1. Outer history
1.1. Pre-germanic history of Britain
1.1.1. Britain's Roman villas
1.1.1.1. Some of the villas were small farms. Others were great houses. They were well built, usually of one storey, and handsomely decorated. Often they had large courtyards and spacious outbuildings – barns for storage, stables, shelter for pigs and cattle, and living space for the laborers who worked on the estate. The first villa was built here around A.D. 80 – 90. it was a house of flint and mortar with, beneath ground level, a deep room, used as grain store. The type of owner was a native farmer. Around A.D. 180, however, the villa became the home of a Roman of Mediterranean origin, a man of wealth who greatly extended the house, adding kitchens and baths and turning the deep room into a place of worship, decorated with a fresco painting of water goddesses, part of which survived. In a similarly accidental uway clues to the presence of the villas at Rudston, Yorkshire, at Bignor, Sussex, and at Chedworth in Gloucestershire were discovered.
1.1.2. Roman Twilight
1.1.2.1. In the fourth century A.D. a serious of westward migratory movements across the steppes of Asia and Europe forced the Germanic tribes nearest to the Roman frontiers into motion. At its heart we can trace the westward migration of the Huns, Mongol tribes from Central Asia. At first these Germanic tribes were allowed and even encouraged to enter the Empire, where they were absorbed and partially Romanized. Gradually the hold of the centralgovernment on outlying provinces was relinquished and one by one they were overrun by barbarian tribes who set up independentkingdoms of varying character – some largely Roman in culture and language, others almost wholly barbarian
1.1.3. The Latin language in Britain
1.1.4. The Names "England" and " English"
1.1.4.1. Latin did not replace the Celtic language in Britain as it did in Gaul. Its use by native Britons was probably confined to members of the upper classes and the inhabitants of the cities and towns. Occasionally “graffiti” scratched on a tile or a piece of pottery, apparently by the workman who made it, suggest that in some localities Latin was familiar to the artisan classes. Outside the cities there were many fine country houses, some of which were probably occupied by well-to-do natives. The occupants of these also probably spoke Latin.
1.1.4.2. 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” (Anglekin 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
1.2.1. 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 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.
1.3. Introduction of Christianity
1.3.1. 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 6th 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.
1.4. Principal written records
1.4.1. The principal written records that came to us through the centuries date from as far back as the 8th 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] 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.
2. Inner hostory
2.1. Phonetics
2.1.1. The vowels had the following characteristics features
2.1.1.1. The quantity and the quality of the vowel depended upon its position in the word. In unstressed position there were no dipthongs or long monopthongs, but only short vowels. [a]; [e]; [i]; [o]; [u]
2.1.1.2. The lenght of the stressed vowels was phonemic, which means that there could be two words differing only in the length of the vowel: pin (pin) - pīn (pain) God (god) - göd (good)
2.1.1.3. There was an exact parallelism of long and short vowels: Short: a o e u i æ y ea eo Long: ā ö ē ū ī æ ý ēa ēo
2.2. Spelling
2.2.1. The letters f,s,ò could denote voiced consonants in intervocalic positions or voiceless otherwise; the letter c was used to denote the sound [k] ( palatal or velar); the letter y denoted the sound [ý] (similar to German [ü] in the word Gemüt.
2.3. Grammar
2.3.1. Old English was a synthetic language. It was highly inflected with many various affixes. The principal grammatical means were: suffixation, vowel interchange and supplition
2.4. Vocabulary
2.4.1. Borrowings (mainly from Latin).
2.4.1.1. Borrowed words connected mainly with trade: wīn (wine); æpple (apple)
2.4.1.2. Latin words from the Romanized Celts: stræt (street), weall (wall)
2.4.1.3. Some borrowings were due to the introduction of Christianity: biscop (bishop); deoful (devil)
2.4.2. New words
2.4.2.1. Word derivation: fisc+ ere= fiscere
2.4.2.2. Word composition: sunne + dæ3 = Sunnamdæ3 (Sun+day=Sunday)
3. Dialectical classification
3.1. The Dialects of Old English
3.1.1. 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 8th and 9th 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.
3.2. Old English written records
3.2.1. 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 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.