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In general the differences between Old and Modern English concern spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar.
l A page of Old English is less familiar to our contemporaries than a page of French or Italian as some letters are not a part of current alphabet. 300000 Frisians in the north of Holland whose language has been slightly altered can read Beowulf at sight, as Charlton Laird, linguistic historian claims.
l Old English was much simpler and more reliable as every letter was distinctively related to a single sound. Long vowels of Old English have undergone considerable changes:
Old English Modern English
stān - stone
hālig - holy
gān - go
hlāf - loaf
cū - cow
hū - how
Other vowels have changed considerably as well: fōt - foot, fŷr - fire, riht - right.
l Besides these genuine changes in pronunciation there are words incomprehensible to our contemporaries due to changes in spelling:
scēap - sheep nacod – naked
spræc - speech benc - bench
sceotan – shoot cynn – kin
Considerable changes in pronunciation resulted into growing lack of correlation betweem spelling and pronunciation.
The Chaos by Gerald Nolst Trenité
800 worst irregularities in English spelling and pronunciation
Shoes, goes, does
Real, zeal
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age
War, far
Done, lone, gone, none, tone
Put, nut
Maria, malaria
Old English Vocabulary
l The Vocabulary of Old English is almost purely Germanic. A large part of the vocabulary has disappeared from the language as a result of the Norman Conquest. 85% of 30.000 Old English words died out under impact of Danes and Normans.
l 4500 Old English words survived making 1% of Oxford English Dictionary including fundamental ones known as semantic primitives: man, wife, child, brother, sister, live, fight, love, drink, eat, sleep, house etc. including most function words – in, for, but, and, at, to, on
l Old English words that survived are frequently used and denote fundamental concepts:
mann - man, wīf - wife
cild - child, hūs- house
lēaf- leaf,
gōd - good, strang - strong,
libban –live, etan -eat
l Despite its complexity Old English is not remote from current English:
scip→ship, bricg → bridge have not altered within 1000 years.
l If lexical resources are limited any language develops flexibility in bending old words to new uses and developing derivation. For example, the word mōd (mental state) meant also heart, spirit, mind.
mōdig (spirited, bold),
mōdiglīce (boldy, proudly)
mōdignes (pride)
mōdigin (to rage)
mōdlufu - affection
mōdcaru - sorrow
mōdlēof - beloved etc.
l Compounds which are immensely popular and numerous in Modern English were known in Old English, for instance:
fōtādl (gout) foot disease
ealohūs ale house
dægred (dawn) day+red
l Many words in Old-English were highly motivated:
lustfullic ‘pleasure-full’ joyful
god-spellere ‘good-message-er’ evangelist
boc-cræftig ‘book-crafty’ learned, erudite
tungol-witega ‘star-knower’ astrologer
heah-fæder ‘high-father’ patriarch
leornung-cniht ‘learning-boy’ disciple, apprentice
ingethanc ‘in-thought’ conscience
oferlufu ‘over-love’ adulation
hat-heort ‘hot-hearted’ passionate
treowyrhta ‘wood-wright’ carpenter
Cypmann ‘purchase-man’ merchant
l Derivation as a type of word-formation was practiced in Old English as well:
cyning-dom, earldom, cildhād. Prefixes un-, under-, a-, be-, mis-, ofer-, on-, out - were already known in OE.
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