PE lois Cornell University Library PE 1075.L74 1911 Elements of the history of the English I 3 1924 026 570 675 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924026570675 University of WashingtonPublicationsinEnglish Volume I Elements of the History of the English Language Elements of the History of the English Language bo Uno Undelöf, Ph. D. Professor of the English Language and Literature University of Helsingfors translated bo Robert Max Garrett, Ph. D. (Munich) Instructor in English University of Washington, 1911 CflC A.^^m 55 Copyrighted 1911 By Robert Max Garrett Printed by the Department of Journalism UniverBlty of Washlneton Translator's Preface In translating Professor Lindelof's GRUND- DRAGEN AF ENGELSKA SPRÅKETS HISTO- RISKA LJUD- och FORMLÄRA from the Swed- ish, I place one of the most concise and careful- ly selected histories of the English language within the reach of a greater number of students of English. The book was written in 1895 as a summary of the leading facts in the history of English, for the use of University students who were preparing for examination; the author has thoroughly revised and rewritten portions of the work for the translation. It will be noticed that comparatively few examples are taken from languages other than German. Anyone who has attempted using a book filled with citations from various lan- guages, with undergraduate students, will at once see the advantage of this. A noteworthy feature is the careful, scholarly, simple analysis of the foreign influences in Chapter III., and the rise of Standard English in Chapter IV. No American will object that the norm is the cultivated pronunciation of London. The book is not intended to supplant a be- ginning book in Old English, but rather to sup- plement such grammatical works as Professor Cook's First Book in Old English, or Professor Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader, etc. But the great charm which places the book in a class of its own, and which should make it a most grateful addition to the list of college texts, is its brevity. It seems to solve the di£B- culty with which each teacher of Old English is confronted, that of finding a text which is of proper size to use in an ordinary College course in Old English without infringing too much upon time which belongs more particularly to grammatical study and to reading. ROBERT MAX GARRETT. Seattle, Washington, May, 1911. Contents Chapter I. Introduction. Position of English in the Indo-European Family of Languages 16-36 Chapter II. Old English 37-60 Chapter III. The Influence of Foreign Languages upon English 61-90 Chapter IV. The Development of the English Language since the year 1100. .91-128 Introduction — Position of English in the Indo-European Family of Languages §1. In order rightly to understand the his- tory of the intellectual development of a people, it is necessary to study it in connection with the political history of that people. Nowhere does this appear more clearly than in the study of English culture and of the EngUsh language. The violent national struggles and the ceaseless conflicts between tte diverse elements in the population, with which the earlier history of England has been filled, have aided mightily to upbuild those peculiarities which mark the Eng- lish language with such an individual stamp. Therefore, even in a brief account of the devel- opment of the language, the most noteworthy facts in the history of Great Britain must be kept in mind. §2. At the beginning of the Christian era, the British isles were inhabited by a people which belonged to the Celtic group and which spoke various Celtic dialects. In earlier times, the Celts spread over a great part of western Eu- rope; later, greatly reduced in numbers, they fell back before the conquering races, or, as in the case of France, exchanged their own language for a strange one. In our own day, the number of Celts is very small, and it seems as if the 16 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY complete extermination of the Celtic languages were but a question of time. However, of late there have been signs of a livelier literary ac- tivity among Celts of Great Britain and Ireland. The Celtic languages form a group in the great family of the Indo-European languages. The nearest relatives are, on the one side, the Italic languages, on the other side, the Ger- manic. The Celtic languages,^ of which we possess some knowledge, may be divided into three chief groups: 1. The Gallic language, which is known to us only through proper names and citations in Greek and Roman authors, and through coins and inscriptions. The interpretation of these is in part uncertain ; besides, they are so scanty, that philologists have little to gain from them. Gallic is the only Celtic language of the main- land of which we know anything. 2. The British language, in which we are ac- customed to include Cymric (Welsh), Cornish and Breton. Cornish was spoken in Cornwall, but died out about the year 1800. Welsh is spoken in Wales, and Breton in Brittany, whose Celtic inhabitants were brought over from Brit- ain at the beginning of the Middle Ages. The earliest form of this language known to us is found in glossaries from the 8th or 9th century A. D. 3. The Gaelic languages, which are divided into Irish, Highland Scotch (or Gaelic in the narrower sense) and Manx, i. e. the language of the Isle of Man. Manx has been known to us for a few centuries only; on the other hand, we have Irish and Scotch texts of considerable 1) Of. Brugmann, "Kurze vergleichende Grammttik der indo-germanischen Sprachen," p. 12. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 17 antiquity. Some inscriptions may date as far back as about 500 A. D. In the oldest times, Irish and Scotch were practically the same lan- guage. §3. In connection with his wars in Gaul, Jvdius Caesar made two military expeditions into Britain (55 and 54 B. C), which, however, did not lead to the conquest of the land. Not until the time of the Emperor Claudius was the conquest begun, and Agricola (78-84 A. D.) extended the Roman power as far as the Forth and Clyde.^ Roman civilization quickly fol- lowed the Roman sword: trade blossomed, a network of roads was built, cities like York and Lincoln formed centres for the new civilization, and London won even then no small importance in commerce. Numerous relics from the Roman times bear witness to the luxury which had developed among the wealthier classes. But it seems — ^how little we know of social conditions in ancient Britain! — that the position of the lower classes must not have been enviable. A sharp distinction gradually grew up between the Roman masters and the Romanized popu- lation in the larger cities, on the one side, and the Celtic population in the country, on the other. We must admit, however, that the ques- tion of the extent to which the Latin language was used in Britain, and the degree to which the land was Romanized, is most difficult to answer, and is a matter upon which the views of scholars differ widely. §4. The civilized Britons, who had gradually lost their warlike qualities, had to bear the 1) Cf. to this and the following. Green, "Short History of the English People," p. 5fE. A more recent full account of the earlier history of England is Hodgkin, "The History of England, from the earliest times to the Norman Conquest." is ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY fierce attacks of their northern neighbors, the Picts. These attacks were repulsed successfully so long as the Roman military was quartered in Britain. But in the year 409, Rome recalled her legions to defend her against Alaric and his Visigoths, and Britain was left without pro- tection. At first she was successful in guarding herself against the invading Picts, but when the Picts received reinforcements from Ireland, and when internal discord broke out in Britain, and pirates began to harry the coasts, it looked dark for the British. Then they took a fatal step. A tradition, the truth of which is not above suspicion, says that the Britons, by prom- ises of land and money, induced a large number of German pirates to land in the southeast of Britain, to wage war against their northern enemies. This happened, according to the testi- mony of tradition, in the year 449, yet this date is probably a little late. Quickly enough the Brit- ons saw the folly of this step. The German allies* it is true, beat back the Picts, but after winning the victory, they turned their weapons against the Britons themselves, and began to extend their conquests westward and northward. Numerous reinforcements from the Germanic mainland arrived and resistance on the part of the British was at length seen to be in vain. While on the continent the Germans— Franks, Burgundians, Lombards — had fought to divide the tottering world-empire of Rome among themselves, and had settled as lords among their Romanized subjects, and after a few centuries had adopted the language of their subjects, the conquest of Britain was far more radical. Many Britons fell, many were forced back into the mountain- ous land of Wales and Cornwall. Those who survived and were left behind in the conquered land, seem to have lost their nationality very OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 19 quickly, and to have become assimilated in the mass of the conquerors. This conquest, there- fore, forms a turning point in Britain's destiny. The land, once Celtic, becomes now Germanic, Britain becomes England, and the history of the English people begins. §5. Who were these Germans, that took England in possession, and where did they come from? These questions can, at present, find no fully satisfactory answer, and we cannot here enter into a discussion of the hypotheses which scholars have advanced concerning the home of the English and of the tribes most nearly related to them on the Continent. Linguistic, as well as historical testimony proves that the Germanic conquerors of England formed no homogeneous mass, but a group of several dis- tinct, though certainly nearly related tribes.^ The well-known Old English ecclesiastic, the vener- able Bede (t735), names in his Historia eccle- siastica gentis Anglorum I, 15, as the colonizers of England, Angles, Saxons and Jutes. He gives as the original home of the Angles, "Angulus" in southern Schleswig. Concerning the conti- nental home of the other tribes, we have no historic accounts. A hypothesis frequently ad- vanced, is that the Saxons came from the land between the Elbe and the Rhine, and the Jutes from North Schleswig. The Jutes seem to have taken possession of Kent, the Isle of Wight, and that part of Hampshire next to the island. The Saxons occupied the banks of the Thames and the rest of Southern England. Their names appear in the shire-names: Essex, Middlesex, Sussex, and in Wessex. The rest of the land, as far as the Germanic conquest extended, was col- 1) Cf. Klugre, "Geschichte der englischen Sprache," In Faurs Grundrlss, 2nd Ed., L, p. 928S. 20 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORT onized b)^ the Angles. — The several subdivisions of the chief tribes will be treated when we dis- cuss the English dialects. Besides these names of the larger groups of the inhabitants of Eng- land, other names occur also, in documents, evidently names of smaller tribes which have been absorbed by the three greatest. §6. Englishmen have always called their language "English." This word, OE. englisc, is derived from the name of the Angles. Even Bede speaks of lingua anglica as that language which is spoken by the Germanic inhabitants of England ; he uses the term lingua Saxonum only where he wishes especially to denote the Saxon language. A Kentish king in early times speaks of himself and his people as Angles, and Pope Gregory the Great uses the term Anglia for the whole land. In OE. writings the name Englisc is always used, e. g., in the works of Alfred the Great. It is true that not seldom the term lingua saxonica occurs in Latin writings. As to the name Anglo-Saxon, in the oldest times it is found only in charters and one questions whether it be really considered a name for the people and not rather a legal term? For all these reasons it is best to give to the language of England even of the oldest period, that name which it bears today. Thereby, that false idea — yet present — ^is dispelled, according to which the English language after the Norman Conquest was an essentially different language from Anglo-Saxon. Consequently, we speak of Old-English, Middle-English and Modern-Eng- lish, in the same way as in German we speak of an Old High, a Middle High and a Modern High German. §7. In the year 597, Christianity was intro- duced into England by Pope Gregory the Great's OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 21 envoy, St. Augustine. Not without long strife and stubborn resistance did it succeed in mak- ing way for itself. But it seems that, having found entrance, it struck deep root, which is sufficiently evident from the religious character of a great part of the Old English literature. England's early history is full of strife and restlessness. Scarcely had the conquest of the land been completed, before discord manifested itself in the small states which had been formed, and among which three, especially, played an important role, viz.: the kingdom of the West Saxons, and Mercia and Northumbria, founded by the Angles. The leadership was held first by one, then by another of these three states. Periods of bloody war alternate with calmer and happier times when culture reached a higher stage, churches and monasteries were founded, literary occupations were pursued in the monastic schools. Northumbria especially, about the year 700, presents a pleasing picture. That was the scene of Bede's wonderful activity, whose teaching and writing embraced all of the learning known to the times. Students, eager for knowledge, streamed to the schools of North- umbria, not only from all England, but from the Continent as well. At the same time a na- tional poetry arose. A great part of the poetical literature which we possess in OE., is without doubt of Northumbrian origin, although it comes to us in a mixed dialect, based on a copy of the originals made by WS. scribes. Internal and external misfortunes put an end to this brilliant period in Northumbria, and new times of confusion followed, until finally Ecgberht of Wessex, in the year 827, forced into subjection all the Mercian and Northumbrian kingdoms, which were now fallen into anarchy, and united Angles and Saxons under one sceptre. 22 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY §8, The weakness of the English states was not due to their lack of unity alone; enemies be- gan to harry them from outside. As the Angles and Saxons had harassed the Britons with pira- cy, so now they were in their turn frightfully be- set by the Scandinavian Vikings. About the year 790 these Vikings made their first raids, only to return later, plundering and harrying in con- stantly increasing crowds. They came from Denmark and Norway; the English called them without distinction Danes, Dene, or heathen. The Scandinavian languages were in all proba- bility still very similar to one another. For sev- eral decades the Vikings contented themselves with plundering and harrying and taking home what booty they had won. But in the middle of the ninth century they changed their policy and began to settle in England as conquerors and colonizers. Their numbers were quickly in- creased and they were everywhere victorious in war. First Northumbria fell before them, and somewhat later Mercia acknowledged the Dan- ish overlordship. §9. In 871, Alfred, the grandson of Ecgberht, became king of Wessex. He ascended the throne under disheartening conditions. Of his ancestral kingdom, but ä small part remained, and enemies from without pressed forward from every side. Through extreme caution and acuteness, Alfred succeeded in keeping the Northmen at a distance for several years, and finally, with his collected forces, defeated them in a battle which led to the Peace of Wedmore (878). The Danish leader, Guthrum, was con- verted to Christianity and received as a fief the whole of Northern and Eastern England, which was then called the Danelaw. During the reraainder of Alfred's reign, England enjoyed a practically uninterrupted peace. Alfred is OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 23 one of IJistorjr's noblest rulers. He was warmly zealous for his people's spiritual welfare, and worked unceasingly for the improvement of the mother-tongue and of the national culture. Of greatest importance is his activity as the trans- lator of well-known Latin manuals, in which he was assisted by several prominent church- men. From Alfred's circle come, among others, the OE. translations of Orosius' History of the World, Pope Gregory's Cura Pastoralis, Boeth- ius' De Consolatione Philosophiae and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Hereby he laid the foundations for English prose, and raised West Saxon to England's liter- ary dialect. In his interesting Preface to the translation of the Cura Pastoralis, the king gives expression, in simple, warm words, to his noble zeal for the uplifting of his people. §10. Alfred died in 901. His successors ruled over Wessex during the tenth century with vary- ing fortunes, and made their influence more or less felt in the Danelaw. Under King Aethelred the Unready, the Scandinavians, with fresh hordes, began again to visit the English coast. Yet the English succeeded in holding their own against them, until the king in a sudden panic consented to a massacre of the Danes in Wessex (1002). The part played by this occurence, which tradition has probably exaggerated, is hard to determine. It is a fact, however, that the Scandinavian forces grew in strength until at last King Swein led a great army of invasion into England and, after a long bloody contest, conquered all of England, and at his death left the land to his son Canute (1016-1035). Canute was in many respects an eminent ruler and by his mildness and justice made the people forget the violence of the conquest. His reign was therefore a happy time for England, but 24 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY during the reigns of his sons, a violent civil war broke out and after their death (1042) a national restoration followed, in that Aethelred's son, Edward the Confessor, was called as king from Normandy, where he had spent his boyhood. He lived in folk-tradition as a saint, but he was really an extremely weak person, entirely de- pendent upon his Norman favorites. His for- eign tastes awakened a general anger in Eng- land; discontent broke out, and the greatest power came into the hands of Earl Godwin, and after his death into those of his son, Harold. When Edward died (1066), Harold was crowned King of England, but his reign was brief. News of his accession caused great amazement in Nor- mandy. For a long time the warlike Duke Wil- liam had cast longing glances toward England, and had followed its internal contentions with interest. He affirmed that he had received a promise of the English throne from Edward the Confessor, and hastened to enforce his claim. With a great host he sailed across the Channel and completely defeated the English on the 14th of October, 1066, at Senlac (Hastings). Harold was killed and William became the master of England. This Norman Conquest gives an en- tirely new direction to English history. A new element of population, the Norman-French, is brought into the land to live an independent life for several centuries, but later to be gradu- ally fused with the English to one nation. We shall speak later of the consequences of the Con- quest and its effect upon the English language, and shall now pass to an account of the position of that language in the group of languages whereof it forms a part. §11. The English language is a Germanic language. The Germanic languages form one division of the Indo-European or Aryan Ian- OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 25 guages. The primitive language of the Indo- Europeans is unknown to us ; only by comparison between the languages which compose the fam- ily, can scholars reconstruct, with more or less certainty, the primitive Indo-European words and word-forms. The subject of the interrela- tionships of the Indo-European languages has been variously understood and conceived by the various scientists. While some have attempted to rear a genealogical tree for the languages in question, that is, the language-groups were de- picted as taking the form of a tree with its branches, other scholars have done homage to another view, the so-called Wave theory (Wel- lentheorie), or the theory of continuous transi- tions and contacts between a language and its nearest relatives on either side.^ Among other things, the modern investigation of dialects is re- garded as a strong support for the latter theory. According to this theory, the relation of the lan- guages is conceived in the form of a chain, where each link is intimately connected with the neighboring Unks. Many of the languages derived from the Indo-European mother-tongue have doubtless disappeared without leaving a trace; the links in the chain which are known to us from more or less abundant sources, are eight in number. Their order is as follows: 1. the Aryan languages, 2. Armenian, 3. Greek, 4. Albanese, 5. the Italic languages, 6. Celtic, 7. Germanic and 8. the Balto-Slavic languages. However, against even the "Wave theory" serious charges can be made, and science cannot be said to have come to a uniform conception of this difficult problem. One fact seems certain — the different treatment of the Prim. Indo- European palatal stops goes back to very primi- 1) Cf. Johannes Schmidt, "Die Verwandtschaftsverhaelt- nlsse der Indogermanlsohen Spraofien." 26 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY tive times. In such a case a division of the Indo- European languages into two chief groups would be advisable. To the one group (which has been called cenfum-languages) would be^ long the Greek, Italic, Celtic and Germanic lan- guages; to the other (safem-languages) , the Aryan, Armenian, Albanian and Balto-Slavic languages.^ §12. The ARYAN group consists of the Indian and Iranian languages. We see the oldest form of the Indian language in the hymns of the Veda, of which some go back to more than a thousand years B. C, possibly still earlier. Closely re- lated to the language of the Veda is the language which goes under the name of Sanscrit (Classic), and which possesses an enormously rich litera- ture. Still other dialects are known to us from early times. The modern Indian dialects are particularly numerous. The Iranian languages consist in ancient times of Old Bactrian or Avestan, the language of the Zend Avesta, and Old Persian, represented by many cuneiform inscriptions. Of the modern Iranian languages, none are to be considered as direct continua- tions of the two old dialects. The Afghan lan- guage is related to Old Bactrian, while the mod- ern Persian dialects stand nearer to Old Persian. ARMENIAN has been known to us since the 5th century A. D. The literary language, which was then well established, has held its own as such almost unchanged until our own time, and differs greatly from the dialects now spoken. 1) "Centum" (pr. kentum) is the word for the number one-hundred in Latin, "satem," in Avestan; the initial conso- nant is to be referred to a Prim. Indo-Europ. palatal "k" and the names show that in the one group it remains a stop, in the other it becomes a spirant. Cf. Brugmann, "Kurze verglelchende Grammatik," p. 157; Hirt, "Die Indo-German- en," I., p. 95; Streitber^, "Ur^ermanfsche Grammatik," p. 9. QF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ?7 CrREEK comes to u^ separated into many dia- lects. Toward the close of the 5th century B. C, a standard literary language was formed with the Attic dialect as a basis, and somewhat later a standard spoken language was developed, which practically replaced the old dialects, but which later, in its turn, was broken up into different folk-dialects. The literature of the Byzantine empire is written in a language which is tiie result of the disproportionate blending of the old literary language and the contemporary dialect of the people. The numerous Modern Greek dialects have not yet been thoroughly in- vestigated, but seem to offer a rich and promis- ing field for linguistic investigation. The differ- ence is very great between the spoken language of modern Greece and the written language, which is highly archaic. ALBANESE has been known to us only since the 17th century. This language, which is very much mixed with foreign elements, has been investigated only in very recent years. The ITALIC languages in ancient times em- braced the Umbrian-Samnitic (or Oscan- Umbrian) dialects and Latin. The former are known to us through inscriptions, for the most part dating from the last centuries B. C. They were gradually superseded by Latin. This lan- guage we know from about the year 300 B. C. Very early the cleft between the popular lan- guage in Rome and the strictly regulated language of literature had become very great. Although this literary language held itself prac- tically unchanged through the course of centu- ries, dialects quickly developed, especially after the Roman colonization spread Latin over vast territories. In later times several of these dia- lects were raised to the dignity of national Ian- 28 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY guages: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Roumanian, etc., i. e. the so-called Romance languages. For the CELTIC languages, see p. 16. For the GERMANIC, see below. The RALTO-SLAVIC group is divided, as the name signifies, into two chief divisions. The Baltic languages include Old Prussian, which died out in the 17th century, and which is known to us only through very meagre texts, together with Lithuanian and Lettic, both still spoken and both known to us since the 16th century. The Slavic languages may be divided into two chief divisions. To the Southeastern group be- long Russian, Servian and Rulgarian and otiiers ; to the Western group belong Rohemian (Tchech- ish), Polish, etc. The oldest known form of Slavic is the so-called Church Slavic — generally identified with Old Rulgarian — that is, the lan- guage which the missionaries Cyrillus and Meth- odius (9th century) made use of, and which in a somewhat altered form is still used in the Orthodox Greek services in Russia. §13. The GERMANIC languages, then, have their place in the Indo-European complex be- tween the Celtic and the Ralto-Slavic languages and have certain peculiarities common to both of these, which we cannot discuss here.^ The Primitive Germanic language we do not know. The Germanic language comes down to us di- vided into many dialects. If we except those dialects which we know only from proper names, quotations from classic authors, and other scanty sources, such as the language of the Vandals, Langobards, Rurgundians and 1) The features common to Germanic and Balto-Slavlc have been attacked by several scholars. See Hirt, "Die Indo-Germanen," I„ p. 97. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 29 Ostrogoths, the old Germanic languages group themselves into six divisions, namely; Gothic, High German, Low German,^ Frisian, English and Scandinavian. Among the pecu- liarities which characterize the Germanic lan- guages as a whole, should be mentioned first of all, the change in a large portion of the con- sonantal system, which is called the First Sound Shift The mutual relationships of the Germanic languages have been the subject of widespread research and the investigators have not all ar- rived at the same results in the matter. While Jacob Grimm assumed a close relationship be- tween High German and Gothic, Schleicher unit- ed into one group High and Low German, Fri- sian and English, but excluded the Scandinavian languages. The more recent scientific works agree in uniting High and Low German, Frisian and English in a so-called WEST GERMANIC group. However, the views differ with regard to the other Germanic languages. For a long time it was the universal custom to unite Gothic and the Scandinavian languages in an EAST GERMANIC group, and even today some schol- are make much of the peculiarly close relation of these languages.^ It is, however, more usual to separate these languages and to see in Gothic, together with a few languages of which we know only a little, an EAST GERMANIC group, and in the Scandinavian languages, a NORTH GERMANIC group.' However, here among 1) By this term we designate Low German proper, the most important form of which is Old Saxon, and Old Low Franconian from which Dutch has developed. 2) See Hirt, "Die Indo-Germanen," I., p. 173. 3) This triple division is accepted by many of the text- books in general use, as: Streitherg, "Urgermanische Gram- matik"; Brugmann, "Kurze verglelchende Grammatik"; Buel- bring, "Altenglisches Elementar buch"; J. & M. Wright, "Old English Grammar"; Kaluza, "Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache." 30 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY the Germanic languages, also, it is seen to be impossible to divide the groups sharply one from the other, for there are points of contact and transitions between the different groups, or, now and then, between languages belonging to widely separated groups. The North Ger- manic languages may be said, in a certain sense, to take a middle place between the two other groups.^ If one holds to the Wave theory, and arranges the Germanic languages in a closed chain, the order of the links will be: Gothic — Scandinavian — ^English — ^Frisian — Lov; German — High German — (Gothic) . At any rate we ought to have clearly before us the fact that such names as East and West Germanic are not names of separate ethno- graphic groups, but that purely linguistic rela- tions are meant thereby. It seems that the distinction between the East and the West Ger- manic languages was fully formed in the 2nd century A. D., but the Germans had separated into tribes much earlier. Linguistic coincidences do not always prove a close blood relationship, but often rest on merely external geographical or historical relations; still, long afterward, when the Germans were spread over a vast ter- ritory in Europe, we see linguistic changes somehow wander from tribe to tribe. The laws for the treatment of final sounds of a word, which have so greatly changed the appearance of the Germanic words, seem to have been formed about 200-300 A. D. None the less, they have extended their influence even to the utter- most confines of the territory where Germanic languages were spoken. §14. Let us illustrate the above by examples. The most important facts upon which we can 1) Streitberg, "Urgermanisohe Grammatik." OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 31 base the assumption of a nearer relationship between two or more languages of the same family, are changes in which both participate; the fact that two languages have preserved archaisms in common is of much less impor- tance. Now if we compare the East and West Germanic languages in this respect, we find that all the West Germanic languages show certain radical changes in cases where Gothic and Norse retain the original forms. Thus the W. G. languages have only one form for the Nom. and Ace. Plur, in the Strong Masc. :OHG. fiska, OSax. fiscos. Fris. fiska (r), OE. fiscas; Gothic, however, N. Plur. fiskös. Ace. fiskans; ON. flskar-fiska. Further, all the WGerm. lan- guages have replaced the old form of the 2. Sing. Ind. Strong Fret, in -t (Goth. ON. gaft, thou gavest), by a form in -i (-e); OHG. gäbi, OE. géafe. The WGerm. group is further distin- guished by a whole series of changes in the final sounds of words and by syncopations in which all participate. One of the most important of these changes is the WGerm. loss of a Prim. Germ, -z (Indo-Europ.-s) at the close of a word, which, however, in one form or another is re- tained in Gothic and Old Scandinavian lan- guages. Thus the Nom. Sing, of the word "day" has in Gothic the form dags, in ONorse, dagr, while in WGerm., the ending is lost; OHG. tag, OSax. dag, OE. daeg. The traits, not numerous, which are common to Gothic and ONorse, and which have led many scholars to combine the two languages in an East Germanic group, must be omitted here, since in discussing them, comparatively compli- cated questions of Germanic grammar must be explained. However, it has already been pointed out that Gothic and Norse have in some cases kept the peculiarities of Prim. Germ., where WGerm. has undergone changes. 32 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY §15. To prove that, in perfect conformity to the Wave-theory, certain similarities are to be found between single languages belonging to diiferent groups of the Germanic family, we may present the following: A Prim. Germanic stressed é occurs as é only in Gothic; ONorse, like WGerm., has in this case ä; Gothic letan, (to let), ONorse, låta; Osax. la- tan; OHG., läzzan. A Prim. Gérm. medial z (voiced s-sound) is preserved in Gothic, where- as ONorse and WGerm. languages have changed this sound to r: Goth, comparative batiza, ONorse betre, OHG. bezziro, OE. bet(e)ra. One point may be mentioned wherein English differs from the other WGerm. languages. They have introduced in the usual demonstrative pro- noun, "the," one and the same stem in all cases, while English, like Gothic and ONorse, has kept the two old stems. As in Sanscrit we decline: sas, sä, tat. Gen. tasya, etc., and in Greek: 6, ^, TO, Gen. Tov, rrfi, Tov, etc, so Gothic has the forms sa, so, \>ata. Gen. ]>is, etc., ONorse, så, su, ]>at, Gen. ]>ess, etc., and OE. se, séo, Jpaet, Gen. ]>xs, etc. On the contrary, the OHG. Noin. forms are der, diu, daz, OSax., the, thiu, that. Fris., thi, thiu, thet. Likewise we find an interesting similarity be- tween OHG., and the East and North Germanic languages, namely, in the plural of the verbs, separate forms have been preserved for the three persons, while OSax., Fris., and Eng., have only one form for the whole plural: e. g. Goth. finkam., we find, flnpiy; finpand; ONorse, Jinnom; -e\>, -a; OHG., ftndamés, -et, -ant; OSax, has for the plural of the Pres. only findad; Fris. findath; OE. finda}>. These examples suffice to show that the theory of gradual transition has won some support in OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 33 the history of the Germanic languages. But al- though agreements exist on one hand or the other, yet the West Germanic group shows strongly marked characteristics. It now concerns us to examine the position of English within this group. §16. The nearest relative of English on the continent is the Frisian. The agreements be- tween OE. and Frisian are so great that one might almost treat them as a single group, the Anglo-Frisian.^ Frisian is divided into several dialects. The best sources for the study of the older Frisian are the old laws of the 14th cen- tury, or in part from the latter half of the 13th century. As an example of the agreement between OE. and Frisian may be taken the fact that in both languages Germ, a before m or n is represented by a or o : man or mon, nama or noma (name) ; but elsewhere in a closed syllable the same vowel undergoes an elevation of tone which is represented in Frisian by e, in the Eng. dialects by se or e; Fris. bek (back), OE. bssc (bee): Fris. brek (I broke), OE., brsec (brec), etc. As to the inflections, it should be mentioned that OE. as well as OFris. forms its 3rd pers. pro- noun Sing, and Plur. in all cases from a stem beginning with h: O. E. Nom. he, G. his, D. him. Ace. hine, Plu. N. A. hi(e), G. hira, D. him; Fris. hi, him, hine; hia, hira, him. OSax., on the contrary, uses various stems in inflecting this pronoun: he, is, imu, ina; sia, iro, im. In like manner OHG. uses forms from different stems. These examples suffice. The Frisian dialects are still incompletely investigated, but one may say with confidence that the historical study of 1) Cf. Sweet, "History of English Sounds," section 294, and "New English Grammar," section 596; Streitberg, 'HJr- germanlsche Grammatik," p. 14; Heuser, "Altfriesisches Lesebuch." 34 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY English will reap a rich harvest from a thorough study of this near relative of the language of the Angles and Saxons. Next come the Low German dialects. We have mentioned the fact that Eng. and Frisian agree with them as opposed to High German, among other things, in that the plural of the verb has only one form Tor all three persons; for the rest. High Germ, is sufficiently character- ized by the so-called Second Sound Shift. From this the position of English in the Germanic lan- guage complex may be seen. §17. The history of the English language is usually divided into three periods. English and German offer many analogies in the course of their development, and many of the criteria upon which the division of the German language into periods are based are also of the greatest importance for English. As we speak of an Old, a Middle and a Modern form of the High Ger- man language, so we distinguish between an Old, a Middle and a Modern English language, (OE., ME., ModE.). It is naturally impossible accurately to fix a year as the boundary between the periods in the life of a language; one must be content with approximations of those peri- ods, which again may differ according to the changes which one considers of greatest impor- tance and most suitable as causes for a division. The Old English period, which we may call the Period of Full End-vowels — that is, we meet forms there as Nom. Plur. fiscas, G. Plur. fisca, D. Plur. fiscum, to Nom. Sing, fisc — extends to about the year 1100. The Norman Conquest, the importance of which for the development of English we shall attempt to explain in Chap. Ill, is not the direct, but the indirect cause of the changes which characterize the transition to the following period. Although the OE. literary OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 35 language, which was based on the West Saxon dialect, had changed comparatively little be- tween 900-1100, yet the spoken language must have gradually advanced to a great sim- plicity in its inflectional system. Through the Conquest, the literary language lost its sig- nificance and was forgotten. Those who still made use of their mother-tongue for literary purposes began to write in close agreement to the spoken language; hence the seemingly sud- den development. The literary monuments of the Transitional period are especially interest- ing, e. g., the latter portions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and some of the later translations of biblical texts. The Middle English period — like the corre- sponding division in Germany — ^is characterized by the leveling of all the old suffix-vowels to a simple e. Certain other important changes in sound — and inflectional — relations distinguish ME. from OE. Then, too, the English vocab- ulary undergoes a radical change through the introduction of many loan-words. Concerning the most suitable division be- tween ME. and ModE., different proposals have been made. Sweet^ sees in the fact of end-e becoming sUent the most important criterion This process began earliest in the Northern dia- lects, and begins in the Southern dialects short- ly after Chaucer (tl400). Sweet designates the period between 1400 or 1450 and 1500 as a Pe- riod of Transition, and lets Modern English be- gin with the 16th century. In opposition to this, Zupitza^ has maintained that the fact that end-e became silent can furnish no suitable cri- terion for determining the close of a period, for the reason that it occurs in the different dia- 1) "History of English Sounds." 2) "I/eotures held In the University of Berlin, 1888-1889.' 36 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY lects at different times. The best division be- tween ME. and Mod.E., he says, should be the year 1558, that is, the year of the accession of Elizabeth, for only since that time can one speak of a generally recognized Standard English. This date is, however, too late, and certain im- portant facts speak for the year 1500 as a good dividing line between ME. and ModE. Al- though the new common language which had gradually developed during the last century of the ME. period cannot be considered as definite- ly fixed at the year 1500, yet its victory was as- sured, and the conditions of literary produc- tion which were so altered by the introduction of the art of printing in the last two decades of the 15th century, seem to justify the choice of the year 1500 as a milestone in the history of the language as well. Consequently, the OE. period closes at the year 1100, the ME. period, at 1500. II Old English §18. Old English is not a uniform language, but comes to us in a number of dialects. History and tradition tell of three important Germanic tribes who took possession of England, and it is surely more than an accident that the OE. dia- lects, for many centuries after the Conquest, can be divided into three great groups. In these dialect-groups we must see later stages of de- velopment of those languages which were spok- en by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in the time of the conquest of England. The Kentish dialect, which is spoken in the Southeast of England, is the language of the Jutes; there is really only one of the Saxon dialects, i. e.. West Saxon (WS.), which is known to us in Old Eng- lish times through a rich literature; the Anglian territory embraces two main dialects: a south- ern, Mercian, and a northern, Northumbrian. Of these dialects, we see that the West Saxon is the most important; by virtue of its political prestige and of King Alfred's all-embracing ac- tivity in behalf of a national culture, it became m preference to the others a literary dialect. We have nimierous sources for the study of WS., yet not so nmnerous as was formerly thought. That is, it was usual for the earlier grammari- 28 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY ans to base their study of the principal dialect of Old England upon the numerous poetical texts. As a result of later investigations this idea had to be abandoned, as it was proved that these texts do not exhibit any pure dialect, but rather take up forms from the different dia- lects. The chief cause of this^ is the fact that OE. poetry, for the most part, is of Anglian origin, but after the decay of the Anglian pow- er, it was preserved to posterity by West Saxon scribes who allowed their own dialect to ap- pear more or less in the copy. Therefore, these texts must be used with the greatest caution in linguistic investigations, especially in the study of sounds. The most important texts upon which the grammatical study of the different OE. dialects is based, are mentioned in the fol- lowing paragraphs. §19. We find pure WS. in the translations which were made by King Alfred himself, or under his supervision. The translations of Pope liregory's Cura Pastoralis and of Orosius (both edited by Sweet) are of greatest importance. The older portions of that historical work which goes under the name of the Anglo-Saxon Chron- icle show in the main the same dialect as the translations of Alfred. Upon these and several other texts our knowledge of the older WS. of the time immediately before and after the year 900 is based. The later WS., which undergoes several changes, is known to us chiefly from the many carefully written works of the prolific ab- bot Aelfric (about the year 1000), works for the most part on religious themes. Another impor- tant text coming from Aelfric's time is the WS. Translation of the Gospels. The oldest WS. of the time before Alfred is represented only by 1) Cf. Slevers-Cook, "Old English Grammar," 3rd Ed., p. 4; and Sweet, "History of English Sounds," section 351. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 39 proper names and by a few charters of which the oldest, according to Sweet, dates from the year 778. §20. Our knowledge of tlie other OE. dia- lects is derived from very scanty literary texts, from a large number of interlinear translations of Latin texts, from collections of glosses, and from more or less brief legal documents. The language of the Jutes, Kentish, in its old- est form, is represented by a great number of charters. We have the later Kentish in a large glossary from the close of the 10th century, as well as in the translation of a psalm and of a hymn of the same time. T(he so-called Epinal glossary,^ a very important source for the his- tory of English, from about the year 700, was formerly considered to be Kentish; now, how- ever, the dialect of the Epinal glossary, as well as that of the contemporary Erfurt and Leyden glossaries and of the Corpus glossary, which is somewhat later, is considered in the main South Mercian, though with a mixture of Kentish and sometimes even WS. forms.^ Of the Anglian dialects, Mercian is repre- sented first by the important interlinear trans- lation of the Psalter, the so-called Vespasian Psalter, from the first half of the 9th century. The dialect of the interlinear version of the Gos- pel according to St. Matthew in the so-called Rushworth MS. (latter half of the 10th century) is impure Mercian. Then, too, a number of charters belong here. We know the older Northumbrian dialect from a number of Runic inscriptions, of which the most interesting is the inscription of the 1) The "Bpinal-Glossary," with a number of other im- portant texts, will be found in Sweet, "Oldest English Texts." 2) Buelbring-, "Altenglisches Elementarbuch," p. 8. 40 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY Ruthwell Cross. Furthermore, we have some old Northumbrian poems, as Caedmon's Hymn and Bede's Death Song. The texts in later Northumbrian, from the second half of the 10th century, are especially voluminous. These texts are grouped into two clearly marked dialects, a northern, represented by the interlinear ver- sions of all the Gospels in the socalled Durham Book (or the Lindisfarne Gospels), together with the interlinear version of the Durham Rit- ual; and a southern, represented by the inter- linear translations of St. Mark, St. Luke and St. John in the Rushworth MS. In the following brief account of several of the chief points in OE. grammar, we confine ourselves mainly to WS., referring only casual- ly to peculiarities of the other dialects. §21. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes brought with them to England the Runic alphabet,'^ which was common to all Germanic tribes. This Runic alphabet is, however, no invention of the Germans, but an adaptation of the Latin alpha- bet (according to others, of a type of the Greek), which adaptation was certainly to a great degree the result of the demands made by the writing materials (stone, wood, metals) which were in general use among the old Germans. From the period after the introduction of Christianity we find Runic inscriptions in England;^ yet very soon the English adopted the Roman alphabet, in the form which obtained in Britain. Thereby arose difficulties, for certain OE. sounds had no full equivalent in the Latin alphabet; that was the case with the sounds which in ModE. are de- noted by the letters w and th. The oldest Eng- lish MSS. seek to conform to the Latin letters 1) Sievers, "Runen und Runeninschriften," in Paul's "Grundriss der germanischen Philologie," I. 2) All in Sweet's "Oldest English Texts." OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 41 and to represent the former sound by u or uu, the latter, the interdental (or postdental) Spi- rant, by th. In the 9th century they began to introduce two Runic letters in writmg for the consonants in question. The interdental spirant was then represented by ]> (thorn), very often also by a d with the stem crossed, called eth. As for the rest of the OE. alphabet, it is worth mentioning that c is the sign of the /c-sound in all positions; the letter k is rare; oe is never written as one letter, whereas the ligature ae is one of the commonest signs in OE. writing. In many cases, however, the value of the OE. let- ters remains and only by comparison with re- lated languages and by observing the later de- velopment of the English language can it be determined. Vowel length is not denoted at all in most of the MSS., or at least most inconsist- ently. Where they have attempte'd to denote a long vowel, they have either doubled the vowel or used an accent. §22. The following account of OE. grammar must be limited to the most general features in the structm-e and development of the language. Here, as more particularly in the treatment of ME., the reader may get the impression that the details of the historical grammar of English have been worked out with greater certainty than is the case. We especially emphasize the fact, therefore, that many obscure points are to be found, and that many problems are still awaiting their solution. Yet the fundamental facts have been discovered and fixed by investi- gation, and it is only those main features which we shall delineate. 42 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORT 1. OE. VOWELS. §23. The English vowels have always been distinguished by a great sensitiveness to influ- ence from neighboring sounds; the language shows a well-marked tendency to make diph- thongs of stressed long vowels and greatly to reduce vowels in unstressed syllables. In examining the OE. vowels in stressed s y 1 1 a b 1 e s, let us begin with the various developments of the W Germ, a.^ This sound, which, if we except the force of the i-um- laut, remains, in the main, unchanged in Ger- man, undergoes two sorts of changes in OE. In an originally closed syllable, WGerm. a ap- pears in OE. as se, e. g., daeg, day; Germ. Tag; psey, path, Germ. Pfad; Preterite sset, sat. Germ, sass; wses, was. Germ. war. In originally open syllables, however, OE. has a, when a, o, u stand in the syllable following: Plur. ctagas, daga,dagum, from dseg; faran (to go). Germ, fahren, but « when an e follows: dseges, dxge; f seder, father. Germ. Vater. So in many cases it happens that forms of the same word have different stem vowels; under such conditions the natural thing is for Analogy (Systemzwang), to strive to make itself prevail. Variant or dou- ble forms are therefore not rare. Before nasals, the tone-quality of WGerm. a underwent another change in OE.; here they must have pronounced a very open a-sound in- clining to an o. MSS. and the various dialects have various ways of denoting this sound. The very oldest texts write a: man, land, nama (Germ. Name) ; but after a short time o becomes 1) We take as our basis, as do philological -worlis In gen- eral, a hypothetical West Germanic sound-stage, found by comparison of the oldest known forms of the different WGerm. languages. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 43 very common : mon, lond, noma. The later An- glian texts have o regularly; in the later WS., however, a becomes usual and displaces o. §24. WGerm. e, i and o, u usually remain unchanged, except where the presence of some other sound exerts an influence upon them, e. g., helpan, help, Germ, helfen; bindan, bind. Germ, binden; god, God, Germ. Gott; sunu, son. Germ. Sohn. It should be noticed that o before a nasal in OE. becomes uicuman, come. Germ, kom- men; besides, WGerm. o becomes u in several words, e. g., full. Germ, voll; wulf. Germ. Wolf; fugol, bird. Germ. Vogel. §25. WGerm. ä is in WS. se:r sedan, read. Germ, raten; slsepan, sleep, Germ, schlafen; sefen, eve. Germ. Abend. This WS. sä corre- sponds to i in the other dialects : redan, slipan, Before a nasal, WGerm. ä becomes in OE., as in Fris., ö:möna, moon, Goth, mena, OHG. mäno; Pret. Plur. nömon, they took. Germ, nahmen; cwömon, they came. Germ, kamen; gedön, done. Germ, getan. WGerm. e, I, ö, u are unchanged in OE. : her, here. Germ, hier; tld, tide (time). Germ. Zeit; föt, foot. Germ. Fuss; Ms, house. Germ. Haus. §26. The WGerm. diphthong at becomes a monophthong ä in OE., dp, oaSi, Germ. Eid; stan, stone. Germ. Stein; hät, hot. Germ, heiss; hätan, to call. Germ, heissen. The diphthong au occurs in OE. in the form éaihéaföd, head, Germ. Haupt; éage, eye. Germ. Auge; heawan, to hew. Germ, hauen; geleafa, (be) lief. Germ. Glaube. The development of this sound has been variously explained by different scholars. The diphthong eu, which in Germ, becomes io, ie{l), occurs in OE. in the form éo-.déop, deep. Germ, tief; deor, deer. Germ. Tier; bSodan, of- fer. Germ, bieten. WGerm. iu, which becomes 44 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY iu>(u)>eu in German, in OE. becomes first of all io: stioran, steer, Germ, stuern; yet in the southern dialects lo and eo become identical in form, and in later WS. éo is regularly written for WGerm. iu, so far as umlaut has not altered the sound. §27. We shall now say a few words about certain changes to which several of the OE. vow- els are exposed and which are caused by neigh- boring sounds. The most important changes be- longing here are those which go under the name of Breaking and Umlaut; noteworthy also is the effect which palatal sounds and w exert on stressed vowels. Of these processes. Breaking is certainly the oldest. This is seen, among other things, from the fact that the diphthongs resulting from Breaking are regularly subjected to i-umlaut. §28. By BREAKING wc mean the diphthonga- tion which certain vowels, notably a and e, un- derwent before certain consonant groups, espe- cially / and r followed by a consonant. In WS. a^ea, e>eo; e. g., eald, old. Germ, alt; healdan, hold, Germ, halten; healf, half. Germ, halb; feallan, fall. Germ, fallen; earm, poor. Germ, arm; wearm, warm. Germ, warm, etc., heorte, heart. Germ. Herz; weor]?an, to become. Germ, werden. Breaking of e before /-groups is rare. This is true of WS. The Anglian dialects do not exhibit breaking of a before /, and often also not before r. §29. 7-UMLAUT is the influence of an original i or i following the stem syllable, which in his- toric times in OE. for the most part has either disappeared or has weakened to e and whose earlier existence therefore can frequently be proved only by comparison with related lan- guages. This umlaut is very richly developed OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 45 in OE.; as examples may be cited the fol- lowing^ seWan, Goth, satian; sendan, Goth, sand- jan; hselan, to heal, to hål, whole; hyngran, to hungor; cy]>an, to make known, to cu\>, known; eald, old has the comparative ieldra, later ildra or yldra; to geleafa, belief, corresponds the verb gellefan, to believe, later gelifan, gelyfan. In the dialects the umlaut has at times variant forms; it should be mentioned that the Anglian dialects show öé as the umlaut of öidöm- döémain); böc-böéc, while WS. very early de- veloped this sound to é: déman, béc, and that the correspondence of WS. ié (later i or y) in the other dialects is é: WS. hieran, hiran, hyran^= dial, héran, as also dial, geléfan. §30. Space forbids us to discuss the other changes of stressed vowels under influence of neighboring sounds. Here belongs, for instance, the socalled u- and o-umlaut, which in its re- sults strongly reminds one of Breaking; weoriild, world, with eo< Germanic e on account of the following u. This umlaut is most frequent in the Anglian dialects. Preceding palatalis also modify the stemvowel: Germ, gab, Swed. gaf is in OE. geaf, gave; Germ, geben, to give, cor- responds to giefan. The labializing effect of a lu is very powerful in Northumbrian : WS., weg= North, woeg; wel=woel; wåépan, weapon= woepen, etc. The influence of a preceding w upon a diphthong is widespread in the different dialects; thus, for sweord (swerd), Germ. Schwert, we have forms as sword or sivurd; for weorpan (German werfen) we have worpan, wurpan; for weoruld, woruld, etc. §31. Amongst the quantitative changes of stressed vowels in OE., the most important is the lengthening of a short vowel before a con- sonant group consisting of Z or r or a nasal with a following sonant stop: did, gold, word, 46 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY händ or Mnd, cllmban, bindan, bundon, etc. However, it is hard to say just how far this lengthening process goes ; often it seems as if an uncertainty with regard to the lon^ and the short had existed. It should be mentioned that many ModE. words are developed from the lengthened forms in OE., as child, climb, bind, bound; many others are from the short forms, as hand. §32. Vowels in unstressed syllables are subject to laws of development, the details of which are often very complicated, by the fact of analogy having played such a very important role here. This is particularly the case with the second element of a compound word. If the original meaning of the compound is quite clear to the speaker, as a rule, the form will be pre- served ; if the meaning becomes obscure, it sinks from an originally independent word to a mere suffix, the form of which is often very much shortened. Examples of this phenomenon, com- mon to all languages, are e. g., the pronouns hwilc, which, and swelc, such, compared with Goth, hvileiks and swaleiks. In this brief ac- count we cannot enter into a discussion of the details of the treatment of vowels in unstressed syllables. 2. OE. CONSONANTS. §33. The OE. consonant system does not show such a number of changes from the Prim. Germanic stage, as does the vowel system. Here English stands in sharp contrast to OHG., whose perhaps most peculiar characteristic is the great and far reaching change of a whole series of consonants, which we call the Second Sound Shift. Consequently some brief remarks will suffice here. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 47 §34. The bilabial semivowel w occurs in OE. not only before a vowel and at the end of a syl- lable, but also enters as first or second element in several consonant groups, e. g., writan, write; wlite, beauty; cwepan, say; hwä, who, etc. The Germanic semi-vowel j occurs in OE. as a ModE. y-sound and is designated hy a g (rarely by i)- Ex. gear, year. Germ. Jahr; geong, young. Germ. Jung. §35. r was pronounced rolled-cerebral, that is, with the tip of the tongue bent backward; thus we explain the Breaking before r men- tioned in §28. An r not seldom undergoes meta- thesis in OE., for instance, OE. beornan, Goth, brinnan, Swed. brinna; first. Germ. Frist; hors. Germ. Ross, from hros. Breakings before / seem to denote that this letter in certain cases stands for a dark guttural sound. §36. With nasals, we have to do with an im- portant Sound-law; m and n drop out in Pre- English times before the voiceless spirants f. ]> and s; the preceding vowel becomes length- ened and at first probably nasalized; later this nasal quality disappears and the former pres- ence of a consonant is shown only by the length- ening of the vowel. An original a becomes in this case regularly ö. Ex. (cf. §23) : gös, goose. Germ. Gans; toy, tooth. Germ. Zahn; ö]>er, other. Germ, ander; söfte, soft, Germ, sanft; flf, five, Goth, fimf; us. Germ, uns; mu]>, mouth. Germ. Mund; wyscan, to wish, Germ, wunschen. An m-final in an inflectional ending becomes in later OE. -nidagon (D. Plur.) öhte, thought; ruh, rough; niht, night. X was at first usually pronounced hs in OE., for example, feax, hair, Goth, fahs; weaxan, grow, Goth, wahsjan; it seems to have received the value ks very early. In several words x seems always to have been pronounced ks, as in rixian, to reign. §38. The spirants f, s, > are for the most part surds (J? as th in think). They are sonant when medial between sonants ; / is in such cases the sign for the sound v : delfan, to delve ; lufu, love. §39. OE. double consonants are partly of Prim. Germanic, partly of WGerm., partly of Prim. English origin. At the end of a word a 50 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY double consonant is usually simplified in writ- ing. Certain MSS. are absolutely inconsistent in denoting double consonants. The change^ between ditferent consonants in the diflerent iorms and derivatives of a word or word-stem which is due to the so-called Verner's Law, makes its appearance in OE., although here, as in other languages, analogy often intro- duces the one sound into forms where it could not regularly occur. Examples of this conso- nant change are most fitly given in the discussion of the structure of the strong verb. 3. OLD ENGLISH DECLENSION. §40. In discussing the OE. substantive inflec- tion it is customary to follow the division accord- ing to stems, which is usual especially in gram- mars of older Germanic languages. So we speak of vowel-stems, to which we reckon o-stems and the feminine ä-stems, the i- and u-stems; and of Consonant stems, which in the Primitive Indo- European language, as in Greek and Latin, in- cluded a great number of different types; of these, however, only one, the socalled Weak declension, i. e. the n-stem, has found a rich development in Germanic, while others live only in isolated examples, or have been entirely lost. OE. has three genders; yet it must be noticed that even in OE. times the differentiation of gender has begun to grow very indistinct in northern Northumbrian (Lindsfarne Gospels and Dur- ham Book). The same dialect shows the begin- nings of a levelling of the different case forms in the declensions, caused by the far reaching force of analogy.^ There are two numbers, Singular and Plural; the cases are Nominative, 1) Called "grammatical change." 2) See the author's article "Beitraege zur Kenntnls des Altnorthumbrlschen" In the "Memolres de la Soclete Neo- Phllologlque a Helslnglors," I., p. 219f. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 51 Genitive, Dative and Accusative, Sing, and Plur., witii tiie addition of an Instrumental in the Sing., which usually is identical with the Dative m form. §41. o-stems. The numerous masculine o- stems have the following inflection in OE. : Sing. N. A. wulf, G. wulfes. D. I. wulfe; Plur. N. A. wulfas, G. wulf a, D. wulfum. In the same way are inflected, for example, döm, hring, earm, mu]>. The inflection of the neuter is the same as that of the masculine excepting in the N. A. Plur., which in a short syllahled word ends in -u (later often in -o, -a) and in a word with a long stem syllable has no ending: dor, door, N. A. Plur. doru, likewise spor, spur; hof, yard, etc. — word N. A. Plur. word, likewise ban, bone ; deor, animal; wif, woman; beam, child, etc. Neuters of two syllables or more follow laws which we cannot discuss here.^ Concerning the alteration of se and a in certain words, see §23. §42. The socalled jo- and luo-stéms, i. e. stems whose original end-vowel is preceded by a J or a w, show certain peculiarities. Accord- ing to certain rules which, especially in later OE., are crossed by the power of analogy, this sound appears in several cases. In this way is explained an inflection such as here, army, Masc, G. her(Qges, D. her(i)ge; Plur. her(i)ge(e)as\ besides which also occur heres, here, in complete conformity with the chief type of the o-stems. So also meolu, meal, G. meolwes, D. meolwe. §43. The masc. and neuter of the o-declen- sion are supplemented by the feminines of the 1) See Slevers-Cook "Grammar of Old English," section 243. Also. Wright, "Old English Grammar," section 347f. 2) "-Ig-" and "Ige" are nothing more than a representa- tion of the "j"-sound. 52 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY ä-declension, as the Latin masc. in -us and neu- ters in -um correspond to the feminines in a. The OE. ö-stems are inflected as follows: Sing. N. giefu, gift, G. D. A. I. giefe. Plur. N. A. giefa(-e), G. giefa or giefena, D. giefum. In this way for example, are inflected cearu, care; lufu, love. Words with long stem syllables differ from the paradigm above, in that the N. Sing, is without ending: lär, lore, stund, time, glof, glove, etc.; thus also are inflected säwol, soul; leornung, learning, and others in -ung. Among the feminines are to be found jä- and iwö-stems, which, however, show no great dif- ferences from the inflection of the pure ö-stems. §44. The i-declension includes a great num- ber of masculines and feminines; neuters are very rare . The inflection of the i-masc. coincides with that of the masc. o- and Jo- stems except in the N. A. Plur., which in the i-declension ends in -e: wine, friend, N. A. Plur. wine; Engle, N. Plur., Angles, Seaxe, Saxons; Nor\>hymbre, Northumbrians. However, by analogy to the o-stems, -as has been introduced in the N. A. Plur. of most of the masc. of this class, especi- ally in the case of nearly all those having long stems. So words such as wyrm. Germ. Wurm; giest, guest, are inflected exactly like wulf; we recognize from the umlaut of the vowel of the stem that the word originally belonged to the I-declension. (Prim. Germanic * wurrniz, gastiz) . Nearly all the feminines of the i-declen- sion have long stems, e. g., hen, prayer; cwén, queen; tld, time; hyd, hide, skin; deed, deed. Germ. Tat, etc. These words are inflected like the long ä-stems except that in the Ace. Sing, they are without ending. In the northern dia- lects, however, and later even in WS. the Ace. ending -e forces its way into the i-declension. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 53 In Northumbrian, besides, occur a great num- ber of other formations due to analogy; above all it should be noticed that in the northern dialect the G. Sing, often has the masc.-neuter ending -es. §45. The u-declension, which is well pre- served in Gothic, shows in OE. a strong tendency to conform to the o-declension. This is especi- ally true of words with long stems. Most char- acteristic and recognizable as u-stems are the nominatives of words having short stems, as masc. siinu, son; wudii, wood; fem. dura, door. Beside the original G. Sing, suna, N. A. Plur. siina, we find later sunes and sunas in conformity with the o-declension. §46. The weak declension (or n- stems) has the following scheme of inflection in WS. : Masc. N. Sing, wiga, warrior; G. D. A. 1. wigan; Plur. N. A. wigan, G. wigena, D. wigum. Fem. is distinguished from the masc. only in the N. Sing. : tunge, tongue ; neuters, in the N. A. Sing, éage, eye. Northumbrian (see §36.) has dropped the inflectional -n, whereby very early the forms were confused; often even strong forms are to be found, as a G. Sing, in -es, some- times even a N. Plur. in -as. §47. The remains of other consonant stems we cannot discuss further here. They show various peculiarities in their inflection, but have been strongly influenced by analogy to the o- stems. Here belong the so-called nouns of relationship, feeder, moder, bröper, doktor, sweostor. Among the isolated words belonging to consonant declensions may be mentioned mann or monn, Plur. menn; föt, Plur. fit; tö]>, Plur. téy. 54 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY §48. ADJECTIVES have two sorts of inflec- tion in Germanic, strong and weak. The weak in- flection is the same as that of the weak noun except in the G. Plur. where the strong form has as a rule replaced the weak. In all Germanic languages the strong adjective constructs sev- eral forms according to the pronominal inflec- tion. If we except some minor fluctuations due to peculiarities of the stem, the OE. strong adjective is inflected according to the following scheme: Sing. N. m. f. n. göd, (short stem m. glsed, f. gladu, n. glsed) ; G. m. n. godes, f. gödre; D. m. n. gödum, f. gödre; A. m. gödne, f. gode. n. göd; I. m. n. (f. has none) gode; Plur. N. A. m. gode, f. göda or gode; n. göd (but gladu) ; G. m. f. n. gödra; D. m. f. n. gödum. §49. COMPARISON. OE. has only one com- parative suffix, -ra, which corresponds to Goth. -iza and -öza, OHG. -ir and -or. The compara- tive has usually no umlaut heard-heardra; glsed- glaedra; earm-earmra, etc.; however, several words have umlaut; eald-ieldra, old; sceort- scyrtra, short. Comparatives are always inflect- ed like weak adjectives. The uninflected form of the superlative ends in -ost, comparatively seldom in -est; heardost, etc. ; umlaut, as in the comparative, ieldest. The uninflected form may be used as N. Sing, (and as A. Sing, neuter). Otherwise strong forms are rare, and the weak inflection is used almost exclusively. In inflected forms the suffix has usually the vowel e : heardesta. §50. PRONOUNS. Omitting mention of the numerals, we shall speak of the most usual OE. pronouns and their forms. Personal Pronouns. 1st person; ic, G. miTi, D. mé, A. mé (mec) ; Plur. we, G. user, or ure, D. us, A. iis («sic). 2nd Person. Tf>u-]nn- OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 55 yé-pé (pec), Plur. gé-éower-éow-éow (powic); dual forms also occur for both pronouns: 1st Pers. wit-uncer-unc-unc; 2nd Pers. git-incer-inc- inc. 3rd Person: N. Sing. m. he, f. heo (hio,) n. hit; G. his-hire-his ; D. him-hire-him; A. hine- hie-hit. Plur. m. f. n. N. A. hie {hi), G. hira (hiera, heora), D. him. The Possessive Pronouns are min, pin, sin (for the most part in poetry; elsewhere the Genitive of the personal pronoun is used) ; Plur. are (user), eower. The Demonstrative Pronoun. The sim- ple demonstrative pronoun, which usually in OE. represents the definite article as well, is- inflected as follows: Sing. N. se-seo-past; G. pses-psere-pses; D.psem ipäm)-péére-p3em (päm) ; A. pone-pä-p3et;_ I. py, pon; Plur. for all gen- ders pä-pära (p3era)-péém (päm). In North- umbrian the forms in N. Sing. m. and f. pe and piu (pio) are very common; also in later WS. the forms pe and peo occur. To the German "dieser" (this) corresponds the pronoun pes-péos-pis ; Plur. pas. Interrogative Pronouns ; "who" : hwä- hwset, G. hwaes, D. hwaem. (hwäm), A. hwone- hwset, I. hwy (hwi) ; "which": hwelc (hwilc, hwylc) ; "which of two" : hwseper. These are declined like strong adjectives. Among the indefinite pronouns may be mentioned sum, some; selc, each; éénig, any; swelc (swilc, swylc), such, etc. 4. OLD ENGLISH CONJUGATION. §51. The OE. verb has one voice, the act- ive. Of the old Medio-passive only one form- remains, hatte, Goth, haitada, "I am called." The Passive is formed by means of the auxiliary verb beon, wesan, to be, seldom by weorpan, to be- 56 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY come, and the Past. Part. There are two tenses, present and preterite. The Present is also used to take the place of a Future, which is rarely expressed by using the auxiliary verb sculan. There are two complete moods: Indicative and optative or subjunc- tive, sometimes also called conjunctive; an imperative belongs to the Present. There are two numbers. The infinite f orm^s of a verb consist of an infinitive, a present participle with Active force and a past participle with Passive or Intransitive force. According to the way in which they form their Preterite, the Germanic verbs are usually di- vided into two chief classes : Strong and weak verbs, which will be discussed later. §52. As models for the OE. Conjugation we choose the verb helpan, to help. The forms are : Pres. Ind. Sing. 1. helpe, 2. hilp{e)st, 3. hilp{e)p; Plur. 1. 2. 3. helpOp; Opt. Sing, helpe; Plur. helpen; Imper. Sing. 2. help; Plur. 1. helpan (rare), 2. helpap. Pret. Ind. 1. healp, 2. hulpe, 3. healp; Plur. hulpon; Opt. Sing, hulpe; Plur. hulpen; Inf. helpan; Pres. Part, helpende; Past Part, holpen. Note. In the very oldest texts and in the Anglian dialect the 1. Sing. Ind. Pres. has usu- ally the ending -u or -o. 2. Sing. Pres. Ind. has the ending -is in the oldest texts, more commonly -es. The 3. Sing. Pres. has -ip in some of the oldest texts. In Northumbrian the 3. Sing. Pres". often has the ending -es. In 2. and 3. Sing. Ind. Pres. occur in WS. and Kentish, but not in Anglian, many syncopations of the vowel of the ending and the consonants thus left in juxtaposition are frequently assimi- lated: binae-bintst-bint etc. Where the pro- nouns we and ge follow immediately after a OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 57 verb, it often has, in all tenses and moods, the ending -e: binde, bunde, we, ge. In the Plur. Ind. Pres. Northumbrian often has the ending -as. The infinitive -n is lacking in Northum- brian. After the particle tö the infinitive has an inflected form: tö bindanne (-enne), in very late texts sometimes tö bindende. The Past Part, of simple verbs often has the prefix ge- (older form gi-). §53. The tense-formation of the strong verbs is chiefly that of the Prim. Germanic verbs, which we know from Goth, and OHG., modified by the phonetic laws already dis- cussed. We distinguish between verbs with ablaut and reduplicating verbs. Examples of the different classes follow. 1. grlpan-gräp-gripon-gripen, to grasp. Note. We give the Principle Parts custom- arily used: the Infinitive, Pret. Sing, and Plur., the Past Part, without prefix. In like manner are inflected drlfan, to drive; glldan, to glide; sclnan, to shine; wrltan, to write. So-called grammatical change (see §39) is found e. g. in snVpan-snå]>-snidon-smden, to cut. 2. béodan-béad-budon-boden, to offer, bid; cleofan, to cleave asunder; sceotan, to shoot; fléogan, to fly; with gram, change: céosan-céas- curon-coren, to choose. 3. Several types depending upon the conso- nant combinations which follow the stem-vowel : a) bindan - band - bundon - bunden, to bind; flndan, to find; spinnan, to spin ;sin^an, to sing; drincan, to drink; swimman, to swim, etc. b) helpan- healp (Angl. halp)-hulpon, holpen, to help; delfan, to delve; sweltan, to die. 58 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY c) weorpan-wearp-wurpon-worpen, to cast; ceorfan, to carve; feohtan, to fight; with gram, change; weor]>an-wear]>-wurdon.-worden, to be- come. 4. beran-bser-bseron-boren, to bear; stelan, to steal; teran, to tear; brecan, to break; niman- nöm-nömon-numen, to take; cuman-c{w)öm- c{w)ömon-cumen or cymen, to come. 5. sprecan-sprsec-språécon-sprecen, to speak; tredan, to tread; metan, to measure; with gram, change: cwe]?an-cwse]>-cwsédon-cweden. As in the allied languages, the following verbs of this class have weak presents : biddan, licgan, sittan. 6. faran-för-f öron-faren, to go; grafan, to dig; dragan, to draw, etc.; hebban, to raise, Germ, heben ; swerian (swerigean) to swear, and a few others have weak presents. Reduplicating verbs. Reduplication in the preterite, which is well preserved in Gothic, is still met with in certain forms in the Anglian dialects. In WS., however, as in OHG., a fusion of the re- duplicating- and the stem-syllable takes places, whereby these verbs have the appearance of ordinary ablaut verbs.^ Ex. hätan. Germ, heissen, to call, Pret. Angl. heht, WS. het. Past Part, haten; r seden. Germ, raten, to advise, Pret. Angl. reord; WS. healdan-heold-healden, to hold; feallan-féoll-feallen, to fall; gröwan- gréow-gröwen, to grow, etc. The Preterite has the same vowel in Sing, and Plur. Note. In the strong verbs, I'-umlaut is usual in the 2 and 3 Sing.; beran-birest (birst) -bire\> {bir]>), fallen-fielst-fiel\>, etc. This umlaut is very common in WS., rarer in Kentish and 1) other explanations have been offered. See Streltberg, "Urgermanlsche Grammatik," section 216. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 59 Mercian and practically unknown in Northum- brian; on the other hand, the Anglian dialects frequently have u- and o-umlaut; inf. beora{n). nioma{n), etc. §54. Weak Verbs. It is usual to divide OE. weak verbs, as in OHG., into three classes. The third class, through analogy and other causes, has become difficult to recognize. The first two classes are, however, very clearly distinguishable. All the weak verbs have a dental preterite, i. e., they form the preterite by means of a suffix -de i-te) and the Past Part, by means of a -d (-t). The intricate rules for the syncopa- tion of the suffix vowels and the consequent assimilations, must be omitted here, and only paradigms of the first and second classes of weak verbs given. Class I. Pres. Ind. nerie, I save, nerest, nere]>, Plur. neriap. Opt. nerie, nerien. Pret. Ind. nerede, -des (t), -de; Plur. neredon; Opt. nerede- nereden; Imper. nere; neriay; Inf. nerian; Pres. Part, neriende; Past Part. (ge)nered. Long stem: déman, to judge, démest(démst), dimey (dém]>), etc. Pret. dernde, etc. P. Part, {ge) de- nied. Further examples of verbs belonging to Class I : hieran, to hear, hierde-gehiered; fyllan, to SW, fglde-(ge)fylled, etc.; with early syncopa- tion of suffix vowels; sellan-sealde-{ge)seald, to give; tellan-tealde-ige)teald, to count; tåécan (t£écean)-tééhte-(ge)tééht, to teach; sécan{se- cean)-söhte-(ge)söht, to seek; wyrcan{wyrce- an)worhte-(ge)worht, to work; bringan-bröhte- (ge)bröht, to bring, etc. Class II. Pres. Ind. lufle, I love. lufast-lufa]>; lufidp; Opt. lufie, lufien; Pret. lufode(-ade); Plur. lufodon (-edon) etc. Imper. lufa, lufap; Inf. lufian; Pres. Part, lufiende; Past Part. 60 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY {ge)lufod (-ad). Suffix vowels vary greatly in the dialects. In the same way are inflected: löcian, to look; wunian, to dwell; sceawian, to look; bledsian, to bless, and others. §55. Of the so-called Preterite-Presents, we shall name: 1. wät, I know, 2. wast, 3. wät; Plur. witon; Pret. wisse or wiste. äh, I own, 2. ähst, 3. äh; Plur. agon; Pret. ähte. 1. 3. canin) or con(n), I can, 2. canst; Plur. cannon; Pret. cu)7e. 1. 3 sceaZ, 1 shall. 2. scealt; Plur. sculon; Pret. scolde(sceolde). 1. 3. m«g', I can, 2. meaht or miht; Plur. magon; Pret. meahte or mihte. 1. 3. möf, I may, 2. most; Plur. möton; Pret. möste, §56. The verb fo &e has widely varjdng forms in WS. and in the dialects formed from several different stems. Pret. and Inf. are formed from the root wes: Pret. waes, Inf. wesan. Besides, an Inf. beon is found, from a root from which many Present forms are constructed: 1. béo(m), 2, bist, 3. bi]>; Plur. béo]>. Of another origin are the WS. forms eom-eart-is ; Plur. sindion) and the Northumbrian forms am-ar]>-is; Plur. aron. III The Influence of Foreign Languages Upon English §57. In this chapter we shall show the most important influences from foreign languages to which the English language has been subjected during its development Hence we must notice phenomena from remote as well as from recent times. By this means the chronological sequence of our account of the history of the language will sufler somewhat, but on the other hand we shall be able to treat related matters as a unit, which would otherwise be disunited. The po- litical history of England explains the fact that the language of the land shows foreign elements in a higher degree and to a greater extent than most others. The great mass of foreign, es- pecially Latin and Romance, elements has given rise to an idea, especially prevalent some time ago, that English has altered its original char- acter to the degree that the study of English philology ought properly to be pursued in con- nection with Romance philology. We shall try later to show that such a view is groundless; here we shall only expressly insist that the inner character of the language has not been altered by the numerous foreign words, and that, al- though Romance philology is an important aid 62 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY to the study of the English language, English philology is unequivocally a branch of Germanic philology. 1. CELTIC INFLUENCE. §58. Since, before the arrival of the Ger- manic tribes, Britain was inhabited by Celts, one would expect to find numerous traces of Celtic influence in the English language. That this is not the case is, at least in some degree, the result of the unscrupulous character of the English conquest; it may also be explained by the com- pletely subordinate position to which the sub- jugated Britons sank under their Germanic masters.^ A Celtic influence upon the structure of the English language cannot be proved, and even the number of borrowed words is very small. The Celtic etymologies suggested for English words seem to have been particularly the prey of misfortune, in that most often words that have been supposedly Celtic, upon further investigation prove to be of another origin. As examples of English borrowings from Celtic may be mentioned from older times, OE. dry, sorcerer, from the Irish drui, and bannuc, bannock; it is highly improbable that the words so often cited as Celtic loans : curse, cradle and hog are Celtic at all. Later borrowings are bog, brogue (originally a kind of shoe), clan, sham- rock, etc. 2. NORSE INFLUENCE. §59. In the first chapter, we have brieflly de- picted the progress of the Scandinavian viking- raids in England. These raids ended in the com- plete conquest of the land by the Scandinavians. 1) See Jespersen, "Growth and Structure of the English Language," p. 38f. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ■ 63 A host of Scandinavians settled in England, es- pecially in the northern and eastern parts of the land, and during the time of the Danish over- lordship, the Norse influence was, naturally, very powerful everywhere. The English at first considered these North- erners as strangers, and a deep chasm separated the two elements of population. But after a time, when they began to grow accustomed to their neighbors, and when the heathen pirates became peaceful farmers, and gradually became Christian, the contact between Englishman and Dane became more intimate. They could not help noticing the near relationship of the two nationalities. Their languages were very simi- lar, so that an Englishman could easily under- stand many of the utterances of a Scandina- vian. From many places in the Norse literature it is evident that the Scandinavians considered the Englishmen bloodbrothers. Scandinavian England became of great significance in the life of the whole Scandinavian people; .we have several Norse Runic inscriptions from England, and some songs of the Edda seem to have originated there. English loan-words in no small nvunber were adopted, first of all by the Scandinavians in England, and then they were carried to the Scandinavian North. Such words are,^ for instance bdtr, boat, OE. bat; the original ONorse form is beit; tdkn, token, OE. täcn, original ONorse form teikn; further, sev- eral ecclesiastical terms, such as prestr, klerkr, gu\>spjall (cf. OE. godspell, gospel), etc. The English influence upon Scandinavian needs a more thorough investigation. 1) See Kluge, "Geschlchte der engllschen Sprache," In Paul's Grundrlss, 2nd Ed., L, p. 932. 64 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY §60. We are better informed about the Scan- dinavian words in English.^ A long time seems to have passed before such words began to come in, as far as we can determine by an investiga- tion of the vocabulary of English texts. The great Northumbrian Bible translations of the 10th century are almost untouched by Norse influence. But before 1150 a great number of Norse words have come into English; as ex- amples may be mentioned the following words, of which the most are taken from laws or from the later portions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle : callian, ONorse kalla; cnif, ONorse knlfr; dreng, ON. drengr; hittan, ON. hitta; lagu, law, ON. lgg<,lagu; tacan, take, ON. taka. The number of similar loan-words is very great; many of them have not been long- lived in England; others, as call, knife, law and take belong to the everyday vocabulary of ModE. In many cases, because of the great sim- ilarity of the languages, it is imposible to decide whether a word is of English or of Scandinavian origin. A more careful study of the living Eng- lish dialects will probably shed light on many a dark and difficult problem. §61. How long Scandinavian dialects were spoken in England cannot be definitely decided. In the 11th and 12th centuries we meet Norse Runic inscriptions in England; on the other hand, we have inscriptions from the 12th century written in English by Scandinavians. For the rest, as far as the time when a word was adopted into the English is concerned, we must follow the criterion offered us by the history of sounds. In any case, the entrance of Scandinavian elements into English must have been closed before 1250, 1) This has been made the subject of thorough study by Bjoerkman, "Scandinavian Loan-words in Middle English." OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 65 at least in North England, where the direct pro- cesses of borrowing were carried on. Many words perhaps penetrated very much later into South England. Concerning the chronological details and the phonetic characteristics^ of the words of Scandinavian origin, we cannot speak here. §62. Of extraordinary importance as proof of the strength of the Norse influence is the fact — not so usual in the history of language — that not only so-called "Stuff-words," i. e., nouns, adjec- tives and verbs, are taken over from the Scandi- navian, but among the loans are several "Form- words" especially pronouns. Even in an OE. in- scription from Yorkshire we find a pronominal form hanum instead of OE. him. This forn^n has not prevailed in English as has been the case with the Scandinavian pronouns for the 3rd pers. plur., which lives in the ModE. they, them and their. Some scholars, however, will not see in these forms a direct loan from ONorse, but a modification under Norse influence of the OE. demonstrative plural ]>ä-]>éem-]?ära.^ In ME. at is found with the meaning "to" before an in- finitive and sum in the meaning "as," both Norse. ModE. fro is of Scandinavian origin (Norse fra) ; likewise the ModE. use of till seems to find its explanation in its Scandinavian orig- in. ME. basken, ModE. bask comes from the Norse passive (medial) form balpask, to bathe oneself; ME. busk is from Norse buask, to make oneself ready. Much that was current in ME. has later disappeared from the language. Not 1) Let us mention for example that in MB., the initial "sk" usually shows Scandinavian origin, since OE. was palatalized very early and became "sh-." Such words with "sk" are "skin," "sky," "skill," "scant," "scream," etc. 2) Sweet, "New English Grammar," section 1070. 66 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY only loan words, but even word formations and expressions formed on Norse models can be found in ME. §63. During OE. times, while the chief litera- ture existed in Southern England alone, the Norse influence felt in the writings is compara- tively slight. But to judge from certain ME. texts, the language spoken during the lltb and 12th centuries in some parts of the land thickly populated by Scandinavians, must have exhibited a curious mixture of Norse and Eng- lish elements; the mixture of two languages so nearly related as OE. and ONorse can easily be imagined. It is even possible^ that this contact between Norse and English helped to hasten the rapid decay of grammatical forms in these parts of England. The Scandinavian words seem to have lived for a time side by side with the native ones, until finally, in the struggle for existence, one of the words con- quered the other and supplanted it. Sometimes one dialect has preserved an OE. word, while another grants admission to a Scandinavian word. The OE. seg, egg, lived for a long time in Southern England in the form ey; in the North, however, the Norse form egg was predominant and this form won entrance into Standard Eng- lish. In some cases it seems that a ModE. word offers a sort of compromise between the native and the corresponding Scandinavian word; in this way we can explain words like give and get, whose hard ^. sound is surely of Scandinavian origin. It is not easy in every case to determine from -what district of Scandinavia the words, which were incorporated with English, came. So 1) Of. Jespersen, "Studier over engelske Kasus," 1891, p. «7. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 67 much, though, is certain, that several Scandi- navian dialects left their impression, since his- tory tells us that more than one Scandinavian land sent vikings and colonists to Britain. 3. FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND.^ §64. The influence of Normandy began with the reign of Edward the Confessor. Notwith- standing the fact that he belonged to the old native royal family, he was absolutely unable to preserve the national spirit. His mother was a Norman princess; he himself spent his youth m France, and when he became king, he gath- ered Normans about him and gave ttiem great estates and high offices. The brief national reaction under Godwin and Harold was of no significance, and when Duke William of Nor- mandy conquered England and took possession of the throne, in 1066, the French element be- came dominant in the land for several cen- turies.^ William completely reorganized the property relations of the conquered land. Many estates were confiscated and part were appro- priated to the crown, part given in fief to Norman nobles; thus the great estates came into Norman hands. Among the vassals of lower rank, however, many Englishmen were to be found. Since direct vassals, as well as the vassals of lower rank, had to swear an oath of allegiance to the King personally, the crown succeeded to a certain extent in limiting the power of the higher nobles. The importance 1) Dietrich Behrens, "Pranzoesische Elemente im En- glischen," in Paul's Grundriss I., p. 950f. 2) The Normans were of Scandinavian origin, but before the time of William they had completely adopted the Prench langniagre and customs and are as a consequence to be con- sidered as being purely Prench. Besides, it should be no- ticed that nöt only Normans, but Prenchmen from other parts of Prance settled in England, not only immediately after the Conquest, but later. 68 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY of this fact is considerable; the national element could hereby maintain itself much better in the struggle for existence, than had been the case if the great nobles had been lords with unlimtied power over their subjects. The old national order remained unaltered, but numerous changes in the personnel had taken place and the most important secular and spiritual offices, as the archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, were in the hands of the Normans. §65. It is, naturally, impossible to compute the number of Normans and French who came to England and settled there during the time of the Conqueror and his successors. We can feel sure that beside the soldiers and knights, thousands of merchants and tradesmen settled in the towns. Great was also the number of French priests and monks. The French element spread everywhere, and the language received the reputation which naturally belongs to the language of the dominating class. Typical of conditions in England two hundred years after the Conquest are the following verses from Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, written in the latter half of the 13th century : pus com lo Engelond into Normandies bond. & J>e Normans ne couj^e speke J>o bote hor owe speche, & speke French as hii dude atom, & hor children dude also teche. So J^at heiemen of Jjis lond, )>at of hor blod come, Holde}» alle J^ulke speche, ]?at hii of hom nome. Vor bote a man conne Frenss, me telj» of him lute; Ac lowe men holde> to Engliss & to her owe speche yute. Ich wene J^er ne he]> in al ]>e world contreyes none. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 69 pat ne holde}> to hor owe speche, bote Engelond one.^ §66. French became the language of the royal court and remained so for several cen- turies. About 1400 a count, in a letter to Henry IV., asked pardon for writing in English instead of French or Latin. Long after the differences in nationality were leveled in England, the court continued to use French, which since the days of Chivalry and the Crusades, was the favorite language of the elegant and refined circles of society. Yet the kings of England seem not to have been entirely indifferent to the language which was spoken by the majority of the people. It is told of William the Conqueror that he at- tempted, though with little success, to learn to understand English. About the knowledge of English of the following kings, we are not very well informed. During the reign of John and of Henry III, the native nobility and the citizens of the towns arose in arms for the constitutional privileges of the people. The Norman posses- sions were lost and a national consciousness awoke, which was profitable for the position and reputation of the language of the people. It was long, however, before the court conde- scended to speak English. Even Edward I (1272-1307) used French regularly as his official language, although he understood and could speak English. During the reign of his suc- cessors the language of the people gradually 1) Lo! thus came England into Normandy's hand. And the Normans then could speak only their own speech, and spoke French as they did at home, and had their children taught it also. So that the nobles of this land, that come oi their blood, all keep the same speech that they had of them. For unless a man know French, he is held in small regard; but low men keep to English and to their own speech still. I think there are not In all the world any countries that keep not to their own speech but England alone. 70 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY won place in the court, and of Henry IV, (1399- 1413) we are expressly told that his mother- tongue was English. §67. As the French language was spoken by the rulers of England, it was also the official lan- guage of the State and was used, in the Admin- istration, in the Courts of Justice and in Parlia- ment. As to the courts of justice, English, na- turally, was used by parties of lower social rank. Since the judges were almost exclus- ively Normans, who did not understand English, the result was that very early an in- fluential class of interpreters and attorneys arose, and the legal terminology very soon ex- hibited a curious blending of English and French expressions. In the year 1362 it was decided by a decree of Parliament — written in French — that the oral proceedings in the courts should be carried on in English ; this on the ground that French was understood by few in country districts. Yet the use of French is not expressly forbidden. In judicial decrees Latin is usually found, later also French. Here too, in the 15th century, English comes gradually to its own. §68. The above named year, 1362, is signifi- cant in the history of England because, for the first time, a session of Parliament was opened with an address in English. This has been in- terpreted as a proof of the growing power of the Lower House; yet it was a long time before French was driven out of Parliament. Up to the year 1488, legal documents were published exclusively in French or Latin, at times in both, parallel. Only after the year mentioned above does English become usual in these publica- tions. The decrees of Parliament, up to the close of the 14th century, are practically without OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 71 exception written in French, and even after that time French and Latin are common. Eng- lish is seen in decrees for the first time under Henry VI. (1422-1471). Even in our day certain French formulae exist in the Parliamentary language of England. §69. Until the middle of the 13th century, the royal decrees were written principally in Latin. After that time French became usual. Now and then, however, after the Conquest, English documents and proclamations occur, especially those intended for a large public, yet, not until the first half of the 15th century does the use of English become general in this field. In private documents English is very rare before 1400. The oldest known will in English is executed in 1383 by a candlemaker of York. Usually the wills of the nobility are written in French, those of the others in Latin. Even in the year 1438 a noble lady considers it her duty to explain why she has had her will written in English. §70. The lack of trustworthy accounts from olden times makes it impossible to give a review of the quality and method of teaching during the centuries next after the Conquest. The children of the nobility were instructed at home or in some other nobleman's house. It goes without saying that French was the language of instruction in these circles. Often it happened that young nobles were sent to France to finish their education there. A writer from the be- ginning of the 13th century says that this was caused "ob linguae nativae barbariem toUen- dam," wherein we see a proof of the great dis- similarity which existed even then between the French language in England and on the Conti- nent. We know rather less of the instruction in the actual schools, cathedral and monastic, 72 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY and the endowed grammar schools and uni- versities. A great many of the students who sought admission to these institutions of learn- ing were from purely English homes where French was not known; therefore we must be- lieve that both languages must have been used in instruction. At all events, French plays an important role as the language of instruction until the middle of the 14th century. The at- tempt was made in various statutes to keep French in the schools. Between 1320 and 134Ö several colleges at Oxford decided that the stu- dents should use Latin and French as their means of communication. Such ordinances prove that French was losing ground. This was, indeed, the case. A writer from 1385 tells us that in all the grammar schools of England, the in- struction was in English. One benefit of this was that the children mastered Latin grammar more easily; a disadvantage was that French became completely unknown to them. About the same time the nobility seem to have discontinued the use of French in the education of their children. §71. During the first two centuries after the Norman Conquest, Latin and French literatures flourished in England. Several of the English kings, especially Henry II and Richard I, were zealous admirers and patrons of the French courtly poetry. Literature in the native tongue, however, led a languishing existence. Not until the middle of the 13th century did a national feeling awaken, and with it a delight in a na- tional literature. From this time on, we see how the number of English works grows from year to year, while French gradually disappears from the literature of England. At the close of the 14th century, the struggle between the two languages has been settled; the foreign OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 73 idiom has been conquered, the native language has come to its own. It again becomes the language of the whole people, spoken by high as well as by low, but its exterior is greatly altered. The three hundred years of French domination have not passed without leaving a trace. §72. The French which was spoken in Eng- land is usually called in the texts and by the historians, lingua gallica, lingua romana, fran- ceis, frenche, romance, etc., rarely lingua nor- mannica. From numerous accounts we may conclude that the French language in England began very soon to differ in important par- ticulars from even the most nearly related dia- lects in France. Even in the 12th century writers excuse their poor French" by saying that they were reared in England. The French chronicler Froissart tells us that during their wars with France, the English had difficulty in making themselves understood by the French in their parleys. Significant, also, is the passage, so often quoted, from Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, where he speaks of the Pri- oresse : And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly. After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe. The poet of course means that the best French of the school at Stratford atte Bowe was quite unlike that which was spoken in the capital of France. Even French authors not infrequentiy make merry over the misuse to which the lan- guage is subjected in the mouth of Englishmen, and caricature peculiarities in their French pronunciation and mode of expression. From this we see that the English could not pronounce nasal vowels, that many sounds had become 74 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY silent, that English words were mixed with the French and that the syntax had undergone radical changes. Comparatively early, guides are found in England for the correct use of French. §73. Technically, the French languages in English is usually called Anglo-Norman, at times also Anglo-French. The former name is perfectly justifiable, for though several later French works in England bear witness to a strong influence from the Continental French, probably on account of the author's residence on the continent or on account of their train- ing under native Frenchmen, yet the older Anglo-Norman texts show, as do also the majority of the French loan-words which occur in ME. before 1400, numerous peculiarities of sound which are to be explained by the Norman dialect. As examples of such peculiarities, of which several are retained in ModE., so that this French element may be distinguished from the corresponding word in Mod. French, may be mentioned: Latin en+cons. is not merged with an+cons. In ME. texts such words as present, parlament, firmament, jugement, moment, etc., rime with pure English words as sent, went, lent, etc. — an for Latin en occurs in ME. practically exclu- sively in cases where Old Norman, through analogy or from other causes, had an already, as in servant, covenant, recreant, etc. Even today English makes a distinction between present and servant, while in the standard dia- lect of France, before consonants, en and an had very early merged.^ We have a similar case in words which in Vulgar Latin had a closed e in an open stressed 1) Meyer-Luebke, "Qrammatik der romanischen Sprach- en," I., p. 105. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 75 syllable. From this vowel the French very early developed the diphthong ei. This diphthong was retained in the Norman dialect as in the other West French dialects. In Northeast France as well as in the He de France, the diph- thong underwent a curious change, which is written oi; this sign occurs in some cases before 1100. The loan-words from French as a rule show even today ei (ey) or a special English development of it; on the contrary, French shows in the corresponding words the sign of yet its sound value has undergone an important change. So we have the pairs: prey-proie, veil-voile, fair-foire, leisure-loisir, curtesy-cur- toisie, etc. Many other facts show that the great mass of French loan-words in ME. are of the Norman type. Later, especially after the year 1400, when French was no longer spoken in England, many words from Parisian French occur in English. Such importation has continued ever since to a greater or less extent, and still continues in our own day; likewise, French borrows more English words nowadays than formerly. §74. The time when a French word won citi- zenship in English can usually be determined approximately on phonetic grounds alone. But often even this does not sufiBce, especially when one has to do with so-called "mots savants," that is, words which belong more to the language of books than of actual conversation, and which are more or less unaffected by the sound-changes which the others undergo. Very interesting results have been achieved by statistical inves- tigations relating to the occurence of French words in ME. texts. Yet here it should be remembered that the occurrence of a word at a certain time does not prove that it was then in 76 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY colloquial use, just as, on the other hand, a word can live in the mouth of the people for centuries without occurring in the literature. §75. Very early, isolated French words are found in English texts. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 1051 we find castelle, 1135 pais, acorden, 1137 tresor, prisun, justise, canceler, etc. Yet during the 12th century the number of French words in English texts is not great. In Layamon's Brut, which contains 56,800 verses and is written in Southern Eng- land shortly after 1200, about 150 Romance words occur; and in the Ormulum, written about the same time in the Eastern Midland, the num- ber of French words is very small, although French influence may be traced. It is obvious that the foreign influence would be stronger in the South, where the court resided, and where the majority of the Normans settled. Thus the Ancren Riwle, written at about the same time as the Ormulum, shows about 500 French words. It is possible that the spoken language in cer- tain parts of the land had taken up more loan- words even in the 12th century than may be concluded from the sparse literature. Then, too, individual differences must have played a part in it. We have historical proof that even then persons of Saxon ancestry loved to em- bellish their language with French words to give it an elegant finish. §76. During the course of the 13th century, French words came in in great numbers. In the rimed Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, which was written near the close of the century, the first 500 verses contain about 100 French words, and in Robert Mannyng of Brunne, who wrote about 1340, we meet, in the same number of verses, 170 words of French origin. At the close of the 13th century, when English literature OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 77 awoke to new life after a long period of decay and degradation, there was no real connection between it and the point of view and mode of expression of the flowering period of OE. litera- ture. A language had to be created for literary and scientific ends; expressions must be found for new conceptions and new cultural matters. It is therefore natural that words should be adopted in full measure from that language which was spoken by the most influential men of the land, which gradually became more or less known even to wider circles, and which was the organ of a great literature. When, in the course of the 14th century, French was gradually forgotten and the old speech of the English nation came again to its own, that lan- guage had absorbed thousands of words from the French. The language had undergone a great change, in that its vocabulary has to show an unheard of addition of new elements. One can truly, as so often happens, bewail the loss of a number of old Germanic words; one must recognize the fact — ^likewise with sorrow — that English shows more and more an inclination to borrow directly from foreign sources without even trying to use its native resources; one can feel unpleasantly impressed by the hybrid char- acter of the English vocabulary;^ but on the other hand one cannot deny that English, through just these foreign elements incorporated in the language, has won riches of expression for the subtlest thoughts, as well as for the concisest, which are hardly to be found in other languages. Compare such expressions as wish- desire, luck-fortune, bloom-flower, bough- branch, deed-act, bug-purchase, blessing-bene- 1) See later, under treatment of direct loans from the classical languages. 78 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY diction, begin-commence, sound-safe, beg-pray, speech-language, heal-cure, folk-people, storm- tempest, etc. §77. According to calculations — which must, of course, be received with a certain caution^- the complete English dictionary contains about two parts of native Germanic origin and nearly five parts of foreign words, mostly French or of classical origin. The importance of this curious and surprising condition must not, however, be exaggerated. A great number of the foreign words are rare "bookish" words, technical terms, etc. More illuminating as to the real nature of the language is an investigation of the per- centage of Germanic and Romance words which are contained on a page of an author. We find that in Milton, who has a distinct preference for words of classical origin, and whose entire vocabulary consists two-thirds of Romance words, each page shows no more than 10 to 30 per cent of French-Latin origin. One can imag- ine a page of ModE. without any Romance words, while a page of English without Ger- manic words is an unthinkable absurdity. Yet it must be conceded that a page of pure Ger- manic English would cause its author to rack his brains. A tabulation of the proportion in the colloquial language, as well as of the occurence of Romance words in the dialects, would be of greatest interest. Such an investigation would perhaps give us an idea of the relative signifi- cance of the Romance element in the different parts of England. §78. There is scarcely a territory of the English vocabulary where at least a few French words have not found admission. Some of the usual names for relatives are of French origin, as uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, cousin. It is more remarkable that a French numeral, second, has OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE T9 replaced the native word other in its function of ordinal numeral. A number of verbs which cannot be dispensed with in the simplest con- versation, are loans from the French, such as: pay, change, turn, use, pass, touch, promise, marry, serve, enjoy, dine, remember, etc., and the most usual emphatic word, very, is of French origin. §79. An examination of the distribution of Germanic and French words in certain spheres is valuable testimony to the history of culture. Among titles, the names of the highest powers of the kingdom are of old Germanic origin: king, queen; but by the side of these we have the French loan-words sovereign, royal, prince, realm, government, etc. Knight, lord and lady are Germanic wordJs, as earl; but duke, marquis, countess, viscount, baron, etc., are French. The most usual masculine title, gentleman, shows in itself a Romance and Germanic element. Many terms from political life are of French origin: parliament, peers, commons, privy council, yes, even people and nation. Law is deluged with French words and expressions: court, justice, judge, jury, prison, prisoner, ver- dict, sentence, accuse, summon, plead; only a few words belonging here, such as witness, are of OE. origin; the word law has been borrowed from the Norse. If we turn to terms of war, we find the names of ancient weapons are English: bow, arrow, spear, sword, shield. The implements of modern warfare, however, bear names imported from France: cannon, musket, carbine, bayonet, bomb, etc.; likewise, names for the division of the troops are French, as: army, corps, regi- ment, battalion; also navy, vessel; and of mili- tary titles: general, colonel, captain, sergeant, corporal, soldier, finally, the words war and peace themselves. 80 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY Scientific terminology is, of course, rich in words borrowed from the classical languages. Herein English is similar to the other cultural languages. Many linguists see a real loss to the language in the case of the replacing of Old English expressions for religious conceptions by words of Romance origin, which naturally can- not have the same meaning to the people as the etymologically transparent native words: so, for example, OE. håélend has given way to sav- iour and redeemer, OE. godspellere, to evangel- ist, prlness to trinity. Other examples of eccle- siastical words of Romance origin are : religion, clergy, parish, sermon, preach, pray, etc. If we glance at a more material field, we can- not fail to notice the well-known correspon- dences: ox-beef, calf-veal, sheep-mutton, pig- pork. The animal in the open field retains its old Germanic name; prepared and served, how- ever, he receives a name from the French — ^it may be, too, on account of the vogue of the French art of cookery — cf. the Romance loans as boil, roast, fry, etc., and dinner and supper. §80. France has given England not only an enormous number of words, but prefixes and suffixes of Romance or Classical origin are still active in English in co-operating to form new words, and of such formations, English has a very great number. The case is most interesting when a Germanic word-stem combines with a Romance prefix or suffix.^ As examples of such hybrid compounds may be mentioned : a) Romance prefix to Germanic stem : counter- weigh, disburden, disheartened, dislike, dis- own, embody, enliven, intertwist, subway, etc. 1) Sweet, "New English Grammar," section 1619f, I OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 81 b) Germanic stem with Romance sufiBx: goddess, shepherdess, murderess, leaflet, ringlet, streamlet, endearment, fulfilment, behavior, unbearable, eatable, murderous. §81. Many historians of the language, as Koch,^ have wished to trace French influence on English in the development of sounds, forms, and sentence structure. Yet it happens that it is not difficult to refute most of such statements, at least as far as sounds and grammatical forms are concerned. As to the development of sound, the attempt has sometimes been made to explain the palatalization of k- and g- sounds, e. g., ModE., child and bridge, by Norman influence. But from very accurate investigation it appears likely that this palatalization had already taken place in OE. (see §37 above). Neither is the extension of the plural sign -s a result of French influence. Even in old Northumbrian this end- ing shows an unmistakable tendency to push into declensions where it is not etymologically justified. Just as unsure are many of the other assertions of similar kind. ME. syntax, like Old French syntax, is still very incompletely investi- gated. In syntax, therefore, one must be very cautious and not, as often is the case, take refuge in the name "French influence" before it has been made out that an explanation based on English itself is not sufficient. Still, it cannot be contested that French has exerted an important influence on English syntax and phraseology. English is in its structure essentially a Germanic language, although its vocabulary is partly romance. The words which before all others give a language its stamp, the so- called form-words, prepositions, pronouns. 1) "Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache," 2nä Ed., I., 17. 82 elements op the history conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, etc., are of ger- manic origin and the structure and innate character of the language is not romance, but Germanic. §82. In this brief outline of the principal facts in the development of the English lan- guage, we cannot give much time to the many and intricate changes which French words have undergone in English. The French inflections naturally were lost, and as soon as a word won acceptance in English, it was relegated to one of the inflectional groups in that language. Even at that time the inflection of English was very simple. The sounds of Romance words have undergone many changes in English. First of all, we must imagine numerous unconscious substitutions of such sounds as had no com- plete correspondence in English. After this accomodation of the French word to the de- mands of the English tongue had taken place, as a rule it followed the English words in its development. Some details will be men- tioned in the next chapter. Yet at first there was a hard struggle between the principles of Germanic and French accentuation, which were radically different. The Germanic accent regu- larly falls on the stem syllable of the word, the French, on the end syllable. It is, as everyone knows, difficult to feel at home in a foreign system of accentuation. The more at home French words became in English, the more their foreign origin grew dim and faded, so much the harder was it for them to preserve their peculiar accent. The struggle continued during many centuries; in the 16th century it may be said to be decided, and the words which have become English in the fullest . sense, have in most cases received the accent which they bear in ModE. If we compare these words with the OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 83 corresponding French words we see the effect of the Germanic accent law. The accent has been shifted to the beginning of the word and the accented syllable is stressed with a greater intensity than is the case in French, where the difference in stress between the syllables of a word is comparatively small. This shift of accent has occasioned many quantitative changes. Vowels which receive the chief stress in a word are in certain cases lengthened; more frequently unstressed vowels are weakened and darkened. Compare the French and English pronunication of nation, nature, spectacle, ocean, general, final. §83. The struggle between the French and English principle of accentuation in ME. may be most easily studied in the poetical texts, where the meter gives the accent.^ We shall cite several verses from Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and shall italicize the words of Romance origin, where the accent is Prench and differs from that usual in ModEng: Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote. And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour; * * *And smale fowles maken melody e. That slepen al the night with open ye, (So priketh hem nature in hir corages) : Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, etc. It should be mentioned that Chaucer does not always stress a word on the same syllable, but uses different modes of accentuation according to the demand of the verse. Thus we have an example of ModE. accent in "vertu" in the verse 1) An excellent study of Chaucer's accent Is found In ten 3rink's "Language and Metre of Chaucer." 84 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY "Sowning in moral vertu was his speche." This shows that the conditions of accent in everyday speech in Chaucer's time must have been very unstable, even conceding that "poetic license" does not always have its parallel in the prosaic speech of everyday. Even in such poets as Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton we meet with an exception to ModE. accent once in a while. For instance, "and all sixe brethren, bojne of one parent" (Spenser) ; "Is it upon record or else reported — Successively from age to age he built it?" (Shakespeare) ; "Beyond all past ex- ample and future" (Milton). §84. Even today the Germanic accent has not been introduced in every case. If we ex- cept the words which have been recently adopted into English, and which still appeal to the Englishman as foreign, as liqueur, ha- rangue — and keep to the old loan-words in com- mon use, we find among them such words as advice, degree, accord, excess, etc. It is a cu- rious fact that in many cases, when the noun and verb are alike they are distinguished by the accent. It is usual m such cases to accent the noun on the first, the verb on the second syllable. Such word-pairs are re' cord (n)- record' (v), con'vert-converf, con'vict-convict', dis' count-discount' etc. This useful distinction which, however, does not extend to all similar cases, is partially based, in all probability, on a difference, present even in OE., in accent- ing nominal and verbal-compounds. Possibly also, the "weighted" verbal endings {-ed, -ing) have played their part in causing a shift of accent. 4. INFLUENCE OF LATIN ON ENGLISH. §85. Latin has exerted an influence upon English, the significance of which can scarcely OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 85 be overrated. Certain definite periods of the Latin influence can be distinguished. Even when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes lived in their old home on the continent, they, as the other Germanic tribes had done, had received a number of Latin words. Among the OE. words belonging to this group of old loan-words, may be named: iwn, wine. Lat. vinum; mynet, mint, L. moneta; strået, street, L. strata {via); mil, mile, L. milia (passum) ; mylen, mill, L. molina; puiid, pound, L. pondus; ynce, inch, L. uncia. etc. In the case of certain loan-words, the problem is not always easily solved, whether they were borrowed before the immigration to Britain, or whether the English received them from the Romanized Celts; the latter theory is accepted for words, as for example : OE. ceaster. Lat. castra; port, L. portus; munt, L. montern, etc. A numerous group of loan-words of classical origin is formed in OE. by words which be- long to religious or ecclesiastical terminology. We say of "classical" origin, for among these loan-words, as among the later loans, we find Greek as well as Latin words ; yet in most cases, the Greek words have been taken into English through Latin, in a more or less Latinized form, wherefore, one can, without being guilty of too serious an inaccuracy, speak of it as a Latin loan-word. It is highly probable that many of these words were received into English even during the continental period and others during the period immediately after the invasion, be- fore the English became Christian. To this category probably belong: OE. cirice (cyrice), church, Greek KvpiaKh; mynster; minister. Lat. monasterium; engel, angel, L. angelus; deofol. devU, L. didbolus, etc. The great majority of ecclesiastical loan-words were however bor- rowed after the English themselves had adopted 86 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY Christianity. Here belong such words as OE. papa, pope, Lat. papa; biscop, bishop, L. episco- pus; preost, priest, probably from L. presbyter; munuc, monk, L. monachus; cleric, clerk, I.. clericus; creda, creed, L. credo; sacerd, priest, L. sacerdos; serin, shrine, L. scrinium, etc. Also expressions referring to the province of educa- tion belong here, as seal, school, L. schola; msegester, master, L. magister. It is interesting to note that English has not adopted a foreign word for the concept "to write," (Lat. scribere, cf. German schreiben, Swed. skrifva), but has retained the old wrltan, really, "to scratch." This has been explained from the fact that as the writing of runes was in use for a comparatively long time in England, the verb which denoted the scratching of runes was retained when writ- ing on parchment was substituted. Lat. scrib- ere was adopted only for a specifically ecclesi- astical function, to shrive, OE. serif an. Although the older English borrowed not a few words for the new religious and ecclesias- tical conceptions, yet it is worthy notice that in many cases they tried to make the resources of their own language do even in this field.^ New words were formed from the loan-words already adopted, by using native suffixes: préosthäd, priesthood; cristendöm, Christendom. Native words which already existed, were used with a modified significance, or new compounds were formed, which were often peculiarly effec- tive. Thus hädian was used for ordinäre, ge- somnung for congregatio, godspell for evange- lium; a scribe. Lat. scriba, was translated by böcere; the three Magi were called tungol- witegan (star-wisemen) ; likewise propheta was translated by witega; Pharisees were sundor- halgan (special holy ones). OE. showed a re- 1) See Jespersen, "Growth and Structure," p. 42f. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Sf markable power for coining words for new cultural ideas from its own materials, while later, under altered circumstances, English be- gins more and more to seize contributions from foreign sources. §86. In the preceding we have seen how the Norman Conquest and the subsequent rule of an upper class which spoke French, led the de- velopment of the English language into new paths. The native cultural and literary tradi- tions were broken, and when the mother tongue was again cultivated, after the time of its help- lessness had passed, the supremacy of French speech and French culture appeared in a whole- sale adoption of loan-words. Hereby, however. the way was paved for a new period of Latin influence, far more powerful than those of which we have already spoken. Even among the countless Romance loan-words which flowed into England during the Middle Ages, it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish the French from Latin words. French itself is a development of the Vulgar Latin, and very early the French language begins to add to its vo- cabulary by borrowing from the literary Latin, which during this time played a great role throughout Western Europe as the language of the schools and of culture. Very early French shows such "mots savants," bookish words, which, hov/ever, harmonized so well with the actual vocabulary of the people that it takes a philologist to distinguish the two sorts of words. When these words occur in English, it is naturally difficult to say whether the loan is due to French or whether the word was bor- rowed directly from the Latin. A closer study of the English words belonging here seems to show that during the later ME. period the im- inediate influence of Latin on the English Ian- 88 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY guage was very great. And this is quite natural, when one thinks that the Renaissance begins to make itself felt m England even in the 14th century. Latin, powerful throughout the Middle Ages, appeared to cultivated and literary men even more than ever the model which one should copy. It is little more than natural, that a language like English, which had become accustomed to infinitely great loans from French and which by means of French "mots savants" had already adopted numbers of Classical Latin words, would begin more and more to employ he convenient means of borrowing directly from the rich treasury of Latin. An investigation of the Romance vocabulary of the literary men and scholars in England in the latter half of the 14th century, as Chaucer, Wyclif, or Trevisa, makes it plain that these writers have without a doubt borrowed numer- ous words directly from Latin and have adapted them to the demands of the English language.' Among the Latin words and phrases which we first meet in Chaucer, are the verbs: add, cor- rect, divide, expel, object, reduce (we give the ModE. spelling) ; further, series, conspiracy, for- tunate, delicate; in Wyclif occur, for example: colony, coffin, destitute, exclude; in Trevisa, ab- stract, apt, abbreviate, conflict, consecrate, de- tect, submit. Reside the new words taken from Latin, then and later might be seen many French words latinized, i. e., they are given a form in accordance with their Latin etymon. Thu»-, Chaucer uses equal by the side of egal, and later, we see that perfect is used instead of parfit, describe for descrive, adventure for aven- ture, etc. At times a word has been given a false etymology, as in the words, now good English, advance, advantage, as if the original 1) See Dellit, "Ueber lateinische Elemente Im Mitteleng-- Uschen." OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 89 word were connected with Latin ad-, while in Ihis case the French avant comes from ab-ante. When at the beginning of the Modern Era the humanistic movement was advancing victor- iously, the direct importation of Latin words became even more general than before; these borrowings from the Latin gradually overflowed all bounds, so that one of the best scholars of the history of the English language is able to say that the whole Latin vocabulary became "potentially English.^ To enumerate examples here is scarcely worth while. It is hardly possible to compute the number of words which came into English dur- ing this period. Different authors proceed in different ways; while some observe moderation and restraint, others go to excess in using Latin, some even, from our modern point of view, so latinize their English that it becomes simply ludicrous. Many of the Latin words which were adopted into Enghsh during the period of hu- manism, have disappeared from use. Others have become so common that they must be considered as belonging to the everyday voca- bulary. It is interesting to see how even during the later Middle Ages, glossaries appear in order to explain "hard" words. Likewise it happens later that even authors themselves explain by means of notes certain words which are hard for readers to understand. Among the words which Tindall, the translator of the Bible, explains thus, are: grace, firmament, consecrate, recon- cile, and in contemporary books, words such as the following are termed obscure or rare: accident, inspiration, industry, modesty, temper- ance, local, insensible, obscure, numerous; and Ben Jonson, in his Poetaster, ridicules such words as conscious, defunct and strenuous. For still later times may be mentioned Dr. Johnson's 1) See Bradley, "The Making of English," p. 94. 90 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY well-known love for long and learned Latin words. On the other hand, at intervals a reac- tion has taken place against an exaggerated Latin style. The words borrowed from Latin have adapted themselves, as far as the sound is concerned, to the native words, and to the French words bor- rowed earlier — the traditional school pronuncia- tion of Latin in England is still English to a high degree. We cannot here go into detail concern- ing the typical forms which were generally used in incorporating Latin words into English. Cer- tain suffixes have shown themselves especially productive, as for example adjectives in -Ous and -al -.continuous, voracious, obnoxious, la- borious; celestial, political, individual, etc., and among verbs, especially noteworthy is the type which is derived from the Latin Perfect Par- ticiple: narrate, consecrate, separate, protect, elect, convict, etc. The derivatives and new formations, which have been made from Latin material on English soil, are without number. . The enormous development of science and technical knowledge in the last century has led to the creation of an unheard of wealth of terin- inology wherein Greek material, especially, is used, being particularly capable of forming compound words. This sort of word is inter- national property, so it is not necessary to give examples. §87. Other languages than those mentioned above have given their tribute to the English vocabulary, as for example Spanish and Italian, especially during the earlier part of the Modern English period; as well as many exotic lan- guages, which, besides certain products, give the European languages the names of those pro- ducts. But we cannot enter into a further dis- pussion of such words in this brief sketch. IV The Development of the English Language Since the Year 1100 1. INTRODUCTION. §88. The following review of the develop- ment of English sounds and forms in ME. and ModE. confines itself for the most part to the more general features of the history of the lan- guage. The many dialects of ME. are far from completely investigated, the study of the sounds is full of the most difficult problems and the rise of standard English and its relation to the dialects is obscure in more than one point. Consequently we shall overlook a mass of de- tails and must content ourselves with mention- ing the most important facts in the development of sound and form. We shall deal chiefly, though not exclusively, with the Germanic mate- rial in the language. §89. ME. Dialects are the legitimate de- scendants of OE. dialects, though the grammar- ians generally call them by different names. Usually they are divided into a Northern, a Mid- land and a Southern dialect. Many subdivisions might be made; thus, for example, it has been usual to distinguish an East Midland and a West Midland, which are not, however, sharply di- vided. The Southern dialect corresponds to the 92 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY Saxon dialects and Old Kentish. We find many indications that the dialectic differences were so great that an inhabitant of Southern England would have great trouble in understanding any- one speaking a Northern dialect. A strong mix- ture of dialects took place in London, which in its quality of capital and center of trade, furn- ished a meeting-place for persons from various dialect districts.^ The influence from the North made itself felt more and more, so that the lan- guage of the metropolis toward the end of the ME. period stood much nearer the Midland than the Southern, and must in the main be consid- ered as a Midland dialect. §90. The Texts from which we get oul knowledge of ME., are very numerous but of widely differing value for philological investi- gation. Many MSS. from the 12th century are to be considered as being modernized copies of OE. originals and show a curious blending of older and younger forms, which surely nevet existed side by side in any spoken language. A carefully written text is the Ormulum, a long poem from about the year 1200; its importance for the knowledge of ME. sounds and forms is extraordinarily great, especially on account of its consistently phonetic orthography, which its author consciously and carefully uses through- out. The dialect is East Midland. The Northern dialect is represented, among other works, by the long poem Cursor Mundi (ca. 1300), by a metrical translation of the Psalter, and by Rich- ard RoUe of Hampole's (tl349) Pricke of Con- science. From the Scotch literature may be mentioned Barbour's Bruce (ca. 1375). Among the texts from Southern England should espe- cially be mentioned Layamon's Brut (ca. 1200) 1) Sweet, "New English Grammar," section 620. Kluge, "Grundrlss," 2nd Ed., I., p. 947. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 9S and the Ancren Riwle, i. e., the Rule of the An- choresses, from the beginning of the 13th cen- tury, remarkable for its pure and liquid prose sWle; a Western form of Southern is Robert of Gloucester's Rime Chronicle (ca. 1300) ; the most important Kentish text in Middle English times is the Ayenbite of Inwit (1340). In the writing of Wyclif and Chaucer (see below) the be^nning, or at least a preparatory stage, of STANDARD ENGLISH is tO be SCCn. §91. We have mentioned before that during the ME. period the peculiarities of the Midland dialect pressed farther southward and espe- cially the language of the metropolis took on more and more a Midland character. We must, therefore, find as a matter of course that the literary language which at the close of the ME. period began to rise above the other dialects and which became the property of the whole English nation was, in the main. Midland in character, although other dialects have contrib- uted to it. The rise of Standard English cannot be said to be perfectly clear. In the creation and fixing of the literary language, an important role has been ascribed to Chaucer (tl400). He was nourished and grew up in London. He wrote his extensive works in that dialect which was familiar to him from childhood, and thus gave it an extraordinary literary reputation. When one knows in what high estimation the later poets held, Chaucer as a master, one can* not overvalue his significance in the develop- ment of a poetic and literary style. If we com- pare Chaucer's English with the Standard Eng- lish of today, we find that the similarities are very great, yet points of* difference are not lack- ing. If we except mere lexical changes, such as will naturally be felt in every language in the course of five hundred years, and certain sim- 94 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY plifications in the form system (to which we shall return later), we can characterize the dif- ferences between Chaucer's language and Mod- ern English thus, that in Chaucer we find several specifically Southern peculiarities, which later disappeared from the literary language and which, even in his time, were lost in the North- ern, and to some extent also in the Midland dia- lects. Thus Chaucer uses for the G. Plur. 3rd Pers. Pronoun the old form here and in D. Plur. hem, while in Midland and Northern, the forms their and them, resulting from Norse influence, were used in their place, and these later won acceptance in Standard English. In the N. Plur. of the same pronoun, Chaucer has, however, they, not the older form hi which occurs, for ex- ample, in Robert of Gloucester. §92. Another man beside Chaucer has with- out a doubt played a part in the development of a common literary language, the famous theol- ogian John Wyclif (tl384). Some scholars have wished to ascribe to Wyclif a greater im- portance in the development of Standard Eng- lish than to Chaucer. In this, however, they undoubtedly go too far.^ It is true that a trans- lation of the Bible must, as a literary norm, reach a wider circle than Chaucer's poems. But Wyclif, who was a native of Yorkshire, passed his manhood in Oxford, and did not write in that dialect which was his from childhood. He was certainly a great religious and national teacher, but was never remarkable for his mas- tery of the language. Chaucer, however, wrote as he and his circle talked, and had by nature a wonderful talent for treating his mother tongue artistically. Wyclif's friends and collab- orators in the translation of the Bible were from 1) Ten Brink, "Language and Metre of Chaucer," Intro- duction. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 95 different parts of England. The language of this translation, then, does not offer the same un- ified character as does Chaucer's work. Finally, it must not be forgotten that the religious move- ment awakened by Wyclif was interrupted by a strong orthodox reaction, so we cannot speak of an uninterrupted literary tradition descending from him. Chaucer, however, became the great model for the succeeding literature in English. With full recognition of Wyclif s importance as the one who prepared great masses of the peo- ple for tlie reception of a common literary lan- guage, we must concede that Chaucer played a more important part than he in the history of the rise of Standard English. §93. Yet now it is the general opinion that the importance of both Wyclif and Chaucer for the development of a standard language has been overestimated, and that the origin of that language is to be sought elsewhere, namely, in the public-offices and in the language of official correspondence. Since about the year 1400, the domination of French was broken and English came into its own in the different spheres of official life, it was natural that the capital — the seat of the government, parliament and the highest courts of justice^ — should make its influ- ence all the more felt in the sphere of language, and that the charters and letters which were is- sued from the offices at London should come to have the importance of a norm in fixing the usage of written English. _ Investigations of the language of the London official documents, as well as those from different parts of England, show this to be a fact. Toward the close of the 15th century the proclamations from the prov- inces of England show a form of language which differs greatly from the local dialect and which substantially approaches the language of Lon- don. 96 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY The definite rise of the language of London to the common written language of the whole land was mightily aided by the introduction of the art of printing by William Caxton in 1476. Caxton, who was not only a printer, but a dili- gent translator as well, strove expressly to avoid provincialisms and to keep to that form of the language in his printing, which was spoken by the cultured classes of the metropolis; he adopt- ed, as he himself said, "our englysshe not ouer rude ne curyous," but "suche termes as shall be vnderstanden." A comparison of the language of Caxton and Chaucer reveals the fact that the language^ — as far as one can judge — has become more "Northern" in type; in this particular, ModE. since Caxton's time has made further ad- vances. Caxton's attempts and, one may say, the activ- ity of printing thereafter, helped very greatly to regulate the uniform language. Yet the or- thography, not only in Caxton's time, but for several centuries thereafter, was far from sta- ble; but a certain lapse of time is necessary within which a normal language can become fixed. As the first important ModE. work, one usually considers Tindall's translation of the New Testament, from the year 1525. During the time before Elizabeth's accession to the throne we can see that the literary language had won a general and undisputed recognition in England. This language in the course of time became also the speech of the cultivated people, or at least that to which they approximated. Even in the 16th century we have phonetic descriptions of the English sounds, made by natives of widely different districts, but evidently striving to de- pict the same sound, i. e., the language of the cultivated. Yet we must concede that our knowledge of the standard language as a spoken language is as yet very incomplete. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 97 §94. The substantially Midland character of Standard English is evident from a comparison between its sound system and that of the mod- ern dialects.^ In many dialects we find pecu- liarities which prove that those dialects have ex- erted no influence worth naming upon the standard language. The southeasternmost part of England, especially Kent, has replaced the spirant th by ä:dis, dat, dorn, etc., for this, that, thorn. Southwestern England has a voiced v and z at the beginning of a word, where the standard language has voiceless / and s: vive, vish, vox,^ for five, fish, fox; zea, zailor, zincf for sea, sailor, sing. Southeastern England has. furthermore preserved the e-sound in words as, deal, meat, clean and the i-sound in shine, child,. etc. Northern England has likewise many pecu- liarities foreign to standard English as the undiphthonged u in house, round, cOw, down, etc. Southern (especially Southwestern) as well as Northern dialects seem not to have played a very important role in the development of the standard language, although certain dialectic forms have found acceptance in it. §95. Scotland, whose English dialects come from the old Northumbrian, had for a long time its separate literary language, whose oldest classical poet is considered to be Barbour, a con- temporary of Chaucer. Yet very early tiie influ- ence of Standard English made itself felt in Scot- land. The writings of the reformer Knox are full of Anglicisms. After the year 1600 the vic- tory of English was assured. §96. In ME. times, OE. orthography was grad- ually supplanted by an orthography strongly in- 1) See Kluge, Paul's "Grundriss," 2na Ed., I., p. 946. 2.) ModE. "vixen," fem. of "fox," is thus a dialectal form adopted into the standard language, as also "vat" and "vane." ' 98 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY fluenced by French. The old letter y became the sign for an i-sound and was used side by side with the letter i. The English y-sound, as far as it still existed, was then denoted in the French manner by u. So it comes that y- and u-sounds were denoted by the same letter; in South Eng- lish texts, consequently, sunne corresponds to OE. sunne, sun, as well as to OE. synn, sin. In the greater part of England, however, OE. y became i very early, and thus in Mod. E., sun and sin are clearly distinguished as well in pronuncia- tion as in spelling. In certain cases the long y- sound is denoted by ui; as well in French fruit as in English builden, build. The letter y be- comes, as has been said above, a variant for i; it is used especially at the end of a word: many, day, etc., but often also in other positions, as in bynden. In Norman French, o occurs as a sign for a u-sound; for this reason o began to replace u in many purely English words, especially in proximity tö m, n, u(v) to avoid graphic errors; thus they wrote comen for OE. cuman, loue {love) for OE. lufu. In conformity with French usage, they began to denote long-u with ou\ house, <0É. hus: mouth, <0E. mäp; broun (br own), <0E. briin, etc. In OE., c was the sign for many sorts of sounds (see §37) . In French, since long before the Nor- man Conquest, c before e and i had no longer the sound of k, consequently in ME. the /c-sound before these two vowels is denoted by kikene, kepen, king, kin, etc.; in French loan-words « before e, i has the sound of s, certain, city; in place of cw, qu is used: quene; in other posi- tions c is generally retained : comen, dene, craft; for OE. c in cases where it had become palatal- ized, ch is written: chirche, OE.cirice; child, OE. <:ild, etc. ; instead of OE. eg in ME. gg is written, later the spelling dg becomes usual; bridge, OE. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 99 brycg; edge, OE. ecg. The same sound when initial, in a Romance loan-word is written g or j: gentle, giant, jealous, just. Only in ModE. times have the letters i and j been consistently distin- guished. In ME., sch, or sh is written for OE. sc: ModE. has sh: fish, OE. fisc; sharp. OE. scearp. The so-called ich- and ac/i-sounds were denoted, after much indecision, by gh (OE. h) : right, doghter; instead of hw, wh is written. ME. often uses the, old g{j) for the ModE. y-sound; later y begins to be used: year, yield, young. The runic ]? is used during the whole of the ME. period, yet in the course of time th becomes the usual sign for this spirant, voiced as well as voiceless. For the u-sound, v(u) begins to be used in ME., instead of OE. filoue (love), OE. lufu; u and v are not consist- ently differentiated until ModE. times. §97. These radical changes in orthography give ME. a very different appearance from OE. The orthography adopted in ME. has been pre- served in its. main features until the present. This conservatism in the English orthography naturally makes the study of the history of sounds very difficult. While in the 15th cen- tury in Germany the diphthongs ei, au, from MHG. i, a, quickly won a place in the orthogra- phy, English continues even today to denote its diphthongs, which are the same as in German, by the old signs. Likewise, e, ee, ea continue to be written in words where for a long time an i-sound has been pronounced. §98. During the whole ME. period and in older ModE., the orthography is very unstable, certain MSS. evincing a hopeless chaos. But when books were printed and distributed in great quantity, the orthography began gradually to become fixed and a hundred years ago was 100 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY practically the same as now. We must bewail the fact that at the time of the fixing of the or- thography no greater respect was paid to the actual pronunciation. It is not only in our own times that the English pronunication is far re- moved from the spelling. The standard orthog- raphy has never been consistent and was even in the 16th century so unphonetic that more than one thoughtful Englishman zealously urged an orthographical reform. The account which these phoneticians give of the pronunciation, and their plan for a method of notation, re- mained without practical result, but their writ- ings are of the greatest value to us as the most important sources for our knowledge of the English pronunciation at that time. Likewise, more than once the government and the univer- sities have been appealed to, to be induced to take the initiative in a spelling reform. Yet so far reformers have not been able to achieve results. 2. DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH SOUNDS. §99. In the discussion of the OE. vowels (§31) it was pointed out that before certain con- sonant-groups, a lengthening of originally short stem-vowels took place. This lengthening process, which seems to have developed grad- ually in the course of a long period of time, is most completely established before nd and Id, but occurs also before other consonant groups. Thus ME. received as an inheritance from the preceding period forms such as bindan, flndan, blind, hund, bunden, mllde, wllde, gold, etc. Doubling a letter and using the accent in OE. and ME. MSS., sufficiently proves the preval- ence of such lengthenings; yet, as has been al- OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 101 ready noticed, opposite tendencies make their weight felt at times, so that the results in Stan- ard English are not uniform. §100. In the ME. period new lengthenings occur, in that OE. a, e, o in open syllables are developed to ä, é, ö. Until about the year 1200 the old short vowels seem to exist; at any rate it is the case in the Ormulum, where the quan- tities are very carefully and consistently given. But in the middle of the 13th century, lengthen- ing begins to make itself felt in the meter, and the later development fully confirms the con- clusions which may be made by aid of the rimes of the Middle English poets. Upon this length- ening depend such ME. forms as name, läte, sake, bathe (n), inäke(n), spéke, mete, hope, broken, etc. The vowels i and u do not as a rule submit to this process (writ en, dide, sune) ; it is true that the exceptions, which we cannot discuss here, are not always to be explained. Also the lengthening of a, e, o is counteracted by other tendencies and is very uncertain in words of the type of fader, sadel, even, etc. §101. On the other hand, shortening of originally long stem-vowels occurs before cer- tain consonant groups. These shortenings, which are very difficult to distinguish by the aid of MSS., and whose chronology is doubtful in more than one particular, have developed in widely different periods in the history of Eng- lish. We cannot enter here into a closer exami- nation of these intricate relations. A great part of these shortenings occur even in the oldest pe- riod of. ME.; here belongs, for example, the shortening of the stem-vowel in the verbal in- flection : ME. képen-képte, slépen-slépte, as well as brohte, söhte, etc., together with the shorten- ing of a long stem-vowel in a word when it en- X02 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY ters into a compound, as : husbonde and huswif, from hus, and wisdom from wis, etc. Very nu- merous are the shortenings before st and sh (OE. sc). OE. dust consequently corresponds to ModE. dust, OE. fyst to fist, OE. wyscan to iwi«/i, OE. /?««€ to flesh, OE. bréost to breast. Even much later occur å number of shifts in the quantity of vowels. In the 16th century tho grammarians give varying quantitities for many common words, as health, heaven, father, have, water, give, love, etc. And even in our own day cases are not lacking where the vowels are of unstable quantity. §102. Of the history of the development of the separate vowels only the most general out- lines can be given here. Germanic a in OE. underwent many changes. It occurs as ö, again as as, ea and o. This last variant even in OE. times returns to a in great measure, yet in certain cases, o remains even in Mod E. : long, strong. In earliest ME. se and ea also return to the original a, so that in ME. we must take the simple vowel again as our point of departure. ME. a undergoes in an open syllable the lengthening to ä already mentioned in §100; OE. macian, ME. maken, OE. hatian>häten, nama>näme, etc. Toward the end of the ME. period a, as well as ä, shows in most positions a palatal sound which later develops further, without, however, re- ceiving a new orthographic sign. At present the short vowel, when regularly developed, has the sound of a in man, can, glad, hallow, narrow. The long vowel has in ModE. shifted to e, which since the beginning of the 19th century, has be- gun to become a diphthong éi:name, make, hate, take; so also in many Romance words: age, grace, blame, nation, change. Before r, how- ever, this sound has remained a half-open f-sound: care, hare, dare, prepare, various. In OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 103 certain cases the development of short-a has been exposed to various influences from neigh- boring sounds. Before // or Z-fconsonant (where first of all a diphthong seems to have re- sulted, see §111), a very open sound, between a and o, is the rule : all, fall, talk (though not with Z+labial, where the pure a is the rule : calf, half, alms, calm). After w, as a rule, a has a dark sound between a and o: was, warm, swarm, swallow, warrant (yet if a guttural follows the a it is regularly short: wag, wax). Before r (not followed by a vowel) and before the voiceless spirants f, s, th, a has become lengthened: car, bar, arm, art, staff, craft, glass, ask, pass, path. Besides, long-a is the standard pronunciation of many French words with nasalized-a: demand, chance. §103. OE. a, to which we add also the early lengthened vowels in aid, hälden, etc., where WS. breaking-ea has reverted to a, begins even in the 12th century in South England to take on a dark quality of tone, nearer to an o. This change progresses and makes itself felt in the Midland, but not in Northumbrian. Even a in Norse loan-words followed the same law of de- velopment, which led next to an open-p. Later the vowel became closed, and since the beginning of the 19th century has become a diphthong (öu) : stone, home, bone, old, cold, road,^ oak, go, pope, Pret. drove, rode, (OE. stan, häm, bän, etc.) The same development is found in the short-o which is lengthened in ME. to q -.spoken broken, hope, smoke; further, many Romance words : vote, joke, motion, etc. Before r the de- velopment has been arrested at an open-p : more, sore, oar, roar, restore, glory; also in broad. Un- der the influence of a neighboring w in several 1) "oa" is an attempt to denote the long open o-sound, which, however, has not been consistently adopted. 104 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY words Ö became closed very early and shifted to a, like OE. ö (see §104): who, two. (OE. hwä, two). A curious dialectic pronunciation is found in one {=won), OE. än, as also in once (but only, alone, with the normal sound) . §104. OE. Ö continues in the main unaltered during ME. times. Gradually, however, it be- comes more and more closed, until in ModE. it has the value u (i. e., the socalled Latin-u, French ou) : doom, cool, moon, do; and in Romance words, as move, prove, fool, etc. In several words vowel-shortening is found in oldest ModE., which in its subsequent development follows short u: brother, mother, other, flood, glove. Of much later date is the shortening in words such as good and book, where the change in quantity does not occasion any change in the quality of the vowel. §105. OE. o has been retained, as a rule, up to our own times: God, fox, ox, follow, sorrow. The o sound which in open syllables was length- ened in ME., became identical with the ööu: toll, folk, molten, roll. O has undergone a develop- ment analogous to that in far, path, etc. (§102), when before the same sort of consonant and consonant combinations, where a long open g sound has resulted : for, corn, fork, together with oft, often, cross, cost, broth. OE. u is retained in ME. It is reinforced by OE.. y in certain positions: OE. mycel, ME. muche, much; OE. swylc^such, as also especial- ly French u: duchess, subject, punish. Yet in the 16th century, according to the testimony of phoneticians, a pure u-sound was usual in but, mud, lust, much, full, put, etc. This sound is OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 105 often denoted in print by o, oo, ou : come, some. London, worm, wood, double, touch. During the following centuries this sound in various en- vironment and in part by obscure means, has developed in various directions. In proximity to labials and I, it has retained its original qual- ity: full, wolf, wood, put: in most other cases it has lost it (becomes unrounded) and approx- imates the European a-sound: but, mud, come, double, touch, London. Before r the u-sound, like e and i, has undergone lengthening and has been modified to gi spur, curse, worm, worth, further, journey, turn. §106. OE. i, with which very early, in most dialects, y is levelled, remains regularly un- altered: sit, bid, fill, kin, as also Romance din- ner, resist, city. Before r in ModE. i has developed like u : bird, first, birch, firm, circle. §107. A short e, which has been affected by none of the sorts of lengthening, has regularly remained e : help, set, send. Here belong also those words which in OE. have an eo ModE. far, sterre> star, kerve(n)> carve, sterve{n)>starve, Fr. merveil> marvel. The new sound is not con- sistently denoted in the orthography: heart, hearth. Later in ModE. e before r develops like i to a": herd, earl earnest. Pret. heard, err, serve, person. In ModE. thus, the same sound has been developed in her, fir, fur. The history of the long e-sounds is too intricate to explain fully here. We will confine ourselves 106 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORT to the most important elements in its develop- ment. ME. distinguishes between an open and a closed long é sound : § and é. 1. The open § sound results from various OE. sounds such as a) the umlaut-«: OE. déélan>d§len, clséne, cl§ne. b) OE. WS. sé (WGerm. a) ; since, however, Anglian and Kentish had here an é, it is clear that in the ME. texts there must be a great amount of confusion, so that, for example, words like déd, släpen, occur with § as well as with é: c) The OE. diphthong éa, which early became a monophthong: /i^pME. wei, legde'>leide, regn^ rein, heg (hay)>/iei; WS. grseg, Angl. grég> grei, LateOE. aehta, ehta> eight. To these ai and ei diphthongs consort similar diphthongs in words of French origin. Even in ME. ai and ei became very similar and a complete fusion of the two diphthongs followed, which is evinced by the fact that ai (ay) is written in many words which really should have ei, as way, rain. Regarding the later development of 110 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY the sounds, the views diverge^ and the accounts of the older writers on the sounds do not always agree. In a grammar published in France in 1595 English a, ai, ay, ea, ei, ey, are compared to French é. Other authors from the same time still insist on the pronunciation of ai and ei as a diphthong. In any case ai (ei) in its later development has become identical with the sound resulting from ME. ä (see §102). Thus in the present standard pronunciation tail, rain, way, pay, reign, convey have the same sound (éi) as name; before r the sound is also the same (§) in fair, their, heir, as in care. §111. From a-\-g and a^w, sometimes from a+f, is developed a diphthong au, often written aw; OE. dragan>drauen>draw, lagu>lawe> law, clawe>claue>claw, hafoc>*havek>hauk >hawk. Before an h (the so-called ac/i-sound, in ME. written gh) is often developed a diph- thong: ME. aughte> ought OE. ähte; naught, OE. nåht, etc. Concerning the development of this diphthong in ModE. the opinions differ. Now a sound close to an o (Swed. d), is the rule: draw, law, etc., even in Romance words as cause, fraud. (For all, too (§102) one must surely presuppose an earlier stage aull). §112. A diphthong öu arises in ME. from several older sound combinations. OE. boga^ böwe^bow, säwan^söwen^sow, ägen>öwen> own; here belongs OE. öw in gröwan, etc. These diphthongs are levelled in ModE. with long ö (stone) and share its further development. For folk, toll, etc. (§105) one must presuppose an earlier stage foulk, toull. §113. ME. has also eu-diphthongs which are the development of different OE. combina- 1) See Horn, "Historlsche neuengllsche Grammatik," p. 96, and Jespersen, "Modern English Grammar," p. 325ff. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 111 tions. The first element of the diphthong was sometunes open é, sometimes closed. The closed diphthong must early have shown, in pronuncia- tion contact with the u-sound of French loan- words. The development in ModE. is not com- pletely clear. In ModE. for the old eu as for the French u the pronunciation ju, earlier iu, is general; after certain consonants, u. Also the older opener diphthong fu has been identical with it for a couple of centuries. The spelling of the words belonging here usually testifies to the earlier history of the vowel; not seldom has an unhistoric orthography persevered : new, few, knew, duty, use, virtue, with historical orthog- raphy; true, with French orthography, corre- sponding however to OE. treowe. §114. H at the beginning of a word was already weak in OE., and during the course of time became weaker. In the general colloquial speech it was becoming silent during the last century, but probably has been brought to life in part by artificial means, and this, even in the case of most words of French origin, as humble, herb, etc. It passes as vulgar nowadays to give oneself liberties with regard to this sound. §115. A tendency makes itself felt very early to allow the palatal and guttural spirant gh {ich- and acA-sound) to become silent. The palatal sound seems even in the 16th century to have quite generally disappeared: might, fight. The fortunes of the guttural gh are more com- plicated. Different portions of the land seem to show different developments of it, and the standard pronunciation has adopted certain words with one type of pronunciation, others with still another. Thus, gh has disappeared in though, through, plough, daughter, taught, sought, slaughter, but Has been labialized and has become f in tough, enough, cough, laugh. 112 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY §116. In later ME. the voiceless spirants s, f, th in unstressed syllables, especially in endings, became voiced.^ Thus we get a voiced spi- rant in the G. and Plur. ending -es, which, except when the preceding consonant makes this pro- nunciation impossible, has remained voiced in ModE. even after -e- has ceased to be pro- nounced : fishes, horses, seas, years, etc. ; so too in his, is, has, was, etc. Likewise of and with have a voiced spirant. The voiceless spirant re- mains in the more highly stressed adverb off, which originally was the same word as of. Also in the beginning of certain words with weak stress, th has become voiced: the, thou, thee, thine, that, though. §117. The r sound has become very weak in the normal South English pronunciation of ModE., and has lost every trace of trilling. The sound is heard plainly only before vowels, other- wise it is reduced to a so-called "vocal murmur," and often disappears completely after having exerted a powerful modifying influence upon the sound of the preceding vowel. An /, too, has become silent in certain positions: half, calf, talk, folk, should, would. In the first half of the 17th century, w disappears from the pro- •nunciation when before r: write; somewhat later k and g became silent before n: know, knife, gnaw. The orthography has taken no notice of this change in pronunciation. 3. DEVELOPMENT OF DECLENSION IN ENGLISH. §118. The Noun had in OE. a very richly developed declension, which, even though level- ing of forms and analogical recastings were not 1) A similar development exists in -the Prim. Germanic language which goes under the name or "Verner's law." OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 113 lacking, still reflected the Prim. Germanic rela- tions in stem-formation and inflections. How- ever, even in OE. times, especially in the Northern dialects, we become aware of a strongly developed inclination to level differ- ences in declension. This leveling tendency soon makes headway, and after the fall of the comparatively conservative WS. literary lan- guage with its traditions, when the spoken lan- guage comes to its right in literature, we soon see Sie amazing effects of form-leveling. Though litUe more than a century lies between the last monuments of the WS. literary language and the East Midland Ormulum, the simplification of the declension is enormous. §119. In OE. declension the inflectional end- ing in -s was certainly very general, but nothing in the classical West Saxon foreshadows the fact that this ending was ordained to become universal in the later stage of the language, -s as an ending is not found among the femi- nines; the G. Sing, of most masculines and neuters, on the contrary, ended in -es, the N. Plur. of most strong masculines had the ending -as. On the other hand the strong neuters and feminines in this case end in a vowel or are without ending. Even in OE. we can observe how the endings -es and -as spread outside the territory where they are etymo- logically justifiable. Thus the ending -as occurs in WS. in the N. A. Plur. of i- and u-stems: wyrmas, f eldas, sunas; likewise many conso- nantal stems show this ending very early: fsederas. The Northern dialects are more ex- treme in this, especially Northumbrian, where the development has gone farthest. The ending -es in the G. Sing, has spread even more rapidly. In the Northumbrian texts, especially in the Northern variety, this ending is very usual 114 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY among the feminines: dédes, tides, säules (G. of säwol soul), etc., and even in late WS. we occasionally meet forms as helpes, sorges; like- wise G. in -es is found in words inflected weak, as eages, eares. §120. Leveling and analogical formations in declensions were mightily furthered by the pho- netic development during the period of transi- tion from OE. to ME. Then vowels in un- stressed end-syllables were weakened to e. An inflectional n-final was silent first of all in Northumbrian, very early also in Midland; the Southern was more conservative. One easily sees what destruction these sound changes must have brought to the declensions. That powerful support which the weak declension had in its -n fell away, and vocalic differences which in the declension of the feminines was the sole characteristic for most cases, disap- peared utterly. Is. Sing, caru and Plur. cara became, together with G. D. A. Sing., simply care. N. tunge has at its side oblique cases identical in form, in place of OE. tungan. This e-final which through the above named sound changes became very common, appears in many Nominative forms, especially in most of the long-syllable feminines, which in OE. had no ending in the N. Sing. OE. synn, died, lår, brycg give in ME. sinne, déde, lore, brigge. The same -e appears in these words even in A. and D. Sing. Among words which in N. Sing, have no e, in ME. the D. is without ending. This cannot be explained by the OE. ending -e be- coming silent purely phonetically, but rather rests on the fact that the Accusative form re- placed the Dative. In isolated formula-like ■expressions such as to bedde, to grounde, on hande, however, the old D. in -e still lived for a long time. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 116 §121. When, thus, because of the phonetic development, the most of the declension-forms have been leveled, it is perfectly natural that the two endings^ which were saved in the general confusion, -as and -es, and which even in OE. had won ground outside their original territory, should quickly continue their march of victory. Here, too, a leveling took place, in that a was reduced to e, so that in ME. we have to do with only one ending, -es. About the year 1200, this ending -es as Plur. sign is already especially common. We say plural sign, for although originally confined to the N. and A. Plur., -es became before long rather a number than a case sign. We meet it among neuters: wordes, werkes; among the feminines: dedes, händes, and among words which in OE. were inflected weak: names, times. As usual is the ending -es in the G. Sing. There too it occurs in words of all genders and de- clensions : sinnes, worldes (f ) ; names, hertes (weak), etc. The Northerii and Midland dialects as early as in the 13th century use -es as G. and Plur. ending to the same or almost the same extent as in current English. The Ormulum, which comes from about 1200, reminds one in decelension of ModE. One may conclude from this what a powerful disintegration the old inflections have experienced during the centuries immediately preceding. The Southern dialects are far more conservative; even in the 14th century we still meet -e as ending for G. Sing. Fem., and -en as Plur. of not a few words. §122. During the ME. period -es became universal in G. Sing., as also in the normal 1) The ending "-um" in the D. Plur. had already become weakened in OE. "-un," "-on," "-an," and lost the "-n" when the weak .declension did. 116 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY Plur. Toward the close of the ME. period e became silent (except after sibilants : fishes) ; by then, s had become voiced (cf. §116). The originally phonetic alternation of a voiceless spirant (/) when final and the voiced spirant (v) when intervocalic, still occurs (even after the vowel of the ending has become silent) in ModE., to distinguish between the Sing, wife and Plur. wives: life-lives; thief -thieves ; loaf-loaves, etc.;. likewise in the pronunciation in house-houses and path-paths, etc. In many words anal- ogy has introduced the voiceless spirant even in the plural: hoofs, deaths, etc. The G. has regularly been brought into direct conform- ity with the N.; wife's, life's, etc. Yet in older ModE. we meet Genitives like wives, etc. In Plur. certain remnants of the older in- flections were preserved, of which a few still live in our own time. If we examine the so-called irregularly formed plurals in a ModE. gram- mar, it is as a rule very easy to recognize the OE. declensions of which these constitute iso- lated remains. Among the consonant stems, the old plural characterized by umlaut still lives in foot-feet, goose-geese, tooth-teeth, louse-lice, mouse-mice, man-men, woman-women. A rem- nant of the old weak declension is found in oxen. N. Plur. of OE. cild, child, was cild or cildru. The present plural is an adaptation of the latter form according to the paradigm of the weak declension. A contamination of various inflectional types occurs in brethren, which yet exists in a metaphorical sense; the usual plural form is brothers. An archaic plural of cow was kine; the usual form is cows. A relic of the old neuter inflection is pre- served in forms such as sheep and deer, where the plural is not distinguished from the singular in form. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 117 §123. Parallel to the decay of the old system of declensions, the feeling for the grammatical gender of nouns gradually became vague. Even in OE. the gender of a word is sometimes doubt- ful; the northern variety of the Northumbrian dialect in the 10th century shows a very great insecurity in this regard. Since the forms of the adjective and the articles were very much reduced in early ME., grammatical gender lost one of its strongest supports and soon sank into oblivion. The Ormulum stands very near to ModE. as regards gender. The ModE. concep- tion of gender is based on entirely different principles from the old Germanic and Indo- European.^ Only personal names, depending upon sex, are masculine or feminine, i. e., they are represented by the pronouns he and she. Names of animals are in the main neuter, and are replaced by it. Yet in colloquial language there is a well defined tendency to make cer- tain animal-names masculine and others femi- nine. In several of the higher orders of animals the genders are distinguished. Names of ob- jects are neuter; the poetic language, however, makes use of numerous personifications, as, to a certain degree, does the colloquial language. Several historians of the language have, charmed by admiration for the rich form sys- tem of the old Germanic languages, considered the development of the English as a lamentable degeneration. We do not share this point of view. Modern English is in a position to ex- press the same lo^cal relations and nuances of thought as OE.; it does so with simpler and less cumbersome means. And in the old system of gender, in spite- of all the talk about the poetic conceptions embodied in the same, we cannot see anything other than a useless 1) See Sweet, "New English Grammar," section 1963ff. 118 ELEMENTS OF THE HI&TORY burden, the removal of which can only tend to advance a language. §124. The A d 3 e c t i V e in OE. hadj as in the German of today, two sorts of inflection, strong and weak. The choice of strong or weak de- pended upon syntactic relations. Very early this wealth of form fell prey to great reductions. When inflectional -n became silent and the vowels in suffixes were leveled, the forms of the weak declension were reduced to one, which ends in -e. Even the strong inflection falls into decay; it seems as if — of course unconsciously — the idea was awakened that the thought is just as clearly and unequivocally expressed where the sentence relation is denoted by the noun alone, as where each adjectival attribute is provided with case-endings. And in the same way is congruence, often so highly praised, a superfluous ballast which is not necessary in understanding the connection of words. ModE. all good old men's works expresses the same thing as the Latin opera virorum omnium hono- rum veterum and expresses it just as clearly but in a far simpler and consequently more practical way.^ The Ormulum has preserved of the old adj. inflection only a strong plural form in -e and a form likewise ending in -e for all the cases of the weak declension. Chaucer's adj. inflec- tion agrees with this. Adjectives which in the uninflected form end in -e, are thus even in ME. invariable. Then when the final -e has become silent, there remains as result the ModE. uninflected adjective. Thanks to this lack of inflection, the Mod E. Adj. great is in condition to express the quality of greatness alone, un- hampered by any qualifying conceptions, whilst 1) Cf. Jespersen, "Studier over engelske Kasus," p. 17. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 119 Latin magnus indissolubly unites ideas of sin- gular, masculine and nominative. The ModE. comparison {great, greater, great- est) is a direct continuation of the OE. Even in earlier ME. a paraphrastic mode of compari- son formed with more and most occurs beside it. Originally both sorts of comparison were used without any distinction; now the paraphrastic comparison is used chiefly with longer adjec- tives, the older comparison is preferred with shorter adjectives. A number oi so-called irregular forms of comparison still exist in ModE. better-best, worse-worst, m.ore- most, less-least, etc., also the umlaut-forms elder-eldest beside older-oldest. §125. Among the Pronouns, too, far- reaching changes have taken place. The per- sonal pronouns are the best preserved. Even there, however, many changes have been intro- duced. The dual forms soon disappear. The old genitive. forms of the 1 and 2 pers. pronoun disappear in ME. and are replaced by the Pos- sessive Pronoun, which is nearly related. The pronoun for the First Person Sing, has in OE. the form ic. This form gives rise in ME., as in the case of most pronominal forms, to many variant forms depending on dialect and stress. The form which has won entrance into the written language is 1. The plural form we, with also the D. A. mé, us, lives in ModE., nat- urally, with altered pronounciation. pu and ]>é have also regularly developed to ModE. thou and thee, which nowadays belong exclusively to highly archaic style, and elsewhere are re- placed by the pronoun for the 2nd Pers. Plur. OE. gé in 2nd Pers. Plur. has been developed to ye, which form began even in earliest ModE. to give way to the form of the oblique cases, you, which corresponds to OE. eow. Of the 120 ELEMENTS OP THE HISTORY ModE. forms for the 3rd personal pronoun, he, his, her, him, are to be derived without diffi- culty from OE. hé, his, hire, him. The old Accusatives have, as in the 1 and 2 Pers., given way before the Dative. ModE. it corresponds to OE. hit; the loss of the initial consonant is caused by the lack of stress. The G. its is a new formation which replaced the older his, now confined to the masculine. The form is very rare even in Shakespeare. ModE. she is probably a development of the OE. demonstra- tive form seo; yet the history of the word is not clearly traceable. In the Plur., the OE. forms have given way to the forms they, their, them, which show Scandinavian influence. In daily speech the forms ot the Personal Pronouns are often reduced to the point of being unrecogniz- able. Possessive Pronouns have developed double forms in Middle and Modern English, of which the shorter, my, thy, our, your, is used attribu- tively, the longer, mine, thine, ours, yours, ab- solutely. The ending in ours, yours, is probably to be explained by analogy to his. Likewise to the genitives her and their, have been formed the absolute forms hers, theirs. In poetical style sometimes mine and thine occur also attribu- tively. In the pronominal formations with -self occur, two diff"erent processes of formation, in that partly the possessive pronoun, partly the oblique case of the Personal Pronoun are com- pounded with -self: myself, yourself (-ves), our- selves, thyself, but himself, herself, itself, them- selves. §126. The forms of the other pronouns un- dergo numerous reductions in ME. Chaucer has already arrived in the main at the ModE. standpoint. Only who-whose-whom exhibit OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 121 case-forms; a difference in gender continues only in who-what. In the other pronouns, dif- ferent forms are to be found solely to express number. The forms of the article were soon leveled; the result is the indeclinable the. The neutral form OE. ]>set, becomes detached from the article and gives rise to a new demonstra- tive pronoun that. As a plural form of this pro- noun, those is used, which replaced the older \>g (OE. f>ä) and which corresponds to OE. ]>äs. This last named form was in OE. the Plur. of ]>es, \>éos, ]>is. Of the Sing, forms of this pro- noun, only the neuter this has remained and like that began to be used as attributive even to masculine and feminine words. This has in ModE. the plural these, the origin of which is not completely clear. OE. hwilc has become ModE. which, sivilc (swylc) >such. Of other pro- nouns named in §50, sum >regularly some, åemg>any, éélc>each (every is the result of ever-\-each) . 4. DEVELOPMENT OF THE VERBAL INFLECTION IN ENGLISH. §127. The changes which the English verbal inflection undergoes in ME. and ModE. times are not so far-reaching as the changes in the de- clensions. WhOe the nominal inflection in ModE. is something quite different from that in OE., we may easily recognize in the ModE. verbal conjugation most of the characteristic marks of the OE. Conjugation. Of course the language has not stood still here; the changes are great enough, especially in the stem-forma- tion. We shall first confine ourselves to the Per- sonal endings of the Verb. After the leveling of the OE. suffix vowels, the ME. verbal-endings 122 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY in the Pres. Ind. are: Sing. 1. -e, 2. -esf, 3. -eth, Plur. eth. These are the forms prevalent in the South of England (e. g. in Ancren Riwle). In Midland and Northern the conjugation un- dergoes two important changes. Even in OE. the 3. Pers. Sing, frequently ends in -es in North- ern, an ending, the origin of which has been variously explained. This ending during the ME. period pressed further Southward. Yet in Chaucer it is very rare, Caxton has likewise -eth, but in the 16th century -es becomes gen- eral in the standard language as it may have been already earlier in the colloquial language of London. The present standard English knows no other ending for the 3rd Pers. Sing, than -es or -s, the sound value of which corresponds to that of the -(e)s endings in the declension; in archaic-religious and poetic style forms in -eth are occasionally used. §128. The Plur. Pres. Ind. is formed differ- ently in the three chief dialects in ME. While the Southern dialect retains -eth. Midland re- places it by a form in -en, wherein we see probably a corresponding subjunctive form; the Pret. with its 3. plur. in -en has probably also contributed to the change in the Present. In Old Northumbrian the ending -as or -es in Pres. Plur. was quite usual. Also in ME., verbs in the Northern dialects often have in this form the ending -es, which is dropped in different positions. In older ME., conse- quently, bindeth is the Southern, binden the Midland, and bind(es) the Northern form for the Plur. Pres. Ind. The victory belonged to the Midland form, whose -n however gradually became silent. In Chaucer binde occurs as well as binden, even in Elizabeth's time plurals in -en occur, but these are only isolated remains of an older period. In the normal written Ian- OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 123 guage -n has disappeared; the final -e has be- come silent and e in the ending es has shared the same fate, unless preceded by a sibilant, and then lastly, the form for the 2nd Pres. Sing, disappears from the living language; so in the Pres. Ind., only two forms remain: 3. Sing. binds, 1. 2. Sing, and Plur. bind. The OE. forms in the Pres. Subjunctive, Sing. binde, Plur. binden, in ModE. regularly give bind. The rare Subj. has thiis in ModE. one form for all persons. As to endings, the strong and weak preterites are identical in ModE. The OE. Plur. ending -un, -on has weakened to -en, -e, and finally has fallen away. In the 14th century, 2. Pers. Sing, begins to adopt even in the strong Pret., the ending -est in agreement with the weak Pret. and with the Pres. If we leave the 2. Sing, aside, the Pret. has in ModE. only one form: bound, loved. A form for the Pret. Subj. dif- fering from the Ind. occurs in ModE. only in the verb to be: Ind.-/ was, Subj. / were. §129. The infinitive ends in OE. in -an, conse- quently in ME. regularly in -en -.binden. The inflectional -n had already been dropped in Old North, in many cases; the ending of the infinitive is there -a, ME. -e. Later -n disappears even in the Southern dialects. In_ Chaucer, in- finitives are to be found in -en, as well as in e. When finally -e became silent, the infinitive was without sufiix: bind. The socalled inflected in- finitive, OE. to faranne, is levelled during the ME. period with the infinitive proper. The Pres. Part, in OE. ends in -ende, which form is retained in Midland in ME. times. In Southern, next of all -inde is developed from -ende. . About 1200 occurs a form in -inge, which is to be considered either as a purely phonetic development of -inde, or as a levelling with the 124 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTOET verbal substantive in -ing (cf. German abstracts in -ung). In any case these forms are levelled after end-e has become silent, and the-ing' form has been adopted in Standard English. This ex- plains the wide use of the ModE. form in -ing, which plainly bears witness to the fact that adjectival as well as nominal elements are pres- ent in it. The Past Part, of strong verbs had in OE. the ending -en. In ME. -n is often dropped. In ModE. the strong verbs have now -en, now are without ending. It is very difficult to formulate a rule regarding it, since the forces of analogy play a great part in it. The Past Part, of the weak verbs ends in ModE. in -(e)d or -t and has been regularly developed from the OE. forms. The prefix ge-, which in OE. was very common in the Past. Part., lives in ME. in the form i- or y-. The Northern dialects lose this very early. Likewise we do not find it in the Ormulum. In Chaucer the prefix is still fairly common (yeomen, yf alien) and occurs even in verbs of French origin {y served). The older ModE. written language knows only a few remnants of this Past Part, sign, as usual in OE. as in German of today (yclad, yclept). The umlaut in 2. and 3. Sing. Pres. Ind. which so often occurred in OE. — especially conunon in WS., but very rare in the Northern dialects — gradually gives way during the following pe- riod, and the vowel of the infinitive is intro- duced into the entire Present. Likewise, later, the language gives up the syncopations of the same forms, so usual in WS.; helpe-hilpst, hilp]> is replaced by helpe-helpest-helpe\>; ModE. help-helpest-helps. Yet we find in Chaucer not a few syncopated forms as : 3 Sing, hint, sit. §130. In the stem-formation of the strong verb, great changes have taken place since OE. OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 125 times, ^vhich have given the stem of many a verb quite a different appearance from its for- mer one, but which do not completely disguise the characteristic peculiarities of the old Ablaut classes. Thus we recognize in drive-drove-driv- en, rise-rose-risen, write-wrote-written the OE. 1st Ablaut-class (§53) ; in freeze-froze-frozen-^ since grammatical change has been given up everywhere in ModE. — occurs, although much blurred, the theme of the 2nd Ablaut-class. The 3rd is represented by drink-drank-drunk, sing- sang-sung, etc. Most of the verbs of the 4th and 5th classes are very much changed; fairly well preserved are bear- (bare) bore-born (e), 4th class, and give-gave-given, 5th class. To the 6th Ablaut-class belong, e. g., shake-shook-shaken, take-took-taken, and to the originally redupli- cating classes : fall-fell-fallen, grow-grew-grown, know-knew-known, etc. §131. When we account for some of the most important changes which the English strong verb has undergone during the period of its development, we take no account of the changes which are of purely phonetic nature and thus may be explained by the general laws of Eng- lish sound-development. We must confine our- selves to the shifting of the original relations, which depends upon analogy, i. e., on the mutual influence of words and of inflectional types. First and foremost it should be mentioned that not a few verbs, which in OE. are inflected strong, during the later history of the language have adopted a weak Pret. Even in OE. times we meet a weak Pret. sleepte from slåepan, to sleep, beside the strong (reduplicating) slip. Chaucer knows slepte as well as slep. In ModE. the verb is inflected weak: sleep-slept-slept Likewise the verbs Isetan, to let, and wepan, to weep, originally reduplicating, are now weak; 126 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY let-let-let; weep-wept-wept. In later ME. and even in ModE. many shifts from the strong to the weak conjugation have taken place. The OE. strong verb climban, to climb, had yet in earliest ModE. the Pret. clomb; now it is regu- larljr climb-climbed. Likewise the strong in- flection in OE. helpan and meltan has given way to the weak inflection : help-helped, melt-melted. Many other verbs have gone the same road. On the other hand occur examples of a contrary shifting. OE. stician-sticode is now inflected strong: stick-stuck-stuck ; here it is probably sting that has set the example for analogical formation. In the same way English wear- wore-worn is declined strong to agree with bear-bore-born, tear-tore-torn, swear-swore- sworn. In OE. the verb was weak: werian-werede By analogy to know- (knew) -known, for in- stance, show has adopted the strong Part. shown; the Pret. is weak, showed. The OE. form for this word was scéawian-scéawode. It is noteworthy that even a verb from the French has adopted a strong inflection: strive-strove- striven, which thereby has allied itself to the 1st strong ablaut class. §132. In the strong verb itself come two re- markable form-levelling processes. The first and more important, which has a complete par- allel in German, as in colloquial but not literary Swedish, is the adoption of one vowel for all forms of the Pret. OE., like the other Old Ger- manic languages, had in most Ablaut classes one vowel in the 1. and 3. Sing. Ind. and another in the 2 Sing, and the Plur. Ind. and in the Subj. Pret. band-bunde-band; bundon; bunde- bunden. Levelling had begun even in ME,, but only after Chaucer's time was it adopted on a large scale. If we compare Mod. E. strong verbs with the corresponding verbs in OE., we see that OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 127 in certain verbs the vowel of the Pret. Sing, is introduced also in the Plur. ; in others, again, the vowel of the Plur. has penetrated into ttie Sing. The first is the case, for example, in drove, rose, shone, smote, strode, wrote from drive, rise, shine, smite, stride, write; likewise in began, drank, rang, sang, sank, sprang, swam, from be- gin, etc. But the cases are not very rare where the whole preterite has adopted the vowel which originally belonged to the plural. This is the case in bit, slid, from bite, slide; likewise clung, shrunk, stung, spun, from cling, etc., and bound, found, ground, wound, from bind, etc. Matters became more involved on account of the second great form-levelling, the mutual in- fluence which Pret. and Past Part, exercised on each other. Plur. Pret. and Part, had in many cases the same Ablaut vowel. The Plur. Pret. forms received thereby mnemonic aid, which as- suredly assisted in the not infrequent expulsion of the Sing. form. But there were also verbs in which the Pret. and Part, did not have the same vowel. In not a few of these verbs, however, in ModE. the Pret. agrees with the Part, with regard to the Ablaut vowel. Here it is either the vowel of the Part, which obtains in the Pret., as in bore, broke, spoke, from bear, break, speak; the old forms bare, brake, spake occur yet archaically; or the Pret. form has prevailed, as in shone, stood, sat, from shine, stand, sit. In ME. and older ModE. the Ablaut relation- ships were in many points not in agreement with the present colloquial and written lan- guage. It may be especially mentioned that many of the analogical forms met with in earlier ModE. have since been lost. §133. The development of the W e a k Verb does not demand very exhaustive treatment. Both of the OE. chief classes of weak verbs were 128 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORY clearly distinguished in ME. in the Southern: tellen-luvien. North and Midland, even in early ME. had given up every distinction, in that the i of the second conjugation had been dropped. All English verbs, with the exception of the so- called irregular verbs, thus came to be inflected alike in the Present. The weak preterites were usually developed regularly and without any disturbing cross in- fluences. Remarkable are the numerous syn- copations of middle vowels and the consequent frequent vowel shortening in the Pret. {keep- kept, etc!) and the preference for the Pret. end- ing-f which occurs in many words which orig- inally had -ed -.sent, went, girt for the OE. sende, wende, girde. ModE. has preserved a great number of weak verbs whose difference between Pres. and Pret. vowel comes from OE. : seek- sought, buy-bought, think-thought, etc. §134. Among ModE. verbs, which are not connected with any of the usual conjugation- types and which, therefore, go under me name of "irregular," should be mentioned the Preteri- tive Presents: can, dare, shall, must (OE. Pret. möste), ougf/if (<0E. Pret. ähte), and the auxil- iary verbs will, have and be.