THE EVOLUTION OF OLD ENGLISH LANGUAGE

OVERVIEW

Languages of the British Isles (c. mid-5th century A.D.)

During the Early Middle Ages a variety of languages and dialects were spoken within the British Isles owing to the influx of Angles, Saxons, Iutae, Frisians, Franks, Danes and Irish from northwestern Europe. Broadly speaking, the British Isles gradually coalesced into two proto-nations; North Britain would became the territory of proto-Scotland and South Britain would became the territory of proto-England.

LANGUAGE in NORTH BRITAIN

In Lowland 'Scotland' a variety of Anglic language was spoken, known as Scots, (the same language was spoken in Ulster), regarded as an ancient variety of 'English' i.e. a distinct Germanic language. Scots is a contraction of Scottis (northern version of late old English Scottisc). The dialect name of this language is 'Doric'. It is designated Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Irish Gaelic (much later designated Scottish Gaelic) spoken in the Highlands of North Britain. Confusingly, Scottis came to be known as 'Scottish' i.e. the 'Irish' Gaelic of the Highlands.

The language established in Lowland south eastern Scotland was aid to be Northumbrian Old English which will be examined later when examining the language of South Britain.

In Highland 'Scotland' prevailing opinion assumes significant Irish migration during the 4th century A.D. This traditional view has been challenged by the absence of archaeological and placename evidence. At some unknown date these new settlers of Dal Riata in the west, succeeded in colonising part of the Kingdom of the Picts (later 'proto-Scotland'), displacing the indigenous Pictish inhabitants. The Irish settlers spoke Celtic Irish/Gaelic whereas the indigenous Picts, living on their ancestral land known as Alba, were speaking a variant of Celtic Common Brittonic. The territory of the old Pictish kingdom would later became the new state of Scotland. The Irish colonisers of North Britain adopted the pre-existing Pictish Brittonic name of Alba for their colony in North Britain but this Pictish name does not translate as 'Scotland', which is an Irish designation named from an Irish tribe, the Scotti. The Picts who had to leave their homeland in North Britain took with them the name of their ancestral land, Alba,  to their new settlements.

LANGUAGE in SOUTH BRITAIN

The 'English' dialects spoken in parts of South Britain (i.e. the southern part of the British Isles, prior to the creation and designation of 'England') included Northumbrian, spoken in the North of England; Mercian, spoken across the West Midlands; Kentish spoken in the South East; West Saxish spoken in the South and West, South Saxish in the south to south-east; East Saxish in the South East, adjacent to the Kentish dialect. These were all grouped under the generic cognomen of OLD ENGLISH which was somewhat imprecise in its assumptions of what properly constituted that language.

At this time the indigenous language that had been spoken throughout Britain, Celtic Brythonic, or Common Brittonic, continued to be spoken in Wales, in Cornwall, in parts of Devon, the Cotswolds and Vale of Gloucester, in central 'England' in the kingdom of Elmet adjoining Mercia, in the borderlands of the Severn Valley  (and, as indicated, 'Pictish' parts of  North Britain) and many other small pockets.

Northumbrian and Mercian were practically identical dialects of Old English.
Kentish, similar to Saxish, was spoken in East Kent/Cantaware Rīce (initially under the Kingdom of Francia), in Hampshire (in the Meon Valley) and also in the Isle of Wight. (It has been argued that an East Saxon community initially settled West Kent, before being conquered by the expanding East Kentish in the sixth century.)
Saxon/Saxish dialect of Anglo-Saxon, spoken mainly in the south and west of South Britain i.e. proto-'England'; similar to Kentish but different to 'Anglian' English spoken in the North of England and West Midlands.

Broadly speaking, the populace of Britain, (post-Anglo-Saxon influx c. A.D. 450), were speaking widely differing dialects of what came to be known as Old English i.e. 'Anglian Old English' in the north, with dialects of what might today be loosely termed  'Anglo-Saxon Old English' in the south, although it needs to be understood that there were subtle variations across the regions at different periods of time. 

Each of them is considered in turn, beginning with Anglian Old English.

OLD ENGLISH

ANGLIAN  (Ænglisc, Englisc, Onglisc)

Old English (Anglo-Saxon) as it was retrospectively named, is described as the earliest historical form of the English language spoken in England, in Ulster and in southern and eastern Scotland during the early  Middle Ages. Old English is not an ideal umbrella term but the justification for dissatisfaction may become apparent as the complex linguistic picture is pieced together from fragmentary sources.

Depending on the original source consulted - and there are around forty, many contradictory - there was an influx of tribes into Britain, exiled from 'Germany', bringing their continental language or languages with them. Presumably each of these 'tribes' carried a different dialect of a language which together constituted Old English. 

The standard historical model follows the line that what we now term 'Old English' was in fact a 'new' language that had been brought into Britain by these tribal carriers who were recorded by Bede as Angles, Saxons and Iutae (transcribed as Jutes in some sources). "From the Iutae are descended the men of Kent, and the men of the Isle of Wight, and also those opposite the Isle of Wight, that part of the kingdom of Wessex that men still (in 730) call the nation of the Iutae. From the Old Saxons came the people of Essex and Sussex and Wessex. From Anglia, the land between the kingdoms of the Iutae and the Saxons, came the East Angles, the Middle Angles, the Mercians, and all of those north of the Humber. Anglia is said to have remained deserted from that day to this". Bede subsequently mentions only the Angles into Britain.

The Ravenna Cosmography conversely records a race of Saxons from Old Saxony travelling to Britain under their prince, Anschis. 

Procopius, thought to be writing around 530 A.D., records the tribes of Britain as comprising the Frisians, the Angles and the Britons, after whom the island is named.

This influx is thought to have occurred, probably, in the mid 5th century, although the earliest literary works in Old English date only from the mid 7th century. Tribal and toponymic names in Britain, various Welsh chronicles and not a few other sources suggest a rather earlier presence hinting at a more diverse and intriguing range of linguistic inheritance, particularly when the language of the Danes comes to be examined.

Old English belonged to the northern West Germanic (North Sea Germanic) branch of Ingvaeonic languages spoken in 'England'/Englalond between the 5th and 11th centuries until the arrival of  Norman French (Old Norse and Old Northern Francian dialect, not to be confused with Old French) with William the Conqueror in 1066. Ingvaeonic languages also included Old Frisian and Old Saxon (which is also known as Old Low German, see below). The daughter languages of Old English are Anglo-Saxon and Old Frisian.

Old English is remarkably similar to Old Frisian, in fact there is a more apparent connection between Old English and Old Frisian than there is between Old English and Saxish. Old Frisian and Old English were mutually intelligible up to the 14th century (even today, scholars of Old English often find Old Frisian seems closer to Modern English because it is easier to understand). The connection between Old English and Old Frisian dates from the time when Tacitus recorded the Frisones, who inhabited a coastal region of Gaul (later becoming part of Francia) being ejected from their continental lands by Roman command, some moving to Britain (a definite presence in Kent, which was to enjoy a privileged relationship with Francia) and some to parts of Flanders (then thought to encompass an area now occupied by the Netherlands, Belgium, Northern France).

The speakers of Old English called themselves Engle (Angles), Angelcynn or Angelfolc.  This form of Old English, therefore, has been called Anglian 'English'; they  called their language Englisc. In fact, two dialects are recognised as the core of Anglian, 'English', Englisc - Northumbrian and Mercian. At a much later date these settlers named their home Englalond i.e. 'the land of the Angles'.

An example of writing in the 'Anglian' dialect of Old English is Caedmon's Hymn, the oldest recorded poem in the 'Anglian' dialect of Old English which appeared in manuscripts from the eighth century A.D.

Thus, to summarise: 

Variants of Old English were known as Anglian and Anglo-Saxon. The former, Anglian, comprised Northumbrian & Mercian; the latter, Anglo-Saxon, will now be considered more fully. 

ANGLO-SAXON

Old Saxon (Old Low German)

Old Saxon, (also known as Old Low German) also belongs to the West Germanic sub group of Ingvaeonic. The language in Britain experienced revisions and modifications, particularly during the century separating the times of King Alfred (A.D. 849-899) and Aelfric of Eynsham (c. A.D. 955-c.1010).

Modified language variants extant during this period were known as:

Anglo-Saxon describes the Old Saxon language variant/dialect spoken specifically in proto-England i.e. South Britain as opposed to the Anglian variant spoken in Mercia, Northumberland, Midlands and Kent. Anglo-Saxon ('Englished' or Anglicised Saxon). It may clarify matters if this language was thought of as New Saxon as opposed to the original Old Saxon spoken on the continent or to speak of Anglo-Saxon in contrast to Continental Saxon which would be geographically more accurate.

Anglo-Saxon was loosely organised into three major dialect sub-groups, principally geographical in distribution, coinciding with the southernmost areas of South and South-west Britain:

West Saxish dialects comprising: Alfredian West Saxish (also known as Early West Saxish (EWS) dialect; Aethelwoldian West Saxish (also known as Late West Saxish (LWS) dialect, developed by Aelfric). South Saxish dialect; East Saxish dialect.

South Seaxe/South Saxish dialect was largely spoken in what is now Surrey.

East Seaxe/East Saxish dialect was spoken in Kent, west of the River Medway. It may be pertinent to note that the East Seaxe people possessed  a unique Anglo-Saxon royal genealogy which descended not from Wodan, as did all other Anglo Saxon pedigrees, but from a deity called Seaxnet.

West Seaxe/West Saxish dialects were spoken in the South and West of Britain.

An attempt to unravel the inherent confusion in Anglo-Saxon West Saxish now follows:

In AD 824, King Egbert of the West Saxons (Alfred’s grandfather), having driven back the Mercians at the Battle of Hellendun, proceeded to unite the tribes of West Saxons, South Saxons, East Saxons and the Kentish people. In the following year, AD 825, the East Anglians made treaty with him, effectively giving rise to the realm of Saxland (de facto but not de jure). The older name of Saxland (Seaxeland) prevailed in this region prior to the name of England (Englalond).  Saxland (Seaxeland) signified the realms of King Ælfred, located south of the Thames and west of Watling Street, areas which had been excluded from Danish-occupied land, known as The Danelaw as determined by the Treaty of Wedmore (AD 878). Saxland (Seaxeland) may have included Essex. 

To the north and east of Britain, the Danes still occupied what remained of much of 'England' (i.e. the territory which later became known as England). King Alfred named the Danish-occupied territory The Danelaw; the language spoken there was known as Dano-English. It was not until AD 878 that the Saxon King Alfred defeated an invasion of southerly Danes into Saxland, led by Guthrum at the Battle of Edington. During the course of Alfred's subsequent unification of the southern countries, a time when refugees from the occupied territories of 'England' (Danelaw) fled towards the sanctuary of his Saxland and its capital at Winchester, Alfred gained the means and the momentum for standardising the language of his realm.

In the fallout from the arrival of the heathen Danish 'Great Army' (Mycel Hæþen Here), English clerics had fled from the ‘English’ lands in the north to the security of King Alfred's Saxland in the south. These fleeing clerics, who were practiced in translation as a consequence of being conversant with the Irish clerical habit of translating Latin texts into Irish language, brought with them a tradition of writing in their Old English vernacular, Dano-English.

Alfred, in command of a multilingual realm and a proven mechanism for translation, determined on having ecclesiastical and classical texts translated into a new vernacular. He actually claimed to have done this himself although in all likelihood it was done by his scholars who would have been familiar with the different dialects. The resulting language became known as Alfredian. There were thus two mutually intelligible languages spoken across southern England - Alfred’s indigenous Anglo-Saxon West Saxish (i.e. the Early West Saxish (EWS)) and his own version of Old English (referred to as Alfredian or Alfredian Old English) which everyone in Saxland would understand; that situation was maintained for about a hundred years. 

Alfredian Old English is therefore essentially different from the Old English dialects of Northumbrian and Mercian that were spoken in the North and in the West Midlands in that it shows evidence of a considerable mixture of dialects, words and grammar. One of those dialects was   West Saxish.

An example of Alfredian Old English is a translation of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae, or 'On the Consolation of Philosophy'.

Alfredian held sway for a century until Bishop Aethelwold of Winchester (A.D. 963-984) deemed that the language spoken in Winchester by the West Saxons was to become the new standard. Until the time of Athelwold, London had been a Saxish-speaking area but that language had gradually been eroded and replaced by the ‘Old English’ of the immigrants, principally the language from the East Midlands. A new standard was needed.

Aethelwold charged Abbot Aelfric of Eynsham, Aelfric the grammarian, with formulating the rules for writing a language which was to become the official language of the Engle (Angles), the Seaxe (Saxons) and the Cantaware (Kentish); the peoples who made up Saxland. 

At this stage, in addition to Alfredian West Saxish (EWS) and Alfredian Old English, there was now the Aethelwoldian West Saxish (LWS) which Aelfric used exclusively. The vernacular texts produced by Aelfric of Eynsham are therefore the best examples of Late West Saxon language.   Aelfric called this new official language of Saxland, ‘Englisc’, rather than ‘Saxisc’ ; Catherine Hills in "Origins of the English", suggests that it is no accident, "that the English call themselves by the name sanctified by the Church, as that of a people chosen by God, whereas their enemies use the name originally applied to piratical raiders".

Perhaps as a consequence, all three dialects subsequently became commonly known as ‘Old English’.

West Saxish was the official language of the south and west of the kingdom and a few prominent monasteries made their writing conform to the Winchester standard extant in the Saxish-speaking capital city (i.e. Winchester).

Aethelwoldian West Saxish (LWS) set the standard for a widespread literary form used by many of the scriptoria but particularly those of the south and west. It remained the official language of the south and west of 'England' until AD 1066.

It is notable that of the many manuscripts written in Old English, a disproportionately larger legacy of specimens written in the vernacular of West Saxish of the south and west seem to have survived the legacies of change and upheaval down the centuries. Before rushing to assume that this is certain evidence of a proportionatley greater output of specimens in West Saxish - as some scholars were wont to assume early in the history of OE study - might there be a more prosaic reason? Might the relative paucity of vernacular texts in the more densely populated kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria reflect the utterly devastating toll taken on their monasteries and scriptoria during the Viking desecrations? So thorough was the ruination of monasteries in the North of ‘England’ that few artefacts of any description, let alone manuscript specimens in any language, let alone Old English dialect forms, survived. That is not to deny the rigorous efforts of Aethelwold in forging a literary ‘classical form’ in West Saxish dialect - that is clearly evident - but to assume it represented a 'national standard', based on the evidence of remaining specimens, is at the very least, speculative. Rather than falling into that trap, is it not safer to assume that ‘absence of evidence’ does not necessarily construe ‘evidence of absence’? 

Surprisingly, although Alfredian West Saxish (EWS) was the predecessor of Aethelwoldian (LWS), it was only a partial ancestor of Aethelwoldian. It seems certain that Aethelwoldian was NOT the ancestor of Modern English, even though it is referred to as 'Old English'. It is said that "Aethelwoldian bore no more resemblence to Alfredian (Old English or West Saxish?) than Netherlandish does to High German".

When two languages meet, the influence of one language on another seems to follow the broad pattern of 'adopt' or 'adapt'. As there was little motivation for the post-conquest elite to speak 'English', the onus was on the 'English' to become bi-lingual and to adhere to the 'adopt/adapt' pattern or to stay with the status quo and forego possible preferment. There does not seem to have been pressure on the 'English' speakers under William's administration to undergo adaptation to speaking French; after all, the new administrators needed a workforce and in time the subjected society did come to speak an Ango-Norman language, of sorts.

Thus, following the Norman invasion in 1066, 'English', whether the Anglian or West Saxish variant, ceased to be the official language of ‘England’, although it continued in use for a few generations, after which the West Saxon language may have survived as unwritten dialect. A further complication for West Saxish was not just that it was under pressure from Norman French but, by the 12th century, it had been eclipsed for the most part by the Dano-English of the East Midlands. The resulting 'new' variant of Old English consisted largely of Dano-English What it was NOT was a descendant of West Saxish, furthermore, it had been deeply penetrated by varieties of French with not just borrowings but whole calqued phrases, which had replaced the earlier southern speech of London (the capital city of the Danes and the Normans).

The resulting language, the hybrid, became 'insularised' from its consitient languages producing yet another variant.

It was this new variant, developed by the Chancery and refined with an uptake of French words that were then in contemporary use in London, that became the official language known as Anglo-Norman. The old standard of the south and west, West Saxish, was then referred to as Saxon language, with Saxon words praised for being more transparent and direct than Latin and Romance words.

Anglo-Norman French was commonly used for literary and eventually administrative purposes from the 12th until the 15th century; it was spoken in the law courts, schools and universities, and in due course, by at least some sections of the gentry and the growing bourgeoise.

Ironically, the Norman 'sqeeezers' themselves became 'sqeezed' by utilising Anglo-Norman French as a literary and educational language. The hegemony of ecclesiastical Latin, the vigour and prestige of continuously-evolving continental French and the new, creative vitality that came with the new English all posed a threat to the continuation of Anglo-Norman French. The final nail in the coffin arrived with the eventual loss of territories in France, when there was no longer a requirement for maintaining the French language, that the identity of English once more began to develop, indeed, to flourish. 

In conclusion, it is frequently remarked that there is little evidence of written 'English' poetry post-conquest but this need not be surprising. Committing words to written form was usually the preserve of the Latin scholar engaged in 'worthy' endeavours whereas poetry, in the vernacular language, was performance-based and thus committed to memory as a continuation of an age-old tradition. The same principle applied to songs, they were for live performance 'in the moment', not for leisurely perusal in written form.

PROBLEMS

The differences that existed between Anglian/Englisc and Saxish, although they are fairly well recorded and minutely analysed by some modern scholars, seem to have been rather an academic backwater, in part because the official language of 'England' was Englisc rather than Saxisc. Texts in 'Anglian English' were not as numerous as the prodigious output in 'Late West Saxon' - perhaps the latter came to be a proxy for Old English owing to the vast corpus of textual material available for study. Many surviving texts contained West Saxon grammatical constructions and vocabulary.

When scholarly and academic interest was eventually aroused with the creation of new academic positions in prestige institutions, the term Anglo-Saxon was manufactured in order to geographically differentiate West Saxish dialect as it existed in Britain from the Old Saxish language of continental Saxony.

Anglo-Saxon culture and language had formerly been perceived as inferior and primitive compared to the cultural sophistication introduced by the Normans. The English language was considered to have been refined by the introduction of words from the Romance and Classical languages. The received opinion was that English was a new language unconnected to the coarse Saxon tongue; that judgement provoked a patriotic back-lash in the nineteenth century, the age of nationalism. What had been known as the Anglo-Saxon language was renamed 'Old English' with West Saxish studied as a facet of Old English. Although modern English is not descended from West Saxish, the dialect language of south and west England descended from it. That is still the case at the present day.

Inevitably there are uncertainties about the origins of Saxish; indeed, the geographical and tribal origins of the Saxons is not known, other than the certainty that they were not from Saxony.*

*The Homeric Question pertaining to folk sources may yield clues to early Saxon identity. This approach considers verse written in Old English as a source for schematic parity - in terms of metrical formulae, alliteration, oral influences - between Anglo-Saxon and Homeric epic poetry and Eddic prose.