Old English

Old English
Old English
Anglo-Saxon; Ænglisċ, Englisċ, Anglisc
	A detail of the first page of the Beowulf manuscript, showing the words "ofer hron rade", translated as "over the whale's road (sea)". It is an example of an Old English stylistic device, the kenning.
Pronunciation	[ˈeŋɡliʃ]
Region	England (except the extreme south-west and north-west), southern and eastern Scotland, and the eastern fringes of modern Wales.
Ethnicity	Anglo Saxons
Era	mostly developed into Middle English and Early Scots by the 13th century
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo-Frisian Anglic Old English; ; ; ; ; ;
Dialects	Kentish Mercian Northumbrian West Saxon
Writing system	Runic, later Latin (Old English alphabet).
Language codes
ISO 639-2	ang
ISO 639-3	ang
ISO 639-6	ango
	This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
	This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Old English (Englisċ or Ænglisc) or Anglo-Saxon,^[1] was spoken in Anglo-Saxon England from 450 AD to 1100 AD. It was spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, who came to Great Britain from what is now Germany and Denmark. Different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms spoke different dialects, but a western dialect became the main literary version. Both modern languages of England and Scotland (English and Scots) came from the language of the Anglo-Saxons.

Old English is a West Germanic language, and developed out of Ingvaeonic, which is very different from Modern English because it is closer to German than English (its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon) with many more Germanic words, difficult grammar and complex inflections. In early centuries, it wasn’t common to be written down and even then it was in runes. After the 8th century, the Latin alphabet was used more often by churchmen like the Venerable Bede. After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, Old English was replaced by Anglo-Norman, which gradually turned into Middle English

Beowulf is written in Old English in an alphabetic script.

Old English Media

(Pre-)Old English and other West Germanic languages around 580 CE
Alfred the Great statue in Winchester, Hampshire. The 9th-century English King proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin.
The dialects of Old English c. 800 CE
Her sƿutelað seo gecƿydrædnes ðe ('Here the Word is revealed to thee'). Old English inscription over the arch of the south porticus in the 10th century St Mary's parish church, Breamore, Hampshire
The runic alphabet used to write Old English before the introduction of the Latin alphabet
The first page of the Beowulf manuscript with its openingHƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon..."Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."
A recording of how the Lord's Prayer probably sounded in Old English, pronounced slowly

↑ By the 16th century the term Anglo-Saxon came to refer to all things of the early English period, including language, culture, and people. While it remains the normal term for the latter two aspects, the language began to be called Old English towards the end of the 19th century, as a result of the increasingly strong anti-German nationalism in English society of the 1890s and early 1900s. However, many authors still also use the term Anglo-Saxon to refer to the language. Crystal, David (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-53033-4.

This language has its own Wikipedia project. See the Old English edition.

This short article about the United Kingdom can be made longer. You can help Wikipedia by adding to it.