by Achae

The time in which Old English was used is often called the period of full inflections. As the inflections began to be dropped, English shifted into Middle English. The difference between these two languages is mainly a matter of spelling, grammar, and pronunciation. The vowels of Modern English are also different than the vowels used in Old English. For example, ban is the equivalent of today's bone.

Old English used two characters to signify the "th" sound - the thorn (Þ) and the eth (ð). So the word wiÞ means "with" and the word ða means "then." The "sh" sound was denoted by an "sc" and the "a" in hat was denoted by the æ. A "c" gave a "k" sound or a "ch" sound, depending on the word.

The dialects of Old English did not have a chance to grow due to the Norman invasions. The Normans came in and brought in French. As a result, today's English uses less than 15% of the original Old English words. Those that do survive are basic, everyday words, such as etan (eat) and drincan (drink).

Old English is known as a synthetic language. This means that sentences are deciphered based on word endings. The opposite of this would be Modern English, which is an analytic language. Analytic languages rely on word order for sentences to have meaning.

Synthetic - Nero interfecit Agrippinam = Nero killed Agrippina

But note in this sentence:

Agrippinam interfecit Nero = Nero killed Agrippina

The ending of Agrippina shows that Nero is the subject, regardless of placement. In an analytic language, this would not work because inflectional endings have all but died out.

Nero killed Agrippina holds a different meaning than Agrippina killed Nero! The only endings we have retained are the possessive and the plural.

The forms of Old English resemble the German of today with the cases of nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive.

To illustrate a similarity, let us review the singular personal pronoun for Old English.

N	ic	ðu	he	heo	hit

A	me	ðe	hine	hie	hit

D	me	ðe	him	hiere	him

G	min	ðin	his	hiere	his