Archaic English

In a collaboration with Lost Being

So, it's 1st November, that day of the year when we celebrate National Authors Day and this year is no different.   

So, here on this day, you're going to read about Archaic English and its Origin. So, if you are wondering what Archaic English is, let us tell you that, Shakespeare has already made you read it. So, let's have a look at its origins.  

The Anglo-Saxon language began to be called old English later in the 19th Century in England and Southern and Eastern Scotland. German tribes were traditionally known as Jutes, Saxons, Angles, and spoke  Ingvaeonic dialects, which is now the origin of Old English. The language became so dominant that it replaced the languages of Roman Britain.  

Old English had four main dialects which were associated with Anglo-Saxon kingdoms -   

1.  Mercian  

2. Northumbrian  

3. Kentish  

4. West Saxon  

Later in the old English period, West Saxon formed the basis for the modern literary standard. 

Old English was written for the first time in runes using the Futhorc which is a set derived from the Germanic 24-character Futhark and was extended by five runes that were used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds.   

A detail of the first page of the Beowulf manuscript, showing the words "ofer hron rade", translated as "over the whale's road (sea)"  

Old English is one of the West Germanic Languages. Just like other German languages, it is also very different from Modern English. Of course, it is next to impossible for Modern English speakers like us to understand it without any reference. That's why our English teachers always used to provide the text translated to Modern English whenever we read them. The National Poet of England was so profound with the archaic language that most Indians call Old English as the language of William Shakespeare. Of course, his English was not old English, but as a child, most people thought it to be. What we think to be old English in his language is actually Early Modern English. Wow! That's what we call an achievement. Just imagine, we need translations to understand early modern English, so how old could be old English.  So, Old English grammar nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and the word order is much more independent. The oldest literary pieces of Archaic English used a runic system which was replaced after the 8th century by a version of The Latin Alphabet. 

Archaic English was not static, and its usage covered a period of intense 700 years, ranging from Anglo-Saxon Settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century. To our dismay (because we love the usage of Archaic language in our texts), around 85 % of Old English words are no longer in use, but the ones which survived formed the basic elements of Modern English vocabulary.   

So yeah, there's a lot more, but we can't write an entire Wikipedia page now, because you won't read it. This post has been written in collaboration with Lost Being, check out her blog ' Unsync ' on WordPress. 

  

Information credits: Wikipedia 

Link to Unsync :

www.unsyncwritings.wordpress.com