ENGLISH LANGUAGE EPHEBI
ENGLISH LAW EPHEMERIS
ENGLISH LITERATURE EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
ENGLISHRY EPHESUS
ENGRAVING EPHESUS, COUNCIL OF
ENGROSSING EPHOD
ENGYON EPHOR
ENID EPHORUS
ENIGMA EPHRAEM SYRUS
ENKHUIZEN EPHRAIM
ENNEKING, JOHN JOSEPH EPHTHALITES
ENNIS EPI
ENNISCORTHY EPICENE
ENNISKILLEN, WILLIAM COLE EPICHARMUS
ENNISKILLEN EPIC POETRY
ENNIUS, QUINTUS EPICTETUS
ENNODIUS, MAGNUS FELIX EPICURUS
ENNS EPICYCLE
ENOCH EPICYCLOID
ENOCH, BOOK OF EPIDAURUS
ENOMOTO, BUYO EPIDIORITE
ENOS EPIDOSITE
ENRIQUEZ GOMEZ, ANTONIO EPIDOTE
ENSCHEDE EPIGONI
ENSENADA, CENON DE SOMODEVILLA EPIGONION
ENSIGN EPIGRAM
ENSILAGE EPIGRAPHY
ENSTATITE EPILEPSY
ENTABLATURE EPILOGUE
ENTADA EPIMENIDES
ENTAIL EPINAL
ENTASIS EPINAOS
ENTERITIS EPINAY, LOUISE D'ESCLAVELLES D'
ENTHUSIASM EPIPHANIUS, SAINT
ENTHYMEME EPIPHANY, FEAST OF
ENTOMOLOGY EPIRUS
ENTOMOSTRACA EPISCOPACY
ENTRAGUES, CATHERINE DE BALZAC D' EPISCOPIUS, SIMON
ENTRECASTEAUX, BRUNI D' EPISODE
ENTRE MINHO E DOURO EPISTAXIS
ENTREPOT EPISTEMOLOGY
ENTRE RIOS EPISTLE
ENVOY EPISTYLE
ENZIO EPISTYLIS
ENZYME EPITAPH
EOCENE EPITHALAMIUM
EON DE BEAUMONT EPITHELIAL and GLANDULAR TISSUES
EOTVOS, JOZSEF EPITOME
EPAMINONDAS EPOCH
EPARCH EPODE
EPAULETTE EPONA
EPEE, CHARLES-MICHEL EPONYMOUS
EPEE-DE-COMBAT EPPING
EPERJES EPPS
EPERNAY EPREMESNIL, JEAN JACQUES DUVAL D'
EPERNON EPSOM
EPHEBEUM EPSOM SALTS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE. In its historical sense, the name _English_ is now
conveniently used to comprehend the language of the English people from
their settlement in Britain to the present day, the various stages
through which it has passed being distinguished as Old, Middle, and New
or Modern English. In works yet recent, and even in some still current,
the term is confined to the third, or at most extended to the second and
third of these stages, since the language assumed in the main the
vocabulary and grammatical forms which it now presents, the oldest or
inflected stage being treated as a separate language, under the title of
_Anglo-Saxon_, while the transition period which connects the two has
been called _Semi-Saxon_. This view had the justification that, looked
upon by themselves, either as vehicles of thought or as objects of study
and analysis, Old English or Anglo-Saxon and Modern English are, for all
practical ends, distinct languages,--as much so, for example, as Latin
and Spanish. No amount of familiarity with Modern English, including its
local dialects, would enable the student to read Anglo-Saxon,
three-fourths of the vocabulary of which have perished and been
reconstructed within 900 years;[1] nor would a knowledge even of these
lost words give him the power, since the grammatical system, alike in
accidence and syntax, would be entirely strange to him. Indeed, it is
probable that a modern Englishman would acquire the power of reading and
writing French in less time than it would cost him to attain to the same
proficiency in Old English; so that if the test of distinct languages be
their degree of practical difference from each other, it cannot be
denied that "Anglo-Saxon" is a distinct language from Modern English.
But when we view the subject historically, recognizing the fact that
living speech is subject to continuous change in certain definite
directions, determined by the constitution and circumstances of mankind,
as an evolution or development of which we can trace the steps, and
that, owing to the abundance of written materials, this evolution
appears so gradual in English that we can nowhere draw distinct lines
separating its successive stages, we recognize these stages as merely
temporary phases of an individual whole, and speak of the English
language as used alike by Cynewulf, by Chaucer, by Shakespeare and by
Tennyson.[2] It must not be forgotten, however, that in this wide sense
the English language includes, not only the literary or courtly forms of
speech used at successive periods, but also the popular and, it may be,
altogether unwritten dialects that exist by their side. Only on this
basis, indeed, can we speak of Old, Middle and Modern English as the
same _language_, since in actual fact the precise _dialect_ which is now
the cultivated language, or "Standard English," is not the descendant of
that dialect which was the cultivated language or "Englisc" of Alfred,
but of a sister dialect then sunk in comparative obscurity,--even as the
direct descendant of Alfred's Englisc is now to be found in the
non-literary rustic speech of Wiltshire and Somersetshire. Causes which,
linguistically considered, are external and accidental, have shifted
the political and intellectual centre of England, and along with it
transferred literary and official patronage from one form of English to
another; if the centre of influence had happened to be fixed at York or
on the banks of the Forth, both would probably have been neglected for a
third.
The English language, thus defined, is not "native" to Britain, that is,
it was not found there at the dawn of history, but was introduced by
foreign immigrants at a date many centuries later. At the Roman Conquest
of the island the languages spoken by the natives belonged all (so far
as is known) to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European or Indo-Germanic
family, modern forms of which still survive in Wales, Ireland, the
Scottish Highlands, Isle of Man and Brittany, while one has at no
distant date become extinct in Cornwall (see CELT: Language). Brythonic
dialects, allied to Welsh and Cornish, were apparently spoken over the
greater part of Britain, as far north as the firths of Forth and Clyde;
beyond these estuaries and in the isles to the west, including Ireland
and Man, Goidelic dialects, akin to Irish and Scottish Gaelic,
prevailed. The long occupation of south Britain by the Romans (A.D.
43-409)--a period, it must not be forgotten, equal to that from the
Reformation to the present day, or nearly as long as the whole duration
of modern English--familiarized the provincial inhabitants with Latin,
which was probably the ordinary speech of the towns. Gildas, writing
nearly a century and a half after the renunciation of Honorius in 410,
addressed the British princes in that language;[3] and the linguistic
history of Britain might have been not different from that of Gaul,
Spain and the other provinces of the Western Empire, in which a local
type of Latin, giving birth to a neo-Latinic language, finally
superseded the native tongue except in remote and mountainous
districts,[4] had not the course of events been entirely changed by the
Teutonic conquests of the 5th and 6th centuries.
The Angles, Saxons, and their allies came of the Teutonic stock, and
spoke a tongue belonging to the Teutonic or Germanic branch of the
Indo-Germanic (Indo-European) family, the same race and form of speech
being represented in modern times by the people and languages of
Holland, Germany, Denmark, the Scandinavian peninsula and Iceland, as
well as by those of England and her colonies. Of the original home of
the so-called primitive Aryan race (q.v.), whose language was the parent
Indo-European, nothing is certainly known, though the subject has called
forth many conjectures; the present tendency is to seek it in Europe
itself. The tribe can hardly have occupied an extensive area at first,
but its language came by degrees to be diffused over the greater part of
Europe and some portion of Asia. Among those whose Aryan descent is
generally recognized as beyond dispute are the Teutons, to whom the
Angles and Saxons belonged.
The Teutonic or Germanic people, after dwelling together in a body,
appear to have scattered in various directions, their language gradually
breaking up into three main groups, which can be already clearly
distinguished in the 4th century A.D., North Germanic or Scandinavian,
West Germanic or Low and High German, and East Germanic, of which the
only important representative is Gothic. Gothic, often called
Moeso-Gothic, was the language of a people of the Teutonic stock, who,
passing down the Danube, invaded the borders of the Empire, and obtained
settlements in the province of Moesia, where their language was
committed to writing in the 4th century; its literary remains are of
peculiar value as the oldest specimens, by several centuries, of
Germanic speech. The dialects of the invaders of Britain belonged to the
West Germanic branch, and within this to the Low German group,
represented at the present day by Dutch, Frisian, and the various
"Platt-Deutsch" dialects of North Germany. At the dawn of history the
forefathers of the English appear to have been dwelling between and
about the estuaries and lower courses of the Rhine and the Weser, and
the adjacent coasts and isles; at the present day the most English or
Angli-form dialects of the European continent are held to be those of
the North Frisian islands of Amrum and Sylt, on the west coast of
Schleswig. It is well known that the greater part of the ancient
Friesland has been swept away by the encroachments of the North Sea, and
the _disjecta membra_ of the Frisian race, pressed by the sea in front
and more powerful nationalities behind, are found only in isolated
fragments from the Zuider Zee to the coasts of Denmark. Many Frisians
accompanied the Angles and Saxons to Britain, and Old English was in
many respects more closely connected with Old Frisian than with any
other Low German dialect. Of the Geatas, Eotas or "Jutes," who,
according to Bede, occupied Kent and the Isle of Wight, and formed a
third tribe along with the Angles and Saxons, it is difficult to speak
linguistically. The speech of Kent certainly formed a distinct dialect
in both the Old English and the Middle English periods, but it has
tended to be assimilated more and more to neighbouring southern
dialects, and is at the present day identical with that of Sussex, one
of the old Saxon kingdoms. Whether the speech of the Isle of Wight ever
showed the same characteristic differences as that of Kent cannot now be
ascertained, but its modern dialect differs in no respect from that of
Hampshire, and shows no special connexion with that of Kent. It is at
least entirely doubtful whether Bede's Geatas came from Jutland; on
linguistic grounds we should expect that they occupied a district lying
not to the north of the Angles, but between these and the old Saxons.
The earliest specimens of the language of the Germanic invaders of
Britain that exist point to three well-marked dialect groups: the
Anglian (in which a further distinction may be made between the
Northumbrian and the Mercian, or South-Humbrian); the Saxon, generally
called West-Saxon from the almost total lack of sources outside the
West-Saxon domain; and the Kentish. The Kentish and West-Saxon are
sometimes, especially in later times, grouped together as southern
dialects as opposed to midland and northern. These three groups were
distinguished from each other by characteristic points of phonology and
inflection. Speaking generally, the Anglian dialects may be
distinguished by the absence of certain normal West-Saxon vowel-changes,
and the presence of others not found in West-Saxon, and also by a strong
tendency to confuse and simplify inflections, in all which points,
moreover, Northumbrian tended to deviate more widely than Mercian.
Kentish, on the other hand, occupied a position intermediate between
Anglian and West-Saxon, early Kentish approaching more nearly to
Mercian, owing perhaps to early historical connexion between the two,
and late Kentish tending to conform to West-Saxon characteristics, while
retaining several points in common with Anglian. Though we cannot be
certain that these dialectal divergences date from a period previous to
the occupation of Britain, such evidence as can be deduced points to the
existence of differences already on the continent, the three dialects
corresponding in all likelihood to Bede's three tribes, the Angles,
Saxons and Geatas.
As it was amongst the _Engle_ or Angles of Northumbria that literary
culture first appeared, and as an Angle or _Englisc_ dialect was the
first to be used for vernacular literature, _Englisc_ came eventually to
be a general name for all forms of the vernacular as opposed to Latin,
&c.; and even when the West-Saxon of Alfred became in its turn the
literary or classical form of speech, it was still called Englisc or
_English_. The origin of the name _Angul-Seaxan_ (Anglo-Saxons) has been
disputed, some maintaining that it means a union of Angles and Saxons,
others (with better foundation) that it meant _English Saxons_, or
Saxons of England or of the Angel-cynn as distinguished from Saxons of
the Continent (see _New English Dictionary_, s.v.). Its modern use is
mainly due to the little band of scholars who in the 16th and 17th
centuries turned their attention to the long-forgotten language of
Alfred and Aelfric, which, as it differed so greatly from the English of
their own day, they found it convenient to distinguish by a name which
was applied to themselves by those who spoke it.[5] To these scholars
"Anglo-Saxon" and "English" were separated by a gulf which it was
reserved for later scholarship to bridge across, and show the historical
continuity of the English of all ages.
As already hinted, the English language, in the wide sense, presents
three main stages of development--Old, Middle and Modern--distinguished
by their inflectional characteristics. The latter can be best summarized
in the words of Dr Henry Sweet in his _History of English Sounds_:[6]
"Old English is the period of _full_ inflections (_nama_, _gifan_,
_caru_), Middle English of _levelled_ inflections (_naame_, _given_,
_caare_), and Modern English of _lost_ inflections (_name_, _give_,
_care_ = _nam_, _giv_, _car_). We have besides two periods of
transition, one in which _nama_ and _name_ exist side by side, and
another in which final e [with other endings] is beginning to drop." By
_lost_ inflections it is meant that only very few remain, and those
mostly non-syllabic, as the _-s_ in stones and loves, the _-ed_ in
loved, the _-r_ in their, as contrasted with the Old English stan_-as_,
lufadh, luf_-od-e_ and luf_-od-on_, tha_-ra_. Each of these periods may
also be divided into two or three; but from the want of materials it is
difficult to make any such division for all dialects alike in the first.
As to the chronology of the successive stages, it is of course
impossible to lay down any exclusive series of dates, since the
linguistic changes were inevitably gradual, and also made themselves
felt in some parts of the country much earlier than in others, the north
being always in advance of the midland, and the south much later in its
changes. It is easy to point to periods at which Old, Middle and Modern
English were fully developed, but much less easy to draw lines
separating these stages; and even if we recognize between each part a
"transition" period or stage, the determination of the beginning and end
of this will to a certain extent be a matter of opinion. But bearing
these considerations in mind, and having special reference to the
midland dialect from which literary English is mainly descended, the
following may be given as approximate dates, which if they do not
demarcate the successive stages, at least include them:--
Old English or Anglo-Saxon to 1100
Transition Old English ("Semi-Saxon") 1100 to 1150
Early Middle English 1150 to 1250
(Normal) Middle English 1250 to 1400
Late and Transition Middle English 1400 to 1485
Early Modern or Tudor English 1485 to 1611
Seventeenth century transition 1611 to 1688
Modern or current English 1689 onward
Dr Sweet has reckoned Transition Old English (Old Transition) from 1050
to 1150, Middle English thence to 1450, and Late or Transition Middle
English (Middle Transition) 1450 to 1500. As to the Old Transition see
further below.
The OLD ENGLISH or Anglo-Saxon tongue, as introduced into Britain, was
highly inflectional, though its inflections at the date when it becomes
known to us were not so full as those of the earlier Gothic, and
considerably less so than those of Greek and Latin during their
classical periods. They corresponded more closely to those of modern
literary German, though both in nouns and verbs the forms were more
numerous and distinct; for example, the German _guten_ answers to
_three_ Old English forms,--_godne_, _godum_, _godan_; _guter_ to
_two_--_godre_, _godra_; _liebten_ to _two_,--_lufodon_ and _lufeden_.
Nouns had four cases. _Nominative_, _Accusative_ (only sometimes
distinct), _Genitive_, _Dative_, the latter used also with prepositions
to express locative, instrumental, and most ablative relations; of a
distinct _instrumental_ case only vestiges occur. There were several
declensions of nouns, the main division being that known in Germanic
languages generally as strong and weak,--a distinction also extending to
adjectives in such wise that every adjective assumed either the strong
or the weak inflection as determined by associated grammatical forms.
The first and second personal pronouns possessed a dual number = _we
two_, _ye two_; the third person had a complete declension of the stem
he, instead of being made up as now of the three stems seen in _he_,
_she_, _they_. The verb distinguished the subjunctive from the
indicative mood, but had only two inflected tenses, present and past
(more accurately, that of incomplete and that of completed or "perfect"
action)--the former also used for the future, the latter for all the
shades of past time. The order of the sentence corresponded generally to
that of German. Thus from King Alfred's additions to his translation of
Orosius: "Donne thy ylcan daege hi hine to thaem ade beran wylladh
thonne todaeladh hi his feoh thaet thaer to lafe bidh aefter thaem
gedrynce and thaem plegan, on fif odhdhe syx, hwilum on ma, swa swa
thaes feos andefn bidh" ("Then on the same day [that] they him to the
pile bear will, then divide they his property that there to remainder
shall be after the drinking and the sports, into five or six, at times
into more, according as the property's value is").
The poetry was distinguished by alliteration, and the abundant use of
figurative and metaphorical expressions, of bold compounds and archaic
words never found in prose. Thus in the following lines from Beowulf
(ed. Thorpe, l. 645, Zupitza 320):--
Straet waes stan-fah, stig wisode
Gumum aetgaedere. gudh-byrne scan
Heard hond-locen. hring-iren scir
Song in searwum, tha hie to sele furdhum
In hyra gry're geatwum gangan cwomon.