home milestones sources gallery word parts word parts comparisons Old English, a branch of the Germanic family of languages, looks and sounds strange to modern English speakers because so much of its pronunciation, spelling, and grammar has changed. Some scholars estimate that we no longer use about 85 percent of the Old English vocabulary.*

However, the words we do use are basic to English communication. They include--
  • man
    		•
  • wife
    		•
  • child
    		•
  • house
  • eat
    		•
  • sleep
    		•
  • drink
    		•
  • live
  • you
    		•
  • is
    		•
  • here
    		•
  • there
  • sheep
    		•
  • dog
    		•
  • earth
    		•
  • work

    • *Baugh and Cable, A History of the English Language (3rd ed.), 1978