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The adjective takes the gender of the noun with which it is associated. The word wifmann ( woman) is masculine because the second element of the compound is masculine.Īnother feature of Old English is that the adjectives like nouns have gender. Thus in Old English stan ( stone ) is masculine, German words like maegolon ( girl), wif ( wife), bearn ( child, son) which we expect to be feminine or masculine are in fact neuter. In Modern English all males are said to be masculine, females feminine and inanimate things neuter. The system of gender is irrational because it is not dependent upon the consideration of sex. It has three genders - masculine, feminine and neuter. Old English nouns have two numbers - singular and plural. Old English indicates the relation of words in a sentence largely by the means of inflections. It is an inflected language though not so highly inflected as the classical languages such as Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. The second characteristic feature of Old English, which is most fundamental and distinguishes it from Modern English, is its grammar. The Old English also had differences in spelling which baffle the modern readers. The Old English script does not have the letter 'v', 'f' serves for the sounds of both 'f' and 'v'. The letter 'h' was more strongly pronounced than it is in Modern English. The Old English consonants have mostly the same sounds as in Modern English, but some need special comment. Thus the Old English word ' stan' is the same word as Modern word 'stone', but the vowel is different." In Old English script there are seven vowels symbols - a, e, i, o, u and y and the digraph 'ae' which is called 'ash'.Īll the seven vowels represent either short or long sounds. The long vowels in particular have gone a considerable modification. Baugh," The pronunciation of Old English words commonly differs somewhat from that of their modern equivalents. The most significant feature of Old English is its pronunciation of words differing from the ones that exist today. A very significant fact about Old English is that it is nearer the modern German than the Modern English. Old English was almost a pure, unmixed language with very little foreign element in it. Old English or Anglo-Saxon period covers the span of time from the earliest written records and documents about the end of the 7th century to the beginning of the 12th century. The Old English Period extends from AD 450 to AD 1150 and may be further divided into early Old English and Late English periods. In this article, we shall focus on Old English along with its characteristics. For convenience sake, English has been divided in to Three Englishes - Old English/ Middle English/ Modern English. This short-note is very important for a language/ literature student.