General thoughts on Old English

English is without a doubt one of the richest languages in the world; it has been changed and moulded by many different peoples and cultures over the centuries. One period I find particularly interesting is post-Roman Britain and the invasions of the Germanic tribes and, four centuries later, the Vikings. After the Romans left Britain and the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived from mainland Europe, there was great change in the ways that people spoke. Latin was, in lack of a better word, pushed aside and mostly used by the Church and nobility (and would, of course, eventually play an important part in the spreading of Christianity). The tribes brought with them dialects that would become what we today refer to as Old English, or Anglo-Saxon. OE is very different from Modern English in spelling and grammar as well as phonology - I have found that many words are closer to our Scandinavian equivalents than their modern English descendants. Some examples include the verbs "wendan" (to return, "(åter)vända" in Swe) and "cweðan" (to say; we have "kväde" (poem/song) in Swe), but there are also many that resemble their MnE counterparts, like "weaxan" (to increase, "wax") and "belýfan" (to believe). 

   It is also worth noting that significant sound changes seem to have occurred between the migration period of the tribes and up until the invasion of the Normans. EngliscHerewulf made a series of Youtube videos on Old English a few years ago where he teaches vocabulary and pronunciation. I'm not sure I agree with him on all points, but he does bring up one interesting thing in one of his last videos: He teaches us the term "sé Angel-sprǣc" ("the language of the English"). "Sprǣc" (speech) was probably originally pronounced with a "k" sound at the end rather than a "tʃ" (as in MnE "child"), in which case it was more similar in sound to Swedish and Norwegian "språk" (speech/language) and Danish "sprog" (both derived from Low German "sprâke"). I had a look at Old Norse, but have so far only come up with "mál" and "orð", both of which still survive in modern Nordic languages. It seems plausible that "sprǣc" and "sprâke" (still "spraak" in Dutch) spread to Britain and Scandinavia separately and have since been shaped by their respective language systems. 
   In the 8th and 9th centuries, the Vikings first came to Britain - but I have an exam tomorrow, and will have to save this for another time. 

Wesað gé hále, as the Anglo-Saxons would say!