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55-463: The Mercian dialect was spoken as far east as the border of the Kingdom of East Anglia and as far west as Offa's Dyke , bordering Wales. It was spoken in an area that extended as far north as Staffordshire , bordering Northumbria , and as far south as South Oxfordshire / Gloucestershire , where it bordered on the Kingdom of Wessex . The Old Norse language also filtered in on a few occasions after

110-485: A dialect was tentative, acknowledging that "the linguistic boundaries of the original dialects could not have enjoyed prolonged stability." As no East Anglian manuscripts, Old English inscriptions or literary records such as charters have survived, there is little evidence to support the existence of such a dialect. According to a study by Von Feilitzen in the 1930s, the recording of many place-names in Domesday Book

165-480: A fact about the real world (he could be rejecting necessity and refusing to work), but refers to what would be a desirable state of affairs. However, since mood is a grammatical category , referring to the form a verb takes rather than its meaning in a given instance, a given language may use realis forms for a number of purposes other than their principal one of making direct factual statements. For example, many languages use indicative verb forms to ask questions (this

220-559: A new earldom of East Anglia in 1017, when Thorkell the Tall was made earl by Cnut the Great . The restored ecclesiastical structure saw two former East Anglian bishoprics (Elmham and Dunwich ) replaced by a single one at North Elmham . The East Angles spoke Old English . Their language is historically important, as they were among the first Germanic settlers to arrive in Britain during

275-405: Is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences . Most languages have a single realis mood called the indicative mood , although some languages have additional realis moods, for example to express different levels of certainty. By contrast, an irrealis mood is used to express something that is not known to be

330-564: Is best to learn by the International Phonetic Alphabet transcriptions for more precise pronunciation. Mercian grammar has the same structure as other West Germanic dialects . Nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and four cases: nominative , accusative , dative and genitive . These, in addition, all have singular and plural forms. They can also be strong or weak. Personal pronouns (I/me, you, he, she, we, you (pl.) and they) come in all

385-475: Is not always analyzed as a mood) and in some dialects, the subjunctive (as in "I suggest you be quiet"). For some further information, see English verbs and Uses of English verb forms . Although the indicative is generally the main or only realis mood, certain other languages have additional forms which can be categorized as separate realis moods. Arabic and various other Semitic languages have two kinds of energetic moods , which express something which

440-416: Is preceded by a prefix like la , layaktuban , it means "he should write". The declarative mood ( abbreviated DECL ) indicates that a statement is true, without any qualifications being made. For many languages this is just an alternative name for the indicative mood, although sometimes distinctions between them are drawn. It may contrast with inferential mood . Reference is sometimes made to

495-535: Is sometimes called interrogative mood ) and in various other situations where the meaning is in fact of the irrealis type (as in the English "I hope it works", where the indicative works is used even though it refers to a desired rather than real state of affairs). The indicative might therefore be defined as the mood used in all instances where a given language does not specifically require the use of some other mood. Realis mood and indicative mood can be indicated by

550-482: Is strongly believed or which the speaker wishes to emphasize. Their exact meanings are dependent upon the prefix that is attached to them. For example, yaktubanna يَكتُبَنَّ is in the long energetic mood and has strong obligation meanings; it means "he certainly writes" and if it is preceded by la , layaktubanna , it will have the meaning of "he must write". The short energetic expresses weak obligation, e.g., yaktuban which means "he almost writes"; if it

605-679: The Benedictus and the Magnificat . In later Anglo-Saxon England, the dialect remained in use in speech but rarely in written documents. Some time after the Norman conquest of England , Middle English dialects emerged and were later found in such works as the Ormulum and the writings of the Gawain poet . In the later Middle Ages, a Mercian or East Midland dialect seems to have predominated in

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660-463: The Kingdom of England in 918. The Kingdom of East Anglia was organised in the first or second quarter of the 6th century, with Wehha listed as the first king of the East Angles, followed by Wuffa . The Anglo-Saxon genealogy for East Angles gives Wehha as descended from Woden via Caesar . Until 749 the kings of East Anglia were Wuffingas, named after the semi-historical Wuffa. During

715-638: The London area, producing such forms as are (from Mercian arun ). Mercian was used by the writer and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien to signify his fictional Rohirric language. Modern Old English orthography adds additional diacritics above certain letters to show specific phonological features. These distinctions largely were not shown in Old English. Such diacritics include macrons for vowel length and overdots for palatalization. Sound approximations from various European languages have been given, but it

770-526: The infinitive into the present tense , the past singular, the past plural and the past participle . There exist strong and weak verbs in Mercian that too conjugate in their own ways. The future tense requires an auxiliary verb , like will (Mercian wyllen ). There are three moods: indicative , subjunctive and imperative . Like most inflected languages, Mercian has a few irregular verbs (such as 'to be' bēon and 'have' habben ). For basic understanding,

825-460: The old gods . In 604, Rædwald became the first East Anglian king to be baptised. He maintained a Christian altar, but at the same time continued to worship pagan gods. From 616, when pagan monarchs briefly returned in Kent and Essex, East Anglia until Rædwald's death was the only Anglo-Saxon kingdom with a reigning baptised king. On his death in around 624, he was succeeded by his son Eorpwald , who

880-553: The subjunctive were marked inflectionally to a greater extent in historical forms of the language than in Modern English . The following table shows the indicative suffixes used on regular verbs in Old English , Middle English and early and present-day Modern English. Other moods existing in English besides the indicative are the imperative (" Be quiet!") and the conditional ("I would be quiet") (although this

935-421: The 12th century. Some modern historians have questioned whether the seven ever existed contemporaneously and claim the political situation was far more complicated. The East Angles were initially ruled by the pagan Wuffingas dynasty , apparently named after an early king Wuffa, although his name may be a back-creation from the name of the dynasty, which means "descendants of the wolf". An indispensable source on

990-647: The 5th century. It emerged from the political consolidation of the Angles in the approximate area of the former territory of the Iceni and the Roman civitas , with its centre at Venta Icenorum , close to Caistor St Edmund . The region that was to become East Anglia seems to have been depopulated to some extent around the 4th century. Ken Dark writes that "in this area at least, and possibly more widely in eastern Britain, large tracts of land appear to have been deserted in

1045-496: The 5th century: according to Kortmann and Schneider, East Anglia "can seriously claim to be the first place in the world where English was spoken." The evidence for dialects in Old English comes from the study of texts, place-names, personal names and coins. A. H. Smith was the first to recognise the existence of a separate Old East Anglian dialect, in addition to the recognised dialects of Northumbrian , Mercian , West Saxon and Kentish . He acknowledged that his proposal for such

1100-417: The 7th century. Anglo-Saxon sources that include information about the East Angles or events relating to the kingdom: Post-Norman sources (of variable historical validity): 52°30′N 01°00′E  /  52.500°N 1.000°E  / 52.500; 1.000 Indicative A realis mood ( abbreviated REAL ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something

1155-767: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle identifies him as Bretwalda . In 616, he had been strong enough to defeat and kill the Northumbrian king Æthelfrith at the Battle of the River Idle and enthrone Edwin of Northumbria . He was probably the individual honoured by the sumptuous ship burial at Sutton Hoo. It has been suggested by Blair, on the strength of parallels between some objects found under Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo and those discovered at Vendel in Sweden , that

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1210-584: The East Angles bordered the North Sea to the north and the east, with the River Stour historically dividing it from the East Saxons to the south. The North Sea provided a "thriving maritime link to Scandinavia and the northern reaches of Germany", according to the historian Richard Hoggett. The port of Ipswich ( Gipeswic ) was established in 7th century. The kingdom's western boundary varied from

1265-515: The East Anglian king Æthelberht executed and then took control of the kingdom for himself. A brief revival of East Anglian independence under Eadwald, after Offa's death in 796, was suppressed by the new Mercian king, Coenwulf . East Anglian independence was restored by a rebellion against Mercia led by Æthelstan in 825. Beornwulf of Mercia 's attempt to restore Mercian control resulted in his defeat and death, and his successor Ludeca met

1320-664: The English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Fens , the area still known as East Anglia . The kingdom formed in the 6th century in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and was one of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy . It was ruled by the Wuffingas dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries, but the territory was taken by Offa of Mercia in 794. Mercia control lapsed briefly following

1375-700: The Kingdom of the East Angles have survived because of a complete destruction of the kingdom's monasteries and disappearance of the two East Anglian sees as a result of Viking raids and settlement. The main documentary source for the early period is Bede's 8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People . East Anglia is first mentioned as a distinct political unit in the Tribal Hidage , thought to have been compiled somewhere in England during

1430-516: The Mercians. In 655 Æthelhere of East Anglia joined Penda in a campaign against Oswiu that ended in a massive Mercian defeat at the Battle of the Winwaed , where Penda and his ally Æthelhere were killed. The last Wuffingas king was Ælfwald , who died in 749. During the late 7th and 8th centuries East Anglia continued to be overshadowed by Mercian hegemony until, in 794, Offa of Mercia had

1485-759: The Vikings settled permanently in East Anglia. In 903 the exiled Æthelwold ætheling induced the East Anglian Danes to wage a disastrous war on his cousin Edward the Elder . By 918, after a succession of Danish defeats, East Anglia submitted to Edward and was incorporated into the Kingdom of England. East Anglia was settled by the Anglo-Saxons earlier than many other regions, possibly at the start of

1540-476: The Whitby Life of St Gregory . While the archaeological and linguistic evidence suggests that a large-scale migration and settlement of the region by continental Germanic speakers occurred, it has been questioned whether all of the migrants self-identified as Angles. The East Angles formed one of seven kingdoms known to post-medieval historians as the Heptarchy , a scheme used by Henry of Huntingdon in

1595-490: The Wuffingas may have been descendants of an eastern Swedish royal family. However, the items previously thought to have come from Sweden are now believed to have been made in England, and it seems less likely that the Wuffingas were of Swedish origin. Anglo-Saxon Christianity became established in the 7th century. The extent to which paganism was displaced is exemplified by a lack of any East Anglian settlement named after

1650-407: The above cases and come in three numbers: singular, dual ('you/we two'), plural. Demonstrative pronouns vary in the same way described below for the indefinite article, based on 'ðes' only for this . That and Those are the same as the definite article. Relative pronouns (who, which, that) are usually 'ðe' and 'ðet.' The definite article is equally complex, with all genders changing in

1705-607: The arrival of the first East Anglian kings. The most powerful of the Wuffingas kings was Rædwald, "son of Tytil, whose father was Wuffa", according to the Ecclesiastical History . For a brief period in the early 7th century, whilst Rædwald ruled, East Anglia was among the most powerful kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England: he was described by Bede as the overlord of the kingdoms south of the Humber . and

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1760-502: The case in reality. An example of the contrast between realis and irrealis moods is seen in the English sentences "He works" and "It is necessary that he work". In the first sentence, works is a present indicative (realis) form of the verb, and is used to make a direct assertion about the real world. In the second sentence, work is in the subjunctive mood , which is an irrealis mood – here that he work does not necessarily express

1815-570: The death of Offa but was reestablished. The Danish Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia in 865; after taking York it returned to East Anglia, killing King Edmund ("the Martyr") and making it Danish land in 869. After Alfred the Great forced a treaty with the Danes , East Anglia was left as part of the Danelaw . It was taken back from Danish control by Edward the Elder and incorporated into

1870-664: The death of Æthelwold and of Eohric of East Anglia in battle in December 902. From 911 to 917, Edward expanded his control over the rest of England south of the Humber, establishing in Essex and Mercia burhs , often designed to control the use of a river by the Danes. In 917, the Danish position in the area suddenly collapsed. A rapid succession of defeats culminated in the loss of the territories of Northampton and Huntingdon, along with

1925-560: The early 10th century, the East Anglian Danes came under increasing pressure from Edward, King of Wessex. In 901, Edward's cousin Æthelwold ætheling , having been driven into exile after an unsuccessful bid for the throne, arrived in Essex after a stay in Northumbria. He was apparently accepted as king by some or all Danes in England and induced the East Anglian Danes to wage war on Edward in Mercia and Wessex. This ended in disaster with

1980-509: The early 7th century under Rædwald , East Anglia was a powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Rædwald, the first East Anglian king to be baptised a Christian, is seen by many scholars to be the person buried within (or commemorated by) the ship burial at Sutton Hoo , near Woodbridge . During the decades that followed his death in about 624, East Anglia became increasingly dominated by the kingdom of Mercia . Several of Rædwald's successors were killed in battle, such as Sigeberht , under whose rule and with

2035-464: The early history of the kingdom and its rulers is Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People , but he provided little on the chronology of the East Anglian kings or the length of their reigns. Nothing is known of the earliest kings, or how the kingdom was organised, although a possible centre of royal power is the concentration of ship-burials at Snape and Sutton Hoo in eastern Suffolk. The "North Folk" and "South Folk" may have existed before

2090-418: The first East Anglian see for Felix of Burgundy at Dommoc, probably Dunwich . He later abdicated in favour of his brother Ecgric and retired to a monastery. The three daughters of Anna of East Anglia , Æthelthryth , Wendreda , Seaxburh of Ely , are associated with the founding of abbeys. The eminence of East Anglia under Rædwald fell victim to the rising power of Penda of Mercia and successors. From

2145-500: The forces of Edmund of East Anglia , who was defeated and killed at Hægelisdun and then buried at Beodericsworth. Following his death Edmund became known as 'the Martyr' and venerated as patron saint and the town of Bury St Edmunds was established there. From then on East Anglia effectively ceased to be an independent kingdom. Having defeated the East Angles, the Danes installed puppet-kings to govern on their behalf, while they resumed their campaigns against Mercia and Wessex. In 878

2200-583: The foundation of the Danelaw . This describes the situation before the unification of Mercia. The Old English Martyrology is a collection of over 230 hagiographies , probably compiled in Mercia , or by someone who wrote in the Mercian dialect of Old English, in the second half of the 9th century. Six Mercian hymns are included in the Anglo-Saxon glosses to the Vespasian Psalter ; they include

2255-533: The four principal parts must be known for each strong verb: weak verbs are easier and more numerous, they all form the past participle with -ed . Mercian vocabulary is largely inherited from Proto-Germanic , with Latin loanwords coming via the use of Latin as the language of the Early Church , and Norse loanwords that arrived as part of the Norse incursions and foundation of the Danelaw which covered much of

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2310-516: The guidance of his bishop, Felix of Burgundy , Christianity was firmly established. From the death of Æthelberht II by the Mercians in 794 until 825, East Anglia ceased to be an independent kingdom, apart from a brief reassertion under Eadwald in 796. It survived until 869, when the Vikings defeated the East Anglians in battle and their king, Edmund the Martyr , was killed. After 879,

2365-656: The last active portion of the Great Heathen Army was defeated by Alfred the Great and withdrew from Wessex after making peace and agreeing that the Danes would treat the Christians equally . The treaty between Alfred and Guthrum acknowledged the latter's landholdings in East Anglia. In 880 the Vikings returned to East Anglia under Guthrum , who according to the medieval historian Pauline Stafford , "swiftly adapted to territorial kingship and its trappings, including

2420-470: The late 4th century, possibly including whole 'small towns' and villages. This does not seem to be a localised change in settlement location, size or character but genuine desertion." According to Bede, the East Angles (and the Middle Angles, Mercians and Northumbrians ) were descended from natives of Angeln (now in modern Germany). The first reference to the East Angles is from about 704–713, in

2475-519: The latter, the sea flooded the low-lying Fens. As sea levels fell alluvium was deposited near major river estuaries and the "Great Estuary" (which the Saxon Shore forts at Burgh Castle and Caister had guarded) became closed off by a large spit of land. No East Anglian charters (and few other documents) have survived, while the medieval chronicles that refer to the East Angles are treated with great caution by scholars. So few records from

2530-600: The mid-7th to early 9th centuries Mercian power grew, until a vast region from the Thames to the Humber, including East Anglia and the south-east, came under Mercian hegemony. In the early 640s, Penda defeated and killed both Ecgric and Sigeberht, who, having retired to religious life was later venerated as a saint. Ecgric's successor Anna and Anna's son Jurmin were killed in 654 at the Battle of Bulcamp, near Blythburgh . Freed from Anna's challenge, Penda subjected East Anglia to

2585-473: The midlands and north of England . Some morphological differences between the Mercian and West Saxon include: Kingdom of East Anglia The Kingdom of the East Angles ( Old English : Ēastengla Rīċe ; Latin : Regnum Orientalium Anglorum ), informally known as the Kingdom of East Anglia , was a small independent kingdom of the Angles during the Anglo-Saxon period comprising what are now

2640-453: The minting of coins." Along with the traditional territory of East Anglia, Cambridgeshire and parts of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire , Guthrum's kingdom probably included Essex, the one portion of Wessex to come under Danish control. A peace treaty was made between Alfred and Guthrum sometime in the 880s. Under Scandinavian control, there are settlements in East Anglia which have names with Old Norse elements , e.g. '-thorp', '-by' In

2695-468: The respective glossing abbreviations REAL and IND . In Modern English , the indicative mood is for statements of actuality or strong probability, and in addition acts as a default mood for all instances which do not require use of a specific mood: Some forms of the indicative can be used with do , does , or did , either for emphasis, or to form questions or negatives. See do -support . Distinctions between indicative and other moods such as

2750-406: The rest of Essex: a Danish king, probably from East Anglia, was killed at Tempsford . Despite reinforcement from overseas, the Danish counter-attacks were crushed, and after the defection of many of their English subjects as Edward's army advanced, the Danes of East Anglia and of Cambridge capitulated. East Anglia was absorbed into the Kingdom of Englandin in 918. Norfolk and Suffolk became part of

2805-453: The rivers Ouse , Lark and Kennett to further westwards, as far as the Cam in what is now Cambridgeshire. At its greatest extent, the kingdom comprised the modern-day counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of eastern Cambridgeshire. Erosion on the eastern border and deposition on the north coast altered the East Anglian coastline in Roman and Anglo-Saxon times (and continues to do so). In

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2860-611: The same end in 827. The East Angles appealed to Egbert of Wessex for protection against the Mercians and Æthelstan then acknowledged Egbert as his overlord. Whilst Wessex took control of the south-eastern kingdoms absorbed by Mercia in the 8th century, East Anglia could retain its independence. In 865, East Anglia was invaded by the Danish Great Heathen Army , which occupied winter quarters and secured horses before departing for Northumbria . The Danes returned in 869 to winter at Thetford , before being attacked by

2915-564: The singular in all cases, based on variations of 'ðe.' In the plural all genders take the same word. The indefinite article was often omitted in Mercian. Adjectives are always declined, even with some verbs (which means they can double up as adverbs ), e.g. I am cold. Having split into weak and strong declensions (depending on the strength of the noun), these split again into all four cases, both singular and plural. Comparative adjectives (e.g. bigger ) always add 're.' Example: Æðelen (noble), æðelenre (nobler). Verbs can be conjugated from

2970-433: Was "ultimately based on the evidence of local juries" and so the spoken form of Anglo-Saxon places and people was partly preserved in this way. Evidence from Domesday Book and later sources suggests that a dialect boundary once existed, corresponding with a line that separates from their neighbours the English counties of Cambridgeshire (including the once sparsely-inhabited Fens), Norfolk and Suffolk . The kingdom of

3025-469: Was soon afterwards converted from paganism under the influence of Edwin, but his new religion was evidently opposed in East Anglia and Eorpwald met his death at the hands of a pagan, Ricberht . After three years of apostasy , Christianity prevailed with the accession of Eorpwald's brother (or step-brother) Sigeberht, who had been baptised during his exile in Francia . Sigeberht oversaw the establishment of

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