OLD ENGLISH

VOCABULARY
Anastasia Dukh 321.1
Old English is the name given to the earliest recorded stage of
the English language, up to approximately 1150AD (when the
Middle English period is generally taken to have begun). It
refers to the language as it was used in the long period of time
from the coming of Germanic invaders and settlers to Britain—
in the period following the collapse of Roman Britain in the
early fifth century—up to the Norman Conquest of 1066, and
beyond into the first century of Norman rule in England. It is
thus first and foremost the language of the people normally
referred to by historians as the Anglo-Saxons.
• The full extent of the OE
vocabulary is not known to
present-day scholars. Some OE
words were lost together with
the texts that were not preserved
till our days; some colloquial
words were not used in written
texts.
• The Old English vocabulary was
mainly homogenous. Loan
words were mainly
insignificant. Ælfric’s Colloquy – a bilingual guide to
learning Latin – which was probably aimed at
noviciate monks shows the importance of Latin
in the monastic culture of the period (British
Library, Cotton MS Tiberius A III, f. 60v)
 NATIVE WORDS WERE SUBDIVIDED
INTO:
I. Common Indo-European
words.

The Common IE layer includes

words which form the oldest
part of the OE vocabulary. They
go back to the days of the IE
parent-language before its
extension over the wide
territories of Europe and Asia
before the appearance of the
Germanic group. They were
inherited by PG and passed into
the Germanic languages.
 II. Common Germanic words occurred only in Germanic
languages.

This layer includes words which

are shared by most Germanic
languages, do not occur outside
the group. This layer is smaller
than the layer of CIE words
(1:2).
CG words originated in the
common period of Germanic
history i.e. in PG when the
Teutonic tribes lived close
together. Semantically these
words are connected with nature
with the sea and everyday life.
 III. Specifically Old English words were not found in any
other languages.

This layer of native words can be defined as specifically OE, that is

words which do not occur in other Germanic / Non-Germanic
languages. These words are few…

In addition to native words OE vocabulary had some borrowings from

other languages, namely from Latin and Celtic languages.
 BORROWINGS FROM CELTIC

There were very few Celtic loan-words

in the OE vocabulary. There must have
been very little that OE tribes could
learn from Celts. Among Celtic loan-
words we may mention:

Some Celtic elements have been

preserved in geographical names.
The OE kingdoms Kent, Deira and
Bernicia derive their names from
the names of Celtic tribes. There
are many Celtic elements in place-
names:
Many place-names with Celtic elements are
hybrids:

Some names of people are of Celtic origin, too –

Arthur (noble), Donald (proud chief), Kennedy (ugly
head).
 LATIN BORROWINGS

Latin words in Old English are

usually classified into two layers.
The oldest layer words were taken
directly from the Romans before
the Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain
or from the Celtic inhabitants of
Britain through wars and trade.
Words connected with trade
indicated:
The second layer of Latin borrowings is connected with the
introduction of Christianity. This period began in the late 6th century
and lasted to the end of OE period. Numerous Latin words borrowed
during this period (five hundred years) are clearly divided into two
main groups:

Some scholarly words became part

of everyday vocabulary. They
belong to different semantic
spheres: plants: elm, lily, pine;
illnesses: cancer, fever, paralysis;
animals: camel, elephant, tiger;
clothes and household articles:
cap, mat, sack, sock.
Most Latin loan words were treated
in OE texts like native words which
means that they were already
completely assimilated.
 WORD FORMATION IN OE

According to their morphological structure OE words fell into 3

main types:
• simple words with no derivational suffixes: land,
sinʒan, ʒōd;
• derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or
more affixes:
be-ʒinnan, un-scyld-iʒ (innocent);
• compound words, whose stems were made up of more than
one root-morpheme
mann-cynn (mankind), norþe-weard (northward), fēower-
tīene (14), scir-ʒe-refa (sheriff).
• In LPG the morphological structure of a word was simplified. By
the age of writing many derived words had lost their stem-forming
suffixes and had turned into simple words.
• The loss of stem-suffixes as means of word-formation stimulated
the growth of other means of word formation.
• OE employed two ways of word-formation: derivation, word
composition.
• Derived words in OE were built with the help of affixes: prefixes
and suffixes. In addition to these principal means of derivation
words were distinguished with the help of sound interchanges and
word stress.
• Sound interchanges in the roots of related words were frequent.
Sound interchanges were never used alone; they were combined
with suffixation.
• Genetically, sound interchanges go back to different sources,
periods.
THANKS FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!