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bispused, bespoused = married; elmesful charitable,

&c.

=

In Layamon's Brut (A.D. 1205), we find in the two versions less than one hundred words of French origin, among which we note especially, admiral, abbey, annoy, attire, astronomy, camp, change, chattel, chieftain, close, country, cope, crown, cross, cry, delay duke, escape, espy, false, fail, fool, grace, guile, guise, hardily, honour, hostage, hurt, ire, cable, legion, messenger, machine, male, mile, mountain, nun, nunnery, pilgrim, post, power, to roll, school, scorn, senator, serve, serving, sire, suffer, use,1 &c.

27. Numerous French words were introduced into the language during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, by those native writers who for the first time translated religious treatises, poems, and romances, from the French into English. These compensated for the original imperfections of our language in religious, ethical, philosophical, and poetical terms; besides giving us numerous words referring to war, chivalry, and the chase. Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, French influence upon the language was at its height.

28. Chaucer has been wrongfully accused of corrupting the written language of his day, by fresh importation of Romance words. In his translations he doubtless was compelled to employ many new terms for ideas and things, as yet unfamiliar to his countrymen; but his vocabulary is not more deeply tinged

* See the long list of French words in the "Ancren Riwle," "King Alexander" ("Hist. Outlines," pp. 339-344).

with French words than other writers of the fourteenth century. He no doubt gave his authority to words already in general use, and rejected others in favour of native terms, and thus did much to fix the native vocabulary, and to stop the increasing inflow of borrowed words. It is said that not more than perhaps one hundred Romance words used by Chaucer in his various works have become obsolete.

"It is a great but very widely spread error to suppose that the influx of French words in the fourteenth century was due alone to poetry and other branches of pure literature. The Law, which now first became organized into a science, introduced many borrowed terms from the nomenclature of Latin and French jurisprudence; the glass-worker, the enameller, the architect, the brass-founder, the Flemish clothier, and the other handicraftsmen, whom Norman tastes and luxury invited, or domestic oppression expelled from the Continent, brought with them the vocabularies of their respective arts; and Mediterranean commerce— which was stimulated by the demand for English wool, then the finest in Europe-imported from the harbours of a sea where the French was the predominant language, both new articles of merchandize and the French designation for them. The sciences too, medicine, physics, geography, alchemy, astrology, all of which became known to England chiefly through French channels, added numerous specific terms to the existing vocabulary; and very many of the words first employed in English writings as a part of the technical phraseology of these various arts and knowledges, soon passed out into the domain of common life, in modified or untechnical senses, and thus became

incorporated into the general tongue of society and of books."I

29. But when the English vocabulary was thus increased by this great influx of French terms, many of the native words went out of use. Thus, if we take a thirteenth-century version of the Creed, we find ikenned, conceived; ipined was, suffered; lihte, descended; steih, ascended; imennesse of haluwen, communion of saints; ariste, resurrection. In a fourteenth-century copy (A.D. 1340) of the Lord's Prayer we find yeldinges, trespasses; yelderes, trespassers; vondinge, temptation; vri, deliver. Wickliffe has dettis, dettour, delyvere.2

Tyndal (1526) has treaspasses, treaspas (verb) for dettis and dettours.

Many good old English words have gone out since Chaucer's time, having been replaced by Romance and Latin terms.

Influence of Norman-French upon the Grammar of English.

30. No language gives up its grammar and adopts a new system of borrowed inflexions for its nouns, adjectives, and verbs, &c.

It will part with the greater portion of its original vocabulary, and yet leave grammatical forms almost untouched. Norman-French words found an easy

I

Marsh, "History and Origin of English Language," p. 66. 2 Some older versions of the Pater Noster have gultes and gulteres, trespasses and trespassers; shilde (shield) for fri (free).

entrance into our language, but the influence of four centuries only served to modify and to diminish English inflexions, not to eradicate them by the substitution of new forms.

The Danish invasion had unsettled the language in many parts of the country, and in the literature of the eleventh century we see a disposition to adopt a less inflexional structure, than in the earlier periods. Nearly every nation of the Teutonic family has, by the loss of inflexions, become almost as uninflexional as our own. The tendency of all highly inflected or synthetical languages is to become analytical or noninflexional, so that, had there been no Norman Conquest, we should have followed the ordinary growth of language, in replacing the older grammatical endings by the use of relational words, as, prepositions, auxiliaries, &c.

Doubtless the Norman invasion caused this change to take place more rapidly and generally, than it would otherwise have done, but even the slight direct modifications here spoken of are not found much before the fourteenth century.

31. The power of forming new words by derivation from Teutonic roots was to a certain extent checked by the introduction of so large a number of foreign words.

Instead of making a new word by the old and formerly familiar method of attaching a suffix to a living native root, it became far easier to adopt a term ready made.

1 German and Icelandic have lost much less than other Teutonic languages.

Cp. O.E. thanc (thought); thanc-ol (thoughtful); thancful, thancwurth (grateful); thancolmod (prudent); thancwurthlice (gratefully), &c.

32. Some Norman-French suffixes replaced English

ones.

In the fourteenth century we find the feminine -ess taking the place of -en, and -ster. Cp. dwelleresse in Wicliffe for dwellstere; goddesse (Chaucer) for Old English gydin; and the modern forms bond-age, till-age, hindr-ance, knave-ry, wondrous,' &c.

Many

33. Some substitutes for inflexion came into use. The preposition of replaced the genitive -s; the comparison of Adjectives was expressed sometimes by more and most instead of -er and -est. Romance adjectives were inflected in the plural after the Norman-French method, as wateres principales, capitalles lettres; we also find children innocens (La Tour Laundry, p. 104).

The Old English method of forming a plural adjective was by adding -an (-en), -e.

When used substantively, the Romance adjective formed its plural by the addition of -s, and the Old English by -e. Cp. He ous tekth to knawe the great-e thinges vram the little, the preciouse s vram the vile-s." To this method we owe the early forms gentles, familiars, which became the models for many others, as "our delicates and wantons" (Holland's 'Pliny," p. 603); the yellowes

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2

See "Historical Outlines," p. 39.

the jaundice

2 He teaches us to know the great things from the little ones, the precious things from the vile ones.

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