Chapter 156

THE DIALECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

§ 541. Certain parts of England are named as if their population were preeminently _Saxon_ rather than _Angle_; viz., Wes-sex ( = West _Saxons_), Es-sex ( = East _Saxons_), Sus-sex ( = South _Saxons_), and Middle-sex, ( = Middle _Saxons_).

Others are named as if their population were preeminently _Angle_ rather than _Saxon_; thus, the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk once constituted the kingdom of the East Angles, and even at the present moment, are often spoken of as _East Anglia_.

§ 542. It is safe to say that the dialects of the English language do _not_ coincide with the distribution of these terms. That parts of the Angle differ from parts of the Saxon districts in respect to the character of their provincialisms is true; but it is by no means evident that they differ on that account.

Thus, that the dialect of Hampshire, which was part of Wes-sex, should differ from that of Norfolk, which was part of East _Anglia_, is but natural. There is a great space of country between them--a fact sufficient to account for their respective characteristics, without assuming an original difference of population. Between the _Saxons_ of Es-sex and the _Anglians_ of Suffolk, no one has professed to find any notable difference.

Hence, no division of the English dialects into those of _Saxon_ or those of _Angle_ origin, has been successful.

Neither have any peculiarities in the dialect of Kent, or the Isle of Wight, verified the notion of the population for those parts having been originally _Jute_.

Nor yet has any portion of England been shown by the evidence of its dialects, to have been _Frisian_.

§ 543. Yet the solution of such problems is one of the great objects of the study of provincial modes of speech.

§ 544. That _Jute_ characteristics will be sought in vain is the inference from §§ 7-13.

That differential points between the _Angles_ and _Saxons_ will be sought in vain is also probable.

On the other hand, differential points between the _Frisians_ and _Angles_ are likely to be discovered.

§ 545. The traces of the Danes, or Northmen, are distinct; the following forms of local names being _primâ facie_ evidence (at least) of Danish or Norse occupancy.

a. The combination Sk-, rather than the sound of Sh-, in such names as Skip-ton, rather than Ship-ton.

b. The combination Ca-, rather than Ch-, in such names as Carl-ton rather than Charl-ton.

c. The termination -by ( = _town_, _habitation_, _occupancy_,) rather than -ton, as Ash-by, Demble-by, Spills-by, Grims-by, &c.

d. The form _Kirk_ rather than _Church_.

e. The form _Orm_ rather than _Worm_, as in _Orms-head_.

In _Orms-kirk_ and _Kir-by_ we have a combination of Danish characteristics.

§ 546. In respect to their distribution, the Danish forms are--

At their _maximum_ on the sea-coast of Lincolnshire; i.e., in the parts about Spills-by.

Common, but less frequent, in Yorkshire, the Northern counties of England, the South-eastern parts of Scotland, Lancashire, (_Ormskirk_, _Horn-by_), and parts of South Wales (_Orms-head_, _Ten-by_).

In Orkney, and the northern parts of Scotland, the Norse had originally the same influence that the Anglo-Saxon had in the south.--See the chapter of the Lowland Scotch.

This explains the peculiar distribution of the Norse forms. Rare, or non-existent, in central and southern England, they appear on the opposite sides of the island, and on its northern extremity; showing that the stream of the Norse population went _round the island rather than across it_.

§ 547. Next to the search after traces of the original differences in the speech of the Continental invaders of Great Britain, the question as to the origin of the _written_ language of England is the most important.

Mr. Guest has given good reasons for believing it to have arisen out of a Mercian, rather than a West-Saxon dialect--although of the _Anglo-Saxon_ the West-Saxon was the most cultivated form.

This is confirmed by the present state of the Mercian dialects.

The country about Huntingdon and Stamford is, in the mind of the present writer, that part of England where provincial peculiarities are at the _minimum_. This may be explained in various ways, of which none is preferable to the doctrine, that the dialect for those parts represents the dialect out of which the literary language of England became developed.

Such are the chief problems connected with the study of the provincial dialects of England; the exhibition of the methods applicable to their investigation not being considered necessary in a work like the present.

NOTE.

That _Saxon_ was the _British_ name of the Germanic invaders of Great Britain is certain.--See § 45.

The reasons which induce me to consider it as _exclusively_ British, i.e., as foreign to the Angles, are as follows,--

a. No clear distinction has ever been drawn between, e.g., an _Angle_ of Suffolk, and a _Saxon_ of Essex.

b. The Romans who knew, for some parts at least, every inch of the land occupied by the Saxons of Germany, as long as there is reason for believing that they took their names from German sources, never use the word. It is strange to Cæsar, Strabo, Pliny, and Tacitus. Ptolemy is the first who uses it.

c. Ecbert, who is said to have attached the name of _Engl_and, or Land of _Angles_, to South Britain, was, himself, no _Angle_, but a West-Saxon.[66]

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QUESTIONS ON PARTS IV. V. VI. and VII.