-
THE
OLD AND MIDDLEENGLISH
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*5S5ivl
THE
OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH
BY
T. L. KINGTON OLIPHANT, M.A.1 1 1
OF BALLIOL COLLEGE
MACMILLAN ANlJCO.1878
All rights reserved
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rf
\WLONDON : PRINTED BY
SPOTTI6WOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARR
ANO PARLIAMENT STREET
t
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PREFACE.
England assuredly is at last waking up to the im-portance
of studying her old tongue in all its stages.
I cannot otherwise account for the rapid sale of
my late book on' Standard English ;
'
nearly 2,000
-copies of this have gone off within four years or so.
In the present work I have embodied whatever
of the former bookwas worth preserving ; great
additions have been made, since I take notice of
about 3,000 English words and phrases. I have had
much help from criticism, both in print and by
letter. I cannot understand why an author need
whimper under the rod of Reviewers. If the criti-cism
be sound, he should be thankful for a chance
of improving his book. If the criticism be absurd,
hemay amuse his readers by inserting it in the
notes to his next edition. I have freely availed
-
vi Preface.
myself of this privilege; no harm is done, if all
names be suppressed.1
I owe much to certain late writers on Philology.
I have always had before me Matzner's English Gram-mar,
which allows hardly one idiom of ours to escape
observation ; I have sometimes been able to point
out an earlier date for new English phrases than is
suggested in the German's noble volumes. I have
paid much attention to the colossal works, which
will make the names of Cleasby and Littre im-mortal.
I have studied our ancient pronunciation
under the guidance of Mr. Ellis ; it is most im-portant
to remark the old sounds of au and oi in
France and England. Dr. Stratmann and Dr.
Morris have proved themselves once more the best
of leaders. Any one who reads my chapter on
French will see the influence that Mr. Freeman
('Norman Conquest,' Vol. V.) has had upon me.He is good enough
to say that my former work was
of some use to him when he wrote his chapter on
1 One would-be philologer wrote to correct my false
ideas,tellingme that English was derived from Anglo-Saxon, and
Anglo-Saxon from Gothic ; I forget if he went on to derive Gothic
from
Sanscrit. This was in the year of grace 1874 !
-
Preface. vii
the English language ; I am sure that I have repaid
myself with usury.
I hold to the venerable saw,' Old school,good
school ;' and I have little love for what is called in
the cant of our day, ' Neoteristic Individualism. ' I
let off no fireworks like ' Asyndetic Co-ordination,'
or' Sequacious Diathesis.' I should be heartily
ashamed of myself if I thought I had used any word
that a twelve-year-oldEnglish schoolboy, a reader
of Caesar and Ovid, could not easily understand.
Philology is too noble a goddess 'to be pent up in a
narrow shrine, begirtby a small circle of worshippers,
who use a Grrseco-Latin dialect. She should go forth
into the highways and hedges, and should speak to
man, woman, and child, in a tongue that all can
comprehend.
I takemy stand half-way between the Purist and
the Advocate of new-fangled vulgarity. I like to
mark the date of my book, by pointing out the last
sweet thing in Penny-a-lining. We have lately
heard of the fall of Adrianople ; the English
correspondents abroad delight in phrases like * the
debandade was averted by a parlementaire ; ' writers
-
viii Preface.
at home speak of the generals as ' the directing
personnel of the army !' What would Sir William
Napier, twenty years ago, have said to this new
jargon ?
I advisemy
readers to markmy
list of errata,
at the end of the Contents, before studying my
book. Any suggestions or corrections may be for-warded
tome
at
Charlton House,
Wimbledon.
I hope to bring out my work on the New English
threeor
fouryears
hence.
Rome:
February, 1878.
-
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
-\.D.
450.
600.
ENGLISH IX ITS EARLIEST SHAPE.
The Aryan family on the Oxns
Theirway of living
Sanscrit and English Words compared
The Old Substantives.
The endings of Nouns
The Adjectives....
The Verbs
The Participles.
The Irregular Verbs
Greek and Latin akin to English.
The Slavonians and Lithuanians
The divisions of the Teutonic race
The Teutonic Substantive and Verb
Teutonic Prefixes and Suffixes
Expulsion of the Celts
Conflict with the Romans.
The Beowulf
Conquest of Britain by the English
Christianity brings in new words
Substantives....
Adjectives.....
Pronouns.....
The Strong Verb....
The Weak Verb.
PAGE
1
2
3,4
5
6
7
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21, 22
23
24
25
26
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X Contents.
a.d.
890.
Da tos of English Works.
English Vowels, their soundThe sound of yThe sound in Proper
Names
The interchange of ConsonantsThe interchange of Vowels
.
Variations in Old EnglishChanges of Letters
Alfred's Pastoral Care
It forestalls our modern forms
Influence of Latin.
Corruption of CasesThe coupling of Nouns
.
Adjectivesused as SubstantivesThe disuse of un
The Verb....
The use of should.
The Future Tense
The do employed before a VerbThe Infinitive and Optative
.
The Past ParticiplePronouns
....
The Reflexive Dative
The Definite Article.
The Demonstratives
The InterrogativewhatThe Relatives
The Indefinite Article.
The use of man and who.
The use of what, first.
The use of other,halfThe points of the compass ; how,Adverbs
formed by adding lie
.
The here,there,yesThe nay, naught, noneThe both, same, or
The now, though,as
why
-
Contents. XI
A.D.
The so, that,since.
Prepositions; their use ....The ofThe by,loithThe for,from,
afterThe to, at, on
Prepositionsturned into Adverbs and NounsSome of them nearly
obsolete
.
Interjections....
Twofold meaning of an English Word
Corruptionof old WordsGood pedigreeof slangy Words
Near, sport,pink, spiritDegradation of Words
Proper names and names of trades
Decay of old Words
The secondary sense of Words
Our many losses ....
Our varied construction of sentences
Alliterative Poetry....
Influence of Poets and Priests
Conservative effect of the Bible
APPENDIX TO CHAPTEE I
Interchange of Consonants.
The LiquidsThe softeningof Words
PAGE
,
64
65
,
66
67
,
68
,
69
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72
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73
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78
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79
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80
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81
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82
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83
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84
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85
86
87
88
G80.
CHAPTEE II.
NORTHERN ENGLISH, 680-1000.
EARLY CORRUPTIONS, 1000-F120.
The English of Northumbria.
The Euthwell Cross.
Peculiarities of the Inscription90
91
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Xll Contents.
A.D.
737.
850.
876.
913.
941.
950.
971.
1000.
1050.
1090.
Cadmon's Poem.....
The Northumbrian Psalter
Northern and Southern forms contrasted
The kinsmanship with Latin.
Slept,down, bread ....Inroads of the Danes
Tokens of their settlement here.
King Edward's re-conquestThe Five Danish BurghsThe "Wessex
Literature takes the lead
The shires that formed the New EnglishThe Lindisfarne
Gospels
.
Corruptionof Northern English.
The Genitive Singularand Nominative PluralNew sounds of
Words
.....
"Danish influence is traceable
The Strong Perfect corruptedChange of meaning in oweWhile,
whilom, coveThe Verbal Noun in ing
.
Business, sneer, bundles
The BlicklingHomilies.
Clippingof ConsonantsStill,so, byThe Rushworth GospelsThe
paringof PrefixesNew idioms of Relatives
The of,dol,linniElfrics Grammar
Hail, law, Lammas.
Kemble's Charters. " Treatise on AstronomyThe ApolloniusChanges
in the ChronicleThe ofsupplantingonThe Legend of St. Edmund
.
Change of Consonants in the Chronicle
Changes in of,by,without.
\
-
Contents. Xlli
A.D.
1100.
1120.
The Pronouns and Substantives
The Adjectivesand Verbs.
Domesday BookThe Peterborough ChronicleThe sound oi.
"
The new Relative
Confusion of the Article's Cases.
.
Changes that were to come
PAGK
130
131
132
135
134
135
.
136
CHAPTER III.
THE MIDDLE ENGLISH.
Period I. Cultivation.
(1120-1220.)
Contrast between England and ItalyThree Periods of Middle
EnglishThe East Midland Dialect
The Great Sundering Line.
Where our corruptions arose.
1120. The Peterborough Chronicle
Changes in Vowels....
And in Consonants....
The breakup of Case endings .
The Pronouns and Verbs. .
"
.
The great Shibboleth of Dialects
The Northern, Midland, and Southern.
Therefore,anon, for toWords in common with the Low German
And with Scandinavian.
1120. Specimen of East Midland Dialect1120. The Contrast to the
East Midland
The Southern Homilies
Perhaps compiled in London.
Danish influence.....
The changes in Vowels.
The o and ch.
.
.
137
.
138
.
130
.
140
.
141
.
142
.
143
.
144
.
145
.
146
.
147
.
148
.
149
.
150
.
151
152, 153
.
154
.
155
.
156
.
157
.
158
.
159
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XIV Contents.
A.D.
1160.
1160.
1160.
1180.
The letter y for g .
The of is used for the Genitive.
New Relatives appear
The Peterborough Chronicle
Forms Northern and Southern
Changes in Vowels and Consonants
The can, could ; ever prefixed .The new Danish Words
Specimen of the East Midland DialectThe Contrast to the East
Midland
The Southern Homilies.
The changes in Vowels
Specimen of Words alteredThe encroachment of ch and v
New Idiom of the SubjunctiveThe what as a Relative
The change in the meaning of Words
Lot, silly,shed, show.
Danish Words
The Moral Ode....
The change in Letters
The suffix ever. " Prepositions
Change in the meaning of WordsWinchester and Kentish Works
.
De Moreville."
Southern Gospels.
Norfolk Rimes on St. Thomas
The Essex Homilies
Specimen of Words altered.
The gh is much usedThe new sound sh
The Substantives....
The Verbs
The new use of one
Compounds with here ; the nonce.
The PrepositionsNew meanings of WordsScandinavian Words
-
Contents.xv
1180.
1180.
1200.
Specimen of the East Midland DialectThe Contrast to the East
Midland
.
Poem on the Soul and Body-Changes in Vowels and Consonants
Poems of Nigel Wireker
King Alfred's Proverbs.
The fondness for the hard g .
Corruptionof the Grenitive
Change in the Verb mayChange in like,do, whileA little French
appears
Loss of the power of Compounding .Orrmin's Poem
....
The place where he wrote
He resembles the Peterborough writerThe change in Vowels
-.
The change in Consonants
The sh and g .
The or, nor, uppo, kneel
The old hw transposed.
The old sense of alderman
The change in world, boon
Adjectivesand PronounsTheirs, that, same
Change in KelativesThe new somewhat ; one
.
The alone, once, tivo firstDevelopment of the Passive VoiceThe
new senses of need, deal
The mean, keep,take
Strong Verbs turned into Weak
Forthwith, right,alreadyNo more, alway, as if
.
The PrepositionsThe upon and until
The use of by,at, of,to.
Orrmin's Compounds.
PAGE
,
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
,
209
,
210
211
212
213
,
214
,
215
,
216
,
217
,
218
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219
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220
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221
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222
,
223
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224
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225
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226
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227
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228
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229
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230
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231
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232
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233
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234
.
235
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XVI Contents.
A.D.
His Scandinavian leaningsThe words shift,stick,hurt
.
List of Scandinavian Words
The mid and nim die out
1200. Specimen of the East Midland Dialect1205. The Contrast to
the East Midland
Layanion'sBrut
Change in Vowels
Change in Consonants
Horses,plight,nook
Corruptionof ol " Pronouns.
The new Participlein ingc.
Gird, mark, quicklyThe of and to
....
The by and withNew Scandinavian Words
.
1210. The Legend of St. Margaret .Them; the ending fidWhosoever,
seem, downrightThe Legend of St. KatherincThe Vowels and
Consonants
.
Self,other
The Infinitive follows a PrepositionThe as, so, hei
.
The Legend of St. JulianaNew phrasesWherefore,butThe Halt
Meidenhad
.
The Adjectivesand PrepositionsThe Salopian piecesLow,
ail,husband
The ful, one, owe ....Influence of Salop
.
The Wohunge of ure Lauerd
Cheap,who, tell.
. .
1220. The Ancren Kiwle
More than one Version of it
PAGE
. .
236
.
237
. .
238
.
239
240, 241
.
242
. .
243
.244
..
245
.
246
" .
247
.
248
..
249
.
250
. .
251
.
252
.
.
253
.
254
. .
255
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256
..
257
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258
..
259
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260
..
261
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262
. .
263
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264
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265
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266
..
267
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268
. .
269
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270
..
271
.
272
.
.
273
-
XV111 Contents.
A.D.
1250.
1250.
1250.
1260.
1264.
1270.
1270.
The Owl and NightingaleMorning, hollow, bondman
.
The must, should....
The Scandinavian and Dutch Words
The Poems in the Cotton Manuscript
Eye,gear, wench ....You, therewithal
....
Celtic and French Words.
A Nottinghamshire Poem
Specimen of the East Midland DialectThe Contrast to the East
Midland
The Yorkshire Psalter
Scandinavian Eorms.
The change in Vowels and Consonants
Morning, not, heightThe new Verbal Nouns
.
Cloud and sky....
The Pronouns, it,those.
The Relatives....
The Participles,
The Adverbial Forms.
The Scandinavian Words. .
The Low German Words
The Latin Forms....
Second Edition of Layamon's Poem
The change in Vowels and Consonants
Ever, since, legThe Poems in the Jesus ManuscriptChange in the
Names of CountiesThe Proclamation of Henry III.
The word owe discussed
The Proverbs of HendingThe use of better,best,do
The Ballad on Lewes FightSpecimen of the East Midland DialectOld
English ProverbsThe Contrast to the East Midland
-
Contents. xix
A.D.
1280.
The Poem on the Fox
The you, it,with ....The Herefordshire Poems
Erst, head, one....
Unhappy character of the last Period
PAGE
344
,
345
346
347
.
348
CHAPTER V.
MIDDLE ENGLISH " SEPARATION.
(1280-1300.)
1280. The Harrowing of Hell.
The curious Dialogue....
The corruptionof the Strong Verb.
The revived use of do.
The Charters of Bury St. Edmund's
TheHavelok.
Its Northern Forms.
Much in common with East AngliaThe change in Vowels and
ConsonantsThe confusion of Letters
.
The couplingof Nouns.
The change in Substantives and AdjectivesThe Pronouns ; use of
you
Yours, it,one....
1280.
1280.
The Pluperfect SubjunctivePrepositionsand InterjectionsThe
Scandinavian Words
Celtic and Dutch Words
Specimen of the East Midland DialectThe Contrast to the East
Midland
The Horn and Floriz
The change in Pronunciation
Knight, hereabout :The Herefordshire Poems
.
Sell,sorry, dogged ....
367,
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
-
XX Contents.
A"D.
1290.
1290.
1290.
The French way of compoundingThe PrepositionsThe Dame Siriz
.
Mixture of Northern and Southern
The ing,andTheTristrem
....
Marks of transcription.
The Verbal Nouns.
The AdjectivesThe Infinitive en becomes ing
.
Take, stick,trow.
Scandinavian and Dutch Words
The Poem on the Body and Soul
The Adjectivesand VerbsDiscussion upon ingSpecimen of the East
Midland DialectThe Contrast to the East Midland
Change in these Kentish Sermons.
Eld, goodmanThe Digby Manuscript
.
The Herefordshire Poems
A Hereford Charter
The Cursor Mundi
The change in Vowels
The change in Consonants
The nobot, mell,forefatherNew Substantives
New Phrases
Beggar, holiday,unhappyKind, sad, mean, curst
.
Pronouns ; she-beast
Which, one.
Whole, score, mon.
May be,outtaken,becomeThe Passive Voice developedScandinavian
senses of Verbs
-
Contents. XXI
The Transitive Verbal Noun.
Of all,since when, abaft
Mighty, truly ....The Prepositions
. .
The Interjections.
The Dutch Words
The Percival and Isumbras
Swiftlier,goods,folks.
Eight, even, yonWhat manner, get,fall to
L295. The Lives of the Saints.
The Life of Becket
Bond, silly,as.Verbal Phrases
....
The Life of St. Brandan
Names of Counties
New Phrases....
To sceJCydraw, numb
The Life of St. Margaret.
1300. Kobert of Gloucester s Chronicle.
The influence of French.
The change in Consonants.
Proper Names discussed.
Wassail, shop, dole
Silly,stark, sometimeNew Phrases in Verbs
The Adverbs ; as
A.4de, up and down .The Alexander
The change in Consonants.
The Verbal Nouns in ing.
The use of the Infinitive Passive.
German and Scandinavian 'Words
Oursynonyms from various quarters
The different sources of our Speech.
1300. No fixed Standard of English
PAGE
.
411
.
412
.
413
.
414
.
415
.
416
.
417
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418
.
419
.
420
.
421
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422
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423
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424
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425
.
426
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427
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428
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429
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430
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431
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432
.
433
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434
.
435
.
436
.
437
.
438
.
439
.
440
.
441
.
442
.
443
.
444
.
445
.
446
-
XX11 Contents.
CHAPTER VI.
A.D.
1303.
1310.
THE KISE OF THE NEW ENGLISH.
(1303-1310.)
Kobert of Brunne's Handlyng SynneLarge proportionof French
WordsThe Dialects meeting near EutlandMuch in common with the
North
.
Much clippingand paring
Bighteous,could, sorrowToy, lost,meaning
.
Bench, score, buck
Swag, pitiful,rightDistinction between thou and yeBetween shall
and will
The new use of the Infinitive
To con, set,waive
Turn, run, troth.
Well, indeed, everywhere.
The InterjectionsThe Scandinavian Words
The Meditaciuns of the Soper
Homely ; in going.
Melted, bringabout, whereforeTale of Bishop Eobert
St. Paul's descriptionof CharityDiscussion of Dinners
Tale of a Norfolk Bondman.
Date of the Poem.
Specimen of the MeditaciunsNorth Lincolnshire
..
.,
Yorkshire" Durham
.
Lowland Scotch
Lancashire" Salop
Herefordshire....
Warwickshire"
Gloucestershire
l'AGK
.
447
.
448-
.
449
.
450
.
451
.
452
.
453
.
454
.
455
.
456
.
457
.
458
.
459
.
460
.
461
.
462
.
463
.
464
.
465
.
466
.
467
468,469
.
470
.
471
.
472
.
473
.
474
.
475
.
476
.
477
.
478
.
479
-
Contents. xxin
PAGR
EnglishPale in Ireland 480Somerset " "Wiltshire 481
Hampshire.........
482
Oxfordshire" Kent.
483
Middlesex. .
484
Bedfordshire 485
Norfolk.
486
Anarchy of speech in England 487
CHAPTER VII.
THE INROAD OF FRENCH WORDS INTO ENGLAND
Evil done in the Thirteenth Century1066. Loss in old English
Poetry
.
:
The Old Standard dies out
French used at Court....
Changes in the ChronicleThe new sound ui or oi
...
1120. De Thaun's French work.
Eau, baptize,Jew....
Distinction between the high and low
Sixty French words come in early1160. The old English
Homilies1200. Layamon and Orrmin
....
1210. TheHali Meidenhad
1220. The Ancren Eiwle....
The sounds of au and oi.
Rule, capital,anthem....
Debt, large,poor ....The mingling of Teutonic and Romance
Long list of kindred words
The endings ier,us...
The Norman Kings favoured EnglishA brilliant future seemed to
await it
.
French became the officiallanguageThe chase after
foreignfashions
.
b
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
-
XXIV Contents.
A.D.
1280.
1290.
English was cast aside by the nobleGreatness of France at this
time
.
It influenced many countries .
There was no Standard English.
Influence of Ladies. . .
Their articles of dress.
Influence of Franciscan friars.
Their way of life ....
They unite various classes
They make French words familiar
The ' Luve Eon '. . . .
Two schools of teachers contrasted
New Christian Names
Evil done by the clergyVillehardouin easier than Layamon
.
Loss of Inflexions
Loss of the power of Compounding .Comparison of passages in
WritersThe Period of ReparationEdward the First
The great inroad of French Words.
All men were united.
Our words for SoldieringChronicles compiled in FrenchEnglish
compilationsMixture of languages
.
Feasts described....
French rimes used
Terms of hunting and cookery.
Terms of law....
The clergy practisemedicine.
Indelicate words are droppedHerod's diseases described
Terms of science....
Terms of architecture
Number of French words in the Tristrem
The Kentish Sermons
-
xxvi Contents.
A.D.
Tricks of Language.
......
586
Proportion of Obsolete and French Words . ..
587
Our future speech foreshadowed... . .
588
Discussion of Monosyllables.
. . . .
589
Use of the Teutonic 590
APPENDIX.
CHAPTER VIII.
EXAMPLES OF ENGLISH.
680. Lines on the Eutlnvell Cross. .
. ...
591
737. Lines by Cadmon 592850. The Northumbrian Psalter 593
950. The Lindisfarne Gospels......
594
1000. The Euslrworth Gospels 595
1090. The Legend of St. Edmund 596,5971220. The Ancren Eiwle
598, 599, 600
Index 601
Errata.
Page 44, line 5 ; for Bcethius read Boethius.
"
105,"
14; for Sunn/t dceg read Sumiandceg.
"
130,"
19 ; for scehealfe read see healfe.
,,
165,"
17 ; for the Alfred's read Alfi-ed'sgh.
"
194,"
3 ; strike out the sentence beginning with So.
"
250,"
3 ; strike out for the first time.
"
315,"
1 ; for 138 read 303.
,,
337,"
5 ; for one read once.
"374,
"
13 ; for sel iasse read seli cute.
"
442,"
12 ; for Past read Passive.
"
535, Notes, last line but one ; transfer of from the end to
the
beginning of this line.
-
THE
OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH.
CHAPTER I.
ENGLISH IN ITS EAELIEST SHAPE.1
Theee are many places, scattered over the world, that
are hallowed ground in the eyes of Englishmen ; but
the most sacred of all would be the spot (could we onlyknow it)
where our forefathers dwelt in common with
the ancestors of the Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Latins,
Slavonians, and Celts" a spot not far from the Oxus.
By the unmistakable witness of language we can frame
for ourselves a pedigree more truthful than any heraldic
tree boasted by Veres or Montmorencies, by Guzmans orColonnas.
Thanks to the same evidence, we can gain
some insight into the daily life of the great Aryan fa-mily,
whence spring all the above-named nations.
The word lArya' seems to come from a time-honoured
term for ploughing, traces of which term are found in
the Latin arare and the English ear. Some have thoughtthat Iran
in the East and Erin in the West alike take
1 Gibbon begins his famous chapter on Mohammed by confessinghis
ignorance of Arabic ; even so, I must acknowledge that all
mySanscrit comes from Dr. Morris and Mr. Muir.
ftt B
-
\Y*'
2 Old and Middle English.
their names from the old Aryans, the ' ploughing ' folk,men more
civilised than the roving Tartar hordes aroundthem.
These tillers of the ground ' knew the arts of plough-ing,of
making roads, of buildingships,of weaving and
sewing, of erecting houses ; they had counted at least asfar as
one hundred. They had domesticated the most
important animals, the cow, the horse, the sheep, the
dog ; they were acquainted with the most useful mefcals,and
armed with hatchets, whether for peaceful or warlike
purposes. They had recognised the bonds of blood andthe laws of
marriage ; they followed their leaders and
kings ; and the distinction between right and wrongwas fixed by
customs and laws.' l As to their God,
,
traces of him are found in the Sanscrit Dyaus, in the
Latin Dies-piter,in the Greek Zeus, in the English Tiw ;from
this last comes our Tuesday. Moreover,-the Aryanshad a settled
framework of grammar : theirs was that
Mother Speech, whence nearly all the men dwelling be-tweenthe
Shannon and the Ganges inherit the words
used in dailylife.2The Sanscrit and the English are two out of
the
many channels that have brought the water from the old
Aryan well-head down to our days. The Sanscrit lan-guage,
having been set down in writing two thousand
years before the earliest English, shows us far more ofthe great
Mother Speech than our own tongue does. I
now print a hundred and thirtywords or so, the oldest
1 Max Miiller, Science of Language, I. 273.2 The Turks and
Magyars are the chief exceptionsto the rule.
-
English in its Earliest Shape.
used by us, which vary but slightlyin their Eastern andWestern
shapes. How the one-syllabledroots first arose,no man can say.
B 2
-
Old and Middle English.
As in woe worth the day !
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 5
Sanscrit.English
1 r\u j tit xSanscrit.
(Old and New)
upari over
upa ufa,aboveud fit,outtiras (across) through
English(Old and Neiv).
pra fore
na ne, no
nunan mi, now !
The greatestof all mistakes is,to think that Englishis derived
from Sanscrit. The absurdity of this notion
may be perceived from the fact,that the most untaught
English ploughboy of our time in many respects comesnearer to
the old Mother Speech than the most learned
Brahmin did, who wrote three thousand years ago.Unhappily, we
English have been busy, for the last
four thousand years, clippingand paring down our
inflec-tions,until
very few of them are left to us. Of all
/ Europeans, we have been the greatest sinners in this
way. Well said the sage of old, that words are like
regiments : they are apt to lose a few stragglers on a
long march. Still,we can trace a few inflections,that
are common to us and to our kinsmen who compiled theYedas.
In Substantives, we have the Genitive Singular andthe Nominative
Plural left. It will be seen that Eng-lish,
in respect of the latter case, comes nearer to the
Mother Speech than German does.
Sanscrit. Old English. New English.Nom. Sing.Vrika-s Wulf
WolfGen. Sing. Vrika-sya Wulfes WolfsNom. Plur, Vrika-s Wulfas
Wolves
1 The English bishop and the French eveque, two very modernforms
of the same word, are much wider apart from each other thanthe
hoary words in the long list given above.
-
6 Old and Middle English.
I give a few Suffixes,common to Sanscrit and Eng-lishforms of
the same root : "
Ma ; as from the root jnd, know, we get the Sanscritno/man and
the English nama, name.
Ra ; as from the root aj,go, we get the Sanscrit ajraand the
English acre.
Nu ; as from the root su, bear, we get the Sanscrit
sunu and the English sunu, son,Der ; as from the root pa, feed,
we get the Sanscrit
pi-tarand the Englishfod-der,father.U; as the Sanscrit madhu
(honey) is the English
meodu (mead). Compare our scddu (shadow), seonu(sinew).
Our word silvern must once have been pronounced as
silfre-nas,(the Gothic silubr-ei-n-s),
having the suffix nain common with the Sanscrit phal-i-na-s.
We may wonder why vixen is the feminine of fox,carline of carle.
Turning to our Sanscrit and Latin
cousins, we find that their words for queen are rdj-niand
reg-ina,coming from the root raj. Still,in theselast, the n is
possessive; the vowel at the end is themark of the feminine.
What is the meaning of ward in such a word asheaven-ward ? I
answer, to turn is vart in Sanscrit,vertere in Latin.
There is no ending that seems to us more thoroughlyTeutonic than
the like in such words as workmanlike.
But this is seen under a slightlydifferingshape in theSanscrit
ta-drksha, in the Greek te-lik-os,and the Latinta-lis. These words
answer to our old pylic,which sur-vives
as thick or thuck in the mouths of Somersetshire
-
Old and Middle English.
both, utema and utmest, utmost. Our word aftermost,ifwritten at
full length, would be af-ta-ra-ma-yans-ta,aheaping up of signs to
express Comparison.
In our Pronouns, we had a Dual as well as a Singularand Plural ;
it lasted down to the year 1280.
In our Adverbs, we find traces of the Sanscrit s, withwhich the
old Genitive was formed. Hence comes such
a form as 'he must needs go,'which carries us back, far
beyond the age of written English, to the Sanscritadverb formed
from the Genitive. Even in the earliest
English, the Genitive of ned was nede, and nothingmore. In later
times we say,
' of a truth, of course,'
"c, which are imitations of the old Adverbial Genitive.
We have not many inflections left in the EnglishYerb. The old
form in mi, once common to English,Sanscrit,and other dialects,has
long dropped ; our wordam (in Sanscrit asmi) is now its only
representative.It is thought that the old Present ran as shown in
the
followingspecimen : "Root nam, take :
1. nama-mi
2. nama-si
3. nama-ti
4. nama-masi
5. nania-tasi
6. nama-nti
1st Per. ma, me.
2nd Per. ta, thou.
3rd Per. ta, this,he.1st Per. ma + ta, 1 + thou.
2nd Per. ta + ta, thou + thou.
3rd Per. an + ta,he + he.
The Perfect of this verb must have been na-nam-ma
in its second syllablelengthening the first vowel of thePresent;
in other words, forming what is called in
English a Strong Verb. Sid-dmi in Sanscrit has sa-sdd-a
1 Hence comes ' to numb ' and ' Corporal Nym.'
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 9
for its Perfect, words of which we have clippedforms inI sit and
I sat. I higlit(once Jicehdt),from hdtan, and Idid (once dide),are
the only English Perfects that have
kept any trace of their reduplication,and the former is
our one relic of the Passive voice. The Imperative inSanscrit
was, in the Singular,nama, in the Plural,namata, answering to the
Old English nim and nimatli.One verbal noun, used as an Infinitive
in the Dative
case, was nam-ana (the Greek nem-enai), which wehad pared down
into nim-an more than a thousand
years ago. The Active Participlewas nama-nt, whichruns through
most of the daughters of the AryanTongue, and which kept its ground
in the Scotch Low-lands
until of late years, as lridand' instead of our
corrupt word ' riding.''The Sanscrit and English alikehave both
Strong and Weak Passive Participles; theformer ending in na, the
latter in ta,as stir-na,strew-n.1
Sanscrit,yuk-taGreek, zexik-tos
Latin, junc-tusEnglish,yoh-ed (in Lowland Scotch, yok-it).
Those who choose to write I was stopt instead of
stopiped,may justifytheir spellingby a reference to thefirst
three forms given above. But this form, thoughadmissible in the
Passive Participle,is clearlywrong inthe Active Perfect, I
stopped,as we shall see further on.2
In the Aryan Speech there were a few Verbs which
; Few Sanscrit verbs have this form, so common in English.2
Archdeacon Hare always speltpreached as preacht. Still,it is
the English th, not t, that should answer to the Sanscrit t.
-
10 Old and Middle English.
had lost their Presents, and which used their old Perfects
as Presents,forming for themselves new Weak Perfects.I give a
specimen of one of these old Perfects,found bothin Sanscrit and
English.
It is easy to see that, thousands of years before
Christ's birth, our forefathers must have used a Present
tense, like wit or vid. Our verbs, may, can, shall,will,
must, dare (most of which we use, with their new Per-fects,as
auxiliaryverbs), have been formed like wot, and
are Irregulars.Our verb to be is most irregular,since its tenses
come
from three roots, as, bhu, and vas. One of the points,in
which English goes nearer than Sanscrit to the Mother
Speech, is the first letter of the Third Person Plural ofthis
verb. We still say are, the old ar-anti or as-anti ;
in Sanscrit this word appears only as s-anti. The Ger-mans
have no form of oar am, the Sanscrit asmi.
The old word, which in Sanscrit is da-dha-mi, with
its Perfect,da-dhdu, was brought to the Northumbrianshores by
our Pagan forefathers in the shape of ge-do-m,di-de. Hence our
irregulardo, did, the latter of which
plays a great part in buildingWeak Teutonic verbs.With our verb
ga (go),we may compare the Sanscrit
ji-gd-mi; its Perfect is derived from another verb ;
-
English in its Earliest Shape. n
we now say went, instead of the old eocle,which Spenserused ;
this came from a root i. The Lowland Scotch
have a corrupt Perfect,gaed,which has been long in use.Some of
the compounds of our English verbs carry
us far back. Thus, to explain the meaning of the first
syllablein such words as forlorn,fordone, we must lookto the
Sanscrit para.
The Aryan settlement on the banks of the Oxusf
was in the end broken up. First, the Celt marched
towards the settingsun, to hold the Western lands of
Europe, and to root out the old Turanian owners of the
ground ; of these last, the Basques and Lapps aloneremain in
being. Hundreds of years later the English,with other tribes (they
had not yet learnt to count upto a thousand), followed in the
Celt's wake, leavingbehind them those of their kinsmen who were
after-wards
to conquer India and Persia,to compile the Vedas,and to leave
their handwriting on the rock of Behistun.1Some streams flowed to
the West of the great water- A
shed, others to the East. ^*l
Many tokens show that the English must have longlived in common
with the forefathers of Homer and
Naevius. The ending of the Greek word paid-ionis the
counterpart of that of the English maid-en ; paid-isk-osof
cild-isc,childish.2 Latin is still nearer akin to us, and
sometimes hardly a letter is changed ; as when we com-parealias
and else. Dom-unculus appears in Old English
as hus-incle. The Latin fer and the Old English bcere,
1 The old Persian word yare is the English year.2 Sophocles'
high-sounding TruAoSafjLveivwould be our to foal-
tame, if we chose to compound a word closelyakin to Greek.
-
12 Old and Middle English.
in truth the same word, are attached to substantives,which are
thus changed into adjectives. Vig-iland theOld English wac-ol
(wakeful) are but different forms ofone word ; and wittol still
remains. The Latin malva
is our mallow ; and the likeness was still more strikingbefore
we corrupted the old ending u into ow. Aiei and
cevum are the Grothic dvu),the English aye and ever.Latin and
English alike slipped the letter n into themiddle of a verb before
g, as frango or frag, and gangor gag. The Latin Future tense cannot
be explainedby Latin words alone ; but, on turning to English,we
at
once see that doma-bo is nothing but our tame-be ; that is,I be
to tame, or I shall tame. So likewise with ara-bo, or
I ear be} English sometimes shows itself more primi-tivethan
Latin ; thus, our knot has never lost its first
letter,while gnodus was shortened into nodus thousands
of years ago. It is the same with Jcnow and gnosco.But all the
Teutonic tribes have traces left of their
nearness of kin to the Slavonians and Lithuanians, who
seem to have been the last of the Aryan stock from
whom we Teutons separated. "We have seen that,when living in
Asia, we were unable to count up to athousand. The Sanscrit for
this numeral is saliasra,the Latin mille. The Slavonians made it
tusantja,theLithuanians tukstanti,and with this the whole
Teutonic
kindred closelyagrees. Further, it seems strange atfirst sight
that we have not framed those two of ournumerals that follow ten in
some such shape as dn-tyne
1 The verb ear is happily preserved in Shakespeare,and in
theEnglish Bible. It is one of the first words that ought to be
revivedby our best writers,who should remember their Ar-yan
blood.
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 13
and twd-tyne,since we go on to ]"reo-tyne,thirteen.
Theexplanation is,that the Lithuanian liha answers to theTeutonic
tihan,ten ; the lea at the end of the former word
changes to fa ; just as the Primitive Aryan Jcatvar changesto
the Gothic fidwor (our four), and the Latin cado toour fall. If
lifan then take the place of the commonTeutonic tihan, dn-lifan and
twd-lifan (eleven andtwelve) are easilyframed. These Eastern
kinsmen ofours had also,like ourselves and unlike the rest of
the
Aryan stock, both a Definite and an Indefinite form of
the Adjective.^_
But the time came when our fathers left off hunting *the auroch
in the forests to the East of the Vistula, bade
farewell to their Lithuanian cousins (one of the
mostinterestingof all the branches of the Aryan tree),andmarched
Westward, as the Celts had done long before.
Up to this time, we may fairlyguess, we had kept ourverbs in mi.
It cannot be known when the greatTeutonic race was splitup into
High Germans, LowGermans, and Scandinavians. Hard is it to
explainwhy each of them stuck to peculiarold forms ; why the
High Germans should have kept the Present Plural oftheir Verb (a
point in which Old English fails woefully),almost as it is in
Sanscrit and Latin ; why the Low Ger-mans
(thisterm includes the Goths and English) shouldin general have
clung closer to the old inflections than
their brethren did, and should have refused to corruptthe letter
t into 8 ;
l why the Scandinavians should have
1 Compare the Sanscrit sveda, English sweat, High
Germansckweiss. English is at once seen to be far more
primitivethanGerman.
-
Old and Middle English.
retained to this day a Passive Voice. I can here do noless than
give a substantive and a verb, to show how
our brethren (I may now at last drop the word cousins),formed
their inflections.
Old English.
The Substantive Wolf.
Gothic. Old High German. Old Nort
SINGULAR.
Present Tense op the Verb niman, to take ; whence comesour
numb.
All these Teutonic tribes must have easily under-stoodeach
other, about the time of Christ's birth ; since,
hundreds of years after that event, they were using the
-
i6 Old and Middle English.
4
sing-er,spinster,warn-ing, good-ness,stead-fast,mani-fold,
stdn-ig(stony),aiv-ful,god-less,win-some,
right-ivis(righteous)
.
Others, older still,such as silv-ern,vix-entworlcman-like,
child-ish,witt-ol,mall-ow, I have givenbefore. Many old Teutonic
endings have unhappilydropped out of our speech, and have been
replaced bymeaner ware.
The Teutons, after turning their backs on the rest oftheir Aryan
kin, compounded for themselves a newPerfect of the verb, known as
the Weak form. The
older Strong Perfect is formed by changing the vowelof the
Present, as I sit,I sat, common to English andSanscrit. But the new
Perfect of the Teutons is formed
by adding di-de (in Sanscrit,da-dlidu) to the stem.Thus,
sealf-ie,I salve,becomes in the Perfect,sealfo-de,the de being
contracted from dide. When we say, I
loved,it is like saying,I love did. This comes out much
plainerin our Gothic sister.1Another peculiarityof the Teutons
was the use of
the dark Runes, still found engraven on stone, both in
our island and on the mainland : these were in later times
proscribedby Christianityas the handmaids of witchcraft.The
Celts were roughly driven out of their old abodes,
on the banks of the Upper Danube and elsewhere, bythe intruding
Teutons. The former were far the morecivilised of the two races :
they have left in their wordhall an abiding trace of their
settlement in Bavaria, andof their management of salt works. The
simple word
1 The Latins set Prepositionsbefore dhd and dadhau, and
thusformed abdo, abdidi; condo, condidi; jperdo,perdidi. This last
isnothing but the English I for-do (ruin),I for-did.
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 17
leather is thought by good judges to have been borrowedfrom the
Celts by their Eastern neighbours.1
Others suffered besides the Celts. A hundred years
before Christ's birth,the Teutons forced their way into
Italy, but were overthrown by her rugged championMarius. Rather
later,they matched themselves againstCaesar in Gaul, and felt the
heavy hand of Drusus. Thetwo races, the Latin and the Teutonic,
(neitherof themdreamed that they were both sprung from a common
Mother), were now brought fairlyface to face. Ourforefathers,let
us hope, bore their share in the greatfight,when the German hero
smote Varus and his legions;we English should think less of
Caractacus and Boadicea,more of Arminius and Velleda. Hitherto we
have
puzzled out our historyfrom the words used by ourselvesand our
kin,without help from annalists ; now at lengththe clouds roll
away, and Tacitus shows us the Angli,sheltered by their forests and
rivers,the men who wor-shipped
Mother Earth, in her own sea-girtisland,notfar from the Elbe.
Little did the great historian guessof the future that lay before
the barbarians, whom he
held up to his worthless countrymen with so skilful a
pen. Some of these Teutonic tribes were to take the
placeof Rome and become the lords of her Empire, tobear her
Eagle and boast her titles ; others of them, laterin the world's
history,were to rule more millions of
subjectsthan Rome could ever claim, and were to foundnew empires
on shores to her unknown. She had indeeddone great things in law
and literature ; but her Senate
might well have learned a lesson of public spiritfrom1 Garnett's
Essays,pp. 150, 167.
C
-
1 8 Old and Middle English.
the assemblies held by these barbarians,assemblies towhich we
can trace a likeness in the later councils held
in Wessex, Friesland, Uri, Norway. Rome's most
renowned poets were to be outdone by Teuton Makers,men who would
soar aloft upon bolder wing into theUnseen and the Unknown, and who
would paint the
passionsof mankind in more lifelike hues than any Latinwriter
ever essayed.
But among the many good qualitiesof ourselves and
our kinsmen, tender care for conquered foes has seldombeen
reckoned; Western Celt and Eastern Slavonian
know this full well. Hard times were at hand ; the old
worn-out Empire of Rome was to receive fresh life-bloodfrom the
healthy Teutons. In the Fifth Century, ourbrethren overran
Spain,Gaul, and Italy; becoming lordsof the soil,and overlayingwith
their own words the oldLatin dialects spoken in those provinces. To
this time
belongs the Beowulf, which is to us English (may I notsay, to
all Teutons ?) what the Iliad was to the Greeks.The old
Epic,written on the mainland, sets before us the
doughty deeds of an Englishman,before his tribe had cometo
Britain. There is an unmistakable Pagan ringaboutthe poem ; and a
Christian transcriber,hundreds of yearsafterwards,has sought to
soften down this spirit,whichruns through the recital of the feats
of Ecgtheow's bairn.
In the same age as the Beowulf were written the
Battle of Finsborough and the Traveller's Song. In
thelatter,Attila,Hermanric, and the wealthy Caesar are
allmentioned. Pity it is that we have not these laysintheir oldest
form, in the English spoken not long afterthe first great Teutonic
writer had given the Scripturesto his Gothic countrymen in their
own tongue.
-
English in its Earliest SJiape. 19
The island of Britain was now no longerto be left inthe hands of
degenerate Celts ; happier than Crete or
Sicily,it was to become the cradle where a great peoplemight be
compounded of more than one blood. Bede,writing many years later,
tells ns how the Jutessettled themselves in Kent and Wight ; how
the Saxonsfastened upon Essex, Sussex, and Wessex; how the
Angles,coming from Anglen (the true Old England),founded the
three mighty kingdoms of East Anglia,Mercia, and Northumbria,
holding the whole of thecoast between Stirlingand Ipswich. It is
with thislast tribe that I am mainly concerned in this work.Fearful
must have been the woes undergone by theCelts at the hands of the
ruthless English heathen, menof blood and iron with a vengeance. So
thoroughlywas the work of extermination done, that but few
Celtic
words have been admitted to the right of Englishcitizenship. The
few that we have seem to show thatthe Celtic women were kept as
slaves,while their hus-bands,
the old owners of the land, were slaughteredin
heaps. Garnett givesa list of nearly two hundred of thesewords,
many of which belong to household management ;and others, such as
spree, bam, whop, balderdash,"c, can
scarcelybe reckoned classical English.Old Britain was by degrees
swept away, after much
hard fighting; and the historyof New England at lengthbegins;
her birth- throes were far sharperthan anythingknown in Spain,Gaul,
or Italy.
Amid the shouts of the slayersand the groans of the
slain,let us keep a steady eye upon the years 571 and
577, as recorded in the Chronicle. We there read ofc 2
-
i!
20 (9/d awa? Middle English.
the Wessex Princes winning their way to Bedford and
Gloucester ; they seem to have been the first Teutons
who bore their arms into Salop. This fact must be keptin mind,
when we come afterwards to treat of the limits
of English dialects. The South- West of Mercia (to usea name
that arose rather later) was first settled byWestern Saxons, though
it was afterwards mastered bythe Angles of the Midland. It is
curious that the
Danes, coming much later,never settled in any of the
shires conquered by the Saxons, with the one exceptionof
Essex
;the Scandinavian scourge came down almost
wholly upon the Angles.
Christianity,overspreading the land in the Seventh
Century, did much to lighten the woes of the
down-troddenCelts
: a wonderful difference there was between
the Christian conquest of Somerset and the Pagan con-questof
Sussex. The new creed brought in its train
scores of Latin words, such as candle, altar,bishop,"c,which
have been employed by us ever since the Kentish
King's baptism. The Church in other lands scornedthe popular
speech ; such broken Latin as the Hymn ofSt. Eulalie in France
(about the year 900), seemed to bea caricature of the language of
the ' Te Deum.' But
with us the Church made English her handmaid ; our
greatest men translated the Bible or compiled Homiliesin their
own tongue.
At this point I halt, finding no better opportunityfor setting
forth the grammar employed by our fore-fathers,
traces of which, mangled as it is by the wearand tear of
centuries, may still be found.
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 21
SUBSTANTIVES,
BIVISION I.
SINGULAR.
Nom. Sawel
Gen. Sawle
Bat.
Ace.1}Sawle
CLASS
PLURAL.
Nom. Sawla
Gen. Sawla, sawlenaBat. Sawlum
Ace. Sawla
SINGULAR.
Nom. Duru
Gen. Dure
Bat. Dure
Ace. Dura
CLASS III.
PLURAL.
Nom. Dura
Gen. Dura (durena)Bat. Durum
Ace. Dura
-
22 Old and Middle English.
DIVISION II.
CLASS I.
SINGU LAR.
PLURAL.
Acc. J Ace. J
Gen. Horses Gen. Horsa
Dat. Horse Dat. Horsum
CLASS H.
SINGULAR. PLURAL*
Gen. Scipes Gen. ScipaJDfltf. Scipe Da". Scipum.
DIVISION III.
-
24 Old and Middle English.
PRONOUNS.
-
English in its Earliest Shape.
PLTTRAL.
25
SUBJUNCTIVE.
Present. Perfect.
Sing. healde heoldePlur. healdon heoldon
-
26 Old and Middle English.
Gerund.
To healdanne
IMPERATIVE.
Sing. healdPlur. healdaft
Active Participle.
healdende
Past Participle.
gehealden
THE WEAK VERB.
(Infinitive,liifian.)
INDICATIVE.
SUBJUNCTIVE.
Present. Perfect.
Sing. lungePlur. lution
lufode
lufodon
Gerund.
To lufigenne
IMPERATIVE.
Sing. lufaPlur. lufiaS
Active Participle.
lufigende
Past Participle.
gelufod
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 2 J
In tracing the history of English corruptions,wemust remember
that the books upon which we have to
depend were written at very different times. When wefind any
construction common to Gothic and English,we may feel pretty sure
that this form was used byHengist. There are some Charters, in
Kemble's Collec-tion,
of the Eighth Century with very old forms ; these
we have in a transcript,made 300 years later. King^Alfred's
translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care,
printedfor the first time in 1871 just as the great Kingfwrote
it (and not as his later transcribers corrupted it),teaches us what
were the Southern forms of the year
890 or thereabouts. The bulk of Old English literature
belongs to the next century. Then come the Southern
Gospels,which were translated a little before the year1000, and
are more English in their idioms than Wick-liffe'slater version
is.1 The Saxon Chronicle carries us
thence to the great landmark, the year 1066 ; and for
this last period we may also consult the mass of Old
English printedby Mr. Thorpe in his * Analecta Anglo-Saxonica,'
and by Mr. Sweefc in his 'Anglo-Saxon Reader/There is, moreover,
the Tale of Apollonius and the
Legends of the Holy Rood, works that seem rather
late,perhaps about 1050. There are, further, the moremodern
English Charters printed in Kemble's ' Codex
Diplomaticus.' I have been careful to quote here none-of these
last that bear evident marks of later transcrip-tion.
1 For example ; in St. John xx. 22, occurs insujflavitwith
no-pronoun following. The Gospels of 1000 translate, Meow he onhi ;
Wickliffe meagrely translates, he blew ynne.
-
28 Old and Middle English"v
~No language has changed its vowel sounds so much
as English has done. "We must remember that the old
a, e, i,0, and u, were pronounced by our fathers much
as the Italians do now; and this lasted in Southern
England down to 1530, as Palsgrave tells us. A remnantof the old
pronunciation is still found in father,plega(now play),and ripere
(now reaper). Our yawn is aclumsy attempt to preserve the sound of
the old gdnian.Every educated man should sound words like father
and
hath as broad as he can. The vowel u was sounded in
the broad Italianway, as wund, tu, our ivound, two ; and
ow had much the same sound ; Stow is written Stou in
Doomsday Book ; the Southern eower was iur in Nbrth-
umbria, our your ; what we now write new was written
of old both neowe and niwe. Poitou, Anjou, and Ponthieu,appear
in the Saxon Chronicle as Peitowe, Angeow, and
Puntiw. Of all our English sounds ew has been themost abiding.
The eaw seems to have been soundedlike the French iou, as in
sceaive and feawe ; the latter
form was written by Tyndale so late as 1525. The ce.and ea seem
to have been pronounced much like the old
e ; we see Banns written for Bheims, Herbearde for the
French Herbert. Our glaze and hair show the old
sounds of gloesenand hcer ; we pronounce to this daywear and
great in the true Old English way ; the Irish
in speaking of tea still keep the rightsound which has
Deen lost in England since Pope's time. The ie alsohad the sound
of the French e. Our an or aw must,
as a general rule, have been sounded like the French
ou ; the Goths wrote praitoriaimfor the Latin pro?io-rium ; and
daur for what in English was written duru
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 29
(ostium). Our old ndiviht and sdwel were, rather later,written
noulit and soul. What we now call awl (snbula)was eel from Kent to
Dorset, and owul or ewl from
Dorset to Salop. The Gothic has sewhum for our old
gesdwon (vidimus), and we find in the earliest Englishboth
streowberie and strawberie.1 It seems, however, that
the on sound never came into pdiva (peacock), the
English imitation of the Latin pavo ; and King Alfred
writes Agustinus for Augustinus. When we see the
three Old English forms, aftor,aufter,awfier (aut), it ishard to
say whether the second should be pronouncedlike the first,that
is,like the broad Italian a, or whether
it should be sounded like the Italian u ; we know that
rather later it was speltoufter. King Alfred often has
0 for a, as in raon and lore; he has bio we (not beo we) ;he
often has * for y, as in ildo (aetas). When we seahis hine
lysft(Pastoral,391), we see the old form that
gave birth to the two variations, listeth and lusteth ; it
is the same with ful (foul) and filth. We find not onlysypan,
but two other forms, sip and sup, both of which
we keep. The old y was most likelypronounced likethe present
French u, the sound still often heard in
Devonshire. In the Chronicle of 1049, the Flemish
town we call Bruges is written Brycge. Alfred has gin(our
glee)for the more usual gleoiv,and here we havefollowed him. We
sometimes express two different
ideas by varying the sound, not the spelling,of a word \thus a
man throws a stone, and weighs not more than
so many stone (stun).1 In our New Testament strawed still stands
for what is usually
written strewed ; this we owe to Tyndale.
-
30 Old and Middle English.
Proper names, more than anything else,keep the oldsound of
vowels. Thus, the river Ouse has not changed in
sound, though our fathers wrote it as Use ; it has neverbeen
sounded like the present German au. Cowper shows
how the old ow, the French ou, was pronounced. Aldgatereminds us
that aid was the old sound of what is now
called old ; . Birmingham brings before us the ham orhome of the
Birmings ; and Stanton, in many parts ofthe country, bears witness
that our stone was once every-where
written stdn. In Yorkshire, where a first beganto be sounded
like the French e, Stanton is now written
Stainton. Langport, in Somerset, still keeps the old
sound in its first syllable,though in common speech langbecame
long seven hundred years ago in the South.
The Scotch surnames, M'Lean and Greeme, keep alivethe old sound
of ea and ai ; Baird remains to show how
heard (barba) was once pronounced. The true sound ofthe old
ceaster lives in the East Anglian Caistor.
There are two marked tendencies in English, shared
by some of the other Teutonic dialects,which should
beobserved.
The first is,a liking to cast out the letter n, if it
comes before th, s, or/. We see by the German andNorse that our
other was once anther or ontlier ; much in
the same way tonth, finf, gons, became toft,fif, gos,lengthening
the vowel before n.
The second of our peculiaritiesis,a habit of puttingd or t after
n, I,r, or s, usuallyto round off the end of aword, though it
sometimes is inserted in the middle of
a word. Thus the French tyran becomes tyrant, the
Gaelic Donuil becomes Donald ; the Old English betiveox
-
32 Old and Middle English.
honor ; hence came our I was, we were ; frozen,froren
;lose,lorn. Most of us who have had to do with masonsknow the
meaning of scamped work : this unlucky verb
may come from scant, with two changes of consonantsthat are
pretty common.
The interchange of vowels was frequent. We maystill translate
fug ere by either fly or flee,following theoldest usage ; our week
was formerlyboth wice and wuce.This accounts for our stint and
stunt, with different
shades of meaning ; smitan (polluere)has dropped, butsmut
remains. In our present verb for mentiri,we have
taken our pattern from the Second Person, \u lyhst,rather than
from the First Person, ic leoge. The old
scapan and sceapan (fingere)run side by side. It is apity that
we have lost our accents: we can now nolonger distinguishbetween
metan (metiri) and metan(occurrere). We often see our vowels
doubled, to marka difference; thus god (bonus) became good, that
itmight not be confounded with our word for Deus ;goodly and
godlyhave different shades of meaning. Itis the same with tool and
toll,cook and cock,and manyothers. King Alfred led the way, in
doubling theletter o.1
We stillkeep the old blendan (miscere),but we havechanged
blendian (excaecare)into blind, thinking itwas too like the former
verb. Wrath stood of old for
both ira and iracundus ; we now mark the adjectivebysubstituting
o for a ; this is an improvement. Cldftstood for our cloth and our
clothes alike.
1 A slightvowel change makes a great difference in the
gentUityof proper names ; see Blount and Blunt, Smythe and Smith.
;
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 33
We have had a sore loss,since Spenser'sday,in partingwith the e
so often sounded at the end of words. This
began very early,for we find wur]" (dignus) written aswell as
wnr\e.
The changes in pronouncing and spellingare all
brought about by laziness in the speakers ; hence it
came that even in the year 803 our English tongue was
very far gone from old Aryan purity. In a WorcesterCharter of
that year (Kemble, I. 222), wulde (our would)replacesvjolde ; monn
and londe are written for man andland. Ninety years later, King
Alfred, unlike theGermans, shows a distaste for the hard g in the
middle
of a word; he writes ren (rain),ftenode,gesced (said),underled,
instead of the right regn, ftegnode,gesaigd,underlcegd. The English
led of the last word is cut
very short,when we compare it with the Gothic galagid.He
sometimes softens g at the beginning of a word,writing ionga
(young), not geonga ; justas yera (annus)in Gothic answered to the
English gear. The ge of thePast Participleis by him often
clipped,as drifenforgedrifen.1He casts both the n and d out of the
oldendlefta(eleventh),writing hundcelleftiogoftan(PastoralCare,
465). At page 307, we see the old sende turnedinto our sent
(misit),and at page 170, begyrde becomesbegyrd,our begirt. The n,
in which always of old theWessex Infinitive ended, is beginning to
be lost. Insteadof the old becfo ge, the slovenlybeo ge (be ye) is
coming
1 The ge is replacedby i,prefixedto Participles,so early as
thetenth century. See Mr. Sweet's note, Pastoral Care, 489. The co
m-mon form nothink shows how hard the g must have been sounded
at the end of a word.
D
-
34 Old and Middle English.
in; it prevailedin most of the manuscripts of the next
age. The o at the end of the Verb, as in ic biddo, was
now about to disappearin the South.In the year 991 (Kemble's
Charters,III. 256), licefcle
is corrupted into hcedde (habuit). In 995 (III.295),betest
(optimus) is changed for the Danish bezt,in awill ; but the z never
became very common in our Teu-tonic
words. "We have preferred seol (phoca) to seolh ;though the
Laird of Monkbarns, even so late as 1800,called it sealgli. The h
was pronounced as a strongguttural,for iElfeah became the Latin
Elphegus.
The letter r must have been sounded strong, as the
Scotch and Irish pronounce it now ; boren was written
for bom (natus) even down to the Reformation: ourlaziness has
mauled the fine old sound. The letter n
was often added to roots in English verbs ; thus we haveboth to
slake and to slacken, heark and hearken, list
and listen,wake and waken; we black boots, but weblacken a good
name. So in Icelandic we find bothblika and blikna. Sometimes I is
employed instead of
n ; thus in Old Bnglish both nistian and nestlian wereused, each
derived from nest,and each having a differentshade of meaning.
There is a tendency in th, the English sound that
answers to the Sanscrit and Latin t,to slide into d ; and
this must have begun very early. In Gothic, both wha]"and wliad
are found for whither. In English,we see not
only civile,but cwide (dictum). There is now adifference between
thrillingthe soul of a man and
drillinga hole in his body. The sceS,which must havebeen our
oldest form of the Latin satur, has given way
-
EnglisJi in its Earliest Shape. 35
to seed. Since the Conquest, rother has become rudder,
"byrftenburden, and murther murder. As to eweepan, wehave kept
nearer to the rightspellingin bequeath thanin quoth. We talk of a
settle ; but in Hardwick's Saxon
Gospels (St.Matt. xxv. 31) sett,sd"el,and sedle areemployed by
three different writers between 950 and1000, when Englishing.
Christianityenriched our tongue with many newforeignwords, as we
see from one short sentence in aCharter of 831, ceghwilediacon
arede twa jpassione(Kemble,I. 292). King Alfred shows us in his
Pastoral Carehow earlyletters and words that came through the
Latin
began to work a change in English. We there find not
only Sacliarias,but Zacharias ; the z and eh were entire
strangers to Pagan England: Bede had most likelynaturalised them
long before Alfred's time. We are not
surprisedafter this to find the King spellingEnglishwords like
pohcha,pouch, (343) ; tiohchode (385),andhliehclian,laugh
(249),though in all these the ch musthave been sounded hard.
Lazarus was speltLadzarus,showing the Italian way of pronouncing z
; in the Rush-worth Gospels (St.Lukex. 10)
,
in jolateasis Englished byon plo3tsa(piazza). Alfred was not
particularabout hisLatin cases ; he talks of fturh Paulus (306), he
has theGenitive Sancte P aides (290), also of Ieremie (441).15a
Saducie and fia Farisseos (363) " this last word, hereused as a
Nominative, would remind an Englishman of hisnational Plural ending
in as. One of the first instancesof the v, which has driven out /
from the middle of
many an English word, is found in Alfred's phraseon Jjivano,in
Lebanon. His spellingseems something
D 2
-
36 Old and Middle English.
born out of due time ; he is a forestaller,as it were,of our
modern ways, for we have followed him rather
than later writers of the Tenth Century, especiallyin
spellingbogli(ramus), not boh (Pastoral, 81) ; burg,not burh
(hence the Borgo at Rome) ; and in wordslike friend and fiend,
which rather later were written
freond and feond. The old form was luckilykept inKent and Essex.
He has also our common au in
naulit and auht, hefon for heofon,apla for ceppel,ascianfor
axian. The new ou was in the end, as a generalform, to supplant u,
and Alfred writes noufter. He is
fond of doubling o, just as we have done since Chaucer'stime :
the King writes foot,doo, good% In Pages 28and 103 he puts gecnewon
(knew) and strewede(strewed) where later writers would have
written
gecneowon and streowode ; ed very early replaced od. He
couples c and I; the Southern and Northern letters,in(S/c/.e(P.
329) : this was not much imitated until 1180.He often puts h for c,
and u for w, like the Northum-brians.
He writes orcgeard,our orchard, in Page 381 ;showing the close
alliance there is between c and t,forthe word was usuallyortgeard.1
In Page 171 we seereedinge and leornunge; the old ung at the end of
a word
was making way for ing, the new form for VerbalNouns. He is not
very fond of the diphthongs,in whichSouthern England rejoiceddown
to 1205 ; he puts letfor Icet,and he writes Mew (color,Page 133),
showingus that we have not changed our pronunciation of thisword
for the last thousand years ; if we were to pro-nounce
it as we spellit now, we should say 7wo-y. Our
1 See page 86 of my Book.
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 37
true is more like Alfred's trua (Pastoral,242) than it isto the
more common treowe (confidence)
.
We know how
many in our day sound news as if it was noos; bnt wehave in
general faithfullykept the ew sound, unless
when it follows I or r, as blew and reiv, rue.
In writers a little later than Alfred, but livingbeforethe
Norman Conquest, we find Indie for India, Iuliuses
for the genitive of Julius, and Theodor for Theodoras,
(Thorpe's ' Analecta,' 43-51). The second example
fore-shadows
our crisises and crocuses. So early as the time
of the Rush worth Gospels (St. John xix. 5) purple waswritten
instead of the Southern purpur. The Latin
castella is translated in the Gospels of 1000 by ceastra,the
crumbling casters or cliesters still left in our land to
bear witness how Rome of yore laid her iron grip uponBritain.1
Sometimes in the Gospels the Latin castellumy
meaning a village, is Englished by castel, a word
which fiftyyears later,when Erench ideas first beganto take root
iu our land, was to be appliedusually to
a fortress. We of 1877 are sometimes more Teutonic
than our fathers ; thus we say cup, not colic, in the
Eucharist.
Latin was the official language of religionin WesternChristendom
; it early gained a footing among foreignnations. We can guess how
it was pronounced down
to about the year 400, when we see saherdos imitated bythe Irish
sog garth,and lukerna by the Gothic luJcam.
The Latin sound e was rendered by the Gothic ai, as
1 Tadcaster, and many another town with the same ending,keepsthe
old castra alive in our mouths.
-
3" Old and Middle English.
taitrarkes. The influence of Latin soon made itself felt
in England. Time was computed by Kalends, Nones, andIdes. The
Churchmen brought scores of Latin wordsinto vogue, which have kept
their ground for the lasttwelve hundred years. We even formed new
Englishverbsfrom the Latin : thus beclysan,our enclose,must
have
sprung in early days from the noun clysing,which itself
came from the foreign dausus, claustrum. One of the
strangest compounds of Latin and English is the word
sol-sece,the flower that seeks the sun ; noontide is
some-thing
of the same kind. English sometimes throws
light upon old Latin pronunciation. Thus, in the greatRoman
colonies of the Rhine land, the name of the hugeearth-shaking beast
must have been sounded elejp-has;and this our forefathers called
yip,which lasted down to1230. When we see the Latin pavo Englished
as pawarwe get a hint as to the way the Latin v was pronounced,at
least in some provinces ; the sound afterwards
changed on the Continent, for fersand serfis,not wers and
serwis, was written by Englishmen before the Norman
Conquest for versus and servitium. Grimm's Law tells
us plainlythat words like temper and foemne,found in
early English writings,were borrowed from the Latin,and that
they have not always been in English use.
We have already seen the careful heed which the
English bestowed upon the cases of their nouns, the
in-flectionswhich they had brought from the Oxus. King
Alfred first shows us how these began to be corrupted inthe
South
; the um of the Dative Plural, which appearsin every one of our
old Declensions, seems to have always-been the first inflection to
be mauled. In the Pastoral
-
4Q Old and Middle English.
here we should now say,
comes 'the King's traitor
(here), and Eadwines (there); lie should have beenrepeated after
the second proper name. Matzner (III.225) quotes ic wees on eftle
]"inum,\u wurde on minum ;here the eftle is not repeated.
I have already remarked upon English terseness.This is seen in
the phrase Gode fionc, 'thanks (beto) God,' which comes like a
parenthesis in the middleof a sentence in the Pastoral, p. 26.
Again, in JElfric'sHomilies (Sweet's ' Anglo-Saxon Reader,' p. 85),
we findse apostolwees nigon geara ; here old has been dropped.
In p. 57 of the same book we read for Godes lufan;'for love to
God.' Hence
' and many such phrases,which lasted long.
In this work I find it very convenient to talk,like
the Greeks, of the Old and the New. In former days an
Adjectivewas often used as a Substantive, as ure
ieldran(Pastoral, 5), our elders, forefathers ; hence we say,'
your betters,'' your superiors.' Thus the Substantive
goodswas formed from the Adjective,as in Latin. ' Thereis not
his like ' is but the old his gelica nis (Thorpe's'Analecta,'34).
Our on the loose is foreshadowed by on ]"amdrygean (St.Luke xxiii.
31). In the Pastoral, p. 399, Lot
says, her is an lyteleburg . . . lieo is an lytel; in our
days,we should add one to the last word. In p. 385 comes "u
gionga,thou young un ; this un or one did not take the
place of the final a until 1290. In this way the old
bedrida became bedridden. Our well-known " easy does
it ' is a curious substitution of an Adjectivefor a
Sub-stantive.The deep might stand for the Latin mare, as
it does in our time.
-
EnglisJi in its Earliest Shape. 41
We know our poeticconstruction of Adjectives,as seenin Mr.
Tennyson's ' a grey old wolf and a lean.' Some-thing
like this, though not exactly the same, may be
seen in St. Luke xxiii. 50, where Joseph is described as
god iver and rihhvis.
We sometimes see an English Adjectiveclippedin away that the
Latin would not bear. In the Chronicle
of the year 980, nof" scipherigeis put for ' the northern
army.'Now and then a word compounded of an Adjective
and a Substantive is used as an Adjective,as barefoot;barehead
lasted down to the Fifteenth Century. We
might say of old both dn-edge and dn-eged, one-eyed.We often
compound a Substantive with an Adjective,asthe old blodread,'blood-
red.'
Our good, as we know, is sometimes used in a sense
differingfrom virtuous. We might justify,from theSaxon
Chronicle, our phrases ' a good while ago
'
and
'a good deal of work,' like Horace's bona pars homi-
num.
Our poets keep alive Old English epithets,datingfrom the
earliest times ; thus we find in Kemble's
Charters, IV. 292, red gold mentioned.
One of our heaviest losses is the almost total disuse of
theun, so often prefixedto Adjectives,as in un-good, un-
mig'hty,and many others. It was also prefixedto
Sub-stantives
as un-might, and I rejoiceto see that suchwords as unwisdom are
once more coming to life in ourland. We also talk of
un-churching,just as Burnetwrote of un-sliriningand un-sainting.
The Gothic
opposes wiliabands (he that hath not) to habands. The
-
42 Old and Middle English.
freer play that is given to this good old Teutonic prefix,the
better will it be for our tongue. It is a shame to use
non as a prefixwhere un will do ; this is as bad as
sub-lettinginsead of underletting. The old prefixwan,
some-thinglike
un, nowlives only in wan-ton.
Of all our parts of speech the Verb is the most pre-cious,for in
its varied forms we find most traces of hoary
Aryan eld. We keep many old verbal idioms with but little
change, such as ' I am seeking,'' I am come,' ' they
aregone,''he thought to slay,''seek to come,' 'enough to eat,''
worthy to bear,'' this house to let,'' fair to see,' ' I do
you to wit,' 'he is going to read,' he g"fo raidan. TheGerund
was much used, as, ic to drincenne hcebbe,' I have
to drink,' like Cicero's Jiabeo dicere ; wairon to farenne,1
they were to go.' Mcelis me to feran,is like the Gothic
mel du bairan (St. Luke i. 57). Our curious idiom
ofParticiples,' he ceased commanding,' ' they dreaded ask-ing,'
is found in Old English,as, geendude bebeodende,ondredon
dcsigende. So also, ' I heard him speaking,'' I saw it burnt.' He
hmfde hine geworlitne,'he had him
wrought,' common enough with us, is not often foundin Greek or
Latin. The Present Participleis often used
as a Substantive, as ' the livingand the dying.' It has
always been allowed to prefixun, as ' the unbelieving,'' the
unbecoming.' The Past Participlewas used in the
same way, as, se awyrgda (the accursed).The Future was expressed
by shall and will, but
oftener by the Present ; we still say, ' another word, andI go.'
Ic mot, \u most, expressed permission,and was
very seldom used in our sense of must, expressingneed ;licet,not
ojjortet,was the idea. The Second Person of the
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 43
Present sometimes replacedthe Imperative,as, mas dagas
\u wircst,in the Fourth Commandment. We sometimes
use the Future as a mild Imperative ; yoit will go there ;here
will keeps one of its old senses, (oportet). If
an idea has to be presented both in the Present and
Future tense, the Verb often stands in the Present, and
is followed by vnU without an infinitive. This is true
English conciseness. Matzner quotes from Exodus :
]"isfolc wix\ and swifter wyle, ' this folk waxeth and will
(wax) further.' On the other hand, the shall is
some-timesdropped before a second infinitive; Oadmon's
Satan mourns ftcet Adam sceal wesan on wynne and we
\olien.The shoxild is employed in a most curious old idiom,
to be found in King Alfred's tale about Orpheus ; ' theysaid
that the harper'swife sceolde acwelan ; ' we simply
say' that the wife died.' Hence comes our phrase ",
1 who should come up but Thomas,' that is' who came
up.' The should is further used instead of shall ; our
fathers translated the Latin debeo by sceal ; but KingAlfred
shows us the idiom that we still keep, %a reaferas
ge"enceaft,. . .
.
ac hi sceoldon gehieran,"c. (PastoralCare, 343). The sceoldon in
this passage clearlystandsfor deoent, not for debuerunt. The old
meaning of shall
is kept in the bidding prayer before University sermons ;1ye
shall pray for all mankind,' "c. ; so too, ' Thou shalt
not steal.' The confusion between shall and will is
very old. In St. John vii. 35, the Gothic has, ' wliadre sa
sladi gaggan?' the English has, ' hivyderwyle
tiesfaran?1(whither will this man go ?) the Greek word here
ismellei.
-
44 Old and Middle English.
There is a curious idiom of will,still often heard in
the North, an idiom which may be found in the Pastoral
Care, 451 ; hwcet wile ftcet nu beon toeorca ? what work
onust this be ? Matzner quotes other sentences of this
kind from the Bcethius ; it is to be remarked that these
are all questions. I heard an old woman say at the Leeds
Exhibition, as she stood before a portrait: ' That will be
Shakespeare, a'm thinking.'Since the Norman Conquest, the bare
Future has
always been expressed,at least in Southern England, by I
shall,thou wilt,he tvill ; a most curious anomaly, by whichthe
Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and some of the American
States, are thoroughly puzzled. Everyone knows thefamous ' I
will be drowned, and no man shall save me.'
Even Thackeray, after travellingin Ireland,confused thetwo
verbs, as may be seen in his
' Irish Sketch-book/ I
will should never be used unless earnest intention or a
promise is to be expressed; thou shalt, he shall, should
never be used unless fate,duty, or command, is to be
ex-pressed
; shall answers fairlywell to must, as we now usethe latter. As
regards the bare Future, perhaps the reasonfor the aforesaid
anomaly is,that a man has completecontrol over himself, and
therefore employs the graveand weighty I shall ; he has no such
absolute control
over others, as a generalrule,and therefore employs the
lighterthou tvilt,he will.1
1 Herodotus, as is well known, sometimes uses 0eAw, like our
will,to express the bare Future. We say ' I will gladly do
it,'but
on the other hand, ' I shall like to do it:' in the last
instance it is
felt that the will,expressing earnest assurance, would be a
pleonasmif used with the verb like.
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 45
Let ns hope that we shall always cleave to the ancient
Subjunctive form, ' as it were,'instead of ' as it mightbe.' The
old Imperative ivces (esto) is nowhere found
now, except in wassail (waeshal).We have seen how useful the
verb do has always
been in framing our English speech. A phrase like he
doth withstand " (not he withstands) seems modern ; butit is
found in King Alfred's writings. Our emphatic do
was sometimes prefixedto the Imperative. Christ saidto the woman
taken in adultery, ' Do gd, and ne synga]m n"fre ma' (St.John viii.
11). Do not thou turn wasexpressed of old as ne do )"u,\oe,t\u
oncyrre. The verb
do was also employed, both transitivelyand otherwise,to save the
repetitionof a former verb ; Alfred speaks of
planting an assembly, sua se ceorl deft his
ortgeard(Pastoral,293), ' as the churl doth his orchard.'
We see an attempt to supply the want of a Middle
Voice in such phrases as he hepohtehine, ' he bethoughthim,' and
the later ' I fear me.' ' It rained fire,'is atrue Old English
phrase. We have some ImpersonalVerbs left,and one that is very
precious, since no " it
comes before the Verb in question. This is me thinks
(mihi videtur), which has nothing to do with think
(putare).We should not confound the two, if the secondwere
written in the right way, thenlc. The Germans,wiser than the
English,have kept the two verbs distinct.
We sometimes see the pronoun thou cast off after the
Verb, especiallyin a question. Matzner quotes Eart nu
tidfara? Hence comes the later dost hear ? what sayst ?
The disgusting what say ? one of our latest improve-ments,seems
to belong here.
-
.46 Old and Middle English.
The Nominative is dropped before the Verb, in sen-tenceslike do
ivhat lean, go where ive will. This is seen
in the old hyege swd he wille.
We speak of a horse sometimes as gone lame. InSt. John iv. 6, we
see lie ivces werig gegdn ; the verb ofmotion having taken the
sense of fieri; rather later,become was to take the same
meaning.
The Infinitive of verbs of motion is often droppedafter shall or
must. Ic him aftersceal (I shall after him)is an old idiom.
"We see our common Infinitive, with"
should pre-fixed,
very early encroaching upon the rightfulSubjunc-tive.In the
Pastoral, p. 381, comes 'hear what is
written that the bridegroom scolde syprecayi? These lasttwo
verbs were usually expressed by one word, like theLatin loqueretur.
This sceolde with the Infinitive veryoften followed that in a
dependent sentence. Now and
then we find may, might, used with the Infinitive,where
the Subjunctive is most usual.We have always used I would for
the 0 ptative,like
the Latin vellem. Matzner quotes from Boethius ic
wolde \wt he sceamode.
The ifcould always be got rid of in English, and ashorter
construction might be used ; as, ahte ic geweald,\onne ic werode ;
here the first clause would be in Latin,si jpotestatemhaoerem.
The Subjunctive usually,but now and then the
In-dicative,followed that, ere, though, when, and if.
The Latin nisi was sometimes Englished by n"re ]"oet(were it not
that), followed by the Subjunctive.
-
48 Old and Middle English.
found in the Bible of Tyndale'stime except in the Frenchsense of
adorn, but about 1590 it crops up in the shapeof tire (toweary),
and is seen in Shakespeare. What inthe English of 1000 was
ndgeteorige(St. Luke xviii. 1)is in Tyndale not to he wery. So
frician(saltare)seemsto be the parent of our modern freak.
In our days,we put ' to speakshortly' in the middleof a sentence
; this is an abridged form of our fathers'hrafcost is to
civeftenne,which, comes in a catalogueof sinsin p. 110 (Sweet's '
Reader ').
We now come to Pronouns. Sometimes lie is used,
as well as a substantive, to govern a verb. Thus in
St. Matt, xxvii. 19 lie so3t %a Pilatus ; we now often hear
say 'he sat then, did Pilate.' The idiom in 'thy rod
and thy staff they comfort me ' dates from the oldesttimes. The
hit in English may stand for any masculineor feminine object,or for
an indefinite subject. Thusin St. Mark x. 47, hit woes se Hcelend
replaces the older
Gothic Iesus ist. In St. John xviii. 5 ic hit eom stands
for the Gothic ih im, I am he. This it often goes before an
Infinitive,as ' it is good to praise,1or before a
concessivesentence, as ' it is no wonder if I fear.9 In St.
Matt.xxvii. 6, nis hyt nd dlyfedis substituted for the Go-thic
ni slsuld ist,' it is not allowed ; ' but sometimes weomit it,
as in ' dydon swa beboden wees,1' acted as wasordered.1 In the
Pastoral, 381, we see the first glimpseof our emphatic 'it was then
that he did it,'Scef bift%onne fiaitmon gehiere,ftonne,"c.
Sometimes, as we have
just seen, ftce^ replaces hit,and may be followed by aPlural, as
in the Pastoral, 409, ftcet sindan %a %a fte nebeoft besmitene,'
these are they that be not defiled ;
' \oetwws god cyning,like our ' that is a good fellow/
-
English in its Earliest Shape. 49
Indefinite agency was expressed of old as much as
now ; as \onne hicjivyriafieow, ' when they revile you.'Personal
Pronouns are sometimes reflexives,as I lay
me down ; sittafteow (Pastoral,385). They are sometimeseven
added to an intransitive verb, as gd tie on sibbe,' goin peace'
(St.Mark v. 34), where the Gothic has gagg,with no Pronoun. Hence
comes our ' get you gone,*and
such like. Phrases like I shame me, I repent me, are first
seen in texts like ondred he him (St. John xix. 8).English is
unluckilywithout the reflexive Gothic sik,the Latin se.
The strange Dative reflexive has always been used,as Pilatus hym
sylf dwrdt. Indeed, there are oldinstances of this Dative Pronoun
being employed asa Nominative by itself. The sylfsometimes stands
as aSubstantive ; for Matzner quotes
' hcefdongeweald heora
dgenessylfes,'' had power over their own person.' When
we look back upon the aforesaid Dative reflexive,we seethat the
Irish are rightin saying meself,not myself; theformer is the old
Dative me sylf,brought to Erin byStrongbow's men-at-arms. In St.
Mark ix. 2, sylfestands for the Gothic ainans ; laidde hi sylfeon
sundron,1 he led them by themselves apart.'
Before enteringon the next subject,it is impossibleto refrain
from pointing out how much bad grammarwould now be avoided had we
English anything answer-ing
to the Latin distinction between suns and illius,se and
ilium.
The Possessive Pronoun is often used withoutany
substantive,as eall ftaittehis ne sie,'all that is not
his,'(Pastoral,333). It is sometimes tacked on to a Sub-
"
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50 Old and Middle English.
stantive, for Matzner quotes, Enac his cynryn
(Anak'skin),Numbers xiii. 29.
We still use the Definite Article to express highrespect, as TJw
Macnab, TJie Duke, The Chronicle,The
Charter. In the Pastoral,301, we find se ure Aliesend,1
our great Redeemer,' 'that Redeemer of ours.' What
the Romans called Coesar was known to the English asse
Caser.
The Definite Article is coupled with Participles,justas it is
with Adjectives; as tlie chosen of the Almighty.On the other hand,
the Article is now omitted, just as itwas omitted before the Norman
Conquest, in phraseslike send word, on earth,in bed, at heart,in
hand. If weread of Sinai munt and Herode cyning, we are
notastonished at our now using London town, King
Herod,TwelfthNight.
The seo, which usually stands for the Feminine Defi-nite
Article,sometimes stands by itself,like heo. Hence
comes our she. In the Gothic version of St. Mark vi. 24, si
qa]"is used where we should now say quoth she. Andswarude
se him (St.Matt.xxi. 30) ; here se translates the Latin ille.The
Dative Singular Feminine, ])o?re,has still all the
force of ista in the mouths of the vulgar,as in that there
woman ; but they apply it to all genders. In St. Matt. x.23, we
see on \ysse byrig
. . .
and on \oere.The them, representingthe Latin illis,though
found
in Gothic (St.Mark ix. 16), did not make much way inEngland
until about 12
![Part II. Middle English 1066 AD - ~1500AD From Old English to Middle English, only two major consonant sounds were added: [v] and [z]. ex. v](https://img.pdfslide.net/doc/110x75/56649db95503460f94aa9909/part-ii-middle-english-1066-ad-1500ad-from-old-english-to-middle.jpg)
