Old_English

context: Old English (Ænglisc, Anglisc, Englisc) or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably 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 a time as the language of the upper classes by Anglo-Norman, a relative of French, and Old English developed into the next historical form of English, known as Middle English.
qas: answers: Old English
question: What is the name of the English language's earliest form?

answers: southern and eastern
question: In what parts of Scotland was Old English spoken?

answers: the early Middle Ages
question: in what historical period was Old English spoken?

answers: Anglo-Saxon settlers
question: What people brought Old English to Britain?

answers: Middle English
question: What language developed from Old English?

context: 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 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 scantiest literary remains.
qas: answers: Kentish
question: Along with West Saxon, Northumbrian and Mercian, what was one of the four main dialects of Old English?

answers: Anglian
question: What is a term that collectively refers to Northumbrian and Mercian?

answers: Humber
question: Geographically, what river was Northumbria north of?

answers: Humber
question: What river was the Mercian region south of?

answers: Kentish
question: Which of the Old English dialects covered the smallest geograhical region?

context: 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 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 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.
qas: answers: Latin
question: From what language did Old English borrow some words?

answers: Irish Christian missionaries
question: What individuals introduced the Latin alphabet to the speakers of Old English?

answers: Old French
question: After the Norman Conquest, Latin words entered English via what language?

answers: runic system
question: Before the introduction of the Latin alphabet, how was Old English written?

answers: 1066
question: In what year did the Norman Conquest occur?

context: Old English nouns had grammatical gender, a feature absent in modern English, which uses only natural gender. For example, the words sunne ("sun"), mōna ("moon") and wīf ("woman/wife") were respectively feminine, masculine and neuter; this is reflected, among other things, in the form of the definite article used with these nouns: sēo sunne ("the sun"), se mōna ("the moon"), þæt wīf ("the woman/wife"). Pronoun usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender, when those conflicted (as in the case of wīf, a neuter noun referring to a female person).
qas: answers: grammatical
question: What type of gender did Old English nouns possess?

answers: natural
question: What type of gender is present in modern English nouns?

answers: sunne
question: What was a feminine word in Old English?

answers: neuter
question: What was the grammatical gender of the Old English word for wife?

answers: mōna
question: What was a masculine word in Old English?

context: The Latin alphabet of 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 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, and a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender for the pronoun þæt. Macrons over vowels were originally used not to mark long vowels (as in modern editions), but to indicate stress, or as abbreviations for a following m or n.
qas: answers: u
question: When the Latin alphabet was introduced to Old English, what letter was the same as v?

answers: q
question: Along with k and z, what Latin letter was not used in Old English?

answers: thorn
question: What is the term for the letter þ?

answers: ƿ
question: What number was the Tironian note visually similar to?

answers: wynn
question: What was the term for the letter ƿ?

context: The first example is taken from the opening lines of the folk-epic Beowulf, a poem of some 3,000 lines and the single greatest work of Old English. This passage describes how Hrothgar's legendary ancestor Scyld was found as a baby, washed ashore, and adopted by a noble family. The translation is literal and represents the original poetic word order. As such, it is not typical of Old English prose. The modern cognates of original words have been used whenever practical to give a close approximation of the feel of the original poem.
qas: answers: Beowulf
question: What is regarded as the greatest literary work in Old English?

answers: 3,000
question: About how many lines was Beowulf?

answers: Scyld
question: Who was Hrothgar a descendant of?

answers: a noble family
question: Who adopted Hrothgar's ancestor?

context: 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 difficult for Modern English speakers to understand without study. Old English grammar is quite similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order is much freer. The oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system, but from about the 9th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet.
qas: answers: West Germanic
question: To what language group does Old English belong?

answers: Old Frisian
question: Along with Old Saxon, what language is closely related to Old English?

answers: German
question: To what modern language is Old English similar?

answers: 9th
question: In what century did the Latin alphabet replace the runic system in Old English writing?

context: A later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and 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.
qas: answers: Ælfric of Eynsham
question: Who was known by the nickname "the Grammarian"?

answers: Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester
question: What churchman was influential in the development of the Winchester standard?

answers: 10th
question: In what century did the Winchester standard arise?

answers: Late West Saxon
question: What is another term for the Winchester standard?

answers: the Norman Conquest
question: What event led to English temporarily losing its importance as a literary language?

context: Old English was not static, and its usage covered 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 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived, to be sure, are basic elements of Modern English vocabulary.
qas: answers: 700
question: For about how many years was Old English used?

answers: 5th
question: In what century was Old English first used?

answers: 11th
question: In what century did Old English cease to be used?

answers: 450 to 1150
question: According to Albert Baugh, what was the period in which Old English was used?

answers: 85
question: About what percentage of Old English words are not present in Modern English?

context: Due to the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions, there is relatively little written record of the non-Wessex 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 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 the dialect of Somerset.
qas: answers: Mercian
question: From what Old English dialect is the standard for of Modern English descended?

answers: Northumbrian
question: From what Old English dialect did Scots derive?

answers: the Viking invasions
question: Along with centralization, what reason is given for the lack of records in non-Wessex dialects after the unification of Alfred?

answers: Somerset
question: What modern dialect is sometimes regarded as being similar to that of the historical Kingdom of Wessex?

context: The strength of 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 for, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or in Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The change to Old English from Old Norse 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, they 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 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 happily resulted in “simplifying English grammar.”
qas: answers: Danish
question: What language influenced Old English as a result of the Viking invasions?

answers: Old Norse
question: What language was spoken in Northern England after the Viking invasions?

answers: inflectional
question: Between the English and Scandinavian language, what elements were most different?

context: Unlike Modern English, Old English is a language rich in morphological diversity. It maintains several distinct cases: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and (vestigially) instrumental. The only remnants of this 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 old (masculine and neuter) genitive ending -es. In Old English, however, nouns and their modifying words take appropriate endings depending on their case.
qas: answers: morphological diversity
question: What trait does Old English possess that Modern English lacks?

answers: accusative
question: Along with the nominative, genitive, dative and instrumental, what case did Old English possess?

answers: -es
question: The Modern English ending -'s is derived from what ending in Old English?

answers: their case
question: In Old English, noun endings vary on what basis?

context: 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 southern Anglo-Saxon neighbors produced 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.”
qas: answers: Old Norse
question: What language had the greatest influence on English?

answers: the Danelaw
question: What was the name of the area in England ruled by the Vikings?

answers: Simeon Potter
question: Who argued that the influence of Old Norse caused English to become a clearer, stronger and more direct language?

answers: word-endings
question: What parts of English grammar declined as a result of Old Norse influence?

context: The form of the verb varies with person (first, second and third), number (singular and plural), tense (present and past), and mood (indicative, subjunctive and imperative). Old English also sometimes uses compound constructions to express other verbal aspects, the future and the passive voice; in these we see 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 the past tense of the weak verbs, as in work and worked.
qas: answers: past
question: Along with the present, what was a verb tense in Old English?

answers: indicative, subjunctive and imperative
question: What were the three moods that caused verb variation in Old English?

answers: third
question: Along with the first and second, what person influenced verb variation in Old English?

answers: -de
question: What is an example of a suffix used by Old English weak verbs?

answers: altering the root vowel
question: How did Old English strong verbs express the past tense?

context: Old English is a West Germanic language, developing 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 the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements where Old Norse was spoken. Celtic speech also remained established in certain parts of England: Medieval Cornish was spoken all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon, while Cumbric survived perhaps to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria, and Welsh may have been spoken on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border. Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law.
qas: answers: West Germanic
question: What language family does Old English belong to?

answers: North Sea Germanic
question: What is another name for Ingvaeonic?

answers: 5th
question: In what century did Old English first develop?

answers: Northumbria
question: What Anglo-Saxon kingdom ruled parts of modern-day Scotland?

answers: Medieval Cornish
question: What language was spoken in Cornwall?

context: Some of the most important surviving works of Old English literature are Beowulf, an epic poem; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of early English history; the Franks Casket, an inscribed early whalebone artefact; and Cædmon's Hymn, a Christian religious poem. There are also a number of extant prose works, such as sermons and saints' lives, biblical translations, and translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers, legal documents, such as laws and wills, and practical works on grammar, medicine, and geography. Still, poetry is considered the heart of Old English literature. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous, with a few exceptions, such as Bede and Cædmon. Cædmon, the earliest English poet we know by name, served as a lay brother in the monastery at Whitby.
qas: answers: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
question: What is an important Old English historical record?

answers: Cædmon's Hymn
question: What is an important Old English religious poem?

answers: an epic poem
question: What type of literary work is Beowulf?

answers: Cædmon
question: Who is the earliest English poet known by name?

answers: Whitby
question: Where did Cædmon live?

context: Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, and Latin, brought to Britain by Roman invasion. Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish 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. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century.
qas: answers: North Sea Germanic
question: What is another name for Anglo-Frisian?

answers: Celtic
question: What language family did Common Brittonic belong to?

answers: Roman invasion
question: How was the Latin language brought to Britain?

answers: 9th
question: In what century did Scandinavian settlement begin in northern England?

answers: Jutes
question: Along with the Angles and Saxons, what tribe spoke Anglo-Frisian?

context: With the unification 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 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 King Alfred the Great (871 to 901) chiefly inspired the growth of prose.
qas: answers: Pastoral Care
question: What treatise was written by Pope Gregory?

answers: West Saxon
question: What dialect did Alfred's government use?

answers: 9th
question: In what century did Alfred unify Anglo-Saxon England?

answers: 871
question: When did Alfred the Great's reign begin?

answers: Alfred the Great
question: What king unified the Anglo-Saxon realms in England?

context: Each of these four dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. 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 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.
qas: answers: Mercia
question: Along with Northumbria, what kingdom was invaded by the Vikings?

answers: Kent
question: Along with the part of Mercia not conquered by the Vikings, what other kingdom was combined with Wessex by Alfred?

answers: Early West Saxon
question: What is the modern name for the West Saxon dialect of Alfred's time?

answers: Latin
question: From what language was literature notably translated into West Saxon?

answers: Tyne
question: North of what river in Northumbria was the kingdom not overrun by the Vikings?

context: Another source of loanwords was Old Norse, which came into contact with Old English via 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, 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 a great many, often everyday, words that were borrowed from Old Norse, and the grammatical simplification that occurred after the Old English period is also often attributed to Norse influence.
qas: answers: 11th
question: During what century did Cnut rule?

answers: Danish
question: What was Cnut's nationality?

answers: 9th
question: During what century did Scandinavians begin to settle in England?

answers: Old Norse
question: What language was a source for English loanwords that are still used today?

answers: northern
question: Along with eastern England, what part of England contains many place names of Scandinavian origin?

context: Modern editions of Old English manuscripts generally introduce some additional conventions. The modern forms of Latin letters are used, including ⟨g⟩ in place of the insular G, ⟨s⟩ for 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 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 æsc, eth and thorn are normally retained (except when eth is replaced by thorn).
qas: answers: palatal
question: What form of c, when written, contains a dot over the letter?

answers: w
question: What conventional letter from the Latin alphabet typically replaces the wynn from Old English?

answers: g
question: What letter from the Latin alphabet replaces the Old English insular G?

answers: s
question: What Latin letter is used in place of the Old English long S?

answers: thorn
question: When eth is replaced, what is it replaced by?

context: Like other historical languages, Old English has been used by scholars and enthusiasts of later periods to create texts either imitating Anglo-Saxon literature or deliberately transferring it to a different cultural context. Examples include Alistair Campbell and J. R. R. Tolkien. A number of websites devoted to Neo-Paganism and Historical re-enactment offer reference material and forums promoting the active use of Old English. By far the most ambitious project[peacock term] is the Old English Wikipedia, but most of the Neo-Old English texts published online bear little resemblance to the historical model and are riddled with very basic grammatical mistakes.
qas: answers: Neo-Paganism
question: What modern religion sometimes uses Old English?

answers: Historical re-enactment
question: What hobby champions the use of Old English?

answers: Alistair Campbell
question: Along with Tolkien, what modern scholar notably made use of Old English?

answers: the Old English Wikipedia
question: What Wikipedia project makes use of the Old English language?

answers: Neo-Old English
question: What is a term for modern texts written in Old English?