A History of the English Language [3 ed.] 0133892395, 9780133892390

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A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH

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A HISTORY OF

THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND

A HISTORY OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE THIRD EDITION

Albert C.

Baugh

University of Pennsylvania

Thomas

Cable

University of Texas

PRENTICE-HALL,

INC., Englewood

Cliffs,

New Jersey 07632

Library of Congress Cataloging

in Publication

Data

Baugh, Albert Croll, 1891-

A history of the

English language.

Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English language I. Cable, Thomas, History. 1942II. Title. joint author. 420'.9 77-26324 PE1075.B3 1978 ISBN 0-13-389239-5

—

© 1978, 1957 by Prentice-Hall,

Inc.,

Englewood

Cliffs,

NJ.

Copyright renewed 1963 by Albert C. Baugh All rights reserved.

No part of this book may

be reproduced

in

any form

or by any means without permission in writing

from

the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America 19

18

17

16

15

International, Inc., London of Australia Pty. Limited, Sydney of Canada, Ltd., Toronto of India Private Limited, New Delhi of Japan, Inc., Tokyo of Southeast Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore Whitehall Books Limited, Wellington, New Zealand

Prentice-Hall Prentice-Hall Prentice-Hall Prentice-Hall Prentice-Hall Prentice-Hall

07632

.

CONTENTS

Preface

1

xiii

English Present and Future 1.

1

The History of the English Language a Cultural Subject.

Work on Language.

Growth and Decay.

2. Influences

The Importance of a Language. 5. The Importance of English. 6. The Future of the English Language. 7. Will English Become a World Language? 8. Assets and Liabilities. 9. Cosmopolitan Vocabulary. 10. Inflectional Simplicity. 11. Natural Gender. 12. Liabilities. at

2.

3.

4.

The Indo-European Family of Languages

16

Language Constantly Changing. 14. Dialectal Differentiation. The Discovery of Sanskrit. 16. Grimm's Law. 17. The IndoEuropean Family. 18. Indian. 19. Iranian. 20. Armenian. 21. Hel13.

15.

lenic.

22.

26. Celtic.

Albanian.

23.

27. Recent

24.

Italic.

Discoveries.

Balto-Slavic. 28.

The

Home

25.

Germanic.

of the Indo-

European Family.

3.

Old English

42

The Languages in England before English. 30. The Romans in 32. Romanization of the Island. 31. The Roman Conquest, 33. The Latin Language in- Britain. 34. The Germanic Conquest. Names "England" and 35. Anglo-Saxon Civilization. 36. The "English". 37. The Origin and Position of English. 38. The Periods in the History of English. 40. Some 39. The Dialects of Old English. 29.

Britain.

,

CONTENTS

VI

of Old English. 41. The Noun. 42. Grammatical The Adjective. 44. The Definite Article. 45. The Personal Pronoun. 46. The Verb. 47. The Language Illustrated. 48. The Resourcefulness of the Old English Vocabulary. 49. Self-explaining Compounds. 50. Prefixes and Suffixes. 51. Old English Literature. Characteristics

Gender.

4.

43.

Foreign Influences on Old English 52.

72

The Contact of English with Other Languages. 54.

Influence.

Celtic

56. Three Latin Influences on 58. Continental

55. Other

Place-names.

Old English.

53.

Celtic

The Celtic

Loan-words.

57. Chronological Criteria.

Borrowing (Latin Influence of the Zero Period).

59.

Latin through Celtic Transmission (Latin Influence of the First Period).

of the Second Period: The Christianizing of Britain. of Christianity on English Civilization. 62. The Earlier 63. The Benedictine Influence of Christianity on the Vocabulary. Reform. 64. Benedictine Reform's Influence on English. 65. The Application of Native Words to New Concepts. 66. The Extent of the 67. The Scandinavian Influence: The Viking Age. 68. The Influence. 60. Latin Influence

61. Effects

69. The Settlement of the Danes The Amalgamation of the Two Peoples. 71. The 72. The Tests of Borrowed Words. Relation of the Two Languages. Place-names. 74. The Earliest Borrowing. 75. 73. Scandinavian 76. The Relation of Scandinavian Loan-words and Their Character.

Scandinavian Invasions of England.

in

England.

70.

Borrowed and Native Words.

77.

Form Words.

Influence outside the Standard Speech.

Syntax.

5.

80. Period

and Extent of the

The Norman Conquest and

79. Effect

78.

Scandinavian

on Grammar and

Influence.

the Subjection of English,

107

1066-1200

The Norman Conquest. 82. The Origin of Normandy. 83. The Year 1066. 84. The Norman Settlement. 85. The Use of French by 86. Circumstances Promoting the Continued Use of the Upper Class. French. 87. The Attitude toward English. 88. French Literature at 90. The Diffusion 89. Fusion of the Two Peoples. the English Court. the Upper English among 91. Knowledge English. and French of of

81.

Class.

6.

92.

Knowledge of French among the Middle

The Re-establishment of English, 1200-1500

Class.

126

Changing Conditions after 1200. 94. The Loss of Normandy. of the French and English Nobility. 96. French Reinforcements. 97. The Reaction against Foreigners and the Growth of 93.

95. Separation

CONTENTS

Vll

National Feeling.

98.

French Cultural Ascendancy

English and French in the Thirteenth Century.

in

Europe.

99.

100. Attempts to Arrest

the Decline

102.

of French. 101. Provincial Character of French in England. The Hundred Years' War. 103. The Rise of the Middle Class.

104. General Adoption of English in the Fourteenth Century.

English in the Law Courts.

106. English in the Schools.

105.

107. Increas-

ing Ignorance of French in the Fifteenth Century. 108. French as a Language of Culture and Fashion. 109. The Use of English in Writing. 110. Middle English Literature.

7.

Middle English

158

111. Middle English a Period of Great Change.

The Noun.

112.

Decay of Inflec-

114. The Adjective.

115. The ProThe Verb. 117. Losses among the Strong Verbs. 118. Strong Verbs Which Became Weak. 119. Survival of Strong Participles. 121. Loss of Grammatical Gender. 120. Surviving Strong Verbs. 122. Grammatical Changes and the Norman Conquest. 123. French 124. Governmental and Administrative Influence on the Vocabulary. 126. Law. 127. Army and Navy. Words. 125. Ecclesiastical Words 129. Art, Learning, Medicine. 128. Fashion, Meals, and Social Life. 131. Anglo-Norman and Central 130. Breadth of the French Influence. French. 132. Popular and Literary Borrowings. 133. The Period of Greatest Influence. 134. Assimilation. 135. Loss of Native Words. 137. Curtailment of O.E. Processes 136. Differentiation in Meaning. tional Endings.

noun.

113.

116.

.

of Derivation. 138. Prefixes. 139. Suffixes. 140. Self-explaining Compounds. 141. The Language Still English. 142. Latin Borrowings in

Middle English.

Levels.

145.

143. Aureate Terms.

Words from

the

Low Countries.

144.

Synonyms

at Three

146. Dialectal Diversity

of Middle English. 147. The Middle English Dialects. 148. The Rise of Standard English. 149. The Importance of London English. 150. The Spread of the London Standard. 151. Complete Uniformity Still Unattained.

8.

The Renaissance, 1500-1650

199

Modern

Period. 153. Effect upon The Problems of the Vernaculars. 156. The Problem of Orthography. 155. The Struggle for Recognition. 157. The Problem of Enrichment. 158. The Opposition to Inkhorn Terms. 159. The Defense of Borrowing. 160. Compromise. 161. Permanent Additions. 162. Adaptation. 163. Reintroductions and New Meanings. 164. Rejected Words. 165. Reinforcement through French. 166. Words from the Romance Languages. 167. The Method 152. Changing Conditions in the

Grammar and

Vocabulary.

154.

'

'

VHl

CONTENTS

New Words. 168. Enrichment from Native Sources. Methods of Interpreting the New Words. 170. Dictionaries of Hard Words. 171. Nature and Extent of the Movement. 172. The of Introducing the 169.

Movement

Illustrated in Shakespeare.

173. Shakespeare's Pronuncia-

The Importance of Sound-changes. 175. From Old to Middle English. 176. From Middle English to Modern. 177. The Great Vowel Shift. 178. Weakening of Unaccented Vowels. 179. Grammatical Features. 180. The Noun. 181. The Adjective. 182. The Pronoun. 183. The Verb. 184. Usage and Idiom. 185. General tion.

174.

Characteristics of the Period.

9.

The Appeal 186.

to Authority, 1650-1800

253

The Temper of the Eighteenth Century.

Attitude toward the Language.

187. Its Reflection in the

189. The Problem of " Refining the Language. 190. The Desire to " Fix the Language. 191. The Example of Italy and France. 192. An English Academy. 193. Swift's Proposal, 1712. 194. The Effect of Swift's Proposal. 188. Ascertainment.

'

'

Academy.

196. Substitutes for an Academy. The Eighteenth-century Grammarians and Rhetoricians. 199. The Aims of the Grammarians. 200. The Beginnings of Prescriptive Grammar. 201. Methods of Approach. 204. Weakness of the 202. The Doctrine of Usage. 203. Results. Early Grammarians. 205. Attempts to Reform the Vocabulary. 206. Objection to Foreign Borrowings. 207. The Expansion of the British Empire. 208. Some Effects of Expansion on the Language. 209. Development ofProgressive Verb Forms. 210. The Progressive Passive. 195. Objection to an

197. Johnson's Dictionary.

10.

198.

The Nineteenth Century and After 211. Influences Affecting the Language.

295 212. The Growth of Science.

World Wars. 215. Language as a Mirror ofProgress. 216. Sources of the New Words: Borrowings. 217. Self-explaining Compounds. 218. Compounds Formed from Greek and Latin Elements. 219. Prefixes and Suffixes. 220. Coinages. 221. Common Words from Proper Names. 222. Old 213. Automobile, Film, Broadcasting.

214. The

Words with New Meanings. 223. The Influence of Journalism. 224. Changes of Meaning. 225. Slang. 226. Cultural Levels and Func228. English Dialects. 227. The Standard Speech. tional Varieties. 231. The Inter230. Spelling Reform. 229. English in the Empire. 233. The Society for Pure national Aspect. 232. Purist Efforts. 235. Grammatical 234. The Oxford English Dictionary. English. Tendencies.

236.

Verb-adverb Combinations.

237.

A

Liberal Creed.

CONTENTS 11.

IX

The English Language

in

America

238. The Settlement of America.

The Middle West in the

239. The Thirteen Colonies.

Features

in

242.

245. National Consciousness.

Vocabulary.

Webster and an American Language.

American tion.

Spelling.

Present

over

General English. Is

250. The

Americanisms.

Differentiation

247.

246.

Noah

Webster's Influence on

Webster's Influence on American Pronuncia-

248.

249. Pronunciation.

Controversy

240.

Uniformity of American American English. 244. Early

241. The Far West.

243. Archaic

English.

Changes

.

342

American Dialects.

252. The

of Vocabulary.

Purist

251. The

Attitude.

254. American

253.

Words

255. Scientific Interest in American English.

in

256.

American English Good English ?

Appendix A. Specimens of the Middle English Dialects

400

Appendix

413

Index

B.

English Spelling

421

MAPS The Counties of England The Home of the English The Dialects of Old English The Dialects of Middle English The Dialects of American English

Frontispiece

47 53

190

370

ILLUSTRATIONS William Bullokar's Booke At Large (1580)

210

The Editors of the New {Oxford) English Dictionary Extract from the Oxford English Dictionary The American Spelling Book of Noah Webster

332

334 366

:

PREFACE In the

first

edition of this

book

the aim of the writer was explained as

follows

The present book, intended primarily

for college students, aims to

present the historical development of English in such a preserve a proper balance between what

—sounds and

—

may be

way

as to

called internal

—

inflections and external history the political, and intellectual forces that have determined the course of that development at different periods. The writer is convinced that the soundest basis for an understanding of present-day English and for an enlightened attitude towards questions affecting the language today is a knowledge of the path which it has pursued in becoming what it is. For this reason equal attention has been paid to its earlier and

history social,

its later

The

stages.

between the French and English languages in England Norman Conquest has been treated in some detail and with rather full documentation, not only because the subject is one of great interest in itself but because it has so often been dealt with only in broad outline and unsupported generalization. The footnotes will be useful to him who wants them; to him who does not, they will be sufficiently harmless. The chapter bibliographies relation

in the period following the

on the subjects treated. The discriminating teacher can readily indicate those items which will prove of value to the more elementary student. are intended as a guide to the scholarship

In this third edition, as in the second, the original plan and purpose have

not been altered. However, in the two decades that liave elapsed since the

book was Its

last revised linguistic

scholarship has been exceptionally active.

achievements are reflected in the treatment of certain topics, in

many

small changes and additions throughout the book, and in the bibliographies to the various chapters.

The two authors whose names now appear on xiii

the

PREFACE

XIV title

page have worked

in close cooperation

throughout and are jointly

responsible for the views expressed. But the senior

wishes to pay

warm

tribute to his junior partner.

member of the team The expansion of the

chapter on the Indo-European family and the updating of the treatment of the

modern

dialects of English are mostly his,

and without

his

younger

legs

many other places. We trust that we have represented fairly the views of the many linguists whose work we summarize or discuss. Our indebtedness, we hope, and younger point of view

this

book would have been

the poorer in

has always been specifically acknowledged.

Two maps

have been revised and updated the counties of England and

the dialects of

At

:

American English.

the request of the publisher the manuscript

was read by Morton W.

Bloomfield (Harvard University), Julian Boyd (University of California at Berkeley),

and Joseph

L.

Subbiondo (University of Santa

Clara).

We have

been happy to profit by their comments and suggestions. The debt to our wives cannot be measured

and the

many

—

their forbearance, their help with the proofs,

small chores which they have uncomplainingly taken on.

A workbook to accompany the text is in preparation by Diane Bornstein and Thomas Cable. A. C. B. T. C.

A HISTORY OF

THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

;

PHONETIC SYMBOLS [a]

in father

[a]

in

[t>]

in not in

[«]

in

[s]

in

[e]

in

[i]

in sit

[i]

in

[3]

French

[o la

[y

England

between

]

[

: 1

(a

and

[a]

sound [o])

mat met mate

|

in

about

|

in

German

[ei

in play

[ou

in so

[ai

in line

[au

in house

[oi

in

[g; [6]

in sing

in law

[o]

in note

[8]

in then

[u]

in

[u] [A]

in but

[J] [3] [J]

in shoe

in boot

meat

book

fur

boy

in thin

in azure

in

you

enclose phonetic symbols and transcriptions.

after

a symbol indicates that the sound

is

long.

before a syllable indicates primary stress: [s'dav] above.

In other than phonetic transcriptions e and g indicate open vowels, e and g indicate close vowels. *

>

denotes a hypothetical form. denotes

'

develops into

'

;


string; M.E. weng > wing). The spelling Ingland occurs in Middle English, and the vowel is accurately represented in the Spanish Inglaterra and Italian Inghilterra. 3 The term Anglo-Saxon is occasionally found in Old English times and is often employed today to designate the earliest period of English. It went out of use after the 1

the

Norman Conquest

until revived in the sixteenth century

by the antiquarian William

Camden. While amply justified by usage, it is logically less defensible than the term Old English, which has the advantage of suggesting the unbroken continuity of English throughout its existence, but it is too convenient a synonym to be wholly discarded.

OLD ENGLISH

51

have seen above

25) English belongs to the

(§

Low West Germanic

of the Indo-European family. This means in the certain characteristics it

shows the

place that

first

branch

it

shares

common to all the Germanic languages. For example,

shifting of certain

head of Grimm's Law.

It

consonants described above

"weak"

possesses a

(§ 16)

under the

as well as a "strong"

declension of the adjective and a distinctive type of conjugation of the

—the so-called weak or regular verbs such as

verb

form

their past tense

and past

sound to the stem of the present.

on the

stress accent

great importance in

it

shows the adoption of a strong

it

Germanic languages,

the

sible for the progressive

second place

which

or the root syllable of most words, 1 a feature of

first

all

And

fill, filled, filled,

by adding -ed or some analogous

participle

since

it is

chiefly respon-

decay of inflections in these languages. In the

means that English belongs with German and

languages because of features which

it

has in

certain other

common with them and which

enable us to distinguish a West Germanic group as contrasted with the

Scandinavian languages (North Germanic) and Gothic (East Germanic).

These features have to do mostly with certain phonetic changes, especially the gemination or doubling of consonants under special conditions, matters

which we do not need to enter upon

here.

And

English, along with the other languages of northern

it

means,

finally, that

Germany and

the

Low

Countries, did not participate in the further modification of certain

consonants,

words

it

known

as the

Second or High German Sound-Shift. 2 In other

belongs with the dialects of the lowlands in the West Germanic

area.

The evolution of English in in the History of English. hundred years of its existence in England has been an unbroken

The Periods

38.

the fifteen

one. Within this development, however,

main periods. Like

all

possible to recognize three

it is

divisions in history, the periods of the English

language are matters of convenience and the dividing lines between them purely arbitrary. There

is

no break

But within each of the periods characteristics

and

from 450 to

50

1 1

in the process of

it is

continuous transition.

possible to recognize certain broad

certain special developments that take place.

is

known

as

Old English.

It is

The period

sometimes described as the

period of full inflections, since during most of this period the endings of the

noun, the adjective, and the verb are preserved more or

1

This

is

less

unimpaired.

obscured somewhat in Modern English by the large number of words

borrowed from Latin. 2

The

words

effect

of this shifting

may be

seen by comparing the English and the German offen; English water pfund; English tongue German zunge.

in the following pairs: English open

wasser; English

—German

pound

—

—

German

—German

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

52

From

150 to 1500 the language

1

is

known

Middle English. 1 During

as

period the inflections, which had begun to break the

down towards

Old English period, become greatly reduced, and

it te

this

the end of

consequently

known as the period of leveled inflections. The language since 1500 is called Modern English. By the time we reach this stage in the development a large part of the original inflectional system has disappeared entirely and we The progressive decay mark the evolution of

therefore speak of it as the period of lost inflections.

only one of the developments which

of inflections

is

English in

various stages.

its

characteristic of

We shall discuss the other features which are Old English, Middle English, and Modern English in their

proper place. 39. The Dialects of Old English. Old English was not an entirely uniform language. Not only are there differences between the language of

and that of the

the earliest written records (about a.d. 700) texts,

later literary

but the language differed somewhat from one locality to another.

can distinguish four dialects

in

We

Old English times: Northumbrian, Mercian,

West Saxon, and Kentish. Of these Northumbrian and Mercian

are found

north of the Thames settled by the Angles. They possess

in the region

certain features in

common and

known collectively as Humber River, and

are sometimes

Anglian. But Northumbrian, spoken north of the

Humber and

Mercian, between the

the

distinctive features as well. Unfortunately

we should tions, a

like since they are preserved

of the Jutes and

dialect in

which there

which was the all

their is

about them than

mainly in charters, runic inscrip-

The

continental

dialects

is

still

scantier remains, as

West Saxon kingdom is

is

the

texts

is

West Saxon,

in the southwest.

Nearly

preserved in manuscripts transcribed in this

probably

homes of the

known from

probable associates in the southeast. The only

an extensive collection of

dialect of the

of Old English literature

region.

less

few brief fragments of verse, and some interlinear translations of

portions of the Bible. Kentish dialect

Thames, each possess certain

we know

reflect differences

invaders. There

already present in the

evidence, however, that

is

features developed in England after the settlement.

2

With

some

the ascendancy

of the West Saxon kingdom, the West Saxon dialect attained something of the position of a literary standard,

of the abundance of the materials

and both

it is

made

for this reason

and because

the basis of the study of Old

1 Some of the developments which distinguish Middle English begin as early as the tenth century, but a consideration of the matter as a whole justifies the date 1150 as the

general line of demarcation. 2

See David

(1958), 232-44.

DeCamp, "The Genesis

of the Old English Dialects," Language, 34

THE DIALECTS OF OLD ENGLISH Note. Only the major dialect areas are indicated. That the Saxon settlements north of the Thames (see § 34) had their own dialect features is apparent in Middle English.

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

54 English.

Such a

start as

had made toward becoming the standard speech Norman Conquest which, as we shall see,

it

of England was cut short by the

reduced

all dialects

to a

common

level

of unimportance.

And when

Middle English period a standard English once more began to on the basis of a different dialect.

Some

arise,

in the it

was

of Old English.

The English language has undergone such change in the course of time that one cannot read Old English without special study. In fact a page of Old English is likely at first 40.

Characteristics

to present a look of greater strangeness than a page of French or Italian

because of the employment of certain characters that no longer form a part

of our alphabet. In general the differences which one notices between Old

and Modern English concern

spelling

and pronunciation, the vocabulary,

and the grammar.

The pronunciation of Old English words commonly differs somewhat from that of their modern equivalents. The long vowels in particular have undergone considerable modification. Thus the Old English word

same word as Modern English

the

similar correspondence

rap

—rope,

hlaf—loaf, bat

changes in fot hii

is

stone, but the

—holy,

apparent in halig

—boat.

vowel

gan

—go,

ban

(fair),

is

still

A

—bone,

Other vowels have likewise undergone

(foot), cene (keen),

metan (mete), fyr

(fire),

riht (right),

(how), hlud (loud), but the identity of these words with their

descendants

start is

is different.

readily apparent.

Words

like

modern

heafod (head), fxger

or sawol (soul) show forms which have been contracted in later

English. All of these cases represent genuine differences of pronunciation.

However, some of the

first look of strangeness which Old English has to modern reader is due simply to differences of spelling. Old English made use of two characters to represent the sound of th: p and 3, as in the word wip (with) or da (then), which we no longer employ. It also expressed the sound of a in hat by a digraph se, and since the sound is of very frequent

the

occurrence, the character contributes not a

little

to the unfamiliar appear-

ance of the page. Likewise Old English represented the sound of sh by as in sceap (sheep) or sceotan (shoot), (kin) or

and the sound of k by

c,

nacod (naked). Consequently a number of words which were

probability pronounced by

King Alfred almost

as they are

sc,

as in cynn in all

by us present a

strange appearance in the written or printed text. Such words asfolc (folk), scip (ship), base (back),

porn (thorn), basd (bath),

past (that) are

point. It should be noted that the differences of spelling

that figure so prominently in one's

first

examples in

and pronunciation

impression of Old English are really

not very fundamental. Those of spelling are often apparent rather than real, since

they represent no difference in the spoken language, and those

OLD ENGLISH

55

of pronunciation obey certain laws as a result of which we soon learn to recognize the Old and

A to a

Modern

English equivalents.

second feature of Old English which would become quickly apparent

modern reader

is

the absence of those

words derived from Latin and

French which form so large a part of our present vocabulary. Such words

make up more than

half of the words

essential to the expression of

that

we miss them

Old English

is

now

in

common

They

use.

are so

our ideas, seem so familiar and natural to

in the earlier stage of the language.

almost purely Germanic.

A

us,

The vocabulary of

large part of this vocabulary,

moreover, has disappeared from the language.

When the Norman Conquest

brought French into England as the language of the higher

classes,

much

of the Old English vocabulary appropriate to literature and learning died out and was replaced later by words borrowed from French and Latin.

An

examination of the words in an Old English dictionary shows that about 85 percent of them are no longer in use. Those that survive, to be sure, are basic elements of our vocabulary,

recur

make up a

large part of

and by the frequency with which they

any English sentence. Apart from pronouns,

prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs,

fundamental concepts

like

mann (man),

and the

wf/Xwife),

like,

they express

did (child),

hits

(house),

bene (bench), mete (meat, food), gxrs (grass), leaf (leaf), fugo I (fowl, bird),

god (good), heah

(high), Strang (strong), etan (eat), drincan (drink), slxpan

(sleep), libban (live), feohtan (fight).

But the

fact

remains that a considerable

modern reader. The third and most fundamental feature that distinguishes Old English from the language of today is its grammar. 1 Inflectional languages fall into two classes: synthetic and analytic. A synthetic language is one which indicates the relation of words in a sentence largely by means of inflections. In the case of the Indo-European languages these most commonly take the form of endings on the noun and pronoun, the adjective and the verb. Thus in Latin the nominative mums (wall) is distinguished from the genitive muri (of the wall), dative muro (to the wall), accusative murum, etc. A single part of the vocabulary of Old English

is

unfamiliar to the

verb form like laudaverunt (they have praised) conveys the idea of person, Old English grammars, in the order of their publication, are F. A Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language (New York, 1870), now only of historical interest; P. J. Cosijn, Altwestsachsische Grammatik (Haag, 1883-1886) E. Sievers, An Old English Grammar, trans. A. S. Cook (3rd ed., Boston, 1903); K. Biilbring, Altenglisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1902); Joseph and Elizabeth Wright, Old English Grammar (2nd ed., Oxford, 1914), and the same authors' An Elementary Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1923); Karl Brunner, Altenglische Grammatik (3rd ed., Halle, 1965), based on Sievers; Randolph Quirk and C. L. Wrenn, An Old English Grammar (2nd ed., London, 1973); and Alistair Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959). 1

The

March,

principal

A

D

M

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

56

number, and tense along with the meaning of the

we

words for

require three

Agrippinam means "Nero killed if

the

words were arranged

root, a conception

which

The Latin sentence Nero interfecit Agrippina." It would mean the same thing

in English.

in

any other order, such as Agrippinam

interfecit

form of the nominative case and the ending -am of Agrippinam marks the noun as accusative no matter where it stands. In

Nero, because Nero

is

the

Modern English, however, the subject and the object do not have distinctive we have, except in the possessive case, inflectional endings to indicate the other relations marked by case endings in Latin. Instead, we make use of a fixed order of words. It makes a great deal of difference in English whether we say Nero killed Agrippina or Agrippina killed Nero. Languages which make extensive use of prepositions and auxiliary verbs and depend upon word order to show other relationships are known as analytic languages. Modern English is an analytic, Old English a synthetic language. In its grammar Old English resembles modern German. Theoforms, nor do

noun and

adjective are inflected for four cases in the singular

in the plural,

although the forms are not always distinctive, and

retically the

and four

forms for each of the three genders.

in addition the adjective has separate

The

inflection of the verb

is less

elaborate than that of the Latin verb, but

there are distinctive endings for the different persons, numbers, tenses,

moods.

We

shall illustrate the nature of the

Old English

and

inflections in the

following paragraphs. 41.

The

The Noun,

tions of

number

inflection of the

(singular

and

plural)

Old English noun indicates and

case.

The case system

distinc-

is

some-

what simpler than that of Latin and some of the other Indo-European languages. There is no ablative, and generally no locative or instrumental case, these having

been merged with the dative. In the same way the voca-

tive of direct address

the Old English

is

generally identical with the nominative form.

noun has only four

with different nouns, but they

fall

cases.

The endings of these

into certain

Thus

cases vary

broad categories or declen-

is a vowel declension and a consonant declension, also called and weak declensions, according to whether the stem ended in the strong Germanic in a vowel or a consonant, and within each of these types there

sions.

There

The stems of nouns belonging to the vowel 6, /, or u, and the inflection varies impossible here to present the inflections of the Old

are certain subdivisions.

declension ended in one of four vowels: a, accordingly.

It is

English noun in detail. Their nature

may

be gathered from two examples

of the strong declension and one of the weak stan (stone), a masculine astem; giefu (gift), a feminine 6- stem; and hunta (hunter), a masculine :

consonant-stem:

OLD ENGLISH

57

Singular N.

G. D. A. Plural N.

G. D. A.

gief-u

stan-es

gief-e

stan-e

gief-e

stan

gief-e

hunt-a hunt-an hunt-an hunt-an

hunt-an hunt-ena

stan-as

gief-a

stan-a

gief-a

stan-um

gief-um

hunt-um

stan-as

gief-a

hunt-an

apparent from these examples that the inflection of the noun was

It is

much more paradigms its

stan

elaborate in Old English than

illustrate clearly the

marked

it

is

today. Even these few

synthetic character of English in

earliest stage.

42.

As

Grammatical Gender,

the gender of

Old English nouns

in is

Indo-European languages generally

not dependent upon considerations of

While nouns designating males are generally masculine and females

sex.

feminine, those indicating neuter objects are not necessarily neuter. Stan (stone)

is

masculine,

mona (moon) is masculine, but sunne

(sun)

is

feminine,

German. In French the corresponding words have just the opposite genders pierre (stone) and lune (moon) are feminine while soleil (sun) is as in

:

masculine. Often the gender of Old English nouns like

maegden

(girl),

wf/Xwife),

beam and

cild (child),

is

quite illogical.

which we should expect

to be feminine or masculine, are in fact neuter, while

masculine because the second element of the simplicity of

Modern

43. is

will

be shown

The Adjective.

wifmann (woman)

compound

is

The

An

How

so desirable a change

was

later.

important feature of the Germanic languages

the development of a twofold declension of the adjective

declension, used with

masculine.

is

English gender has already been pointed out (§11)

as one of the chief assets of the language.

brought about

Words

nouns when not accompanied by a

:

one, the strong

definite article or

word (such as a demonstrative or possessive pronoun), the other, weak declension, used when the noun is preceded by such a word. Thus we have in Old English god mann (good man) but se goda mann (the good man). The forms are those of the nominative singular masculine in the strong and weak declensions respectively, as illustrated on page 58. similar

the

This elaboration of inflection in the Old English adjective contrasts in the

most

way with the complete absence of Modern English. Such complexity is quite

striking

adjective in

inflection

from the

unnecessary, as the

English language demonstrates every day by getting along without

it.

Its

elimination has resulted in a second great advantage which English possesses over

most other languages.

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

58

STRONG DECLENSION Masc. Singular N.

G. D. A. I.

Plural N.

44.

WEAK DECLENSION

Neut.

Fern.

god

god 1

god

god-es

god-re

god-es

god-um

god-re

god-um

god-ne god-e

god-e

god god-e god

Masc.

Fern.

Neut.

god-a god-an god-an god-an

god-e god-an god-an god-an

god-e god-an god-an god-e

G. D.

god-e god-ra

god-a god-ra

god-um

god-um

god-um

god-um

A.

god-e

god-a

god

god-an

The Definite

Article.

Old English possessed a declension of this

god-an god-ena or god-ra

god-ra

Like German,

word was can be seen from

I.

seo

6aet

6a

6aes

Caere

Saes

6ara

6aem Sone

6aere

6aem

6aem

6a

Saet

6a

Son

6y,

While the ordinary meaning of

that. Its

she,

it).

All Genders

Neut.

Fern.

se

6y,

se, seo,

Son

dzt

is

'the', the

Modern

pronominal character appears also

pronoun (= who, which,

complete the

PLURAL

demonstrative pronoun and survives in the

relative

How

the following forms:

SINGULAR Masc.

N. G. D. A.

language of today,

its sister

fully inflected definite article.

in its

word

is

really a

English demonstrative

not infrequent use as a

and as a personal pronoun (=

that)

The regular personal pronoun, however,

is

shown

he,

in the next

paragraph. 45.

The Personal Pronoun.

necessity for specific reference

languages

From when

likely to preserve a fairly

is

the frequency of

its

use and the

used, the personal

pronoun

complete system of

inflections.

in all

Old

English shows this tendency not only in having distinctive forms for practically all genders, persons,

the ordinary

people or two things for the dual

and

cases, but also in preserving in addition to

two numbers, singular and

plural, a set of

forms for two

—the dual number. Indo-European had separate forms

number

in the verb as well,

and these appear

in

Greek and

to

a certain extent in Gothic. They are not found, however, in Old English.

The distinction between

the dual

and the plural

is

an unnecessary complica-

1 When the stem is short the adjective ends in -u in the nominative singular of the feminine and the nominative and accusative plural of the neuter.

:

OLD ENGLISH tion in language

59

and was disappearing from the pronoun

The dual forms are shown, however, English personal pronoun Singular N.

G. D. A.

Dual N. G. D. A. Plural N.

G. D. A.

in

Old English.

in the following table of the

Old

ic

6u

he (he)

heo

mln

Sin

his

hiere

his

me me

Se

him

hiere

him

oe (Sec)

hine

hie

hit

(mec)

wit (we two)

git

uncer

incer

unc unc

inc

hit (it)

(ye two)

inc

we user

(she)

ge (fire)

us us (usic)

hie

eower

hiera

eow eow

him (eowic)

hie

The inflection of the verb in the Germanic languages is it was in Indo-European times. A comparison of the Old English verb with the verbal inflection of Greek or Latin will show how much has been lost. Old English distinguished only two simple tenses by inflection, a present and a past, and, except for one word, it had no inflec46.

much

The Verb.

simpler than

tional forms for the passive as in Latin or Greek. It recognized the indica-

subjunctive, and imperative moods, and had the usual two numbers and three persons. tive,

A

peculiar feature of the

Germanic languages was the

division of the

known in Modern English as regular and irregular verbs. These terms, which are so commonly employed in modern grammars, are rather unfortunate since verb into two great classes, the weak and the strong, often

is more apparent than The strong verbs, like sing, sang, sung, which represent the basic IndoEuropean type, are so called because they have the power of indicating change of tense by a modification of their root vowel. In the weak verbs,

they suggest an irregularity in the strong verbs which real.

such as walk, walked, walked,

this

change

is

effected

by the addition of a

"dental," sometimes of an extra syllable.

The apparent irregularity of the strong verbs is due to the fact that verbs much less numerous than weak verbs. In Old English, if we exclude compounds, there were only a few over three hundred of them, and even this small number falls into several classes. Within these classes, of this type are

however, a perfectly regular sequence can be observed in the vowel

changes of the root. Nowadays these verbs, generally speaking, have ferent vowels in the present tense, the past tense,

and the past

dif-

participle. In

:

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

60

some verbs

and past participle are identical, as some all three forms have become alike in modern times (bid, bid, bid). In Old English the vowel of the past tense often differs in the singular and the plural or, to be more accurate, the first the vowels of the past tense

in break, broke, broken,

and

in

;

and third person singular have one vowel while the second person singular and

all

persons of the plural have another. In the principal parts of Old

English strong verbs, therefore,

and

preterite singular (first participle. In classes, to

we have four forms,

the infinitive, the

third person), the preterite plural,

Old English the strong verbs can be grouped

which

may

and the past

in six general

be added a seventh, the reduplicating verbs. While

there are variations within each class, they

may

be illustrated by the

following seven verbs

draf

drifon

ceosan (choose)

ceas

curon 1

coren

III.

helpan

(help)

healp

hulpon

holpen

IV.

beran

(bear)

I.

II.

V. VI. VII.

1

drifan

{drive)

(ge) drifen

baer

bieron

boren

sprecan (speak)

spraec

spnecon

sprecen

faran

(fare, go)

for

foron

faren

feallan

(fall)

feoll

feollon

feallen

The change of

s to r is

2

due to the fact that the accent was originally on the final and the past participle. It is known as Grammatical

syllable in the preterite plural

for the scholar who first explained it (cf. § 16). In Modern English the s has been restored in the past participle (chosen) by analogy with the other forms. The initial sound has been leveled in the same way. 2 The personal endings may be illustrated by the conjugation of the first verb in the

Change or Verners Law

above

list,

drifan:

INDICATIVE

SUBJUNCTIVE Present

Present ic

drif-e

ic

drif-e

5u

drif-st (-est)

Su

drif-e

he

drif-6(-^e6)

he drif-e

we

drif-aS drif-aS hie drif-aS

ge

we drif-en ge drif-en hie drif-en Past

Past ic

draf

ic

drif-e

Su

drif-e

Su

drif-e

he draf

he drif-e

we

we

drif-en

ge

drif-en

drif-on ge drif-on hie drif-on

hie drif-en

In addition to these forms the imperative was drif (sing.) and drifad (plur.), the present participle drifende, and the gerund (i.e., the infinitive used as a verbal noun) to drifenne.

OLD ENGLISH The

61

origin of the dental suffixes

and past

tense

participle

is

by which weak verbs form

not known.

It

their past

was formerly customary to

explain these as part of the verb do, as though / worked was originally

/ work

—did

trace these

(i.e.,

More

I did work).

recently an attempt has been

forms to a type of verb which formed

made

to

stem by adding -to- to

its

The origin of so important a feature of the Germanic languages weak conjugation is naturally a question to which we should like

the root. as the

very

much

to find the answer. Fortunately

it is

not of prime importance to

our present purpose of describing the structure of Old English. Here sufficient to note that a large

form

their past tense

their past participles

and important group of verbs

it is

in Old English

by adding -ede -ode, or -de to the present stem, and ,

by adding -ed, -od, or -d. Thus fremman

(to

perform)

has a preterite fremede and a past participle gefrented; lufian (to love) has lufode

and gelufod; libban

(to live) has lifde

and gelifd. The personal endings

except in the preterite singular are similar to those of the strong verbs and to be noted, however, that the

weak conjugation

has come to be the dominant one in our language.

Many

strong verbs have

passed over to this conjugation, and practically

new

need not be repeated.

It is

language are inflected in accordance with 47.

The Language

Illustrated.

all

verbs added to our

it.

We have spoken of the inflections of Old

English in some detail primarily with the object of making

what is meant when we chapters of this

call the

book we

shall

language in

more concrete

this stage synthetic. In the later

have occasion to trace the process by which

English lost a great part of this inflectional system and became an analytic language, so that the paradigms which

we have

given here will also prove

useful as a point of departure for that discussion.

The use of these

inflec-

tions as well as the other characteristics of the language so far pointed out

may

be seen in the following specimens. The

first is

clauses of which can easily be followed through the familiar to us

from the King James version of the

the Lord's Prayer, the

modern form which Bible.

Faeder ure,

pu

J?e

si J?In

eart

on heofonum,

nama

gehalgod.

Tobecume J?In rice. Gewurpe Sin willa on eorSan swa swa on heofonum. Orne gedaeghwamllcan hlaf syle us to daeg. And forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfaS urum gyltendum.

And

ne gelaed

J?u

us on costnunge,

ac alys us of yfele. S6J?Hce.

is

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

62

The second specimen to

England under

Da

waes

Then

(there)

from the Old English translation of Bede's

is

and

Ecclesiastical History

Augustine

St.

on pa

tld

was

in 597:

yEpelbeorht cyning haten on Centrice, and that time

in

and the north

micel ealand, Tenet, past Thanet,

island,

that

is is

hund hlda micel hundred hides

On pyssum

ealande

On

island

and

his geferan

and

his

companions

com up came

was

he

one

of

servant of

the

waes he feowertiga sum.

;

;

forty.

Angelcynnes reckoning of the

Godes peow Augustinus

se

up

asfter after the

large

Kent

eastward

in

is

six

eahte. ...

this

there

siex

English. ...

which separates

river,

on easteweardre Cent

is

Now

(a)

streames, se toscadep

Humber

ponne

folk.

and

vtthelberht in Kent,

Humbre

(the) confines of the

sQ&Tolc Angelpeode and norSfolc.

a large

named

a king

mihtig: he haefde rice oS gemasru mighty (one): he had dominion up to

the south folk of the English

coming of the missionaries

the story of the

tells

God,

Augustine,

Namon

hie eac swelce

Took

they

him them

likewise with

wealhstodas of Franclande mid, swa him Sanctus Gregorius bebead. from Frank-land,

interpreters

And pa And

of

them Saint

as

Gregory

sende to yEpelbeorhte asrendwrecan and onbead

Rome come and Rome had come and

and

past betste asrende lasdde: the

message brought

best

(led);

pact

announced

and

then (Augustine) sent to ^thelberht a messenger

from

bade.

se pe

that

he he

him hlersum

and he who

(if

any) would

beon wolde, buton tweon he gehet ecne gefean on heofonum and he promised eternal happiness

be obedient to him, without doubt

toweard a future

Da

rice

buton ende mit pone sopan

kingdom without end

with the

true

God and pone

lifigendan.

God

living

and

ealande pe hie that they

up comon; and him pider

hiera pearfe forgeaf,

had come upon; and

their

them

thither

need

he gesawe hwaet he him don wolde. Swelce eac to

saw

him

what

he would

do with them.

sefaestnesse,

forpon he crlsten wlf haefde,

of the

religion,

since

him from

Christian

had a

he

the royal family

(who) was named

of the Franks,

he onfeng fram hiere ieldrum paere arsdnesse received

from her parents

(elders)

hasfde past heo

pone peaw

permission that she

the

on

the

might

hold

with

to fultume pass geleafan sealdon, pass for the help

of the (her)

faith

had given,

That

*ife

his leafnesse have

his

and hiere sfasstnesse and

faith

the

Bertha.

that she should

pass crlstenan geleafan

practice of the Christian

Christian wife,

haten. Past wlf

heo

past

condition

ungewemmedne healdan moste mid py unimpaired

hlisa

had come to him

ere that

paire crlstenan

fame

given

past

until that

pasm becom

aer

Likewise

the

06

provided,

him gegiefen of Francena cyningcynne, Beorhte waes

he

(God).

on

then bade he them to bide

words,

heard these

the king

island

the

the

he pa se cyning pas word gehlerde, pa het he hie bidan on pasm

When

he

and

heaven

in

her

religion

biscope, pone pe hie hiere bishop

nama

whose name

whom

they to her

waes Leodheard. was

Leodheard.

;

.

.

OLD ENGLISH

63

Da waes aefter manigum dagum pact se cyning com to paem ealande, Then

was

it

many

after

and net him ute and commanded (them)

on hwelc hus in the

open

his spraece

Then

He guarded

enter: he

se cyning hie sittan, them

llfes

word

to

aetgaedere

word of life together

the

bodedon and and

preached

his

hie

laes

they

lest

ealdre healsunga, gif hie hwelcne

hie

and

they did

any

in case they

and beswlcan sceolden. and

and

sit,

himself

employed an old precaution

had with which they should overcome

the king bade

with

cuman. Warnode he him py

drycraeft haefden pact hie hine oferswlSan

Pa net

island

;

him ineoden; breac

same house with him should

sorcery

the

to

make him and he bade Augustine

a seat to

air

thither to a (his) consultation.

to

came

the king

that

gewyrcean; and net Augustinum mid his

setl

in the

geferum pider to companions to come

days

get the better

swa dydon; and

.

.

.

.

hie sona

him

they soon to him

and

so

of him.

mid eallum

his

geferum pe

paer aet waeron,

with

his

companions that

thereat

all

laerdon.

pa andswarode

taught.

Then answered

were,

cyning and pus cwaeS:

se

and

king

the

quoth:

thus

"Faeger word pis sindon and gehat pe ge brohton and us secgaS. " Fair

words

and

these are

Ac forSon

hie nlwe sindon

But

they

since

pafian paet that

new

forlaeten

we

give

up

us.

and uncu$e, ne magon we nu gen unknown,

and

are

we

have brought and say to

promises that ye

may

we

not yet consent to

pa wisan pe we langre the

ways

that

we

this

mid

tide

longtime

pact

ealle

with

all

Angelpeode heoldon. Ac foroon pe ge hider feorran elpeodige

comon

But

have held.

the English

and, paes pc

have come and,

as

me

it

seems to

so5 and betst gellefdon, believed true

nellaS we

will

and best

is

me

on

J?a )?ing,

6a Se

and

the

that

appears,

eac swelce wilnodon us (ye)

hefige beon. you

will

on

giestliSnesse

onfon and eow andleofne

hospitality

receive

forgiefan.

Ne we eow beweriaS

provide for.

Nor do we you

eowre your

lare to

teaching to

forbid

)?a

[ge] ye

gemaensumian,

Ac we willaS eow eac fremsumllce

be heavy. But we

give

things

wished to impart them to us,

in

and

from afar as strangers

hither

and gesewen,

that likewise

we forSon eow

not therefore

J?aet

ye

since

ge]?uht

you

you

sellan

also kindly

and eowre pearfe and

food

J?aet

ge

ealle,

that

ye

all

your

needs

oa pe ge maegen, purh those that ye

may

through

eowres geleafan

aefaestnesse

geSleden and gecierren." x

of your faith

(the) religion

may join

and

convert."

The Resourcefulness of the Old English Vocabulary. To one it might seem that a language which lacked the

48.

unfamiliar with Old English large

1

number of words borrowed from Latin and French which now form

The

original

is

here somewhat normalized.

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

64

so important a part of our vocabulary would be

somewhat limited in and that while possessing adequate means of expression for the

resources,

of simple everyday

affairs

came upon

making

to

life,

it

would

find itself embarrassed

the nice distinctions which a literary language

when is

it

called

an Anglo-Saxon would be like a man who is learning to speak a foreign language and who can manage in limited way to convey his meaning without having a sufficient command to express. In other words,

today a

of the vocabulary to express those subtler shades of thought and feeling, the nuances of meaning, which he This, however,

is

not

so. In

is

able to suggest in his mother tongue.

language, as in other things, necessity

is

the

mother of invention, and when our means are limited we often develop unusual resourcefulness in utilizing those means to the fulness

is

characteristic of

Old English. The language

great flexibility, a capacity for bending old prefixes

and

suffixes a single root is

made

words

to

full.

Such resource-

in this stage

new

uses.

shows

By means of

to yield a variety of derivatives,

and the range of these is greatly extended by the ease with which compounds

The method can be made clear by an illustration. The word is our word mood (a mental state), meant in Old English 'mind', 'spirit', and hence 'boldness' or 'courage', sometimes

are formed.

mod, which 'heart',

'pride' or 'haughtiness'.

From

it,

by the addition of a

common

adjective

ending, was formed the adjective modig with a similar range of meanings bold, high-minded, arrogant, stiff-necked), and by

(spirited,

means of

further endings the adjective modiglic 'magnanimous', the adverb modiglice 'boldly',

'proudly', and the

Another ending converted modig

noun modignes 'magnanimity', into a verb modigian, meaning

'pride'.

'to bear

oneself proudly or exultantly', or sometimes, 'to be indignant', 'to rage'.

Other forms conveyed meanings whose relation to the root

is

easily

gemodod 'disposed', 'minded', modfull 'haughty', modleas By combining the root with other words meaning 'mind' or 'thought' the idea of the word is intensified, and we get modsefa, modgepanc, modgepoht, modgehygd, modgemynd, modhord (hord = treasure), perceived:

'spiritless'.

meaning 'mind', 'thought', 'understanding'. Some sharpening of the is obtained in modcrxft 'intelligence', and modcrzftig 'intelligent'. But the root lent itself naturally to combination with other words to

all

concept

indicate various mental states, such as

glxdmodnes 'kindness', modlufu

unmod' despondency ', modcaru' sorrow' (cam = care), modleast 'want of courage', madmod 'folly', ofermod and ofermodigung 'pride', ofermodig 'proud', heahmod 'proud', 'noble', modhete hate (hete = hate). It will be seen that Old English did not lack synonyms '

affection

'

for

'

{lufu

=

love),

'

some of

the ideas in this

list.

By a

similar process of combination a

OLD ENGLISH number of '

65 micelmod

adjectives were formed:

great of soul' (swip

=

*

magnanimous', swlpmod

= stiff, = war, battle), torhtmod" glorious' (torht = (leof = dear). The examples given are sufficient

strong), stipmod' resolute', 'obstinate' (stip

strong),

gupmod' warlike' (gup

bright),

modleof' beloved'

to illustrate the point, but they are far

from

telling the

whole

story.

From

the

same root more than a hundred words were formed.

list

them, they would clearly show the remarkable capacity of Old English

and word-formation, and what

for derivation

expression

possessed.

it

material than

on

its facility

Modern

in

It

variety

was more resourceful

English, which has

come

If

we had space

and

flexibility

to

of

in utilizing its native

to rely to a large extent

borrowing and assimilating elements from other languages

49. Self-explaining

Compounds,

In the

ing paragraph there are a considerable

list

of words given in the preced-

number which we call self-explaining

compounds. These are compounds of two or more native words whose meaning in combination is either self-evident or has been rendered clear by association light,

and usage. In Modern English steamboat,

railroad, warning

sewing machine, one-way street are examples of such words.

this character are

found in most languages, but the type

prevalent in Old English, as

in

it is

is

Words of

particularly

modern German. Where

in English

today we often have a borrowed word or a word made up of elements

German still prefers self-explaining comGerman says Wasserstoff (water-stuff ) for telephone Fernsprecher (far-speaker); and for fire insurance company Feuer\versicherungs\gesellschaft. So in Old English many words are formed on this pattern. Thus we have leohtfzt 'lamp' (leoht light + fxt vessel), derived from Latin and Greek,

pounds. Thus, for hydrogen

;

medu-heall 'mead-hall', dxgred 'dawn' (day-red), ealohus 'alehouse', earhring 'earring', eorpcrxft 'geometry', fiscdeag

ealoscop 'minstrel',

'purple' (lit fish-dye), fotadl 'gout' (foot-disease),

gimmwyrhta

(gem- worker), fielleseocnes 'epilepsy' (falling-sickness;

cf.

'jeweler'

Shakespeare's

use of this expression in Julius Caesar), frumweorc 'creation' (fruma

beginning to

make

+

work), and

similar words,

many more. The though a

little

capacity of English nowadays

less frequently

employed than

is an inheritance of the Old English tradition, when the method was well-nigh universal. As a result of this capacity Old English seems never to have been at a loss for a word to express even the abstractions of science, theology, and metaphysics, which it came to know through contact

formerly,

with the church and Latin culture. 50. Prefixes flexibility

made of

and

Suffixes.

As

previously mentioned, a part of the

of the Old English vocabulary comes from the generous use prefixes

and

suffixes to

form new words from old words or

to

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

66 modify or extend the root

Among

German.

the

idea. In this respect

words mentioned

it

also resembles

modern

in the preceding paragraphs there

are several which are formed with the suffixes -ig, -full, -leas, -lice, -nes,

and -ung. Others frequently employed include the adjective suffixes -sum (wynsum) and -wis (rihtwis), the noun suffixes -dom (cyningdom, eorldom), -end, and -ere denoting the agent, -had (cildhad), -ing in patronymics, -ung (dagung dawn), -scipe (freondscipe), and many more. In the use of prefixes

was a

fertile

resource in word-building.

like

It is

manner

particularly

a feature in the formation of verbs. There are about a dozen prefixes that

occur with great frequency, such as a-, be-, for-, fore-, ge-, mis-, of-, ofer-, on-, to-, un-, under-,

English could asettan

*

make out of a

place', besettan

'

and wip-. Thus, with the help of simple verb like settan (to

set)

these,

Old

new verbs

like

appoint \ forsettan 'obstruct', foresettan 'place

before', gesettan 'people', 'garrison', ofsettan

onsettan 'oppress',

'afflict*,

tosettan 'dispose', unsettan 'put

down', and wipsettan

wip- enters into more than

Old English

fifty

verbs,

'resist*.

where

it

The

prefix

has the force

of against or away. Such, for example, are wipceosan 'reject' (ceosan choose), wipcwepan 'deny' (cwepan 'contradict', still

=

and wipstandan. Of these

say), wipdrifan 'repel', wipsprecan fifty

verbs withstand is the only one

Middle English two new verbs, withdraw and

in use, although in

withhold, were

=

formed on the same model. The

By such means

a hundred Old English verbs.

prefix ofer- occurs in over

the resources of the English

verb were increased almost tenfold, and enough such verbs survive to give us a realization of their employment in the Old English vocabulary. In general one

is

surprised at the apparent ease with which Old English

expressed difficult ideas adequately and often with variety. 'Companionship'

is literally

rendered by geferascipe; 'hospitality' by giestlipnes (giest

stranger, lipe gracious); gitsung 'covetousness' (gitsian

Godcundlic 'divine', indryhten 'aristocratic' (dryhten 'liberality' (giefu

=

gift),

Ixcecrxft 'medicine' {Ixce

=

=

gaderscipe 'matrimony' (gadrian

=

to be greedy).

prince), giefolnes

=

physician) illustrate, so to speak, the

of approach. Often several words to express the same idea

astronomer or astrologer

to gather),

may

= ymb =

be a tunglere (tungol

tungolwitega, a tidymbwlatend (tid gaze), or a tldsceawere (sceawian

=

=

time,

see, scrutinize).

method

result.

An

star), tungolcrxftiga,

about, wlatian

=

to

In poetry the vocabu-

lary attains a remarkable flexibility through the wealth of

synonyms

for

—

words like war, warrior, shield, sword, battle, sea, ship sometimes as many as thirty for one of these ideas and through the bold use of metaphors.

—

The king

is

the leader of hosts, the giver of rings, the protector of eorls, the

victory-lord, the heroes' treasure-keeper.

A

sword

is

the product of

files,

OLD ENGLISH

67

the play of swords a battle, the battle-seat a saddle, the shield-bearer a warrior. Warriors in their shaft,

woven

form the iron-clad throng.

war-shirts, carrying battle-brand or war-

A boat is the sea-wood, the wave-courser,

the broad-bosomed, the curved-stem, or the foamy-necked ship,

and

it

travels over the whale-road, the sea-surge, the railing of waves, or simply

Synonyms never fail the Beowulf poet. Grendel is the prowler on the wasteland, the lonely wanderer, the loathed

the water's back.

grim

spirit,

the

one, the creature of

the fiend in Hell, the grim monster, the dark

evil,

death-shadow, the worker of hate, the

mad ravisher, the fell spoiler, and the

incarnation of a dozen other attributes characteristic of his enmity toward

mankind.

No

one can long remain in doubt about the rich and colorful

character of the Old English vocabulary. 51.

Old English

the quality of

and contribute

philologist

dictionaries its

their

and grammars. But

power,

full

The language of a past time is known by Charters and records yield their secrets to the

Literature,

its literature.

its

ability to

quota of words and it is

inflections to

our

in literature that a language displays

convey in vivid and memorable form the

thoughts and emotions of a people. The literature of the Anglo-Saxons fortunately one of the richest the early

and most

Germanic peoples. Since

significant of is

it

the language mobilized, the

language in action, we must say a word about Generally speaking, this literature

is

is

any preserved among

it.

of two

sorts.

Some of

it

was

undoubtedly brought to England by the Germanic conquerors from their continental its

homes and preserved for a time in oral tradition. All of it owes and not a little its inspiration to the introduction

preservation, however,

of Christianity into the island at the end of the sixth century, an event

whose

significance for the English language will be discussed in the next

chapter.

Two

the Christian, is

streams thus mingle in Old English literature, the pagan and

and they are never quite

distinct.

The poetry of pagan

constantly overlaid with Christian sentiment, while even those

which

treat of purely Christian

themes contain every

of an earlier philosophy not wholly forgotten.

now and

origin

poems

again traces

We can indicate

only in the

briefest way the scope and content of this literature, and we shall begin with that which embodies the native traditions of the race. The greatest single work of Old English literature is the Beowulf. It is a

known as the folk epic, may owe to the individual poet that is to say, a who gave it final form, embodies material long current among the people. It is a narrative of heroic adventure relating how a young warrior, Beowulf,

poem

of some 3,000 lines belonging to the type

poem

which, whatever

it

fought the monster Grendel, which was ravaging the land of King Hrothgar,

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

68 slew

it

and

dam, and years

its

met

later

his death while ridding his

own

country of an equally destructive foe, a fire-breathing dragon. The theme seems somewhat fanciful to a modern reader, but the character of the hero,

and the portrayal of the motives and ideals Germanic times make the poem one of the records we have of life in the heroic age. It is not an easy life.

the social conditions pictured,

which animated men

most vivid It is

a

life

in early

that calls for physical endurance, unflinching courage,

sense of duty, loyalty, exists

and honor.

No

and a

fine

better expression of the heroic ideal

than the words which Beowulf addresses to Hrothgar before going

dam: "Sorrow not Better mourn greatly. Each of us must abide the end of this world's life let him who may, work mighty deeds ere he die, for afterwards, when he lies lifeless, that is best to his dangerous encounter with Grendel's

is it

for every

man

that he avenge his friend than that he ;

for the warrior."

Outside of the Beowulf Old English poetry of native tradition

is

repre-

number of shorter pieces. Anglo-Saxon poets sang of the things entered most deeply into their experience of war and of exile, of the

sented by a that

—

sea with life.

its

One of

hardships and

its

fascination, of ruined cities,

the earliest products of

called Widsith in

Germanic

tradition

and of minstrel is

a short

poem

which a scop or minstrel pretends to give an account of

many famous kings and princes before whom he has exercised his craft. Deor, another poem about a minstrel, is the lament of a scop who for years has been in the service of his lord, and now finds his

wanderings and of the

himself thrust out by a younger man. But he

Age

will

He

be displaced by youth.

is

no whiner.

has his day. Peace,

Life

my

one of the most human of Old English poems. The Wanderer in the

medieval sense, the story of a

and has wanderer

fallen

upon

year? The Seafarer

its

is

is

is

Deor

is

a tragedy

dead and he has become a

without friends. Where are the snows of yester-

a monologue in which the speaker alternately desire to dare

dangers. In The Ruin the poet reflects on a ruined city, once

prosperous and imposing with baths,

His lord

like that.

once enjoyed a high place

and hardships of the sea and the eager

describes the perils

again

evil times.

in strange courts,

man who

is

heart!

now

its

towers and

but the tragic shadow of what

poems, the Battle of Brunanburh and

it

halls, its stone courts

once was.

Two

great

and

war

the Battle of Maldon, celebrate with

patriotic fervor stirring encounters of the English, equally heroic in victory

and

defeat. In

its

shorter poems,

literature reveals at

no

less

than in Beowulf Old English

wide intervals of time the outlook and temper of the

Germanic mind.

More than

half of Anglo-Saxon poetry

is

concerned with Christian

OLD ENGLISH

69

and paraphrases of books of the Old and

subjects. Translations

New

and devotional and didactic pieces constitute The most important of this poetry had its origin in Northumbria and Mercia in the seventh and eighth centuries. The earliest English poet whose name we know was Caedmon, a lay brother in the monastery at Whitby. The story of how the gift of song came to him in a dream and how he subsequently turned various parts of the Scriptures into Testament, legends of

saints,

the bulk of this verse.

beautiful English verse

comes

to us in the pages of Bede.

Although we do

not have his poems on Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and the

like, the poems on we do have were most likely inspired by his example. About 800 an Anglian poet named Cynewulf wrote at least four poems on religious subjects, into which he ingeniously wove his name by means of

these subjects which

runes.

Two

A third, The

of these, Juliana and Elene,

Christ, deals with

fourth,

The Fates of

tell

well-known legends of

the Apostles, touches briefly

the various apostles died. There are other religious

on where and how

poems

mentioned, such as the Andreas and Guthlac, a portion of a the story of Judith in the

Apocrypha; The Phoenix,

taken as a symbol of the Christian the expulsion of Satan

life;

in

is

is

treats

Rome and

their counterparts

Middle Ages. They show England

in

its

cultural

being drawn into the general current of ideas on

no longer simply Germanic, but cosmopolitan.

In the development of literature, prose generally comes

more

poem on

fine

which the bird

and Christ and Satan, which

and Satan's tempting of Christ. All of these poems have

the continent,

besides those

from Paradise together with the Harrowing of Hell

in other literatures of the

contact with

saints.

Advent, the Ascension, and the Last Judgment.

effective for oral delivery

and more

therefore a rather remarkable fact,

Verse

is

memory.

It

late.

easily retained in the

and one well worthy of note, that

English possessed a considerable body of prose literature in the ninth century, at a time

when most other modern languages

in

Europe had

scarcely developed a literature in verse. This unusual accomplishment

due to the inspiration of one man, the Anglo-Saxon king who

is

called Alfred the Great (871-899). Alfred's greatness rests not only

was

justly

on

his

capacity as a military leader and statesman but on his realization that greatness in a nation

is

no merely physical

thing.

When

he came to the

throne he found that the learning which in the eighth century, in the days of Bede and Alcuin, had placed England in the forefront of Europe, had greatly decayed. In state

an

effort to restore

England to something like

its

former

he undertook to provide for his people certain books in English,

books which he deemed most view he undertook in mature

essential to their welfare. life

to learn Latin

and

With

this object in

either translated these

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

70

books himself or caused others to

translate

them

for the clergy he translated the Pastoral Care of

for him. First as a guide

Pope Gregory, and

then,

might know something of their own

past, inspired

and may well have arranged for a translation of Bede's

Ecclesiastical

in order that his people

History of the English People. desirable

many

and was not so

A history of the rest of the world also seemed

easily to be had.

calamities were befalling the

But

in the fifth century

Roman Empire and

were being attributed to the abandonment of the pagan Christianity, a Spanish priest

when so

those misfortunes deities in favor

named Orosius had undertaken

of

to refute this

method was to trace the rise of other empires to positions of great power and their subsequent collapse, a collapse in which obviously Christianity had had no part. The result was a book which, when its polemical aim had ceased to have any significance, was still widely read as a compendium of historical knowledge. This Alfred translated with omissions and some additions of his own. A fourth book which he turned into English was The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, one of the most famous books of the Middle Ages. Alfred also caused a record to be compiled of the important events of English history, past and present, and this, as continued for more than two centuries after his death, is the well-known Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. King Alfred was the founder of English prose, but there were others who carried on the tradition. Among these is yElfric, the author of two books of homilies and numerous other works, and Wulfstan,

idea. His

whose Sermon

to the English is

an impassioned plea for moral and

political

reform.

So large and varied a body of literature,

in verse

and prose,

gives

ample

testimony to the universal competence, at times to the power and beauty,

of the Old English language.

BIBLIOGRAPHY For the early peoples of Europe there is an abundant literature. In spite of its unconventional classification R. B. Dixon's The Racial History of Man (New York, 1923) is on the whole a satisfactory statement of the subject. H. F. Osborn's Men of the Old Stone Age (2nd ed., New York, 1916) is a fuller treatment of the oldest period. More recent discoveries and speculations are embodied in the early chapters of Carleton S. Coon's The Story of Man (2nd ed., New York, 1962) and the same author's The Origin of Races (New York, 1962). Robert Munro, Prehistoric Britain (London, 1913), and Norman Ault, Life in Ancient Britain (London, 1920), are excellent accounts of conditions in England, while T. Rice Holmes' Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar (Oxford, 1936) is invaluable for the advanced student. For the Roman occupation of England the

work of

F. Haverfield

Britain, rev.

is

The Romanization of Roman Oxford, 1923), and The Roman Occupation

authoritative, especially

G. Macdonald (4th

ed.,

OLD ENGLISH

71

of Britain (Oxford, 1924). R. G. Collingwood's Roman Britain (rev. ed., New York, 1934) is an admirable brief survey, and B. C. A. Windle's The Romans in Britain (London, 1923) is a readable account. Recent discoveries in archaeology and aerial photography are included in the complete revision of a standard handbook, R. G. Collingwood and Ian Richmond, The Archaeology of Roman Britain (rev. ed., London, 1969). For detailed studies of both the Roman occupation and the Germanic invasions, the best treatments are R. G. Collingwood and J. N. L. Myres, Roman Britain and the English Settlements (2nd ed., Oxford, 1937), and F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed., Oxford, 1971), both of them in the Oxford History of England, to which may be added R. H. Hodgkin, A History of the Anglo-Saxons (3rd ed., Oxford, 1953); Kenneth Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh, 1953); P. Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1956); and Dorothy Whitelock, The Beginnings of English Society, Pelican History of England, Vol. 2 (1952; rev. ed., Baltimore, 1974). For divergent views the advanced student may consult A. Erdmann, Vber die Heimat und den Namen der Angeln (Uppsala, 1890); H. M. Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907); E. Thurlow Leeds, The Archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon Settlements (Oxford, 1913) Elis Wadstein, On the Origin of the English (Uppsala, 1927); and An Historical Geography of England before A.D. J 800: Fourteen Studies, ed. H. C. Darby (Cambridge, 1936). On early Germanic civilization F. B. Gummere's Germanic Origins (New York, 1892) is classic. It is now available with supplementary notes by F. P. Magoun, Jr., under the title Founders of England (New York, 1930). The importance for Anglo-Saxon studies of the Sutton Hoo excavation in 1939 is clearly documented in the text and illustrations of R. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (2nd ed., London, 1972). Definitive volumes on the excavation are forthcoming from the British Museum. For the character of Old English the best source is the grammars mentioned on p. 55. A concise introduction to Old English syntax is Bruce Mitchell, A Guide to Old English (2nd ed., Oxford, 1968), chap. 5, which the advanced student may supplement with Paul Bacquet, La Structure de la phrase verbale a Vepoque alfredienne (Paris, 1962). The standard dictionary is J. Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. T. N. Toller (Oxford, 1898), with Toller's Supplement (Oxford, 1921). For a project designed to replace Bosworth-Toller, see Roberta Frank and Angus Cameron, eds., A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English (Toronto, 1973). Current bibliographies of Anglo-Saxon studies appear annually in the Old English Newsletter and Anglo-Saxon England. ;

M Foreign Influences on Old English

The Contact of English with Other Languages, The language which has been described in the preceding chapter was not merely the product of 52.

the dialects brought to England by the Jutes, Saxons,

formed

its

basis, the sole basis

largest part of its vocabulary.

into

it.

In the course of the

England

it

was brought

of its

grammar and

and Angles. These

the source of

it

far the

But there were other elements which entered first

seven hundred years of

its

existence in

into contact with three other languages, the

languages of the Celts, the Romans, and the Scandinavians. these contacts

by

shows certain effects,

especially additions to

From

its

each of

vocabulary.

The nature of these contacts and the changes that were effected by them will form the subject of this chapter. Nothing would seem more reasonable than 53. The Celtic Influence, to expect that the conquest of the Celtic population of Britain

by the

Anglo-Saxons and the subsequent mixture of the two peoples should have resulted in a corresponding mixture of their languages; that consequently

we should

find in the

Old English vocabulary numerous instances of words

which the Anglo-Saxons heard adopted. For

it is

in the speech

of the native population and

apparent that the Celts were by no means exterminated

except in certain areas, and that in most of England large numbers of them

were gradually absorbed by the new inhabitants. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that at Andredesceaster or Pevensey a deadly struggle

occurred between the native population and the newcomers and that not a

The evidence of the place-names in this region lends support to the statement. But this was probably an exceptional case. In the east and southeast, where the Germanic conquest was fully accomsingle Briton

was

left alive.

plished at a fairly early date,

it is

probable that there were fewer survivals 72

FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON OLD ENGLISH

73

of a Celtic population than elsewhere. Large numbers of the defeated fled to the west.

Here

apparent that a considerable Celtic-speaking popula-

it is

tion survived until fairly late times.

Some such

whole cluster of Celtic place-names

in the northeastern corner of Dorset-

shire.

1

It is

situation

is

suggested by a

many Celts were held as slaves by the many of the Anglo-Saxons married Celtic women. In

altogether likely that

conquerors and that

parts at least of the island, contact between the

some

constant and in

two peoples must have been

districts intimate for several generations.

54. Celtic Place-names.

When we come,

however, to seek the evidence

meager

for this contact in the English language, investigation yields very

survives chiefly in place-names. 2

The kingdom of Kent, for example, owes its name to the Celtic word Canti or Cant ion, the meaning of which is unknown, while the two ancient Northumresults.

Such evidence as there

is

brian kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia derive their designations from Celtic tribal

names. Other

districts, especially in the

names

in their present-day

Devonshire contains in the

west and southwest, preserve

traces of their earlier Celtic designations. first

element the tribal

name Dumnonii,

Cornwall means the 'Cornubian Welsh', and Cumberland

Cymry

the

Roman

or Britons'. Moreover, a

itself,

although the origin of the word

is

back to a Celtic designation. The

likely goes

somewhat uncertain, first syllable

chester, Salisbury, Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester, Lichfield,

other

names of cities

is

in the

of Win-

and a score of

traceable to a Celtic source, while the earlier

of Canterbury (Durovernum) and the it is

the 'land of

centers in the

period have names in which Celtic elements are embodied. The

name London most

is

number of important

name York

name

are originally Celtic. But

names of rivers and hills and places in proximity to these natural number of Celtic names survive. Thus the Thames

features that the greatest

a Celtic river name, and various Celtic words for river or water are

is

preserved in the names Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk, Dover, and Wye. Celtic

words meaning

'hill'

'top', 'summit'), 'hill'

and mawr

are found in place-names like Barr

Bredon

(cf.

Welsh bre

'great'), Creech,

Pendle

Certain other Celtic elements occur (a

deep valley) in names

like

'hill'),

(cf.

Bryn

Welsh pen

more or

(cf.

Welsh bar

Mawr (cf. Welsh 'top'),

less frequently

and

bryn

others.

such as cumb

Duncombe, Holcombe, Winchcombe; ton (high

rock, peak) in Torr, Torcross, Torhill; pill (a tidal creek) in Pylle, Huntspill;

and brocc (badger) 1

in Brockholes, Brockhall, etc. Besides these purely

R. E. Zachrisson, Romans, Kelts, and Saxons

in

Ancient Britain (Uppsala, 1927),

p. 55. 2

An admirable survey of the Celtic element in English place-names is given by E. Ekwall in the Introduction to the Survey of English Place-Names, ed. A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton for the English Place-Name Society, 1, part 1 (Cambridge, 1924), 15-35.

— 74

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Celtic elements a few Latin vicus were used in

island

words such as castra, fontana, fossa, portus, and naming places during the Roman occupation of the

and were passed on by the Celts

discussed later.

It is

to the English: These will be

natural that Celtic place-names should be

commoner

and southeast, but the evidence of these names shows that the Celts impressed themselves upon the Germanic conscious-

in the west than in the east

newcomers to adopt many of the and to make them a permanent part of

ness at least to the extent of causing the local

names current in

Celtic speech

their vocabulary.

55. Other Celtic Loan-words.

influence of Celtic

Outside of place-names, however, the

upon the English language is almost negligible. Not over

a score of words in Old English can be traced with reasonable probability

number it is possible

to a Celtic source. Within this small

groups:

to distinguish

two

(1) those which the Anglo-Saxons learned through everyday con-

and

tact with the natives,

missionaries in the north.

popular character; the

which were introduced by the

(2) those

The former were transmitted

latter

orally

were connected with religious

activities

were more or

less learned.

bratt (cloak),

and brocc (brock or badger); a group of words

The popular words include

Irish

and were of and

binn (basket, crib), for geo-

much part in the experience of the home crag, luh (lake), cumb (valley),

graphical features which had not played

Anglo-Saxons

in their continental

and ton 1 (outcropping or projecting rock, peak), the two

latter chiefly as

elements in place-names; possibly the words dun (dark colored), and ass (ultimately

from Latin

asinus).

Words of the second group,

those that

came

into English through Celtic Christianity, are likewise few in number. In 563 St.

Columba had come with

kinsmen

in Britain.

On

the

twelve little

monks from

Ireland to preach to his

island of Iona off the west coast of

made it his headquarters for the From this center many missionaries founded other religious houses, and did much to spread Christian

Scotland he established a monastery and

remaining thirty-four years of his

went out,

doctrine and learning.

As a

life.

result of their activity the

words ancor (hermit),

dry (magician), cine (a gathering of parchment leaves), cross, ciugge

(bell),

gabolrind (compass), mind (diadem), and perhaps stxr (history) and cursian (to curse), It

came

into at least partial use in

does not appear that

permanent place

many

Old English.

of these Celtic words attained a very

in the English language.

Some soon

died out and others

acquired only local currency. The relation of the two peoples was not such as to bring about any considerable influence

on English

life

or on English

l Cf. E. Ekwall, "Zu zwei keltischen Lehnwortern in Altenglischen," Englische Studien, 54 (1920), 102-10.

FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON OLD ENGLISH

75

The surviving Celts were a submerged race. Had they, Romans, possessed a superior culture, something valuable to

like the

speech.

give the

Anglo-Saxons, their influence might have been greater. But the Anglo-

Saxon found

little

occasion to adopt Celtic modes of expression and the

Celtic influence remains the least of the early influences

which affected the

English language.

on Old English.

56. Three Latin Influences

upon Old English was

slight, it

Celt to the Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

great influence exerted

of Celtic

relation of the

was that of a submerged race and, as suggested

above, because the Celt was not in a position to tion to

If the influence

was doubtless so because the

civilization. It

make any notable contribu-

was quite otherwise with the second

—that of Latin—and the circumstances

upon English

under which they met. Latin was not the language of a conquered people. It

was the language of a higher

Anglo-Saxons had much to commercial and military,

many

centuries

civilization,

learn.

a civilization from which the

Contact with that

later religious

and

and was constantly renewed.

civilization, at first

extended over

intellectual, It

began long before the

Anglo-Saxons came to England and continued throughout the Old English period.

For

several

hundred

became the English were

still

various relations with the siderable

years, while the

Germanic

Romans through which

who

later

they acquired a con-

number of Latin words. Later when they came

saw the evidences of the long

tribes

occupying their continental homes, they had

Roman

the Celts a few additional Latin

rule in the island

to

England they

and learned from

words which had been acquired by them.

And a century and a half later still, when Roman missionaries reintroduced Christianity into the island, this

new

cultural influence resulted in a really

extensive adoption of Latin elements into the language. There were thus

on which borrowing from Latin occurred before the end of the Old English period, and it will be of interest to consider more in detail the character and extent of these borrowings. three distinct occasions

57. Chronological Criteria.

In order to form an accurate idea of the

share which each of these three periods had in extending the resources of the English vocabulary sible the date at

This

is

naturally

it is first

necessary to determine as closely as pos-

which each of the borrowed words entered the language.

somewhat difficult to do, and in the case of some words number of cases it is possible to assign a word to

impossible. But in a large

a given period with a high degree of probability and often with certainty. It will

be instructive to pause for a

moment

to inquire

how

this is

done.

The evidence which can be employed is of various kinds and naturally of varying value. Most obvious is the appearance of the word in literature. If

76

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

a given

word occurs with

fair

frequency in texts such as Beowulf, or the

poems of Cynewulf, such occurrence indicates that the word has had time to pass into current use and that it came into English not later than the early part of the period of Christian influence. But

much earlier it was known in the language, in English

do not go back beyond the year

ance of a word in literature

does not

it

tell

how

us

since the earliest written records

Moreover

700.

the late appear-

no proof of late adoption. The word may not be the kind of word that would naturally occur very often in literary texts, is

and so much of Old English

literature has

unsafe to argue about the existence of a

Some words which

remains.

century

been

lost that

word on

it

would be very

the basis of existing

are not found recorded before the tenth

pipe 'pipe', ciese 'cheese') can be assigned confidently on

(e.g.,

other grounds to the period of continental borrowing.

The character of the word sometimes

gives

some

clue to

its

Some

date.

words are obviously learned and point to a time when the church had become well established in the island. On the other hand, the early occurrence of a

word

in several of the

circulation of the

word

in the

Germanic

Germanic

dialects points to the general

territory

and

probable adoption

its

by the ancestors of the English on the continent. Testimony of

must of course be used with discrimination. Old English and

in

A

this

kind

number of words found

borrowed by either language before the Anglo-Saxons migrated

to England,

but are due to later independent adoption under conditions more or

But

can hardly be doubted that a word

like copper,

which

is

rare

Old English, was nevertheless borrowed on the continent when we

find

areas.

it

less

brought about by the introduction of Christianity into the two

parallel,

in

in

Old High German, for example, can hardly have been

in

no

it

less

Much

than

the

six

Germanic languages.

most conclusive evidence of the date

borrowed, however,

is

to be

found

in the phonetic

at

which a word was

form of the word. The

changes which take place in the sounds of a language can often be dated with some definiteness, and the presence or absence of these changes in a

borrowed word constitutes an important

test

of age.

A full account of these

changes would carry us far beyond the scope of this book, but one or two

may

examples

English, as in

i-umlaut. (a?, i

j.

Thus

there occurred in

most of the Germanic languages, a

Old

change known

as

This change affected certain accented vowels and diphthongs

and io) when they were followed in Under such circumstances x and a became

5, 3, a, ea, eo,

or 1

1

serve to illustrate the principle.

the next syllable