English 340: Some Introductory Remarks

Though a good many other introductions to Old English have come and gone during the period, Sweet's Primer has been in print and in use since 1882. The features that explain this survival would seem to be its size and construction. Though designed for a student rather different from a modern North American undergraduate, it can-with the proper supplementing-serve as a reasonably clear and comprehensive introduction to a language of unique interest to Modern English speakers, a language which also gives us access to rich literature.

The Primer was designed for English school students of the Victorian period. It assumes a knowledge of English history; its users are expected to live in a landscape in which the past, including the Anglo-Saxon past, was still present-in buildings, in place names, and associated memories. It assumes a knowledge of the ways in which inflected languages work; the users had probably studied Latin, which helped especially with recognizing word patterns and categories, and perhaps a little German, which helped with pronunciation. They were used to parsing sentences. In addition they knew the bible and could be expected to tease out the meaning of a biblical translation into Old English. Some contemporary students possess the same knowledge, but many do not. For the latter filling in these gaps makes the task of learning Old English harder, but also more rewarding.

Anglo-Saxon history begins with the invasion of Roman Britain by Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in the mid-fifth century. Though the Anglo-Saxons don't disappear their history could be said to end in 1066 with the Norman invasion. The earliest documents to preserve what we would call Old English date from the early eighth century; by the mid-twelfth century the language of the surviving documents has changed so much that we talk of them as containing the successor to Old English, namely Middle English.

Old English itself evolved over the five hundred or so years in which it was spoken. When we speak of Old English we usually mean a standardized, idealized version of this language, perhaps modeled on what we think was spoken about the time of King Alfred in the late ninth century (this was Sweet's choice), though most of the literature that survives comes from a century or so later. The important thing to remember is that what we know of Old English we know from manuscripts. This collection of manuscripts is large in comparison with that of any other contemporary European vernacular language, but it gives us only a glimpse of the language and literature that once existed. The scribes were mostly churchmen with churchmen's interests. Like all writers they recorded what they actually said more or less accurately. Inevitably many words of ordinary life must have disappeared, but spelling was less standardized then, so it provides a more reliable guide to the pronunciations of the time.

Bearing this in mind we can see that the heart of Sweet's Primer is the texts that he chooses. These include a nice variety of prose: biblical passages because these are thought to be familiar, selected entries from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to give us a sense of Anglo-Saxon history and historiography, learned works by the monk Ælfric, part of a saint's life and a geographical work, and a taste of herbal lore to round out the picture.

These texts come with a few explanatory notes and a glossary. They are preceded by a grammar which is intended to make it possible for us to read them. This grammar, as I have said, in fact derives from the analysis of these and other texts. The grammar begins with an explanation of the Old English sound system which is followed by some remarks about so-called "sound changes"; then it moves a schematic presentation of inflexions, which is in turn followed by some comments on word formation; it concludes with a synopsis of syntax. Each of these sections needs some words of explanation.