古英语词汇简介

主要分古英语的形成，代表时期，方言，字母和发音，单词，句子结构，语法，文学作品，来自古英语的英文名字。

古英语（450-1150）

1.形成

日耳曼部落在不列颠定居以后，各自占领一些地区。盎格鲁人占领了泰晤士河以北的英格兰大部分地区和苏格兰的低地，朱特人占领了肯特郡一带地区，撒克逊人占领了泰晤士河以南的大部分地区。各个部落建立了一些小王国，出现了英语史上的七国时代（the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy）。直到公元830年，阿尔弗烈德大王（Alfred the Great）才统一了整个英格兰地区。由于全国长期没有统一，所以古英语时期存在着多种方言，主要的方言有四种：西撒克逊语（West Saxon）、肯特语（Kentish）、莫西亚语（Mercian）和北恩布瑞安语（Northumbrian）。这四种方言都曾一度占主导地位。西撒克逊语保存下来的手稿最多，其它方言在形成英语的过程中也起到了重要的作用。

古英语的词汇有着浓厚的日耳曼语族的特点。这主要表现为复合法是重要的构词方法，复合词在古英语词汇中占有显著的地位。据统计，在史诗《贝奥武夫》（Beowulf）3183行的诗句中，竟有1069个复合词。有些复合词中不重读的部分，渐渐失去独立地位，而演变为词缀，如 for-，in-，-ful等派生法在古英语中也广泛使用，共有24个名词后缀、15个形容词后缀，-dom，-hood，-ship，-ness，- the，-ful，-ish 等词缀都可溯源到

古英语时期。古英语时期诗歌有一种特殊的修辞手法，即头韵（alliteration），由此产生的许多短语一直保留至今，如 might and main（全力地），friend and foe（敌友），a labour of love （出自喜爱而做的事）。

古英语时期有两个重要历史事件，给英语词汇带来较大影响。第一件事是基督教传入英语。公元597年，一个名叫奥古斯丁（Augustine）的牧师从罗马来到英国传教。罗马文化随着基督教传入了英国。与此同时，一批拉丁词进入英语。

第二件事是北欧人入侵英国。从公元790年开始，大批斯堪的纳维人在英国定居，丹麦国王卡纽特（Knut）还一度成为英国的君主。斯堪的纳维亚人和英国人交往频繁，所以有许多斯堪的纳维亚各国词语进入英语。

2.代表时期

古英语可以分为：

史前古英语 (公元450年至650年)，在这段时期，因为缺乏相关文献，古英语只能构拟出来，是当时盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人在英格兰地区的语言。

早期古英语 (公元650年至900年)，在这段时期，开始出现最古老的英语文献。

后期古英语 (公元900年至1066年)，古英语的最后阶段，随着诺曼征服，过渡至中古英语。

3. 方言

古英语时期共有四种主要方言：

(1)诺森伯里亚方言——洪伯河(the Humber)以北的方言

(2)梅尔西亚方言——界乎洪伯河与泰晤士河之间的英国中部地区的方言

(3)肯特(Kentish)方言——居住在英国东南部地区的朱待人的方言

(4)西撤克逊方言——泰晤士河以南的方言。诺森伯里亚和悔尔西亚这两种方言又合称盎格里亚方言，即盎格鲁人居住地区的方言。

Old English dialects

The surviving Old English documents are traditionally attributed to four different major dialects: Kentish (in the south-east), West Saxon (in the south-west), Mercian (in the midland territories of Mercia), and Northumbrian (in the north); because of various similarities they show,

Mercian and Northumbrian are often grouped together as Anglian. This division is largely based on linguistic differences shown by various of the major early sources, although many of the details are highly controversial, and some scholars are very critical of the traditional association of these linguistic differences (however approximately) with the boundaries of various politically defined areas (which are themselves only poorly understood), and today many of the details of where each variety was centred geographically are subject to debate. For political and cultural reasons, manuscripts written in the West Saxon dialect hugely predominate among our later records (although much of the verse is something of a special case), reflecting the widespread adoption of a form of West Saxon as a written language in the later Old English period.

4. Alphabet and Pronunciation

The alphabet used to write our Old English texts was adopted from Latin, which was introduced by Christian

missionaries. Unfortunately, for the beginning student, spelling was never fully standardized: instead the alphabet, with continental values (sounds), was used by scribal monks to spell words "phonetically" with the result that each dialect, with its different sounds, was rendered differently -- and inconsistently, over time, due to dialectal evolution and/or scribal differences. King Alfred did attempt to regularize spelling in the 9th century, but by the 11th century continued changes in pronunciation once again exerted their disruptive effects on spelling. In modern transcriptions such as ours, editors often add diacritics to signal vowel pronunciation, though seldom more than macrons (long marks).

Anglo-Saxon scribes added two consonants to the Latin alphabet to render the th sounds: first the runic thorn (t), and later eth (e). However, there was never a consistent distinction between them as their modern IPA equivalents might suggest: different instances of the same word might use t in one place and e in another. We follow the practices of our sources in our textual transcriptions, but our dictionary forms tend to standardize on either tor e -- mostly the latter, though it depends on the word.

To help reduce confusion, we sort these letters indistinguishably, after T; the reader should not infer any particular difference. Another added letter was the ligature ash (?), used to represent the broad vowel sound now rendered by 'a' in, e.g., the word fast. A letter wynn was also added, to represent the English w sound, but it looks so much like thorn that modern transcriptions replace it with the more familiar 'w' to eliminate confusion.

The nature of non-standardized Anglo-Saxon spelling does offer compensation: no letters were "silent" (i.e., all were pronounced), and phonetic spelling helps identify and track dialectal differences through time. While the latter is not always relevant to the beginning student, it is nevertheless important to philologists and others interested in dialects and the evolution of the early English language.

主条目：古英语音系

古英语的音位表重构如下：

双唇

音唇齿音齿音齿龈音龈后音

硬

腭

音

软腭音

声

门

音

鼻

音m n (?)

塞

音

p

b

t d k ɡ塞

擦音t?(d

?)

擦

音

f (v

) θ(

e)

s (z

)

?

(?

)

(x) (

?)

h

括号中的是同位异音:

前中圆唇元音/?(?)/ 出现在某些方言中，但在信料最好的后期西撒克逊方言中未出现。

5.Vocabulary

At first glance, Old English texts may look decidedly strange to a modern English speaker: many Old English words

are no longer used in modern English, and the inflectional structure was far more rich than is true of its modern descendant. However, with small spelling differences and sometimes minor meaning changes, many of the most common words in Old and modern English are the same. For example, over 50 percent of the thousand most common words in Old English survive today -- and more than 75 percent of the top hundred. Conversely, more than 80 percent of the thousand most common words in modern English come from Old English. A few "teaser" examples appear below; our Master Glossary or Base-Form Dictionary may be scanned for examples drawn from our texts, and any modern English dictionary that includes etymologies will provide hundreds or thousands more.

?Nouns: cynn 'kin', hand, god, man(n), word.

?Pronouns: hē, ic 'I', mē, self, wē.

?Verbs: beran 'bear', cuman 'come', dyde 'did', sittan 'sit', w?s 'was'.

?Adjectives: f?st 'fast', gōd 'good', hālig 'holy', rīce 'rich', wīd 'wide'.

?Adverbs: ?r'ere', alle 'all', nū'now', tō'too', e?r 'there'.

?Prepositions: ?fter 'after', for, in, on, under.

?Articles: e?t 'that', eis 'this'.

?Conjunctions: and, gif 'if'.

古英语的名词有数和格的分别。数分为单数、复数；格分为主格、所有格、与格、宾格。因此一个名词加起来共有8种变化形式。此外，名次还分阳性、中性和阴性。但是比较奇怪的是，这些性的区分并不是以性别来判断的，而且没有性别的事物也未必是中性。例如妇女就是阳性的。

形容词的形态变化分为强、弱两种，它的数和格也共有8

种变化。

动词只有现在式和过去式两种时态变化。

?

6. Word Forms

As we will see, Old English words were much inflected. Over time, most of this apparatus was lost and English became the analytic language we recognize today, but to read early English texts one must master the conjugations of verbs and the declensions of nouns, etc. Yet these inflectional

systems had already been reduced by the time Old English was first being written, long after it had parted ways with its Proto-Germanic ancestor. The observation that matters "could have been worse" should serve as consolation to any modern English student who views conjugation and declension with trepidation.

Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns

These categories of Old English words are declined according to case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, or sometimes instrumental), number (singular, plural, or [for pronouns] dual meaning 'two'), and gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter: inherent in nouns, but inherited by adjectives and pronouns from the nouns they associate with). In addition, some adjectives are inflected to distinguish comparative and superlative uses.

Adjectives and regular nouns are either "strong" or "weak" in declension. In addition, irregular nouns belong to classes that reflect their earlier Germanic or even Indo-European roots; these classes, or more to the point

their progenitors, will not be stressed in our lessons, but descriptions are found in the handbooks.

Pronouns are typically suppletive in their declension, meaning inflectional rules do not account for many forms so each form must be memorized (as is true of modern English I/me, you, he/she/it/his/her, etc). Tables will be provided. Similarly, a few nouns and adjectives are "indeclinable" and, again, some or all forms must be memorized.

Verbs

Old English verbs are conjugated according to person (1st, 2nd, or 3rd), number (singular or plural), tense (present or past/preterite), mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive or perhaps optative), etc.

Most verbs are either "strong" or "weak" in conjugation; there are seven classes of strong verbs and three classes of weak verbs. A few other verbs, including modals (e.g. for 'can', 'must'), belong to a special category called "preterit-present," where different rules apply, and yet others (e.g. for 'be', 'do', 'go') are "anomalous,"

meaning each form must be memorized (as is true of modern English am/are/is, do/did, go/went, etc).

Other parts of speech

The numerals may be declined, albeit with fewer distinct forms than is normal for adjectives, and those for 'two' and 'three' may show gender. Other parts of speech are not inflected, except for some adverbs with comparative and superlative forms.

7. Sentence Structure

In theory, Old English was a "synthetic" language, meaning inflectional endings signalled grammatical structure and word order was rather free, as for example in Latin; modern English, by contrast, is an "analytic" language, meaning word order is much more constrained (e.g., with clauses typically in Subject-Verb-Object order). But in practice, actual word order in Old English prose is not too often very different from that of modern English, with the chief differences being the positions of verbs (which might be moved, e.g., to the end of a clause for emphasis) and

occasionally prepositions (which might become "postpositions"). In Old English verse, most bets are off: word order becomes much more free, and word inflections & meaning become even more important for deducing syntax. The same may be said, however, of modern English poetry, but in these lessons we tend to translate Old English poetry as prose. Altogether, once a modern English reader has mastered the common vocabulary and inflectional endings of Old English, the barriers to text comprehension are substantially reduced.

古英语时期的词尾有曲折变化,词形的变化复杂。古英语的名词分阳性，阴性和中性，而且有四种格：主格、宾格、所有格和与格。其词尾变化则有强变（strong declension）弱变（weak declension）和次变（minor declension）三种形式;古英语动词分为四类：强变动词，弱变动词,过去—现在式动词和不规则动词。强变动词的过去式（单复数）和过去分词由该动词最后一个音节的元音发生变化而构成；弱变动词则在该动词词尾加后缀d,t或ð 构成；过去-现在式动词是一种词形为过去式而意义为现代式的动词；不规则动词只有wesan/bēon,

willan,nyllan,dōn,gān等。

人称

第一人称：ic (I) mín(my)

wé (we) úre(our)

第二人称 thorn;u (you 单数） thorn;ín(your sing.)

ge (you pl.) éower (your pl.)

第三人称 hé (he) his(his)

hit (it) his(his)

héo/hío(she) hire(her)

híe/hí(they) HIRA/hiera(their)

以上来源于北大影印出版的《古英语教程》

里面的þ相当于theme里的th

元音字母上面的斜线表示长元音。

格

thou （you 单数主格）thee(you 单数宾格) thy 或thine (你的) ye(你们主格）其它的跟我们平时说的英语都是一样的。

古英语的宾格和与格的形式：

宾格：mé (me) ús(us)

thorn;é/þec (you, sing.) éow(you pl.)

hine(him) hit(it) híe/hí(her) híe/hí(them)

与格：mé (me) ús(us)

thorn;é (you, sing.) éow(you pl.)

him(him) him(it) hire(her) him(them)

说明：与格是用来作间接宾语的，宾格是用来作直接宾语的。

物主代词

古英语中没有物主代词，是用人称代词的属格来表示所属的。人称代词的属格形式同样也可以再变格。它们的四个格是按强变化形容词的变位方法来变的。以第一人称的变法来说明：

单数（按主格，宾格，属格，与格的顺序）

阳性：mín mínne mínes mínum

中性：mín mín mínes mínum

阴性： mínu míne mínre mínre

复数：（按主格，宾格，属格，与格的顺序）阳性：úre úre úra úrum

中性：úru úru úra úrum

阴性：úre úre úra úrum

它们的词尾是这样的：

（主格，宾格，属格，与格，以/ 隔开）

阳性单数：--/ne/es/um

阳性复数: e/e/ra/um

中性单数 --/--/es/um

中性复数u/u/ra/um

阴性单数：u/e/re/re

阴性复数：e/e/ra/um (--表示无词尾)

可以对比一下些变格形与它们的本来形式úre 和 mín曲别，根据上面列出的词尾，自己把其它人称的形式变化出来。如果词的最后一个字母是辅音，直接加词尾，元音的话，就把最后那个元音换成词尾。这样得到的那一大堆词，就相当于是古英语里的名词性物主代词。因为所谓的名词性物主代词（古英语中的人称代词的第二格的强变化形式）是可以独立存在的，所以可以做主语，表语，宾语等很多成份，于是也便呈现出了不同的形态。而名词性物主代词（古英语中的人称代词的第二格的强变化形式）的性和数指的是它所指代的那个名词的性和数。

thou， thy 按着主格，宾格，物主代词的顺序，物主代词后面括号里的就是名词性物主代词

第一人称: I me my (mine)