The Origins And Development Of The English Language PDF

the old english period (449–1100) 95 and treen ‘trees’ continued well into the Modern English period. The only original n-plural to survive as standard today, however, is oxen. Children, as noted above, has its -n by analogy rather than historical development. Similarly brethren and the poetic kine...

the old english period (449–1100) 95 and treen ‘trees’ continued well into the Modern English period. The only original n-plural to survive as standard today, however, is oxen. Children, as noted above, has its -n by analogy rather than historical development. Similarly brethren and the poetic kine for ‘cows’ are post–Old English developments. The n-stem pattern is also sometimes called the weak declension, in contrast with the strong declensions, which have stems that originally ended in a vowel, such as the a-stems. Somewhat fewer than a third of all commonly used nouns were feminine, most of them ō-stems (corresponding to the ā-stems, or first declension, of Latin). In the nominative singular, these had -u after a short syllable, as in lufu ‘love,’ and no ending at all after a long syllable, as in lār ‘learning.’ They and a variety of other smaller classes of nouns are not further considered here because they had no important effect on Modern English. Another declension whose nouns were frequently used in Old English and whose forms have contributed to the irregularities of Modern English consisted of the root-consonant stems. In early stages of the language, the case endings of these nouns were attached directly to their roots without an intervening stem-forming suffix (like the -a, -r, and -n of the declensions already discussed). The most striking characteristic of these nouns was the change of root vowel in several of their forms. This declension is exemplified by the masculine noun fōt ‘foot,’ with dative singular and the nominative-accusative plural forms fēt. i-Umlaut The vowel of a root-consonant stem changes because in prehistoric Old English several of the forms of such a stem (which originally had the same root vowel as all its forms) had an i in their endings. For example, fōt originally had dative singular *fōti and nominative-accusative plural *fōtiz. Anticipation of the i-sound caused mutation of the root vowel—a kind of assimilation, with the vowel of the root moving in the direction of the i-sound, but stopping somewhat short of it, resulting in *fēti and *fētiz, both later reduced to fēt. English man–men, foot-feet show the same development as German Mann–Männer, Fuss–Füsse, though German writes the mutated vowel with a dieresis over the same symbol used for the unmutated vowel, whereas English uses an altogether different letter. The process, which Jacob Grimm called umlaut, occurred in different periods and in varying degrees in the various languages of the Germanic group, in English beginning probably in the sixth century. The fourth-century Gothic recorded by Bishop Wulfila shows no evidence of it. Vowel mutation was originally a phonetic phenomenon only; but after the endings that caused the change had been lost, the mutated vowels served as markers for the two case forms. Mutation was not a sign of the plural in Old English, because it occurred also in the dative singular and not all plural forms had it. Only later did it become a distinctive indication of plurality for those nouns like feet, geese, teeth, mice, lice, and men that have retained mutated forms into Modern English. Modern English breeches is a double plural (OE nominative singular brōc ‘trouser,’ nominative plural brēc), as is the already cited kine (OE nominative singular cū ‘cow,’ nominative plural cӯ with the addition of the plural -n from words like oxen). Mutation is not limited to nouns. Its effects can be seen also in such pairs as strong–strength, old–elder, and doom–deem. In all these pairs the second word 96 chapter 5 originally had an ending containing an i-sound (either a vowel or its consonantal equivalent [y]) that caused the mutation of the root vowel but was lost afterwards. Modern Survivals of Case and Number In all declensions, the genitive plural form ended in -a. This ending survived as [ǝ] (written -e) in Middle English in a construction called the “genitive of measure,” and its effects continue in Modern English (with loss of [ǝ], which dropped away in all final positions) in such phrases as a sixty-mile drive and six-foot tall (rather than miles and feet). Though feet may often occur in the latter construction, only foot is idiomatic in three-foot board and six-foot man. Mile and foot in such expressions are historically genitive plurals derived from the Old English forms mīla and fōta, rather than the irregular forms they now appear to be. The dative plural, which was -um for all declensions, survives in the antiquated form whilom, from Old English hwīlum ‘at times,’ and in the analogical seldom (earlier seldan). The dative singular ending -e, characteristic of the majority of Old English nouns, survives in the word alive, from Old English on līfe. The Old English voiced f between vowels, later spelled v, is preserved in the Modern English form, though the final vowel is no longer pronounced. There are only a very few relics of Old English feminine genitives without -s, for instance, Lady Chapel and ladybird, for Our Lady’s Chapel and Our Lady’s bird. The feminine ō-stem genitive singular ended in -e, which was completely lost in pronunciation by the end of the fourteenth century, along with all other final e’s of whatever origin. The forms discussed in these paragraphs are about the only traces left of Old English noun inflections, other than the plural and genitive singular forms in -s (along with a few mutated plurals). One of the most significant differences between Old English and Modern English nouns is that Old English had no device for indicating plurality alone—apart from case. It was not until Middle English times that the plural nominative-accusative -es (from OE -as) drove out the other case forms of the plural (save for the comparatively rare genitive of measure construction discussed above). MODIFIERS Demonstratives There were two demonstratives in Old English. The more frequent was that used where we might have a definite article; it can be translated as either ‘the’ or ‘that, those.’ Its forms were as follows: Nom. Acc. Gen. Dat. Ins. Masculine Neuter Feminine Plural sē, se þone þæs þæm þӯ, þon, þē þæt þæt þæs þæm þӯ, þon, þē sēo þā þære þære þā þā þāra þæm the old english period (449–1100) 97 Genders were distinguished only in the singular; in the plural no gender distinction was made. The masculine and neuter forms were alike in the genitive, dative, and instrumental. There was no distinct instrumental in the feminine or the plural, the dative being used in that function instead. By analogy with the other forms of the word, sē/se and sēo were superseded in late Old English by the variants þē/þe and þēo. The Modern English definite article the developed from the masculine nominative þe, remodeled by analogy from se. When we use the in comparisons, however, as in “The sooner, the better,” it is a development of the neuter instrumental form þē, the literal sense being something like ‘By this [much] sooner, by this [much] better.’ The Modern English demonstrative that is from the neuter nominative-accusative þæt, and its plural those has been borrowed from the other demonstrative. The other, less frequently used Old English demonstrative (usually translated ‘this, pl. these’) had the nominative singular forms þēs (masculine), þis (neuter, whence ModE this), and þēos (feminine). Its nominative-accusative plural, þās, developed into those and was confused with tho (from þā), the earlier plural of that. Consequently in Middle English a new plural was developed for this, namely these. Adjectives The adjective in Old English, like that in Latin, agreed with the noun it modified in gender, case, and number; but Germanic, as noted in Chapter 4, had developed a distinctive adjective declension—the weak declension, used after the two demonstratives and after possessive pronouns, which made the following noun definite in its reference. In this declension -an predominated as an ending, as shown in the following paradigms for se dola cyning ‘that foolish king,’ þæt dole bearn ‘that foolish child,’ and sēo dole ides ‘that foolish woman.’ Like the demonstratives, weak adjectives did not vary for gender in the plural. Weak Singular Adjective Declension Nom. Acc. Gen. Dat. Ins. Masculine Neuter Feminine se dola cyning þone dolan cyning þæs dolan cyninges þǣm dolan cyninge þӯ dolan cyninge þæt dole bearn þæt dole bearn þæs dolan bearnes þǣm dolan bearne þӯ dolan bearne sēo dole ides þā dolan idese þǣre dolan idese þǣre dolan idese Weak Plural Adjective Declension Nom., Acc. Gen. Dat. þā dolan cyningas, bearn, idesa þāra dolra (or dolena) cyninga, bearna, idesa þǣm dolum cyningum, bearnum, idesum The strong declension was used when the adjective was not preceded by a demonstrative or a possessive pronoun and when it was predicative. Paradigms for the strong adjective in the phrases dol cyning ‘a foolish king,’ dol bearn ‘a foolish 98 chapter 5 child,’ and dolu ides ‘a foolish woman’ follow. The genders of the plural forms differed only in the nominative-accusative. Strong Singular Adjective Declension Nom. Acc. Gen. Dat. Ins. Masculine Neuter Feminine dol cyning dolne cyning doles cyninges dolum cyninge dole cyninge dol bearn dol bearn doles bearnes dolum bearne dole bearne dolu ides dole idese dolre idese dolre idese dolre idese Strong Plural Adjective Declension Nom., Acc. Gen. Dat. dole cyningas dolra cyninga dolum cyningum dolu bearn dolra bearna dolum bearnum dola idesa dolra idesa dolum idesum The comparative of adjectives was regularly formed by adding -ra, as in heardra ‘harder,’ and the superlative by adding -ost, as in heardost ‘hardest.’ A few adjectives originally used the alternative suffixes *-ira, *-ist and consequently had mutated vowels. In attested Old English they took the endings -ra and -est but retained mutated vowels—for example, lang ‘long,’ lengra, lengest, and eald ‘old,’ yldra, yldest (Anglian ald, eldra, eldest). A very few others had comparative and superlative forms from a different root than that of the positive, among them gōd ‘good,’ betra ‘better,’ betst ‘best’ and micel ‘great,’ māra ‘more,’ mǣst ‘most.’ Certain superlatives were formed originally with an alternative suffix -(u)ma—for example, forma (from fore ‘before’). When the ending with m ceased to be felt as having superlative force, these words and some others took by analogy the additional ending -est. Thus double superlatives (though not recognized as such) like formest, midmest, ūtemest, and innemest came into being. The ending appeared to be -mest (rather than -est), which even in late Old English times was misunderstood as ‘most’; hence our Modern English forms foremost, midmost, utmost, and inmost, in which the final syllable is and has long been equated with most, though it has no historical connection with it. Beginning thus as a blunder, this -most has subsequently been affixed to other words—for example, uppermost, furthermost, and topmost. Adverbs The great majority of Old English adverbs were formed from adjectives by adding the suffix -e (historically, the instrumental case ending)—for example, wrāþ ‘angry,’ wrāþe ‘angrily.’ This -e was lost along with all other final e’s by the end of the fourteenth century, with the result that some Modern English adjectives and adverbs are identical in form—for instance, loud, deep, and slow—though Modern English idiom sometimes requires adverbial forms with -ly (“He plunged deep into the ocean” but “He thought deeply about religious matters”; “Drive slow” but “He proceeded slowly”). In addition, other case forms of nouns and adjectives might be used adverbially, notably the genitive and the dative. The adverbial genitive is used in “He hwearf the old english period (449–1100) 99 dæges and nihtes” ‘He wandered of a day and of a night (that is, by day and by night),’ in which dæges and nihtes are genitive singulars. The construction survives in “He worked nights” (labeled “dial[ect] and U.S.” by the Oxford English Dictionary), sometimes rendered analytically as “He worked of a night.” The usage is, as the OED says, “in later use prob[ably] apprehended as a plural,” though historically, as we have seen, it is not so. The -s of homewards (OE hāmweardes), towards (tōweardes), besides, betimes, and needs (as in must needs be, sometimes rendered analytically as must of necessity be) is also from the genitive singular ending -es. The same ending is merely written differently in once, twice, thrice, hence, and since. Modern, if archaic, whilom ‘at times, formerly,’ from the dative plural hwīlum has already been cited, but Old English used other datives similarly. Adverbs regularly formed the comparative with -or and the superlative with -ost or -est (wrāþor ‘more angrily,’ wrāþost ‘most angrily’). PRONOUNS Personal Pronouns Except for the loss of the dual number and the old second person singular forms, the personal pronouns are almost as complex today as they were in Old English times. In one respect (the two genitive forms of Modern English), they are more complex today. The Old English forms of the pronouns for the first two persons are as follows: Singular Dual Plural Nom. Ac.–D. Gen. ic ‘I’ mē ‘me’ mīn ‘my/mine’ wit ‘we both’ unc ‘us both’ uncer ‘our(s) (both)’ wē ‘we all’ ūs ‘us all’ ūre ‘our(s) (all)’ Nom. Ac.–D. Gen. þū ‘thou, you’ þē ‘thee, you’ þīn ‘thy/thine, your(s)’ git ‘you both’ inc ‘you both’ uncer ‘your(s) (both)’ gē ‘ye, you all’ ēow ‘you all’ ēower ‘your(s) (all)’ The dual forms, which were used to talk about exactly two persons, were disappearing even by late Old English times. The second person singular (th-forms) and the second person plural nominative (ye) survived well into the Modern English period, especially in religious and poetic language, but they are seldom used today and almost never with traditional correctness. When used as modifiers, the genitives of the first and second persons were declined like the strong adjectives. Gender appeared only in the third person singular forms, exactly as in Modern English: Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen. Masculine Neuter Feminine Plural hē ‘he’ hine ‘him’ him ‘him’ his ‘his’ hit ‘it’ hit ‘it’ him ‘it’ his ‘its’ hēo ‘she’ hī ‘her’ hire ‘her’ hire ‘her(s)’ hī ‘they’ hī ‘them’ him, heom ‘them’ hire, heora ‘their(s)’ 100 chapter 5 The masculine accusative hine has survived only in southwestern dialects of British English as [ǝn], as in “Didst thee zee un?” that is, “Did you see him?” (OED, s.v. hin, hine). Modern English she has an unclear history, but it is perhaps a development of the demonstrative sēo rather than of the personal pronoun hēo. A new form was needed because hēo became by regular sound change identical in pronunciation with the masculine he—an obviously unsatisfactory state of affairs. The feminine accusative hī has not survived. The neuter hit has survived when stressed, notably at the beginning of a sentence, in some types of nonstandard Modern English. The loss of [h-] in standard English was due to lack of stress and is paralleled by a similar loss in the other hpronouns when they are unstressed, as for example, “Give her his book,” which in the natural speech of people at all cultural levels would show no trace of either [h]: “Give ’er ’is book”; compare also “raise her up” and “razor up,” “rub her gloves” and “rubber gloves.” In the neuter, however, [h] has been lost completely in standard English, even in writing, whereas in the other h- pronouns we always write the h, but pronounce it only when the pronoun is stressed. The genitive its is obviously not a development of the Old English form his, but a new analogical form occurring first in Modern English. Of the third person plural forms only the dative has survived; it is the regular spoken, unstressed, objective form in Modern English, with loss of h- as in the other h- pronouns—for example, “I told ’em what to do.” The Modern English stressed form them, like they and their, is of Scandinavian origin. For all the personal pronouns except hit, as well as for the interrogative hwā ‘who,’ considered in the next section, the accusative form has been replaced by the dative. In the first and second persons, that replacement began very early; for example, mec, an earlier accusative for the first person singular, had been lost by the time of classical Old English and its functions assumed by the original dative mē. Interrogative and Relative Pronouns The interrogative pronoun hwā ‘who’ was declined only in the singular and had only two gender forms: Nom. Acc. Gen. Dat. Ins. Masculine/ Feminine Neuter hwā hwone hwæs hwǣm, hwām hwǣm, hwām hwæt hwæt hwæs hwǣm, hwām hwӯ Hwā is the source of our who, hwām of whom, and hwæt of what. Hwone did not survive beyond the Middle English period, its functions being taken over by the dative. Whose is from hwæs with its vowel influenced by who and whom. The the old english period (449–1100) 101 distinctive neuter instrumental hwӯ is the source of our why. Other Old English interrogatives included hwæð er ‘which of two’ and hwilc ‘which of many.’ They were both declined like strong adjectives. Hwā was exclusively interrogative in Old English. The particle þe was the usual relative pronoun. Since this word had only a single form, it is a great pity that we ever lost it; it involved no choice such as that which we must make—in writing, at least—between who and whom, now that these have come to be used as relatives. Sometimes, however, þe was preceded by the appropriate form of the demonstrative sē to make a compound relative. VERBS Like their Modern English counterparts, Old English verbs were either weak, adding a -d or -t to form their preterits and past participles (as in modern talk-talked), or strong, changing their stressed vowel for the same purpose (as in modern singsang-sung). Old English had several kinds of weak verbs and seven groups of strong verbs distinguished by their patterns of vowel change; and it had a considerably larger number of strong verbs than does Modern English. Old English also had a fair number of irregular verbs in both the weak and strong categories—grammatical irregularity being frequent at all periods in the history of language, rather than a recent “corruption.” The conjugation of a typical weak verb, cēpan ‘to keep,’ and of a typical strong verb, helpan ‘to help,’ is as follows: Present System Infinitive Simple Inflected cēpan ‘to keep’ tō cēpenne ‘to keep’ helpan ‘to help’ tō helpenne ‘to help’ Indicative ic þū hē, hēo, hit wē, gē, hī cēpe ‘I keep’ cēpest ‘you keep’ cēpeþ ‘he, she, it keeps’ cēpaþ ‘we, you, they keep’ helpe ‘I help’ hilpst ‘you help’ hilpþ ‘he, she, it helps’ helpaþ ‘we, you, they help’ Subjunctive Singular Plural cēpe ‘I, you, he, she, it keep’ cēpen ‘we, you, they keep’ helpe ‘I, you, he, she, it help’ helpen ‘we, you, they help’ Imperative Singular Plural cēp ‘(you) keep!’ cēpaþ ‘(you all) keep!’ help ‘(you) help!’ helpaþ ‘(you all) help!’ Participle cēpende ‘keeping’ helpende ‘helping’ cēpte ‘I kept’ cēptest ‘you kept’ cēpte ‘he, she, it kept’ cēpton ‘we, you, they kept’ healp ‘I helped’ hulpe ‘you helped’ healp ‘he, she, it helped’ hulpon ‘we, you, they helped’ Preterit System Indicative ic þū hē, hēo, hit wē, gē, hī 102 chapter 5 Subjunctive Singular Plural cēpte ‘I, you, he, she, it kept’ cēpten ‘we, you, they kept’ hulpe ‘I, you, he, she, it helped’ hulpen ‘we, you, they helped’ Past Participle gecēped ‘kept’ geholpen ‘helped’ Indicative Forms of Verbs The indicative forms of the verbs, present and preterit, were used for making statements and asking questions; they are the most frequent of the verb forms and the most straightforward and ordinary in their uses. The Old English preterit was used for events that happened in the past, and the present tense was used for all other times, that is, for present and future events and for habitual actions. In the present indicative, the -t of the second person singular was not a part of the original ending; it came from the frequent use of þū as an enclitic, that is, an unstressed word following a stressed word (here the verb) and spoken as if it were a part of the stressed word. For example, cēpes þū became cēpesþu, then dissimilated to cēpestu, and later lost the unstressed -u. Subjunctive and Imperative Forms The subjunctive did not indicate person but only tense and number. The endings were alike for both tenses: singular -e and plural -en. The subjunctive was used in main clauses to express wishes and commands: God ūs helpe ‘(May) God help us’; Ne hēo hundas cēpe ‘She shall not keep dogs.’ It was also used in a wide variety of subordinate clauses, including constructions in which we still use it: swelce hē tam wǣ re ‘as if he were tame.’ But it also occurred in many subordinate clauses where we would no longer use it: Ic heom sægde þæt hēo blīðe wǣ re ‘I told them that she was happy.’ The imperative singular of cēpan and helpan was without ending, but for some verbs it ended in -e or -a. As in Modern English, imperatives were used for making commands. Nonfinite Forms In addition to their finite forms (those having personal endings), Old English verbs had four nonfinite forms: two infinitives and two participles. The simple infinitive ended in -an for most verbs; for some weak verbs, its ending was -ian (bodian ‘to proclaim,’ nerian ‘to save’), and for some verbs that underwent contraction, the ending was -n (fōn ‘to seize,’ gān ‘to go’). The inflected infinitive was a relic of an earlier time when infinitives were declined like nouns. The two infinitives were often, but not always, interchangeable. The inflected infinitive was especially used when the infinitive had a noun function, like a Modern English gerund: Is blīðe tō helpenne ‘It is joyful to help,’ ‘Helping is joyful.’ The participles were used much like those of Modern English, as parts of verb phrases and as modifiers. The usual ending of the present participle was -ende. The ending of the strong past participle, -en, has survived in many strong verbs to the the old english period (449–1100) 103 present day: bitten, eaten, frozen, swollen. The ending of weak past participles, -d or -t, was, of course, the source for all regular past participle endings in Modern English. The prefix ge- was fairly general for past participles but occurred sometimes as a prefix in all forms. It survived in the past participle throughout the Middle English period as y- (or i-), as in Milton’s archaic use in “L’Allegro”: “In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne...” (from OE geclypod ‘called’). Weak Verbs There were three main classes of weak verbs in Old English. The three classes can be illustrated by citing the principal parts for one or two verbs of each class. Principal parts are forms from which the whole conjugation can be predicted: Class I Class II Class III Infinitive Preterit Past Participle fremman ‘to do’ cēpan ‘to keep’ endian ‘to end’ habban ‘to have’ secgan ‘to say’ fremede ‘did’ cēpte ‘kept’ endode ‘ended’ hæfde ‘had’ sægde ‘said’ gefremed ‘done’ gecēped ‘kept’ geendod ‘ended’ gehæfd ‘had’ gesægd ‘said’ Many of the weak verbs were originally causative verbs derived from nouns, adjectives, or other verbs by the addition of a suffix with an i-sound that mutated the stem vowel of the word. Thus, fyllan ‘to fill, cause to be full’ is from the adjective full, and settan ‘to set, cause to sit’ is from the verb sæt, the preterit singular of sittan. Other pairs of words of the same sort are, in their Modern English forms, feed ‘cause to have food,’ fell ‘cause to fall,’ and lay ‘cause to lie.’ Strong Verbs Most of the other Old English verbs—all others, in fact, except for a few very frequently used ones discussed in the next two sections—formed their preterits by a vowel change called gradation (also called ablaut by Jacob Grimm), which was perhaps due to Indo-European variations in pitch and stress. Gradation is by no means confined to these strong verbs, but it is best illustrated by them. Gradation should not be confused with mutation (umlaut), which is the approximation of a vowel in a stressed syllable to another vowel (or semivowel) in a following syllable. Gradation, which is much more ancient, is an Indo-European phenomenon common to all the languages derived from Proto-Indo-European. The vowel gradations in Modern English ride–rode–ridden, choose–chose, bind–bound, come–came, eat– ate, and shake–shook are thus an Indo-European inheritance. Like other Germanic languages, Old English had seven classes of strong verbs. These classes differed in the vowel alternations of their four principal parts. Like the Modern English preterit of be, which distinguishes between the singular I was and the plural we were, most strong verbs had differing stems for their singular and plural preterits. Had that number distinction survived into present-day English, we 104 chapter 5 would be saying I rode but we rid, and I fond but we found. Sometimes the old singular has survived into current use and sometimes the old plural (and sometimes neither, but a different form altogether). Examples, one of each of the seven strong classes and their main subclasses, with their principal parts, follow: Class I Class II Class III Class IV Class V Class VI Class VII (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (1) (2) Infinitive Preterit Singular Preterit Plural Past Participle wrītan ‘write’ clēofan ‘cleave’ scūfan ‘shove’ frēosan ‘freeze’ drincan ‘drink’ helpan ‘help’ ceorfan ‘carve’ beran ‘bear’ sprecan ‘speak’ gifan ‘give’ scacan ‘shake’ cnāwan ‘know’ hātan ‘be called’ wrāt clēaf scēaf frēas dranc healp cearf bær spræc geaf scōc cnēow hēt writon clufon scufon fruron druncon hulpon curfon bǣron sprǣcon gēafon scōcon cnēowon hēton gewriten geclofen gescofen gefroren gedruncen geholpen gecorfen geboren gesprecen gegifen gescacen gecnāwen gehāten The change from s to r in the last two principal parts of the class II (3) verb frē osan was the result of Verner’s Law. The Indo-European accent was on the ending of these forms rather than on the stem of the word, as in the first two principal parts, thus creating the necessary conditions for the operation of Verner’s Law. The consonant alternation is not preserved in Modern English. Preterit-Present Verbs Old English had a few verbs that were originally strong but whose strong preterit had come to be used with a present-time sense; consequently, they had to form new weak preterits. They are called preterit-present verbs and are the main source for the important group of modal verbs in Modern English. The following are ones that survive as present-day modals: Infinitive Present Preterit āgan ‘owe’ cunnan ‘know how’ magan ‘be able’ *mōtan ‘be allowed’ sculan ‘be obliged’ āh cann (can) mæg (may) mōt sceal (shall) āhte (ought) cūðe (could) meahte (might) mōste (must) sceolde (should) Although not a part of this group in Old English, the verb willan ‘wish, want,’ whose preterit was wolde, also became a part of the present-day modal system as will and would. the old english period (449–1100) 105 Suppletive Verbs It is not surprising that frequently used verbs develop irregularities. Bēon ‘to be’ was in Old English, as its modern descendant still is, to some extent a badly mixed-up verb, with alternative forms from several different roots, as follows (with appropriate pronouns): (ic) eom or bēo (þū) eart or bist (hē, hēo, hit) is or bið (wē, gē, hī) sindon, sind, sint, or bēoð ‘I am’ ‘you (sg.) are’ ‘he, she, it is’ ‘we, you, they are’ The forms eom, is, and sind(on) or sint were from an Indo-European root *es-, whose forms *esmi, *esti, and *senti are seen in Sanskrit asmi, asti, and santi and in Latin sum, est, and sunt. The second person eart was from a different IndoEuropean root: *er- with the original meaning ‘arise.’ The Modern English plural are is from an Anglian form of that root. The forms beginning with b were from a third root *bheu-, from which came also Sanskrit bhavati ‘becomes’ and Latin fuī ‘have been.’ The preterit forms were from yet another verb, whose infinitive in Old English was wesan (a class V strong verb): (ic) wæs (þū) wǣre (hē, hēo, hit) wæs (wē, gē, hī) wǣron The alternation of s and r in the preterit was the result of Verner’s Law. Thus the Old English verb for ‘be’ (like its Modern English counterpart) combined forms of what were originally four different verbs—seen in the present-day forms be, am, are, was. Paradigms which thus combine historically unrelated forms are called suppletive. Another suppletive verb is gān ‘go,’ whose preterit ēode was doubtless from the same Indo-European root as the Latin verb ēo ‘go.’ Modern English has lost the ēode preterit but has found a new suppletive form for go in went, the irregular preterit of wend (compare send–sent). Also irregular, although not suppletive, is dōn ‘do’ with the preterit dyde ‘did.’ It is notable that to be alone has preserved distinctive singular and plural preterit forms (was and were) in standard Modern English. Nonstandard speakers have carried through the tendency that has reduced the preterit forms of all other verbs to a single form, and they get along very nicely with you was, we was, and they was, which are certainly no more inherently “bad” than you sang, we sang, and they sang—for sung in the plural would be the historically “correct” development of Old English gē, wē, hī sungon. SYNTAX Old English syntax has an easily recognizable kinship with that of Modern English. There are, of course, differences—and some striking ones—but they do not disguise the close similarity between an Old English sentence and its Modern English 106 chapter 5 counterpart. Many of those differences have already been treated in this chapter, but they may be summarized as follows: 1. Nouns, adjectives, and most pronouns had fuller inflection for case than their modern developments do; the inflected forms were used to signal a word’s function in its sentence. 2. Adjectives agreed in case, number, and gender with the nouns they modified. 3. Adjectives were also inflected for “definiteness” in the so-called strong and weak declensions. 4. Numbers could be used either as we use them, to modify a noun, as in þrītig scyllingas ‘thirty shillings,’ or as nominals, with the accompanying word in the genitive case, as in þrītig rihtwīsra, literally ‘thirty of righteous men.’ Such use of the genitive was regular with the indeclinable noun fela ‘much, many’: fela goldes ‘much [of] gold’ or fela folca ‘many [of] people.’ 5. Old English used the genitive inflection in many circumstances that would call for an of phrase in Modern English—for example, þæs īglandes micel dǣl ‘a great deal of the island,’ literally, ‘that island’s great deal.’ 6. Old English had no articles, properly speaking. Where we would use a definite article, the Anglo-Saxons often used one of the demonstratives (such as se ‘that’ or þes ‘this’); and, where we would use an indefinite article, they sometimes used either the numeral ān ‘one’ or sum ‘a certain.’ But all of those words had stronger meanings than the Modern English definite and indefinite articles; thus frequently Old English had no word at all where we would expect an article. 7. Although Old English could form verb phrases just as we do by combining the verbs for ‘have’ and ‘be’ with participles (as in Modern English has run and is running), it did so less frequently, and the system of such combinations was less fully developed. Combinations using both those auxiliary verbs, such as has been running, did not occur in Old English, and one-word forms of the verb (like runs and ran) were used more often than today. Thus, although Old and Modern English are alike in having just two inflected tenses, the present and the preterit, Old English used those tenses to cover a wider range of meanings than does Modern English, which has frequent recourse to verb phrases. Old English often relied on adverbs to convey nuances of meaning that we would express by verb phrases; for example, Modern English He had come corresponds to Old English Hē ǣr cōm, literally ‘He earlier came.’ 8. Old English formed passive verb phrases much as we do, but it often used the simple infinitive in a passive sense as we do not—for example, Hēo hēht hine lǣran ‘She ordered him to be taught,’ literally ‘She ordered him to teach’ but meaning ‘She ordered (someone) to teach him,’ in which hine ‘him’ is the object of the infinitive lǣran ‘to teach,’ not of the verb hēht ‘ordered.’ Another Old English alternative for the Modern English passive was the indefinite pronoun man ‘one,’ as in Hine man hēng ‘Him one hanged,’ that is, ‘He was hanged.’ 9. The subjunctive mood was more common in Old English. It was used, for example, after some verbs that do not require it in Modern English, as in Sume men cweð aþ þæt hit sӯ feaxede steorra ‘Some men say that it [a comet] be a long-haired star.’ It is also used in constructions where conservative the old english period (449–1100) 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 107 present-day usage has it: swilce hē wǣre ‘as if he were’ or þēah hē ealne middangeard gestrӯne ‘though he [the] whole world gain.’ Old English had a number of impersonal verbs that were used without a subject: Mē lyst rǣdan ‘[It] pleases me to read’ and Swā mē þyncþ ‘So [it] seems to me.’ The object of the verb (in these examples, mē) comes before it and in the second example gave rise to the now archaic expression methinks (literally ‘to me seems’), which the modern reader is likely to misinterpret as an odd combination of me as subject of the present-day verb think. The subject of any Old English verb could be omitted if it was implied by the context, especially when the verb followed a clause that expressed the subject: Hē þē æt sunde oferflāt, hæfde māre mægen ‘He outstripped you at swimming, [he] had more strength.’ On the other hand, the subject of an Old English verb might be expressed twice—once as a pronoun at its appropriate place in the structure of the sentence and once as a phrase or clause in anticipation: And þā þe þǣr tō lāfe wǣron, hī cōmon to þæs carcernes dura ‘And those that were there as survivors, they came to that prison’s door.’ This construction occurs in Modern English but is often considered inelegant; it is frequent in Old English. The Old English negative adverb ne came before (rather than after) the verb it modified: Ic ne dyde ‘I did not.’ Consequently it contracted with certain following verbs: nis (ne is ‘is not’), nille (ne wille ‘will not’), næfþ (ne hæfþ ‘has not’); contrast the Modern English contraction of not with certain preceding verbs: isn’t, won’t, hasn’t. Old English word order was somewhat less fixed than that of Modern English but in general was similar. Old English declarative sentences tended to fall into the subject-verb-complement order usual in Modern English—for example, Hē wæs swīðe spēdig man ‘He was a very successful man’ and Eadwine eorl cōm mid landfyrde and drāf hine ūt ‘Earl Edwin came with a land army and drove him out.’ However, declarative sentences might have a pronoun object before the verb instead of after it: Se hālga Andreas him andswarode ‘The holy Andrew him answered.’ (Notice also the order of objects in the sentences in numbered paragraph 8 above.) When a sentence began with þā ‘then, when’ or ne ‘not,’ the verb usually preceded the subject: Þā sealde se cyning him sweord ‘Then gave the king him a sword’; Ne can ic nōht singan ‘Not can I nought sing [I cannot sing anything].’ In dependent clauses the verb usually came last, as it does also in Modern German: God geseah þā þæt hit gōd wæs ‘God saw then that it good was’; Sē micla here, þe wē gefyrn ymbe sprǣcon... ‘The great army, which we before about spoke....’ Old English interrogative sentences had a verb-subject-complement order, but did not use auxiliary verbs as Modern English does: Hæfst þū ǣnigne gefēran? ‘Hast thou any companion?’ rather than ‘Do you have any companion?’ Old English had a variety of ways of subordinating one clause to another, but it favored what grammarians call parataxis—the juxtaposing of clauses without a conjunction, although the adverb ðā was often used. These three clauses describe how Orpheus lost his wife, Eurydice, in an Old English retelling of the Greek legend: Đā hē forð on ðæt leoht cōm, ðā beseah he hine under bæc wið ðæs wīfes; ðā losode hēo him sōna ‘Then he forth into that light came, then looked he him backward toward that woman; then slipped she from him immediately.’ 108 chapter 5 A good many other syntactic differences could be listed; if all of them were, the resulting list would suggest that Old English was far removed in structure from its modern development. But the suggestion would be misleading, for the two stages of the language are much more united by their similarities than divided by their differences. OLD ENGLISH ILLUSTRATED The first two of the following passages in late West Saxon are from a translation of the Old Testament by Ælfric, the greatest prose writer of the Old English period. The opening verses from Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis are printed here from the edition of the Early English Text Society (O.S. 160), with abbreviations expanded, modern punctuation and capitalization added, some obvious scribal errors corrected, and a few unusual forms regularized. The third passage is the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), edited by Walter W. Skeat (The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, and Old Mercian Versions), also slightly regularized. The fourth passage consists of the opening and closing lines of the epic poem Beowulf. I. Genesis 1.1–5. 1. On angynne gescēop God heofonan and eorðan. 2. Sēo eorðe In [the] beginning created God heavens wæs sōðlīce īdel and ǣmtig, and þēostra was truly and earth. The earth wǣron ofer ðǣre void and empty, and darknesses were over the nywelnysse brādnysse; and Godes gāst wæs geferod ofer abyss’s surface; 3. God cwæð ðā: God said geseah ðā saw wæteru. and God’s spirit was brought over [the] water. Gewurðe lēoht, and lēoht wearð geworht. 4. God then: Be light, and light was made. God ðæt hit gōd wæs, and hē tōdǣlde ðæt lēoht fram ðam then that it good was, and he divided the light from the ðēostrum. 5. And hēt darkness. And called the light day and the darkness night: then wæs geworden ǣfen was made ðæt lēoht dæg and þā ðēostru niht: ðā and morgen ān dæg. evening and morning one day. II. Genesis 2.1–3. 1. Eornostlīce ðā Indeed wǣron fullfremode heofonas and eorðe and then were completed heavens and earth and eall heora frætewung. 2. And God ðā all their ornaments. gefylde on ðone seofoðan dæg And God then finished on the seventh day the old english period (449–1100) fram eallum ðām weorcum ðe hē gefremode. 3. And God geblētsode from all the works that he made. And God blessed ðone seofoðan dæg and hine gehālgode, for ðan ðe hē on ðone dæg the seventh geswāc day and it hallowed, because his weorces, ðe ceased from his work, he on that day hē gescēop tō wyrcenne. that he made to be done. III. Luke 15.11–17, 20–24. 11. Sōðlice sum man hæfde twēgen suna. 12. Þā Truly a certain man had gingra two sons. tō his fæder, “Fæder, syle mē mīnne dǣl younger to his father, “Father, give me my þe mē tō gebyreþ.” Þā dǣlde cwæð se Then said the mīnre ǣhte portion of my inheritance his ǣhta. 13. Đā hē him that me to belongs.” Then distributed he to him his inheritance. Then æfter fēawum dagum ealle his þing after a few days all fērde wræclīce on feorlen went abroad þǣr his ǣhta, rīce and forspilde 14. Đā hē hӯ hæfde ealle āmyrrede, þā in his extravagance. When he it had all spent, wearð mycel hunger on þām rīce and hē wearð wǣdla. indigent. hē and folgode ānum burhsittendum men þæs rīces; ðā he and served a his swīn. 16. Đā him to his estate that he should keep his swine. his wambe gefyllan of fela yrðlinga þām bēancoddum þe with the bean husks man ne sealde. 17. Þā no one gave. fērde Then went sende hē city-dwelling man of that land; then sent hine tō his tūne þæt hē hēolde to fill then 15. Þā came great famine on the land and he was his belly sunu and the younger son and into a distant land and utterly lost there his inheritance, lybbende on his gǣlsan. living gegaderode se gingra his things gathered beþōhte hē hine on mīnes fæder that the swine ate, and to him and cwæð, “Ēalā hū hūse hlāf “Alas how genōhne habbað, and ic 20. And hē ārās þā here in hunger perish!...” fæder. And þā hē wæs feorr he ðā swӯn ǣton, and him father’s house bread enough have, hēr on hungre forwurðe!...” gӯt þā gewilnode hē Then wanted Then thought he to himself and said, many farm workers in my he and I and cōm tō his And he arose then and came to his his fæder, hē hine geseah and father. And then yet when he was far from his father, he him saw and 109 110 chapter 5 wearð mid mildheortnesse āstyred and ongēan hine arn and hine beclypte became with compassion stirred and toward him ran and him embraced and cyste hine. 21. Đā and kissed him. cwæð his sunu, “Fæder, ic syngode on his son, “Father, I sinned Then said heofon and beforan ðē. Nū against ic ne eom wyrþe þæt ic þīn sunu bēo heaven and before thee. Now I not am worthy that I thy son be 22. Đā genemned.” named.” cwæþ se fæder tō his þēowum, “Bringað hræðe Then said the father to his servants, “Bring quickly þone sēlestan gegyrelan and scrӯdað hine, and syllað him hring on his the best garments and clothe hand and gescӯ tō his fōtum. hand and shoes for his feet. him, and give him a ring on his 23. And bringað ān fǣtt styric and ofslēað, And bring a fat calf and slay (it), and uton etan and gewistfullian. 24. For þām þēs mīn sunu wæs dēad, and let us eat and feast. and hē geedcucode; Because this my son was dead, hē forwearð, and hē is gemēt.” and he returned to life; he was lost, and he is found.” IV. Beowulf, 1–3, 3178–82. Hwæt, wē Gār-Dena in gēardagum, Lo! we of Spear-Danes in old days, þēodcyniga þrym gefrūnon, of the people’s kings, glory have heard, hū ellen fremedon! ðā æþelingas how the princes courage accomplished!.......................... Swā begnornodon Gēata lēode So Geats’ people lamented hlāfordes hryre, heorð genēatas; the lord’s fall, hearth-companions; cwǣdon þæt hē wǣre wyruldcyninga they said that he had been of world-kings manna mildest ond monðwǣrust, of men mildest and kindest, lēodum līðost to people gentlest ond lofgeornost. and most eager for honor. the old english period (449–1100) 111 FOR FURTHER READING General Historical Background Black. A History of the British Isles. ———. A New History of England. Morgan. The Oxford History of Britain. Overviews Bedingfield. Anglo-Saxon England: A Guide to Online Resources. Hogg. The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 1: The Beginnings to 1066. Irvine and Everhart. The Labyrinth: Old English. History and Culture Drout. Anglo-Saxon Aloud. Smyth. King Alfred the Great. Stenton. Anglo-Saxon England. Welch. Discovering Anglo-Saxon England. Introductory Textbooks Baker. Introduction to Old English. Mitchell and Robinson. A Guide to Old English. Quirk and Wrenn. An Old English Grammar. Grammar Campbell. Old English Grammar. Drout. King Alfred’s Grammar Book. Faiss. English Historical Morphology and Word-Formation. Fischer et al. The Syntax of Early English. Hogg. A Grammar of Old English. Mitchell. Old English Syntax. Lexicon Barney. Word-Hoard. Bosworth. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Edmonds et al. Thesaurus of Old English. Hall. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Healey. Dictionary of Old English Project. Roberts and Kay. A Thesaurus of Old English. CHAPTER 6 ±± ±± ±± ±± ±± ±± ±± ±± ± The Middle English Period (1100–1500) The beginning and ending dates of the Middle English period, though somewhat arbitrary, are two points in time when ongoing language changes became particularly noticeable: grammatical changes about 1100 and pronunciation changes about 1500. The term middle indicates that the period was a transition between Old English (which was grammatically very different from the language that followed) and early Modern English (which in pronunciation was different from what had come before but was much the same as our own). The two dates also coincide approximately with some events in English history that had profound effects on the language. SOME KEY EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD The following events during the Middle English period significantly influenced the development of the English language. 112 1066 The Normans conquered England, replacing the native English nobility with Anglo-Normans and introducing Norman French as the language of government in England. 1204 King John lost Normandy to the French, beginning the loosening of ties between England and the Continent. 1258 King Henry III issued the first English-language royal proclamation since the Conquest, having been forced by his barons to accept the Provisions of Oxford, establishing a Privy Council to oversee the administration of the government, so beginning the growth of the English constitution and parliament. 1337 The Hundred Years’ War began and lasted until 1453, promoting English nationalism. 1348–50 The Black Death killed an estimated one-third of England’s population and continued to plague the country for much of the rest of the century. 1362 The Statute of Pleadings was enacted, requiring all court proceedings to be conducted in English. the middle english period (1100–1500) 113 1381 The Peasants’ Revolt led by Wat Tyler was the first rebellion of working-class people against their exploitation. Although it failed in most of its immediate aims, it marks the beginning of popular protest. 1384 John Wycliffe died, having promoted the first complete translation of scripture into the English language (the Wycliffite Bible). 1400 Geoffrey Chaucer died, having produced a highly influential body of English poetry. 1430 The Chancery office (where legal records were deposited) began recordkeeping in a form of East Midland English, which became the written standard of English. 1476 William Caxton brought printing to England, thus promoting literacy throughout the population. 1485 Henry Tudor became king of England, ending thirty years of civil strife, called the War of the Roses, and introducing 118 years of the Tudor dynasty. 1497 John Cabot sailed to Nova Scotia, foreshadowing English territorial expansion overseas. THE BACKGROUND OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST Almost at the end of the Old English period, the Normans invaded and conquered England—an event more far-reaching in its effects on English culture than the earlier Scandinavian incursions. Edward the Confessor was the last king in the direct male line of descent from Alfred the Great. He died without heirs, and Harold, son of the powerful Earl Godwin, was elected to the kingship. Almost immediately his possession of the crown was challenged by William, the seventh duke of Normandy, who was distantly related to Edward the Confessor and who thought, for a number of tenuous reasons, that he had a better claim to the throne. The Norman Conquest—fortunately for Anglo-American culture and civilization, the last invasion of England—was, like the earlier Danish invasions, carried out by Northmen. Under the leadership of William the Conqueror, they defeated the English and their hapless King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Harold was killed by an arrow that pierced his eye, and the English, deprived of his effective leadership and that of his two brothers, who had also fallen in the battle, were ignominiously defeated. William and the Northmen whose dux he was came not immediately from Scandinavia but from France, a region whose northern coast their not-very-remote Viking ancestors had invaded and settled as recently as the ninth and tenth centuries, beginning at about the same time as other pagan Vikings were making trouble for Alfred the Great in England. Those Scandinavians who settled in France are commonly designated by an Old French form of Northmen, that is, Normans, and the section of France that they settled and governed was called Normandy. The Conqueror was a bastard son of Robert the Devil, who took such pains in the early part of his life to earn his surname that he became a figure of legend— among other things, he was accused, doubtless justly, of poisoning the brother whom he succeeded as duke of Normandy. So great was his capacity for rascality 114 chapter 6 that he was also called Robert the Magnificent. Ironically, he died in the course of a holy pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Robert’s great-great-grandfather was Rollo (Hrólfr), a Danish chieftain who was created first duke of Normandy after coming to terms satisfactory to himself with King Charles the Simple of France. In the five generations intervening between Duke Rollo and Duke William, the Normans had become French culturally and linguistically, at least superficially—though we must always remember that in those days the French had no learning, art, or literature comparable to what was flourishing in England. English culture changed under French influence, most visibly in the construction of churches and castles, but it retained a distinctively English flavor. The Norman French dialect spoken by the invaders developed in England into AngloNorman, a variety of French that was the object of amusement even among the English in later times, as in Chaucer’s remark about the Prioress, that “she spoke French quite fair and neatly—according to the school of Stratford-at-Bow, for the French of Paris was unknown to her.” THE REASCENDANCY OF ENGLISH For a long time after the Norman Conquest, England was trilingual. Latin was the language of the Church, Norman French of the government, and English of the majority of the country’s population. The loss of Normandy in 1204 by King John, a descendant of the Conqueror, removed an important tie with France, and subsequent events were to loosen the remaining ties. By the fourteenth century, several things happened that promoted the use of English. The Hundred Years’ War, beginning in 1337, saw England and France bitter enemies in a long, drawn-out conflict that gave the deathblow to the already moribund use of French in England. Those whose ancestors were Normans eventually came to think of themselves as English. In addition, the common people had begun to exercise their collective power. The Black Death, or bubonic plague, perhaps reinforced by pneumonia, raged during the middle of the fourteenth century, killing a third to a half of the population. It produced a severe labor shortage that led to demands for higher wages and better treatment of workers. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, led by Wat Tyler and sparked by a series of poll taxes (fixed taxes on each person), was largely unsuccessful, but it presaged social changes that were fulfilled centuries later. Meanwhile, John Wycliffe had challenged the authority of the Church in both doctrinal and organizational matters as part of a movement called Lollardy (a derogatory term for heresy), which translated the Bible into English and popularized doctrines that anticipated the Reformation. The fourteenth century also saw the development of a mystical tradition in England that carried through to the early fifteenth century and included works still read, such as Richard Rolle’s Form of Perfect Living, the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing, Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, Julian (or Juliana) of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, and even the emotionally autobiographical Book of Margery Kempe, more valuable for its insights into medieval life than for its spiritual content. Four cycles of mystery plays, which dramatized the history of the world as recorded in Scripture, and various morality plays such as Everyman, which allegorized the human struggle between good and evil, were the forerunners of the great English dramatic tradition from Shakespeare onward. the middle english period (1100–1500) 115 The late fourteenth century saw a blossoming of alliterative, unrimed English poetry that was a development of the native tradition of versification stretching back to Anglo-Saxon times. The most important work of that revival was William Langland’s Piers Plowman, which echoes much of the intellectual and social ferment of the time. Another important work was the Morte Arthure, an alliterative account of the life and death of King Arthur that anticipated other works on the subject, from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur (printed by William Caxton in 1485), through Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859–88), Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Leowe’s musical Camelot (1960, film 1967), the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), and into the twenty-first century with Mike Nichols’s Spamalot (2005). The Star Wars series also continues the theme if not the plot and characters. The most highly regarded of the alliterative poems was Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which combines courtly romance, chivalric ideals, moral dilemma, and supernatural folklore. Its anonymous author is known as the Pearl poet, from the title of another work he wrote. Geoffrey Chaucer, the greatest poet of Middle English times and one of the greatest of all times in any language, wrote in both French and English, but his significant work is in English. By the time Chaucer died in 1400, English was well established as the language of England in literary and other uses. By the end of the fourteenth century, public documents and records began to be written in English, and Henry IV used English to claim the throne in 1399. FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON VOCABULARY During the Middle English period, Latin continued to exert an important influence on the English vocabulary (Chapter 12, 250–1). Scandinavian loanwords that must have started making their way into the language during the Old English period became readily apparent in Middle English (253–4), and Dutch and Flemish were also significant sources (260–1). However the major new influence, and ultimately the most important, was French (254–6). The impact of the Norman Conquest on the English language, like that made by the earlier Norse-speaking invaders, was largely in the word stock, though Middle English also showed some instances of the influence of French idiom and grammar. Suffice it to say that, as a result of the Conquest, English acquired a new look. Compare the following pairs, in which the first word or phrase is from an Old English translation of the parable of the Prodigal Son (cited at the end of the last chapter) and the second is from a Middle English translation (cited at the end of this chapter): ǣhta burhsittende man dǣl dǣlde forwearð gǣlsa genōh gewilnode catel citeseyn porcioun departide perischid lecherously plente coueitide ‘property’ ‘citizen’ ‘portion’ ‘divided’ ‘perished’ ‘lechery, lecherously’ ‘enough, plenty’ ‘wanted, coveted’ 116 chapter 6 gewistfullian mildheortness rīce þēow wræclīce make we feeste mercy cuntre seruaunt in pilgrymage ‘let us feast’ ‘mercy’ ‘country’ ‘servant’ ‘abroad, traveling’ In each case, the first expression is native English and the second is, or contains, a word borrowed from French. In a few instances, the corresponding Modern English expression is different from either of the older forms: though Middle English catel survives as cattle, its meaning has become more specific than it was; and so has that of Middle English pilgrymage, which now refers to a particular kind of journey. However, most of the French terms have continued essentially unchanged in present-day use. The French tincture of our vocabulary, which began in Middle English times, has been intensified in Modern English. MIDDLE ENGLISH SPELLING Consonants Just as French words were borrowed, so too were French spelling conventions. Yet some of the apparent innovations in Middle English spelling were, in fact, a return to earlier conventions. For example, the digraph th had been used in some of the earliest English texts—those written before 900—but was replaced in later Old English writing by þ and ð. During the Middle English period, th was gradually reintroduced, and during early Modern English times printers regularized its use. Similarly, uu, used for [w] in early manuscripts, was supplanted by the runic wynn, but was brought back to England by Norman scribes in a ligatured form as w. The origin of this symbol is accurately indicated by its name, double-u. Other new spellings were true innovations. The Old English symbol (which we transliterate as g) was an Irish shape; the letter shape g entered English writing later from the Continent. In Middle English times, the Old English symbol acquired a somewhat different form, ȝ (called yogh), and was used for several sounds, notably two that came to be spelled y and gh later in the period. The complex history of these shapes and the sounds they represented is illustrated by the spellings of the following five words: OE: ME: Goose Yield Draw Knight Through gōs [g] goos [g] geldan [y] ȝelden [y] or yelden dragan [ɣ] drawen [w] cniht [ç] cniȝ t [ç] or knight þurh [x] þurȝ [x] or thurgh The symbol yogh (ȝ) was also used to represent -s or -z at the ends of words in some manuscripts, such as those of the Pearl poet, perhaps because it resembles z in shape. It continued to be written in Scotland long after the English had given it up, and printers, having no ȝ in their fonts, used z for it—as in the names Kenzie the middle english period (1100–1500) 117 (compare Kenny, with revised spelling to indicate a pronunciation somewhat closer to the historical one) and Menzies (with the Scottish pronunciation [mɪŋgɪs]). The newly borrowed shape g was used to represent not only [g] in native words, but also the [ǰ] sound in French loanwords like gem and age, that being the sound represented by g before e and i of French in earlier times. The consonant sound [v] did not occur initially in Old English, which used f for the [v] that developed internally, as in drifen ‘driven,’ hæfde ‘had,’ and scofl ‘shovel.’ Except for a very few words that have entered standard English from Southern English dialects, in which initial [f] became [v]—for instance, vixen, the feminine of vox ‘fox’—no standard English words of native origin begin with [v]. Practically all our words with initial v have been taken from Latin or French. No matter how familiar such words as vulgar (Latin), vocal (Latin), very (French), and voice (French) may be to us now, they were originally foreign. The introduction of the letter v (a variant of u) to indicate the prehistoric Old English development of [f] to [v] was an innovation of Anglo-Norman scribes in Middle English times: thus the Middle English form of Old English drifen was written driven or driuen. When v, the angular form of curved u, came to be used in Middle English, scribes followed the Continental practice of using either symbol for either consonant or vowel. As a general rule, v was used initially and u elsewhere, regardless of the sound indicated, as in very, vsury (usury), and euer (ever), except in the neighborhood of m and n, where for the sake of legibility v was frequently used for the vowel regardless of position. Ch was used under French influence, to indicate the initial sound of child, which in Old English had been spelled simply with c, as in cild. Following a short vowel, the same sound might also be spelled cch or chch; thus catch appears as cache, cacche, and cachche. In early Old English times sc symbolized [sk], but during the course of the Old English period the graphic sequence came to indicate [š]. The sh spelling for that sound was an innovation of Anglo-Norman scribes (OE sceal—ME and ModE shall); the scribes sometimes used s, ss, and sch for the same purpose. Middle English scribes preferred the spelling wh for the phonetically more accurate hw used in Old English times, for example, in Old English hwæt—Middle and Modern English what. Under French influence, scribes in Middle English times used c before e and i (y) in French loanwords, for example, citee ‘city’ and grace. In Old English writing c never indicated [s], but only [k] and [č]. Thus, with the introduction of the newer French value, c remained an ambiguous symbol, though in a different way: it came to represent [k] before a, o, u, and consonants, and [s] before e, i, and y. K, used occasionally in Old English writing, thus came to be increasingly used before e, i, and y in Middle English times (OE cynn ‘race’—ME kin, kyn). French scribal practices are responsible for the Middle English spelling qu (which French inherited from Latin), replacing Old English cw, as in quellen ‘to kill’ and queen, which despite their French look are native English words (in Old English, cwellan and cwēn). Also French in origin is the digraph gg for [ǰ], supplanting in medial and final positions Old English cg (OE ecg—ME egge), later written dg(e), as in Modern English edge. 118 chapter 6 Vowels To indicate vowel length, Middle English writing frequently doubled letters, particularly ee and oo, the practice becoming general in the East Midland dialect late in the period. These particular doublings have survived into our own day, though they do not indicate the same sounds as in Middle English. As a matter of fact, both ee and oo were ambiguous in the Middle English period, as every student of Chaucer must learn. One of the vowel sounds indicated by Middle English ee (namely [ɛ:]) came generally to be written ea in the course of the sixteenth century; for the other sound (namely [e:]), ee was retained, alongside ie and, less frequently, ei—spellings that were also used to some extent in Middle English. Double o came to be commonly used in later Middle English times for the long rounded vowel [ɔ:], the vowel that developed out of Old English long ā. Unfortunately for the beginning student, the same double o was used for the continuation of Old English long ō. As a result of this duplication, rood ‘rode’ (OE rād) and rood ‘rood, cross’ (OE rōd) were written with identical vowel symbols, though they were no more nearly alike in pronunciation ([rɔ:d] and [ro:d] respectively) than are their modern forms. Because [ɛ:] and [ɔ:] are both lower vowels than [e:] and [o:] and thus are made with the mouth in a more open position, they are called open e and open o, as distinct from the second pair, which are close e and close o. In modern transcriptions of Middle English spelling, the open vowels may be indicated by a subscript hook under the letter: ęˉ for [ɛ:] and ǭ for [ɔ:], whereas the close vowels are left unmarked except for length: ē for [e:] and ō for [o:]. The length mark and the hook are both modern scholarly devices to indicate pronunciation; they were not used by scribes in Middle English times, and the length mark is unnecessary when a long vowel is spelled with double vowel letters, which indicate the extra length of the sound. Final unstressed e following a single consonant also indicated vowel length in Middle English, as in fode ‘food’ and fede ‘to feed’; this corresponds to the “silent e” of Modern English, as in case, mete, bite, rote, and rule. Doubled consonants, which indicated consonant length in earlier periods, began in Middle English times to indicate also that a preceding vowel was short. Surviving examples are dinner and bitter, as contrasted with diner and biter. In the North of England, i was frequently used after a vowel to indicate that it was long, a practice responsible for such modern spellings as raid (literally a ‘riding,’ from the OE noun rād), Reid (a long-vowel variant of red, surviving only as a proper name), and Scots guid ‘good,’ as in Robert Burns’s “Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous.” Short u was commonly written o during the latter part of the Middle English period if i, m, n, or u (v, w) were contiguous, because those stroke letters were made with parallel slanting lines and so, when written in succession, could not be distinguished. A Latin orthographical joke about “minimi mimi” (‘very small mimes or dwarf actors’) was written solely with those letters and consequently was illegible. The Middle English spellings sone ‘son’ and sonne ‘sun’ thus indicate the same vowel sound [ʊ] that these words had in Old English, when they were written respectively sunu and sunne. The spelling o for u survives in a number of Modern English words besides son—for example, come (OE cuman), wonder (OE wundor), monk (OE munuc), honey (OE hunig), tongue (OE tunge), and love