# Old English



## ayed

Hello, folks.I hope all of you are very well.

I know there are three old major English dialects: Anglian, Kentish and West Saxon. The latter is said to have been only the literary dialect, if I'm not mistaken.


My questions are:
1. Have all three dialects survived to the present day?
2. What features do they have in common?
3. Is the West Saxon still considered a literary dialect? 
 
 
My regards and thanks in advance..
 
Ayed​


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## sokol

Hello Ayed,

I have the impression that you intuitively apply, and transfer, the history of your native language to English; it doesn't quite work like that. 

None of those dialects has survived to the day, none of them is still considered a literary dialect (and none has been for centuries), and as this is a 'no' to question 1) and 3) the answering of question 2) really would be pointless in this context (interesting to those who try to compare and relate ancient dialects to each other, but of no real relevance to literature language and status of certain varieties as 'culture dialects').

In Arabic, as I understand it, Modern Standard Arabic is considered both something of a 'literary dialect' (not really used in everyday conversation anymore) as well as a variety of higher status, both because it is the language of the Quran and the language of higher education.
No such situation exists in English.

If anything then you could *very remotely* compare Shakespearean English to MSA, inasmuch as it is still read marginally in its original form (English native speakers might object - I have no idea to which degree this is still true ), but more so as some (a very few) 'pieces of Shakespearean' are still used very marginally in modern English, be it as direct quotes of Shakespeare or as isolated phrases.
Quotes like "I am not bound to please thee with my answers" - picked by chance (i. e. Google search - I might actually have found one which isn't quoted too often ); or phrases like (here I'm actually using one of the Bible which, however, uses old forms of "you" - singular, as doth Shakespeare ): *"Thou shalt not* bow down to the fancies of fashion."

But as said, even this is only a very vague parallelism to the Arabic situation - I only used it to hopefully make it easier for you to re-formulate your question, which, I think, might be necessary so that we can get down to what you actually wanted to know, when all's said and done.


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## Meat

As the previous poster answered (as well as possible) the original questions, I'll only mention one quick tidbit about Shakespearean English.



sokol said:


> If anything then you could *very remotely* compare Shakespearean English to MSA, inasmuch as it is still read marginally in its original form (English native speakers might object - I have no idea to which degree this is still true ), but more so as some (a very few) 'pieces of Shakespearean' are still used very marginally in modern English, be it as direct quotes of Shakespeare or as isolated phrases.



Shakespeare is still read in its original form to the sorrow of high school students everywhere. Though it certainly not easy reading since many words have changed in meaning or use, it is still very possible. (Usually it's printed with some footnotes to explain the really tricky things.) Some publishers, however, have released modern English "translations" of his works!


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## berndf

As Ayed mentioned Kentish, Saxon and Anglian, I think he really meant Old English and not Elizabethan English which represents an early development stage of Modern English.

I don't think you can still identify the original three dialect areas in the modern dialect continuum in England. By and large, Northern dialect have retained more characteristics of OE, e.g. in Northumbrian and Scots _house_ is still pronounced [hu:s] as in OE.

Old English is in grammar and vocabulary so different from modern English that it can hardly be considered dialects of the same language but OE is to be considered a different language out of which modern English developed.

Let me make a comparison which is not very accurate from a scientific point of view but may give you an idea: Old English and Modern English are about as close as (classical) Arabic and Hebrew: The grammar is similar but simplified and the vocabulary is so that you understand isolated words but you can't follow entire texts in the one language only knowing the other.

To give you an example, here is the opening sentence of Beowulf, the largest single OE text preserved, and a Modern English translation:

_Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Listen! We of the Spear-Danes in the days of yore, of those clan-kings heard of their glory how those nobles performed courageous deeds._


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## Hulalessar

Most surviving texts of Old English are written in West Saxon. There was no standard orthography and variations may reflect dialectal differences, as well as personal preferences. There is though sufficient information to identify different dialects. The Germanic invaders are believed to have come from quite a wide area of Northern Europe and it is not unreasonable to suppose that they brought different varieties of language with them. The main division between (English) English dialects today is the North/South one where the boundary runs roughly from the Severn Estuary to the Wash. Whether that boundary follows a similar one a thousand years ago I have no idea.

Standard Modern English derives not from West Saxon but from Mercian and that reflects the shift of political power from the South-West to the South-East.

Texts in Early Modern English do not present any special difficulty for the modern reader. It is not all plain sailing though. The main problem lies in the lexicon where some words may now be archaic or have changed their meaning. A text in the original orthography may be hard to follow until you get into it. Grammatical differences are rarely an obstacle to understanding. If there is difficulty in following some late Early Modern English texts it is not because of the language as such, but because writers were experimenting with complex subordination.

Comprehension of (at least late) Early Modern English is to an extent aided because many native English speakers are exposed to it in the form of the King James Bible. Its cadences echo in the heads of many English speakers irrespective of religion or culture.


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## Hulalessar

Meat said:


> Shakespeare is still read in its original form to the sorrow of high school students everywhere.



That is because Shakespeare did not write his plays to be studied, but experienced.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> Standard Modern English derives not from West Saxon but from Mercian and that reflects the shift of political power from the South-West to the South-East.


First to the East-Midlands/North-East, the region of origin of Mercian, then to the South-East, to be precise.


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## clevermizo

Did Middle and Modern Englishes (and I include Scots here and other regional varieties of modern Englishes in the UK) evolve out of a single dialect of Old English or did they emerge more heterogeneously? Is that even known? 

In other words, in analogy to biology was it more "Out-Of-Africa" (single dialect (group) leading to all others) or "Multi-Regionalist" (many dialect groups converging on some features, diverging in others with or without specific lineages).

I apologize if this has been discussed previously or if someone could point me to the thread, that'd be great.


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## Alxmrphi

It was multiple dialects, because England was invaded by various different Germanic groups that (it is believed) spoke differently when they arrived, thus causing the vast amount of linguistic diversity / dialects that were present until fairly recently (and still are to some degree).


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## Walshie79

Basically, "Anglian" is a catch all term for those dialects not considered "Saxon" (or Jutish or Frisian, which are sometimes thought to have contributed to the southern OE dialects). 

Some characteristics of the OE dialects than have survived in modern regional speech:

"Wessex" (West Saxon dialects) is roughly the area south of the Thames and Bristol Channel, excluding Sussex, Surrey, Kent and Cornwall (Probably also part of Devon in much of the Old English period too). This is the area corresponding to modern "West Country" dialects, whose main distinguishing feature is the voicing of initial [f] [s] [ʃ] [θ] to [v] [z] [ʒ] [ð]; this is now mostly found from Dorset westward though in Middle English it extended right across to Kent. This feature almost certainly existed in at least late Old English in the non-Anglian dialects. Also in Wessex OE [y], [y:] became , [u:] which is responsible for the spelling of "busy" and "bury", even if they are nowadays pronounced in East Mercian and Kentish respectively!

"Mercian" (roughly north of the Thames and south of a line Humber estuary to Lancaster). Definite split into East and West dialects, the latter having some features (such as [y]-) in common with West Saxon that are lacking in east Mercian. Another West Mercian feature (recorded in OE) is an early shift of [a] to [ɔ] before [n], giving eg "mon" instead of "man"- in this part of West Mercia at least that's very much still alive. 

The pronoun "she", likely originally an East Mercian Middle English form of the OE feminine article "seo" (as opposed to the feminine nominative pronoun "heo") hasn't reached some dialects of the West Midlands and Southwest, where you hear "her" used in the nominative instead.

As for "Northumbrian", forms inherited from this OE dialect are responsible for many of the distinctive forms in Northeast English and Scottish dialects, such
as late OE [ɑ:]-[e:], [je] or [ei] instead of [o:] or [oʊ] ("hame/hyem" instead of "home").  However one prominent Northumbrian feature has made it into modern Standard English, namely [s]/[z] for the third person singular ending, instead of [θ]/[ð], which was the prevailing form outside Northumbria from Old English up until the 17th Century. It's striking (to a modern English speaker) how Chaucer puts these modern looking -s endings into the mouths of the "northern" characters in one of his tales as a way of drawing attention to their dialect. Lytel wolde he knowe...


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## berndf

Walshie79 said:


> Basically, "Anglian" is a catch all term for those dialects not considered "Saxon" (or Jutish or Frisian, which are sometimes thought to have contributed to the southern OE dialects).


Those were mainly the dialects of the kingdoms of _Mercia, East Anglia_ and _Northumbria_. All of those kingdoms were founded by _Angles_. Although I agree that the term _Anglian _is sometimes used as a catch-all category, there is nevertheless an ethnic/tribal base for the name.


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## Walshie79

berndf said:


> Those were mainly the dialects of the kingdoms of _Mercia, East Anglia_ and _Northumbria_. All of those kingdoms were founded by _Angles_. Although I agree that the term _Anglian _is sometimes used as a catch-all category, there is nevertheless an ethnic/tribal base for the name.



It's interesting that the modern word "English" as well as OE "Englisc", used by King Alfred in Wessex/West Saxonland, come from the name of the "Angles", but the Celtic languages say "Saxons" (Welsh _Saesneg_, Gaelic _Sasanach_). 

There's certainly an ethnic basis for these names, but they often seem to get confused:

In modern English, the "Dutch" are not the people who call themselves "Deutsch", 

Finnish for German is "Saksa", which is derived from the same word as the Welsh for "English"

"Allemagne" and similar words in Italic languages again refer to one Germanic tribe, and have become catch-all terms

And I thought we English speakers were prone to confusing Slovenia with Slovakia, how do the Slavic speakers cope when the names are even more similar?


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## berndf

Walshie79 said:


> It's interesting that the modern word "English" as well as OE "Englisc", used by King Alfred in Wessex/West Saxonland, come from the name of the "Angles", but the Celtic languages say "Saxons" (Welsh _Saesneg_, Gaelic _Sasanach_).
> 
> ...
> 
> In modern English, the "Dutch" are not the people who call themselves "Deutsch",


_Dutch, Duits, Deutsch, Tedesco_ are all derived from common West-Germanic _þeodisc (=people-ish)_ an adjective derived from _þeod (=people)_. It simply denoted the _language of the people_ as opposed to Latin, the language of the clergy. It was used in all West-Germanic languages, including Old English. The name _Englisc_ or _Ænglisc_ for the language became common usage only in the 11th century.



Walshie79 said:


> Finnish for German is "Saksa", which is derived from the same word as the Welsh for "English"


Certainly no accident. The name_ Saxon _for their language was certainly used by Saxons in England before calling it _Englisc/__Ænglisc_ became pre-dominant. _Sassisch_ remained the self-reference of the language of the Saxons on the continent, today called _Low-German_, until about 200 years ago (the Dutch still call it _Nedersaksisch_) and the variety of German spoken as a minority language the Baltic cities was _Sassisch_. No wonder the word is used in Finnish.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Walshie79 said:


> And I thought we English speakers were prone to confusing Slovenia with Slovakia, how do the Slavic speakers cope when the names are even more similar?



That's no problem, but it is a problem to distinguish the names of the respective languages: slovenščina or slovenski jezik (Slovene) and slovenčina or slovenský jazyk (Slovak) - I had to check that one several times before writing it down.


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## DenisBiH

Angelo di fuoco said:


> That's no problem, but it is a problem to distinguish the names of the respective languages: slovenščina or slovenski jezik (Slovene) and slovenčina or slovenský jazyk (Slovak) - I had to check that one several times before writing it down.




And with the similarity in flags (1 vs 2), you'd almost think that Slovenians and Slovaks are running some mega-conspiracy to confuse schoolchildren in the rest of Europe and the world. 

Sorry for the slight off-topic.


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## Walshie79

It's the "Slovensko/Slovenská Republica" that you see on passports, documents, sides of lorries that is the real killer, because it looks so much more like "Slovene" than the "Slovak" which it actually means

On the other hand, the names for "Latvia" and "Lithuania" are far more alike in the local tongues (Latvija/Lietuva) than in English.


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## berndf

*Moderator note: The Slovak/Slovene example was just an analogy and is not the topic of this thread. Can we stop this discussion now and come back to Old English?

Thanks chaps.*


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## ilocas2

Walshie79 said:


> It's the "Slovensko/Slovenská Republi*k*a" that you see on passports, documents, sides of lorries ......



Just a little correction. And according to the rules of ortography the word "republika" shouldn't be capitalized, although sometimes it's possible to see it capitalized.


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