'' manuscript, now in the
British Library The Germanic settlers in the British Isles initially spoke several different dialects, which developed into a language that came to be called Anglo-Saxon. It displaced the indigenous
Brittonic Celtic, and the
Latin of the
former Roman rulers, in parts of the areas of
Britain that later formed the
Kingdom of England. Celtic languages remained in most of
Scotland,
Wales and
Cornwall, and many compound Celtic-Germanic place names survive, hinting at early language mixing. Old English continued to exhibit local variation, the remnants of which continue to be found in dialects of Modern English. The four main dialects were
Mercian,
Northumbrian,
Kentish and
West Saxon. West Saxon formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period. The dominant forms of Middle and Modern English developed mainly from Mercian. Old English was first written using a
runic script called the
futhorc. This was replaced by a
version of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish missionaries in the 8th century. Most literary output was in either the Early West Saxon of
Alfred the Great's time, or the Late West Saxon, regarded as the "classical" form of Old English, of the Winchester school, inspired by Bishop
Æthelwold of Winchester, and followed by such writers as the prolific
Ælfric of Eynsham, "the Grammarian". The most famous surviving work from the Old English period is the
epic poem
Beowulf, composed by an unknown poet. The
introduction of Christianity from around the year 600 encouraged the addition of over 400
Latin loan words into Old English, such as the predecessors of the modern
priest,
paper, and
school, and a smaller number of
Greek loan words. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was also subject to strong
Old Norse influence due to
Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century (see below). Most native English speakers today find Old English unintelligible, even though about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The
grammar of Old English was much more
inflected than modern English, combined with freer
word order, and was grammatically quite similar in some respects to modern
German. The language had demonstrative pronouns, equivalent to
this and
that, but did not have the definite article
the. The Old English period is considered to have evolved into the
Middle English period some time after the
Norman Conquest of 1066, when the language came to be influenced significantly by the new ruling class's language,
Old Norman.
Scandinavian influence Vikings from modern-day
Norway and
Denmark began to
raid parts of Britain from the late 8th century onward. In 865, a major invasion was launched by what the Anglo-Saxons called the
Great Heathen Army, which eventually brought large parts of northern and eastern England, the
Danelaw, under Scandinavian control. Most of these areas were retaken by the English under
Edward the Elder in the early 10th century, although
York and
Northumbria were not permanently regained until the death of
Eric Bloodaxe in 954. Scandinavian raids resumed in the late 10th century during the reign of
Æthelred the Unready.
Sweyn Forkbeard was briefly declared king of England in 1013, followed by the longer reign of his son
Cnut from 1016 to 1035, and Cnut's sons
Harold Harefoot and
Harthacnut, until 1042. The Scandinavians, or
Norsemen, spoke dialects of a
North Germanic language known as
Old Norse. The Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians thus spoke related languages from different branches (West and North) of the
Germanic family. Many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammatical systems were more divergent. It is likely that significant numbers of Norse speakers settled in the
Danelaw during the period of Scandinavian control. Many
place-names in those areas are of Scandinavian provenance, those ending in
-by, for example. It is believed that the settlers often established new communities in places that had not previously been developed by the Anglo-Saxons. The extensive
contact between Old English and Old Norse speakers, including the possibility of intermarriage that resulted from the
acceptance of Christianity by the Danes in 878, undoubtedly influenced the varieties of those languages spoken in the areas of contact. During the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the first half of the 11th century, a kind of
diglossia may have come about, with the West Saxon literary language existing alongside the Norse-influenced Midland dialect of English, which could have served as a
koine or spoken lingua franca. When Danish rule ended, and particularly after the
Norman Conquest, the status of the minority Norse language presumably declined relative to that of English, and its remaining speakers assimilated to English in a process involving
language shift and
language death. The widespread
bilingualism that must have existed during the process possibly contributed to the rate of borrowings from Norse into English. Only about 100 or 150 Norse words, mainly connected with government and administration, are found in Old English writing. The borrowing of words of this type was stimulated by Scandinavian rule in the Danelaw and during the later reign of Cnut. Most surviving Old English texts are based on the
West Saxon standard that developed outside the Danelaw. It is not clear to what extent Norse influenced the forms of the language spoken in eastern and northern England at that time. Later texts from the Middle English era, now based on an eastern Midland rather than a Wessex standard, reflect the significant impact that Norse had on the language. In all, English borrowed about
2,000 words from Old Norse, several hundred surviving in
Modern English. That is possibly confirmed by observations that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the north, and latest in the southwest. The spread of
phrasal verbs in English is another grammatical development to which Norse may have contributed, although here a possible
Celtic influence is also noted. Other scholars reject this claim. ==Middle English==