古英语词汇简介

2.

代表

时期

古英语可以分为：

史前古英语

(

公元

< br>450

年至

650

年

，在这段时期，因为缺乏相

关文献，

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

< br>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< /p>

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

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

(

?

), and later

eth

(

?

). However, there was never a

consistent distinction between them as their modern IPA

equivalents

might

suggest:

different

instances

of

the

same

word might use

?

in one place and

?

in another. We follow

the

practices

of

our

sources

in

our

textual

transcriptions,

but our dictionary forms tend to standardize on either

?

or

?

-- 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

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.

音系

[

编辑

]

主条目：

古英语音系

古英语的音位表重构如下：

声

硬

双唇

音

音

唇齿音

齿音

齿龈音

龈后音

腭

软腭音

音

门

鼻

音

m

n

(

?

)

塞

p

音

b

t

d

k

ɡ

塞

擦

音

?

)

t

?

(d

擦

音

f

(v

θ

(

s

(z

)

?)

)

(?

(x)

(

?

)

?

)

h

近

音

r

j

w

边

音

括号中的是

同位异音

:

?

l

[d

?

]

是

/j/

的同位异音，出现于

/n/

之后与

长辅

音

中

?

[

?

]

是

/n/

的同位异音，出现在

/k/

和

/

ɡ/

之

前

?

[v, ?, z]

分别是

/f,

θ

, s/

的同位异音，出现在

元

音

或< /p>

浊音

之间

?

[?,

x]

是

/h/

的同位异音，分别出现于在前和后元音

之后的音节

韵尾

?

[

?

]

是

/

ɡ/

的同 位异音，出现于元音之后和早期的词

首辅音丛中

单元音

短

长

前

后

前

后

闭

i

y

u

i

?

y

?

u

?

中

e

(

?)

o e

?

(?

?

) o

?

开

?

ɑ

?

?

ɑ

?

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。

双元音

短

(

单音重

)

长

(

双音重

)

前音素闭

iy

[1]

i

?

y

二音素中

eo

e

?

o

二音素开

?ɑ

?

?

ɑ

lary

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

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',

?

?

r

'there'.

?

?

?

Prepositions:

?fter

'after', for, in, on, under.

Articles:

??t

'that',

?is

'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< /p>

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

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

or

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