Northumbrian and West-Saxon: analysis of their differences

Abstract

In this work a description of two of the different dialects of the Old English language, as well as an analysis of a text, is going to be provided in order to understand their division and know their differences with the aim of discovering the origin of those changes in a language as well as the way in which those modifications developed. However, some constraints have been found due to the fact that only two of all the existent dialects are going to be analysed. The fact of analysing only two dialects is because most of the existent texts are in one of both of the dialects. Moreover, the definition of the concepts language, dialect, variant or isogloss, among others, will be given so as to provide you with a better understanding of the reason of the differences between the dialects. The importance of explaining the concepts previously mentioned is that they are key concepts when referring to variation or dialectology, which are central issues when explaining dissimilarities between dialects. Additionally some of the features of two different dialects, Northumbrian and West-Saxon, will be clarified. Besides, a sample of the same text in the two different dialects previously explained will be analysed and the differences between both of the texts will be illustrated. Some of the differences that have been found in the course of this research include spelling and pronunciation dissimilarities, in which the use of different declensions may be included. It will also be noted that some changes were produced in both dialects in different periods, as well as some did only occur in one of them.