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For example, Proto-Germanic * *stainaz became Old English stān (modern stone) (cf. Old Frisian stēn vs. Gothic stáin, Old High German stein). In many cases, the resulting [ɑː] was later fronted to [æː] by i-mutation: dǣlan "to divide" (cf. Old Frisian dēla vs. Gothic dáiljan, Old High German teilen [Modern English deal]).
Anglic, [7] [8] Insular Germanic, or English languages [9] [10] and dialects encompass Old English and all the linguistic varieties descended from it. These include Middle English, Early Modern English, and Late Modern English; Early Scots, Middle Scots, and Modern Scots; and the extinct Fingallian and Yola languages in Ireland.
This language, or closely related group of dialects, spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and pre-dating documented Old English or Anglo-Saxon, has also been called Primitive Old English. [11] Early Old English (c. 650–900), the period of the oldest manuscript traditions, with authors such as Cædmon, Bede, Cynewulf and Aldhelm.
West Saxon was the language of the kingdom of Wessex, and was the basis for successive widely used literary forms of Old English: the Early West Saxon of Alfred the Great's time, and the Late West Saxon of the late 10th and 11th centuries. Due to the Saxons' establishment as a politically dominant force in the Old English period, the West Saxon ...
The grammar of Old English differs greatly from Modern English, predominantly being much more inflected.As a Germanic language, Old English has a morphological system similar to that of the Proto-Germanic reconstruction, retaining many of the inflections thought to have been common in Proto-Indo-European and also including constructions characteristic of the Germanic daughter languages such as ...
It was one of four dialect-groups of Old English, the other three being Mercian, Northumbrian (known collectively as the Anglian dialects), and West Saxon. The dialect was spoken in what are now the modern-day Counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by the Germanic settlers, identified by Bede as Jutes. [1]
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However, there are exceptions: weep, groom and stone (from Old English) occupy a slightly higher register than cry, brush and rock (from French). Words taken directly from Latin and Ancient Greek are generally perceived as colder, more technical, and more medical or scientific – compare life (Old English) with biology ( classical compound ...