as O.E. god-sib has become gossip. So gospel, grunsel, foster = godspel, ground-sel, fodster; chaffare = chapfare; cup-board is pronounced cubboard; Lat. ad-fero affero, &c.; puella = puerella, &c. = When two dentals come together, the first is sometimes changed into a sibilant, as mot-te moste = most, and wit-te=wiste wist (cp. Lat. hest from O.E. hat-an, to command; missus for mittus from mitto; esum = edtum from edo). &c. Sometimes's becomes st, as O.E. whiles = whilst, hoise = When two consonants come together, the first is made like the second or the second similar to the first,1 as wept weeped, kembd and kempt kembed= combed; so we have clotpoll and clodpoll (cp. Lat. scriptus = scrib-tus). To a similar principle must be ascribed the loss of the guttural sound of h or gh before t; thus might (= mihth), night (= nihth): cp. It. otto for octo. I In other words the only combination of mutes are flat +flat and sharp + sharp. CHAPTER III. HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 19. WE must bear in mind, (1) that English is a member of the Indo-European family; (2) that it belongs to the Teutonic group; (3) that it is essentially a Low German dialect; (4) that it was brought into Britain by wandering tribes from the Continent; (5) that we cannot use the terms English or England in connection with the country before the middle of the fifth century. 20. According to the statements of Bede, the Teutonic invaders first came over in A.D. 449, and for about 100 years the invasion may be said to have been going on. In the course of time the original Keltic population were displaced by the invading tribes, who became a great nationality, and called themselves Englisc or English. The land they had won they called Ængla-land (the land of the Angles) or England. Bede makes the Teutonic invaders to consist of three tribes-Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Saxons, he tells us, came from what was known in his time as the district of the Old Saxons, the country between the Elbe and the Eider. The Angles came from the Duchy of Sleswick, and there is still a district in the southern part of the duchy, between the Slie and the arm of the Baltic, called the Flensborg Fiorde, which bears the name Angeln. Bede places the Jutes to the north of the Angles, that is, probably the upper part of Sleswick or South Jutland. There were no doubt a considerable proportion of Frisians from Greater and Lesser Friesland. Bede mentions the Frisians (Fresones) among the natives from whom the Angles were descended. The settlements are said to have taken place in the following order : I. Jutes, under Hengest and Horsa, who settled in KENT and the Isle of Wight and a part of Hampshire in A.D. 449 or 450. II. The first division of the Saxons, under Ella (Ælle) and III. The second body of Saxons, under Cerdic and Cynric, in IV. The third body of Saxons in ESSEX, in 530. V. First division of the Angles, in the kingdom of EAST ANGLIA (Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and parts of Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire). VI. The second division of the Angles, under Ida, in the kingdom of Beornicia (situated between the Tweed and the Firth of Forth), in 547. Two other kingdoms were subsequently established by the Angles -Deira (between Tweed and Humber), and Mercia,1 comprehending the Midland counties. Teutonic tribes were known in Britain, though they made no settlements before the coming of the Angles. In the fourth century they made attacks upon the eastern and south-eastern coast of this island, from the Wash to the Isle of Wight, which, on that account, was called "Littus Saxonicum," or the Saxon shore or Saxon frontier; and an officer known as the Count of the Saxon Shore (Comes Littoris Saxonici per Britannias) was appointed for its defence. These Teutonic invaders were known to the Romans and Celts by the name of Saxons; and this term was afterwards applied by them to the Teutonic settlers of the fifth century, who, however, never appear to have called themselves Saxons, but always Englisc or English. 21. The language that was brought into the island by the LowGerman settlers was an inflected speech, like its congener, modern German. It was, moreover, an unmixed language, all its words being English, without any admixture of foreign elements. The Old English borrowed but very few words from the original inhabitants. In the oldest English written language, from the ninth to the end of the eleventh century, we find scarcely any traces of Keltic words. In our old writers, from the thirteenth century downwards, and in the modern provincial dialects, we find more frequent traces of words of Keltic origin, and a few still exist in modern English. 22. The English were converted to Christianity about A.D. 596, and during the four following centuries many Latin words were 1 Mercia - march or frontier. In Southern and West Mercia the people were of Saxon origin; the others came of an Anglian stock. introduced by Roman ecclesiastics, and by English writers who translated Latin works into their own language. This is called the Latin of the Second period. What is usually designated the Latin of the First period consists of words that have had no influence upon the language itself, but are only to be found in names of places, as castra, a camp, in Don-caster, Chester, &c. 23. Towards the end of the eighth century the Northmen of Scandinavia (i.e. of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who were then without distinction called Danes, ravaged the eastern coast of England, Scotland, the Hebrides, and Ireland. In the ninth century they gained a permanent footing in England, and subdued the kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. In the eleventh century Danish sovereigns were established on the English throne for nearly thirty years. Chronologically the facts are as follows: In 787 three ships of Northmen appeared and made an attack upon the coast of Dorsetshire. In 832 the Danes ravaged Sheppey in Kent. In 833 thirty-five ships came to Charmouth in Dorsetshire, and Egbert was defeated by the Danes. In 835 the Welsh and Danes were defeated by Egbert at Hengestesdun. In 855 the Danes wintered in Sheppey. In 866 they wintered in East Anglia. In 868 they got into Mercia as far as Nottingham, and in 870 they invaded East Anglia. In 871 the eastern part of Wessex was invaded by the Danes. In 876 they made settlements in Northumbria. In 878 Alfred concluded a treaty with Guthorm or Guthrum, the Danish chief, and formally ceded to the invaders all Northumberland and East Anglia, most part of Essex, and the north-east part of Mercia. In 991 the Norwegians invaded the east coast of England and plundered Ipswich; they were defeated at the battle of Maldon. Before 1000 the Danes had settled in Cumberland.1 In 1013 Svein, King of Denmark, conquered England; and between the years 1013 and 1042 a Danish dynasty ruled over England. For an admirable account of the Danish invasions see Dr. Ereeman's OldEnglish History for Children, pp. 91-239. 24. The Danish and English are allied tongues, and consequently there is an identity of roots, so that it is by no means an easy matter to detect the Danish words that have found their way into English. In the literature of the tenth and eleventh centuries we find but few traces of Danish, and what little there is occurs in the scanty literature of Northern English, and not in the dominant English of the South. We know, too, that in the north and east of England the Old English inflections were much unsettled by Danish influence, and that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries nearly all the older inflections of nouns, adjectives, and verbs had disappeared, while in the south of England the old forms were kept up to a much later period, and many of them have not yet died out. There are numerous traces of Scandinavian words-(1) in the local nomenclature of England; (2) in Old English literature of the north of England; (3) in the north of England provincial dialects. In modern English they are not so numerous. It may be sufficient for the present to say that there are a few common words of undoubted Danish origin, as are, till, until, fro, froward, ill, bound (for a place), busk, bask, &c. 25. The next great event that affected the English language was the Norman invasion in 1066, by which French became the language of the Court, of the nobility, of the clergy, of literature, and of all who wished for or sought advancement in Church or State.1 An old writer tells us that gentlemen's children were taught French from their cradle; and in the grammar-schools boys were taught to construe their Latin into French. Even uplandish men (or rustics) tried to speak French in order to be thought something of, so low did the English and their language fall into disrepute. In the universities Latin or French was ordered to be used. French was employed in the courts of law, and the proceedings of Parliament were recorded in French. To the Normans we owe most of the terms pertaining to (1) feudalism and war, (2) the church, (3) the law, and (4) the chase. (1) Aid, arms, armour, assault, banner, baron, battle, buckler, captain, (3) Assize, attorney, case, cause, chancellor, court, dower, damages, (4) Bay, brace, chase, couple, copse, course, covert, falcon, forest, leash, leveret, mews, quarry, reynard, rabbit, tiercet, venison. |