Differences Among German And Old English

Universidad Nacional Sede Regional Chorotega- Liberia curso: Diacronía de la lengua Inglesa. Difference among German and Old English language. Estudiante: Arianna Cubillo Machena Profesor: David Villalobos B. II Ciclo, 2009.

History • The most important force in shaping Old English was its Germanic heritage in its vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, which it shared with its related languages in continental Europe. Some of these features are shared with the other West Germanic languages with which Old English is grouped, while some other features are traceable to the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language from which all Germanic languages are believed to have derived.

Similarities among old English and German. • English and German languages both belong to the same family, Indoeuropean, so they share many features. • The German alphabet has 26 letters as English alphabet.

Differences. • The pronunciation • In German there are some cognates, so there are some words similar to the English language, but the meaning is so different.

Examples. • In the word such as: Old English German wilcume

Modern English

Willkommen welcome

In the example it is important to mention the similary that this word has in spelling, in the two languages The letters “w”, “l””m” and “e” are present. Also. The change of the letter “c” in old english by “k” in german.

• In the following Phrase: “Min nama is”, in Old english.

“ Mein name is” In German.

In this example is important to analyze the spelling of the words its almost the same: for instance: In old english “min” and in german “Mein”, there is an addition of a sound between “m” and “i”, it is called ephentesis

• In the following word” Giese” in old english, and “Ja” in German, the meaning in modern english is “yes”.

There is any relation ship in the spealling of those words, the changes that those words had during he past of the years was drastically.

• “Nese” in old english and “nein” in german, which means “no” in modern english.

In the example shown before, there is a relationaship among the spealling in the letters “n” and “e”, Both words start with the same spealling, and it has relationship Wih the meaning in modern english.

• In the word “Danke” in German, and “Pancas” in old english, the meaning in middle english is “thank you”. Those words have some relationship in the spealling, for example, in German and old english, those words keep some spellings, such as: “a” “n”, in old english there is a replacement of the letter “k” by “c”, and at the beggining the replacement of “D” by “P”.

• In the phase, “I don weiß nicht” in German language, and in old English “Ic nat”. In this exmple it is important to mention that the pronoun “I” keep the letter “I” in both languages at the begginning of the sentences. But the rest of the phase is totally different among languages.

• In the same way, the word “Lehrer” in German and “Lareow” in old english which means “teacher”

There is a letter “L” at the beggining of each wordm, also there is an addition of a sound “h”at the middle of the word, which is called ephentesis

Bibliography

http://translate.google.co.cr/translate_t?hl=es&q=encarta&um=1&ie=UTF-8

http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/german.htm. http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa031901b.htm http://www.shvoong.com/books/1714073-comparison-english-german-ances http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/history.htm