earliest historical form of English From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Old English (Englisċ or Ænglisc) or Anglo-Saxon,[1] was spoken in Anglo-Saxon England from 450 AD to 1100 AD. It was spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, who came to Great Britain from what is now Germany and Denmark. Different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms spoke different dialects, but a western dialect became the main literary version. Both modern languages of England and Scotland (English and Scots) came from the language of the Anglo-Saxons.
Old English | |
---|---|
Anglo-Saxon | |
Ænglisċ, Englisċ, Anglisc | |
Pronunciation | [ˈeŋɡliʃ] |
Region | England (except the extreme south-west and north-west), southern and eastern Scotland, and the eastern fringes of modern Wales. |
Ethnicity | Anglo Saxons |
Era | mostly developed into Middle English and Early Scots by the 13th century |
Dialects |
|
Runic, later Latin (Old English alphabet). | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | ang |
ISO 639-3 | ang |
ISO 639-6 | ango |
Glottolog | olde1238 |
Old English is a West Germanic language, and developed out of Ingvaeonic, which is very different from Modern English because it is closer to German than English (its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon) with many more Germanic words, difficult grammar and complex inflections. In early centuries, it wasn’t common to be written down and even then it was in runes. After the 8th century, the Latin alphabet was used more often by churchmen like the Venerable Bede. After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, Old English was replaced by Anglo-Norman, which gradually turned into Middle English
Beowulf is written in Old English in an alphabetic script.
Languages | wordlist | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
English | apple | path | eat | tide | make | child | give | day |
Old English | æppel | pæþ | etan | tid | macian | cild | giefan | dæg |
German | Apfel | Pfad | essen | Zeit | machen | Kind | geben | Tag |
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