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Beginning and Growth
The Old English tung was the tung spoken in England from about 450 to 1150. It was born from the sundry kinds of teutonish speech brought over from northern Europe. Old English did not stay the same throughout the 700 years or so it was spoken (See Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon incoming and takeover of Britian)- from the Anglo-Saxon incomings that shaped England in the H5th to some time after the inslaught of the Normans in 1066AJ when the tongue underwent a great and startling ashaping. Throughout these early times it took some of it shape and makeup from other tungs its speakers came across, such as the Celtish tungs and the two by-leids of old Norse of the incoming Vikings, who were taking over rule of, and making themselves at home in wide stretches of land in northern and eastern England, which became known as Danelaw.
Teutonish birth
The thing bearing most weightily on the ongoing ashaping of Old English was its Teutonish wordstock, word-string makeup and stavecraft which it shared with its speechkin on the europish mainland. Some of the tung’s hallmarks were found only in West Teutonish kindred tungs to which Old English belongs, while some things were bequests from the Ur-Teutonish tung from which all Teutonish tungs are believed to have come from.
Like other West Teutonish tongues of the time Old English was fully word- wending with five stavecraft endings, being in English : the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental, which had not only endings giving one-some and many-some in number, but also an ending giving twosome in number. Old English also gave kind to all name-words, such as those that show lifeless things; as seo sunne (the Sun) was she-kind, while se mona (The Moon) was he-kind. (see Modern German: die sonne vs der Mond)
Borrowings and Loan Words from Latin
A great number of "The Learned" and folk who could read (monks, churchmen) knew well or at least knew a fair bit of Latin, which was the shared tung between folks in Europe at that time. It is sometimes possible to give an about date for the incoming of a Latin word into Old English from the kind of speech shifts they have undergone. They were at least three standout timespans of Latin’s sway upon the tung. The first happened when the Saxons were still in their homeland on the Europish mainland before they left to go to England. The second began when the Anglo-Saxons took up Christian belief and churchmen speaking Latin became many throughout the Land. The third and, by far the greatest borrowing of words founded on Latin, happened after the incoming of the Norman in 1066 AJ, when a great number of Norman French words came into the leid. Most of the “Oyl” words sprung from mainstream Latin, although a weighty stock of Norse words also came into the tung, often hiding under a Norman coating. The Norman incoming marks the beginning of the end of Old English and the coming of Middle English.
The tung was also otherwise ashaped by the turning away from the Runic staffhoard (also known as the futhorc) and taking-on instead the Latin staffhoard, Old English words were spelt as they were spoken; letters not sounded in today’s English , such as the “k” in “knight”, were sounded in Old English. Thus the sounding of the hard “c-” in cniht, the Old English word for knight. Another by-thing of spelling words as they were sounded was to make spelling fickle-- the spelling of a word would show a lot about the soundset of the writer’s by-leid and his landship, and often ways of spelling words would wend from writer to writer, and even from work to work by the same writer. Thus it could happen that the word “and” could be spelt either "and" or "ond"
Old English spelling therefore was thought to be more mixed-up than modern English spelling, although it can at least be said that it put forth truly many of the then-time sounds, while modern English at many times cannot. Most of todays’ learners of Old English firstly learn its set ways of spelling words and are only let study its spelling’s unset ways after they have mastered the tung’s sound-lore.
Old Norse and Viking sway
The second great wellspring of loanwords into Old English were Scandinavish words brought-in at the time of the Viking onslaughts in the ninth and tenth hundred years. Also, other than the great many steadnames, these words were of things of every day life, and words about the ruling of Dane law ( that is, the settlings of Viking folks, which took in wide and broad holdings all along the eastern shoreline of England and Scotland). The Vikings spoke Old Norse, a tung kindred to Old English in that both sprung from the same forbearing Ur-Teutonish tung. It is often so, that the nearby dwelling of speakers of unsame by-leids, such as that which happens at times of mootish unrest, sees the birth of a mixed tung, and one belief holds that this kind of leidish inmixing of Old Norse and Old English helped the speeding-up of the falling off of stavecraft endings in Old English. Seemingly this belief stands firm, as the shedding of many of the tungs’ case endings happened firstly in the North, and then much later in the Southwest, the landship farthest away from Viking sway. Looking beyond the truth or otherwise of this belief, the sway of Old Norse on the English tung has been deep and ongoing: giving such everyday words as sky, leg and the for-nameword they, amongst hundreds of others.
Celtish Sway
It has long been held that the sway of the Celtish tung on English has been small, calling up the small number of Celtish loanwords found in the tung. And it is true that the number of Celtish loanwords seems far less in number than loanwords from either Latin or Old Norse.
Since the 1980s years, a growing number of writers, amongst them Hildegard Tristan, have strongly held the belief that the bearing that the Celtish tung has had upon English has been underplayed. Latterly Celtic beginnings have been put forth for more and more English by-leid words. Tristan, Theo Venneman and others have put forth the belief that one can clearly see Celtish hallmarks in English wordsetting in the early times of Middle English.
By-leids
To further inravel things, Old English had many by-leids. The four main by-leidish kinds of Old English were Mercish, Northumbrish (known togetherly as Anglish), Kentish and West Saxonish. Each of these by-leids was tied closely to a lonestance kingdom on the island. Of these, and all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings throughout the C9th. The steads of Mercia and all of Kent not overrun by the Vikings became welded with Wessex.
After the welding of these unsame Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 878AJ by Alfred the Great, there is a marked falling away of other by-leids, This is not to say that they stopped being spoken; they are being spoken even to this day, as witnessed by the being of middle English byleids; and the now English By-leids later on, and in that a folk do not readily turn to other speech ways and sounds when there is only a sudden shift of mootish might.
However, most deeds we have today from Anglo-Saxon times are written in the by-leid of Wessex, Alfred’s kingdom. It seems likely that with the bringing together of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms into one, there was a need for the taking up of one tung to lesser the awkwardness of ruling folks living in the outlying steads of the kingdom. The outcome was that folk-steering deeds were written in the West Saxon by-leid. Not only this, but Alfred felt deeply about the bearing and spread of his mother tung and brought many writers to his kingdom from Mercia so that much, not then yet put into writing, could be done so. Likewise this turned out well for the Church, moreso since Alfred took steps to overbring in English holy books and deeds. And so as to keep his backing and, for the widest spread of overbrought works, the monks and churchmen working for Alfred always followed the step of writing in his tung. Alfred himself seems to have overbrought from Latin into English many Church works, one such being the well known work, “Care of Souls” written by the then Head of the Romish Church, Gregory, the First.
After the coming together of Anglish- Saxon might as one under Alfred’s leadership. along with the on-going threat of Viking inslaughts, there is little to show in writing of any further growth of by-leids other than the West Saxonish tung.
The Writings
Writings in Old English, though more in number than those in the tungs of the Europish mainland before AJ 1000 are nonetheless still very small. In his add-on writ to the 1935 after-death number of Bright’s Anglo-Saxon Reader, Dr James Hulbert writes:
In such times a great number of the writings of the Anglo-Saxons were lost. Whatever they held, how weighty they were for gaining an understanding of the writings before the inslaught of the Normans, we have no means of knowing; the few deeds and lists found in minsters do not help us, and there is nothing shown even in other lasting writings....How wasted away is the body of our writings can be shown by the well known truth that, besides a few of somewhat little standing, all lasting Anglo-Saxon scopery is held in four handwritten works.
Old English was one of the first home tungs to be written down. Some of the writings lasting from Old English times and still having great worth are Beowulf, a saga-like leeth; the Anglo-Saxon Tale, a writing down of early English yore, and Caedmon’s church song. There are also a number of lasting writings, such as speeches by Churchmens, tales about the lives of Christendom’s holymen, overbringings from the Bible, and works by early Church Fathers overbrought from Latin, law deeds, such as wills and laws, and handy works on stavecraft, healcraft, and worldlore. Still scopery is thought to be the heart of Old English writings. Although nearly all Anglo-Saxon writers are nameless, foremostly among those named are Bede and Caedmon.
The last work to be written in the tung was the English Yearbook. The tung slowly became what is known as Middle English.