Old English: the first writing of the OE period were glosses; most writings were of religious character influenced by Latin. Original writings are represented by numerous laws, wills and some literary works (see below). West Saxon dialect is considered the dominant dialect due to the rise of Wessex and King Alfred’s contribution. To the OE […]

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century (two of them in prose, the rest in verse). The tales, some of which are originals and others not, are contained inside a frame tale and told by a collection of pilgrims on a pilgrimage from Southward to Canterbury […]

Textological analysis shows that the epic poem of Beowulf (the title itself is an editorial convenience – the manuscript copy of the poem is untitled) probably existed in written form by the middle of the 7th century, so it belongs to the oldest records of the English literature. It is the longest surviving poem in […]

1.1. Grimm’s law Grimm’s Law presents a principle of relationships in Indo-European languages, which was first formulated by Jakob Grimm in 1822. The first sound shift, affecting both English and German, was from the early phonetic positions documented in the ancient, or classical, Indo-European languages (Sanskrit, Greek, Latin) to those still evident in the Low […]