Old English
 

Study Questions and Exercises

  1. What was spoken in the island we know as England before the Germanic tribes arrived? How did the English language "take over"? 
  2. Describe the basic features of Old English, providing examples to illustrate its vocabulary, grammar, and written form. 
  3. Without training, a modern speaker of English could not understand a sentence or even most words from an Old English text such as Beowulf or "The Wanderer." Why, then, do scholars call these two apparently different languages by the same name? Cite specific qualities that link Old English and Modern English. 
  4. What is a borrowing? Provide examples of English borrowings from each of the following languages: Celtic, Latin, Scandinavian. 
  5. Using the table on page 18 of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, practice pronouncing some sounds in Old English. Read aloud the riddle below the table. Did pronouncing words aloud help you to recognize them? How? 
  6. Explain the origin of "feet," "geese," and similar words. Why do they not have an "s" on the end, as most other plural nouns in English do? 
  7. Why is Old English word order so different in some cases from Modern English word order? How could speakers of Old English understand one another? Illustrate your points with examples. 
  8. If you have taken Spanish or French, compare the conjugation of verbs in one of these languages with the conjugation of Old English verbs, as illustrated at the bottom of page 21 in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. 

Bibliography

  • Crystal, David. "Old English." The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

People

  • Picts 
  • Scots 
  • Welsh 
  • Celts 
  • Romans 
  • Angles 
  • Saxons 
  • Jutes 
  • Bede 
  • Alfred the Great 
  • Vikings 

Places

  • Rome 
  • north-central Europe 
  • England 
  • Ireland 
  • Scandinavia 
  • Danelaw 

Works

  • Beowulf 
  • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 
  • Ecclesiastical History of the English People 

Terms

  • Old English 
  • Anglo-Saxon 
  • borrowing 
  • rune 
  • scribe 
  • parchment 
  • vellum 
  • ash 
  • thorn 
  • eth 
  • i-mutation 
  • nominative 
  • genitive 
  • accusative 
  • dative 
  • inflection 
  • kenning 
  • compound 
  • calque 

Chronology

43: Romans come to England 
410: Romans have left England 
449: Angles, Saxons, Jutes come to England 
597: Augustine converts English 
787-c. 1000: Vikings attack English 
c.900: literary upswing under Alfred
Written by Mark Canada, Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Pembroke

© Mark Canada, 1999

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Updated August 19, 1999 | University of North Carolina at Pembroke
© Mark Canada, 1999 | canada@sassette.uncp.edu