nd was preserved and transmitted by northern Ostrogoths in modern Italy. It contains a large part of the four Gospels. Since it is a translation from Greek, the language of the Codex Argenteus is replete with borrowed Greek words and Greek usages. The syntax in particular is often copied directly from the Greek.
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4. Latin alphabet
4.1 General information
Our knowledge of the OE language comes mainly from manuscripts written in Latin characters. The Latin alphabet, introduced by Irish Christian missionaries, began to replace the Anglo-Saxon futhorc from about the seventh century. First the scripts shifted to a half-incial script of the Latin alphabet. This was replaced by insular script, a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12 th century when continental carolingian minuscule replaced the insular [3, 22]. Like elsewhere in Western Europe Latin in England was the language of the church and also the language if writing and education. The monks were practically the only literate people; they read and wrote Latin and therefore began to use Latin letters to write down English words. Like the scribes of other countries, British scribes modified the Latin script to suit their needs: they changed the shape of some letters, added new symbols to indicate sounds, for which Latin had no equivalents, attached new sound values ​​to Latin letters [2, 65].
The first English words to be written down with the help of Latin characters were personal names and place names insrted I latin texts; then came glosses and longer textual insertions.
All over the country, in the kingdoms of England, all kinds of legel documents were written and copied. At first they ere made in Latin letters, later they erer made in the local dialects. Many documents have survived on single sheets or have been copied into large manuscripts: various wills, grants, deals of purchase, agreements, proceedings of church councils, laws, etc. Most of them are commonly known under the general heading of "Anglo-Saxon Charters", the earliest are in Kentish and Mercian (8-9 th c.); later laws and characters are written in West Saxon though they do not necessarily come from Wessex: West Saxon as the written form of language was used in different regions.
Glosses to the Gospels and other religious texts were made in many English monasteries, for the benefit of those who did not know enough Latin. Their chronology, is uncertain but, undoubtedly, they constitute early samples of written English glossaries in the 8 th c. Mercian, consisting of words to the Latin text arranged alphabetically, the interlinear glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels; sepaate words and word-for-word translations scribbed betweeen the Latin lines of beautifully ornamented manuscripts, and the glosses in the Durham Ritual, both in the 10 th c. Northumbrian; and also the Gospels in Mercian and Northumbrian of the same century. br/>
4.2 Written records
Among the earliest insertions in Latin texts are pieces of OE poetry. Bede's HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENRIS ANGLORUM (written in Latin in the 8 th c.) contains an English fragment of five lines known as "Bede's Deaht Song" and a religious poem of nine lines, "Cadmon's Hymn". p> OE poetry constitutes a most precious literary relic and quite a substantial portion of the records in the vernacular. All in all we have about 30, 000 lines of OE verse from many poets of some three centuries. The names of the poets are unknown except Cadmon and Cynewulf, two early Northumbrian authors.
OE poetry manily restricted to three subjects: heroic, religious and lyrical. It is believed that many OE poems, espacially those dealing with heroic subjects, ere composed a long time before they were written down; they were handed down from generation to generation in oral form. Perhaps, they were first recorded in Northumbria some time in the 8 th c., but have survived onle in West Saxon copies made a long time after-wards - the 10 th or 11 th c.
The greatest poem of the time was BEOWULF, an epic of the 7 th or 8 th c. It was originally composed in the Mercian or Northumbrian dialect, but has come down to us in a 10 th c. West Saxon copy. It is valued both as a source of linguistic material and as a work of art; it is the oldest poem in Germanic literature. An Old English poem such as Beowulf is very different from modern poetry. Anglo-Saxon poets typically used alliterative verse, a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal structuring device to unify lines of poetry, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. This is a technique in which the first half of the line (the a...
