CHAPTER V.

ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE--GERMANIC ELEMENTS.

s. 103. The population and, to a certain extent, the language of England, have been formed of three elements, which in the most general way may be expressed as follows:--

_a._ Elements referable to the original British population, and derived from times anterior to the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

_b._ Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, or imported elements.

_c._ Elements introduced since the Anglo-Saxon conquest.

s. 104. Each of these requires a special analysis, but that of the second will be taken first, and will form the contents of the present chapter.

All that we have at present learned concerning the Germanic invaders of England, is the geographical area which they wholly or partially occupied, and the tribes and nations with which they were conterminous whilst in Germany. How far, however, it was simple Saxons who conquered England single-handed, or how far the particular Saxon Germans were portions of a complex population, requires further investigation. Were the Saxons one division of the German population, whilst the Angles were another? or were the Angles a section of the Saxons, so that the latter was a generic term, including the former? Again, although the Saxon invasion may be the one which has had the greatest influence, and drawn the most attention, why may there not have been separate and independent migrations, the effects and record of which, have in the lapse of time, become fused with those of the more important divisions?

Questions like these require notice, and in a more advanced state of what may be called _minute ethnographical_ {62} _philology_ will obtain more of it than has hitherto been their share. At present our facts are few, and our methods of investigation imperfect.

s. 105. In respect to this last, it is necessary to distinguish between the opinions based on _external_, and the opinions based on _internal_ evidence. To the former class belong the testimonies of cotemporary records, or (wanting these) of records based upon transmitted, but cotemporary, evidence. To the latter belong the inferences drawn from similarity of language, name, and other ethnological _data_. Of such, a portion only will be considered in the present chapter; not that they have no proper place in it, but because the minuter investigation of an important section of these (_i.e._, the subject of the _English dialects_) will be treated as a separate subject elsewhere.

s. 106. _The Angles; who were they, and what was their relation to the Saxons?_--The first answer to this question embodies a great fact in the way of internal evidence, _viz._, that they were the people from whom _England_ derives the name it bears=_the Angle-land_, i.e., _land of the Angles_. Our language too is _English_, i.e., _Angle_. Whatever, then, they may have been on the Continent, they were a leading section of the invaders here. Why then has their position in our inquiries been hitherto so subordinate to that of the Saxons? It is because their definitude and preponderance are not so manifest in Germany as we infer (from the terms _England_ and _English_) it to have been in Britain. Nay more, their historical place amongst the nations of Germany, and within the German area, is both insignificant and doubtful; indeed, it will be seen from the sequel, that _in and of themselves_ we know next to nothing about them, knowing them only in their _relations_, _i.e._, to ourselves and to the Saxons. The following, however, are the chief facts that form the foundation for our inferences.

s. 107. Although they are the section of the immigration which gave the name to England, and as such, the preponderating element in the eyes of the present _English_, they were not so in the eyes of the original British; who neither knew at the time of the Conquest, nor know now, of any other name for their German enemies but _Saxon_. And _Saxon_ is the {63} name by which the present English are known to the Welsh, Armorican, and Gaelic Celts.

Welsh _Saxon_. Armorican _Soson_. Gaelic _Sassenach_.

s. 108. Although they are the section of the immigration which gave the name to _England_, &c., they were quite as little Angles as Saxons, in the eyes of foreign cotemporary writers; since the expression _Saxoniae trans-marinae_, occurs as applied to England.

s. 109. Although they are the section of the immigration which gave the name to _England_, &c., the material notice of them as Germans of Germany, are limited to the following facts.

_Extract from Tacitus._--This merely connects them with certain other tribes, and affirms the existence of certain religious ordinances common to them--

"Contra Langobardos paucitas nobilitat: plurimis ac valentissimis nationibus cincti, non per obsequium, sed proeliis et periclitando tuti sunt. Reudigni deinde, et Aviones, et _Angli_, et Varini, et Eudoses, et Suardones, et Nuithones, fluminibus aut silvis muniuntur: nec quidquam notabile in singulis, nisi quod in commune Herthum, id est, Terram matrem colunt, eamque intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis, arbitrantur. Est in insula Oceani castum nemus, dicatumque in eo vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse penetrali deam intelligit, vectamque bobus feminis mult[^a] cum veneratione prosequitur. Laeti tunc dies, festa loca, quaecumque adventu hospitioque dignatur. Non bella ineunt, non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum; pax et quies tunc tant[`u]m nota, tunc tant[`u]m amata, donec idem sacerdos satiatam conversatione mortalium deam templo reddat: mox vehiculum et vestes, et, si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant, quos statim idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit id, quod tant[`u]m perituri vident."[11]

_Extract from Ptolemy._--This connects the Angles with {64} the _Suevi_, and _Langobardi_, and places them on the Middle Elbe.

[Greek: Entos kai mesogeion ethnon megista men esti to, te ton Souebon ton Angeilon, hoi eisin anatolikoteroi ton Langobardon, anateinontes pros tas arktous mechri ton meson tou Albios potamou.]

_Extract from Procopius._--For this see s. 129.

_Heading of a law referred to the age of Charlemagne._--This connects them with the Werini (Varni), and the Thuringians--"Incipit lex _Angliorum_ et _Verinorum_ (_Varni_); hoc est _Thuringorum_."--Zeuss, 495, and Grimm. G.D.S.

s. 110. These notices agree in giving the Angles a German locality, and in connecting them ethnologically, and philologically with the Germans of Germany. The notices that follow, traverse this view of the question, by indicating a slightly different area, and Danish rather than German affinities.

_Extracts connecting them with the inhabitants of the Cimbric Peninsula._--_a._ The quotation from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of s. 16.

_b._ From Bede; "Porro de Anglis, hoc est illa patria, quae _Angulus_ dicitur, et ab eo tempore usque hodie, manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur."--Angl. i. 15.

_c._ From Alfred, "And be waestan eald Seaxum is Albe mudha thaere ea and Frisland. And thanon west nordh is thaet land, the man _Angle_, haet and Sillende, and summe dael Dena."[12]--Oros. p. 20.

Also, speaking of Other's voyage,[13] "He seglode to thaem porte the man haet Haethum; se stent betwuhs Winedum and Seaxum, and _Angle_, and hyrdh in on Dene ... and tha {65} twegen dagas aer he to Haedhum come, him waes on thaet steorbord Gothland and Sillende and iglanda fela. On thaem landum eardodon Engle, aer hi hidher on land comon."[14]--Oros. p. 23.

d. From Etherwerd, writing in the eleventh century--"_Anglia_ vetus sita est inter Saxones et Giotos, habens oppidum capitale, quod sermone Saxonico _Sleswic_ nuncupatur, secundum vero Danos _Hathaby_."[14]

s. 111. _The district called Angle._--The district of _Anglen_, so called (where it is mentioned at all) at the present moment, is a part of the Dutchy of Sleswick, which is literally an _Angle_; _i.e._, a triangle of irregular shape, formed by the Schlie, the Flensborger Fiord, and a line drawn from Flensborg to Sleswick; every geographical name in it being, at present, Danish, whatever it may have been previously. Thus some villages end in _bye_ (Danish=_town_) as Hus-_bye_, Herreds-_bye_, Ulse-_bye_, &c.; some in _gaard_ (=_house_), as _Oegaard_; whilst the other Danish forms are _skov_=_wood_ (_shaw_), _hofved_=_head_, _lund_=_grove_, &c. In short it has nothing to distinguish it from the other parts of the peninsula.

s. 112. Add to these the Danish expression, that _Dan_ and _Angul_ were brothers, as the exponent of a recognised relationship between the two populations, and we have a view of the evidence in favour of the Danish affinity.

s. 113. _Inferences and remarks._--_a._ That whilst the root _Angl-_ in Tacitus, Ptolemy, Procopius, and the Leges Anglorum, &c., is the name of a _people_, the root _Angl-_ in the _Anglen_ of Sleswick, is the name of a district; a fact which is further confirmed by the circumstance of there being in at least one other part of Scandinavia, a district with a similar name--"Hann ['a]tti bu a Halogolandi i _Aungli_."[14]--Heimskringla, iii. 454.

_b._ That the derivation of the _Angles_ of England from the _Anglen_ of Sleswick is an inference of the same kind with the one respecting the Jutes (see s. 20), made by the same writers, probably on the same principle, and most likely incorrectly.

_c._ That the Angles of England were the Angli of Tacitus, {66} Ptolemy, Procopius, and the Leges Anglorum et Werinorum, whatever these were.

s. 114. What were the _Langobardi_, with whom the Angles were connected by Tacitus? The most important facts to be known concerning them are, (1) that the general opinion is in favour of their having belonged to the _High_-German, or Moeso-Gothic division, rather than to the _Low_; (2) that their original locality either reached or lay beyond the Elbe; a locality, which, in the tenth century, was _Slavonic_, and which, in the opinion of the present writer, we have no reason to consider to have been other than Slavonic during the nine preceding ones.--That they were partially, at least, on this side of the Elbe, we learn from the following:--"Receptae Cauchorum nationes, fracti Langobardi, gens etiam Germanis feritate ferocior; denique usque ad flumen Albim ... Romanus cum signis perductus exercitus."[15]--Velleius Paterc. ii. 106.

s. 115. What were the _Suevi_, with whom the Angles were connected by Tacitus? The most important facts to be known concerning them are, (1) that the general opinion is in favour of their having belonged to the _High_-German or Moeso-Gothic, division, rather than to the _Low_; (2) that their original locality either reached or lay beyond the Elbe; a locality, which, in the tenth century, was _Slavonic_, and which, in the opinion of the present writer, we have no reason to consider to have been other than Slavonic during the nine preceding ones. In other words, what applies to the Langobardi applies to the Suevi also.

What the Suevi were, the Semnones were also, "Vetustissimos se nobilissimosque Suevorum Semnones memorant." Tac. Germ., 39. Speaking, too, of their great extension, he says, _centum pagi ab iis habitantur_.[15]

Velleius states that there were Suevi on the west of the Middle Elbe, Ptolemy, that there were Suevi to the east of it, _i.e._, as far as the River Suebus (Oder?).--[Greek: Kai to ton Souebon ton Semnonon, hoitines diekousi meta ton Albin apo tou eiremenou merous] {67} (the middle Elbe) [Greek: pros anatolas mechri tou Souebou potamou].[16]

In the letter of Theodeberht to the Emperor Justinian, we find the _North_-Suevians mentioned along with the Thuringians, as having been conquered by the Franks; "Subactis Thuringis ... _Norsavorum_ gentis nobis placata majestas colla subdidit."[16]

s. 116. What were the _Werini_, with whom the Angles were connected in the _Leges Anglorum et Werinorum_? Without having any particular _data_ for connecting the Werini (Varni, [Greek: Ouarnoi]) with either the High-German, or the Moeso-Gothic divisions, there are in favour of their being Slavonic in locality, the same facts as applied to the Suevi and Langobardi, with the additional one, that the name probably exists at present in the River _Warnow_, of Mecklenburg Schwerin, at the mouth of which (Warnemunde) the town of Rostock stands.

s. 117. What were the _Thuringians_, with whom the Angles are connected in the _Leges Anglorum_, &c.; Germanic in locality, and most probably allied to the Goths of Moesia in language.

s. 118. Of the Reudigni, Eudoses, Nuithones, Suardones, and Aviones, too little is known in detail to make the details an inquiry of importance. Respecting them all, it may be said at once, that whatever may be the Germanic affinities involved in their connection with the Suevi, Langobardi, Angli, &c., they are traversed by the fact of their locality being in the tenth century Slavonic.

s. 119. The last tribe which will be mentioned, is that of the _Angrarii_, most probably another form of the _Angrivarii_ of Tacitus, the name of the occupants of the valley of the Aller, the northern confluent of the Weser.

As this word is compound (-_varii_=_ware_=_inhabitants_), the root remains _Angr-_, a word which only requires the _r_ to become _l_ in order to make _Angl-_. As both the locality and the relation to the Saxons, make the _Angrivarian_ locality one of the best we could assume for the _Angles_, the only {68} difficulty lies in the change from _r_ to _l_. Unfortunately, this, in the Saxon-German, is an unlikely one.

s. 120. The last fact connected with the Angles, will be found in a more expanded form in the Chapter on the Dialects of the English Language. It relates to the distribution over the conquered parts of Britain. Their chief area was the Midland and Eastern counties, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, &c., rather than the parts south of the Thames, which were Saxon, and those north of the Wash, where Danish influences have been considerable.

s. 121. The reader has now got a general view of the extent to which the position of the Angles, as a German tribe, is complicated by conflicting statements; statements which connect them with (probably) _High_-German Thuringians, Suevi, and Langobardi, and with (probably) _Slavonic_ Varni, Eudoses, Suardones, &c.; whereas in England, they are scarcely distinguishable from the _Low_-German Saxons. In the present state of our knowledge, the only safe fact seems to be, that of the common relation of both _Angle_ and Saxon, to the present _English_ of England.

This brings the two sections within a very close degree of affinity, and makes it probable, that just, as at present, descendants of the Saxons are English (_Angle_) in Britain, so, in the third and fourth centuries, ancestors of the Angles were Saxons in Germany. Why, however, the one name preponderated on the Continent, and the other in England is difficult to ascertain.

s. 122. By considering the Angles as Saxons under another name (or _vice vers[^a]_), and by treating the statement as to the existence of Jutes in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight as wholly unhistorical, we get, as a general expression for the Anglo-Germanic immigration, that it consisted of the closely allied tribes of the North-Saxon area, an expression that implies a general uniformity of population. Is there reason to think that the uniformity was absolute?

s. 123. The following series of facts, when put together, will prepare us for a fresh train of reasoning concerning the different geographical and ethnological relations of the {69} immigrants into England, during their previous habitation in Germany.

1. The termination _-as_ is, like the _-s_ in the modern English, the sign of the plural number in Anglo-Saxon.

2. The termination _-ing_ denotes, _in the first instance_, a certain number of individuals collected together, and united with each other as a clan, tribe, family, household.

3. In doing this, it generally indicates a relationship of a _personal_ or _political_ character. Thus two _Baningas_ might be connected with each other, and (as such) indicated by the same term from any of the following causes--relationship, subordination to the same chief, origin from the same locality, &c.

4. Of these _personal_ connections, the one which is considered to be the commonest is that of _descent_ from a common ancestor, so that the termination _-ing_ in this case, is a real _patronymic_.

5. Such an ancestor need not be real; indeed, he rarely if ever is so. Like the _eponymus_ of the classical writers, he is the hypothetical, or mythological, progenitor of the clan, sept, or tribe, as the case may be; _i.e._, as Aeolus, Dorus, and Ion to the Aeolians, Dorians, and Ionians.

Now, by admitting these facts without limitation, and by applying them freely and boldly to the Germanic population of England, we arrive at the following inferences.

1. That where we meet two (or more) households, families, tribes, clans, or septs of the same name (that name ending in _-ing_), in different parts of England, we may connect them with each other, either directly or indirectly; directly when we look on the second as an offset from the first; indirectly, when we derive both from some third source.

2. That when we find families, tribes, &c., of the same name, both in Britain and in Germany, we may derive the English ones from the continental.

Now neither of these views is hypothetical. On the contrary each is a real fact. Thus in respect to divisions of the population, designated by names ending in _-ing_, we have

1. In Essex, Somerset, and Sussex,--_Aestingas_.

2. In Kent, Dorset, Devonshire, and Lincoln,--_Alingas_. {70}

3. In Sussex, Berks, and Northamptonshire,--_Ardingas_.

4. In Devonshire, Gloucestershire, and Sussex,--_Arlingas_.

5. In Herts, Kent, Lincolnshire, and Salop,--_Baningas_.

6. In Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, and the Isle of Wight,--_Beadingas_.

7. In Kent, Devonshire, Lincolnshire, Herefordshire, Salop, and Somerset,--_Beringas_.

8. In Bedford, Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Salop, Sussex, and the Isle of Wight,--_Billingas_, &c.--the list being taken from Mr. Kemble, vol. i. p. 64.

s. 124. On the other hand, the following Anglo-Saxon names in _-ing_, reappear in different parts of Germany, sometimes in definite geographical localities, as the occupants of particular districts, sometimes as mentioned in poems without further notice.

1. _Waelsingas_,--as the Volsungar of the Iceland, and the Waelsingen of the German heroic legends.

2. _Herelingas_,--mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon poem known by the name of the Traveller's Song, containing a long list of the Gothic tribes, families, nations, &c.

3. _Brentingas._--Ibid.

4. _Scyldingas._--Ibid.

5. _Scylfingas._--Ibid.

6. _Ardingas._

7. _Baningas_, Traveller's Song, mentioned as the subjects of Becca.

8. _Helsingas._--Ibid.

9. _Myrgingas._--Ibid.

10. _Hundingas._--Ibid.

11. _Hocingas._--Ibid.

12. _Seringas._--Ibid.

13. _Dhyringas_=Thuringians. (?)

14. _Bleccingas._

15. _Gytingas._

16. _Scydingas._

17. _Dylingas._

s. 125. We will still, for argument's sake, and for the sake {71} of the illustration of an ethnological method, take these names along with the observations by which they were preceded, as if they were wholly unexceptionable; and, having done this, ask how far each is known as _German_. So doing, we must make two divisions:

_a._ Those which we have no reason to think other than Angle or Saxon.

_b._ Those which indicate elements of the migration other than Angle or Saxon.

s. 126. _Patronymics which do not necessarily denote a non-Saxon element._--Of these, the following are so little known, that they may pass as Saxons, simply because we have no grounds for thinking them aught else; the Brentings, Banings, Helsings, Serings, Ardings, Hundings, Blekings, Herelings, Gytings, Scydings, Dylings. The Scyldings and Scefings, belong, in a more positive way, to the Anglo-Saxon division; since their eponymi, Scyld and Sceaf, form a portion of the Anglo-Saxon mythology.

s. 127. _Patronymics indicating a non-Saxon, rather than a Saxon element._--_a._ The Waelsings--In the way of tradition and mythology, this is a _Frank_ gentile name.

_b._ The Myrgings.--_Ditto._ This is the German form of the Merovingians.

_c._ The Hocings.--This is the German form of the Chauci, and, as such, a Frisian gentile name.

d. The Dhyrings.--Perhaps Thuringians of Thuringia.

Thus, then, if we still assume that the method in question is unexceptionable, we have, from the evidence of what may be called either the _gentile forms_, or the _patronymics_ in _-ing_, reasons for believing that Frank _Myrgings_, Frisian _Hocings_, and Thuringian _Dhyrings_, formed part of the invasion--these, at least; possibly others besides.

And why should the reason be other than unexceptionable? Do we not in North America, believe, that, _as a general rule_, the families with particular names, coincide with the families so-called in England; that the names of certain places, _sometimes_, at least, indicate a population originating in places similarly designated here? that the Smiths and Johnstons {72} are English in origin, and that O'Connors and O'Neils are Irish? We certainly believe all this, and, in many cases, we believe it, on the ground of the identity of name only.

s. 128. _Exceptions._--Still there are exceptions. Of these the most important are as follows:--

1. The termination _-ing_ is sometimes added to an undoubtedly British root, so as to have originated within the island, rather than to have been brought from the continent, _e.g._, the _Kent-ings_=_the people of Kent_. In such a case, the similarity to a German name, if it exist at all, exists as an accident.

2. The same, or nearly the same, name may not only occur in different parts of one and the same division of the Germanic areas, but in different ones, _e.g._, the Dhyrings _may_ denote the Thuringians of Thuringia; but they may also denote the people of a district, or town, in Belgium, designated as _Dorringen_.[17]

Still as a method, the one in question should be understood; although it has been too short a time before the learned world to have borne fruit.

N.B.--What applies to the coincidence of _gentile_ or _patronymic_ names on the two sides of the water, applies also to dialects; _e.g._, if (say) the Kentish differed from the other dialects of England, just in the same way, and with the same peculiar words and forms, as (say) the Verden dialect differed from the ones of Germany, we might fairly argue, that it was from the district of Verden that the county of Kent is peopled. At present we are writing simply for the sake of illustrating certain philological methods. The question of dialect will be treated in Part VII.

s. 129. _German tribes where there is no direct evidence as to their having made part of the population of England, but where the _[`a] priori_ probabilities are strongly in their favour._ This applies to--_a._ The Batavians. No direct evidence, but great _[`a] priori_ probability.

_b._ _The Frisians._--Great _[`a] priori_ probability, and {73} something more; [Greek: Brittian de ten neson ethne tria poluanthropotata echousi, basileus te heis auton hekastoi ephesteken, onomata de keitai tois ethnesi toutois Angiloi te kai Phrissones kai hoi tei nesoi homonumoi Brittones. Tosaute de he tonde ton ethnon poluanthropia phainetai ousa hoste ana pan etos kata pollous enthende metanistamenoi xun gunaixi kai paisin es Phrangous chorousin].[18]--Procop. B. G. iv. 20.

s. 130. I believe, for my own part, there were portions in the early Germanic population of Britain, which were not strictly either Angle or Saxon (Anglo-Saxon); but I do this without thinking that it bore any great ratio to the remainder, and without even guessing at what that ratio was, or whereabouts its different component elements were located--the Frisians and Batavians being the most probable. With this view, there may have been Jutes as well; notwithstanding what has been said in ss. 16-20; since the reasoning there is not so against a Jute element _in toto_, as against that particular Jute element, in which Beda, Alfred, and the later writers believed and believe.

s. 131. No exception against the existence of Batavian, Frisian, Frank, and other elements not strictly Anglo-Saxon, is to be taken from the absence of traces of such in the present language, and that for the following reason. _Languages which differ in an older form may so far change according to a common principle, as to become identical in a newer one._ _E.g._, the Frisian infinitive in verbs ends in _-a_, (as _baerna_=_to burn_), the Saxon in _-an_ (as _baernan_=_to burn_). Here is a difference. Let, however, the same change affect both languages; that change being the abandonment, on both sides, of the infinitive termination altogether. What follows? even that the two originally different forms _baern-a_, and _baern-an_, both come out _baern_ (_burn_); so that the result is the same, though the original forms were different.

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