Alfred the Great was king of Wessex from 871 to 899 AD. He successfully led resistance against Viking invaders in southern England when most of the other kingdoms had fallen. Alfred was the only British king to be given the honorific "The Great." English originated from Proto-Germanic tribes like the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who migrated to Britain in the 5th-6th centuries AD and gradually settled the lands occupied by the native Celtic peoples, influencing English place names. Old English had a complex system of noun cases and strong/weak verb conjugations that has simplified over time.

1. Before Alfred
Arranged by:
Wildan Ahdiyat
Aulia Rachmawati
Maya Syarie
Shendy Pratama
Blake, NF. 1996. A History of the English Language. London: MacMillan Press LTD
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2. Who is Alfred?
Born at Wantage, Berkshire, in 849, Alfred was the fifth son of Aethelwulf, king of the West Saxons.
As King of Wessex at the age of 21, Alfred (reigned 871-899) was a strong- minded but highly strung battle veteran at the head of remaining resistance to the Vikings in southern England.
He is the only king in Britain who has honor to be called “The Great”.
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3. Proto-Indo-European family of the language:
consist of all language in Europe (except for Basque and the Finno-Ugric group, that is Finnish, Hungarian, and some related languages), and many in Asia.
survive only in an ancient form in some restricted context such as religion, as is true Sanskrit itself which remain a religious language in India.
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4. Proto-Indo-European
Satem (eastern) Centum (western)
Included Indo- Iranian, Balto- Slavic, Armenian and Albanian.
Includes Greek and Mycenaean; Italic, which includes Latin and its descendant; Celtic, which includes two major subdivisions producing Welsh on the one hand and Gaelic on the other; and Germanic, to which English belongs.
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5. continuation…
One important aspect of Proto-Indo- European is that is was an inflected language that is relied on changes at the end of word.
In all modern languages this inflectional system has broken down to a greater or lesser extent, and this is particularly true of English.
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6. The Proto-Germanic family
East Germanic
North Germanic
West Germanic
Gothic language
Scandinavian languages
English, Frisian, Dutch, and German and their descendants
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7. Tacitus divided the Germanic people into three major groups:
the Ingvæones
the Istvæones
the Erminones
included the Frisians and the Dutch
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8. In 8th century, about 450 AD, Bede (English Historian) recorded in his Historia Ecclesiastical Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English Language) that England was colonized by three Germanic tribes; they were Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
Germanic tribes moved to Britain (England) only for general migration, and cannot be considered an invasion.
The tribes were looking for new lands to settle as either population growth or the pressure of the movement of other people encouraged them to move on. There was no sense of national identity and no national language in these early centuries of settlement.
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9. continuation…
The Anglo-Saxons gradually settled the lands occupied by the Celts. It seems very probable that Anglo-Saxons had had some dealings with Celts before they came to Britain.
The major impact of the Celtic language on English has been through the names of places and rivers.
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10. At the middle of the sixth century…
Several distinct regions: Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex, East Anglia, Mercia and North Umbria
No one of these kingdoms was able to achieve supremacy over the others, though they did have some kind of loose federal structure and the principal ruler was known as the Bretwalda.
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11. continuation…
The impetus of writing came from the conversion of the various kingdoms from 597 when St Augustine arrived in England and establish a new monastic foundation and commence producing manuscript for liturgical use and educational purposes.
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12. A significant change was the contraction of vowels leading to compensatory lengthening. This occurred particularly where h fell between vowels.
In Old English the system which operated was that nouns had four cases in singular and plural:
Nominative
Accusative
Genetive
Dative
•All nouns are characterized by different forms within each group and these have characteristically been called masculine, feminine, and neuter.
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13. The verbs were divided into two major categories, the so-called weak and strong verbs.
The weak verbs were a feature of Germanic and were formed by adding an inflectional ending that included a dental or alveolar consonant.
The strong verbs were formed by changing the stem vowel, usually through the process known as ablaut (a form of vowel gradation) but sometimes through reduplication.
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14. The strong verb fall into seven distinct patterns
1. ī ā i i
A stable pattern unaffected by other changes.
ridan rad ridon riden ‘to ride’
2. ēo/ū ē u o
Usually with a single consonant after the stem vowel, which could show the
Stem vowel, which could show the effects of Verner’s law.
Leosan leas luron loren ‘to lose’
3. e æ u o
This original pattern was frequently disturbed because the root vowel was
Followed by two consonant, the first of which was a liquid or nasal.
Helpan healp hulpon holpen ‘to help’
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15. continuation…
4. e æ ǽ o
A single liquid or nasal after the root vowel
Beran baer baeron boren ‘to bear’
5. e æ ǽ e
A single consonant other than a liquid or nasal after the root vowel.
Sprecan spraec spraecon sprecen ‘to speak
6. a ō ō a
Faran for foron faren ‘to go travel’
7. Reduplication verbs; but the vowel and diphthong of the infinitive was repeated in the Past participle and both form of the preterite had either ē or ēo
Hatan het heton haten ‘to be called’
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16. ありがとう ございます みんな-さま
Thank’s for your attention
AD: Anno Domini
BF: Before Christ
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