Old English vs New English
Old English vs New
Kylie
The English language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, which also includes other languages such as German, Dutch and other Scandinavian languages. One of the branches of the Indo-European language family is the Germanic branch. Languages in this branch originate from Old Norse and Saxon, and mostly use the Latin Alphabet, due to the influence of early Christian missionaries.
The Latin language was used for a long time by the scientific establishment and the Catholic Church as their means of communication. Thus, when christianity was brought to England, the Latin alphabet was introduced to Britain and adapted into the English language. Religion was important at the time, and therefore, Latin words that were first adapted were the names of Church dignitaries and ceremonies. For this reason, modern English words such as altar, priest and angel have evolved from ecclesiastical Latin.
Also, did you know that many of the modern English words that we used everyday, are actually of Anglo Saxon origin (although pronunciations and spellings may have changed over time)? This includes the following fundamental English words: man, wife, child, son, daughter, brother, friend, live, fight, make, use, love, like, look, drink, food, eat, sleep, sing, sun, moon, earth, ground, wood, field, house, home, people, family, horse, fish, farm, water, time, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, strong, work, come, go, be, find, see, look, laughter, night, day, sun, first, many, one, two, other, some, what, when, which, where, word, etc.
Several Old English words stand out as being identical to their modern equivalents (such as he, of, him, for, and, on), while a few more are extremely similar to their Old English counterparts (eg. nama became name, comon became come, wære became were, wæs became was). Some have survived in modified form (axode (asked), hu (how), rihtlice (rightly), engla (angels), habbað (have),swilcum (such), heofonum (heaven), beon (be), etc.), but many have completely vanished from the English language (including eft (again), ðeode (people, nation), cwæð (said, spoke),gehatene (called, named), wlite (appearance, beauty) and geferan (companions)). This does not only include words, but special alphabetical characters have also disappeared, like þ (“thorn”) and ð (“edh” or “eth”), which were used in Old English for words that now contain the "th" sound.
In addition, many Old English words have disappeared, such as specific nouns that differed according to gender. Verbs had varying endings based on their number, tense, mood and person, while adjectives were also very complicated, having up to eleven forms. The modern English language has simplified greatly from Old English, perhaps because people desired simpler usages of words for easier education of language. Although there are numerous words with origins that trace back to many years ago, word order and grammar are much freer nowadays.
By comparing Old English to modern Englihsh, changes in time can affect the language used by people. Over time, words that are not used or used very rarely will gradually die out. As society's point of view towards language complexity changes, words that people deem as "too complicated" will be eliminated, or otherwise replaced by more preferred versions of them. This is to allow meanings of words to be made clearer. Undoubtedly, modern English did stem from Old English, and thus, there are still many similarities such as the examples listed above. Even though Old English looked very different from modern English on paper, once the pronunciation and spelling rules are understood, many of its words become fairly familiar to modern ears!
The Latin language was used for a long time by the scientific establishment and the Catholic Church as their means of communication. Thus, when christianity was brought to England, the Latin alphabet was introduced to Britain and adapted into the English language. Religion was important at the time, and therefore, Latin words that were first adapted were the names of Church dignitaries and ceremonies. For this reason, modern English words such as altar, priest and angel have evolved from ecclesiastical Latin.
Also, did you know that many of the modern English words that we used everyday, are actually of Anglo Saxon origin (although pronunciations and spellings may have changed over time)? This includes the following fundamental English words: man, wife, child, son, daughter, brother, friend, live, fight, make, use, love, like, look, drink, food, eat, sleep, sing, sun, moon, earth, ground, wood, field, house, home, people, family, horse, fish, farm, water, time, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, strong, work, come, go, be, find, see, look, laughter, night, day, sun, first, many, one, two, other, some, what, when, which, where, word, etc.
Several Old English words stand out as being identical to their modern equivalents (such as he, of, him, for, and, on), while a few more are extremely similar to their Old English counterparts (eg. nama became name, comon became come, wære became were, wæs became was). Some have survived in modified form (axode (asked), hu (how), rihtlice (rightly), engla (angels), habbað (have),swilcum (such), heofonum (heaven), beon (be), etc.), but many have completely vanished from the English language (including eft (again), ðeode (people, nation), cwæð (said, spoke),gehatene (called, named), wlite (appearance, beauty) and geferan (companions)). This does not only include words, but special alphabetical characters have also disappeared, like þ (“thorn”) and ð (“edh” or “eth”), which were used in Old English for words that now contain the "th" sound.
In addition, many Old English words have disappeared, such as specific nouns that differed according to gender. Verbs had varying endings based on their number, tense, mood and person, while adjectives were also very complicated, having up to eleven forms. The modern English language has simplified greatly from Old English, perhaps because people desired simpler usages of words for easier education of language. Although there are numerous words with origins that trace back to many years ago, word order and grammar are much freer nowadays.
By comparing Old English to modern Englihsh, changes in time can affect the language used by people. Over time, words that are not used or used very rarely will gradually die out. As society's point of view towards language complexity changes, words that people deem as "too complicated" will be eliminated, or otherwise replaced by more preferred versions of them. This is to allow meanings of words to be made clearer. Undoubtedly, modern English did stem from Old English, and thus, there are still many similarities such as the examples listed above. Even though Old English looked very different from modern English on paper, once the pronunciation and spelling rules are understood, many of its words become fairly familiar to modern ears!