Old English Presentation

Old English
by ANGELINA P J
Old English
The OG English: It's the earliest form of English, spoken in England
roughly between 500 and 1100 AD.
Evolution
Old English stemmed from languages brought by
Germanic invaders like the Angles and Saxons.
Over time, it morphed into Middle English after
the Norman Conquest of 1066 introduced French
influences
Significance
Though it sounds quite different from
modern English, Old English laid the
foundation for our vocabulary and
grammar. Many common words like "day,"
"eat," and "give" have their roots in Old
English
Themes and works
Old English literature revolved around
themes of heroism, war, and paganism. The
epic poem "Beowulf" is a famous example,
showcasing these themes .
Thank You So Much
CELTIC INFLUENCE IN
OLD ENGLISH
MEGHA S NAIR
CELTIC INFLUENCE
▪ The earliest races to settle in Britain were the Iberians and Celts.
▪ Celts who settled down in the south were called Britons and hence the name Britain for the land.
▪ Even though Celts was the original language of Britain and was widely spoken in early England, it had only
little impact on the Old English.
▪ Celtic elements in Old English vocabulary is microscopic.
▪ This is because Anglo-Saxon expelled the native Britons from Central England.
▪ The Britons thus compelled to seek refuge in the hills of Wales, Scotland and Cornwall, left only few
traces of their language in Saxon tongue.
▪ Anglo-Saxons however preserved Celtic names of cities and towns, rivers and mountains, and some
words referring to natural features of landscape.
▪ Places names such as; Kent, London, Leeds,York and Cornwall.
▪ First syllable of Winchester, Salisbury, Worcester, Litchfield and Gloucester are traceable to Celtic.
▪ Rivers such as Thames, Dover, Avon and Wye preserve Celtic names.
▪ Celtic names for physical features that entered Old English include
1. Cumb ( = valley)
2. Dun ( = hill)
3. Sloh ( = a slough)
▪ Survive in place names like Ifracombe, Overcombe, Duncombe, etc.
Celtic words in Old English possible to distinguish in two groups

1. Those words which Anglo-Saxons learned through everyday contact with the Britons.
Example; Binn (basket) Crag (lake)
Bratt (cloak) Mattoe (axe)
2. Those which are introduced by Irish missionaries, mostly words connected with religion.
Example; Ancor ( = hermit)
Cursina ( = to curse)
Cine ( = a gathering of parchment leaves)
Clugge ( bell)
Dry ( magician)
▪ Many of the Celtic words did not attain permanent place in the English language. Some soon died out,
others acquired only local currency.
▪ Hence, Celtic influence remains the least of the early influences which affected the English language.
Latin
Influence in
Old English
Vocabulary
Latin words entered OE in
two phases:
• During the Roman
occupations
• Through the early Christian
missionaries
The words of the first phase were chiefly
military related and administrative terms as
well as names of essential commodities
weall (wall)
mil (mile)
win (wine)
Cheese
Butter
The suffixes –chester and –caster as in

Winchester, Manchester and Lancaster
Words that came with the Anglo-
Saxons
Devil (deofol)
Night (niht)
Angel (engel)
Latin words introduced by Christian
missionaries are naturally of religious nature
Priest
Monk
Bishop
Pope
Abbot
Cross (cruc)
Saint (sanct)
The missionaries adopted
certain native words and
used them with a new
connotation
Easter, husl (in the sense

of sacrament)
OLD ENGLISH - SCANDINAVIAN
INFLUENCE
Aleena Tom
Introduction
•Vikings, also referred to as
Scandinavians, were seafaring
raiders, traders, and explorers from
Scandinavia (modern-day Denmark,
Norway, and Sweden) during the
Viking Age, roughly from the late 8th
to the 11th centuries.
•Their presence in Britain wasn't a

single invasion, but rather a period
of raids and settlements that
unfolded over several centuries.
Scandinavian influence on English
vocabulary
•The Scandinavians were not superior to the English in terms of culture and civilization.
•The influence of Scandinavian conquest is seen in three areas:
1)Certain place names and proper names.
2)Introduction of new words of Danish origin.
3)Modification in respect to grammar and syntax

as well as pronunciation.
Scandinavian
Influence on Place
Names
Certain names of places ending in “by”, “thorp”, “beck”, “dale”,
etc. show Scandinavian influence. For example, Whitby,
Goldthorp, etc.
•This shows that a great number of Scandinavian families settled

permanently in England.
•A similar influence is observed in the case of personal names

ending in “-son” such as Gibson, Thomson, Johnson, etc.
Scandinavian Law
Terms and War
Terms
The attempt of the Scandinavians to impose their
own Danish law on England is evident from the
number of Scandinavian law terms that have
entered the language.
For instance, “law”, “by-law”, “thrall”, and

“crave” are all Scandinavian words.
As the Scandinavians were superior in military

affairs, the English borrowed from them a few
words like “orrest” (battle), “lith” (fleet), and
“barda” (a type of warship).
Scandinavian
Influence on General
Vocabulary
Though the Scandinavians were not very superior in
architecture or cooking, some words were adopted
by the English. For instance, window, steak and
knife.
1)Nouns: Among nouns that came to be borrowed were

“husband”, “fellow”, “sky”, “sister”, and “want”.
2)Adjectives: Among adjectives, there were words like

“meek”, “low”, “ill”, “happy”, “rotten”, “scant”, and
“seemly”.
3)Verbs: Common verbs were also adopted such as “call”,

“thrive”, “take”, “give”, “thrust”, and “die”.
4)Other loan words: pronouns such as “they”, “them”,

“their”, conjunctions like “though”, prepositions like “fro”,
“till” and adverbs like “thence”, “whence” and “hence
Influence on
Grammar and
Syntax
1)The -s of the third person singular, present indicative and the participle
ending is due to Scandinavian influence.
2)The final “t” in neuter adjective ending of Old Norse is preserved in words
like “scant”, “want”, “athwart”.
3)With a few exceptions (take, thrive) almost all verbs that are strongly
inflected in Scandinavian have been made weak in conjugation in English.
For example, the word die was a strong verb in Scandinavian but in English
conjugation, it has become a weak verb “died”.
4)Scandinavian nominative ending -r in nouns (byr) was dropped in English

(by).
The use of pronouns like "they," "them," and "their" can
be traced back to Old Norse, along with some
prepositions, conjunctions, and even verb tense
formations.
1)Relative clauses without any pronoun are very rare in O.E. but they
become very common in Middle English due to Scandinavian influence
.
2)The use of “shall” and “will” in Middle English corresponds to
Scandinavian usage.
3)The universal position of the genitive case before its noun is due to
Scandinavian influence, while in Old English it was very often placed
before the noun.
Conclusion
•These influences came about through centuries of
interaction between the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons.
•Raids and settlements led to people needing to
communicate, and over time, the languages began to
influence each other.
•This borrowing of words and grammatical elements
helped shape Old English into what would eventually
become Middle English.
Thank
you

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Old English

Celtic words in Old English possible to distinguish in two groups

The suffixes –chester and –caster as in

Easter, husl (in the sense

•Their presence in Britain wasn't a

•The influence of Scandinavian conquest is seen in three areas:

1)Certain place names and proper names.

2)Introduction of new words of Danish origin.

3)Modification in respect to grammar and syntax

•This shows that a great number of Scandinavian families settled

•A similar influence is observed in the case of personal names

For instance, “law”, “by-law”, “thrall”, and

As the Scandinavians were superior in military

1)Nouns: Among nouns that came to be borrowed were

2)Adjectives: Among adjectives, there were words like

3)Verbs: Common verbs were also adopted such as “call”,

4)Other loan words: pronouns such as “they”, “them”,

4)Scandinavian nominative ending -r in nouns (byr) was dropped in English

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