Word derivation

Old English

The vocabulary of Old English was rather extensive. It is said to have contained about 50 000 words. These words were mainly native words. They could be divided into a number of strata. The oldest stratum was composed of words coming from the Common Indo-European parent tongue.

Many of these words were inherited by English together with some other Indo-European languages from the same common source, and we shall find related words in various Indo-European languages. Compare:

Old English New English Latin Russian

modor mother mater мать

niht night nox ночь

neowe new novus новый

beran bear ferre брать

Another layer, relatively more recent, was words inherited by English and other Germanic languages from the same common Germanic source. You will find them in many languages, but only those belonging to the Germanic group. Compare:

Old English New English German

eorðe earth Erde

land land Land

sæ sea See

findan find finden

The third stratum, and that not very extensive, was made up of words that existed only in English, for instance, the word clypian (to call), the root preserved in the now somewhat ob solete (устарелый) word yclept (named) [ɪ'klept] -именуемый, называемый.

The vocabulary was changing all the time, old words becoming extinct and new words entering the language, enriching it.

There are two principal ways of enriching the vocabulary of a language: internal means — those that are inherent in the language itself, and external means, which result from contacts between peoples.

The English-speaking people of the OE period mainly used internal means of enriching the vocabulary to adapt their language to the expression of more varied or new notions: word derivation, primarily affixation and vowel interchange, and word composition.

In Old English affixation was widely used as a word-building means.

There were very many suffixes, with the help of which new nouns, adjectives, adverbs and sometimes verbs were formed, for instance:

— noun suffixes of concrete nouns:

-ere fisc+ere (fisher) denoting the doer

-estre spinn+estre (spinster) of the action

-in3 cyn+in3 (king)

— noun suffixes of abstract nouns:

-ð treow+ ð (truth)

-nis 3od+nis (goodness)

-scip freond+scip (friendship)

-dom freo + dom (freedom)

-had cild+had (childhood)

— adjective suffixes

-i3 bys+ i3 (busy)

-isc Engl+isc (English)

-ful car+ful (careful)

-leas slæp+ leas (sleepless)

Prefixes were used on a limited scale and they generally had a negative meaning:

for- for+3iefan (forgive)

mis- mis+dæd (misdeed)

un- Un+cuð (uncouth) неотёсанный

Vowel interchange:

noun verb

son3 (song) singan (to sing)

dom (doom) deman (to deem)

— Word composition

Word composition was a well-developed means of enriching vocabulary in Old English. For instance:

Nouns

sæ+man (seaman), gold+smid (goldsmith), monan+dæ3 (Monday), sunan+dæ3 (Sunday), Engla+land (land of the Angles, England)

Adjectives

ic+ceald (ice-cold)

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