Morphology OE-Dutch: A B C--F G--L M--R S--T U--Y

Old English and Dutch Anglo-Saxon (or Old English abbreviated as OE) is the language that was spoken in present-day England for about 600 years, from approximately 500 to 1100 AD. It was the language of the Germanic invaders that left the lands on the continental side of the North Sea for the rich pastures of Britain. The languages these Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians) spoke were related but had most likely regional differences. Early cultural and linguistic developments in Britain was such that out of this mix of Germanic tribal dialects a relatively homogeneous Anglo-Saxon language evolved in the 6th and 7th century. Under the influence of the Catholic church, Anglo-Saxon rule quickly developed a writing radition, in particular writing in the vernacular. The surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts provide an extraordinary insight into the early development of modern English, and allows one to trace the evolution of a language over a period of 1500 years. Such valuable material is not availlable for the Dutch language. The oldest claimed example of Dutch is a sentence dating from the 11th century, and even this instance has been suggested to be actually old Kentish.

Motivation In the following pages, I present a morphological comparison between OE and modern Dutch words. This work is motivated by (1) the lack of extant old Dutch pre-11th century, (2) the continental origin of the Anglo-Saxons, (3) the mutual cultural influences and existence of a common North-Sea cultur in the period 500-1000, (4) the relative homogeneity and constancy for 5 centuries of OE. This work may just reveal some insight into old Dutch and the etymology of  Dutch words. As an illustration, some of my favourite OE words are the following (in brackets the modern Dutch equivalent, and the modern English translation): lichama (lichaam, body), efenlang (evenlang, just as long) lof (lof, praise), cnapa (knaap, boy), rand (rand, edge), scandlic (schandelijk, shameful), steorlaes (stuurloos, without guidance), geswel (gezwel, tumor), toforan (tevoren, before), geþyld (geduld, patience), gewaed (gewaad, clothing), wic (wijk (burrough), habitation), gewita (geweten, conscience), wolcen (wolken, clouds). I considered the material presented in these pages to be of interest for others, as I have not been able to trace similar webpages. In no sense do I claim to be linguistically precise, what is presented here are just simple comparisons done by a hobbyist. Next page.