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Old English

450 - 1100 AD 

Old English is also referred to as Anglo-Saxon. This is because it is the name of the two of the three Germanic tribes that invaded England. 

 

 

To get started, watch the video to the right which introduces you to some basic phrases in Old English that we use today. You will recognise how Old English sounds and the orthography (spelling system) are both very different from Modern English. 

 

 

 

 

Okay! Let's go back to the very beginning. 

In the 5th century AD, 3 Germanic tribes (the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes) invaded Britain, who spoke Celtic at the time. As a result of this invasion, most of the Celtic speaking people were pushed toward Wales, Scotland and Ireland. This is shown on the map left.

 

 

The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes all spoke relatively similar languages to each other which is what we now refer to as Old English. Therefore, through the invasion this language spread and became very common. 

 

 

If you are to look at a piece of writing from Old English, which is over a thousand years old, it would appear like a foreign language, and it is highly unlikely that you would be able to make sense of every word. This is because the English language has gone through many changes since it first was created. 

ORTHOGRAPHY OF OLD ENGLISH 

As you can see in image 1 below, there were sounds that we don't have in Modern English, and there are some that are pronounced differently or have multiple ways of expressing. 

In image 2, we can see that the alphabet is very similar to that of Modern English as we can recognise all if not most of the characters listed below. There are additions such as the letter after a but before b, yet there is no j, k, v, w or z. 

Although there are some letters missing the main difference is in the pronunciation as we heard in the above video.  

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