 Old english was spoken from mid 5th century to the

mid-12th century. It was a West Germanic language

of the 5th century. The origin of the old English
started from ingvaeonic also called “Germanic of the
North Sea”. Ingvaeonic was named after a West
Germanic proto-tribe cultural group called
Ingaevones. This language was a grouping of Old
Frisian, Old Saxon and Old English. Later it
developed into Anglo- Saxon language, the language
spoken by people living in parts of modern England
and Southeastern lands of Scotland. Anglo–Saxon
was developed only after 7th century after
Christianization. It was constantly influenced by
many languages.
 Within the Germanic group the family
tree looks something like this:
 Middle English was spoken during late 11th
century to late 15th century. It developed
from the Late Old English, which was
spoken in Norman England. (1106-1154)
 During these Norman-ruled centuries in
which English as a language had no official
status and no regulation, English had
become the third language in its own
country. It was largely a spoken rather than
written language.
 Old English was not static, and its usage
covered a period of 700 years, from the
Anglo Saxon settlement of Britain in the
5th century to the late 11th century, some
time after the Norman invasion.
 EarlyMiddle English developed from
late Old English in the second half of 11th
century. It was spoken during 12th and
13th centuries. By the second half of 14th
century, it became popular as a literary
language. Finally in the 15th century the
Late Middle English started transitioning
into Early Modern English.
Old English was influenced by Latin, Norse and
Celtic. Latin influenced it in three periods, firstly,
when the Anglo-Saxons went to Britain, secondly
when the Latin speaking priests converted the
Anglo- Saxons to Christianity and lastly when the
Normans conquered England in 1066.
The second language influencing old English
was Norse; it began with the Scandinavian words
being introduced after the Vikings invaded
England in the 9th and 10th centuries.
Celtic’s major influence was mainly on syntax
and not on vocabulary.
 Middle English gradually ended the
Wessex, as the writing language and
emerged as the focal language for
writers and poets. Many regions had
their own dialects and there were variety
of different writing styles. It became
more prominent in the 14th century, in
the 12th and 13th century it was more
Anglo-Norman.
 Old English was not a monolithic
language, it had multiple variations in
different regions. It had developed from
languages and dialects of many different
tribes; each dialect was spoken by
independent kingdom. There were four
main dialects, Mercian (dialect of
Mercia), Kentish (dialect of Kent), West
Saxon and Northumbrian (dialect of
Northumbria)
 Ithad many dialects in different regions
but during 15th century, printing began
in England (1470) and the language
started becoming more standardized.

Unlike Modern English, Old English is a
language rich in morpholgical diversity.
It maintains several distinct cases:
 the nominative,
occusative, genitive, dative and
instrumental.
 Thelanguage became more like Modern
West Frisian, a Dutch related language
than the Germanic, because of its
simplification.

Old English was first written in runes, using the futhorc – a
rune set derived from the Germanic 24-character elder
futhark, extended by five more runes used to represent
Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds, and sometimes by several more
additional characters. From around the 9th century, the runic
system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule) half-
uncial script of the Latin alphabetintroduced by Irish
Christian missionaries. This was replaced by insular script, a
cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This
was used until the end of the 12th century when
continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline)
replaced the insular.
 All the letters were pronounced in Middle English there
were no “silents” but by Chaucer’s time the final “e” became
silent.
 For example, knight was pronounced [ˈkniçt] (with both the
⟨k⟩ and the ⟨gh⟩ pronounced, the latter sounding as the ⟨ch⟩
in German Knecht). The major exception was the silent ⟨e⟩ –
originally pronounced, but lost in normal speech by
Chaucer's time. This letter, however, came to indicate a
lengthened – and later also modified – pronunciation of a
preceding vowel. For example, in name, originally
pronounced as two syllables, the /a/ in the first syllable
(originally an open syllable) lengthened, the final weak
vowel was later dropped, and the remaining long vowel was
modified in the Great Vowel Shift (for these sound changes,
see under Phonology, above).
 Summary
 1.Old English was the language spoken during 5th to
mid 12th century; Middle English was spoken during
mid 11th to late 15th century.
2.Old English developed and originated from North
Sea Germanic; Middle English developed from
Wessex.
3.All the letters were pronounced in the language
and there were no silent; in the late Middle English
during Chaucer’s time silent words had started being
observed.
4.Old English had many dialects and was never
standardized; late Middle English started getting
standardized by 15th century.