Part 27

Chapter 273,522 wordsPublic domain

If a few sporadic developments be excluded because they may turn up anywhere at any time, then, provided sufficient evidence were available,[29] it would be possible to mark the boundaries within which any given dialectal feature occurs at a particular period: we could draw the line south of which _þire_ 'these' is not found, or the line bounding the district in which the Norse borrowing _kirke_ occurs; just as French investigators in _L'Atlas linguistique de la France_ have shown the distribution of single words and forms in the modern French dialects.

[Foot-note 29: Sufficient evidence is not available. If in the year 1340 at every religious house in the kingdom a native of the district had followed the example of Michael of Northgate, and if all their autograph copies had survived, we should have a very good knowledge of Middle English at that time. If the process had been repeated about every ten years the precision of our knowledge would be greatly increased. For the area in which any feature is found is not necessarily constant: we know that in the pres. p. the province of _-ing_ was extending throughout the fourteenth century; that the inflexion _-es_ in 3 sg. pres. ind. was a Northern and North-Midland feature in the fourteenth century, but had become general in London by Shakespeare's time. And though less is known about the spread of sound changes as distinct from analogical substitutions, it cannot be assumed that their final boundaries were reached and fixed in a moment. There is reason to regret the handicap that has been imposed on ME. studies by the old practice of writing in Latin or French the documents and records which would otherwise supply the exactly dated and localized specimens of English that are most necessary to progress.]

Of more general importance is the fixing of boundaries for sound changes or inflexions that affect a large number of words, a task to which interesting contributions have been made in recent years on the evidence of place-names (see especially A. Brandl, _Zur Geographie der altenglischen Dialekte_, Berlin 1915, which supplements the work of Pogatscher on the compounds of _street_ and of Wyld on the ME. developments of OE. _y_). For example, on the evidence available, which does not permit of more than rough indications, OE. _ā_ remains _ā_, and does not develop to _ǭ_, north of a line drawn west from the Humber (§ 7 b i); _-and(e)_ occurs in the ending of the pres. p. as far south as a line starting west from the Wash (§ 13 ii); farther south again, a line between Norwich and Birmingham gives the northern limit for _Stratton_ forms as against _Stretton_ (§ 8 iv, note).[30] The direction of all these lines is roughly east and west, yet no two coincide. But if the developments of OE. _y_ (§ 7 b ii) are mapped out, _u_ appears below a line drawn athwart from Liverpool to London, and normal _e_ east of a line drawn north and south from the western border of Kent. Almost every important feature has thus its own limits, and the limits of one may cross the limits of another.

[Foot-note 30: The evidence of place-names does not agree entirely with the evidence of texts. _Havelok_, which is localized with reasonable certainty in North Lincolnshire, has _(a)dradd_ in rimes that appear to be original, and these indicate a North-Eastern extension of the area in which OE. _strǣt_, _drǣdan_ appear for normal Anglian _strēt_, _drēda(n)_. This evidence, supported by rimes in Robert of Brunne, is too early to be disposed of by the explanation of borrowing from other dialects, nor is the testimony of place-names so complete and unequivocal as to justify an exclusive reliance upon it.]

What then is a ME. dialect? The accepted classification is

{ South-Western = OE. West Saxon Southern { { South-Eastern = OE. Kentish

{ East Midland } Midland { } = OE. Mercian { West Midland }

Northern = OE. Northumbrian

with the Thames as boundary between Southern and Midland, and the Humber between Midland and Northern. And yet of five actual limiting lines taken at random, only the first coincides approximately with the line of Humber or Thames.

Still the classification rests on a practical truth. Although each dialectal feature has its own boundaries, these are not set by pure chance. Their position is to some extent governed by old tribal and political divisions, by the influence of large towns which served as commercial and administrative centres, and by relative ease of communication. Consequently, linguistic features are roughly grouped, and it is _a priori_ likely that London and Oxford would have more features in common than would London and York, or Oxford and Hull; and similarly it is likely that for a majority of phenomena York and Hull would stand together against London and Oxford. Such a grouping was recognized in the fourteenth century. Higden and his authorities distinguish Northern and Southern speech (XIII _b_); in the Towneley _Second Shepherds' Play_, ll. 201 ff., when Mak pretends to be a yeoman of the king, he adopts the appropriate accent, and is promptly told to 'take outt that Sothren tothe'. In the _Reeves Tale_ Chaucer makes the clerks speak their own Northern dialect, so we may be sure that he thought of it as a unity.

But had Chaucer been asked exactly where this dialect was spoken, he would probably have replied, _Fer in the North,—I kan nat telle where_. A dialect has really no precise boundaries; its borders are nebulous; and throughout this book 'Southern', 'Northern', &c., are used vaguely, and not with any sharply defined limits in mind. The terms may, however, be applied to precise areas, so long as the boundaries of single dialect features are not violently made to conform. It is quite accurate to say that _-and(e)_ is the normal ending of the pres. p. north of the Humber, and that _u_ for OE. _y_ is found south of the Thames and west of London, provided it is not implied that the one should not be found south of the Humber, or the other north of the Thames. Both in fact occur in _Gawayne_ (Cheshire or Lancashire); and in general the language of the Midlands was characterized by the overlapping of features which distinguish the North from the South.

From what has been said it should be plain that the localization of a piece of Middle English on the evidence of language alone calls for an investigation of scope and delicacy. Where the facts are so complex the mechanical application of rules of thumb may give quick and specious results, but must in the end deaden the spirit of inquiry, which is the best gift a student can bring to the subject.

§ 3. VOCABULARY. The readiness of English speakers to adopt words from foreign languages becomes marked in fourteenth-century writings. But the classical element which is so pronounced in modern literary English is still unimportant. There are few direct borrowings from Latin, and these, like _obitte_ XVI 269, are for the most part taken from the technical language of the Church. The chief sources of foreign words are Norse and French.

(_a_) #Norse.# Although many Norse words first appear in English in late texts, they must have come into the spoken language before the end of the eleventh century, because the Scandinavian settlements ceased after the Norman Conquest. The invaders spoke a dialect near enough to OE. to be intelligible to the Angles; and they had little to teach of literature or civilization. Hence the borrowings from Norse are all popular; they appear chiefly in the Midlands and North, where the invaders settled; and they witness the intimate fusion of two kindred languages. From Norse we get such common words as _anger_, _both_, _call_, _egg_, _hit_, _husband_, _ill_, _law_, _loose_, _low_, _meek_, _take_, _till_ (prep.), _want_, _weak_, _wing_, _wrong_, and even the plural forms of the 3rd personal pronoun (§ 12).

It is not always easy to distinguish Norse from native words, because the two languages were so similar during the period of borrowing, and Norse words were adopted early enough to be affected by all ME. sound changes. But there were some dialectal differences between ON. and OE. in the ninth and tenth centuries, and these afford the best criteria of borrowing. For instance in ME. we have _þouȝ_, _þof_ (ON. _þō̆h_ for _*þauh_) beside _þei(h)_ (OE. _þē(a)h_) II 433; _ay_ (ON. _ei_) 'ever' XVI 293 beside _oo_ (OE. _ā_) XV _b_ 7; _waik_ (ON. _veik-r_) VIII _b_ 23, where OE. _wāc_ would yield _wǭk_; the forms _wǭre_ XVI 17 (note) and _wāpin_ XIV _b_ 15 are from ON. _várum_, _vápn_, whereas _wēre(n)_ and _wĕppen_ V 154 represent OE. (Anglian) _wēron_, _wēpn_. So we have the pairs _awe_ (ON. _agi_) I 83 and _ay_ (OE. _ege_) II 571; _neuen_ (ON. _nefna_) 'to name' XVII 12 and _nem(p)ne_ (OE. _nemnan_) II 600; _rot_ (ON. _rót_) II 256 and _wort_ (OE. _wyrt_) VIII _a_ 303; _sterne_, _starne_ (ON. _stjarna_) XVII 8, 423 and native _sterre_, _starre_ (OE. _steorra_); _systyr_ (ON. _systir_) I 112 and _soster_ (OE. _sweostor_) XV _g_ 10; _werre_, _warre_ (ON. _verri_) XVI 154 (note), 334 and native _werse_, _wars_ (OE. _wyrsa_) XVI 200, XVII 191; _wylle_ (ON. _vill-r_) V 16 and native _wylde_ (OE. _wilde_) XV _b_ 19.

Note that in Norse borrowings the consonants _g_, _k_ remain stops where they are palatalized in English words: _garn_ XVII 298, _giue_, _gete_ (ON. _garn_, _gefa_, _geta_) beside _ȝarn_, _ȝiue_, _for-ȝete_ (OE. _gearn_, _giefan_, _for-gietan_); _kirke_ (ON. _kirkja_) beside _chirche_ (OE. _cirice_). Similarly OE. initial _sc-_ regularly becomes ME. _sh-_, so that most words beginning with _sk-_, like _sky_, _skin_, _skyfte_ VI 209 (English _shift_), _skirte_ (English _shirt_), are Norse; see the alliterating words in V 99.

There is an excellent monograph by E. Björkman: _Scandinavian Loan-Words in Middle English_, 1900.

(_b_) #French.# Most early borrowings from French were again due to invasion and settlement. But the conditions of contact were very different. Some were unfavourable to borrowing: the Normans, who were relatively few, were dispersed throughout the country, and not, like the Scandinavians, massed in colonies; and their language had little in common with English. So the number of French words in English texts is small before the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Other conditions made borrowing inevitable: the French speakers were the governing class; they gradually introduced a new system of administration and new standards of culture; and they had an important literature to which English writers turned for their subject-matter and their models of form. Fourteenth-century translators adopt words from their French originals so freely (see note at p. 234, foot), that written Middle English must give a rather exaggerated impression of the extent of French influence on the spoken language. But a few examples will show how many common words are early borrowings from French: nouns like _country_, _face_, _place_, _river_, _courtesy_, _honour_, _joy_, _justice_, _mercy_, _pity_, _reason_, _religion_, _war_; adjectives like _close_, _large_, _poor_; and verbs _cry_, _pay_, _please_, _save_, _serve_, _use_.

Anglo-French was never completely homogeneous, and it was constantly supplemented as a result of direct political, commercial, and literary relations with France. Hence words were sometimes adopted into ME. in more than one French dialectal form. For instance, Late Latin _ca-_ became _cha-_ in most French dialects, but remained _ca-_ in the North of France: hence ME. _catch_ and _(pur)chase_, _catel_ and _chatel_, _kanel_ 'neck' V 230 and _chanel_ 'channel' XIII _a_ 57. So Northern French preserves initial _w-_, for which other French dialects substitute _g(u)_: hence _Wowayn_ V 121 beside _Gawayn_ V 4, &c. (see note to V 121). Again, in Anglo-French, _a_ before nasal + consonant alternates with _au_:—_dance_: _daunce_; _chance_: _chaunce_; _change_: _chaunge_; _chambre_ XVII 281: _chaumber_ II 100. English still has the verbs _launch_ and _lance_, which are ultimately identical.

As borrowing extended over several centuries, the ME. form sometimes depends on the date of adoption. Thus Latin _fidem_ becomes early French _feið_, later _fei_, and later still _foi_. ME. has both _feiþ_ and _fay_, and by Spenser's time _foy_ appears.

The best study of the French element in ME. is still that of D. Behrens: _Beiträge zur Geschichte der französischen Sprache in England_, 1886. A valuable supplement, dealing chiefly with Anglo-French as the language of the law, is the chapter by F. W. Maitland in _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. i.

§ 4. HANDWRITING. In the ME. period two varieties of script were in use, both developed from the Caroline minuscule which has proved to be the most permanent contribution of the schools of Charlemagne. The one, cursive and flourished, is common in charters, records, and memoranda; see C. H. Jenkinson and C. Johnson, _Court Hand_, 2 vols., Oxford 1915. The other, in which the letters are separately written, with few flourishes or adaptations of form in combination, is the 'book hand', so called because it is regularly used for literary texts. Between the extreme types there are many gradations; and fifteenth-century copies, such as the Cambridge MS. of Barbour's _Bruce_, show an increasing use of cursive forms, which facilitate rapid writing.

The shapes of letters were not always so distinct as they are in print, so that copyists of the time, and even modern editors, are liable to mistake one letter for another. Each hand has its own weaknesses, but the letters most commonly misread are:—

_e_ : _o_ e.g. _Beuo_ for _Bouo_ I 59; _wroche_ for _wreche_ II 333; _teches_ IV _b_ 60, where _toches_ (foot-note) is probably right; pesible (MS. _posible_) XI _b_ 67.

_u_ : _n_ (practically indistinguishable) e.g. _menys_ (MS. _mouys_) XVI 301; _skayned_ (edd. _skayued_) V 99; _ryueȝ_ or _ryneȝ_ V 222 (note). This is only a special case of the confusion of letters and combinations formed by repetition of the downstroke, e.g. _u_, _n_, _m_, and _i_ (which is not always distinguished by a stroke above). Hence _dim_ II 285 where modern editors have _dun_, although _i_ has the distinguishing stroke.

_y_ : _þ_ e.g. _ye_ (MS. _þe_) XIV _d_ 11; see note to XV _a_ 12. Confusion is increased by occasional transference to _þ_ of the dot which historically may stand over _y_. _ȝ_ for _þ_ initially, as in XVI 170, is more often due to confusion of the letters _þ_: _y_ and subsequent preference of _ȝ_ for _y_ in spelling (§ 5 i) than to direct confusion of _þ_: _ȝ_, which are not usually very similar in late Middle English script.

_þ_ : _h_ e.g. _doþ_ (MS. _doh_) XV _b_ 22; and notes to XII _b_ 116, XVI 62.

_b_ : _v_ e.g. _vousour_ (edd. _bonsour_) II 363.

_c_ : _t_ e.g. _cunesmen_ (edd. _tunesmen_) XV _g_ 6 (note); _top_ (edd. _cop_) ibid. 16; see note to XIII _a_ 7.

_f_ : _ſ_ (= _s_) e.g. _slang_ (variant _flang_) X 53.

_l_ : _ſ_ (= _s_) e.g. _al_ (edd. _as_) II 108.

_l_ : _k_ e.g. _kyþeȝ_ (MS. _lyþeȝ_) VI 9.

§ 5. SPECIAL LETTERS. Two letters now obsolete are common in fourteenth-century MSS.: _þ_ and _ȝ_.

_þ_: 'thorn', is a rune, and stands for the voiced and voiceless sounds now represented by _th_ in _this_, _thin_. The gradual displacement of _þ_ by _th_, which had quite a different sound in classical Latin (note to VIII _a_ 23), may be traced in the MSS. printed (except X, XII). _þ_ remained longest in the initial position, but by the end of the fifteenth century was used chiefly in compendia like _þe_ 'the', _þt_ 'that'.

_ȝ_: called '_ȝoȝ_' or '_yogh_', derives from _ _, the OE. script form of the letter _g_. It was retained in ME. after the Caroline form _g_ had become established in vernacular texts, to represent a group of spirant sounds:

(i) The initial spirant in _ȝoked_ IX 253 (OE. _geoc-_), _ȝere_ I 151 (OE. _gēar_), where the sound was approximately the same as in our _yoke_, _year_. Except in texts specially influenced by the tradition of French spelling, _y_ (which is ambiguous owing to its common use as a vowel = _i_) is less frequent than _ȝ_ initially. Medially the palatal spirant is represented either by _ȝ_ or _y_: _eȝe_ (OE. _ē(a)ȝ-_) XV _c_ 14 beside _eyen_ VIII _a_ 168; _iseȝe_ (OE. _gesegen_) XIV _c_ 88 beside _iseye_ XIV _c_ 16. The medial guttural spirant more commonly develops to _w_ in the fourteenth century: _awe_ (ON. _agi_) I 83, _felawe_ (ON. _félagi_) XIV _d_ 7, _halwes_ (OE. _halg-_), beside _aȝ-_ V 267, _felaȝ-_ V 83, _halȝ-_ V 54.

(ii) The medial or final spirant, guttural or palatal, which is lost in standard English, but still spelt in _nought_, _through_, _night_, _high_: ME. _noȝt_, _þurȝ_, _nyȝt_, _hyȝ_: OE. _noht_, _þurh_, _niht_, _hēh_. The ME. sound was probably like that in German _ich_, _ach_. The older spelling with _h_ is occasionally found; more often _ch_ as in _mycht_ X 17; but the French spelling _gh_ gains ground throughout the century. Abnormal are _write_ for _wrighte_ XVI 230, _wytes_, _nytes_ for _wyȝtes_, _nyȝtes_ XV _i_ 19 f.

(iii) As these sounds weakened in late Southern ME., _ȝ_ was sometimes used without phonetic value, or at the most to reinforce a long _i_: e.g. _Engliȝsch_ XI _a_ 28, 37, &c.; _kyȝn_ 'kine' IX 256.

N.B.—Entirely distinct in origin and sound value, but identical in script form, is _ȝ_, the minuscule form of _z_, in _Aȝone_ (= _Azone_) I 105, _clyffeȝ_ 'cliffs' V 10, &c. It would probably be better to print _z_ in such words.

§ 6. SPELLING. Modern English spelling, which tolerates almost any inconsistency in the representation of sounds provided the same word is always spelt in the approved way, is the creation of printers, schools, and dictionaries. A Middle English writer was bound by no such arbitrary rules. Michael of Northgate, whose autograph MS. survives, writes _diaknen_ III 5 and _dyacne_ 9; _vyf_ 22, _uif_ 23, _vif_ 37; _þouzond_ 30 and _þousend_ 34. Yet his spelling is not irrational. The comparative regularity of his own speech, which he reproduced directly, had a normalizing influence; and by natural habit he more often than not solved the same problem of representation in the same way. Scribes, too, like printers in later times, found a measure of consistency convenient, and the spelling of some transcripts, e.g. I and X, is very regular. If at first ME. spelling appears lawless to a modern reader, it is because of the variety of dialects represented in literature, the widely differing dates of the MSS. printed, and the tendency of copyists to mix their own spellings with those of their original.

The following points must be kept in mind:

(i) _i_ : _y_ as vowels are interchangeable. In some MSS. (for instance, I) _y_ is used almost exclusively; in others (VIII _a_) it is preferred for distinctness in the neighbourhood of _u_, _n_, _m_, so that the scribe writes _hym_, but _his_.

(ii) _ie_ is found in later texts for long close _ẹ̄_: _chiere_ XII _a_ 120, _flietende_ XII _a_ 157, _diemed_ XII _b_ 216.

(iii) _ui_ (_uy_), in the South-West and West Midlands, stands for _ǖ_ (sounded as in French _amuser_): _puit_ XIV _c_ 12; _vnkuynde_ XIV _c_ 103. The corresponding short _ü_ is spelt _u_: _hull_ '_hill_', &c.

(iv) Quite distinct is the late Northern addition of _i_ (_y_), to indicate the long vowels _ā_, _ē_, _ō_: _neid_ X 18, _noyne_ 'noon' X 67.

(v) _ou_ (_ow_) is the regular spelling of long _ū_ (sounded as in _too_): _hous_, _now_, _founden_, &c.

(vi) _o_ is the regular spelling for short _u_ (sounded as in _put_) in the neighbourhood of _u_, _m_, _n_, because if _u_ is written in combination with these letters an indistinct series of downstrokes results. Hence _loue_ but _luf_, _come_ infin., _sone_ 'son', _dronken_ 'drunk'. In _Ayenbyte_ _o_ for _ŭ_ is general, e.g. _grochinge_ III 10. In other texts it is common in _bote_ 'but'.

(vii) _u_ : _v_ are not distinguished as consonant and vowel. _v_ is preferred in initial position, _u_ medially or finally: _valay_ 'valley', _vnder_ 'under', _vuel_ (= _üvel_) 'evil', _loue_ 'love'. (Note that in XII the MS. distinction of _v_ and _u_ is not reproduced.)

(viii) So _i_, and its longer form _j_, are not distinguished as vowel and consonant. In this book _i_ is printed throughout, and so stands initially for the sound of our _j_ in _ioy_, _iuggement_, &c.

(ix) _c_ : _k_ for the sounds in _kit_, _cot_, are often interchangeable; but _k_ is preferred before palatal vowels _e_, _i_ (_y_); and _c_ before _o_, _u_. See the alliterating words in V 52, 107, 128, 153, 272, 283.

(x) _c_ : _s_ alternate for voiceless _s_, especially in French words: _sité_ 'city' VII 66, _resayue_ 'receive' V 8, _vyse_ 'vice' V 307, _falce_ V 314; but also in _race_ (ON. _rás_) V 8 beside _rase_ XVII 429.

(xi) _s_ : _z_ (_ȝ_) are both used for voiced _s_, the former predominating: _kyssedes_ beside _raȝteȝ_ V 283; _þouzond_ III 30 beside _þousend_ III 34. But _ȝ_ occasionally appears for voiceless _s_: _(aȝ-)leȝ_ 'awe-less' V 267, _forȝ_ 'force' 'waterfall' V 105.

(xii) _sh_ : _sch_ : _ss_ are all found for modern _sh_, OE. _sc_: _shuld_ I 50; _schert_ II 230; _sserte_ III 40; but _sal_ 'shall', _suld_ 'should' in Northern texts represent the actual Northern pronunciation in weakly stressed words.

(xiii) _v_ : _w_: In late Northern MSS. _v_ is often found for initial _w_: _vithall_ X 9, _Valter_ X 36. The interchange is less common in medial positions: _in swndir_ X 106.

(xiv) _wh-_ : _qu(h)-_ : _w-_ :—_wh-_ is a spelling for _hw-_. In the South the aspiration is weakened or lost, and _w_ is commonly written, e.g. VIII _b_. In the North the aspiration is strong, and the sound is spelt _qu(h)-_, e.g. _quhelis_ 'wheels' X 17. Both _qu-_ and _wh-_ are found in _Gawayne_. The development in later dialects is against the assumption that _hw-_ became _kw-_ in pronunciation.