{"id":12203,"date":"2021-07-13T17:22:10","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T14:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/?p=12203"},"modified":"2021-07-13T17:22:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T14:22:10","slug":"history-of-change-old-english-to-medieval-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/history-of-change-old-english-to-medieval-english\/","title":{"rendered":"History of Change: Old English to Medieval English"},"content":{"rendered":"
So, what ’twere like ‘i the early 1000s? <\/em><\/div>\n
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Wait, let us rephrase!<\/span><\/div>\n
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So, what was it like in the early 1000s? <\/span>This question covers various spectrums like everyday life, customs, social norms, food, attire, etc. An easy way to know about such a long time is to go through paintings, scriptures, manuscripts, etc. <\/span><\/span>However<\/span><\/span>, it is easy said than done. <\/span>Interestingly<\/span><\/span> enough, the alphabets and sentence structure of Old English very different from what we have today<\/span><\/span>. Before we discuss that, it is important to understand what Old English was.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Where does it all start?<\/span><\/h3>\n
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\"Image
Source- Pinterest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anglo Saxons brought their language with them when they arrived in England, from northern Germany<\/span><\/span>. The language had Germanic roots and thus was parallel with the German language. <\/span>However<\/span><\/span>, the language in itself was \u2018incomplete\u2019 and \u2018unstructured\u2019 than what we have right now<\/span><\/span>. The Noun had three genders (male, female and neuter) and <\/span>was divided into<\/span><\/span>\u00a0five cases. The plurals would differ with number, tense, mood and person. There were seven categories of “strong” verbs and three of “weak” verbs. Even certain items had either a single or four plurals of three genders and five case types. The arrangement of the words was freer than now and the meaning would often twist. <\/span>While it appears very different from today’s English, many of its terms are easy to recognize if one can understand the pronunciation and the spellings<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A classic example would be <\/span>Beowulf<\/span> that contains lines like these:<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201c<\/span>Hw\u00e6t. We Gardena in geardagum,<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00feeodcyninga, \u00ferym gefrunon,<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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hu \u00f0a \u00e6\u00feelingas ellen fremedon<\/em>.<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Artwork
Source- bbc.co.uk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, what that means in Modern English is,<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c<\/span>Now! We Spear-Danes, in ages gone,<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Days of the clan-kings knew glory.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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How those princes did mighty deeds.<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Still unclear? Here is what it <\/span>really<\/span><\/span> says,<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201c<\/span>Poem begins by talking about Shield Sheafson, the great Danish King, also the founder of his royal line<\/em><\/span>. He began life as a foundling (a child left by his parents) but rapidly<\/span> grew to be powerful and formidable. All the clans paid homage to him at his funeral.<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As you can see, the language <\/span>is composed<\/span><\/span> of various unknown alphabets. Additionally, it also has very different sentence structures. Thus, understanding the poem in its true sense is difficult.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Old English To Medieval English<\/span><\/h3>\n
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\"Black
Source- Pinterest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under the leadership of William II (also, William The Conqueror), France and its provinces captured England in 1066<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>From setting the Aristocracy and the courts of justice, he declared French as the official language<\/span><\/span>. Norman-French was an elite language, followed by Latin and then, Saxon-English. However, during the next two centuries, <\/span>Anglo-Norman French mingled with Anglo-Saxon English. At last, the two languages combined and mixed their grammar and vocabulary. The church employed this combination in the Latin language<\/span>. It created the language we know as <\/span>Middle English. <\/span>Chaucer, William Langland and poet of <\/span>\u2018Sir Gawaine’s and Green<\/span> Knight\u2019s<\/span> used it in their works.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Norman legacy contributes more than 10,000 words in English. This includes many abstracts like suffixes, prefixes, adjectives and more. <\/span>Many of them deal with topics like coronations, nobility, governance, administration, justice, law, battle, warfare, art and literature<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>However<\/span><\/span>, the terms like <\/span>cyning<\/em> (king), <\/span>cwene<\/em> (queen), <\/span>erl<\/em> (earl), <\/span>cniht<\/em> (knight), <\/span>ladi<\/em> (lady) and <\/span>lord<\/span> remained unchanged<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>Also, there is a change in pronunciation from harsh, guttural English to the gentler dialect of Paris<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>For example, phrases like quit, query, quarter etc. <\/span><\/span>were spoken<\/span><\/span> in English with a known \u2018<\/span>kw\u2019<\/span> sound instead of in Parisian French <\/span>\u2018k\u2019<\/span> sound<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Even now, the changes in languages are part of human evolution. <\/span>As evident with new lingos and words after digitalization, change is part of creation itself<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>Evidently<\/span><\/span>, erasing a language is difficult as it upgrades and evolves with time.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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So, what ’twere like ‘i the early 1000s? Wait, let us rephrase! \u00a0 So, what was it like in the early 1000s? This question covers various spectrums like everyday life, customs, social norms, food, attire, etc. An easy way to know about such a long time is to go through paintings, scriptures, manuscripts, etc. However,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":12211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[293,13,11],"tags":[2450,2448,511,860,2449],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-literature-literature","category-history","category-language","tag-beowulf","tag-chaucer","tag-english-literature","tag-medieval-era","tag-old-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12203"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12287,"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203\/revisions\/12287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12203"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mozartcultures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}