looking at both the similarities and differences and the reasons for the changes in the English language.  I will then discuss whether Old English and contemporary English can be regarded as the same language.

ELEMENTS OF MODERN ENGLISH DERIVED FROM OLD ENGLISH

1.        ALPHABET

A good place to begin looking at the elements of contemporary English which have derived from Old English is the early English futhorc alphabet.  On close examination of the futhorc (Figure 2.2, p.43, Chapter 1), several letters can clearly be seen to resemble their modern day equivalent.  For example, the letters b, r, f, p, t and m.  There were thirty-one letters in the futhorc as Old English was spelt much more phonetically than nowadays.  In the seventh century the church began producing written manuscripts which resulted in changes to the futhorc.  Some new sounds were developed such as ae, $ (pronounced th) and ‘#’ (pronounced eth).  Interestingly, the letters g, j and v had not yet appeared.

2.        VOCABULARY

On examining the extract of Caedmon’s Story in the course book (p.111, Chapter 3), some similarities can be seen in the vocabulary if we alter some of the spellings to their modern day equivalent.  If you replace $ and # with th and @ with a, you can see that ‘$@t’ becomes ‘that’, ‘w@s becomes ‘was’ and ‘$is’ becomes ‘this’ (p.110, Chapter 3).’

The vocabulary of contemporary English can clearly be seen to have its roots in Old English:

  • niht        -        night                
  • @x        -        axe
  • boht        -        bought
  • le$er        -        leather
  • col        -        coal
  • ful        -        full                (Freeborn, 1998, p.29)

3.        PRONUNCIATION

If we look at the pronunciation of Old English the spelling mirrors the pronunciation.  It is spelt phonetically.  Words in different regions of England tended to be spelt in different ways depending on the pronunciation of the local dialect.  Even in contemporary English words are pronounced differently depending on the local dialect.  In Southern England ‘water’ rhymes with

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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 ...

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