How did Old and Middle English become today's English?

Question

They are so different in spelling and grammar structure. I understand there were invasions and infusion of foreign languages, but how can a language change so dramatically? How did they become Shakespeare's and today's English? I mean, can any native English speaker decipher what this passage mean without googling?

Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum, þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Can anyone still speak Old or Middle English today?

Thanks, reading the history of English probably would help.

In Carline's reply, if the modern English people made English simpler to understand, why was the language difficult to understand in the first place? This applies not only in old English, but also in other languages, including the ancient Chinese.

Answer 1

It's difficult to answer this question completely in a brief answer, of course, but in general all languages change all the time. These changes simply stack up, as it were, so that the total amount of change in a language is more noticeable in comparison to a previous form the further back you go. Historical linguistics is the field that deals with studying questions like this, so you might be interested to read a bit in that field. I'm sure Wikipedia has a number of articles that can get you started, and you can get some books after that.

No one is a native speaker of Old English or Middle English today, although I'm sure that there are people who read them for historical/academic purposes, and possibly speak them just for fun.

P.S. You might also be interested in something called "The Great Vowel Shift" -- look it up!

Answer 2

Simple answer: Misspellings and mistakes which then became common usage :-)

Occasionally there were decisions made by leaders to simplify the language. Just imagine, if a certain former VP had been a king, our favorite side dish would be the "french fried potatoe"

Not to mention the fact that as the language spread, it was still being influenced by other languages at the time. There are many instances where the spoken version of the language progressed away from the written version - Chinese is a good example where there are many spoken dialects but only one (well, ok, 2) written language.

Outside of English literature PhD students, or linguists, I don't think many folks can still speak, much less, read or understand Middle English anymore.

I remember in English Lit. class in high school the teacher showed us a text of Beowulf written in the old English, and none of use could comprehend it at all.

Answer 3

It's a lot more like Norwegian and Gaelic I assume, Old English that is. When I listened to recordings of them, one reminded me of Italian and the other of German. During that time the language was influenced by the countries that were invading England. But when England became a dominant power, I think the language evolved without a strong influential language around it. Linguistic professors would probably be able to speak and understand Old English. I am taking a class called The Story of English this year that will apparently tell you how English evolved as a language. Sounds like you should take it too!

Answer 4

"During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardized London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardizing effect of printing. Early Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare.". . .
I hope it helps.

Answer 5

The passage is Old English, ain't it? William the Conquerer invaded Britian because he was promised to be its king but the promise wasn't fulfilled. And since William is a Normandian (France), many French terms, etc. were added to Old English, which is Anglo-Sexan actually. This is how Old English transfered to Middle English, but I don't know Middle--> Modern stuff.

Answer 6

We the people who speak the Englsh language changed it and abbreviated words to make it easier to communicate.