The word-stock of Old English was almost totally Germanic. Many of the Latin loans that did exist (e.g.: "street" from Latin strata via "paved road"; "wine" from Latin vinum) were continental borrowings that had been absorbed into the language prior to the migration into the British Isles. However, after the Norman Conquest, around 85% of the OE vocabulary disappeared largely being replaced by loans from Latin and French. Those features that have survived into modern English include, inter alia, conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions and words that which convey basic concepts. Some examples of the last are provided by Baugh and Cable (1993):

 

It is easy to see the resemblance to modern English in the above but other words have come down to us in a more contracted form e.g.:

	head
	fair
	soul

 

Other OE words while appearing familiar to the modern eye had totally different meanings e.g.:

OE	Meaning	Modern English
	piece, bit	bread
	joy	dream
	time	tide
sellan	give	sell

After Pyles and Algeo (1993)

 

In the general absence of loan words as mentioned above new concepts would be described by resort to compounding, i.e. words would be joined together. For example:

Compound	Meaning
	"book - hoard" = library
	"new-farer" = stranger
	"against-fighter" = enemy
	"dear-worth" = precious
folcriht	"folk-right" = common law

 

However, as noted by Leith (1996: 113), "Old English words are often retained in specialized varieties of English such as regional dialects." Yorkshire dialect is of course no exception.

 

 

Yorkshire Dialect words of Old English origin

The following Yorkshire dialect words exemplify the legacy of OE:

Dialect word	Standard English	Old English
baht	without	be-utan
brant	steep	brant
claht	dishcloth	clt
clemmed	thirsty, starved	beclemman
daft	silly, foolish	gedæfte ("mild, meek")
fell	knock down	fellan
fettle	fix, deal with	fetel
grave	dig	grafan
greet	cry	greotan ("weep")
neb	nose	nebb
oxter	armpit	oxta
rops	entrails, guts	rop
sam	gather, pick up	samnian
shift	move	sciftan
shippon	cowshed	scypen
spelk	splinter	spelc
spew	vomit	spwan
starved	very cold	steorfan ("suffer intensely, die")
sup	drink	supan
wed	marry	weddian ("to pledge")
yon	that, there	eon

Sources

Burnley, D. (2000) The History of the English Language, Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd

Baugh, A.C. and Cable, T. (1993) A History of the English Language, Fourth Edition, London: Routledge.

Crystal, D. (1995) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hughes, G. (2000) A History of English Words, Oxford: Blackwell.

Kellett, A. (1994) The Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore, Otley: Smith Settle.

Leith, D. (1996) The Origins of English. In Graddol, D, Leith, D. and Swann, J. (1996) English history, diversity and change, London: Routledge.

Mitchell, B. and Robinson, F.C. (1968) A Guide to Old English, Second Edition, Oxford: Blackwell.

Paynter, D., Upton, C. and Widdowson, J. D. A. (1997) Yorkshire Words Today: A Glossary of Regional Dialect, Sheffield: The Yorkshire Dialect Society and The National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, The University of Sheffield.

Pyles, T. and Algeo, J. (1993) The Origins and Development of the English Language, Fourth Edition, London: Harcourt Brace.

Thompson, D. (ed.) (1996) The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wakelin, M. F. (1977) English Dialects: An Introduction, London: The Athlone Press.