Учебное пособие для специальностей «Переводческое дело» и«Иностранный язык: два иностранных языка»
UNIT 2. GERMANIC AND OLD ENGLISH WRITING
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UNIT 2. GERMANIC AND OLD ENGLISH WRITING Writing is a specialized form of behavior that evolved relatively late in human culture. Speech is prehistoric; history itself comes into being the moment we have written records. The alphabet that the English use today had been borrowed from the Greeks by the Romans and was later exported to most of Europe, including Ireland. It is from there that the Roman alphabet came into England; the earliest surviving writings in Old English in the Roman alphabet date from about 700 A.D. However, for hundreds of years before that time the pre-Christian Angles, Saxons and Jutes had an angular script called „runes‟, meaning literally „secret‟. Judging from the inscriptions that have survived, runes were used primarily for memorials and charms. Historian Tacitus wrote that ancient Germans attached great importance to fortune-telling by means of casting lots: putting sticks with carved marks on a piece of cloth and reading prayers, a priest chose at random 3 sticks and told fortunes reading the marks. Those magic marks were letters of the runic writing. The term „runes‟ was formed from the stem meaning „secret‟ (cf. Gothic rūna – „secret‟ and the German verb raunen – „to whisper secretly, stealthily‟). Runes were an early adaptation of the Greek alphabet that came into England through Scandinavia instead of Ireland. The Greeks, in their turn, had adapted the alphabet from the pre-Semitic peoples of Sumer (the Sumerian writing system was invented around 1000 BC). The runic alphabet consisted of 24 symbols (not everywhere). These symbols represented combinations of vertical and slanting lines. The knowledge of runes was the professional secret of priests. The knowledge was passed on from generation to generation. The main „function‟ of runes was to protect the owner of the thing from evil and enemies, to protect the dead and keep them in grave. Runes were carved on tomb-stones, wood, bone, weapon, some time 16 later on metal, especially on gold. Unfortunately it was very difficult to preserve wooden things, so very few of them have been preserved. Altogether there were discovered about 150 things with runes that date from the 3 rd to the 8 th c. These things are parts of armour (handles of swords, spears, shields), adornments and amulets, tomb-stones, etc. Most of the inscriptions represent separate words (mainly proper names). For ancient Germans each rune, even when used separately, may have had a magic meaning. That is why very often they wrote down the whole alphabet or the part of it on their things: they thought it would bring them luck and protect them from misfortunes. The total number of the runic inscriptions in Old English is about 40. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest Old English records: 1) the inscription on a box known as the „Franks Casket‟ and 2) a short text on the cross called the „Ruthwell Cross‟. A specific use of runes found its reflection in the vocabulary of various Germanic languages. E.g. German Buchstabe (Buche + Stab) „letter‟, at first meant „beechwood stick‟ (Old English bochstæ f ), the English verb (to) read at first meant „to guess‟, the verb (to) write used to have the meaning „to scratch‟. During Christianization (4-12 th c.) the Germans got acquainted with the Latin script (the Goths with Greek). Gradually, the Latin writing supplanted runes. In Scandinavia runes turned out to be more stable: the runic writing was carried to parchment and was used for religious rites, and, as, for example, in Denmark in the 13 th c., for writing laws. For such purposes they were used up to the 16 th c. As to the Old English language, our knowledge of it comes not from the runic inscriptions and records but from the manuscripts written in the Latin script. Latin script (or Roman alphabet) came to England due to the Christian missionaries. The first attempts to convert Anglo-Saxon Britain to the Christian religion were made in the 6 th c. In less than a century almost all England was Christianized. Christianization of the country gave a strong impetus to the development of learning and culture. Monasteries and monastic schools were founded all over the country. In the period from the 5 th till the 11 th c (OE period) the relative weight of OE kingdoms and their influence on each other was variable. At different times four of the OE kingdoms secured supremacy in the country. Those kingdoms were Kent, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex. Accordingly, there existed 4 principal dialects in the OE language: Kentish, Northumbrian, Mercian and Wessex. All OE written records can be divided into prosaic and poetic. OE prosaic works have been preserved in all dialects but mainly in Wessex. The most famous written record in the Wessex dialect is “The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles”. It is a collection of brief annals of the year‟s happenings made at various monasteries. It dates from the 7 th c. Among the poetic works the most famous is “Beowulf”. The author of the work is unknown, and the dialect cannot be defined precisely. 17 Though the OE scribes used the Latin alphabet as the basis for their writing system, they found it insufficient for their needs. Therefore they borrowed 2 letters from the runic alphabet: the letter „thorn‟ and the letter „wynn‟. The latter, however, passed out of use very quickly. The OE writing was mainly a phonetic writing, i.e. every symbol stood for a certain sound, while nowadays, the English writing and phonetic systems have many disparities. So it is obvious, that in the course of time the English writing underwent considerable changes which resulted in the writing system the English use today жүктеу/скачать 1,38 Mb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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