From Old English to Standard English Language Variation Across Timeomer books by Penmis Freeborn FROM OLD ENGLISH Varieties of English ' TO STAN DARD EN G Li S H A Course Book in English Grammar A COURSE BOOK IN LANGUAGE VARIATION ACROSS TIME Dennis Freeborn M MACMILLAN—— Contents © Dennis Freeborn 1992 4 Preface ix Al rghts reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission Acknowledgements x Of this publication may be made without writen permission. ° No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied Texts and facsimiles ‘or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance ‘with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act Symbols xvi 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 The English language is brought to Britai 1 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP SHE. 4.1 How the English language came to Britain 1, 4.2. Roman Britain 7 Any person who does any unauthonsed actin relation to 1.3. Studying variety in language across time 10 this publication may be lable to criminal prosecution and 114 How has the English language changed? 10 erat clams for damages. 1.5 How can we learn about OE and later changes in the language? 1" First edition 1992 1.6 Changes of meaning - the semantic level 12 Published by 2 Old English 15 MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD 24 Dialects and political boundaries 15 Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS 22 Written OE 7 ‘and London 23. Danish and Norwegian Vikings 24 Companies and representatives 24 The Battle of Brunanburh - OE poetry 27 ‘throughout the world 2.5 _ Effects on the English language 30 ISBN 0-333-53767-X hardcover 35 atin vocabulary In OF 3 ISBN 0-333-53768-8 paperback 27 OF grammar 3 ape 28 The Norman Conquest 38 ‘Acalaiogue record for this book is 29 The pronunciation of OE 42 fvailable from the British Library 2.40 The inflections of OE a Printed in Hong Kong 3 From Old English to Middle English 4B 3.1 The evidence for linguistic change 4a : 3.2 The Norman Conquest and the English language a4 3.3 The earliest surviving ME text 46 3.4 The book called Ormulum 50 3.5 The origins of present-day Standard English in ME 53 3.6 Evidence of changes in pronunciation 53 3.7 The Bestiary-the eagle 57 3.8 Anote on ME spelling 58 v