The Origins of the Old English

The Origin Of the Old English

Old English is one of the Germanic group of Indo-European languages. It was spoken, and written, in England before about 1100AD. It is sometimes referred to as Anglo-Saxon.

There were four distinct dialects of Old English: Northumbrian, Mercia, Kentish and West-Saxon. This is known through differences in spelling. After 900AD West-Saxon became widely used as a standard written language, and is sometimes referred to as 'Classic West-Saxon'.

Two stages of the West-Saxon dialect can be distinguished - early West Saxon (eWS), which is the language of the time of King Alfred (c. 900), and late West Saxon (lWS), which is seen in the works of Ælfric (c. 1000). The most important difference is that in eWS ie and īe appear in lWS texts as y and ŷ (for example, eWS fierd becomes fyrd in lWS). Another is that ea may be spelt e in lWS (for example, eWS scēap becomes scēp in lWS).

According to Tacitus the West Germanic people were divided into three major tribal groups: Ingvaeones, Istvaeones, Erminones. It is not clear what these groups corresponded to, but they mark out some important geographical distributions that correspond to later dialect groups.


This whole issue of word origins is very difficult as Latin, the Germanic tongues, Old English (derived from Germanic), and the Celtic tongues are all ultimately derived from a common Indo-European root, and are cognates (related). This can easily be demonstrated by looking (for example) at the words I, me, is, brother, ten.