I was very interested in Old English and i did a little research about it. This is what I've found :
The vocabulary of Old English consisted of an Anglo Saxon base with borrowed words from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norse) and Latin. Latin gave English words like street, kitchen, kettle, cup, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, martyr, candle. The Vikings added many Norse words: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die, they, their, them. Celtic words also survived mainly in place and river names (Devon, Dover, Kent, Trent, Severn, Avon, Thames).
Many pairs of English and Norse words coexisted giving us two words with the same or slightly differing meanings. Examples below.
Norse | English |
anger | wrath |
nay | no |
fro | from |
raise | rear |
ill | sick |
bask | bathe |
skill | craft |
skin | hide |
dike | ditch |
skirt | shirt |
scatter | shatter |
skip | shift |
In 1066 the Normans conquered Britain. French became the language of the Norman aristocracy and added more vocabulary to English. More pairs of similar words arose.
French | English |
close | shut |
reply | answer |
odour | smell |
annual | yearly |
demand | ask |
chamber | room |
desire | wish |
power | might |
ire | wrath / anger |
Some words for most domestic animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer) while the words for the meats derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison).
The Germanic form of plurals (house, housen; shoe, shoen) was eventually displaced by the French method of making plurals: adding an s (house, houses; shoe, shoes). Only a few words have retained their Germanic plurals: men, oxen, feet, teeth, children.
French also affected spelling so that the cw sound came to be written as qu (eg. cween became queen)
I hope you like it ....