Old English: Grammar, Vocabulary, and Dialects
The Old English Verb
Contrast with Present-Day English
Old English inflection has only two simple tenses: present and past. Except for one word, it had no inflectional forms for the passive. A peculiar feature of Germanic languages was the division of verbs into two classes: weak and strong (known in Modern English as regular and irregular verbs).
Strong verbs (e.g., sing) indicate tense changes by modifying their root vowel. Weak verbs (e.g., walked) change tense by adding a “dental,” sometimes an extra syllable. Weak verbs are the most common type.
Nowadays, these verbs generally have different vowels in the present tense, past tense, and past participle. Some verbs have the same vowels for the past tense and past participle (e.g., break, broke, broken), while others have identical forms (e.g., bid, bid, bid).
In Old English, the first and third-person singular past tense verbs share one vowel, while the second-person singular and all plural forms share another. Therefore, Old English verbs have four forms: infinitive, preterite singular (1st and 3rd person), preterite plural, and past participle.
Old English strong verbs are grouped into seven classes, with variations within each class (e.g., helpan-healp-hulpon-holpen).
Many Old English verbs form their past tense by adding -ede, -ode, or -de to the present stem, and their participles by adding -ed, -od, or -d (e.g., fremman [perform] has preterite fremede and past participle gefremed; libban [live] has lifde and gelifd).
In Present-Day English, practically all new verbs follow the weak form.
Dialects and General Characteristics of Old English
Four dialects existed in Old English: Northumbrian, Mercian (both sometimes called Anglian), West Saxon, and Kentish. Each had distinctive features, but they are fairly unknown due to limited records.
Kentish, the dialect of the Jutes in the southeast, has even smaller remains. West Saxon, from the kingdom of the same name in the southwest, has abundant material, forming the basis for Old English study. Most surviving manuscripts were written in this region because, with the rise of the West Saxon kingdom, its dialect became the literary standard.
General characteristics of Old English can be studied in terms of spelling, pronunciation, lexicon, and grammar.
Old English pronunciation differs from modern equivalents, especially long vowels (e.g., halig > holy). Some forms have been contracted (e.g., heafon > heaven).
Old English spelling used two characters for the Present-Day English “th” sound: þ (wiþ [with]) and ð (ða [then]). It also expressed the “a” in “hat” with the digraph æ.
Old English vocabulary is almost purely Germanic. However, much of it was lost after the Norman Conquest, replaced by Latin and French terms. Surviving terms are basic concepts (e.g., mann, cild [child], drincan [drink]). Old English vocabulary was resourceful, using compounding and derivation to express a range of concepts.
Old English grammar is fundamental. It is a synthetic language, using inflections to indicate word relationships. Nouns and adjectives theoretically have four singular and four plural cases, but not always distinct (e.g., nominative and accusative singular forms are often the same, always the same in the plural). Adjectives have separate forms for each gender. Verbs have distinct endings for person, number, tense, and mood.
Old English Vocabulary
General Features and Lexical Morphology
Old English vocabulary is characterized by its resourcefulness, blending words for new uses. Affixation creates derivatives from a single root, further expanded by compounding.
Old English uses prefixes and suffixes to form new words or modify the root idea (e.g., mod [mood] + -ig forms an adjective, which can take other suffixes).
The root can combine with other words to intensify, sharpen, or convey new meanings (e.g., mod combines with other words to indicate different mental states).
Prefixes were used in word building, particularly for verbs.
Compounding was another process. Self-explaining compounds, combining two or more native words with evident or associative meanings, are prevalent (e.g., daegred [dawn] combines daeg [day] and red). This capacity, inherited from Old English, exists in Present-Day English, though less frequently.
Old English was resourceful in poetic language, using synonyms, metaphors, and kennings (e.g., harp was glee+wood).
This resourcefulness allowed Old English speakers to express complex ideas adequately and with variety.
Origin, Position, and Periods of English
Modern English descends from dialects spoken by Germanic tribes arriving in England in the 5th century. Four dialects existed: Northumbrian, Mercian (spoken by the Angles), West Saxon, and Kentish (spoken by the Jutes). Despite centuries of separation, differences were minimal.
English belongs to the Low West Germanic branch, sharing characteristics with all Germanic languages: Grimm’s Law spirantization of voiceless stops, weak and strong adjective declensions, distinctive verb conjugation (regular form), and strong stress accent on the root syllable (causing inflection decay).
It shares features with other West Germanic languages (e.g., Dutch, Flemish), mainly phonetic changes like gemination (consonant doubling).
English has evolved through three main periods: Old English (450-1150, full inflections, synthetic language), Middle English (1150-1500, leveled inflections), and Modern English (1500-present, lost inflections).