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A BRIEF HISTORY
of the
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
by
J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, M.A.
Professor of the Theory, History, and Practice of Education
in the University of St. Andrews, Scotland
Boston
D. C. Heath & Co., Publishers
1887
_Copyright, 1887,_
By D. C. Heath & Co.
PUBLISHER’S NOTICE.
The present volume is the second part of the author’s “English
Language-- Its Grammar, History, and Literature.” It includes the
History of the English Language and the History of English Literature.
The first part comprises the department of Grammar, under which are
included Etymology, Syntax, Analysis, Word Formation, and History, with
a brief outline of Composition and of Prosody. The two may be had
separately or bound together. Each constitutes a good one year’s course
of English study. The first part is suited for high schools; the second,
for high schools and colleges.
The book, which is worthy of the wide reputation and ripe experience of
the eminent author, is distinguished throughout by clear, brief, and
comprehensive statement and illustration. It is especially suited for
private students or for classes desiring to make a brief and rapid
review, and also for teachers who want only a brief text as a basis for
their own instruction.
PREFACE.
This book provides sufficient matter for the four years of study
required, in England, of a pupil-teacher, and also for the first year at
his training college. An experienced master will easily be able to guide
his pupils in the selection of the proper parts for each year. The ten
pages on the Grammar of Verse ought to be reserved for the fifth year of
study.
It is hoped that the book will also be useful in Colleges, Ladies’
Seminaries, High Schools, Academies, Preparatory and Normal Schools, to
candidates for teachers’ examinations and Civil Service examinations,
and to all who wish for any reason to review the leading facts of the
English Language and Literature.
Only the most salient features of the language have been described, and
minor details have been left for the teacher to fill in. The utmost
clearness and simplicity have been the aim of the writer, and he has
been obliged to sacrifice many interesting details to this aim.
The study of English Grammar is becoming every day more and more
historical-- and necessarily so. There are scores of inflections,
usages, constructions, idioms, which cannot be truly or adequately
explained without a reference to the past states of the language-- to
the time when it was a synthetic or inflected language, like German or
Latin.
The Syntax of the language has been set forth in the form of RULES. This
was thought to be better for young learners who require firm and clear
dogmatic statements of fact and duty. But the skilful teacher will
slowly work up to these rules by the interesting process of induction,
and will-- when it is possible-- induce his pupil to draw the general
conclusions from the data given, and thus to make rules for himself.
Another convenience that will be found by both teacher and pupil in this
form of _rules_ will be that they can be compared with the rules of, or
general statements about, a foreign language-- such as Latin, French, or
German.
It is earnestly hoped that the slight sketches of the History of our
Language and of its Literature may not only enable the young student to
pass his examinations with success, but may also throw him into the
attitude of mind of Oliver Twist, and induce him to “ask for more.”
The Index will be found useful in preparing the parts of each subject;
as all the separate paragraphs about the same subject will be found
there grouped together.
J. M. D. M.
CONTENTS.
PART III.
Page
The English Language, and the Family to which it belongs 193
The Periods of English 198
History of the Vocabulary 202
History of the Grammar 239
Specimens of English of Different Periods 250
Modern English 258
Landmarks in the History of the English Language 266
PART IV.
History of English Literature 271
Tables of English Literature 367
Index 381
PART III.
THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
INTRODUCTION.
1. +Tongue, Speech, Language.+-- We speak of the “English tongue” or of
the “French language”; and we say of two nations that they “do not
understand each other’s speech.” The existence of these three words--
+speech+, +tongue+, +language+-- proves to us that a language is
something +spoken+,-- that it is a number of +sounds+; and that the
writing or printing of it upon paper is a quite secondary matter.
Language, rightly considered, then, is an +organised set of sounds+.
These sounds convey a meaning from the mind of the speaker to the mind
of the hearer, and thus serve to connect man with man.
2. +Written Language.+-- It took many hundreds of years-- perhaps
thousands-- before human beings were able to invent a mode of writing
upon paper-- that is, of representing +sounds+ by +signs+. These signs
are called +letters+; and the whole set of them goes by the name of the
+Alphabet+-- from the two first letters of the Greek alphabet, which are
called _alpha_, _beta_. There are languages that have never been put
upon paper at all, such as many of the African languages, many in the
South Sea Islands, and other parts of the globe. But in all cases, every
language that we know anything about-- English, Latin, French, German--
existed for hundreds of years before any one thought of writing it down
on paper.
3. +A Language Grows.+-- A language is an +organism+ or +organic
existence+. Now every organism lives; and, if it lives, it grows; and,
if it grows, it also dies. Our language grows; it is growing still; and
it has been growing for many hundreds of years. As it grows it loses
something, and it gains something else; it alters its appearance;
changes take place in this part of it and in that part,-- until at
length its appearance in age is something almost entirely different from
what it was in its early youth. If we had the photograph of a man of
forty, and the photograph of the same person when he was a child of one,
we should find, on comparing them, that it was almost impossible to
point to the smallest trace of likeness in the features of the two
photographs. And yet the two pictures represent the same person. And so
it is with the English language. The oldest English, which is usually
called Anglo-Saxon, is as different from our modern English as if they
were two distinct languages; and yet they are not two languages, but
really and fundamentally one and the same. Modern English differs from
the oldest English as a giant oak does from a small oak sapling, or a
broad stalwart man of forty does from a feeble infant of a few months
old.
4. +The English Language.+-- The English language is the speech spoken
by the Anglo-Saxon race in England, in most parts of Scotland, in the
larger part of Ireland, in the United States, in Canada, in Australia
and New Zealand, in South Africa, and in many other parts of the world.
In the middle of the +fifth+ century it was spoken by a few thousand men
who had lately landed in England from the Continent: it is now spoken by
more than one hundred millions of people. In the course of the next
sixty years, it will probably be the speech of two hundred millions.
5. +English on the Continent.+-- In the middle of the fifth century it
was spoken in the north-west corner of Europe-- between the mouths of
the Rhine, the Weser, and the Elbe; and in Schleswig there is a small
district which is called +Angeln+ to this day. But it was not then
called +English+; it was more probably called +Teutish+, or +Teutsch+,
or +Deutsch+-- all words connected with a generic word which covers many
families and languages-- +Teutonic+. It was a rough guttural speech of
one or two thousand words; and it was brought over to this country by
the +Jutes+, +Angles+, and +Saxons+ in the year 449. These men left
their home on the Continent to find here farms to till and houses to
live in; and they drove the inhabitants of the island-- the +Britons+--
ever farther and farther west, until they at length left them in peace
in the more mountainous parts of the island-- in the southern and
western corners, in Cornwall and in Wales.
6. +The British Language.+-- What language did the Teutonic conquerors,
who wrested the lands from the poor Britons, find spoken in this island
when they first set foot on it? Not a Teutonic speech at all. They found
a language not one word of which they could understand. The island
itself was then called +Britain+; and the tongue spoken in it belonged
to the Keltic group of languages. Languages belonging to the Keltic
group are still spoken in Wales, in Brittany (in France), in the
Highlands of Scotland, in the west of Ireland, and in the Isle of Man.
A few words-- very few-- from the speech of the Britons, have come into
our own English language; and what these are we shall see by-and-by.
7. +The Family to which English belongs.+-- Our English tongue belongs
to the +Aryan+ or +Indo-European Family+ of languages. That is to say,
the main part or substance of it can be traced back to the race which
inhabited the high table-lands that lie to the back of the western end
of the great range of the Himalaya, or “Abode of Snow.” This Aryan race
grew and increased, and spread to the south and west; and from it have
sprung languages which are now spoken in India, in Persia, in Greece and
Italy, in France and Germany, in Scandinavia, and in Russia. From this
Aryan family we are sprung; out of the oldest Aryan speech our own
language has grown.
8. +The Group to which English belongs.+-- The Indo-European family of
languages consists of several groups. One of these is called the
+Teutonic Group+, because it is spoken by the +Teuts+ (or the +Teutonic
race+), who are found in Germany, in England and Scotland, in Holland,
in parts of Belgium, in Denmark, in Norway and Sweden, in Iceland, and
the Faroe Islands. The Teutonic group consists of three branches-- +High
German+, +Low German+, and +Scandinavian+. High German is the name given
to the kind of German spoken in Upper Germany-- that is, in the
table-land which lies south of the river Main, and which rises gradually
till it runs into the Alps. +New High German+ is the German of books--
the literary language-- the German that is taught and learned in
schools. +Low German+ is the name given to the German dialects spoken in
the lowlands-- in the German part of the Great Plain of Europe, and
round the mouths of those German rivers that flow into the Baltic and
the North Sea. +Scandinavian+ is the name given to the languages spoken
in Denmark and in the great Scandinavian Peninsula. Of these three
languages, Danish and Norwegian are practically the same-- their
literary or book-language is one; while Swedish is very different.
Icelandic is the oldest and purest form of Scandinavian. The following
is a table of the
GROUP OF TEUTONIC LANGUAGES.
[The table was originally printed in full family-tree form, using the
layout below. The full text is here given separately.]
T.
____________|_____________
| | |
LG HG Sc
______|____ __|__ _____|_____
| | | | | | | | | | |
Du Fl Fr E O M N I Dk Fe Sv
(Nk) (Sw)
TEUTONIC.
LOW GERMAN.
Dutch.
Flemish.
Frisian.
English.
HIGH GERMAN.
Old.
Middle.
New.
SCANDINAVIAN.
Icelandic
Dansk
(or Norsk).
Ferroic.
Svensk
(Swedish).
It will be observed, on looking at the above table, that High German is
subdivided according to time, but that the other groups are subdivided
according to space.
9. +English a Low-German Speech.+-- Our English tongue is the +lowest of
all Low-German dialects+. Low German is the German spoken in the
lowlands of Germany. As we descend the rivers, we come to the lowest
level of all-- the level of the sea. Our English speech, once a mere
dialect, came down to that, crossed the German Ocean, and settled in
Britain, to which it gave in time the name of Angla-land or England. The
Low German spoken in the Netherlands is called +Dutch+; the Low German
spoken in Friesland-- a prosperous province of Holland-- is called
+Frisian+; and the Low German spoken in Great Britain is called
+English+. These three languages are extremely like one another; but the
Continental language that is likest the English is the Dutch or
Hollandish dialect called _Frisian_. We even possess a couplet, every
word of which is both English and Frisian. It runs thus--
Good butter and good cheese
Is good English and good Fries.
10. +Dutch and Welsh-- a Contrast.+-- When the Teuton conquerors came to
this country, they called the Britons foreigners, just as the Greeks
called all other peoples besides themselves _barbarians_. By this they
did not at first mean that they were uncivilised, but only that they
were _not_ Greeks. Now, the Teutonic or Saxon or English name for
foreigners was +Wealhas+, a word afterwards contracted into +Welsh+. To
this day the modern Teuts or Teutons (or _Germans_, as _we_ call them)
call all Frenchmen and Italians _Welshmen_; and, when a German, peasant
crosses the border into France, he says: “I am going into Welshland.”
11. +The Spread of English over Britain.+-- The Jutes, who came from
Juteland or Jylland-- now called Jutland-- settled in Kent and in the
Isle of Wight. The Saxons settled in the south and western parts of
England, and gave their names to those kingdoms-- now counties-- whose
names came to end in +sex+. There was the kingdom of the East Saxons, or
+Essex+; the kingdom of the West Saxons, or +Wessex+; the kingdom of the
Middle Saxons, or +Middlesex+; and the kingdom of the South Saxons, or
+Sussex+. The Angles settled chiefly on the east coast. The kingdom of
+East Anglia+ was divided into the regions of the +North Folk+ and the
+South Folk+, words which are still perpetuated in the names _Norfolk_
and _Suffolk_. These three sets of Teutons all spoke different dialects
of the same Teutonic speech; and these dialects, with their differences,
peculiarities, and odd habits, took root in English soil, and lived an
independent life, apart from each other, uninfluenced by each other, for
several hundreds of years. But, in the slow course of time, they joined
together to make up our beautiful English language-- a language which,
however, still bears in itself the traces of dialectic forms, and is in
no respect of one kind or of one fibre all through.
CHAPTER I.
THE PERIODS OF ENGLISH.
1. +Dead and Living Languages.+-- A language is said to be dead when it
is no longer spoken. Such a language we know only in books. Thus, Latin
is a dead language, because no nation anywhere now speaks it. A dead
language can undergo no change; it remains, and must remain, as we find
it written in books. But a living language is always changing, just like
a tree or the human body. The human body has its periods or stages.
There is the period of infancy, the period of boyhood, the period of
manhood, and the period of old age. In the same way, a language has its
periods.
2. +No Sudden Changes-- a Caution.+-- We divide the English language
into periods, and then mark, with some approach to accuracy, certain
distinct changes in the habits of our language, in the inflexions of its
words, in the kind of words it preferred, or in the way it liked to put
its words together. But we must be carefully on our guard against
fancying that, at any given time or in any given year, the English
people threw aside one set of habits as regards language, and adopted
another set. It is not so, nor can it be so. The changes in language are
as gentle, gradual, and imperceptible as the changes in the growth of a
tree or in the skin of the human body. We renew our skin slowly and
gradually; but we are never conscious of the process, nor can we say at
any given time that we have got a completely new skin.
3. +The Periods of English.+-- Bearing this caution in mind, we can go
on to look at the chief periods in our English language. These are five
in number; and they are as follows:--
I. Ancient English or Anglo-Saxon, 449-1100
II. Early English, 1100-1250
III. Middle English, 1250-1485
IV. Tudor English, 1485-1603
V. Modern English, 1603-1900
These periods merge very slowly, or are shaded off, so to speak, into
each other in the most gradual way. If we take the English of 1250 and
compare it with that of 900, we shall find a great difference; but if we
compare it with the English of 1100 the difference is not so marked. The
difference between the English of the nineteenth and the English of the
fourteenth century is very great, but the difference between the English
of the fourteenth and that of the thirteenth century is very small.
4. +Ancient English or Anglo-Saxon, 450-1100.+-- This form of English
differed from modern English in having a much larger number of
inflexions. The noun had five cases, and there were several declensions,
just as in Latin; adjectives were declined, and had three genders; some
pronouns had a dual as well as a plural number; and the verb had a much
larger number of inflexions than it has now. The vocabulary of the
language contained very few foreign elements. The poetry of the language
employed head-rhyme or alliteration, and not end-rhyme, as we do now.
The works of the poet +Caedmon+ and the great prose-writer +King Alfred+
belong to this Anglo-Saxon period.
5. +Early English, 1100-1250.+-- The coming of the Normans in 1066 made
many changes in the land, many changes in the Church and in the State,
and it also introduced many changes into the language. The inflexions of
our speech began to drop off, because they were used less and less; and
though we never adopted new _inflexions_ from French or from any other
language, new French _words_ began to creep in. In some parts of the
country English had ceased to be written in books; the language existed
as a spoken language only; and hence accuracy in the use of words and
the inflexions of words could not be ensured. Two notable books--
written, not printed, for there was no printing in this island till the
year 1474-- belong to this period. These are the +Ormulum+, by +Orm+ or
+Ormin+, and the +Brut+, by a monk called +Layamon+ or +Laweman+. The
latter tells the story of Brutus, who was believed to have been the son
of Æneas of Troy; to have escaped after the downfall of that city; to
have sailed through the Mediterranean, ever farther and farther to the
west; to have landed in Britain, settled here, and given the country its
name.
6. +Middle English, 1250-1485.+-- Most of the inflexions of nouns and
adjectives have in this period-- between the middle of the thirteenth
and the end of the fifteenth century-- completely disappeared. The
inflexions of verbs are also greatly reduced in number. The +strong+[1]
mode of inflexion has ceased to be employed for verbs that are
new-comers, and the +weak+ mode has been adopted in its place. During
the earlier part of this period, even country-people tried to speak
French, and in this and other modes many French words found their way
into English. A writer of the thirteenth century, John de Trevisa, says
that country-people “fondeth [that is, try] with great bysynes for to
speke Freynsch for to be more y-told of.” The country-people did not
succeed very well, as the ordinary proverb shows: “Jack would be a
gentleman if he could speak French.” Boys at school were expected to
turn their Latin into French, and in the courts of law French only was
allowed to be spoken. But in 1362 Edward III. gave his assent to an Act
of Parliament allowing English to be used instead of Norman-French. “The
yer of oure Lord,” says John de Trevisa, “a thousond thre hondred foure
score and fyve of the secunde Kyng Richard after the conquest, in al the
gramer scoles of Engelond children leveth Freynsch, and construeth and
turneth an Englysch.” To the first half of this period belong a
+Metrical Chronicle+, attributed to +Robert of Gloucester+; +Langtoft’s+
Metrical Chronicle, translated by +Robert de Brunne+; the +Agenbite of
Inwit+, by Dan Michel of Northgate in Kent; and a few others. But to the
second half belong the rich and varied productions of +Geoffrey
Chaucer+, our first great poet and always one of our greatest writers;
the alliterative poems of +William Langley+ or +Langlande+; the more
learned poems of +John Gower+; and the translation of the Bible and
theological works of the reformer +John Wyclif+.
[Footnote 1: See p. 43.]
7. +Tudor English, 1485-1603.+-- Before the end of the sixteenth century
almost all our inflexions had disappeared. The great dramatist Ben
Jonson (1574-1637) laments the loss of the plural ending +en+ for verbs,
because _wenten_ and _hopen_ were much more musical and more useful in
verse than _went_ or _hope_; but its recovery was already past praying
for. This period is remarkable for the introduction of an enormous
number of Latin words, and this was due to the new interest taken in the
literature of the Romans-- an interest produced by what is called the
+Revival of Letters+. But the most striking, as it is also the most
important fact relating to this period, is the appearance of a group of
dramatic writers, the greatest the world has ever seen. Chief among
these was +William Shakespeare+. Of pure poetry perhaps the greatest
writer was +Edmund Spenser+. The greatest prose-writer was +Richard
Hooker+, and the pithiest +Francis Bacon+.
8. +Modern English, 1603-1900.+-- The grammar of the language was fixed
before this period, most of the accidence having entirely vanished. The
vocabulary of the language, however, has gone on increasing, and is
still increasing; for the English language, like the English people, is
always ready to offer hospitality to all peaceful foreigners-- words or
human beings-- that will land and settle within her coasts. And the
tendency at the present time is not only to give a hearty welcome to
newcomers from other lands, but to call back old words and old phrases
that had been allowed to drop out of existence. Tennyson has been one of
the chief agents in this happy restoration.
CHAPTER II.
THE HISTORY OF THE VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
1. +The English Nation.+-- The English people have for many centuries
been the greatest travellers in the world. It was an Englishman--
Francis Drake-- who first went round the globe; and the English have
colonised more foreign lands in every part of the world than any other
people that ever existed. The English in this way have been influenced
by the world without. But they have also been subjected to manifold
influences from within-- they have been exposed to greater political
changes, and profounder though quieter political revolutions, than any
other nation. In 1066 they were conquered by the Norman-French; and for
several centuries they had French kings. Seeing and talking with many
different peoples, they learned to adopt foreign words with ease, and to
give them a home among the native-born words of the language. Trade is
always a kindly and useful influence; and the trade of Great Britain has
for many centuries been larger than that of any other nation. It has
spread into every part of the world; it gives and receives from all
tribes and nations, from every speech and tongue.
2. +The English Element in English.+-- When the English came to this
island in the fifth century, the number of words in the language they
spoke was probably not over +two thousand+. Now, however, we possess a
vocabulary of perhaps more than +one hundred thousand words+. And so
eager and willing have we been to welcome foreign words, that it may be
said with truth that: +The majority of words in the English Tongue are
not English+. In fact, if we take the Latin language by itself, there
are in our language more +Latin+ words than +English+. But the grammar
is distinctly English, and not Latin at all.
3. +The Spoken Language and the Written Language-- a Caution.+-- We must
not forget what has been said about a language,-- that it is not a
printed thing-- not a set of black marks upon paper, but that it is in
truest truth a +tongue+ or a +speech+. Hence we must be careful to
distinguish between the +spoken+ language and the +written+ or +printed+
language; between the language of the +ear+ and the language of the
+eye+; between the language of the +mouth+ and the language of the
+dictionary+; between the +moving+ vocabulary of the market and the
street, and the +fixed+ vocabulary that has been catalogued and
imprisoned in our dictionaries. If we can only keep this in view, we
shall find that, though there are more Latin words in our vocabulary
than English, the English words we possess are +used+ in speaking a
hundred times, or even a thousand times, oftener than the Latin words.
It is the genuine English words that have life and movement; it is they
that fly about in houses, in streets, and in markets; it is they that
express with greatest force our truest and most usual sentiments-- our
inmost thoughts and our deepest feelings. Latin words are found often
enough in books; but, when an English man or woman is deeply moved, he
speaks pure English and nothing else. Words are the coin of human
intercourse; and it is the native coin of pure English with the native
stamp that is in daily circulation.
4. +A Diagram of English.+-- If we were to try to represent to the eye
the proportions of the different elements in our vocabulary, as it is
found in the dictionary, the diagram would take something like the
following form:--
Diagram of the English Language.
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| ENGLISH WORDS. |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| LATIN WORDS |
| (including Norman-French, which are also Latin). |
+--------------+--------------------------------------+
| GREEK WORDS. | Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, |
| | Hebrew, Arabic, Hindustani, Persian, |
| | Malay, American, etc. etc. |
+--------------+--------------------------------------+
5. +The Foreign Elements in our English Vocabulary.+-- The different
peoples and the different circumstances with which we have come in
contact, have had many results-- one among others, that of presenting us
with contributions to our vocabulary. We found Kelts here; and hence we
have a number of Keltic words in our vocabulary. The Romans held this
island for several hundred years; and when they had to go in the year
410, they left behind them six Latin words, which we have inherited.
In the seventh century, Augustine and his missionary monks from Rome
brought over to us a larger number of Latin words; and the Church which
they founded introduced ever more and more words from Rome. The Danes
began to come over to this island in the eighth century; we had for some
time a Danish dynasty seated on the throne of England: and hence we
possess many Danish words. The Norman-French invasion in the eleventh
century brought us many hundreds of Latin words; for French is in
reality a branch of the Latin tongue. The Revival of Learning in the
sixteenth century gave us several thousands of Latin words. And wherever
our sailors and merchants have gone, they have brought back with them
foreign words as well as foreign things-- Arabic words from Arabia and
Africa, Hindustani words from India, Persian words from Persia, Chinese
words from China, and even Malay words from the peninsula of Malacca.
Let us look a little more closely at these foreign elements.
6. +The Keltic Element in English.+-- This element is of three kinds:
(i) Those words which we received direct from the ancient Britons whom
we found in the island; (ii) those which the Norman-French brought with
them from Gaul; (iii) those which have lately come into the language
from the Highlands of Scotland, or from Ireland, or from the writings of
Sir Walter Scott.
7. +The First Keltic Element.+-- This first contribution contains the
following words: _Breeches_, _clout_, _crock_, _cradle_, _darn_,
_dainty_,_ mop_, _pillow_; _barrow_ (a funeral mound), _glen_, _havoc_,
_kiln_, _mattock_, _pool_. It is worthy of note that the first eight in
the list are the names of domestic-- some even of kitchen-- things and
utensils. It may, perhaps, be permitted us to conjecture that in many
cases the Saxon invader married a British wife, who spoke her own
language, taught her children to speak their mother tongue, and whose
words took firm root in the kitchen of the new English household. The
names of most rivers, mountains, lakes, and hills are, of course,
Keltic; for these names would not be likely to be changed by the English
new-comers. There are two names for rivers which are found-- in one form
or another-- in every part of Great Britain. These are the names +Avon+
and +Ex+. The word +Avon+ means simply _water_. We can conceive the
children on a farm near a river speaking of it simply as “the water”;
and hence we find fourteen Avons in this island. +Ex+ also means
_water_; and there are perhaps more than twenty streams in Great Britain
with this name. The word appears as +Ex+ in +Exeter+ (the older and
fuller form being _Exanceaster_-- the camp on the Exe); as +Ax+ in
+Axminster+; as +Ox+ in +Oxford+; as +Ux+ in +Uxbridge+; and as +Ouse+
in Yorkshire and other eastern counties. In Wales and Scotland, the
hidden +k+ changes its place and comes at the end. Thus in Wales we find
+Usk+; and in Scotland, +Esk+. There are at least eight Esks in the
kingdom of Scotland alone. The commonest Keltic name for a mountain is
+Pen+ or +Ben+ (in Wales it is _Pen_; in Scotland the flatter form _Ben_
is used). We find this word in England also under the form of +Pennine+;
and, in Italy, as +Apennine+.
8. +The Second Keltic Element.+-- The Normans came from Scandinavia
early in the tenth century, and wrested the valley of the Seine out of
the hands of Charles the Simple, the then king of the French. The
language spoken by the people of France was a broken-down form of spoken
Latin, which is now called French; but in this language they had
retained many Gaulish words out of the old Gaulish language. Such are
the words: _Bag_, _bargain_, _barter_; _barrel_, _basin_, _basket_,
_bucket_; _bonnet_, _button_, _ribbon_; _car_, _cart_; _dagger_, _gown_;
_mitten_, _motley_; _rogue_; _varlet_, _vassal_, _wicket_. The above
words were brought over to Britain by the Normans; and they gradually
took an acknowledged place among the words of our own language, and have
held that place ever since.
9. +The Third Keltic Element.+-- This consists of comparatively few
words-- such as _clan_; _claymore_ (a sword); _philabeg_ (a kind of
kilt), _kilt_ itself, _brogue_ (a kind of shoe), _plaid_; _pibroch_
(bagpipe war-music), _slogan_ (a war-cry); and _whisky_. Ireland has
given us _shamrock_, _gag_, _log_, _clog_, and _brogue_-- in the sense
of a mode of speech.
10. +The Scandinavian Element in English.+-- Towards the end of the
eighth century-- in the year 787-- the Teutons of the North, called
Northmen, Normans, or Norsemen-- but more commonly known as Danes-- made
their appearance on the eastern coast of Great Britain, and attacked the
peaceful towns and quiet settlements of the English. These attacks
became so frequent, and their occurrence was so much dreaded, that a
prayer was inserted against them in a Litany of the time-- “From the
incursions of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us!” In spite of the
resistance of the English, the Danes had, before the end of the ninth
century, succeeded in obtaining a permanent footing in England; and, in
the eleventh century, a Danish dynasty sat upon the English throne from
the year 1016 to 1042. From the time of King Alfred, the Danes of the
Danelagh were a settled part of the population of England; and hence we
find, especially on the east coast, a large number of Danish names still
in use.
11. +Character of the Scandinavian Element.+-- The Northmen, as we have
said, were Teutons; and they spoke a dialect of the great Teutonic (or
German) language. The sounds of the Danish dialect-- or language, as it
must now be called-- are harder than those of the German. We find a +k+
instead of a +ch+; a +p+ preferred to an +f+. The same is the case in
Scotland, where the hard form +kirk+ is preferred to the softer
+church+. Where the Germans say +Dorf+-- our English word +Thorpe+,
a village-- the Danes say +Drup+.
12. +Scandinavian Words+ (i).-- The words contributed to our language by
the Scandinavians are of two kinds: (i) Names of places; and
(ii) ordinary words. (i) The most striking instance of a Danish
place-name is the noun +by+, a town. Mr Isaac Taylor[2] tells us that
there are in the east of England more than six hundred names of towns
ending in +by+. Almost all of these are found in the Danelagh, within
the limits of the great highway made by the Romans to the north-west,
and well-known as +Watling Street+. We find, for example, +Whitby+, or
the town on the _white_ cliffs; +Grimsby+, or the town of Grim, a great
sea-rover, who obtained for his countrymen the right that all ships from
the Baltic should come into the port of Grimsby free of duty; +Tenby+,
that is +Daneby+; +by-law+, a law for a special town; and a vast number
of others. The following Danish words also exist in our times-- either
as separate and individual words, or in composition-- +beck+, a stream;
+fell+, a hill or table-land; +firth+ or +fiord+, an arm of the sea--
the same as the Danish fiord; +force+, a waterfall; +garth+, a yard or
enclosure; +holm+, an island in a river; +kirk+, a church; +oe+, an
island; +thorpe+, a village; +thwaite+, a forest clearing; and +vik+ or
+wick+, a station for ships, or a creek.
[Footnote 2: Words and Places, p. 158.]
13. +Scandinavian Words+ (ii).-- The most useful and the most frequently
employed word that we have received from the Danes is the word +are+.
The pure English word for this is +beoth+ or +sindon+. The Danes gave us
also the habit of using +to+ before an infinitive. Their word for +to+
was +at+; and +at+ still survives and is in use in Lincolnshire. We find
also the following Danish words in our language: +blunt+, +bole+ (of a
tree), +bound+ (on a journey-- properly +boun+), +busk+ (to dress),
+cake+, +call+, +crop+ (to cut), +curl+, +cut+, +dairy+, +daze+, +din+,
+droop+, +fellow+, +flit+, +for+, +froward+, +hustings+, +ill+, +irk+,
+kid+, +kindle+, +loft+, +odd+, +plough+, +root+, +scold+, +sky+, +tarn+
(a small mountain lake), +weak+, and +ugly+. It is in Northumberland,
Durham, Yorkshire, Lincoln, Norfolk, and even in the western counties of
Cumberland and Lancashire, that we find the largest admixture of
Scandinavian words.
14. +Influence of the Scandinavian Element.+-- The introduction of the
Danes and the Danish language into England had the result, in the east,
of unsettling the inflexions of our language, and thus of preparing the
way for their complete disappearance. The declensions of nouns became
unsettled; nouns that used to make their plural in +a+ or in +u+ took
the more striking plural suffix +as+ that belonged to a quite different
declension. The same things happened to adjectives, verbs, and other
parts of language. The causes of this are not far to seek. Spoken
language can never be so accurate as written language; the mass of the
English and Danes never cared or could care much for grammar; and both
parties to a conversation would of course hold firmly to the +root+ of
the word, which was intelligible to both of them, and let the inflexions
slide, or take care of themselves. The more the English and Danes mixed
with each other, the oftener they met at church, at games, and in the
market-place, the more rapidly would this process of stripping go on,--
the smaller care would both peoples take of the grammatical inflexions
which they had brought with them into this country.
15. +The Latin Element in English.+-- So far as the number of words--
the vocabulary-- of the language is concerned, the Latin contribution is
by far the most important element in our language. Latin was the
language of the Romans; and the Romans at one time were masters of the
whole known world. No wonder, then, that they influenced so many
peoples, and that their language found its way-- east and west, and
south and north-- into almost all the countries of Europe. There are, as
we have seen, more Latin than English words in our own language; and it
is therefore necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the character
and the uses of the Latin element-- an element so important-- in
English.[3] Not only have the Romans made contributions of large
+numbers+ of words to the English language, but they have added to it a
quite new +quality+, and given to its genius new +powers+ of expression.
So true is this, that we may say-- without any sense of unfairness, or
any feeling of exaggeration-- that, until the Latin element was
thoroughly mixed, united with, and transfused into the original English,
the writings of Shakespeare were impossible, the poetry of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries could not have come into existence. This is
true of Shakespeare; and it is still more true of Milton. His most
powerful poetical thoughts are written in lines, the most telling words
in which are almost always Latin. This may be illustrated by the
following lines from “Lycidas”:--
“It was that _fatal_ and _perfidious_ bark,
Built in the _eclipse_, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that _sacred_ head of thine!”
[Footnote 3: In the last half of this sentence, all the essential
words-- _necessary_, _acquainted_, _character_, _uses_, _element_,
_important_, are Latin (except _character_, which is Greek).]
16. +The Latin Contributions and their Dates.+-- The first contribution
of Latin words was made by the Romans-- not, however, to the English,
but to the Britons. The Romans held this island from A.D. +43+ to A.D.
+410+. They left behind them-- when they were obliged to go-- a small
contribution of six words-- six only, but all of them important. The
second contribution-- to a large extent ecclesiastical-- was made by
Augustine and his missionary monks from Rome, and their visit took place
in the year +596+. The third contribution was made through the medium of
the Norman-French, who seized and subdued this island in the year +1066+
and following years. The fourth contribution came to us by the aid of
the Revival of Learning-- rather a process than an event, the dates of
which are vague, but which may be said to have taken place in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Latin left for us by the Romans
is called +Latin of the First Period+; that brought over by the
missionaries from Rome, +Latin of the Second Period+; that given us by
the Norman-French, +Latin of the Third Period+; and that which came to
us from the Revival of Learning, +Latin of the Fourth Period+. The first
consists of a few names handed down to us through the Britons; the
second, of a number of words-- mostly relating to ecclesiastical
affairs-- brought into the spoken language by the monks; the third, of a
large vocabulary, that came to us by +mouth+ and +ear+; and the fourth,
of a very large treasure of words, which we received by means of +books+
and the +eye+. Let us now look more closely and carefully at them, each
in its turn.
17. +Latin of the First Period+ (i).-- The Romans held Britain for
nearly four hundred years; and they succeeded in teaching the wealthier
classes among the Southern Britons to speak Latin. They also built towns
in the island, made splendid roads, formed camps at important points,
framed good laws, and administered the affairs of the island with
considerable justice and uprightness. But, never having come directly
into contact with the Angles or Saxons themselves, they could not in any
way influence their language by oral communication-- by speaking to
them. What they left behind them was only six words, most of which
became merely the prefixes or the suffixes of the names of places. These
six words were +Castra+, a camp; +Strata+ (_via_), a paved road;
+Colonia+, a settlement (generally of soldiers); +Fossa+, a trench;
+Portus+, a harbour; and +Vallum+, a rampart.
18. +Latin of the First Period+ (ii).-- (_a_) The treatment of the Latin
word +castra+ in this island has been both singular and significant. It
has existed in this country for nearly nineteen hundred years; and it
has always taken the colouring of the locality into whose soil it struck
root. In the north and east of England it is sounded hard, and takes the
form of +caster+, as in +Lancaster+, +Doncaster+, +Tadcaster+, and
others. In the midland counties, it takes the softer form of +cester+,
as in +Leicester+, +Towcester+; and in the extreme west and south, it
takes the still softer form of +chester+, as in +Chester+, +Manchester+,
+Winchester+, and others. It is worthy of notice that there are in
Scotland no words ending in _caster_. Though the Romans had camps in
Scotland, they do not seem to have been so important as to become the
centres of towns. (_b_) The word +strata+ has also taken different forms
in different parts of England. While +castra+ has always been a suffix,
+strata+ shows itself constantly as a prefix. When the Romans came to
this island, the country was impassable by man. There were no roads
worthy of the name,-- what paths there were being merely foot-paths or
bridle-tracks. One of the first things the Romans did was to drive a
strongly built military road from +Richborough+, near Dover, to the
river Dee, on which they formed a standing camp (+Castra stativa+) which
to this day bears the name of +Chester+. This great road became the
highway of all travellers from north to south,-- was known as “The
Street,” and was called by the Saxons +Watling Street+. But this word
+street+ also became a much-used prefix, and took the different forms of
+strat+, +strad+, +stret+, and +streat+. All towns with such names are
to be found on this or some other great Roman road. Thus we have
+Stratford-on-Avon+, +Stratton+, +Stradbroke+, +Stretton+, +Stretford+
(near Manchester), and +Streatham+ (near London). --Over the other words
we need not dwell so long. +Colonia+ we find in +Colne+, +Lincoln+, and
others; +fossa+ in +Fossway+, +Fosbrooke+, and +Fosbridge+; +portus+,
in +Portsmouth+, and +Bridport+; and +vallum+ in the words +wall+,
+bailey+, and +bailiff+. The Normans called the two courts in front of
their castles the inner and outer baileys; and the officer in charge of
them was called the bailiff.
19. +Latin Element of the Second Period+ (i).-- The story of Pope
Gregory and the Roman mission to England is widely known. Gregory, when
a young man, was crossing the Roman forum one morning, and, when passing
the side where the slave-mart was held, observed, as he walked, some
beautiful boys, with fair hair, blue eyes, and clear bright complexion.
He asked a bystander of what nation the boys were. The answer was, that
they were Angles. “No, not Angles,” he replied; “they are angels.” On
learning further that they were heathens, he registered a silent vow
that he would, if Providence gave him an opportunity, deliver them from
the darkness of heathendom, and bring them and their relatives into the
light and liberty of the Gospel. Time passed by; and in the long course
of time Gregory became Pope. In his unlooked-for greatness, he did not
forget his vow. In the year 596 he sent over to Kent a missionary,
called Augustine, along with forty monks. They were well received by the
King of Kent, allowed to settle in Canterbury, and to build a small
cathedral there.
20. +Latin Element of the Second Period+ (ii).-- This mission, the
churches that grew out of it, the Christian customs that in time took
root in the country, and the trade that followed in its track, brought
into the language a number of Latin words, most of them the names of
church offices, services, and observances. Thus we find, in our oldest
English, the words, +postol+ from _apostolus_, a person sent; +biscop+,
from _episcopus_, an overseer; +calc+, from _calix_, a cup; +clerc+,
from _clericus_, an ordained member of the church; +munec+, from
_monăchus_, a solitary person or monk; +preost+, from _presbyter_,
an elder; +aelmesse+, from _eleēmosŭnē_, alms; +predician+, from
_prædicare_, to preach; +regol+, from _regula_, a rule. (_Apostle_,
_bishop_, _clerk_, _monk_, _priest_, and _alms_ come to us really from
Greek words-- but through the Latin tongue.)
21. +Latin Element of the Second Period+ (iii).-- The introduction of
the Roman form of Christianity brought with it increased communication
with Rome and with the Continent generally; widened the experience of
Englishmen; gave a stimulus to commerce; and introduced into this island
new things and products, and along with the things and products new
names. To this period belongs the introduction of the words: +Butter+,
+cheese+; +cedar+, +fig+, +pear+, +peach+; +lettuce, lily+; +pepper+,
+pease+; +camel+, +lion+, +elephant+; +oyster+, +trout+; +pound+,
+ounce+; +candle+, +table+; +marble+; +mint+.
22. +Latin of the Third Period+ (i).-- The Latin element of the Third
Period is in reality the French that was brought over to this island by
the Normans in 1066, and is generally called +Norman-French+. It
differed from the French of Paris both in spelling and in pronunciation.
For example, Norman-French wrote +people+ for +peuple+; +léal+ for
+loyal+; +réal+ for +royal+; +réalm+ for +royaume+; and so on. But both
of these dialects (and every dialect of French) are simply forms of
Latin-- not of the Latin written and printed in books, but of the Latin
spoken in the camp, the fields, the streets, the village, and the
cottage. The Romans conquered Gaul, where a Keltic tongue was spoken;
and the Gauls gradually adopted Latin as their mother tongue, and-- with
the exception of the Brétons of Brittany-- left off their Keltic speech
almost entirely. In adopting the Latin tongue, they had-- as in similar
cases-- taken firm hold of the root of the word, but changed the
pronunciation of it, and had, at the same time, compressed very much or
entirely dropped many of the Latin inflexions. The French people, an
intermixture of Gauls and other tribes (some of them, like the Franks,
German), ceased, in fact, to speak their own language, and learned the
Latin tongue. The Norsemen, led by Duke Rolf or Rollo or Rou, marched
south in large numbers; and, in the year 912, wrested from King Charles
the Simple the fair valley of the Seine, settled in it, and gave to it
the name of Normandy. These Norsemen, now Normans, were Teutons, and
spoke a Teutonic dialect; but, when they settled in France, they learned
in course of time to speak French. The kind of French they spoke is
called Norman-French, and it was this kind of French that they brought
over with them in 1066. But Norman-French had made its appearance in
England before the famous year of ’66; for Edward the Confessor, who
succeeded to the English throne in 1042, had been educated at the Norman
Court; and he not only spoke the language himself, but insisted on its
being spoken by the nobles who lived with him in his Court.
23. +Latin of the Third Period+ (ii). +Chief Dates+. --The Normans,
having utterly beaten down the resistance of the English, seized the
land and all the political power of this country, and filled all kinds
of offices-- both spiritual and temporal-- with their Norman brethren.
Norman-French became the language of the Court and the nobility, the
language of Parliament and the law courts, of the universities and the
schools, of the Church and of literature. The English people held fast
to their own tongue; but they picked up many French words in the markets
and other places “where men most do congregate.” But French, being the
language of the upper and ruling classes, was here and there learned by
the English or Saxon country-people who had the ambition to be in the
fashion, and were eager “to speke Frensch, for to be more y-told of,”--
to be more highly considered than their neighbours. It took about three
hundred years for French words and phrases to soak thoroughly into
English; and it was not until England was saturated with French words
and French rhythms that the great poet Chaucer appeared to produce
poetic narratives that were read with delight both by Norman baron and
by Saxon yeoman. In the course of these three hundred years this
intermixture of French with English had been slowly and silently going
on. Let us look at a few of the chief land-marks in the long process. In
+1042+ Edward the Confessor introduces Norman-French into his Court. In
+1066+ Duke William introduces Norman-French into the whole country, and
even into parts of Scotland. The oldest English, or Anglo-Saxon, ceases
to be written, anywhere in the island, in public documents, in the year
+1154+. In +1204+ we lost Normandy, a loss that had the effect of
bringing the English and the Normans closer together. Robert of
Gloucester writes his chronicle in +1272+, and uses a large number of
French words. But, as early as the reign of Henry the Third, in the year
+1258+, the reformed and reforming Government of the day issued a
proclamation in English, as well as in French and Latin. In +1303+,
Robert of Brunn introduces a large number of French words. The French
wars in Edward the Third’s reign brought about a still closer union of
the Norman and the Saxon elements of the nation. But, about the middle
of the fourteenth century a reaction set in, and it seemed as if the
genius of the English language refused to take in any more French words.
The English silent stubbornness seemed to have prevailed, and Englishmen
had made up their minds to be English in speech, as they were English to
the backbone in everything else. Norman-French had, in fact, become
provincial, and was spoken only here and there. Before the great
Plague-- commonly spoken of as “The Black Death”-- of +1349+, both high
and low seemed to be alike bent on learning French, but the reaction may
be said to date from this year. The culminating point of this reaction
may perhaps be seen in an Act of Parliament passed in +1362+ by Edward
III., by which both French and Latin had to give place to English in our
courts of law. The poems of Chaucer are the literary result-- “the
bright consummate flower” of the union of two great powers-- the
brilliance of the French language on the one hand and the homely truth
and steadfastness of English on the other. Chaucer was born in +1340+,
and died in +1400+; so that we may say that he and his poems-- though
not the causes-- are the signs and symbols of the great influence that
French obtained and held over our mother tongue. But although we
accepted so many _words_ from our Norman-French visitors and immigrants,
we accepted from them no _habit_ of speech whatever. We accepted from
them no phrase or idiom: the build and nature of the English language
remained the same-- unaffected by foreign manners or by foreign habits.
It is true that Chaucer has the ridiculous phrase, “I n’am but dead”
(for “I am quite dead”[4])-- which is a literal translation of the
well-known French idiom, “Je ne suis que.” But, though our tongue has
always been and is impervious to foreign idiom, it is probably owing to
the great influx of French words which took place chiefly in the
thirteenth century that many people have acquired a habit of using a
long French or Latin word when an English word would do quite as well--
or, indeed, a great deal better. Thus some people are found to call a
_good house_, a _desirable mansion_; and, instead of the quiet old
English proverb, “Buy once, buy twice,” we have the roundabout
Latinisms, “A single commission will ensure a repetition of orders.” An
American writer, speaking of the foreign ambassadors who had been
attacked by Japanese soldiers in Yeddo, says that “they concluded to
occupy a location more salubrious.” This is only a foreign language,
instead of the simple and homely English: “They made up their minds to
settle in a healthier spot.”
[Footnote 4: Or, as an Irishman would say, “I am kilt entirely.”]
24. +Latin of the Third Period+ (iii). +Norman Words+ (_a_). --The
Norman-French words were of several different kinds. There were words
connected with war, with feudalism, and with the chase. There were new
law terms, and words connected with the State, and the new institutions
introduced by the Normans. There were new words brought in by the Norman
churchmen. New titles unknown to the English were also introduced.
A better kind of cooking, a higher and less homely style of living, was
brought into this country by the Normans; and, along with these, new and
unheard-of words.
25. +Norman Words+ (_b_).-- The following are some of the Norman-French
terms connected with war: +Arms+, +armour+; +assault+, +battle+;
+captain+, +chivalry+; +joust+, +lance+; +standard+, +trumpet+; +mail+,+
vizor+. The English word for +armour+ was +harness+; but the Normans
degraded that word into the armour of a horse. +Battle+ comes from the
Fr. _battre_, to beat: the corresponding English word is +fight+.
+Captain+ comes from the Latin _caput_, a head. +Mail+ comes from the
Latin _macula_, the mesh of a net; and the first coats of mail were made
of rings or a kind of metal network. +Vizor+ comes from the Fr. _viser_,
to look. It was the barred part of the helmet which a man could see
through.
26. +Norman Words+ (_c_).-- Feudalism may be described as the holding of
land on condition of giving or providing service in war. Thus a knight
held land of his baron, under promise to serve him so many days; a baron
of his king, on condition that he brought so many men into the field for
such and such a time at the call of his Overlord. William the Conqueror
made the feudal system universal in every part of England, and compelled
every English baron to swear homage to himself personally. Words
relating to feudalism are, among others: +Homage+, +fealty+; +esquire+,
+vassal+; +herald+, +scutcheon+, and others. +Homage+ is the declaration
of obedience for life of one man to another-- that the inferior is the
_man_ (Fr. _homme_; L. _homo_) of the superior. +Fealty+ is the
Norman-French form of the word _fidelity_. An +esquire+ is a +scutiger+
(L.), or _shield-bearer_; for he carried the shield of the knight, when
they were travelling and no fighting was going on. A +vassal+ was a
“little young man,”-- in Low-Latin +vassallus+, a diminutive of
_vassus_, from the Keltic word _gwâs_, a man. (The form _vassaletus_ is
also found, which gives us our _varlet_ and _valet_.) +Scutcheon+ comes
from the Lat. _scutum_, a shield. Then scutcheon or escutcheon came to
mean _coat-of-arms_-- or the marks and signs on his shield by which the
name and family of a man were known, when he himself was covered from
head to foot in iron mail.
27. +Norman Words+ (_d_).-- The terms connected with the chase are:
+Brace+, +couple+; +chase+, +course+; +covert+, +copse+, +forest+;
+leveret+, +mews+; +quarry+, +venison+. A few remarks about some of
these may be interesting. +Brace+ comes from the Old French _brace_, an
arm (Mod. French _bras_); from the Latin _brachium_. The root-idea seems
to be that which encloses or holds up. Thus _bracing_ air is that which
_strings_ up the nerves and muscles; and a _brace_ of birds was two
birds tied together with a string. --The word +forest+ contains in
itself a good deal of unwritten Norman history. It comes from the Latin
adverb _foras_, out of doors. Hence, in Italy, a stranger or foreigner
is still called a _forestiere_. A forest in Norman-French was not
necessarily a breadth of land covered with trees; it was simply land
_out of_ the jurisdiction of the common law. Hence, when William the
Conqueror created the New Forest, he merely took the land _out of_ the
rule and charge of the common law, and put it under his own regal power
and personal care. In land of this kind-- much of which was kept for
hunting in-- trees were afterwards planted, partly to shelter large
game, and partly to employ ground otherwise useless in growing timber.
--+Mews+ is a very odd word. It comes from the Latin verb _mutare_, to
change. When the falcons employed in hunting were changing their
feathers, or _moulting_ (the word _moult_ is the same as _mews_ in a
different dress), the French shut them in a cage, which they called
+mue+-- from _mutare_. Then the stables for horses were put in the same
place; and hence a row of stables has come to be called a +mews+.
--+Quarry+ is quite as strange. The word _quarry_, which means a mine of
stones, comes from the Latin _quadrāre_, to make square. But the hunting
term _quarry_ is of a quite different origin. That comes from the Latin
_cor_ (the heart), which the Old French altered into +quer+. When a wild
beast was run down and killed, the heart and entrails were thrown to the
dogs as their share of the hunt. Hence Milton says of the eagle, “He
scents his quarry from afar.” --The word +venison+ comes to us, through
French, from the Lat. _venāri_, to hunt; and hence it means _hunted
flesh_. The same word gives us _venery_-- the term that was used in the
fourteenth century, by Chaucer among others, for hunting.
28. +Norman Words+ (_e_).-- The Normans introduced into England their
own system of law, their own law officers; and hence, into the English
language, came Norman-French law terms. The following are a few:
+Assize+, +attorney+; +chancellor+, +court+; +judge+, +justice+;
+plaintiff+,+ sue+; +summons+, +trespass+. A few remarks about some of
these may be useful. The +chancellor+ (_cancellarius_) was the legal
authority who sat behind lattice-work, which was called in Latin
_cancelli_. This word means, primarily, _little crabs_; and it is a
diminutive from _cancer_, a crab. It was so called because the
lattice-work looked like crabs’ claws crossed. Our word _cancel_ comes
from the same root: it means to make cross lines through anything we
wish deleted. --+Court+ comes from the Latin _cors_ or _cohors_,
a sheep-pen. It afterwards came to mean an enclosure, and also a body of
Roman soldiers. --The proper English word for a _judge_ is +deemster+ or
+demster+ (which appears as the proper name _Dempster_); and this is
still the name for a judge in the Isle of Man. The French word comes
from two Latin words, _dico_, I utter, and _jus_, right. The word jus is
seen in the other French term which we have received from the Normans--
+justice+. --+Sue+ comes from the Old Fr. _suir_, which appears in
Modern Fr. as _suivre_. It is derived from the Lat. word _sequor_,
I follow (which gives our _sequel_); and we have compounds of it in
_ensue_, _issue_, and _pursue_. --The +tres+ in +trespass+ is a French
form of the Latin trans, beyond or across. _Trespass_, therefore, means
to cross the bounds of right.
29. +Norman Words+ (_f_).-- Some of the church terms introduced by the
Norman-French are: +Altar+, +Bible+; +baptism+, +ceremony+; +friar+;
+tonsure+; +penance+, +relic+. --The Normans gave us the words +title+
and +dignity+ themselves, and also the following titles: +Duke+,
+marquis+; +count+, +viscount+; +peer+; +mayor+, and others. A duke is a
_leader_; from the Latin _dux_ (= _duc-s_). A +marquis+ is a lord who
has to ride the _marches_ or borders between one county, or between one
country, and another. A marquis was also called a +Lord-Marcher+. The
word +count+ never took root in this island, because its place was
already occupied by the Danish name _earl_; but we preserve it in the
names +countess+ and +viscount+-- the latter of which means a person _in
the place of_ (L. _vice_) a count. +Peer+ comes from the Latin _par_, an
equal. The House of Peers is the House of Lords-- that is, of those who
are, at least when in the House, _equal_ in rank and _equal_ in power of
voting. It is a fundamental doctrine in English law that every man “is
to be tried by his _peers_.” --It is worthy of note that, in general,
the +French+ names for different kinds of food designated the +cooked+
meats; while the names for the +living+ animals that furnish them are
+English+. Thus we have _beef_ and _ox_; _mutton_ and _sheep_; _veal_
and _calf_; _pork_ and _pig_. There is a remarkable passage in Sir
Walter Scott’s ‘Ivanhoe,’ which illustrates this fact with great force
and picturesqueness:--
“‘Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their
destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers,
or of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little else than to be
converted into Normans before morning, to thy no small ease and
comfort.’
“‘The swine turned Normans to my comfort!’ quoth Gurth; ‘expound that to
me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, to read
riddles.’
“‘Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on their four
legs?’ demanded Wamba.
“‘Swine, fool, swine,’ said the herd; ‘every fool knows that.’
“‘And swine is good Saxon,’ said the jester; ‘but how call you the sow
when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the heels,
like a traitor?’
“‘Pork,’ answered the swine-herd.
“‘I am very glad every fool knows that too,’ said Wamba; ‘and pork,
I think, is good Norman-French: and so when the brute lives, and is in
the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a
Norman, and is called pork, when she is carried to the castle-hall to
feast among the nobles; what dost thou think of this, friend Gurth, ha?’
“‘It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy
fool’s pate.’
“‘Nay, I can tell you more,’ said Wamba, in the same tone; ‘there is old
Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the
charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery
French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are
destined to consume him. Myhneer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in
the like manner; he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a
Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.’”
30. +General Character of the Norman-French Contributions.+-- The
Norman-French contributions to our language gave us a number of +general
names+ or +class-names+; while the names for +individual+ things are, in
general, of purely English origin. The words +animal+ and +beast+, for
example, are French (or Latin); but the words +fox+, +hound+, +whale+,
+snake+, +wasp+, and +fly+ are purely English. --The words +family+,
+relation+, +parent+, +ancestor+, are French; but the names +father+,
+mother+, +son+, +daughter+, +gossip+, are English. --The words +title+
and +dignity+ are French; but the words +king+ and +queen+, +lord+ and
+lady+, +knight+ and +sheriff+, are English. --Perhaps the most
remarkable instance of this is to be found in the abstract terms
employed for the offices and functions of State. Of these, the English
language possesses only one-- the word +kingdom+. Norman-French, on the
other hand, has given us the words +realm+, +court+, +state+,
+constitution+, +people+, +treaty+, +audience+, +navy+, +army+, and
others-- amounting in all to nearly forty. When, however, we come to
terms denoting labour and work-- such as agriculture and seafaring, we
find the proportions entirely reversed. The English language, in such
cases, contributes almost everything; the French nearly nothing. In
agriculture, while +plough+, +rake+, +harrow+, +flail+, and many others
are English words, not a single term for an agricultural process or
implement has been given us by the warlike Norman-French. --While the
words +ship+ and +boat+; +hull+ and +fleet+; +oar+ and +sail+, are all
English, the Normans have presented us with only the single word +prow+.
It is as if all the Norman conqueror had to do was to take his stand at
the prow, gazing upon the land he was going to seize, while the
Low-German sailors worked for him at oar and sail. --Again, while the
names of the various parts of the body-- +eye+, +nose+, +cheek+,
+tongue+, +hand+, +foot+, and more than eighty others-- are all English,
we have received only about ten similar words from the French-- such as
+spirit+ and +corpse+; +perspiration+; +face+ and +stature+. Speaking
broadly, we may say that all words that express +general notions+,
or generalisations, are French or Latin; while words that express
+specific+ actions or concrete existences are pure English. Mr Spalding
observes-- “We use a foreign term naturalised when we speak of ‘colour’
universally; but we fall back on our home stores if we have to tell what
the colour is, calling it ‘red’ or ‘yellow,’ ‘white’ or ‘black,’ ‘green’
or ‘brown.’ We are Romans when we speak in a _general_ way of ‘moving’;
but we are Teutons if we ‘leap’ or ‘spring,’ if we ‘slip,’ ‘slide,’ or
‘fall,’ if we ‘walk,’ ‘run,’ ‘swim,’ or ‘ride,’ if we ‘creep’ or ‘crawl’
or ‘fly.’”
31. +Gains to English from Norman-French.+-- The gains from the
Norman-French contribution are large, and are also of very great
importance. Mr Lowell says, that the Norman element came in as
quickening leaven to the rather heavy and lumpy Saxon dough. It stirred
the whole mass, gave new life to the language, a much higher and wider
scope to the thoughts, much greater power and copiousness to the
expression of our thoughts, and a finer and brighter rhythm to our
English sentences. “To Chaucer,” he says, in ‘My Study Windows,’ “French
must have been almost as truly a mother tongue as English. In him we see
the first result of the Norman yeast upon the home-baked Saxon loaf. The
flour had been honest, the paste well kneaded, but the inspiring leaven
was wanting till the Norman brought it over. Chaucer works still in the
solid material of his race, but with what airy lightness has he not
infused it? Without ceasing to be English, he has escaped from being
insular.” Let us look at some of these gains a little more in detail.
32. +Norman-French Synonyms.+-- We must not consider a +synonym+ as a
word that means exactly _the same thing_ as the word of which it is a
synonym; because then there would be neither room nor use for such a
word in the language. A synonym is a word of the same meaning as
another, but with a slightly different shade of meaning,-- or it is used
under different circumstances and in a different connection, or it puts
the same idea under a new angle. +Begin+ and +commence+, +will+ and
+testament+, are exact equivalents-- are complete synonyms; but there
are very few more of this kind in our language. The moment the genius of
a language gets hold of two words of the same meaning, it sets them to
do different kinds of work,-- to express different parts or shades of
that meaning. Thus +limb+ and +member+, +luck+ and +fortune+, have the
same meaning; but we cannot speak of a _limb_ of the Royal Society, or
of the _luck_ of the Rothschilds, who made their _fortune_ by hard work
and steady attention to business. We have, by the aid of the
Norman-French contributions, +flower+ as well as +bloom+; +branch+ and
+bough+; +purchase+ and +buy+; +amiable+ and +friendly+; +cordial+ and
+hearty+; +country+ and +land+; +gentle+ and +mild+; +desire+ and
+wish+; +labour+ and +work+; +miserable+ and +wretched+. These pairs of
words enable poets and other writers to use the right word in the right
place. And we, preferring our Saxon or good old English words to any
French or Latin importations, prefer to speak of +a hearty welcome+
instead of +a cordial reception+; of +a loving wife+ instead of an
+amiable consort+; of +a wretched man+ instead of +a miserable
individual+.
33. +Bilingualism.+-- How did these Norman-French words find their way
into the language? What was the road by which they came? What was the
process that enabled them to find a place in and to strike deep root
into our English soil? Did the learned men-- the monks and the clergy--
make a selection of words, write them in their books, and teach them to
the English people? Nothing of the sort. The process was a much ruder
one-- but at the same time one much more practical, more effectual, and
more lasting in its results. The two peoples-- the Normans and the
English-- found that they had to live together. They met at church, in
the market-place, in the drilling field, at the archery butts, in the
courtyards of castles; and, on the battle-fields of France, the Saxon
bowman showed that he could fight as well, as bravely, and even to
better purpose than his lord-- the Norman baron. At all these places,
under all these circumstances, the Norman and the Englishman were
obliged to speak with each other. Now arose a striking phenomenon. Every
man, as Professor Earle puts it, turned himself as it were into a
walking phrase-book or dictionary. When a Norman had to use a French
word, he tried to put the English word for it alongside of the French
word; when an Englishman used an English word, he joined with it the
French equivalent. Then the language soon began to swarm with “yokes of
words”; our words went in couples; and the habit then begun has
continued down even to the present day. And thus it is that we possess
such couples as +will and testament+; +act and deed+; +use and wont+;
+aid and abet+. Chaucer’s poems are full of these pairs. He joins
together +hunting and venery+ (though both words mean exactly the same
thing); +nature and kind+; +cheere and face+; +pray and beseech+; +mirth
and jollity+. Later on, the Prayer-Book, which was written in the years
1540 to 1559, keeps up the habit: and we find the pairs +acknowledge and
confess+; +assemble and meet together+; +dissemble and cloak+; +humble
and lowly+. To the more English part of the congregation the simple
Saxon words would come home with kindly association; to others, the
words _confess_, _assemble_, _dissemble_, and _humble_ would speak with
greater force and clearness. --Such is the phenomenon called by
Professor Earle +bilingualism+. “It is, in fact,” he says, “a putting of
colloquial formulæ to do the duty of a French-English and English-French
vocabulary.” Even Hooker, who wrote at the end of the sixteenth century,
seems to have been obliged to use these pairs; and we find in his
writings the couples “cecity and blindness,” “nocive and hurtful,”
“sense and meaning.”
34. +Losses of English from the Incoming of Norman-French.+-- (i) Before
the coming of the Normans, the English language was in the habit of
forming compounds with ease and effect. But, after the introduction of
the Norman-French language, that power seems gradually to have
disappeared; and ready-made French or Latin words usurped the place of
the home-grown English compound. Thus +despair+ pushed out +wanhope+;
+suspicion+ dethroned +wantrust+; +bidding-sale+ was expelled by
+auction+; +learning-knight+ by +disciple+; +rime-craft+ by the Greek
word +arithmetic+; +gold-hoard+ by +treasure+; +book-hoard+ by
+library+; +earth-tilth+ by +agriculture+; +wonstead+ by +residence+;
and so with a large number of others. --Many English words, moreover,
had their meanings depreciated and almost degraded; and the words
themselves lost their ancient rank and dignity. Thus the Norman
conquerors put their foot-- literally and metaphorically-- on the Saxon
+chair+,[5] which thus became a +stool+, or a +footstool+. +Thatch+,
which is a doublet of the word +deck+, was the name for any kind of
roof; but the coming of the Norman-French lowered it to indicate a _roof
of straw_. +Whine+ was used for the weeping or crying of human beings;
but it is now restricted to the cry of a dog. +Hide+ was the generic
term for the skin of any animal; it is now limited in modern English to
the skin of a beast. --The most damaging result upon our language was
that it entirely +stopped the growth of English words+. We could, for
example, make out of the word +burn+-- the derivatives +brunt+, +brand+,
+brandy+, +brown+, +brimstone+, and others; but this power died out with
the coming in of the Norman-French language. After that, instead of
growing our own words, we adopted them ready-made. --Professor Craik
compares the English and Latin languages to two banks; and says that,
when the Normans came over, the account at the English bank was closed,
and we drew only upon the Latin bank. But the case is worse than this.
English lost its power of growth and expansion from the centre; from
this time, it could only add to its bulk by borrowing and conveying from
without-- by the external accretion of foreign words.
[Footnote 5: _Chair_ is the Norman-French form of the French
_chaise_. The Germans still call a chair a _stuhl_; and among the
English, _stool_ was the universal name till the twelfth century.]
35. +Losses of English from the Incoming of Norman-French.+-- (ii) The
arrestment of growth in the purely English part of our language, owing
to the irruption of Norman-French, and also to the ease with which we
could take a ready-made word from Latin or from Greek, killed off an old
power which we once possessed, and which was not without its own use and
expressiveness. This was the power of making compound words. The Greeks
in ancient times had, and the Germans in modern times have, this power
in a high degree. Thus a Greek comic poet has a word of fourteen
syllables, which may be thus translated--
“Meanly-rising-early-and-hurrying-to-the-tribunal-
to-denounce-another-for-an-infraction-of-the-law-
concerning-the-exportation-of-figs.”[6]
And the Germans have a compound like “the-all-to-nothing-crushing
philosopher.” The Germans also say _iron-path_ for _railway_, _handshoe_
for _glove_, and _finger-hat_ for _thimble_. We also possessed this
power at one time, and employed it both in proper and in common names.
Thus we had and have the names _Brakespear_, _Shakestaff_, _Shakespear_,
_Golightly_, _Dolittle_, _Standfast_; and the common nouns _want-wit_,
_find-fault_, _mumble-news_ (for _tale-bearer_), _pinch-penny_ (for
_miser_), _slugabed_. In older times we had _three-foot-stool_,
_three-man-beetle_[7]; _stone-cold_, _heaven-bright_, _honey-sweet_,
_snail-slow_, _nut-brown_, _lily-livered_ (for _cowardly_);
_brand-fire-new_; _earth-wandering_, _wind-dried_, _thunder-blasted_,
_death-doomed_, and many others. But such words as _forbears_ or
_fore-elders_ have been pushed out by _ancestors_; _forewit_ by
_caution_ or _prudence_; and _inwit_ by _conscience_. Mr Barnes, the
Dorsetshire poet, would like to see these and similar compounds
restored, and thinks that we might well return to the old clear
well-springs of “English undefiled,” and make our own compounds out of
our own words. He even carries his desires into the region of English
grammar, and, for _degrees of comparison_, proposes the phrase _pitches
of suchness_. Thus, instead of the Latin word _omnibus_, he would have
_folk-wain_; for the Greek _botany_, he would substitute _wort-lore_;
for _auction_, he would give us _bode-sale_; _globule_ he would replace
with _ballkin_; the Greek word _horizon_ must give way to the pure
English _sky-edge_; and, instead of _quadrangle_, he would have us all
write and say _four-winkle_.
[Footnote 6: In two words, a _fig-shower_ or _sycophant_.]
[Footnote 7: A club for beating clothes, that could be handled
only by three men.]
36. +Losses of English from the Incoming of Norman-French.+-- (iii) When
once a way was made for the entrance of French words into our English
language, the immigrations were rapid and numerous. Hence there were
many changes both in the grammar and in the vocabulary of English from
the year 1100, the year in which we may suppose those Englishmen who
were living at the date of the battle of Hastings had died out. These
changes were more or less rapid, according to circumstances. But perhaps
the most rapid and remarkable change took place in the lifetime of
William Caxton, the great printer, who was born in 1410. In his preface
to his translation of the ‘Æneid’ of Virgil, which he published in 1490,
when he was eighty years of age, he says that he cannot understand old
books that were written when he was a boy-- that “the olde Englysshe is
more lyke to dutche than englysshe,” and that “our langage now vsed
varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken when I was borne. For
we Englysshemen ben borne ynder the domynacyon of the mone [moon], which
is neuer stedfaste, but euer wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth
and dycreaseth another season.” This as regards time. --But he has the
same complaint to make as regards place. “Comyn englysshe that is spoken
in one shyre varyeth from another.” And he tells an odd story in
illustration of this fact. He tells about certain merchants who were in
a ship “in Tamyse” (on the Thames), who were bound for Zealand, but were
wind-stayed at the Foreland, and took it into their heads to go on shore
there. One of the merchants, whose name was Sheffelde, a mercer, entered
a house, “and axed for mete, and specyally he axyd after eggys.” But the
“goode-wyf” replied that she “coude speke no frenshe.” The merchant, who
was a steady Englishman, lost his temper, “for he also coude speke no
frenshe, but wolde have hadde eggys; and she understode hym not.”
Fortunately, a friend happened to join him in the house, and he acted as
interpreter. The friend said that “he wolde have eyren; then the goode
wyf sayde that she understod hym wel.” And then the simple-minded but
much-perplexed Caxton goes on to say: “Loo! what sholde a man in thyse
dayes now wryte, eggës or eyren?” Such were the difficulties that beset
printers and writers in the close of the fifteenth century.
37. +Latin of the Fourth Period.+-- (i) This contribution differs very
essentially in character from the last. The Norman-French contribution
was a gift from a people to a people-- from living beings to living
beings; this new contribution was rather a conveyance of words from
books to books, and it never influenced-- in any great degree-- the
+spoken language+ of the English people. The ear and the mouth carried
the Norman-French words into our language; the eye, the pen, and the
printing-press were the instruments that brought in the Latin words of
the Fourth Period. The Norman-French words that came in took and kept
their place in the spoken language of the masses of the people; the
Latin words that we received in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
kept their place in the written or printed language of books, of
scholars, and of literary men. These new Latin words came in with the
+Revival of Learning+, which is also called the +Renascence+.
The Turks attacked and took Constantinople in the year +1453+; and the
great Greek and Latin scholars who lived in that city hurriedly packed
up their priceless manuscripts and books, and fled to all parts of
Italy, Germany, France, and even into England. The loss of the East
became the gain of the West. These scholars became teachers; they taught
the Greek and Roman classics to eager and earnest learners; and thus a
new impulse was given to the study of the great masterpieces of human
thought and literary style. And so it came to pass in course of time
that every one who wished to become an educated man studied the
literature of Greece and Rome. Even women took to the study. Lady Jane
Grey was a good Greek and Latin scholar; and so was Queen Elizabeth.
From this time began an enormous importation of Latin words into our
language. Being imported by the eye and the pen, they suffered little or
no change; the spirit of the people did not influence them in the
least-- neither the organs of speech nor the ear affected either the
pronunciation or the spelling of them. If we look down the columns of
any English dictionary, we shall find these later Latin words in
hundreds. _Opinionem_ became +opinion+; _factionem_, +faction+;
_orationem_, +oration+; _pungentem_ passed over in the form of +pungent+
(though we had _poignant_ already from the French); _pauperem_ came in
as +pauper+; and _separatum_ became +separate+.
38. +Latin of the Fourth Period.+-- (ii) This went on to such an extent
in the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, that one
writer says of those who spoke and wrote this Latinised English, “If
some of their mothers were alive, they were not able to tell what they
say.” And Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) remarks: “If elegancy (= the use
of Latin words) still proceedeth, and English pens maintain that stream
we have of late observed to flow from many, we shall, within a few
years, be fain to learn Latin to understand English, and a work will
prove of equal facility in either.” Mr Alexander Gill, an eminent
schoolmaster, and the then head-master of St Paul’s School, where, among
his other pupils, he taught John Milton, wrote a book in 1619 on the
English language; and, among other remarks, he says: “O harsh lips!
I now hear all around me such words as _common_, _vices_, _envy_,
_malice_; even _virtue_, _study_, _justice_, _pity_, _mercy_,
_compassion_, _profit_, _commodity_, _colour_, _grace_, _favour_,
_acceptance_. But whither, I pray, in all the world, have you banished
those words which our forefathers used for these new-fangled ones? Are
our words to be executed like our citizens?” And he calls this fashion
of using Latin words “the new mange in our speaking and writing.” But
the fashion went on growing; and even uneducated people thought it a
clever thing to use a Latin instead of a good English word. Samuel
Rowlands, a writer in the seventeenth century, ridicules this
affectation in a few lines of verse. He pretends that he was out walking
on the highroad, and met a countryman who wanted to know what o’clock it
was, and whether he was on the right way to the town or village he was
making for. The writer saw at once that he was a simple bumpkin; and,
when he heard that he had lost his way, he turned up his nose at the
poor fellow, and ordered him to be off at once. Here are the lines:--
“As on the way I itinerated,
A rural person I obviated,
Interrogating time’s transitation,
And of the passage demonstration.
My apprehension did ingenious scan
That he was merely a simplician;
So, when I saw he was extravagánt,
Unto the óbscure vulgar consonánt,
I bade him vanish most promiscuously,
And not contaminate my company.”
39. +Latin of the Fourth Period.+-- (iii) What happened in the case of
the Norman-French contribution, happened also in this. The language
became saturated with these new Latin words, until it became satiated,
then, as it were, disgusted, and would take no more. Hundreds of
“Long-tailed words in _osity_ and _ation_”
crowded into the English language; but many of them were doomed
to speedy expulsion. Thus words like _discerptibility_,
_supervacaneousness_, _septentrionality_, _ludibundness_ (love of
sport), came in in crowds. The verb _intenerate_ tried to turn out
_soften_; and _deturpate_ to take the place of _defile_. But good
writers, like Bacon and Raleigh, took care to avoid the use of such
terms, and to employ only those Latin words which gave them the power to
indicate a new idea-- a new meaning or a new shade of meaning. And when
we come to the eighteenth century, we find that a writer like Addison
would have shuddered at the very mention of such “inkhorn terms.”
40. +Eye-Latin and Ear-Latin.+-- (i) One slight influence produced by
this spread of devotion to classical Latin-- to the Latin of Cicero and
Livy, of Horace and Virgil-- was to alter the spelling of French words.
We had already received-- through the ear-- the French words _assaute_,
_aventure_, _defaut_, _dette_, _vitaille_, and others. But when our
scholars became accustomed to the book-form of these words in Latin
books, they gradually altered them-- for the eye and ear-- into
_assault_, _adventure_, _default_, _debt_, and _victuals_. They went
further. A large number of Latin words that already existed in the
language in their Norman-French form (for we must not forget that French
is Latin “with the ends bitten off”-- changed by being spoken peculiarly
and heard imperfectly) were reintroduced in their original Latin form.
Thus we had +caitiff+ from the Normans; but we reintroduced it in the
shape of +captive+, which comes almost unaltered from the Latin
_captivum_. +Feat+ we had from the Normans; but the Latin _factum_,
which provided the word, presented us with a second form of it in the
word +fact+. Such words might be called +Ear-Latin+ and +Eye-Latin+;
+Mouth-Latin+ and +Book-Latin+; +Spoken Latin+ and +Written Latin+;
or Latin at second-hand and Latin at first-hand.
41. +Eye-Latin and Ear-Latin.+-- (ii) This coming in of the same word by
two different doors-- by the Eye and by the Ear-- has given rise to the
phenomenon of +Doublets+. The following is a list of +Latin Doublets+;
and it will be noticed that Latin1 stands for Latin at first-hand-- from
books; and Latin2 for Latin at second-hand-- through the Norman-French.
LATIN DOUBLETS OR DUPLICATES.
LATIN. LATIN1. LATIN2.
Antecessorem Antecessor Ancestor.
Benedictionem Benediction Benison.
Cadentia (Low Lat. noun) Cadence Chance.
Captivum Captive Caitiff.
Conceptionem Conception Conceit.
Consuetudinem Consuetude {Custom.
{Costume.
Cophinum Coffin Coffer.
Corpus (a body) Corpse Corps.
Debitum (something owed) Debit Debt.
Defectum (something wanting) Defect Defeat.
Dilatāre Dilate Delay.
Exemplum Example Sample.
Fabrĭca (a workshop) Fabric Forge.
Factionem Faction Fashion.
Factum Fact Feat.
Fidelitatem Fidelity Fealty.
Fragilem Fragile Frail.
Gentīlis Gentile Gentle.
(belonging to a _gens_ or family)
Historia History Story.
Hospitale Hospital Hotel.
Lectionem Lection Lesson.
Legalem Legal Loyal.
Magister Master Mr.
Majorem (greater) Major Mayor.
Maledictionem Malediction Malison.
Moneta Mint Money.
Nutrimentum Nutriment Nourishment.
Orationem Oration Orison (a prayer).
Paganum Pagan Payne (a proper name).
(a dweller in a _pagus_ or country district)
Particulam (a little part) Particle Parcel.
Pauperem Pauper Poor.
Penitentiam Penitence Penance.
Persecutum Persecute Pursue.
Potionem (a draught) Potion Poison.
Pungentem Pungent Poignant.
Quietum Quiet Coy.
Radius Radius Ray.
Regālem Regal Royal.
Respectum Respect Respite.
Securum Secure Sure.
Seniorem Senior Sir.
Separatum Separate Sever.
Species Species Spice.
Statum State Estate.
Tractum Tract Trait.
Traditionem Tradition Treason.
Zelosum Zealous Jealous.
42. +Remarks on the above Table.+ --The word +benison+, a blessing, may
be contrasted with its opposite, +malison+, a curse. --+Cadence+ is the
falling of sounds; +chance+ the befalling of events. --A +caitiff+ was
at first a _captive_-- then a person who made no proper defence, but
_allowed_ himself to be taken captive. --A +corps+ is a _body_ of
troops. --The word +sample+ is found, in older English, in the form of
+ensample+. --A +feat+ of arms is a deed or +fact+ of arms, _par
excellence_. --To understand how +fragile+ became +frail+, we must
pronounce the +g+ hard, and notice how the hard guttural falls easily
away-- as in our own native words _flail_ and _hail_, which formerly
contained a hard +g+. --A +major+ is a _greater_ captain; a +mayor+ is a
greater _magistrate_. --A +magister+ means a _bigger man_-- as opposed
to a +minister+ (from _minus_), a smaller man. --+Moneta+ was the name
given to a stamped coin, because these coins were first struck in the
temple of Juno Moneta, Juno the Adviser or the Warner. (From the same
root-- +mon+-- come _monition_, _admonition_; _monitor_; _admonish_.)
--Shakespeare uses the word +orison+ freely for _prayer_, as in the
address of Hamlet to Ophelia, where he says, “Nymph, in thy orisons, be
all my sins remembered!” --+Poor+ comes to us from an Old French word
_poure_; the newer French is _pauvre_. --To understand the vanishing of
the +g+ sound in _poignant_, we must remember that the Romans sounded it
always hard. --+Sever+ we get through _separate_, because +p+ and +v+
are both labials, and therefore easily interchangeable. --+Treason+--
with its +s+ instead of +ti+-- may be compared with +benison+,
+malison+, +orison+, +poison+, and +reason+.
43. +Conclusions from the above Table.+-- If we examine the table on
page 231 with care, we shall come to several undeniable conclusions.
(i) First, the words which come to us direct from Latin are found more
in books than in everyday speech. (ii) Secondly, they are longer. The
reason is that the words that have come through French have been worn
down by the careless pronunciation of many generations-- by that desire
for ease in the pronouncing of words which characterises all languages,
and have at last been compelled to take that form which was least
difficult to pronounce. (iii) Thirdly, the two sets of words have, in
each case, either (_a_) very different meanings, or (_b_) different
shades of meaning. There is no likeness of meaning in _cadence_ and
_chance_, except the common meaning of _fall_ which belongs to the root
from which they both spring. And the different shades of meaning between
+history+ and +story+, between +regal+ and +royal+, between +persecute+
and +pursue+, are also quite plainly marked, and are of the greatest use
in composition.
44. +Latin Triplets.+-- Still more remarkable is the fact that there are
in our language words that have made three appearances-- one through
Latin, one through Norman-French, and one through ordinary French. These
seem to live quietly side by side in the language; and no one asks by
what claim they are here. They are useful: that is enough. These
triplets are-- +regal+, +royal+, and +real+; +legal+, +loyal+, and
+leal+; +fidelity+, +faithfulness+,[8] and +fealty+. The adjective real
we no longer possess in the sense of _royal_, but Chaucer uses it; and
it still exists in the noun +real-m+. +Leal+ is most used in Scotland,
where it has a settled abode in the well-known phrase “the land o’ the
leal.”
[Footnote 8: The word _faith_ is a true French word with an
English ending-- the ending +th+. Hence it is a hybrid. The old
French word was _fei_-- from the Latin _fidem_; and the ending
+th+ was added to make it look more like _truth_, _wealth_,
_health_, and other purely English words.]
45. +Greek Doublets.+-- The same double introduction, which we noticed
in the case of Latin words, takes place in regard to Greek words. It
seems to have been forgotten that our English forms of them had been
already given us by St Augustine and the Church, and a newer form of
each was reintroduced. The following are a few examples:--
GREEK. OLDER FORM. LATER FORM.
Adamanta[9] (the untameable) Diamond Adamant.
Balsamon Balm Balsam.
Blasphēmein (to speak ill of) Blame Blaspheme.
Cheirourgon[9] Chirurgeon Surgeon.
(a worker with the hand)
Dactŭlon (a finger) Date (the fruit) Dactyl.
Phantasia Fancy Phantasy.
Phantasma (an appearance) Phantom Phantasm.
Presbuteron (an elder) Priest Presbyter.
Paralysis Palsy Paralysis.
Scandălon Slander Scandal.
[Footnote 9: The accusative or objective case is given in all
these words.]
It may be remarked of the word _fancy_, that, in Shakespeare’s time,
it meant _love_ or _imagination_--
“Tell me, where is _fancy_ bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?”
It is now restricted to mean a lighter and less serious kind of
imagination. Thus we say that Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ is a work of
imagination; but that Moore’s ‘Lalla Rookh’ is a product of the poet’s
fancy.
46. +Characteristics of the Two Elements of English.+-- If we keep our
attention fixed on the two chief elements in our language-- the English
element and the Latin element-- the Teutonic and the Romance-- we shall
find some striking qualities manifest themselves. We have already said
that whole sentences can be made containing only English words, while it
is impossible to do this with Latin or other foreign words. Let us take
two passages-- one from a daily newspaper, and the other from
Shakespeare:--
(i) “We find the _functions_ of such an _official_ _defined_ in the
_Act_. He is to be a _legally_ _qualified_ _medical_ _practitioner_
of skill and _experience_, to _inspect_ and _report_ _periodically_
on the _sanitary_ _condition_ of town or _district_; to _ascertain_
the _existence_ of _diseases_, more _especially_ _epidemics_
_increasing_ the _rates_ of _mortality_, and to _point_ out the
_existence_ of any _nuisances_ or other _local_ _causes_, which are
likely to _originate_ and _maintain_ such _diseases_, and
_injuriously_ _affect_ the health of the _inhabitants_ of such town
or _district_; to take _cognisance_ of the _existence_ of any
_contagious_ _disease_, and to point out the most _efficacious_
_means_ for the _ventilation_ of _chapels_, _schools_, _registered_
_lodging_-houses, and other _public_ buildings.”
In this passage, all the words in italics are either Latin or Greek.
But, if the purely English words were left out, the sentence would fall
into ruins-- would become a mere rubbish-heap of words. It is the small
particles that give life and motion to each sentence. They are the
joints and hinges on which the whole sentence moves. --Let us now look
at a passage from Shakespeare. It is from the speech of Macbeth, after
he has made up his mind to murder Duncan:--
(ii) “Go bid thy _mistress_, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed!--
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come! let me clutch thee!
--I have thee not; and yet I see thee still.”
In this passage there is only one Latin (or French) word-- the word
_mistress_. If Shakespeare had used the word +lady+, the passage would
have been entirely English. --The passage from the newspaper deals with
large +generalisations+; that from Shakespeare with individual +acts+
and +feelings+-- with things that come +home+ “to the business and
bosom” of man as man. Every master of the English language understands
well the art of mingling the two elements-- so as to obtain a fine
effect; and none better than writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and
Tennyson. Shakespeare makes Antony say of Cleopatra:--
“Age cannot wither her; nor _custom_ stale
Her infinite _variety_.”
Here the French (or Latin) words _custom_ and _variety_ form a vivid
contrast to the English verb _stale_, throw up its meaning and colour,
and give it greater prominence. --Milton makes Eve say:--
“I thither went
With _inexperienc’d_ thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the _clear_
Smooth _lake_, that to me seem’d another sky.”
Here the words _inexperienced_ and _clear_ give variety to the sameness
of the English words. --Gray, in the Elegy, has this verse:--
“The breezy call of _incense_-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill _clarion_ or the _echoing_ horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.”
Here _incense_, _clarion_, and _echoing_ give a vivid colouring to the
plainer hues of the homely English phrases. --Tennyson, in the
Lotos-Eaters, vi., writes:--
“Dear is the _memory_ of our wedded lives,
And dear the last _embraces_ of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath _suffer’d_ _change_;
For _surely_ now our household hearths are cold:
Our sons _inherit_ us: our looks are _strange_:
And we should come like ghosts to _trouble_ _joy_.”
Most powerful is the introduction of the French words _suffered change_,
_inherit_, _strange_, and _trouble joy_; for they give with painful
force the contrast of the present state of desolation with the homely
rest and happiness of the old abode, the love of the loving wives, the
faithfulness of the stalwart sons.
47. +English and other Doublets.+-- We have already seen how, by the
presentation of the same word at two different doors-- the door of Latin
and the door of French-- we are in possession of a considerable number
of doublets. But this phenomenon is not limited to Latin and French-- is
not solely due to the contributions we receive from these languages. We
find it also +within+ English itself; and causes of the most different
description bring about the same results. For various reasons, the
English language is very rich in doublets. It possesses nearly five
hundred pairs of such words. The language is all the richer for having
them, as it is thereby enabled to give fuller and clearer expression to
the different shades and delicate varieties of meaning in the mind.
48. +The sources of doublets+ are various. But five different causes
seem chiefly to have operated in producing them. They are due to
differences of +pronunciation+; to differences in +spelling+; to
+contractions+ for convenience in daily speech; to differences in
+dialects+; and to the fact that many of them come from +different
languages+. Let us look at a few examples of each. At bottom, however,
all these differences will be found to resolve themselves into
+differences of pronunciation+. They are either differences in the
pronunciation of the same word by different tribes, or by men in
different counties, who speak different dialects; or by men of different
nations.
49. +Differences in Pronunciation.+-- From this source we have +parson+
and +person+ (the parson being the _person_ or representative of the
Church); +sop+ and +soup+; +task+ and +tax+ (the +sk+ has here become
+ks+); +thread+ and +thrid+; +ticket+ and +etiquette+; +sauce+ and
+souse+ (to steep in brine); +squall+ and +squeal+.
50. +Differences in Spelling.+-- +To+ and +too+ are the same word-- one
being used as a preposition, the other as an adverb; +of+ and +off+,
+from+ and +fro+, are only different spellings, which represent
different functions or uses of the same word; +onion+ and +union+ are
the same word. An +union+[10] comes from the Latin +unus+, one, and it
meant a large single pearl-- a unique jewel; the word was then applied
to the plant, the head of which is of a pearl-shape.
[Footnote 10: In Hamlet v. 2. 283, Shakespeare makes the King say--
“The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath;
And in the cup an union shall he throw.”]
51. +Contractions.+-- Contraction has been a pretty fruitful source of
doublets in English. A long word has a syllable or two cut off; or two
or three are compressed into one. Thus +example+ has become +sample+;
+alone+ appears also as +lone+; +amend+ has been shortened into +mend+;
+defend+ has been cut down into +fend+ (as in +fender+); +manœuvre+ has
been contracted into +manure+ (both meaning originally to work with the
hand); +madam+ becomes +’m+ in +yes ’m+[11]; and +presbyter+ has been
squeezed down into +priest+.[12] Other examples of contraction are:
+capital+ and +cattle+; +chirurgeon+ (a worker with the hand) and
+surgeon+; +cholera+ and +choler+ (from chŏlos, the Greek word for
_bile_); +disport+ and +sport+; +estate+ and +state+; +esquire+ and
+squire+; +Egyptian+ and +gipsy+; +emmet+ and +ant+; +gammon+ and
+game+; +grandfather+ and +gaffer+; +grandmother+ and +gammer+; +iota+
(the Greek letter +i+) and +jot+; +maximum+ and +maxim+; +mobile+ and
+mob+; +mosquito+ and +musket+; +papa+ and +pope+; +periwig+ and +wig+;
+poesy+ and +posy+; +procurator+ and +proctor+; +shallop+ and +sloop+;
+unity+ and +unit+. It is quite evident that the above pairs of words,
although in reality one, have very different meanings and uses.
[Footnote 11: Professor Max Müller gives this as the most
remarkable instance of cutting down. The Latin _mea domina_ became
in French _madame_; in English _ma’am_; and, in the language of
servants, _’m_.]
[Footnote 12: Milton says, in one of his sonnets--
“New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.”
From the etymological point of view, the truth is just the other
way about. _Priest_ is old _Presbyter_ writ small.]
52. +Difference of English Dialects.+-- Another source of doublets is to
be found in the dialects of the English language. Almost every county in
England has its own dialect; but three main dialects stand out with
great prominence in our older literature, and these are the +Northern+,
the +Midland+, and the +Southern+. The grammar of these dialects[13] was
different; their pronunciation of words was different-- and this has
given rise to a splitting of one word into two. In the North, we find a
hard +c+, as in the _caster_ of +Lancaster+; in the Midlands, a soft
+c+, as in +Leicester+; in the South, a +ch+, as in +Winchester+. We
shall find similar differences of hardness and softness in ordinary
words. Thus we find +kirk+ and +church+; +canker+ and +cancer+; +canal+
and +channel+; +deck+ and +thatch+; +drill+ and +thrill+; +fan+ and
+van+ (in a winnowing-machine); +fitch+ and +vetch+; +hale+ and +whole+;
+mash+ and +mess+; +naught+, +nought+, and +not+; +pike+, +peak+, and
+beak+; +poke+ and +pouch+; +quid+ (a piece of tobacco for chewing) and
+cud+ (which means the thing _chewed_); +reave+ and +rob+; +ridge+ and
+rig+; +scabby+ and +shabby+; +scar+ and +share+; +screech+ and
+shriek+; +shirt+ and +skirt+; +shuffle+ and +scuffle+; +spray+ and
+sprig+; +wain+ and +waggon+-- and other pairs. All of these are but
different modes of pronouncing the same word in different parts of
England; but the genius of the language has taken advantage of these
different +ways of pronouncing+ to make different +words+ out of them,
and to give them different functions, meanings, and uses.
[Footnote 13: See p. 242.]
CHAPTER III.
HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH.
1. +The Oldest English Synthetic.+-- The oldest English, or Anglo-Saxon,
that was brought over here in the fifth century, was a language that
showed the relations of words to each other by adding different endings
to words, or by +synthesis+. These endings are called +inflexions+.
Latin and Greek are highly inflected languages; French and German have
many more inflexions than modern English; and ancient English (or
Anglo-Saxon) also possessed a large number of inflexions.
2. +Modern English Analytic.+-- When, instead of inflexions, a language
employs small particles-- such as prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and
suchlike words-- to express the relations of words to each other, such a
language is called +analytic+ or +non-inflexional+. When we say, as we
used to say in the oldest English, “God is ealra cyninga cyning,” we
speak a synthetic language. But when we say, “God is king _of_ all
kings,” then we employ an analytic or uninflected language.
3. +Short View of the History of English Grammar.+-- From the time when
the English language came over to this island, it has grown steadily in
the number of its words. On the other hand, it has lost just as steadily
in the number of its inflexions. Put in a broad and somewhat rough
fashion, it may be said that--
(i) +Up to the year 1100-- one generation after the Battle of Senlac--
the English language was a+ SYNTHETIC +Language.+
(ii) +From the year 1100 or thereabouts, English has been losing its
inflexions, and gradually becoming more and more an ANALYTIC
Language.+
4. +Causes of this Change.+-- Even before the coming of the Danes and
the Normans, the English people had shown a tendency to get rid of some
of their inflexions. A similar tendency can be observed at the present
time among the Germans of the Rhine Province, who often drop an +n+ at
the end of a word, and show in other respects a carelessness about
grammar. But, when a foreign people comes among natives, such a tendency
is naturally encouraged, and often greatly increased. The natives
discover that these inflexions are not so very important, if only they
can get their meaning rightly conveyed to the foreigners. Both parties,
accordingly, come to see that the +root+ of the word is the most
important element; they stick to that, and they come to neglect the mere
inflexions. Moreover, the accent in English words always struck the
root; and hence this part of the word always fell on the ear with the
greater force, and carried the greater weight. When the Danes-- who
spoke a cognate language-- began to settle in England, the tendency to
drop inflexions increased; but when the Normans-- who spoke an entirely
different language-- came, the tendency increased enormously, and the
inflexions of Anglo-Saxon began to “fall as the leaves fall” in the dry
wind of a frosty October. Let us try to trace some of these changes and
losses.
5. +Grammar of the First Period, 450-1100.+-- The English of this period
is called the +Oldest English+ or +Anglo-Saxon+. The gender of nouns was
arbitrary, or-- it may be-- poetical; it did not, as in modern English
it does, follow the sex. Thus +nama+, a name, was masculine; +tunge+,
a tongue, feminine; and +eáge+, an eye, neuter. Like _nama_, the proper
names of men ended in _a_; and we find such names as Isa, Offa, Penda,
as the names of kings. Nouns at this period had five cases, with
inflexions for each; now we possess but one inflexion-- that for the
possessive. --Even the definite article was inflected. --The infinitive
of verbs ended in +an+; and the sign _to_-- which we received from the
Danes-- was not in use, except for the dative of the infinitive. This
dative infinitive is still preserved in such phrases as “a house to
let;” “bread to eat;” “water to drink.” --The present participle ended
in +ende+ (in the North +ande+). This present participle may be said
still to exist-- in spoken, but not in written speech; for some people
regularly say _walkin_, _goin_, for _walking_ and _going_. --The plural
of the present indicative ended in +ath+ for all three persons. In the
perfect tense, the plural ending was +on+. --There was no future tense;
the work of the future was done by the present tense. Fragments of this
usage still survive in the language, as when we say, “He goes up to town
next week.” --Prepositions governed various cases; and not always the
objective (or accusative), as they do now.
6. +Grammar of the Second Period, 1100-1250.+-- The English of this
period is called +Early English+. Even before the coming of the Normans,
the inflexions of our language had-- as we have seen-- begun to drop
off, and it was slowly on the way to becoming an analytic language. The
same changes-- the same simplification of grammar, has taken place in
nearly every Low German language. But the coming of the Normans hastened
these changes, for it made the inflexional endings of words of much less
practical importance to the English themselves. --Great changes took
place in the pronunciation also. The hard +c+ or +k+ was softened into
+ch+; and the hard guttural +g+ was refined into a +y+ or even into a
silent +w+. --A remarkable addition was made to the language. The Oldest
English or Anglo-Saxon had no indefinite article. They said _ofer stán_
for _on_ a _rock_. But, as the French have made the article +un+ out of
the Latin +unus+, so the English pared down the northern +ane+ (= +one+)
into the article +an+ or +a+. The Anglo-Saxon definite article was +se+,
+seo+, +þaet+; and in the grammar of this Second Period it became +þe+,
+þeo+, +þe+. --The French plural in +es+ took the place of the English
plural in +en+. But _housen_ and _shoon_ existed for many centuries
after the Norman coming; and Mr Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, still
deplores the ugly sound of _nests_ and _fists_, and would like to be
able to say and to write _nesten_ and _fisten_. --The dative plural,
which ended in +um+, becomes an +e+ or an +en+. The +um+, however, still
exists in the form of +om+ in +seldom+ (= at few times) and +whilom+
(= in old times). --The gender of nouns falls into confusion, and begins
to show a tendency to follow the sex. --Adjectives show a tendency to
drop several of their inflexions, and to become as serviceable and
accommodating as they are now-- when they are the same with all numbers,
genders, and cases. --The +an+ of the infinitive becomes +en+, and
sometimes even the +n+ is dropped. --+Shall+ and +will+ begin to be used
as tense-auxiliaries for the future tense.
7. +Grammar of the Third Period, 1250-1350.+-- The English of this
period is often called +Middle English+. --The definite article still
preserves a few inflexions. --Nouns that were once masculine or feminine
become neuter, for the sake of convenience. --The possessive in +es+
becomes general. --Adjectives make their plural in +e+. --The infinitive
now takes +to+ before it-- except after a few verbs, like _bid_, _see_,
_hear_, etc. --The present participle in +inge+ makes its appearance
about the year 1300.
8. +Grammar of the Fourth Period, 1350-1485.+-- This may be called
+Later Middle English+. An old writer of the fourteenth century points
out that, in his time-- and before it-- the English language was
“a-deled a thre,” divided into three; that is, that there were three
main dialects, the +Northern+, the +Midland+, and the +Southern+. There
were many differences in the grammar of these dialects; but the chief of
these differences is found in the plural of the present indicative of
the verb. This part of the verb formed its plurals in the following
manner:--
NORTHERN. MIDLAND. SOUTHERN.
We hopës We hopen We hopeth.
You hopës You hopen You hopeth.
They hopës They hopen They hopeth.[14]
In time the Midland dialect conquered; and the East Midland form of it
became predominant all over England. As early as the beginning of the
thirteenth century, this dialect had thrown off most of the old
inflexions, and had become almost as flexionless as the English of the
present day. Let us note a few of the more prominent changes. --The
first personal pronoun +Ic+ or +Ich+ loses the guttural, and becomes
+I+. --The pronouns +him+, +them+, and +whom+, which are true datives,
are used either as datives or as objectives. --The imperative plural
ends in +eth+. “Riseth up,” Chaucer makes one of his characters say,
“and stondeth by me!” --The useful and almost ubiquitous letter +e+
comes in as a substitute for +a+, +u+, and even +an+. Thus +nama+
becomes +name+, +sunu+ (son) becomes +sune+, and +withutan+ changes into
+withute+. --The dative of adjectives is used as an adverb. Thus we find
+softë+, +brightë+ employed like our +softly+, +brightly+. --The +n+ in
the infinitive has fallen away; but the +ë+ is sounded as a separate
syllable. Thus we find +brekë+, +smitë+ for _breken_ and _smiten_.
[Footnote 14: This plural we still find in the famous Winchester
motto, “Manners maketh man.”]
9. +General View.+-- In the time of King Alfred, the West-Saxon speech--
the Wessex dialect-- took precedence of the rest, and became the
literary dialect of England. But it had not, and could not have, any
influence on the spoken language of other parts of England, for the
simple reason that very few persons were able to travel, and it took
days-- and even weeks-- for a man to go from Devonshire to Yorkshire. In
course of time the Midland dialect-- that spoken between the Humber and
the Thames-- became the predominant dialect of England; and the East
Midland variety of this dialect became the parent of modern standard
English. This predominance was probably due to the fact that it, soonest
of all, got rid of its inflexions, and became most easy, pleasant, and
convenient to use. And this disuse of inflexions was itself probably due
to the early Danish settlements in the east, to the larger number of
Normans in that part of England, to the larger number of thriving towns,
and to the greater and more active communication between the eastern
seaports and the Continent. The inflexions were first confused, then
weakened, then forgotten, finally lost. The result was an extreme
simplification, which still benefits all learners of the English
language. Instead of spending a great deal of time on the learning of a
large number of inflexions, which are to them arbitrary and meaningless,
foreigners have only to fix their attention on the words and phrases
themselves, that is, on the very pith and marrow of the language--
indeed, on the language itself. Hence the great German grammarian Grimm,
and others, predict that English will spread itself all over the world,
and become the universal language of the future. In addition to this
almost complete sweeping away of all inflexions,-- which made Dr Johnson
say, “Sir, the English language has no grammar at all,”-- there were
other remarkable and useful results which accrued from the coming in of
the Norman-French and other foreign elements.
10. +Monosyllables.+-- The stripping off of the inflexions of our
language cut a large number of words down to the root. Hundreds, if not
thousands, of our verbs were dissyllables, but, by the gradual loss of
the ending +en+ (which was in Anglo-Saxon +an+), they became
monosyllables. Thus +bindan+, +drincan+, +findan+, became +bind+,
+drink+, +find+; and this happened with hosts of other verbs. Again, the
expulsion of the guttural, which the Normans never could or would take
to, had the effect of compressing many words of two syllables into one.
Thus +haegel+, +twaegen+, and +faegen+, became +hail+, +twain+, and
+fain+. --In these and other ways it has come to pass that the present
English is to a very large extent of a monosyllabic character. So much
is this the case, that whole books have been written for children in
monosyllables. It must be confessed that the monosyllabic style is often
dull, but it is always serious and homely. We can find in our
translation of the Bible whole verses that are made up of words of only
one syllable. Many of the most powerful passages in Shakespeare, too,
are written in monosyllables. The same may be said of hundreds of our
proverbs-- such as, “Cats hide their claws”; “Fair words please fools”;
“He that has most time has none to lose.” Great poets, like Tennyson and
Matthew Arnold, understand well the fine effect to be produced from the
mingling of short and long words-- of the homely English with the more
ornate Romance language. In the following verse from Matthew Arnold the
words are all monosyllables, with the exception of _tired_ and
_contention_ (which is Latin):--
“Let the long contention cease;
Geese are swans, and swans are geese;
Let them have it how they will,
Thou art tired. Best be still!”
In Tennyson’s “Lord of Burleigh,” when the sorrowful husband comes to
look upon his dead wife, the verse runs almost entirely in
monosyllables:--
“And he came to look upon her,
And he looked at her, and said:
‘Bring the dress, and put it on her,
That she wore when she was wed.’”
An American writer has well indicated the force of the English
monosyllable in the following sonnet:--
“Think not that strength lies in the big, _round_ word,
Or that the _brief_ and _plain_ must needs be weak.
To whom can this be true who once has heard
The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak,
When want, or fear, or woe, is in the throat,
So that each word gasped out is like a shriek
_Pressed_ from the sore heart, or a _strange_, wild _note_
Sung by some _fay_ or fiend! There is a strength,
Which dies if stretched too far, or spun too fine,
Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length;
Let but this _force_ of thought and speech be mine,
And he that will may take the sleek fat _phrase_,
Which glows but burns not, though it beam and shine;
Light, but no heat,-- a flash, but not a blaze.”
It will be observed that this sonnet consists entirely of monosyllables,
and yet that the style of it shows considerable power and vigour. The
words printed in italics are all derived from Latin, with the exception
of the word _phrase_, which is Greek.
11. +Change in the Order of Words.+-- The syntax-- or order of words--
of the oldest English was very different from that of Norman-French. The
syntax of an Old English sentence was clumsy and involved; it kept the
attention long on the strain; it was rumbling, rambling, and unpleasant
to the ear. It kept the attention on the strain, because the verb in a
subordinate clause was held back, and not revealed till we had come to
the end of the clause. Thus the Anglo-Saxon wrote (though in different
form and spelling)--
“When Darius saw, that he overcome be would.”
The newer English, under French influence, wrote--
“When Darius saw that he was going to be overcome.”
This change has made an English sentence lighter and more easy to
understand, for the reader or hearer is not kept waiting for the verb;
but each word comes just when it is expected, and therefore in its
“natural” place. The Old English sentence-- which is very like the
German sentence of the present day-- has been compared to a heavy cart
without springs, while the newer English sentence is like a modern
well-hung English carriage. Norman-French, then, gave us a brighter,
lighter, freer rhythm, and therefore a sentence more easy to understand
and to employ, more supple, and better adapted to everyday use.
12. +The Expulsion of Gutturals.+-- (i) Not only did the Normans help us
to an easier and pleasanter kind of sentence, they aided us in getting
rid of the numerous throat-sounds that infested our language. It is a
remarkable fact that there is not now in the French language a single
guttural. There is not an +h+ in the whole language. The French _write_
an +h+ in several of their words, but they never sound it. Its use is
merely to serve as a fence between two vowels-- to keep two vowels
separate, as in _la haine_, hatred. No doubt the Normans could utter
throat-sounds well enough when they dwelt in Scandinavia; but, after
they had lived in France for several generations, they acquired a great
dislike to all such sounds. No doubt, too, many, from long disuse, were
unable to give utterance to a guttural. This dislike they communicated
to the English; and hence, in the present day, there are many people--
especially in the south of England-- who cannot sound a guttural at all.
The muscles in the throat that help to produce these sounds have become
atrophied-- have lost their power for want of practice. The purely
English part of the population, for many centuries after the Norman
invasion, could sound gutturals quite easily-- just as the Scotch and
the Germans do now; but it gradually became the fashion in England to
leave them out.
13. +The Expulsion of Gutturals.+-- (ii) In some cases the guttural
disappeared entirely; in others, it was changed into or represented by
other sounds. The +ge+ at the beginning of the passive (or past)
participles of many verbs disappeared entirely. Thus +gebróht+,
+gebóht+, +geworht+, became +brought+, +bought+, and +wrought+. The +g+
at the beginning of many words also dropped off. Thus +Gyppenswich+
became +Ipswich+; +gif+ became +if+; +genoh+, +enough+. --The guttural
at the end of words-- hard +g+ or +c+-- also disappeared. Thus +halig+
became +holy+; +eordhlic+, +earthly+; +gastlic+, +ghastly+ or +ghostly+.
The same is the case in +dough+, +through+, +plough+, etc. --the
guttural appearing to the eye but not to the ear. --Again, the guttural
was changed into quite different sounds-- into labials, into sibilants,
into other sounds also. The following are a few examples:--
(_a_) The guttural has been softened, through Norman-French influence,
into a +sibilant+. Thus +rigg+, +egg+, and +brigg+ have become +ridge+,
+edge+, and +bridge+.
(_b_) The guttural has become a +labial+-- +f+-- as in +cough+,
+enough+, +trough+, +laugh+, +draught+, etc.
(_c_) The guttural has become an additional syllable, and is represented
by a +vowel-sound+. Thus +sorg+ and +mearh+ have become +sorrow+ and
+marrow+.
(_d_) In some words it has disappeared both to eye and ear. Thus +makëd+
has become +made+.
14. +The Story of the GH.+-- How is it, then, that we have in so many
words the two strongest gutturals in the language-- +g+ and +h+-- not
only separately, in so many of our words, but combined? The story is an
odd one. Our Old English or Saxon scribes wrote-- not +light+, +might+,
and +night+, but +liht+, +miht+, and +niht+. When, however, they found
that the Norman-French gentlemen would not sound the +h+, and say-- as
is still said in Scotland-- _li+ch+t_, &c., they redoubled the guttural,
strengthened the +h+ with a hard +g+, and again presented the dose to
the Norman. But, if the Norman could not sound the +h+ alone, still less
could he sound the double guttural; and he very coolly let both alone--
ignored both. The Saxon scribe doubled the signs for his guttural, just
as a farmer might put up a strong wooden fence in front of a hedge; but
the Norman cleared both with perfect ease and indifference. And so it
came to pass that we have the symbol +gh+ in more than seventy of our
words, and that in most of these we do not sound it at all. The +gh+
remains in our language, like a moss-grown boulder, brought down into
the fertile valley in a glacial period, when gutturals were both spoken
and written, and men believed in the truthfulness of letters-- but now
passed by in silence and noticed by no one.
15. +The Letters that represent Gutturals.+-- The English guttural has
been quite Protean in the written or printed forms it takes. It appears
as an +i+, as a +y+, as a +w+, as a +ch+, as a +dge+, as a +j+, and-- in
its more native forms-- as a +g+, a +k+, or a +gh+. The following words
give all these forms: ha+i+l, da+y+, fo+w+l, tea+ch+, e+dge+, a+j+ar,
dra+g+, truc+k+, and trou+gh+. Now _hail_ was _hagol_, _day_ was _daeg_,
_fowl_ was _fugol_, _teach_ was _taecan_, _edge_ was _egg_, _ajar_ was
_achar_. In +seek+, +beseech+, +sought+-- which are all different forms
of the same word-- we see the guttural appearing in three different
forms-- as a hard +k+, as a soft +ch+, as an unnoticed +gh+. In +think+
and +thought+, +drink+ and +draught+, +sly+ and +sleight+, +dry+ and
+drought+, +slay+ and +slaughter+, it takes two different forms. In
+dig+, +ditch+, and +dike+-- which are all the same word in different
shapes-- it again takes three forms. In +fly+, +flew+, and +flight+,
it appears as a +y+, a +w+, and a +gh+. But, indeed, the manners of a
guttural, its ways of appearing and disappearing, are almost beyond
counting.
16. +Grammatical Result of the Loss of Inflexions.+-- When we look at a
Latin or French or German word, we know whether it is a verb or a noun
or a preposition by its mere appearance-- by its face or by its dress,
so to speak. But the loss of inflexions which has taken place in the
English language has resulted in depriving us of this advantage-- if
advantage it is. Instead of +looking+ at the +face+ of a word in
English, we are obliged to +think+ of its +function+,-- that is, of what
it does. We have, for example, a large number of words that are both
nouns and verbs-- we may use them as the one or as the other; and, till
we have used them, we cannot tell whether they are the one or the other.
Thus, when we speak of “a +cut+ on the finger,” +cut+ is a +noun+,
because it is a name; but when we say, “Harry cut his finger,” then
+cut+ is a +verb+, because it tells something about Harry. Words like
+bud+, +cane+, +cut+, +comb+, +cap+, +dust+, +fall+, +fish+, +heap+,
+mind+, +name+, +pen+, +plaster+, +punt+, +run+, +rush+, +stone+, and
many others, can be used either as +nouns+ or as +verbs+. Again, +fast+,
+quick+, and +hard+ may be used either as +adverbs+ or as +adjectives+;
and +back+ may be employed as an +adverb+, as a +noun+, and even as an
+adjective+. Shakespeare is very daring in the use of this licence. He
makes one of his characters say, “But me no buts!” In this sentence, the
first _but_ is a +verb+ in the imperative mood; the second is a +noun+
in the objective case. Shakespeare uses also such verbs as _to glad_,
_to mad_, such phrases as _a seldom pleasure_, and _the fairest she_.
Dr Abbott says, “In Elizabethan English, almost any part of speech can
be used as any other part of speech. An adverb can be used as a verb,
‘they _askance_ their eyes’; as a noun, ‘the _backward_ and abysm of
time’; or as an adjective, ‘a seldom pleasure.’ Any noun, adjective, or
neuter verb can be used as an active verb. You can ‘happy’ your friend,
‘malice’ or ‘fool’ your enemy, or ‘fall’ an axe upon his neck.” Even in
modern English, almost any noun can be used as a verb. Thus we can say,
“to _paper_ a room”; “to _water_ the horses”; “to _black-ball_ a
candidate”; to “_iron_ a shirt” or “a prisoner”; “to _toe_ the line.” On
the other hand, verbs may be used as nouns; for we can speak of a
_work_, of a beautiful _print_, of a long _walk_, and so on.
CHAPTER IV.
SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFERENT PERIODS.
1. +Vocabulary and Grammar.+-- The oldest English or Anglo-Saxon differs
from modern English both in vocabulary and in grammar-- in the words it
uses and in the inflexions it employs. The difference is often
startling. And yet, if we look closely at the words and their dress, we
shall most often find that the words which look so strange are the very
words with which we are most familiar-- words that we are in the habit
of using every day; and that it is their dress alone that is strange and
antiquated. The effect is the same as if we were to dress a modern man
in the clothes worn a thousand years ago: the chances are that we should
not be able to recognise even our dearest friend.
2. +A Specimen from Anglo-Saxon.+-- Let us take as an example a verse
from the Anglo-Saxon version of one of the Gospels. The well-known
verse, Luke ii. 40, runs thus in our oldest English version:--
Sóþlíce ðaet cild weox, and waes gestrangod, wisdómes full; and
Godes gyfu waes on him.
Now this looks like an extract from a foreign language; but it is not:
it is our own veritable mother-tongue. Every word is pure ordinary
English; it is the dress-- the spelling and the inflexions-- that is
quaint and old-fashioned. This will be plain from a literal
translation:--
Soothly that child waxed, and was strengthened, wisdoms full (= full
of wisdom); and God’s gift was on him.
3. +A Comparison.+-- This will become plainer if we compare the English
of the Gospels as it was written in different periods of our language.
The alteration in the meanings of words, the changes in the application
of them, the variation in the use of phrases, the falling away of the
inflexions-- all these things become plain to the eye and to the mind as
soon as we thoughtfully compare the different versions. The following
are extracts from the Anglo-Saxon version (995), the version of Wycliffe
(1389) and of Tyndale (1526), of the passage in Luke ii. 44, 45:--
ANGLO-SAXON.
WYCLIFFE.
TYNDALE.
Wéndon ðaet he on heora gefére wáere, ðá comon hig ánes daeges faer,
and hine sóhton betweox his magas and his cúðan.
Forsothe thei gessinge him to be in the felowschipe, camen the wey
of á day, and souȝten him among his cosyns and knowen.
For they supposed he had bene in the company, they cam a days
iorney, and sought hym amonge their kynsfolke and acquayntaunce.
Ða hig hyne ne fúndon, hig gewendon to Hierusalem, hine sécende.
And thei not fyndinge, wenten aȝen to Jerusalem, sekynge him.
And founde hym not, they went backe agayne to Hierusalem,
and sought hym.
The literal translation of the Anglo-Saxon version is as follows:--
(They) weened that he on their companionship were (= was), when came
they one day’s faring, and him sought betwixt his relations and his
couth (folk = acquaintances).
When they him not found, they turned to Jerusalem, him seeking.
4. +The Lord’s Prayer.+-- The same plan of comparison may be applied to
the different versions of the Lord’s Prayer that have come down to us;
and it will be seen from this comparison that the greatest changes have
taken place in the grammar, and especially in that part of the grammar
which contains the inflexions.
THE LORD’S PRAYER.
+1130.+
REIGN OF STEPHEN.
+1250.+
REIGN OF HENRY III.
+1380.+
WYCLIFFE’S VERSION.
+1526.+
TYNDALE’S VERSION.
Fader ure, þe art on heofone.
Fadir ur, that es in hevene,
Our Fadir, that art in hevenys,
Our Father which art in heaven;
Sy gebletsod name þin,
Halud thi nam to nevene;
Halewid be thi name;
Halowed be thy name;
Cume þin rike.
Thou do as thi rich rike;
Thi kingdom come to;
Let thy kingdom come;
Si þin wil swa swa on heofone and on eorþan.
Thi will on erd be wrought, eek as it is wrought in heven ay.
Be thi wil done in erthe, as in hevene.
Thy will be fulfilled as well in earth as it is in heven.
Breod ure degwamlich geof us to daeg.
Ur ilk day brede give us to day.
Give to us this day oure breed ovir othir _substaunce_,
Geve us this day ur dayly bred,
And forgeof us ageltes ura swa swa we forgeofen agiltendum urum.
Forgive thou all us dettes urs, als we forgive till ur detturs.
And forgive to us our _dettis_, as we forgiven to oure
_dettouris_.
And forgeve us oure dettes as we forgeve ur detters.
And ne led us on costunge.
And ledde us in na fandung.
And lede us not into _temptacioun_;
And leade us not into temptation,
Ac alys us fram yfele. Swa beo hit.
But sculd us fra ivel thing. Amen.
But _delyvere_ us from yvel. Amen.
But delyver us from evyll. For thyne is the kyngdom, and the
power, and the glorye, for ever. Amen.
It will be observed that Wycliffe’s version contains five Romance
terms-- _substaunce_, _dettis_, _dettouris_, _temptacioun_, and
_delyvere_.
5. +Oldest English and Early English.+-- The following is a short
passage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under date 1137: first, in the
Anglo-Saxon form; second, in Early English, or-- as it has sometimes
been called-- Broken Saxon; third, in modern English. The breaking-down
of the grammar becomes still more strikingly evident from this close
juxtaposition.
(i) Hí swencton Þá wreccan menn
(ii) Hí swencten the wrecce men
(iii) They swinked (harassed) the wretched men
(i) Þaes landes mid castel-weorcum.
(ii) Of-the-land mid castel-weorces.
(iii) Of the land with castle-works.
(i) Ða Þá castelas waeron gemacod,
(ii) Tha the castles waren maked,
(iii) When the castles were made,
(i) Þá fyldon hí hí mid yfelum mannum.
(ii) thá fylden hi hi mid yvele men.
(iii) then filled they them with evil men.
6. +Comparisons of Words and Inflexions.+-- Let us take a few of the
most prominent words in our language, and observe the changes that have
fallen upon them since they made their appearance in our island in the
fifth century. These changes will be best seen by displaying them in
columns:--
ANGLO-SAXON. EARLY ENGLISH. MIDDLE ENGLISH. MODERN ENGLISH.
heom. to heom. to hem. to them.
seó. heó. ho, scho. she.
sweostrum. to the swestres. to the swistren. to the sisters.
geboren. gebore. iboré. born.
lufigende. lufigend. lovand. loving.
weoxon. woxen. wexide. waxed.
7. +Conclusions from the above Comparisons.+-- We can now draw several
conclusions from the comparisons we have made of the passages given from
different periods of the language. These conclusions relate chiefly to
verbs and nouns; and they may become useful as a KEY to enable us to
judge to what period in the history of our language a passage presented
to us must belong. If we find such and such marks, the language is
Anglo-Saxon; if other marks, it is Early English; and so on.
I.-- MARKS OF ANGLO-SAXON.
II.-- MARKS OF EARLY ENGLISH (1100-1250).
III.-- MARKS OF MIDDLE ENGLISH (1250-1485).
VERBS.
Infinitive in +an+.
Infin. in +en+ or +e+.
Infin. with +to+ (the +en+ was dropped about 1400).
Pres. part. in +ende+.
Pres. part. in +ind+.
Pres. part. in +inge+.
Past part. with +ge+.
+ge+ of past part. turned into +i+ or +y+.
3d plural pres. in +ath+.
3d plural past in +on+.
3d plural in +en+.
3d plural in +en+.
Plural of imperatives in +ath+.
Imperative in +eth+.
NOUNS.
Plurals in +an+, +as+, or +a+.
Plural in +es+.
Plurals in +es+ (separate syllable).
Dative plural in +um+.
Dative plural in +es+.
Possessives in +es+ (separate syllable).
8. +The English of the Thirteenth Century.+-- In this century there was
a great breaking-down and stripping-off of inflexions. This is seen in
the +Ormulum+ of Orm, a canon of the Order of St Augustine, whose
English is nearly as flexionless as that of Chaucer, although about a
century and a half before him. Orm has also the peculiarity of always
doubling a consonant after a short vowel. Thus, in his introduction,
he says:--
“Þiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum
Forr þi þatt Orrm itt wrohhte.”
That is, “This book is named Ormulum, for the (reason) that Orm wrought
it.” The absence of inflexions is probably due to the fact that the book
is written in the East-Midland dialect. But, in a song called “The Story
of Genesis and Exodus,” written about 1250, we find a greater number of
inflexions. Thus we read:--
“Hunger wex in lond Chanaan;
And his x sunes Jacob for-ðan
Sente in to Egypt to bringen coren;
He bilefe at hom ðe was gungest boren.”
That is, “Hunger waxed (increased) in the land of Canaan; and Jacob for
that (reason) sent his ten sons into Egypt to bring corn: he remained at
home that was youngest born.”
9. +The English of the Fourteenth Century.+-- The four greatest writers
of the fourteenth century are-- in verse, +Chaucer+ and +Langlande+; and
in prose, +Mandeville+ and +Wycliffe+. The inflexions continue to drop
off; and, in Chaucer at least, a larger number of French words appear.
Chaucer also writes in an elaborate verse-measure that forms a striking
contrast to the homely rhythms of Langlande. Thus, in the “Man of Lawes
Tale,” we have the verse:--
“O queenës, lyvynge in prosperitée,
Duchessës, and ladyës everichone,
Haveth som routhe on hir adversitée;
An emperourës doughter stant allone;
She hath no wight to whom to make hir mone.
O blood roial! that stondest in this dredë
Fer ben thy frendës at thy gretë nedë!”
Here, with the exception of the imperative in _Haveth som routhe_
(= have some pity), _stant_, and _ben_ (= _are_), the grammar of Chaucer
is very near the grammar of to-day. How different this is from the
simple English of Langlande! He is speaking of the great storm of wind
that blew on January 15, 1362:--
“Piries and Plomtres weore passchet to þe grounde,
In ensaumple to Men þat we scholde do þe bettre,
Beches and brode okes weore blowen to þe eorþe.”
Here it is the spelling of Langlande’s English that differs most from
modern English, and not the grammar. --Much the same may be said of the
style of Wycliffe (1324-1384) and of Mandeville (1300-1372). In
Wycliffe’s version of the Gospel of Mark, v. 26, he speaks of a woman
“that hadde suffride many thingis of ful many lechis (doctors), and
spendid alle hir thingis; and no-thing profitide.” Sir John Mandeville’s
English keeps many old inflexions and spellings; but is, in other
respects, modern enough. Speaking of Mahomet, he says: “And ȝee schulle
understonds that Machamete was born in Arabye, that was first a pore
knave that kept cameles, that wenten with marchantes for marchandise.”
_Knave_ for boy, and _wenten_ for went are the two chief differences--
the one in the use of words, the other in grammar-- that distinguish
this piece of Mandeville’s English from our modern speech.
10. +The English of the Sixteenth Century.+-- This, which is also called
Tudor-English, differs as regards grammar hardly at all from the English
of the nineteenth century. This becomes plain from a passage from one of
Latimer’s sermons (1490-1555), “a book which gives a faithful picture of
the manners, thoughts, and events of the period.” “My father,” he
writes, “was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm
of three or four pound a year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled
so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep; and
my mother milked thirty kine.” In this passage, it is only the
old-fashionedness, homeliness, and quaintness of the English-- not its
grammar-- that makes us feel that it was not written in our own times.
When Ridley, the fellow-martyr of Latimer, stood at the stake, he said,
“I commit our cause to Almighty God, which shall indifferently judge
all.” Here he used _indifferently_ in the sense of _impartially_-- that
is, in the sense of _making no difference between parties_; and this is
one among a very large number of instances of Latin words, when they had
not been long in our language, still retaining the older Latin meaning.
11. +The English of the Bible+ (i).-- The version of the Bible which we
at present use was made in 1611; and we might therefore suppose that it
is written in seventeenth-century English. But this is not the case. The
translators were commanded by James I. to “follow the Bishops’ Bible”;
and the Bishops’ Bible was itself founded on the “Great Bible,” which
was published in 1539. But the Great Bible is itself only a revision of
Tyndale’s, part of which appeared as early as 1526. When we are reading
the Bible, therefore, we are reading English of the sixteenth century,
and, to a large extent, of the early part of that century. It is true
that successive generations of printers have, of their own accord,
altered the spelling, and even, to a slight extent, modified the
grammar. Thus we have _fetched_ for the older _fet_, _more_ for _moe_,
_sown_ for _sowen_, _brittle_ for _brickle_ (which gives the connection
with _break_), _jaws_ for _chaws_, _sixth_ for _sixt_, and so on. But we
still find such participles as _shined_ and _understanded_; and such
phrases as “they can skill to hew timber” (1 Kings v. 6), “abjects” for
_abject persons_, “three days agone” for _ago_, the “captivated Hebrews”
for “the captive Hebrews,” and others.
12. +The English of the Bible+ (ii).-- We have, again, old words
retained, or used in the older meaning. Thus we find, in Psalm v. 6, the
phrase “them that speak leasing,” which reminds us of King Alfred’s
expression about “leasum spellum” (lying stories). _Trow_ and _ween_ are
often found; the “champaign over against Gilgal” (Deut. xi. 30) means
the _plain_; and a publican in the New Testament is a tax-gatherer, who
sent to the Roman Treasury or Publicum the taxes he had collected from
the Jews. An “ill-favoured person” is an ill-looking person; and
“bravery” (Isa. iii. 18) is used in the sense of finery in dress. --Some
of the oldest grammar, too, remains, as in Esther viii. 8, “Write ye, as
it liketh you,” where the _you_ is a dative. Again, in Ezek. xxx. 2, we
find “Howl ye, Woe worth the day!” where the imperative _worth_ governs
_day_ in the dative case. This idiom is still found in modern verse, as
in the well-known lines in the first canto of the “Lady of the Lake”:--
“Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day
That cost thy life, my gallant grey!”
CHAPTER V.
MODERN ENGLISH.
1. +Grammar Fixed.+-- From the date of 1485-- that is, from the
beginning of the reign of Henry VII.-- the changes in the grammar or
constitution of our language are so extremely small, that they are
hardly noticeable. Any Englishman of ordinary education can read a book
belonging to the latter part of the fifteenth or to the sixteenth
century without difficulty. Since that time the grammar of our language
has hardly changed at all, though we have altered and enlarged our
vocabulary, and have adopted thousands of new words. The introduction of
Printing, the Revival of Learning, the Translation of the Bible, the
growth and spread of the power to read and write-- these and other
influences tended to fix the language and to keep it as it is to-day. It
is true that we have dropped a few old-fashioned endings, like the +n+
or +en+ in _silvern_ and _golden_; but, so far as form or grammar is
concerned, the English of the sixteenth and the English of the
nineteenth centuries are substantially the same.
2. +New Words.+-- But, while the grammar of English has remained the
same, the vocabulary of English has been growing, and growing rapidly,
not merely with each century, but with each generation. The discovery of
the New World in 1492 gave an impetus to maritime enterprise in England,
which it never lost, brought us into connection with the Spaniards, and
hence contributed to our language several Spanish words. In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Italian literature was largely
read; Wyatt and Surrey show its influence in their poems; and Italian
words began to come in in considerable numbers. Commerce, too, has done
much for us in this way; and along with the article imported, we have in
general introduced also the name it bore in its own native country. In
later times, Science has been making rapid strides-- has been bringing
to light new discoveries and new inventions almost every week; and along
with these new discoveries, the language has been enriched with new
names and new terms. Let us look a little more closely at the character
of these foreign contributions to the vocabulary of our tongue.
3. +Spanish Words.+-- The words we have received from the Spanish
language are not numerous, but they are important. In addition to the
ill-fated word +armada+, we have the Spanish for _Mr_, which is +Don+
(from Lat. _dominus_, a lord), with its feminine +Duenna+. They gave us
also +alligator+, which is our English way of writing _el lagarto_, the
lizard. They also presented us with a large number of words that end in
+o+-- such as +buffalo+, +cargo+, +desperado+, +guano+, +indigo+,
+mosquito+, +mulatto+, +negro+, +potato+, +tornado+, and others. The
following is a tolerably full list:--
Alligator.
Armada.
Barricade.
Battledore.
Bravado.
Buffalo.
Cargo.
Cigar.
Cochineal.
Cork.
Creole.
Desperado.
Don.
Duenna.
Eldorado.
Embargo.
Filibuster.
Flotilla.
Galleon (a ship).
Grandee.
Grenade.
Guerilla.
Indigo.
Jennet.
Matador.
Merino.
Mosquito.
Mulatto.
Negro.
Octoroon.
Quadroon.
Renegade.
Savannah.
Sherry (= Xeres).
Tornado.
Vanilla.
4. +Italian Words.+-- Italian literature has been read and cultivated in
England since the time of Chaucer-- since the fourteenth century; and
the arts and artists of Italy have for many centuries exerted a great
deal of influence on those of England. Hence it is that we owe to the
Italian language a large number of words. These relate to poetry, such
as +canto+, +sonnet+, +stanza+; to music, as +pianoforte+, +opera+,
+oratorio+, +soprano+, +alto+, +contralto+; to architecture and
sculpture, as +portico+, +piazza+, +cupola+, +torso+; and to painting,
as +studio+, +fresco+ (an open-air painting), and others. The following
is a complete list:--
Alarm.
Alert.
Alto.
Arcade.
Balcony.
Balustrade.
Bandit.
Bankrupt.
Bravo.
Brigade.
Brigand.
Broccoli.
Burlesque.
Bust.
Cameo.
Canteen.
Canto.
Caprice.
Caricature.
Carnival.
Cartoon.
Cascade.
Cavalcade.
Charlatan.
Citadel.
Colonnade.
Concert.
Contralto.
Conversazione.
Cornice.
Corridor.
Cupola.
Curvet.
Dilettante.
Ditto.
Doge.
Domino.
Extravaganza.
Fiasco.
Folio.
Fresco.
Gazette.
Gondola.
Granite.
Grotto.
Guitar.
Incognito.
Influenza.
Lagoon.
Lava.
Lazaretto.
Macaroni.
Madonna.
Madrigal.
Malaria.
Manifesto.
Motto.
Moustache.
Niche.
Opera.
Oratorio.
Palette.
Pantaloon.
Parapet.
Pedant.
Pianoforte.
Piazza.
Pistol.
Portico.
Proviso.
Quarto.
Regatta.
Ruffian.
Serenade.
Sonnet.
Soprano.
Stanza.
Stiletto.
Stucco.
Studio.
Tenor.
Terra-cotta.
Tirade.
Torso.
Trombone.
Umbrella.
Vermilion.
Vertu.
Virtuoso.
Vista.
Volcano.
Zany.
5. +Dutch Words.+-- We have had for many centuries commercial dealings
with the Dutch; and as they, like ourselves, are a great seafaring
people, they have given us a number of words relating to the management
of ships. In the fourteenth century, the southern part of the German
Ocean was the most frequented sea in the world; and the chances of
plunder were so great that ships of war had to keep cruising up and down
to protect the trading vessels that sailed between England and the Low
Countries. The following are the words which we owe to the
Netherlands:--
Ballast.
Boom.
Boor.
Burgomaster.
Hoy.
Luff.
Reef.
Schiedam (gin).
Skates.
Skipper.
Sloop.
Smack.
Smuggle.
Stiver.
Taffrail.
Trigger.
Wear (said of a ship).
Yacht.
Yawl.
6. +French Words.+-- Besides the large additions to our language made by
the Norman-French, we have from time to time imported direct from France
a number of French words, without change in the spelling, and with
little change in the pronunciation. The French have been for centuries
the most polished nation in Europe; from France the changing fashions in
dress spread over all the countries of the Continent; French literature
has been much read in England since the time of Charles II.; and for a
long time all diplomatic correspondence between foreign countries and
England was carried on in French. Words relating to manners and customs
are common, such as +soirée+, +etiquette+, +séance+, +élite+; and we
have also the names of things which were invented in France, such as
+mitrailleuse+, +carte-de-visite+, +coup d’état+, and others. Some of
these words are, in spelling, exactly like English; and advantage of
this has been taken in a well-known epigram:--
The French have taste in all they do,
Which we are quite without;
For Nature, which to them gave goût,[15]
To us gave only gout.
The following is a list of French words which have been imported in
comparatively recent times:--
Aide-de-camp.
Belle.
Bivouac.
Blonde.
Bouquet.
Brochure.
Brunette.
Brusque.
Carte-de-visite.
Coup-d’état.
Débris.
Début.
Déjeûner.
Depot.
Éclat.
Ennui.
Etiquette.
Façade.
Goût.
Naïve.
Naïveté.
Nonchalance.
Outré.
Penchant.
Personnel.
Précis.
Programme.
Protégé.
Recherché.
Séance.
Soirée.
Trousseau.
The Scotch have always had a closer connection with the French nation
than England; and hence we find in the Scottish dialect of English a
number of French words that are not used in South Britain at all. A leg
of mutton is called in Scotland a +gigot+; the dish on which it is laid
is an +ashet+ (from _assiette_); a cup for tea or for wine is a +tassie+
(from _tasse_); the gate of a town is called the +port+; and a stubborn
person is +dour+ (Fr. _dur_, from Lat. _durus_); while a gentle and
amiable person is +douce+ (Fr. _douce_, Lat. _dulcis_).
[Footnote 15: _Goût_ (goo) from Latin _gustus_, taste.]
7. +German Words.+-- It must not be forgotten that English is a
Low-German dialect, while the German of books is New High-German. We
have never borrowed directly from High-German, because we have never
needed to borrow. Those modern German words that have come into our
language in recent times are chiefly the names of minerals, with a few
striking exceptions, such as +loafer+, which came to us from the German
immigrants to the United States, and +plunder+, which seems to have been
brought from Germany by English soldiers who had served under Gustavus
Adolphus. The following are the German words which we have received in
recent times:--
Cobalt.
Felspar.
Hornblende.
Landgrave.
Loafer.
Margrave.
Meerschaum.
Nickel.
Plunder.
Poodle.
Quartz.
Zinc.
8. +Hebrew Words.+-- These, with very few exceptions, have come to us
from the translation of the Bible, which is now in use in our homes and
churches. +Abbot+ and +abbey+ come from the Hebrew word +abba+, father;
and such words as +cabal+ and +Talmud+, though not found in the Old
Testament, have been contributed by Jewish literature. The following is
a tolerably complete list:--
Abbey.
Abbot.
Amen.
Behemoth.
Cabal.
Cherub.
Cinnamon.
Hallelujah.
Hosannah.
Jehovah.
Jubilee.
Gehenna.
Leviathan.
Manna.
Paschal.
Pharisee.
Pharisaical.
Rabbi.
Sabbath.
Sadducees.
Satan.
Seraph.
Shibboleth.
Talmud.
9. +Other Foreign Words.+-- The English have always been the greatest
travellers in the world; and our sailors always the most daring,
intelligent, and enterprising. There is hardly a port or a country in
the world into which an English ship has not penetrated; and our
commerce has now been maintained for centuries with every people on the
face of the globe. We exchange goods with almost every nation and tribe
under the sun. When we import articles or produce from abroad, we in
general import the native name along with the thing. Hence it is that we
have +guano+, +maize+, and +tomato+ from the two Americas; +coffee+,
+cotton+, and +tamarind+ from Arabia; +tea+, +congou+, and +nankeen+
from China; +calico+, +chintz+, and +rupee+ from Hindostan; +bamboo+,
+gamboge+, and +sago+ from the Malay Peninsula; +lemon+, +musk+, and
+orange+ from Persia; +boomerang+ and +kangaroo+ from Australia;
+chibouk+, +ottoman+, and +tulip+ from Turkey. The following are lists
of these foreign words; and they are worth examining with the greatest
minuteness:--
AFRICAN DIALECTS.
Baobab.
Canary.
Chimpanzee.
Gnu.
Gorilla.
Guinea.
Karoo.
Kraal.
Oasis.
Quagga.
Zebra.
AMERICAN TONGUES.
Alpaca.
Buccaneer.
Cacique.
Cannibal.
Canoe.
Caoutchouc.
Cayman.
Chocolate.
Condor.
Guano.
Hammock.
Jaguar.
Jalap.
Jerked (beef).
Llama.
Mahogany.
Maize.
Manioc.
Moccasin.
Mustang.
Opossum.
Pampas.
Pemmican.
Potato.
Racoon.
Skunk.
Squaw.
Tapioca.
Tobacco.
Tomahawk.
Tomato.
Wigwam.
ARABIC.
(The word _al_ means _the_. Thus _alcohol_ = _the spirit_.)
Admiral (Milton writes _ammiral_).
Alcohol.
Alcove.
Alembic.
Algebra.
Alkali.
Amber.
Arrack.
Arsenal.
Artichoke.
Assassin.
Assegai.
Attar.
Azimuth.
Azure.
Caliph.
Carat.
Chemistry.
Cipher.
Civet.
Coffee.
Cotton.
Crimson.
Dragoman.
Elixir.
Emir.
Fakir.
Felucca.
Gazelle.
Giraffe.
Harem.
Hookah.
Koran (or Alcoran).
Lute.
Magazine.
Mattress.
Minaret.
Mohair.
Monsoon.
Mosque.
Mufti.
Nabob.
Nadir.
Naphtha.
Saffron.
Salaam.
Senna.
Sherbet.
Shrub (the drink).
Simoom.
Sirocco.
Sofa.
Sultan.
Syrup.
Talisman.
Tamarind.
Tariff.
Vizier.
Zenith.
Zero.
CHINESE.
Bohea.
China.
Congou.
Hyson.
Joss.
Junk.
Nankeen.
Pekoe.
Silk.
Souchong.
Tea.
Typhoon.
HINDU.
Avatar.
Banyan.
Brahmin.
Bungalow.
Calico.
Chintz.
Coolie.
Cowrie.
Durbar.
Jungle.
Lac (of rupees).
Loot.
Mulligatawny.
Musk.
Pagoda.
Palanquin.
Pariah.
Punch.
Pundit.
Rajah.
Rupee.
Ryot.
Sepoy.
Shampoo.
Sugar.
Suttee.
Thug.
Toddy.
HUNGARIAN.
Hussar.
Sabre.
Shako.
Tokay.
MALAY.
Amuck.
Bamboo.
Bantam.
Caddy.
Cassowary.
Cockatoo.
Dugong.
Gamboge.
Gong.
Gutta-percha.
Mandarin.
Mango.
Orang-outang.
Rattan.
Sago.
Upas.
PERSIAN.
Awning.
Bazaar.
Bashaw.
Caravan.
Check.
Checkmate.
Chess.
Curry.
Dervish.
Divan.
Firman.
Hazard.
Horde.
Houri.
Jar.
Jackal.
Jasmine.
Lac (a gum).
Lemon.
Lilac.
Lime (the fruit).
Musk.
Orange.
Paradise.
Pasha.
Rook.
Saraband.
Sash.
Scimitar.
Shawl.
Taffeta.
Turban.
POLYNESIAN DIALECTS.
Boomerang.
Kangaroo.
Taboo.
Tattoo.
PORTUGUESE.
Albatross.
Caste.
Cobra.
Cocoa-nut.
Commodore.
Fetish.
Lasso.
Marmalade.
Moidore.
Molasses.
Palaver.
Port (= Oporto).
RUSSIAN.
Czar.
Drosky.
Knout.
Morse.
Rouble.
Steppe.
Ukase.
Verst.
TARTAR.
Khan.
TURKISH.
Bey.
Caftan.
Chibouk.
Chouse.
Dey.
Janissary.
Kiosk.
Odalisque.
Ottoman.
Tulip.
Yashmak.
Yataghan.
10. +Scientific Terms.+-- A very large number of discoveries in science
have been made in this century; and a large number of inventions have
introduced these discoveries to the people, and made them useful in
daily life. Thus we have _telegraph_ and _telegram_; _photograph_;
_telephone_ and even _photophone_. The word _dynamite_ is also modern;
and the unhappy employment of it has made it too widely known. Then
passing fashions have given us such words as _athlete_ and _æsthete_.
In general, it may be said that, when we wish to give a name to a new
thing-- a new discovery, invention, or fashion-- we have recourse not to
our own stores of English, but to the vocabularies of the Latin and
Greek languages.
LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
[Transcriber’s Note:
In the original book, the following chart was laid out much like a
typical table of contents, with the +date+ in a separate column along
the right edge. It has been reformatted for this e-text. The date is
repeated in brackets where appropriate.]
+450+
1. +The Beowulf+, an old English epic, “written on the mainland”
+597+
2. +Christianity+ introduced by St Augustine (and with it many Latin
and a few Greek words)
+670+
3. +Caedmon+-- ‘Paraphrase of the Scriptures,’-- first English poem
+735+
4. +Baeda+-- “The Venerable Bede”-- translated into English part of
St John’s Gospel
+901+
5. +King Alfred+ translated several Latin works into English, among
others, Bede’s ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation’
(+851+)
+1000+
6. +Aelfric+, Archbishop of York, turned into English most of the
historical books of the Old Testament
+1066+
7. +The Norman Conquest+, which introduced Norman French words
+1160+
8. +Anglo-Saxon Chronicle+, said to have been begun by King Alfred,
and brought to a close in [1160]
+1200+
9. +Orm+ or +Orrmin’s Ormulum+, a poem written in the East Midland
dialect, about [1200]
+1204+
10. +Normandy+ lost under King John. Norman-English now have their
only home in England, and use our English speech more and more
+1205+
11. +Layamon+ translates the ‘Brut’ from the French of Robert Wace.
This is the first English book (written in _Southern English_) after
the stoppage of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
+1220+
12. +The Ancren Riwle+ (“Rules for Anchorites”) written in the
Dorsetshire dialect. “It is the forerunner of a wondrous change in
our speech.” “It swarms with French words”
+1258+
13. +First Royal Proclamation in English+, issued by Henry III.
+1300+
14. +Robert of Gloucester’s+ Chronicle (swarms with foreign terms)
+1303+
15. +Robert Manning+, “Robert of Brunn,” compiles the ‘Handlyng
Synne.’ “It contains a most copious proportion of French words”
+1340+
16. +Ayenbite of Inwit+ (= “Remorse of Conscience”)
+1349+
17. +The Great Plague+. After this it becomes less and less the
fashion to speak French
+1356+
18. +Sir John Mandeville+, first writer of the newer English Prose--
in his ‘Travels,’ which contained a large admixture of French words.
“His English is the speech spoken at Court in the latter days of
King Edward III.”
+1362+
19. +English+ becomes the language of the Law Courts
+1380+
20. +Wickliffe’s+ Bible
+1400+
21. +Geoffrey Chaucer+, the first great English poet, author of the
‘Canterbury Tales’; born in 1340, died [1400]
+1471+
22. +William Caxton+, the first English printer, brings out (in the
Low Countries) the first English book ever printed, the ‘Recuyell of
the Historyes of Troye,’-- “not written with pen and ink, as other
books are, to the end that every man may have them at once”
+1474+
23. +First English Book+ printed in England (by Caxton) the ‘Game
and Playe of the Chesse’
+1523+
24. +Lord Berners’+ translation of Froissart’s Chronicle
+1526-30+
25. +William Tyndale+, by his translation of the Bible “fixed our
tongue once for all.” “His New Testament has become the standard of
our tongue: the first ten verses of the Fourth Gospel are a good
sample of his manly Teutonic pith”
+1590+
26. +Edmund Spenser+ publishes his ‘Faerie Queene.’ “Now began the
golden age of England’s literature; and this age was to last for
about fourscore years”
+1611+
27. +Our English Bible+, based chiefly on Tyndale’s translation.
“Those who revised the English Bible in 1611 were bidden to keep as
near as they could to the old versions, such as Tyndale’s”
+1616+
28. +William Shakespeare+ carried the use of the English language
to the greatest height of which it was capable. He employed 15,000
words. “The last act of ‘Othello’ is a rare specimen of
Shakespeare’s diction: of every five nouns, verbs, and adverbs, four
are Teutonic” (+Born 1564+)
+1667+
29. +John Milton+, “the most learned of English poets,” publishes
his ‘Paradise Lost,’-- “a poem in which Latin words are introduced
with great skill”
+1661+
30. +The Prayer-Book+ revised and issued in its final form. “_Are_
was substituted for _be_ in forty-three places. This was a great
victory of the North over the South”
+1688+
31. +John Bunyan+ writes his ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’-- a book full of
pithy English idiom. “The common folk had the wit at once to see the
worth of Bunyan’s masterpiece, and the learned long afterwards
followed in the wake of the common folk” (+Born 1628+)
+1642+
32. +Sir Thomas Browne+, the author of ‘Urn-Burial’ and other works
written in a highly Latinised diction, such as the ‘Religio Medici,’
written [1642]
+1759+
33. +Dr Samuel Johnson+ was the chief supporter of the use of
“long-tailed words in osity and ation,” such as his novel called
‘Rasselas,’ published [1759]
34. +Tennyson, Poet-Laureate+, a writer of the best English--
“a countryman of Robert Manning’s, and a careful student of old
Malory, has done much for the revival of pure English among
us” (+Born 1809+)
PART IV.
OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
CHAPTER I.
OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE.
1. +Literature.+-- The history of English Literature is, in its external
aspect, an account of the best books in prose and in verse that have
been written by English men and English women; and this account begins
with a poem brought over from the Continent by our countrymen in the
fifth century, and comes down to the time in which we live. It covers,
therefore, a period of nearly fourteen hundred years.
2. +The Distribution of Literature.+-- We must not suppose that
literature has always existed in the form of printed books. Literature
is a living thing-- a living outcome of the living mind; and there are
many ways in which it has been distributed to other human beings. The
oldest way is, of course, by one person repeating a poem or other
literary composition he has made to another; and thus literature is
stored away, not upon book-shelves, but in the memory of living men.
Homer’s poems are said to have been preserved in this way to the Greeks
for five hundred years. Father chanted them to son; the sons to their
sons; and so on from generation to generation. The next way of
distributing literature is by the aid of signs called letters made upon
leaves, flattened reeds, parchment, or the inner bark of trees. The next
is by the help of writing upon paper. The last is by the aid of type
upon paper. This has existed in England for more than four hundred
years-- since the year 1474; and thus it is that our libraries contain
many hundreds of thousands of valuable books. For the same reason is it,
most probably, that as our power of retaining the substance and
multiplying the copies of books has grown stronger, our living memories
have grown weaker. This defect can be remedied only by education-- that
is, by training the memories of the young. While we possess so many
printed books, it must not be forgotten that many valuable works exist
still in manuscript-- written either upon paper or on parchment.
3. +Verse, the earliest form of Literature.+-- It is a remarkable fact
that the earliest kind of composition in all languages is in the form of
+Verse+. The oldest books, too, are those which are written in verse.
Thus Homer’s poems are the oldest literary work of Greece; the Sagas are
the oldest productions of Scandinavian literature; and the Beowulf is
the oldest piece of literature produced by the Anglo-Saxon race. It is
also from the strong creative power and the lively inventions of poets
that we are even now supplied with new thoughts and new language-- that
the most vivid words and phrases come into the language; just as it is
the ranges of high mountains that send down to the plains the ever fresh
soil that gives to them their unending fertility. And thus it happens
that our present English speech is full of words and phrases that have
found their way into the most ordinary conversation from the writings of
our great poets-- and especially from the writings of our greatest poet,
Shakespeare. The fact that the life of prose depends for its supplies on
the creative minds of poets has been well expressed by an American
writer:--
“I looked upon a plain of green,
Which some one called the Land of Prose,
Where many living things were seen
In movement or repose.
I looked upon a stately hill
That well was named the Mount of Song,
Where golden shadows dwelt at will,
The woods and streams among.
But most this fact my wonder bred
(Though known by all the nobly wise),
It was the mountain stream that fed
That fair green plain’s amenities.”
4. +Our oldest English Poetry.+-- The verse written by our old English
writers was very different in form from the verse that appears now from
the hands of Tennyson, or Browning, or Matthew Arnold. The old English
or Anglo-Saxon writers used a kind of rhyme called +head-rhyme+ or
+alliteration+; while, from the fourteenth century downwards, our poets
have always employed +end-rhyme+ in their verses.
“{L}ightly down {l}eaping he {l}oosened his helmet.”
Such was the rough old English form. At least three words in each long
line were alliterative-- two in the first half, and one in the second.
Metaphorical phrases were common, such as _war-adder_ for arrow,
_war-shirts_ for armour, _whale’s-path_ or _swan-road_ for the sea,
_wave-horse_ for a ship, _tree-wright_ for carpenter. Different
statements of the same fact, different phrases for the same thing-- what
are called +parallelisms+ in Hebrew poetry-- as in the line--
“Then saw they the sea head-lands-- the windy walls,”
were also in common use among our oldest English poets.
5. +Beowulf.+-- The +Beowulf+ is the oldest poem in the English
language. It is our “old English epic”; and, like much of our ancient
verse, it is a war poem. The author of it is unknown. It was probably
composed in the fifth century-- not in England, but on the Continent--
and brought over to this island-- not on paper or on parchment-- but in
the memories of the old Jutish or Saxon vikings or warriors. It was not
written down at all, even in England, till the end of the ninth century,
and then, probably, by a monk of Northumbria. It tells among other
things the story of how Beowulf sailed from Sweden to the help of
Hrothgar, a king in Jutland, whose life was made miserable by a
monster-- half man, half fiend-- named Grendel. For about twelve years
this monster had been in the habit of creeping up to the banqueting-hall
of King Hrothgar, seizing upon his thanes, carrying them off, and
devouring them. Beowulf attacks and overcomes the dragon, which is
mortally wounded, and flees away to die. The poem belongs both to the
German and to the English literature; for it is written in a Continental
English, which is somewhat different from the English of our own island.
But its literary shape is, as has been said, due to a Christian writer
of Northumbria; and therefore its written or printed form-- as it exists
at present-- is not German, but English. Parts of this poem were often
chanted at the feasts of warriors, where all sang in turn as they sat
after dinner over their cups of mead round the massive oaken table. The
poem consists of 3184 lines, the rhymes of which are solely
alliterative.
6. +The First Native English Poem.+-- The Beowulf came to us from the
Continent; the first native English poem was produced in Yorkshire.
On the dark wind-swept cliff which rises above the little land-locked
harbour of +Whitby+, stand the ruins of an ancient and once famous
abbey. The head of this religious house was the Abbess Hild or Hilda:
and there was a secular priest in it,-- a very shy retiring man, who
looked after the cattle of the monks, and whose name was +Caedmon+. To
this man came the gift of song, but somewhat late in life. And it came
in this wise. One night, after a feast, singing began, and each of those
seated at the table was to sing in his turn. Caedmon was very nervous--
felt he could not sing. Fear overcame his heart, and he stole quietly
away from the table before the turn could come to him. He crept off to
the cowshed, lay down on the straw and fell asleep. He dreamed a dream;
and, in his dream, there came to him a voice: “Caedmon, sing me a song!”
But Caedmon answered: “I cannot sing; it was for this cause that I had
to leave the feast.” “But you must and shall sing!” “What must I sing,
then?” he replied. “Sing the beginning of created things!” said the
vision; and forthwith Caedmon sang some lines in his sleep, about God
and the creation of the world. When he awoke, he remembered some of the
lines that had come to him in sleep, and, being brought before Hilda, he
recited them to her. The Abbess thought that this wonderful gift, which
had come to him so suddenly, must have come from God, received him into
the monastery, made him a monk, and had him taught sacred history. “All
this Caedmon, by remembering, and, like a clean animal, ruminating,
turned into sweetest verse.” His poetical works consist of a metrical
paraphrase of the Old and the New Testament. It was written about the
year 670; and he died in 680. It was read and re-read in manuscript for
many centuries, but it was not printed in a book until the year 1655.
7. +The War-Poetry of England.+-- There were many poems about battles,
written both in Northumbria and in the south of England; but it was only
in the south that these war-songs were committed to writing; and of
these written songs there are only two that survive up to the present
day. These are the +Song of Brunanburg+, and the +Song of the Fight at
Maldon+. The first belongs to the date 938; the second to 991. The Song
of Brunanburg was inscribed in the SAXON CHRONICLE-- a current narrative
of events, written chiefly by monks, from the ninth century to the end
of the reign of Stephen. The song tells the story of the fight of King
Athelstan with Anlaf the Dane. It tells how five young kings and seven
earls of Anlaf’s host fell on the field of battle, and lay there
“quieted by swords,” while their fellow-Northmen fled, and left their
friends and comrades to “the screamers of war-- the black raven, the
eagle, the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey wolf in the wood.” The Song
of the Fight at Maldon tells us of the heroic deeds and death of
+Byrhtnoth+, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle against the Danes at
Maldon, in Essex. The speeches of the chiefs are given; the single
combats between heroes described; and, as in Homer, the names and
genealogies of the foremost men are brought into the verse.
8. +The First English Prose.+-- The first writer of English prose was
+Baeda+, or, as he is generally called, the +Venerable Bede+. He was
born in the year 672 at Monkwearmouth, a small town at the mouth of the
river Wear, and was, like Caedmon, a native of the kingdom of
Northumbria. He spent most of his life at the famous monastery of
Jarrow-on-Tyne. He spent his life in writing. His works, which were
written in Latin, rose to the number of forty-five; his chief work being
an +Ecclesiastical History+. But though Latin was the tongue in which he
wrote his books, he wrote one book in English; and he may therefore be
fairly considered the first writer of English prose. This book was a
+Translation of the Gospel of St John+-- a work which he laboured at
until the very moment of his death. His disciple Cuthbert tells the
story of his last hours. “Write quickly!” said Baeda to his scribe, for
he felt that his end could not be far off. When the last day came, all
his scholars stood around his bed. “There is still one chapter wanting,
Master,” said the scribe; “it is hard for thee to think and to speak.”
“It must be done,” said Baeda; “take thy pen and write quickly.” So
through the long day they wrote-- scribe succeeding scribe; and when the
shades of evening were coming on, the young writer looked up from his
task and said, “There is yet one sentence to write, dear Master.” “Write
it quickly!” Presently the writer, looking up with joy, said, “It is
finished!” “Thou sayest truth,” replied the weary old man; “it is
finished: all is finished.” Quietly he sank back upon his pillow, and,
with a psalm of praise upon his lips, gently yielded up to God his
latest breath. It is a great pity that this translation-- the first
piece of prose in our language-- is utterly lost. No MS. of it is at
present known to be in existence.
9. +The Father of English Prose.+-- For several centuries, up to the
year 866, the valleys and shores of Northumbria were the homes of
learning and literature. But a change was not long in coming. Horde
after horde of Danes swept down upon the coasts, ravaged the
monasteries, burnt the books-- after stripping the beautiful bindings of
the gold, silver, and precious stones which decorated them-- killed or
drove away the monks, and made life, property, and thought insecure all
along that once peaceful and industrious coast. Literature, then, was
forced to desert the monasteries of Northumbria, and to seek for a home
in the south-- in Wessex, the kingdom over which Alfred the Great
reigned for more than thirty years. The capital of Wessex was
Winchester; and an able writer says: “As Whitby is the cradle of English
poetry, so is Winchester of English prose.” King Alfred founded
colleges, invited to England men of learning from abroad, and presided
over a school for the sons of his nobles in his own Court. He himself
wrote many books, or rather, he translated the most famous Latin books
of his time into English. He translated into the English of Wessex, for
example, the ‘Ecclesiastical History’ of Baeda; the ‘History of
Orosius,’ into which he inserted geographical chapters of his own; and
the ‘Consolations of Philosophy,’ by the famous Roman writer, Boëthius.
In these books he gave to his people, in their own tongue, the best
existing works on history, geography, and philosophy.
10. +The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.+-- The greatest prose-work of the oldest
English, or purely Saxon, literature, is a work-- not by one person, but
by several authors. It is the historical work which is known as +The
Saxon Chronicle+. It seems to have been begun about the middle of the
ninth century; and it was continued, with breaks now and then, down to
1154-- the year of the death of Stephen and the accession of Henry II.
It was written by a series of successive writers, all of whom were
monks; but Alfred himself is said to have contributed to it a narrative
of his own wars with the Danes. The Chronicle is found in seven separate
forms, each named after the monastery in which it was written. It was
the newspaper, the annals, and the history of the nation. “It is the
first history of any Teutonic people in their own language; it is the
earliest and most venerable monument of English prose.” This Chronicle
possesses for us a twofold value. It is a valuable storehouse of
historical facts; and it is also a storehouse of specimens of the
different states of the English language-- as regards both words and
grammar-- from the eighth down to the twelfth century.
11. +Layamon’s Brut.+-- Layamon was a native of Worcestershire, and a
priest of Ernley on the Severn. He translated, about the year 1205,
a poem called +Brut+, from the French of a monkish writer named Master
Wace. Wace’s work itself is little more than a translation of parts of a
famous “Chronicle or History of the Britons,” written in Latin by
Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was Bishop of St Asaph in 1152. But Geoffrey
himself professed only to have translated from a chronicle in the
British or Celtic tongue, called the “Chronicle of the Kings of
Britain,” which was found in Brittany-- long the home of most of the
stories, traditions, and fables about the old British Kings and their
great deeds. Layamon’s poem called the “Brut” is a metrical chronicle of
Britain from the landing of Brutus to the death of King Cadwallader,
about the end of the seventh century. Brutus was supposed to be a
great-grandson of Æneas, who sailed west and west till he came to Great
Britain, where he settled with his followers. --This metrical chronicle
is written in the dialect of the West of England; and it shows
everywhere a breaking down of the grammatical forms of the oldest
English, as we find it in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In fact, between
the landing of the Normans and the fourteenth century, two things may be
noted: first, that during this time-- that is, for three centuries-- the
inflections of the oldest English are gradually and surely stripped off;
and, secondly, that there is little or no original English literature
given to the country, but that by far the greater part consists chiefly
of translations from French or from Latin.
12. +Orm’s Ormulum.+-- Less than half a century after Layamon’s Brut
appeared a poem called the +Ormulum+, by a monk of the name of Orm or
Ormin. It was probably written about the year 1215. Orm was a monk of
the order of St Augustine, and his book consists of a series of
religious poems. It is the oldest, purest, and most valuable specimen of
thirteenth-century English, and it is also remarkable for its peculiar
spelling. It is written in the purest English, and not five French words
are to be found in the whole poem of twenty thousand short lines. Orm,
in his spelling, doubles every consonant that has a short vowel before
it; and he writes _pann_ for _pan_, but _pan_ for _pane_. The following
is a specimen of his poem:--
Ice hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh
Goddspelless hallghe lare,
Affterr thatt little witt tatt me
Min Drihhtin hafethth lenedd.
I have wended (turned) into English
Gospel’s holy lore,
After the little wit that me
My Lord hath lent.
Other famous writers of English between this time and the appearance of
Chaucer were +Robert of Gloucester+ and +Robert of Brunne+, both of whom
wrote Chronicles of England in verse.