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68-681: The Old English name for Sweden was Swēoland or Swēorīċe , land or kingdom of the Swēon , whereas the Germanic tribe of the Swedes was called Svíþjóð in Old Norse . The latter is a compositum consisting of Sví which means Swedish and þjóð which means people. The word þjóð has its origin in the elder Indo-European word teuteh . The name of the Sviar is derived from a self-designation containing

136-613: A definite article ("the"), a demonstrative adjective ("that"), and demonstrative pronoun . Other demonstratives are þēs ("this"), and ġeon ("that over there"). These words inflect for case, gender, and number. Adjectives have both strong and weak sets of endings, weak ones being used when a definite or possessive determiner is also present. Verbs conjugate for three persons : first, second, and third; two numbers: singular, plural; two tenses : present, and past; three moods : indicative , subjunctive , and imperative ; and are strong (exhibiting ablaut) or weak (exhibiting

204-398: A back vowel ( /ɑ/ , /o/ , /u/ ) at the time of palatalization, as illustrated by the contrast between fisċ /fiʃ/ ('fish') and its plural fiscas /ˈfis.kɑs/ . But due to changes over time, a knowledge of the history of the word in question is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty (for details, see palatalization ). In word-final position, the pronunciation of sċ

272-625: A dative plural in -n became productive in German and Dutch in the 15th century; compare German Italien "Italy", Spanien "Spain", Rumänien "Romania", Ungarn "Hungary". Outside of Dutch ( Zweden ), German ( Schweden ), and English, the name Sweden has also been adopted in Welsh. The English form in -n has also influenced several non-European languages, including Japanese スウェーデン ( Suwēden ), South Korean 스웨덴 ( Seuweden ), Hindi स्वीडन ( Svīḍan ), Bengali সুইডেন ( Śuiḍen ), Yoruba Swídìn and

340-406: A dental suffix). Verbs have two infinitive forms: bare and bound; and two participles : present and past. The subjunctive has past and present forms. Finite verbs agree with subjects in person and number. The future tense , passive voice , and other aspects are formed with compounds. Adpositions are mostly before but are often after their object. If the object of an adposition is marked in

408-517: A following ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩ . Modern editions of Old English manuscripts generally introduce some additional conventions. The modern forms of Latin letters are used, including ⟨g⟩ instead of insular G , ⟨s⟩ instead of insular S and long S , and others which may differ considerably from the insular script, notably ⟨e⟩ , ⟨f⟩ and ⟨r⟩ . Macrons are used to indicate long vowels, where usually no distinction

476-467: A friction that led to the erosion of the complicated inflectional word endings. Simeon Potter notes: No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. It was, after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss. There was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength. The strength of

544-601: A homonym with a pre-existing Arabic name Suwayd "black, dark, swarthy" (c.f. Sudan ) and the nisba pre-existing in various parts of the Arab world (such as Riyadh's as-Suwaidi district ). Old English Old English ( Englisċ or Ænglisc , pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ] ), or Anglo-Saxon , was the earliest recorded form of the English language , spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in

612-530: A period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion . While indicating that the establishment of dates is an arbitrary process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections, a synthetic language . Perhaps around 85% of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are

680-647: A professor of theology at Uppsala University in 1477 and dean at Uppsala Cathedral in 1479. He died on Christmas eve in 1486 and was buried in Uppsala Cathedral. His tomb was the center of a substantial local tradition of veneration of the "holy doctor Ericius". His tombstone was destroyed in a fire in 1702. Olai initiated what would become the Gothicismus movement of Swedish Romantic nationalism in his Chronica Regni Gothorum , an account of Swedish history until 1468 (completed before 1475). Chronica

748-866: Is and mik ("me") to mig . This was due to a linguistic sound change . 17th-century spellings include Swerghe , Swirghe , Swirge . Much is made about the difference between the medieval forms Svearike and Sverige . Medieval Swedes, though, were unlikely to see it as anything else but a matter of pronunciation. A naming that stems from a completely different root is the one used in some Finnic languages , in Finnish Ruotsi , in Estonian Rootsi , in Northern Sami Ruoŧŧa , probably derived from various uses of rōþs- , i.e., "related to rowing" in Old Swedish , cf. Rus , probably through

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816-552: Is also sparse early Northumbrian evidence of a sixth case: the locative . The evidence comes from Northumbrian Runic texts (e.g., ᚩᚾ ᚱᚩᛞᛁ on rodi "on the Cross"). Adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number, and can be either strong or weak. Pronouns and sometimes participles agree in case, gender, and number. First-person and second- person personal pronouns occasionally distinguish dual-number forms. The definite article sē and its inflections serve as

884-422: Is as follows. The sounds enclosed in parentheses in the chart above are not considered to be phonemes : The above system is largely similar to that of Modern English , except that [ç, x, ɣ, l̥, n̥, r̥] (and [ʍ] for most speakers ) have generally been lost, while the voiced affricate and fricatives (now also including /ʒ/ ) have become independent phonemes, as has /ŋ/ . The open back rounded vowel [ɒ]

952-621: Is evidenced by the continued variation between their successors in Middle and Modern English. In fact, what would become the standard forms of Middle English and of Modern English are descended from Mercian rather than West Saxon, while Scots developed from the Northumbrian dialect. It was once claimed that, owing to its position at the heart of the Kingdom of Wessex, the relics of Anglo-Saxon accent, idiom and vocabulary were best preserved in

1020-668: Is followed by Middle English (1150 to 1500), Early Modern English (1500 to 1650) and finally Modern English (after 1650), and in Scotland Early Scots (before 1450), Middle Scots ( c.  1450 to 1700) and Modern Scots (after 1700). Just as Modern English is not monolithic, Old English varied according to place. Despite the diversity of language of the Germanic-speaking migrants who established Old English in England and southeastern Scotland, it

1088-468: Is frequent confusion between the names of Sweden and of Switzerland (Spanish Suiza , Catalan Suïssa , Portuguese Suíça , Bulgarian Shveytsariya ). There is a historical tradition going back to at least the 15th century to the effect that Schwyz (the settlement which gave its name to Switzerland) was indeed named after the Swedes. Ericus Olai in his Chronica regni Gothorum ( c.  1470 ) notes

1156-835: Is much freer. The oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system , but from about the 8th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet . Englisċ , from which the word English is derived, means 'pertaining to the Angles '. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in many parts of Britain in the 5th century. By the 9th century, all speakers of Old English, including those who claimed Saxon or Jutish ancestry, could be referred to as Englisċ . This name probably either derives from Proto-Germanic *anguz , which referred to narrowness, constriction or anxiety, perhaps referring to shallow waters near

1224-864: Is possible to reconstruct proto-Old English as a fairly unitary language. For the most part, the differences between the attested regional dialects of Old English developed within England and southeastern Scotland, rather than on the Mainland of Europe. Although from the tenth century Old English writing from all regions tended to conform to a written standard based on Late West Saxon, in speech Old English continued to exhibit much local and regional variation, which remained in Middle English and to some extent Modern English dialects . The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian , Northumbrian , Kentish , and West Saxon . Mercian and Northumbrian are together referred to as Anglian . In terms of geography

1292-434: Is replaced by ⟨þ⟩ ). In contrast with Modern English orthography , Old English spelling was reasonably regular , with a mostly predictable correspondence between letters and phonemes . There were not usually any silent letters —in the word cniht , for example, both the ⟨c⟩ and ⟨h⟩ were pronounced ( /knixt ~ kniçt/ ) unlike the ⟨k⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ in

1360-652: The Latin alphabet was introduced and adapted for the writing of Old English , replacing the earlier runic system. Nonetheless, the largest transfer of Latin-based (mainly Old French ) words into English occurred after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and thus in the Middle English rather than the Old English period. Another source of loanwords was Old Norse , which came into contact with Old English via

1428-603: The dialect of Somerset . For details of the sound differences between the dialects, see Phonological history of Old English § Dialects . The language of the Anglo-Saxon settlers appears not to have been significantly affected by the native British Celtic languages which it largely displaced . The number of Celtic loanwords introduced into the language is very small, although dialect and toponymic terms are more often retained in western language contact zones (Cumbria, Devon, Welsh Marches and Borders and so on) than in

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1496-405: The early Middle Ages . It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman (a type of French ) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of

1564-609: The kingdom of Northumbria . Other parts of the island continued to use Celtic languages ( Gaelic – and perhaps some Pictish – in most of Scotland, Medieval Cornish all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon , Cumbric perhaps to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria , and Welsh in Wales and possibly also on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border ); except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements, where Old Norse

1632-422: The 8th century, the runic system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by Insular script , a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline ) replaced the insular. The Latin alphabet of

1700-780: The Chinese rendition 瑞典 (Southern Min Sūi-tián , Cantonese seoi6 din2 ), and via the Chinese Hanzi spelling various other languages in the larger Sinosphere (such as Mandarin Ruìdiǎn , Vietnamese Thụy Điển , etc.). In Sweden, the form Swerike is attested from the end of the 13th century, Svearike , from the 14th century, as well as the Icelandic Svíaríki and the Old Gutnish Suiariki . In those days

1768-406: The English language; some of them, such as Pope Gregory I 's treatise Pastoral Care , appear to have been translated by Alfred himself. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, but Alfred chiefly inspired the growth of prose. A later literary standard, dating from the late 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester , and

1836-580: The Germanic reflexive *s(w)e "one's own" or "self". The Modern English name Sweden was loaned from Dutch . Before the gradual introduction of Sweden in the 17th century, English used Swedeland or Sweathland . It is based on Middle Dutch Zweden , the Dutch name of Sweden, and in origin the dative plural of Zwede " Swede ". It has been in use in English from about 1600, first recorded in Scottish Swethin, Swadne . Country names based on

1904-608: The Great . From that time on, the West Saxon dialect (then in the form now known as Early West Saxon) became standardised as the language of government, and as the basis for the many works of literature and religious materials produced or translated from Latin in that period. The later literary standard known as Late West Saxon (see History , above), although centred in the same region of the country, appears not to have been directly descended from Alfred's Early West Saxon. For example,

1972-410: The Northumbrian dialect retained /i(ː)o̯/ , which had merged with /e(ː)o̯/ in West Saxon. For more on dialectal differences, see Phonological history of Old English (dialects) . Some of the principal sound changes occurring in the pre-history and history of Old English were the following: For more details of these processes, see the main article, linked above. For sound changes before and after

2040-880: The Northumbrian region lay north of the Humber River; the Mercian lay north of the Thames and south of the Humber River; West Saxon lay south and southwest of the Thames; and the smallest, Kentish region lay southeast of the Thames, a small corner of England. The Kentish region, settled by the Jutes from Jutland, has the scantest literary remains. The term West Saxon actually is represented by two different dialects: Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon. Hogg has suggested that these two dialects would be more appropriately named Alfredian Saxon and Æthelwoldian Saxon, respectively, so that

2108-523: The Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles , Saxons and Jutes . As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced

Name of Sweden - Misplaced Pages Continue

2176-467: The Old English period is also often attributed to Norse influence. The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order , and Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English language than any other language. The eagerness of Vikings in the Danelaw to communicate with their Anglo-Saxon neighbours produced

2244-478: The Old English period, see Phonological history of English . Nouns decline for five cases : nominative , accusative , genitive , dative , instrumental ; three genders : masculine, feminine, neuter; and two numbers : singular, and plural; and are strong or weak. The instrumental is vestigial and only used with the masculine and neuter singular and often replaced by the dative . Only pronouns and strong adjectives retain separate instrumental forms. There

2312-526: The Scandinavian rulers and settlers in the Danelaw from the late 9th   century, and during the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the early 11th   century. Many place names in eastern and northern England are of Scandinavian origin. Norse borrowings are relatively rare in Old English literature, being mostly terms relating to government and administration. The literary standard, however,

2380-606: The Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language – pronouns , modals , comparatives , pronominal adverbs (like hence and together ), conjunctions and prepositions – show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings because, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The effect of Old Norse on Old English

2448-506: The basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. Old English is a West Germanic language , and developed out of Ingvaeonic (also known as North Sea Germanic) dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England . This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland , which for several centuries belonged to

2516-559: The beginnings of the compound tenses of Modern English . Old English verbs include strong verbs , which form the past tense by altering the root vowel, and weak verbs , which use a suffix such as -de . As in Modern English, and peculiar to the Germanic languages, the verbs formed two great classes: weak (regular), and strong (irregular). Like today, Old English had fewer strong verbs, and many of these have over time decayed into weak forms. Then, as now, dental suffixes indicated

2584-494: The borrowing of individual Latin words based on which patterns of sound change they have undergone. Some Latin words had already been borrowed into the Germanic languages before the ancestral Angles and Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. More entered the language when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became influential. It was also through Irish Christian missionaries that

2652-499: The cluster ending in the palatal affricate is sometimes written ⟨nċġ⟩ (or ⟨nġċ⟩ ) by modern editors. Between vowels in the middle of a word, the pronunciation can be either a palatalized geminate /ʃː/ , as in fisċere /ˈfiʃ.ʃe.re/ ('fisherman') and wȳsċan , /ˈwyːʃ.ʃɑn 'to wish'), or an unpalatalized consonant sequence /sk/ , as in āscian /ˈɑːs.ki.ɑn/ ('to ask'). The pronunciation /sk/ occurs when ⟨sc⟩ had been followed by

2720-461: The coast, or else it may derive from a related word *angô which could refer to curve or hook shapes including fishing hooks. Concerning the second option, it has been hypothesised that the Angles acquired their name either because they lived on a curved promontory of land shaped like a fishhook , or else because they were fishermen (anglers). Old English was not static, and its usage covered

2788-421: The dative case, an adposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the sentence. Remnants of the Old English case system in Modern English are in the forms of a few pronouns (such as I/me/mine , she/her , who/whom/whose ) and in the possessive ending -'s , which derives from the masculine and neuter genitive ending -es . The modern English plural ending -(e)s derives from the Old English -as , but

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2856-431: The east. However, various suggestions have been made concerning possible influence that Celtic may have had on developments in English syntax in the post–Old English period, such as the regular progressive construction and analytic word order , as well as the eventual development of the periphrastic auxiliary verb do . These ideas have generally not received widespread support from linguists, particularly as many of

2924-645: The former diphthong /iy/ tended to become monophthongised to /i/ in EWS, but to /y/ in LWS. Due to the centralisation of power and the destruction wrought by Viking invasions, there is relatively little written record of the non-West Saxon dialects after Alfred's unification. Some Mercian texts continued to be written, however, and the influence of Mercian is apparent in some of the translations produced under Alfred's programme, many of which were produced by Mercian scholars. Other dialects certainly continued to be spoken, as

2992-531: The futhorc. A few letter pairs were used as digraphs , representing a single sound. Also used was the Tironian note ⟨⁊⟩ (a character similar to the digit 7) for the conjunction and . A common scribal abbreviation was a thorn with a stroke ⟨ꝥ⟩ , which was used for the pronoun þæt ( that ). Macrons over vowels were originally used not to mark long vowels (as in modern editions), but to indicate stress, or as abbreviations for

3060-603: The inscriptions on the Franks Casket ) date to the early 8th century. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 8th century. With the unification of several of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (outside the Danelaw ) by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect (Early West Saxon). Alfred advocated education in English alongside Latin, and had many works translated into

3128-601: The languages of Roman Britain : Common Brittonic , a Celtic language ; and Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman conquest . Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms : Kentish , Mercian , Northumbrian , and West Saxon . It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian, and Scots from Northumbrian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England

3196-449: The latter applied only to "strong" masculine nouns in the nominative and accusative cases; different plural endings were used in other instances. Old English nouns had grammatical gender , while modern English has only natural gender. Pronoun usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender when those conflicted, as in the case of ƿīf , a neuter noun referring to a female person. In Old English's verbal compound constructions are

3264-578: The meaning was restricted to the older Swedish region in Svealand and did not always include Götaland , the land of the Geats . The word rike translates to "realm" and also appears in the name of the legislature, Riksdag (c.f. Danish rigsdag , German Reichstag ). Towards the end of the 15th century, the form had changed to Swerighe both in Swedish and Danish, like baker ("baker") to bager

3332-456: The modern knight ( /naɪt/ ). The following table lists the Old English letters and digraphs together with the phonemes they represent, using the same notation as in the Phonology section above. After /n/ , /j/ was realized as [dʒ] and /ɣ/ was realized as [ɡ] . The spellings ⟨ncg⟩ , ⟨ngc⟩ and even ⟨ncgg⟩ were occasionally used instead of

3400-505: The naive reader would not assume that they are chronologically related. Each of these four dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the islands. Of these, Northumbria south of the Tyne , and most of Mercia , were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia that was successfully defended, and all of Kent , were then integrated into Wessex under Alfred

3468-538: The name of Switzerland (Both Mandarin and Cantonese names beginning with the same character 瑞 ruì (meaning "auspicious"), to the point where the Swiss and Swedish consulates in Shanghai launched a campaign to help Chinese tourists distinguish between the two countries in 2013.) In Arabic , the name is rendered as Suwayd سويد , the pertaining adjective being سويدي suwaydī "Swedish", which happens to form

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3536-578: The old name of the coast of North Svealand, Roslagen , and to the fact that before sailboats were established in the Baltic Sea, row boats were used to traverse it. The etymology of the name shares the same root as the name Russia . The name of Sweden was Latinized as Suecia adopted in various Romance and Slavic languages, including Spanish Suecia , Catalan Suècia , Portuguese Suécia , Bulgarian Швеция Shvetsiya , and in non-European languages influenced by such languages, In these languages, there

3604-512: The past tense of the weak verbs, as in work and worked . Old English syntax is similar to that of modern English . Some differences are consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection, allowing freer word order . Old English was first written in runes , using the futhorc —a rune set derived from the Germanic 24-character elder futhark , extended by five more runes used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds and sometimes by several more additional characters. From around

3672-429: The richest and most significant bodies of literature preserved among the early Germanic peoples. In his supplementary article to the 1935 posthumous edition of Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader , Dr. James Hulbert writes: Ericus Olai Ericus Olai ( c.  1420–1486 ) was a Swedish theologian and historian. He served as a professor of theology at Uppsala University and dean at Uppsala Cathedral . Ericus Olai

3740-683: The similarity in toponymy, Swycia, quasi Suecia . This tradition was taken seriously in 19th-century scholarly reception of the Swiss Swedish origin legend , especially in Swedish romantic nationalism (e.g. Erik Gustaf Geijer 's 1836 History of the Swedes ), but is now considered unlikely. Chinese uses 瑞典 to represent a phonetic approximation of the name (Early 20th century Mandarin: Shuì Diǎn , Modern Mandarin Ruì Diǎn , Cantonese SeoiDin .). Also in China, there has been frequent confusion with

3808-409: The theorized Brittonicisms do not become widespread until the late Middle English and Early Modern English periods, in addition to the fact that similar forms exist in other modern Germanic languages. Old English contained a certain number of loanwords from Latin , which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Western Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for

3876-564: The time still lacked the letters ⟨j⟩ and ⟨w⟩ , and there was no ⟨v⟩ as distinct from ⟨u⟩ ; moreover native Old English spellings did not use ⟨k⟩ , ⟨q⟩ or ⟨z⟩ . The remaining 20 Latin letters were supplemented by four more: ⟨ æ ⟩ ( æsc , modern ash ) and ⟨ð⟩ ( ðæt , now called eth or edh), which were modified Latin letters, and thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ , which are borrowings from

3944-404: The usual ⟨ng⟩ . The addition of ⟨c⟩ to ⟨g⟩ in spellings such as ⟨cynincg⟩ and ⟨cyningc⟩ for ⟨cyning⟩ may have been a means of showing that the word was pronounced with a stop rather than a fricative; spellings with just ⟨nc⟩ such as ⟨cyninc⟩ are also found. To disambiguate,

4012-423: The word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw, these endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost. This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar". The inventory of Early West Saxon surface phones

4080-443: Was an allophone of short /ɑ/ which occurred in stressed syllables before nasal consonants (/m/ and /n/). It was variously spelled either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩. The Anglian dialects also had the mid front rounded vowel /ø(ː)/ , spelled ⟨œ⟩, which had emerged from i-umlaut of /o(ː)/ . In West Saxon and Kentish, it had already merged with /e(ː)/ before the first written prose. Other dialects had different systems of diphthongs. For example,

4148-439: Was based on the West Saxon dialect , away from the main area of Scandinavian influence; the impact of Norse may have been greater in the eastern and northern dialects. Certainly in Middle English texts, which are more often based on eastern dialects, a strong Norse influence becomes apparent. Modern English contains many, often everyday, words that were borrowed from Old Norse, and the grammatical simplification that occurred after

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4216-481: Was either /ʃ/ or possibly /ʃː/ when the preceding vowel was short. Doubled consonants are geminated ; the geminate fricatives ⟨ff⟩ , ⟨ss⟩ and ⟨ðð⟩ / ⟨þþ⟩ / ⟨ðþ⟩ / ⟨þð⟩ are always voiceless [ff] , [ss] , [θθ] . The corpus of Old English literature is small but still significant, with some 400 surviving manuscripts. The pagan and Christian streams mingle in Old English, one of

4284-616: Was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham ("the Grammarian"). This form of the language is known as the " Winchester standard", or more commonly as Late West Saxon. It is considered to represent the "classical" form of Old English. It retained its position of prestige until the time of the Norman Conquest, after which English ceased for a time to be of importance as a literary language. The history of Old English can be subdivided into: The Old English period

4352-562: Was made between long and short vowels in the originals. (In some older editions an acute accent mark was used for consistency with Old Norse conventions.) Additionally, modern editions often distinguish between velar and palatal ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ by placing dots above the palatals: ⟨ċ⟩ , ⟨ġ⟩ . The letter wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ is usually replaced with ⟨w⟩ , but ⟨æ⟩ , ⟨ð⟩ and ⟨þ⟩ are normally retained (except when ⟨ð⟩

4420-411: Was spoken and Danish law applied. Old English literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century. The oldest surviving work of Old English literature is Cædmon's Hymn , which was composed between 658 and 680 but not written down until the early 8th century. There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts (notably

4488-662: Was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages , and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Like other old Germanic languages, it is very different from Modern English and Modern Scots, and largely incomprehensible for Modern English or Modern Scots speakers without study. Within Old English grammar nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order

4556-425: Was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins, and with some words in common, speakers roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of

4624-518: Was the author of the chronicle Chronica regni Gothorum and was an early proponent of Gothicismus . Neither the date nor place of his birth are known with certainty. He was probably born during the 1420s. Olai studied at the University of Rostock (Magister Artium. 1452). After working as canon in Uppsala, he attended the University of Siena (Magister de Sacra Theologia. 1475). He became

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