THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT.

:

(About A.D. 1230.)

I now bring forward a poem that may perhaps come from Cambridge-the Bestiary-that is printed in Dr. Morris's Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society). This is very nearly the same in its dialect as the Genesis and Exodus (Early English Text Society), a poem which Dr. Morris refers to Suffolk; but the former piece seems to have been written nearer to Peterborough, since it uses who, where the latter poem has quho. The common marks of the East Midland dialect are found in both the Present Participle ends in ande in the one case, in both ande and ende in the other; the Plural of the Present Tense ends in en, or is dropped altogether, as have instead of haven; the Prefix to the Past Participle comes most seldom. The Northern prepositions fra and til are found. The Bestiary bears a resemblance to the Proverbs of Alfred; it is a work such as might well have been compiled at Cambridge; being a translation made much about the time that King Henry the Third was beginning to play the part of Rehoboam in England, having got rid of his wise counsellors.

Here we find the Old English sinden (sunt) for

I Now we have for the first time a new English metre, with the alternate lines riming:

His muð is get wel unkuð wið pater noster and crede; fare he norð, er fare he sud, leren he sal his nede;

bidden bone to Gode,

and tus his mud rigten, tilen him so de sowles fode,

durg grace off ure drigtin

almost the last time; on the other hand, what Orrmin wrote all ane (solus) has now become olon; we also see ones, the Latin semel. The Southern o had long driven out the old Northern a in these Eastern shires. We find Orrmin's substitution of o for on always recurring here, as o live. But what he calls bracc (fregit) is seen in the present poem as broke; our version of the Scriptures has adopted the former, our common speech the latter. We also find ut turned into out; we saw something of the kind in the Proverbs of Alfred. The turtle's mate is called in the Bestiary 'hire olde luve:' this of yore would have been written leóf. We have unhappily in modern English but one word for the old leóf and lufe, the person and the thing. Fugelas is pared down to fules (fowls). We find here for the first time borlic (burly) applied to elephants; it is akin to the High German purlih. The word cliver (clever) is applied to the Devil. Mr. Wedgwood says it comes from claw; hence it in this passage has the sense of nimble-fingered, much as rapidus comes from rapio. The adjective fine, the Icelandic finn, is seen here for the first time. The word snute (snout), used of the elephant, is akin to a German word.

The Old English ceaf is now found in the shape of chauel (in the account of the whale): it is not far from our jowl.

The expression 'fisses to him (the whale) dragen,' shows that the verb has now got the new sense of venire, as we say, 'to draw nigh.'

We have seen on used for aliquis; it now comes to mean quidam, and is used without any substantive, as in

the Ancren Riwle. We read of the elephant entrapped; ❝ðanne cumeð der on gangande.' This of old would have been sum ylp; in the present poem, the words tunc unus currit had to be Englished.

One of the most startling changes is that of the Second Person Singular of the Perfect of the Strong verb. What in Old English was pu hehte, is turned at page 6 into tu higtest (pollicitus es). Thus one more of the links between Sanscrit and English was to be broken.

In an East Anglian Creed of this time (Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 234), we find ure onelic loverd, written where Orrmin would have used the old anlepig (unicus) for the second word. Thus a new form drove out an older

one.

In the Genesis and Exodus the first thing that strikes us is the poet's sturdy cleaving to the Old English gutturals g and k. So, in the Bestiary, we find gevenlike, the last appearance of the old uncorrupted prefix. It is East Anglia that has kept these hard letters alive. But for these shires, whose spelling Caxton happily followed, we should be writing to yive (donare), to yet (adipisci), ayain (iterum), and yate (porta). We have unluckily followed Orrmin's corruption in yield, yelp, yearn, and young. These East Anglians talked of a dyke (fossa), when all Southern England spoke of a ditch. Orrmin's druhhpe is now turned into drugte (drought), which we have followed. The most remarkable change is deigen (mori) instead of deye. But even into Suffolk the Southern w was forcing its way. We find owen as well as ogen (proprius), and folwen as well as folgen (sequi).

6

Owing to the changes of letters in different shires, we sometimes have two words where our forefathers had but one, each word with its own shade of meaning. To drag a man out' is different from the phrase to draw a man out:' the hard North is here opposed to the softer South West. Moreover, we may speak of a dray horse. Our Standard English is much the richer from having sprung up in shires widely apart.

We have also followed Suffolk in our word for the Latin osculari. A glance at Stratmann's dictionary will show that in the South East of England this was written kesse, in the South West it was cusse, but in East Anglia and further to the North it was kiss. The same may be remarked as to kin, hill, listen, ridge, and many other words. The Old English o was now getting the modern sound of u, as in the Proverbs of Alfred; we find booc, mood, and wulde, instead of boc, mod, and wolde.1

What Orrmin called patt an and patt oper is seen in the Genesis and Exodus in a new guise.

Gaf hire de ton.-Page 77.

Dis on wulde don de toder wrong.-Page 78.

We see other new forms of old words in cude (potui), eilond (insula), fier (ignis), frigt, hol (sanus), loth, quuen

Rather further to the North, as we shall see, the old o was turned into ou. A foreigner may well despair of pronouncing English vowels, when he finds that the words rune, wound, and mood are all sounded in the same way. This comes from Standard English being the product of many different shires.

(not cwén), smot, olike (similiter), token, dret, may, leman, helde, pride, strif, dralles, wroð, often, eldest, reinbowe.

There are other points in which these East Anglian poems of 1230 clearly foreshadow our Standard English. Wiht (pondus) becomes wigte, and teogeða is now tigðe (tithe). The d is sometimes slipped into the middle of a word after n; we find kindred and under. The t or ð is also added to the end of a word: pwyrian becomes wert (thwart); stalu (furtum) appears as stalde, our stealth. Maked (factus) is shortened into made; and when we find such a form as lordehed (dominion), we see that Orrmin's laferrdinngess will soon become lordings. The clipping and paring process is going on apace. Nu is once seen as nou, and tun as town. Orrmin had freely used ne in the old way, prefixing it as a negative to am, will, habbe, with all their tenses and persons; but in the Suffolk poem nothing of the kind is found, except the one verb nill (nolo), and this we have not yet wholly lost. Golden (aureus) is cut down in page 54 of the Genesis and Exodus; we find 'gol prenes and ringes,' and in page 95 we see a gold pot.' The Perfects clad, bad, and fed also meet us. When we see such a verb as semelen instead of the former samnian, we can understand how easily the French word assemble must have made its way in England.

Some of Orrmin's Norse words are here repeated; but his sh is often changed to s, as sal instead of shall, and this is still found in Scotland. What was sca (illa) at Peterborough, seventy years earlier, is now found as sge, sche, and once as she. Hi (illi) is only

K