The Names “England” and “English”

The Celts called their Germanic conquerors “Saxons” indiscriminately, probably because they had had their contact with the Teutons through the Saxon raids on the coast. Early Latin writers, following Celtic usage, generally call the Teutons in England “Saxones” and the land “Saxonia”. But soon the terms “Angli” and “Anglia” occur beside “Saxones” and refer not only to the Angles individually but to the Teutons generally. Æthelbert , king of Kent, is styled “rex Anglorum” by Pope Gregory in 601, and a century later Bede called his history the “Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum” . in time “Anglia” became the usual terms in Latin texts. From the beginning, however writers in the vernacular never call their language anything but Englisc (English). The word is derived from the name of the Angles ( O.E.Ængles) but is used without distinction for the language of all the invading tribes. In the like manner the land and its people are early called “Anglekynn” (Angle kin or race of the Angles), and this is the common name until after Danish period. From about the year 1000 “Englaland” (Land of Angles) begins to take its place. The name “English” is thus older than the name “England”. It is not easy to say why England should have taken its name from the Angles. Possibly a desire to avoid confusion with the Saxons who remained on the Continent and the early supremacy of the Anglian kingdoms were the predominant factors in determining usage.

1.2. Anglo-Saxon Civilization

The religious beliefs of the Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons and Jutes) had reflected the primitive man’s fear of the incomprehensible forces of nature. Their highest heathen deity was Woden, the war god, since wars were so important things in those Dark Times of European history. The elements were commanded by Thor the god of thunder, Freia was the god of love and fertility, Tiu commanded the darkness. The names they gave to the week showed which day was sacred to the Sun, the Moon and the Night, and then it followed the day which devoted to the war god, then came the thunder god and after this the love goddess – appeared on the scene to restore the ravages of darkness and war and thunder, followed by Saturn the god of agriculture and merry-making, and then Sunday came again celebrating the life-giving Sun.

The Anglo-Saxons had no big cities, only scattered villages and townships that is the Lord’s house surrounded with the wattle-and-mud huts of the villages. The huts of the Anglo-Saxons were very primitive made of wood and clay, with no chimney over the open hearth but a hole in the roof to let the smoke out and to let the light in. The hearth was usually nothing more complicated than just a large flat stone in the middle of the earthen floor.

The lord’s house had a large yard with a lot of household buildings. It was protected by a stout fence supplemented by a sort of circular fortifications, or mound.

The interior of the lord’s house was that, a spacious hall where the lord had his meal with his family and did a lot of entertaining, received guests and spent a social life. The light came through the small holes in the walls covered with oiled linen. The walls were hung with bright patterned curtains, it was only a part of the hall where the lord received the honoured guests, but other walls were bare.

The hearth was nothing but a broad flat stone and the blackened roofbeams were just as much the feature of the lord’s hall. The food was very simple: salt meat, beef, pork or mutton, eaten off big dishes with no forks, but knives were used to help the fingers. Drinking was not mentioned at the early stage but it started at a much advanced society. The drinking table manners were that the Anglo-Saxons used drinking cups with rounded bottoms, to be held in the drinker’s hands until quite empty. Their drinks were mead, fermented honey, malt brewed ale. The Anglo-Saxons had learned to make wine from Romans but it was sweetening with honey because on the mainland the wine was too sour to have it.

The ladies did not stay too long at table but withdrew to their part of the hall or to their room and the men stayed to drink more until there nothing left to drink. The ladies welcomed all sorts of wandering minstrels who would sing, play or tell stories.

After feast the guests stayed to sleep in the hall on the floor keeping their weapons close by for emergencies. The family went to their chambers.

When the Anglo-Saxons came to the British Isles they brought nothing except runic writing. They had no literature, their writings were a proverb or magic formula carved upon some ornaments or weapon in runes.

Long before the introduction of Christianity and even after, the Anglo-Saxons used pagan- sounding charms. The charms were practiced not only by professional witches and spellbinders whom the Anglo-Saxons fully trusted in controlling the natural elements and the Evil Spirit, but by ordinary peasants as well.

Here are some examples of the primitive charms: “Garmund, thane of God, find the cattle and lead the cattle, and have the cattle, and hold the cattle, and bring the cattle home…”

1.3. Introduction of Christianity

The introduction of Christianity played a great role in the history of English. The first attempt to introduce the Roman Christian religion to Anglo-Saxon Britain was made in the 6^th century. In 597 a group of missionaries from Rome dispatched by Pope Gregory the Great “St Augustine’s mission” first landed on the shore of Kent. They made Canterbury their center and from that town the now faith expanded the English kingdoms: Kent, East, Anglia, Essex, Wessex and other places.

The new faith was supported from Ireland; they brought the Celtic variety of Christianity to Northumbria.

The Celts had converted to Christianity long before the Germanic tribes came to Britain, during the Roman occupation.

Less than a century practically all England was Christianized. The Christian faith and church helped the English kingdoms to unite and was the main factor in formation one centralized country. The introduction of Christianity influenced greatly the growth of culture and learning. Monasteries were founded all over the country. The openings of monasteries, influenced the education, many monastic schools were opened. Religious services and teaching were conducted in Latin.

A high standard of learning was reached in the best English monasteries, especially in Northumbria in early 8^th and 9^th centuries.

The most famous of all monasteries was the monastery of Lindisfarne, founded by Aidan who had come to Britain with the Irish missionaries, the monastery of Garrow, where the Venerable Bede, the first English historian lived and worked.

During the Scandinavian invasion the monastery at Lindisfarne was destroyed and most of Northumbrian culture came in decline at that time. English culture shitted to the southern kingdoms, most of all to Wessex, where a cultural florescence began during the reign of King Alfred (871-901). Since that time up to the end of the Old English period Wessex remained the cultural center of England with its capital at Winchester.

1.4. Principal written records of the Old English period

The principal written records that came to us through the centuries date from as far back as the 8^th century. They were written with the help of the so-called “Runic Alphabet”. This was an alphabet of some 26 letters, the shape of which is quite peculiar:

[fuθark] or [fuθork]

We have already said that it is assumed the Runic alphabet was composed by Germanic scribes in the I – III centuries AD and their angular shape is due to the material those inscriptions were made on – wood, stone, bone – and the technique of “writing” – the letters were not written but carved on those hard materials. The word “rune” meant “mystery”, and those letters were originally considered to be magic signs known to very few people, mainly monks and not understood by the vast majority of illiterate population. Among the first Old English runic inscriptions we generally mentioned two: the inscription on the so-called “Franks’ Casket” – small box made of whalebone containing a poem about it, and the inscription on the “Ruthwell Cross” – religious poem engraved on a stone cross found in Scotland.

In 7^th century the Christian faith was introduced and with it there came many Latin-speaking monks who brought with them their own Latin alphabet.

The Latin alphabet was used by the majority of the population who could read and write. It ousted the runic alphabet. Latin alphabet could not denote all the sounds in the English language, for example, the sounds [w], [θ]. For that purpose some runes were preserved – w, þ, or some Latin letters were slightly altered – ð to denote the sounds [θ], [ð] together with the rune þ.

This alphabet that is a combination of the Latin alphabet with runes and some other innovations is called “insular writing”, i.e. the alphabet typical of the British Isles. The majority of Old English records are written in this insular alphabet. The spelling in these records is on the whole phonetic and reasonably consistent, so that it is possible to learn much about the early pronunciation.

2. Dialectal classification of Old English written records

2.1. The dialects in Old English

As we have already said, the onset of invasion by the members of the four principal Germanic tribes: Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians – began about the middle of the fourth century and their conquest of Britain was completed within the next century and a half. By about AD 600 they established their separate kingdoms, the principal among them being:

• Those formed by the Angles: Northumbria (north of the river Humber), Mercia (in the center of England) and east Anglia – central eastern part of England;

• Those formed by the Saxons – mainly to the south of the river Thames: Wessex, Sussex and Essex;

• The one formed by the Jutes – Kent.

Only the Frisians did not form a separate kingdom, but intermarried with the population belonging to different tribes.

The prevailing importance of these seven kingdoms gave to the next two centuries the title Heptarchy. Gradually three of the seven – Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria – began to establish some sort of domination over their smaller neighbors. It was an important step towards the achieving the eventual unity of England. Another vital factor contributing to the unity was the introduction of Christianity in England in 597 AD, and afterwards the spread of Christianity and changes of the supremacy of this or that kingdom follows almost the same course.

The Old English dialects are generally named after the names of kingdoms on the territory of which the given dialect was spoken – the Northumbrian dialect, the Mercian dialect, the Wessex dialect, the Sussex dialect, the Kentish dialect.

Though the differences between the three types were later to assume considerable importance, they were at first slight, and records of the 8^th and 9^th centuries reveal that Englisc, as it was collectively called, had by that time emerged as an independent language. The virtually complete geographical separation of England from the Continent was a factor favoring the further development of those characteristic features that already distinguished English from its parent Germanic languages.

Among the principal Old English dialects the most important for us is the Wessex dialect, as the majority of Old English written records that we have can be traced back to that dialect. But the prominence of the Wessex dialect is also based on other extra linguistic criteria.

As it is known, efforts to unite England failed for a very long period of time, because as soon as one kingdom became great it was in the interest of the rest to pull it down. Some historians say that the reason for that was the lack of the strongest possible motive towards any union, namely, the presence of a foreign foe. Such enemy appeared in the second half of the 8^th century, when the Northmen, particularly the Danes, began their devastating raids on the isles. At the beginning of the 9^th century, when the Danish invaders destroyed in turn the dynasties of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia, Wessex was left as the sole survivor, and its leaders became the leaders of the emerging nation.

The most famous of all English kings, Alfred of Wessex, who would later come to be called Alfred the Great, came to the throne in 871 and is reputed to have been one of the best kings ever to rule mankind. He successfully fought with the Danes who by that time conquered most of eastern England and were moving southwards towards Wessex. Alfred managed to stop the Danes, although temporally, and in 878 signed a treaty with the Danish king dividing England between them.

But Alfred’s true greatness lay not in his military, but peaceful activity. He set aside a half of the revenue to be spent on educational needs, established schools where the sons of the nobility could be taught to read and write, brought in foreign scholars and craftsmen, restored monasteries and convents, published a collection of laws and enforced them. He also mastered Latin and translated many books into Anglo-Saxon and ordered the compilation of the first history book, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was continued for more than two centuries after his death. All this allows saying that even had Alfred never fought a battle, he would still deserve a place among the greatest rulers of history.

However, after the death of Alfred the Great in 901 the supremacy of Wessex gradually began to decline, and for a time, from 1017 till 1042, the throne was occupied by Danish kings.

2.2. Old English written records

Runic inscriptions

The word rune originally meant “secret”, “mystery” and they are believed to be magic. There is no doubt that the Germanic tribes knew the runic writing long before they came to Britain. The first runes were found in Scandinavia. The runes were used as letters; each symbol indicated a separate sound.

The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic one, which cannot be found in other Indo-European languages. The shape of preferred, this is due to the fact that all runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone, wood.

The number of runes in different Old Germanic languages greatly varied from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on the mainland. Runes were used only for short inscriptions on the objects in order to bestow some special power or magic on them and they were not used in writing.

The two best known runic inscriptions in England are “Franks Casket”, and “Ruth well Cross”. Both records are in Northumbrian dialect.

The first English manuscripts were written in Latin letters. The center of learning was monasteries and the monks were practically the only literate people. The religious services were conducted in Latin and the first English writings appeared in Latin letters. English scribes modified the Latin script to suit their needs: the shape of some letters was changed and new symbols which indicated the English sounds, for which Latin had no equivalents, were added.

The first English words were personal names and place names inserted in Latin texts, and then came glosses and longer textual insertions.

The first official documents were written in Latin, but later they were written in local dialects, because not many people knew Latin. Among the earliest insertions in Latin texts are pieces of poetry. Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum written in Latin in the 8 th c. contains an English fragment of five lines known as “Bede’s Death Song” and a religious poem of nine lines, “Cadmon’s Hymn” Old English poetry is mainly restricted to three subjects: heroic, religious and lyrical. Most of poetry is believed to be composed at that time when there was no writing and they existed in oral form and handed down from one generation to another.

The greatest poem of the Old English period was Beowulf, an epic of the 7^th c. As some linguists and historians Consider this epic was composed in the Mercian or Northumbrian dialect, but came to the present time in West Saxon dialect. Beowulf consists of several songs arranged in three chapters (over 3 000 lines in all). It is based on old legends about the ancient Teutons. It depicts the life and fight of the legendary hero Beowulf, some extracts of the epic describes the real historical events.

In the 10^th c. when the old heroic versus began to decline, some new poems were composed which were the picture of the real historical events. Among them were the chronicles: the battle of Brunanburh, the Battle of Maldon. They depicted the wars with the Scots, the Picts and the invaders from Scandinavia.

Old English poetry is characterized by the so-called system of versification Old Germanic alliterative verse. The structure of this verse is this: the line is divided into two halves with two strongly stressed syllables in each half and is bound together by the use of the same sound at the beginning of two stressed syllables in the line. The lines are not rhymed and the number of the syllables in a line is pee.

There is another specification in Old English poetry: the use of metaphorical phrases as hēapu-swāt – “war sweat” (blood). The greatest written monument of the Anglo-Saxon poetry of that time was the poem “Beowulf” that was created early in the 7^th century and had 3182 lines full not only of masterful descriptions and dignified speeches but also of fine lyrical feeling which is in keeping with the whole body of early Anglo-Saxon poetry.

The plot is simple enough: in the first part of the poem Beowulf, a young hero of the Geats (a tribe that lived in the southern part of Sweden), hears of a sea monster Grendel preying upon Hrothgar the king of the Danes killing his warriors right after their feast in the “middle hall” called Heorot. So he goes with his men to kill this monster and free the Danes from the terror of the monster. He mortally wounds him in the single combat with his bare hands and then kills another, who is more terrible and much stronger than the first. It is Grendel’s mother who wants to take revenge upon Beowulf and the people for her son’s death. Beowulf kills the second monster in her cave with the magic sword that he wrests from the enemy. The poem symbolized a triumph of human courage over the hostile forces of nature.

The second part of the poem greatly influenced by Christianity after its introduction into the early Germanic society tells about Beowulf where he is an aged king an ideal king of the tribal society who peacefully and wisely rules the Danes. At that time appears a fire-breathing monster that hoards the gold and a plenty of treasure in a cave and becomes a grave menace for people. Gold is shown here as a force which threatens the tribal society, that brings discord and destruction. Desire of gold is the root of all evil and Beowulf dies protecting his people from the great menace of gold which is implied in the image of this monster.

Literary critics highly appreciate the aesthetic quality of “Beowulf” considering it to be the masterpiece of the old Germanic prose. Some of them think that this poem was written by one author, probably acquainted with the traditions of the Latin epic narrative. They concluded it on the bases of comparisons which were made on Virgil’s “Aeneid”. There was another opposite opinion, classifying the poem as a sort of synthesis of the Germanic epics and the topic of the Biblical stories, treating Grendel as a descendant of Cain and making allusions to the struggle of God and Satana in connection with hero’s struggle against evil forces.

The earliest sample of prose works are: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles which are of no great importance as a literary work but are of great interest for the linguists because they were written in spoken language and they are much better than sophisticated Translations from Latin.

The flourishing of learning and literature began in the times of reign of King Alfred. He was a learned man and realized that culture hat to be developed in mother tongue. He translated from Latin books on geography, history, philosophy. One of his most important contributions is the West Saxon version of Orosius’s World History (Historiarum Adversus paganos Libri Septem “Seven books of history against the heathens”). This is the description where the Germanic languages were spoken, the story of two voyages which were made one by Ohthere, a Norwegian, who sailed along the coast of Scandinavia into the Write Sea and the other Wulfstan, a Dane, who had traveled round the Baltic Sea. Another work is book for instructions for priests Pastoral Care (Cura Pastoralis) by Pope Gregory the Great.

Another outstanding writer of the Old English period was Aelfric who created the alliterative prose work “The Lives of the saints”. He was the first to translate from Latin some parts of the Holy Bible. He was known also as educator he wrote a Latin Grammar giving Old English equivalents of Latin forms and constructions.

Wulfstan was the prominent late West Saxon author, was an Archbishop of York in the early 11^th c.

2. Inner history

During the period the language was developing very slowly.

3.1. Phonetics

The phonetics of the Old English period was characterized by a system of dynamic stress. The fixed stress fell on the first root syllable.

agāne (gone); зesēon (see); зaderian (gather)

The vowels had the following characteristic features:

a) the quantity and the quality of the vowel depended upon its position in the word. Under stress any vowel could be found, but in unstressed position there were no diphthongs or long monophthongs, but only short vowels [a], [e], [i], [o], [u].

b) The length of the stressed vowels (monophthongs and diphthongs) was phonemic, which means that there could be two words differing only in the length of the vowel:

metan (to meet, to measure) – mētan (to meet)

pin (pin) – pīn (pain)

God (god) – gōd (good)

ful (full) – fūl (foul)

c) There was an exact parallelism of long and short vowels:

Short: a o e u i æ y ea eo

Long: ā ō ē ū ī ǽ ý ēo ēa

The consonants were few. Some of the modern sounds were non-existent ([∫], [з], [t∫], [dз]).

The quality of the consonant very much depended on its position in the word, especially the resonance (voiced and voiceless sounds: hlāf [f] (loaf) – hālord [v] (lord, “bread-keeper”) and articulation (palatal and velar sounds: climban [k] (to climb) – cild [k’] (child)), etc.

3.2. Spelling

The Old English spelling was mainly phonetic, i.e. each letter as a rule denoted one sound in every environment. Note should be taken that the letters f, s, þ, ð could denote voiced consonants in intervocalic positions or voicless otherwise; the letter c was used to denote the sound [k] (palatal or velar); the letter y denoted the sound [ÿ] (similar to German [ü in the word Gemüt or in Russian [ю] in the word “бюро”).

The letter з could denote three different sounds:

[j] – before or after front vowels [æ], [e], [i]:

Зiefan (give), Зēar (year), dæз (year)

[γ] – after back vowels [a], [o], [u] and consonants [l] and [r]:

Dæзas (days), folзian (follow)

[g] – before consonants and before back vowels [a], [o], [u]:

Зōd (good), зlēo (glee)

3.3. Grammar

Old English was a synthetic language (the lexical and grammatical notions of the word were contained in one unit). It was highly inflected, with many various affixes. The principal grammatical means were suffixation, vowel interchange and supplition.

Suffixation:

Ic cēpe (I keep) – þu cēpst (you keep) – he cēpð (he keeps)

Vowel interchange:

wrītan (to write) – Ic wrāt (I wrote)

Supplition:

зān (to go) – ēode (went)

bēon (to be) – Ic eom (I am)

þu eart (you are)

he is (he is)

There was no fixed word-order in old English, the order of the words in the sentence being relatively free.

3.4. Vocabulary

Almost all of it was composed of native words, there were very borrowings.

Borrowings were mainly from Latin:

a) The forefathers of English, when on the Continent, had contacts with the Roman Empire and borrowed words connected mainly with trade:

cīese (cheese), wīn (wine), æpple (apple)

b) They borrowed Latin words from the Romanized Celts:

stræt (street), weall (wall), myln (mill)

c) Some borrowings were due to the introduction of Christianity:

biscop (bishop), deoful (devil), munic (monk)

New words appeared as a result of two processes:

a) word derivation:

fisc+ere = fiscere (fish – fisher)

wulle+en = wyllen (wool – woolen)

clæne+s+ian = clæsian (clean – to cleanse)

b) word composition:

sunne+dæз = Sunnandæз (sun + day = Sunday)

Mōna+dæз = Mōnandæз (moon + day = Monday)