The History of the English Language |
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Common terms and phrases
accent adjectives adverbs analogy became become belong borrowed words Celtic century Chaucer common compounds conquest consonant shift declension dialects diphthong early Modern English early Teutonic element ending England English words especially example final foreign words French words genitive gradation Greek guage High German important inflectional inflectional forms labial later Latin literary language literature Low German Mercian Middle English Middle English period Midland mutation native neuter Norman Norse nouns occur Old English Old French Old Low Franconian older original palatal participle phonetic plural poetry present preserved preterit pronouns pronunciation regular relation remained root Sanskrit similar singular sometimes sound speech spoken standard language stems strong verbs suffix syllable tendency TEUT Teutonic languages tongue Verner's law vocabulary voiced voiceless vowel W. W. SKEAT weak verbs West Saxon written þæt
Popular passages
Page 127 - WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote. And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes...
Page 130 - Favours to none, to all she smiles extends; Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride...
Page 128 - Crosse he bore, The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, And dead, as living, ever him ador'd : Upon his shield the like was also scor'd, For soveraine hope which in his helpe he had.
Page 131 - Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men ; Wisdom, in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, The mere materials with which Wisdom builds, Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Page 91 - Our language is noble, full, and significant; and I know not why he who is master of it may not clothe ordinary things in it as decently as the Latin, if he use the same diligence in his choice of words: delectus verborum origo est eloquentiae.
Page 5 - The latter also became extinct at the end of the last, or the beginning of the present, century.
Page 131 - Knowledge, and Wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connection : Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom, in minds attentive to their own.
Page 87 - He that will write well in any tongue must follow this counsel of Aristotle— to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do, as so should every man understand him and the judgment of wise men allow him.
Page 132 - Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
Page 128 - WHAT is truth ?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief, affecting free-will in thinking as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients.