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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