This is a script that U wrote for a YouTube video a few years back, and I figured that I might as well post it here too. Now, without further ado…

Anglo-Saxon to Modern English

Did you know that English has changed so much since it first became a language that you probably wouldn’t be able to read, speak, or even understand Old English? Let Me Explain

Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon, was spoken by the tribes of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes – which was in about the 5th century – at about the time when these German invaders were trying to conquer an island inhabited by the Celts. The ringing of sword and shield clashing together could be heard by the warriors of both people…well, because they were the ones using them. Eventually the invaders won, took the land as theirs, and named it Angles Land, which later was reduced to England.

Anglo-Saxon is an interesting language, but to a lot of us, it was actually really confusing for many reasons. For one, they had a runic alphabet with 28 runes, or symbols. Later in the 9th century five more runes would be added to make it 33. But most of their vocabulary was WAY different than ours. In Anglo-Saxon, “nobleman” was “eorl”. Weird, right? Another example is “eage” which translates to “eye”. Some of the words were somewhat similar, however, such as “fæder” into “father”. Now, if you don’t know what conjugation is, it’s basically changing the verb to fit the subject. For example, let’s take the verb “to eat”. If you conjugate it correctly, you should come out with this.

I eat

You eat

She\He\It eats

We eat

They eat

Notice how everything is “(blank) eat” except for “he, she, and it.” For them, it’s “eats” You just changed the verb to fit the subject. Simple. Now in Anglo-Saxon, however, their conjugation was unfortunately NOWHERE near as simple. The verb “libban”, which means “to live”, is EXTREMELY confusing. Just look –

1.   Ic lifige – I live

2. Þū leofast – You (singular) live

3. Hē/Hit/Hēo lifað – He/It/She lives

4. Wē lifiaþ – We live

5. Ġē lifiaþ – You (plural) live

6. Hīe/Hī lifiaþ – They live

Now, you may be wondering, “How in the world did a language like this become the English we speak today?” Well, the story isn’t exactly over yet. In the 7th century, Christianity was introduced to the Anglo-Saxons, and since Christianity’s main language back then was Latin, a huge amount of Latin words came into the language such as “discipulus”, which evolved into disciple, “Crist”, changing into Christ, and “gospel”, which hasn’t changed at all.

Another important thing that came in with Christianity was the entire Latin alphabet! The Anglo-Saxons did add a couple new letters such as “thorn –  Þ þ, which represented the th sound sound in “think”, “eth –  Ð ð, which had the th in this”, “wynn – ƿ, which had a w sound, and actually didn’t have a distinct uppercase form”, and “ash – Æ æ, which possessed a unique sound in Anglo-Saxon similar to the short a in cat”. Now Anglo-Saxon had two alphabets!

But the Old English alphabet didn’t have “j”, instead, “i” was used to make both sounds, and “u” and ”v” could be used interchangeably. Very weird, right? More things continued happening – in the 8th century, Viking and Norse words traveled in, such as sky, leg, egg, and husband. In the 10th century, William the Conqueror set out from Normandy (now northern France) and battled England. Eventually, he defeated King Harold II, and was soon crowned king of England on 1066. This made French the language of England, and only the poor people spoke Old English. Over time, many French words came into Old English, slowly merging the two languages to form Middle English.

Middle English is more like Modern English, but still quite foreign. The runic alphabet was discarded, and their version of the Latin alphabet became their only alphabet. Many of the new letters also gradually declined in use – eth and thorn were both replaced with “th” which is still in use today, ash was simplified into “a”, and wynn had already faded out by the time Middle English emerged. And J was eventually added. This new form of English was very fancy with a bunch of “thou’s, thy’s, ye’s, and thee’s. Their conjugation for the word “loven” (to love) is actually kind of familiar –

I lovien – I love

Thou lovest – You (singular) love

He\She\Hit loveth – He\She\It loves

We loven – We love

Ye loven – You (plural) love

They loven – They love

Some interesting words included “betwixt” – which means between, “maugre” – in spite of, and “whilom” – formerly.

Middle English was somewhat similar to a lot of the romantic languages because its nouns had a gender. Just like in Spanish, where “libro” (book) would be considered a masculine noun and “mesa” (table) would be considered feminine, Middle English nouns such as “hous” (house) would be masculine and “erthe” (earth) feminine. The confusing thing is that unlike Spanish, where adjectives change depending on the gender of the noun – “libro bonito” (beautiful book) and “mesa bonita”, the adjectives didn’t always have to agree with the noun. Sometimes they would change, sometimes they wouldn’t. Another weird fact about it is that some of its literature, called macaronic texts, would intentionally have more than one language in it. If you tried to pick up one of these and read it, not only would you have trouble trying to decode the Middle English alone, you would have even more trouble with the Latin, German, or maybe a couple Italian words or sentences that would be in the text. These texts were sometimes just used for humor and a good laugh, but occasionally they would do it in an academic textbook. I guess that’s one way to learn a language…Middle English continued to expand as more Latin words and more French and more German and Scandinavian and Celtic words poured into the language. Soon, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century, simplifying many of the spellings of words. Another event was the Great Vowel Shift, which changed the sounds of most of the vowels. All of these changes led to a new type of English, Modern English.

Early Modern English still had a couple of the thee’s and thy’s, but it’s easier to understand because the spellings and pronunciations had been simplified, and the conjugation rules had been shortened. Words from other languages still continued to come, and when settlers landed in North America, Native American words came in too. With the invention of new things, more words came in. Soon after, efforts to standardize and simplify English set out. New cultures brought new dialects. Slowly English was becoming more like the English we know today. In the roaring 20s, many words rushed in, such as radio, television, and airplane. Everything was changing. More words added, some words lost, and more dialects and cultures.

On a different note, the alphabet had been modernized a long while ago, but there was one man who wanted to bring a change. In 2008, a man by the name of Jerrold Foke, who was a linguist, realized how long the English alphabet had stayed the same, and thought it needed a new letter. He looked at the English phonetic alphabet, which is basically the alphabet for sounds, and found what he thought would make a perfect new letter. It was called the schwa, it looked like an upside down e (ə), and made the “uh” sound in the phonetic alphabet. Foke’s philosophy was that if you could add more letters, you could make new words. And if you make new words, you can communicate better. And if you can communicate better, then people will get along better. And if people can get along better, then everyone’s happy.

He began telling his friends and family about the schwa, and how it would make the “uh” sounds in a word. Almost everyday, people would give him new words that they had made with it. One word someone had made was “fundzəlow” which meant to not have much money. Foke tried working this into conversations and hoped it would catch on. He even wrote books and novels, and tried to get a publisher to publish them, because if that happened, than the schwa would pretty much officially become a letter, since English doesn’t have an association that decides what letters are letters or not. When people would ask him where the schwa would go in the alphabet, he always said “in the front”. As of today, he’s still pushing for the schwa to become a letter, but he does have a decent rally. And who knows, maybe in just a couple years, we’ll have 27 letters!

English today is still constantly changing, trying to keep up with the world. Media is introducing new words and slang, and more things are being invented. If an Anglo-Saxon looked at our language now, he might faint because it’s so different! But I know that no matter what happens in the world today, or how much English changes, everything is in God’s hands, and he’s the only one who won’t change.