What did the Anglo-Saxons speak?

Answer 1

The Anglo-Saxons spoke - Anglo-Saxon!

There's more though. (Please note multiple Edits due to formatting problems)

Basic EtymologyAlso known as Proto-Old English, it belongs to the Indo-Germanic ('Indo-Aryan') family of languages in which it is situated in the subsequent subdivision of the West Germanic Division. There are 4 other languages beyond Anglo-Saxon in this division:

• Old High German (Extinct)
• Old Low German (aka Old Saxon) (Forms major part of Modern German)
• Frankic (Extinct - but a few remains exist within modern French)
• Old Frisian (precursor of Modern Dutch)

These five form an intermediate set of dialects between Old Scandinavian languages and the South German Division, of which the now extinct Goth is the better known.

There is sometimes a subdivision within the West German of Old North German, which includes the Anglo-Saxon and Old Frisian dialects as these two share much more in common structurally than they do with the other three. As languages however they were not understandable. (An Anglo-Saxon could not have had a conversation with a Frisian without lots of arm waving and shouting).

Subdivisions of Anglo-Saxon are twofold: Chronological and Dialectical.

The former consists of three major parts, and the subdivisions are largely arbitrary:

• Primitive Old English (upto c700AD)
• Early Old English (upto c900AD)
• Late Old English (upto c1100AD)

The major dialectical divisions and further subdivisions are:

- Saxon:

• West Saxon
• Non-West Saxon:
• ** East Saxon
  • South Saxon
  • Mid Saxon

- Kentish (Most Closely Related to Frisian)

-Anglian:

• East Anglian
• Mercian:
• ** True Mercian
  • Mid Anglian
• Northumbrian (Major Celtic influences):
• ** Bernician
  • *** Bernician
    • Lothianic (Basis of later Inglic, the medieval Scots form of English)
  • Deiran

To visualise these, here are the major concentrations. Their names are based on the pre-unification knigdoms of the Anglo-Saxons:

http://www.geocities.com/paul_j_hurley@btinternet.com/wikianswersimages/

7th_century_languages.jpg

(all on one line)

Key:

• Black = Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (after which local dialects named)
• Grey= Gaellic (Irish) Languages
• Yellow = Romano British (Welsh) Subdivisions
• Bright Green = Pictish (Original inhabitants of modern-day Scotland)

It must be noted that as time passed, these divisions - highly marked in the 7th century and often incomprehensible to each other faded away for the most part, such that by the mid ninth century, there were only two main divisions - Northern (Northumbrian) and Southern (Everything else). The local dialects were still present, but there was much more uniformity.

The division between North and South was largely due to geography - the line from modern Liverpool to the Humber estuary at that time being dominated by marshes and large scale woodland and poorly inhabited, therefore offering a barrier to population mixing. Southern English became increasingly Latinised from c950 onwards while Northern English was constantly influenced by the various Celtic languages and common cultures.

Other smaller divisions still existed. The South Saxons, isolated from the rest by the infertile expanse of the Weoald forest along the North Downs were the last of the Southern English to lose particular identities while in the Northwest - modern day Cumbria and Lancashire there were many dialects known collectively as rheged - a mixture of Northern Welsh and various Northumbrian dialects. Many of these survived past the Norman conquest in their isolated communities.

As movements towards political unity progressed, no official version of Anglo-Saxon was adopted until the dominance of the West Saxons (Wessex) became particularly marked with the ascension of Alfred as war-leader. By 950 AD in the Southern English areas West Saxon became acknowledged as the governmental dialect. Northumbria once more remained apart. Common language (the vernacular - a collective term for all languages in which everyday speech is different from the 'Queen's Version') remained according to local traditions.

This official version of Old English was also the basis for a third type, that of artistic Anglo-Saxon, that used in poetry and prose.

Examples of these various languages can be found in the following works (obtainable through national bookshops such as Waterstones if you ask at the counter to search their computer inventories):

• Early Northumbrian: Cædmon's Hymn, The Leiden Riddle
• Mid-Northumbrian: Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English (A must read for any study of Anglo-Saxon History!)
• Late Northumbrian: Lindisfarne Gospels
• West Saxon: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Another must read), Beowulf
• Written literary histories beyond these two is practically non-existant, but the Vespian Psalter is regarded as being of a very early Mercian form.

Nordic and Celtic Influences:The Celtic Languages as a whole (accross all of the british Isles) is subdivided accordingly:

- Northern Celtic:

• - Gaelic:
• ** - Irish
  • - Scots (Remained in Ireland until about 1000AD)
• - Picto-Briton:
• ** - Pictish:
  • *** - Northern (Highlands)
    • - Southern (Lowlands and Cairngorms)
  • - Briton:(Latinised into Romano-British, later broke up into)
  • *** - Northern (Extinct by 1000AD)
    • - Western (Welsh)
    • - Southern (Cornish and Breton)

- Southern Celts (Gauls and Iberians - not within this scope.)

Modern Scots Gaelic carries heavy influences of both types of Pictish and the highland culture is more of a melding of cultures rather than the 'takeovers' of English history. (The tartan is in fact a pictish trait - the bagpipe a Gaelic one).

Celtic literary work is non-existant as the Celtic languages did not have a written typeface, but carried stories by word of mouth. Modern written Gaelic evolved froma latin typeface in the middle ages.

The Nordic Languages is subdivided into:

- West Nordic:

• - Old Norse
• - Old Icelandic
• - Orkadian
• ** - subunit: Hebredian
  • - subunit: East Irish

- East Nordic

• - Old Swedish
• - Old Danish
• ** - subunit: Faeric (Faeroes)

It should be noted that those of the Orkadian group are melded with local Celtic forms - particularly in Ireland. (Dublin was actually founded by the Vikings).

Nordic artistic works are primarily written in Old Icelandic. In The Orkadian groups these were used, but in those who settled in the mainland areas of Britain, including Scotland, no Nordic literary language evolved.

Orthography of Anglo-Saxon and Nordic Languages:Both of the Anglo-Saxons and, later, the Norse, were familiar with two different typefaces - Runic, based on their own pre-invasion script, and the latin one.

Except in form, the basic structure of the two alphabets were the same - a series of lines and/or curves represented each of the different sounds (or phonyms) that the language required. Written left to right in both cases, they were in many ways interchangeable.

The latin alphabet however did not have the variety of forms present in Anglo-saxon tongue and so runic devices were imported as the language swuitched systematically to latin. Additionally, some letters used in latin were used in Anglo-saxon but referred to different sounds or stresses.

The primary inconsistencies between them was in the use of c and g. The g symbol was used in Early times to represent both the forward and backward spirant, such as with the modern German word sagen and modern English yonder, respectively. It was later used as the back-stop such as in the modern word good. The letter c was used as both the back and front stop such as in could and kid. In the runic alphabet additional sybols represented different stresses - a facet not possible in latin (the c in latin is only ever a front stop, for example) - and so this defines one of the earliest natures of English still present today: The context-based system of language and pronunciation in which meaning or sound changes according to the words or letters about it. This is not unique to English but is infact notable accross all of the Germanic Languages as they altered their typefaces from the rich and subtle runic to latin. In Romantic languages, such as French, this property is generally lacking.

As an example, the word set has 167 different meanings in the Oxford English Dictionary and takes 31 pages to describe. It is up to the reader to determine which meaning is the correct one.

The letter b was used until about 800AD as a spirant and is pronounced as if it were an f.

Two letters were borrowed from the runic alphabet - þ and ρ. þ is called þorn ('thorn') and represented the th sound. ρ is called wynn and was used instead of a w. A third symbol, ð, which also represented th. In early times, þ was used for the unvoiced spirant (as in think) and ð as the voiced spirant (as in then). Later (c 700AD) they were used interchangably, except in Northumbria where the practice continued until c900AD. The similarity between ρ and p has been responsible for endless misinterpretations and so care must be taken.

Additionally, dependant on time and place the following letters could be found written in non-standard ways:

• g=З
• f=F
• r=p
• s=ſ

The letter 7 was used in the same way that modern typefaces use &.

A full example of the runic typeface can be seen here:

http://www.geocities.com/paul_j_hurley@btinternet.com/wikianswersimages/

germanic_runes.jpg

There are a total of 31, each of which applies to both a sound and a number - which interestingly, has a base of 31 (not 10). There is no emblem for zero. Nordic has variations from Germanic in that symbol 30 is not used except for a number. Care must be taken to distinguish runic numbers from letters. Even worse or the orthographer, there are no spaces or punctuation!

The most notable Anglo-Saxon runic emblems are on the Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, although the bone plate articles in the British Museum and on a gravestone in Sandwich, Kent are also notable.

Runic poems are found thropughout the Germanic world, the largest collection being in Iceland which opened it's first library in 613AD and beyond moving building periodically, has stayed intact throughout.

Majusculisation is achieved by carving the symbol with greater weight and turning any curved line into a square or pointed one.

The structure of Germanic/Nordic peoms follows stanzas similar to nursery rhymes:A was an archer who shot a frog B was a butcher who had a big dog

Answer 2

no they spoke their own language, Anglo-saxon.