A History of the English Language

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A History of the English Language
Fifth Edition
Baugh and Cable’s A History of the English Language has long been considered the
standard work in the field.
A History of the English Language is a comprehensive exploration of the linguistic
and cultural development of English, from the Middle Ages to the present day. The book
provides students with a balanced and up-to-date overview of the history of the language.
The fifth edition has been revised and updated to keep students up to date with recent
developments in the field. Revisions include:
• a revised first chapter, ‘English present and future’
• a new section on gender issues and linguistic change
• updated material on African-American Vernacular English
A student supplement for this book is available, entitled Companion to A History of the
English Language.
Albert C.Baugh was Schelling Memorial Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Thomas Cable is Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor of English at the
University of Texas at Austin.

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THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND

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A History of the English Language
Fifth Edition
Albert C.Baugh and Thomas Cable

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First published 1951 by Routledge & Kegan Paul
Second edition 1959
Third edition 1978
Fourth edition published 1993 by Routledge
Authorized British edition from the English language edition, entitled A History of the English
Language, Fifth Edition by Albert C.Baugh and Thomas Cable, published by Pearson Education,
Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall, Inc.
Copyright © 2002 Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.”
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
from Routledge.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
ISBN 0-203-99463-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-28098-2 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-28099-0 (pbk)

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Contents
Preface
viii
1 English Present and Future
1
2 The Indo-European Family of Languages
16
3 Old English
38
4 Foreign Influences on Old English
67
5 The Norman Conquest and the Subjection of English, 1066–1200
98
6 The Reestablishment of English, 1200–1500
116
7 Middle English
146
8 The Renaissance, 1500–1650
187
9 The Appeal to Authority, 1650–1800
238
10 The Nineteenth Century and After
279
11 The English Language in America
331
Appendix A Specimens of the Middle English Dialects
387
Appendix B English Spelling
399
Index
406

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MAPS
The Counties of England
ii
The Home of the English
42
The Dialects of Old English
48
The Dialects of Middle English
178
The Dialects of American English
356
ILLUSTRATIONS
William Bullokar’s Booke At Large (1580)
196
The Editors of the New (Oxford) English Dictionary
321
Extract from the Oxford English Dictionary
323
The American Spelling Book of Noah Webster
353

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Preface
Before the present author ever became associated with Albert C.Baugh’s A History of the
English Language, several generations of teachers and students had appreciated its
enduring qualities. Not least of these, and often remarked upon, was the full attention
paid to the historical and cultural setting of the development of the language. This
original emphasis has made it possible for subsequent editions to include discussions of
current issues and varieties of English in ways that could not have been specifically
foreseen in 1935. The fifth edition continues this updating by expanding the sections on
African American Varnacular English and Hispanic American English, adding a section
on Gender Issues and Linguistic Change, and incorporating small changes throughout.
Once again global events have affected global English and necessitated revisions,
especially in the first and last chapters. Baugh’s original text was supported by footnotes
and bibliographies that not only acknowledged the sources of his narrative but also
pointed directions for further study and research. In each successive edition new
references have been added. To avoid documentary growth, sprawl, and incoherence by
simple accretion, the present edition eliminates a number of references that have clearly
been susperseded. At the same time it keeps many that might not usually be consulted by
students in order to give a sense of the foundations and progress of the study of the
subject.
In the first edition Baugh stated his aim as follows:
The present book, intended primarily for college students, aims to present
the historical development of English in such a way as to preserve a
proper balance between what may be called internal history—sounds and
inflections—and external history—the political, social, and intellectual
forces that have determined the course of that development at different
periods. The writer is convinced that the soundest basis for an
undersanding of present-day English and for an enlightened attitude
towards questions affecting the language today is a knowledge of the path
which it has pursued in becoming what it is. For this reason equal
attention has been paid to its earlier and its later stages.
As in previous editions, the original plan and purpose have not been altered.
The various developments of linguistic inquiry and theory during the half century after
the History’s original publication have made parts of its exposition seem to some readers
overly traditional. However, a history presented through the lens of a single theory is
narrow when the theory is current, and dated when the theory is superseded. Numerous
other histories of English have made intelligent use of a particular theory of phonemics,
or of a specific version of syntactic deep and surface structure, or of variable rules, or of
other ideas that have come and gone. There is nothing hostile to an overall linguistic

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theory or to new discoveries in Baugh’s original work, but its format allows the easy
adjustment of separable parts.
It is a pity that a new preface by convention loses the expression of thanks to
colleagues whose suggestions made the previous edition a better book. The fifth edition
has especially benefited from astute comments by Traugott Lawler and William
Kretzschmar. The author as ever is sustained by the cartoonist perspective of Carole
Cable, who he trusts will find nothing in the present effort to serve as grist for her gentle
satiric mill.
T.C.
A History of the English Language

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PHONETIC SYMBOLS
[a] in father
[a] in French la
in not in England (a sound between [a] and
)
[æ] in mat
[ε] in met
[e] in mate
[I] in sit
[i] in meat
in law
[o] in note
[U] in book
[u] in boot
[Λ] in but
[ə] in about
[y] in German für
[eI] in play
[oU] in so
[aI] in line
[aU] in house
in boy
[ŋ] in sing
[θ] in thin
[ð] in then
[š] in shoe
[ž] in azure
[j] in you

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[ ] enclose phonetic symbols and transcriptions.
: after a symbol indicates that the sound is long.
′ before a syllable indicates primary stress: [ə′bΛv] above.
In other than phonetic transcriptions ę and indicate open vowels, ẹ and ọ indicate
close vowels.
* denotes a hypothetical form.
> denotes ‘develops into’; <‘is derived from’.

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1
English Present and Future
1. The History of the English Language as a Cultural Subject.
It was observed by that remarkable twelfth-century chronicler Henry of Huntington that
an interest in the past was one of the distinguishing characteristics of humans as
compared with the other animals. The medium by which speakers of a language
communicate their thoughts and feelings to others, the tool with which they conduct their
business or the government of millions of people, the vehicle by which has been
transmitted the science, the philosophy, the poetry of the culture is surely worthy of
study. It is not to be expected that everyone should be a philologist or should master the
technicalities of linguistic science. But it is reasonable to assume that a liberally educated
person should know something of the structure of his or her language, its position in the
world and its relation to other tongues, the wealth of its vocabulary together with the
sources from which that vocabulary has been and is being enriched, and the complex
relationships among the many different varieties of speech that are gathered under the
single name of the English language. The diversity of cultures that find expression in it is
a reminder that the history of English is a story of cultures in contact during the past
1,500 years. It understates matters to say that political, economic, and social forces
influence a language. These forces shape the language in every aspect, most obviously in
the number and spread of its speakers, and in what is called “the sociology of language,”
but also in the meanings of words, in the accents of the spoken language, and even in the
structures of the grammar. The history of a language is intimately bound up with the
history of the peoples who speak it. The purpose of this book, then, is to treat the history
of English not only as being of interest to the specialized student but also as a cultural
subject within the view of all educated people, while including enough references to
technical matters to make clear the scientific principles involved in linguistic evolution.
2. Influences at Work on Language.
The English language of today reflects many centuries of development. The political and
social events that have in the course of English history so profoundly affected the English
people in their national life have generally had a recognizable effect on their language.
The Roman Christianizing of Britain in 597 brought England into contact with Latin
civilization and made significant additions to our vocabulary. The Scandinavian
invasions resulted in a considerable mixture of the two peoples and their languages. The
Norman Conquest made English for two centuries the language mainly of the lower
classes while the nobles and those associated with them used French on almost all
occasions. And when English once more regained supremacy as the language of all

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elements of the population, it was an English greatly changed in both form and
vocabulary from what it had been in 1066. In a similar way the Hundred Years’ War, the
rise of an important middle class, the Renaissance, the development of England as a
maritime power, the expansion of the British Empire, and the growth of commerce and
industry, of science and literature, have, each in their way, contributed to the
development of the language. References in scholarly and popular works to “Indian
English,” “Caribbean English,” “West African English,” and other regional varieties
point to the fact that the political and cultural history of the English language is not
simply the history of the British Isles and of North America but a truly international
history of quite divergent societies, which have caused the language to change and
become enriched as it responds to their own special needs.
3. Growth and Decay.
Moreover, English, like all other languages, is subject to that constant growth and decay
that characterize all forms of life. It is a convenient figure of speech to speak of
languages as living and as dead. Although we rarely think of language as something that
possesses life apart from the people who speak it, as we can think of plants or of animals,
we can observe in speech something like the process of change that characterizes the life
of living things. When a language ceases to change, we call it a dead language. Classical
Latin is a dead language because it has not changed for nearly 2,000 years. The change
that is constantly going on in a living language can be most easily seen in the vocabulary.
Old words die out, new words are added, and existing words change their meaning. Much
of the vocabulary of Old English has been lost, and the development of new words to
meet new conditions is one of the most familiar phenomena of our language. Change of
meaning can be illustrated from any page of Shakespeare. Nice in Shakespeare’s day
meant foolish; rheumatism signified a cold in the head. Less familiar but no less real is
the change of pronunciation. A slow but steady alteration, especially in the vowel sounds,
has characterized English throughout its history. Old English stān has become our stone;
cū has become cow. Most of these changes are so regular as to be capable of
classification under what are called “sound laws.” Changes likewise occur in the
grammatical forms of a language. These may be the result of gradual phonetic
modification, or they may result from the desire for uniformity commonly felt where
similarity of function or use is involved. The person who says I knowed is only trying to
form the past tense of this verb after the pattern of the past tense of so many verbs in
English. This process is known as the operation of analogy, and it may affect the sound
and meaning as well as the form of words. Thus it will be part of our task to trace the
influences that are constantly at work, tending to alter a language from age to age as
spoken and written, and that have brought about such an extensive alteration in English
as to make the English language of 1000 quite unintelligible to English speakers of 2000.
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4. The Importance of a Language.
It is natural for people to view their own first language as having intrinsic advantages
over languages that are foreign to them. However, a scientific approach to linguistic
study combined with a consideration of history reminds us that no language acquires
importance because of what are assumed to be purely internal advantages. Languages
become important because of events that shape the balance of power among nations.
These political, economic, technological, and military events may or may not reflect
favorably, in a moral sense, on the peoples and states that are the participants; and
certainly different parties to the events will have different interpretations of what is
admirable or not. It is clear, however, that the language of a powerful nation will acquire
importance as a direct reflection of political, economic, technological, and military
strength; so also will the arts and sciences expressed in that language have advantages,
including the opportunities for propagation. The spread of arts and sciences through the
medium of a particular language in turn reinforces the prestige of that language. Internal
deficits such as an inadequate vocabulary for the requirements at hand need not restrict
the spread of a language. It is normal for a language to acquire through various means,
including borrowing from other languages, the words that it needs. Thus, any language
among the 4,000 languages of the world could have attained the position of importance
that the half-dozen or so most widely spoken languages have attained if the external
conditions had been right. English, French, German, and Spanish are important languages
because of the history and influence of their populations in modern times; for this reason
they are widely studied outside the country of their use. Sometimes the cultural
importance of a nation has at some former time been so great that its language remains
important long after it has ceased to represent political, commercial, or other greatness.
Greek, for example, is studied in its classical form because of the great civilization
preserved and recorded in its literature; but in its modern form as spoken in Greece today
the Greek language does not serve as a language of wider communication.
5. The Importance of English.
In numbers of speakers as well as in its uses for international communication and in other
less quantifiable measures, English is one of the most important languages of the world.
Spoken by more than 380 million people in the United Kingdom, the United States, and
the former British Empire, it is the largest of the Western languages. English, however, is
not the most widely used native language in the world. Chinese, in its eight spoken
varieties, is known to 1.3 billion people in China alone. Some of the European languages
are comparable to English in reflecting the forces of history, especially with regard to
European expansion since the sixteenth century. Spanish, next in size to English, is
spoken by about 330 million people, Portuguese by 180 million, Russian by 175 million,
German by 110 million, French by 80 million native speakers (and a large number of
second-language speakers), Italian by 65 million. A language may be important as a
lingua franca in a country or region whose diverse populations would otherwise be
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unable to communicate. This is especially true in the former colonies of England and
France whose colonial languages have remained indispensable even after independence
and often in spite of outright hostility to the political and cultural values that the
European languages represent.
French and English are both languages of wider communication, and yet the changing
positions of the two languages in international affairs during the past century illustrate the
extent to which the status of a language depends on extralinguistic factors. It has been
said that English is recurringly associated with practical and powerful pursuits. Joshua
A.Fishman writes: “In the Third World (excluding former anglophone and francophone
colonies) French is considered more suitable than English for only one function: opera. It
is considered the equal of English for reading good novels or poetry and for personal
prayer (the local integrative language being widely viewed as superior to both English
and French in this connection). But outside the realm of aesthetics, the Ugly Duckling
reigns supreme.”
1
The ascendancy of English as measured by numbers of speakers in
various activities does not depend on nostalgic attitudes toward the originally English-
speaking people or toward the language itself. Fishman makes the point that English is
less loved but more used; French is more loved but less used. And in a world where
“econo-technical superiority” is what counts, “the real ‘powerhouse’ is still English. It
doesn’t have to worry about being loved because, loved or not, it works. It makes the
world go round, and few indeed can afford to ‘knock it.’”
2
If “econo-technical superiority” is what counts, we might wonder about the relative
status of English and Japanese. Although spoken by 125 million people in Japan, a
country that has risen to economic and technical dominance since World War II, the
Japanese language has yet few of the roles in international affairs that are played by
English or French. The reasons are rooted in the histories of these languages. Natural
languages are not like programming languages such as Fortran or LISP, which have
gained or lost international currency over a period of a decade or two. Japan went through
a two-century period of isolation from the West (between 1640 and 1854) during which
time several European languages were establishing the base of their subsequent
expansion.
6. The Future of the English Language.
The extent and importance of the English language today make it reasonable to ask
whether we cannot speculate as to the probable position it will occupy in the future. It is
admittedly hazardous to predict the future of nations; the changes during the present
century in the politics and populations of the developing countries have confounded
predictions of fifty years ago. Since growth in a language is primarily a matter of
population, the most important question to ask is which populations of the world will
1
Joshua A.Fishman, “Sociology of English as an Additional Language,” in The Other Tongue:
English across Cultures, ed. Braj B.Kachru (2nd ed., Urbana, IL, 1992), p. 23.
2
Fishman, p. 24.
A history of the english language 4

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increase most rapidly. Growth of population is determined by the difference between the
birth rate and the death rate and by international migration. The single most important
fact about current trends is that the Third World countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin
America have experienced a sharp drop in mortality during the twentieth century without
a corresponding drop in the birth rate. As a result, the population of these areas is
younger and growing faster than the population of the industrialized countries of Europe
and North America. The effect of economic development upon falling growth rates is
especially clear in Asia, where Japan is growing at a rate only slightly higher than that of
Europe, while southern Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh—is growing at a rate more
than twice as high. China is growing at a moderate rate, between that of Europe and
southern Asia, but with a population in excess of one billion, the absolute increase will be
very high. According to a recent United Nations analysis, by 2050 the United
States will be the only developed country among the world’s twenty most populous
nations, whereas in 1950 at least half of the top ten were industrial nations. The
population of the less developed countries is expected to grow from 4.9 billion in 2000 to
8.2 billion in 2050, while the more developed countries will hold at 1.2 billion.
3
India is
expected to replace China as the world’s most populous nation in half a century, with a
concomitant growth in Hindi and Bengali, already among the top five languages in the
world. The one demographic fact that can be stated with certainty is that the proportion of
the world’s population in the economically developed countries will shrink during the
next half century in comparison with the proportion in the presently developing countries.
Since most of the native speakers of English live in the developed countries, it can be
expected that this group will account for a progressively smaller proportion of the
world’s population. Counteracting the general trend somewhat is the exceptional situation
in the United States, the only country among the more developed ones that is growing at
slightly more than a replacement rate instead of actually declining.
If the future of a language were merely a matter of the number who speak it as a first
language, English would appear to be entering a period of decline after four centuries of
unprecedented expansion. What makes this prospect unlikely is the fact that English is
widely used as a second language and as a foreign language throughout the world. The
number of speakers who have acquired English as a second language with near native
fluency is estimated to be between 350 and 400 million. If we add to first and second
language speakers those who know enough English to use it more or less effectively as a
foreign language, the estimates for the total number of speakers range between one and
one and a half billion. In some of the developing countries that are experiencing the
greatest growth, English is one of the official languages, as it is in India, Nigeria, and the
Philippines. The situation is complex because of widely varying government policies that
are subject to change and that often do not reflect the actual facts (see § 229). Although
3
Barbara Crossette, “Against a Trend, U.S. Population Will Bloom, U.N. Says,” New York Times
(February 28, 2001), Section A, p. 6.
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there are concerted efforts to establish the vernaculars in a number of countries—Hindi in
India, Swahili in Tanzania, Tagalog in the Philippines—considerable forces run counter
to these efforts and impede the establishment of national languages. In some countries
English is a neutral language among competing indigenous languages, the establishment
of any one of which would arouse ethnic jealousies. In most developing countries
communications in English are superior to those in the vernacular languages. The
unavailability of textbooks in Swahili has slowed the effort to establish that language as
the language of education in Tanzania. Yet textbooks and other publications are readily
available in English, and they are produced by countries with the economic means to
sustain their vast systems of communications.
The complex interaction of these forces defies general statements of the present
situation or specific projections into the distant future. Among European languages it
seems likely that English, German, and Spanish will benefit from various developments.
The breakup of the Soviet Union and the increasing political and economic unification of
Western Europe are already resulting in the shifting fortunes of Russian and German. The
independent states of the former Soviet Union are unlikely to continue efforts to make
Russian a common language throughout that vast region, and the presence of a unified
Germany will reinforce the importance of the German language, which already figures
prominently as a language of commerce in the countries of Eastern Europe. The growth
of Spanish, as of Portuguese, will come mainly from the rapidly increasing population of
Latin America, while the growth in English will be most notable in its use throughout the
world as a second language. It is also likely that pidgin and creole varieties of English
will become increasingly widespread in those areas where English is not a first language.
7. English as a World Language.
That the world is fully alive to the need for an international language is evident from the
number of attempts that have been made to supply that need artificially. Between 1880
and 1907 fifty-three universal languages were proposed. Some of these enjoyed an
amazing, if temporary, vogue. In 1889 Volapük claimed nearly a million adherents.
Today it is all but forgotten. A few years later Esperanto experienced a similar vogue, but
interest in it now is kept alive largely by local groups and organizations. Apparently the
need has not been filled by any of the laboratory products so far created to fill it. And it is
doubtful if it ever can be filled in this way. An artificial language might serve some of the
requirements of business and travel, but no one has proved willing to make it the medium
of political, historical, or scientific thought, to say nothing of literature. The history of
language policy in the twentieth century makes it unlikely that any government will turn
its resources to an international linguistic solution that benefits the particular country only
indirectly. Without the support of governments and the educational institutions that they
control, the establishment of an artificial language for the world will be impossible.
Recent history has shown language policy continuing to be a highly emotional issue, the
language of a country often symbolizing its independence and nationalism.
The emotions that militate against the establishment of an artificial language work
even more strongly against the establishment of a single foreign language for
international communication. The official languages of the United Nations are English,
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French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. Since it is not to be expected that the
speakers of any of these six languages will be willing to subordinate their own language
to any of the other five, the question is rather which languages will likely gain
ascendancy in the natural course of events. Two centuries ago French would have
appeared to have attained an undisputed claim to such ascendancy. It was then widely
cultivated throughout Europe as the language of polite society, it was the diplomatic
language of the world, and it enjoyed considerable popularity in literary and scientific
circles. During the nineteenth century its prestige, though still great, gradually declined.
The prominence of Germany in all fields of scientific and scholarly activity made
German a serious competitor. Now more scientific research is probably published in
English than in any other language, and the preeminence of English in commercial use is
undoubted. The revolution in communications during the twentieth century has
contributed to the spread of several European languages, but especially of English
because of major broadcasting and motion picture industries in the United States and
Great Britain. It will be the combined effect of economic and cultural forces such as
these, rather than explicit legislation by national or international bodies, that will
determine the world languages of the future.
Since World War II, English as an official language has claimed progressively less
territory among the former colonies of the British Empire while its actual importance and
number of speakers have increased rapidly. At the time of the first edition of this history
(1935), English was the official language of one-fourth of the earth’s surface, even if only
a small fraction of the population in parts of that area actually knew English. As the
colonies gained independence, English continued to be used alongside the vernaculars. In
many of the new countries English is either the primary language or a necessary second
language in the schools, the courts, and business. The extent of its use varies with
regional history and current government policy, although stated policy often masks the
actual complexities. In Uganda, for example, where no language is spoken as a first
language by more than 16 percent of the population, English is the one official language;
yet less than one percent of the population speaks it as a first language. In India, English
was to serve transitional purposes only until 1965, but it continues to be used officially
with Hindi and fourteen other national languages. In Tanzania, Swahili is the one official
language, but English is still indispensable in the schools and the high courts. It is
nowhere a question of substituting English for the native speech. Nothing is a matter of
greater patriotic feeling than the mother tongue. The question simply concerns the use of
English, or some other widely known idiom, for inter-national communication. Braj
B.Kachru notes that it is a clear fact of history that English is in a position of
unprecedented power: “Where over 650 artificial languages have failed, English has
succeeded; where many other natural languages with political and economic power to
back them up have failed, English has succeeded. One reason for this dominance of
English is its propensity for acquiring new identities, its power of assimilation, its
adaptability for ‘decolonization’ as a language, its manifestation in a range of varieties,
and above all its suitability as a flexible medium for literary and other types of creativity
across languages and cultures.”
4
Kachru left open the question of whether the cultures
4
Braj B.Kachru, “The Sacred Cows of English,” English Today, 16 (1988), 8.
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and other languages of the world are richer or poorer because of “the global power and
hegemony of English,” and he called for a full discussion of the question.
Recent awareness of “endangered languages” and a new sensitivity to ecolinguistics
have made clear that the success of English brings problems in its wake. The world is
poorer when a language dies on average every two weeks. For native speakers of English
as well, the status of the English language can be a mixed blessing, especially if the great
majority of English speakers remain monolingual. Despite the dominance of English in
the European Union, a British candidate for an international position may be at a
disadvantage compared with a young EU citizen from Bonn or Milan or Lyon who is
nearly fluent in English. Referring to International English as “Global,” one observer
writes: “The emergence of Global is not an unqualified bonus for the British… for while
we have relatively easy access to Global, so too do well-educated mainland Europeans,
who have other linguistic assets besides.”
5
A similarly mixed story complicates any assessment of English in the burgeoning field
of information technology. During the 1990s the explosive growth of the Internet was
extending English as a world language in ways that could not have been foreseen only a
few years earlier. The development of the technology and software to run the Internet
took place in the United States, originally as ARPANET (the Advanced Research Project
Agency Network), a communication system begun in 1969 by the U.S. Department of
Defense in conjunction with military contractors and universities. In 2000 English was
the dominant language of the Internet, with more than half of the Internet hosts located in
the United States and as many as three-fourths in the United States and other English-
speaking countries. The protocols by which ASCII code was transmitted were developed
for the English alphabet, and the writing systems for languages such as Japanese,
Chinese, and Korean presented formidable problems for use on the World Wide Web.
The technology that made knowledge of English essential also facilitated online English-
language instruction in countries such as China, where demand for English exceeds the
available teachers. However, changes in the Internet economy are so rapid that it is
impossible to predict the future of English relative to other languages in this global
system. It is increasingly clear that online shoppers around the world prefer to use the
Internet in their own language and that English-language sites in the United States have
lost market share to local sites in other countries. In September 2000 Bill Gates predicted
that English would be the language of the Web for the next ten years because accurate
computerized translation would be more than a decade away. Yet four months later China
announced the world’s first Chinese-English Internet browser with a reported translation
accuracy of 80 percent.
6
8. Assets and Liabilities.
Because English occupies such a prominent place in international communication, it is
worth pausing to consider some of the features that figure prominently in learning
English as a foreign language. Depending on many variables in the background of the
5
Michael Toolan, “Linguistic Assets,” English Today, 15.2 (April 1999), 29.
6
AP Online, 12 September 2000; Xinhua News Agency, 15 January 2001.
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learner, some of these features may facilitate the learning of English, and others may
make the effort more difficult. All languages are adequate for the needs of their culture,
and we may assume without argument that English shares with the other major languages
of Europe the ability to express the multiplicity of ideas and the refinements of thought
that demand expression in our modern civilization. The question is rather one of
simplicity. How readily can English be learned by the non-native speaker? Does it
possess characteristics of vocabulary and grammar that render it easy or difftcult to
acquire? To attain a completely objective view of one’s own language is no simple
matter. It is easy to assume that what we in infancy acquired without sensible difficulty
will seem equally simple to those attempting to learn it in maturity. For most of us,
learning any second language requires some effort, and some languages seem harder than
others. The most obvious point to remember is that among the many variables in the
difficulty of learning a language as an adult, perhaps the most important is the closeness
of the speaker’s native language to the language that is being learned. All else equal,
including the linguistic skill of the individual learner, English will seem easier to a native
speaker of Dutch than to a native speaker of Korean.
Linguists are far from certain how to measure complexity in a language. Even after
individual features have been recognized as relatively easy or difficult to learn, the
weighting of these features within a single language varies according to the theoretical
framework assumed. In an influential modern theory of language, the determination of
the difficulty of specific linguistic structures falls within the study of “markedness,”
which in turn is an important part of “universal grammar,” the abstract linguistic
principles that are innate for all humans. By this view, the grammar of a language
consists of a “core,” the general principles of the grammar, and a “periphery,” the more
marked structures that result from historical development, borrowing, and other processes
that produce “parameters” with different values in different languages.
7
One may think
that the loss of many inflections in English, as discussed in § 10, simplifies the language
and makes it easier for the learner. However, if a result of the loss of inflections is an
increase in the markedness of larger syntactic structures, then it is uncertain whether the
net result increases or decreases complexity.
It is important to emphasize that none of the features that we are considering here has
had anything to do with bringing about the prominence of English as a global language.
The ethnographic, political, economic, technological, scientific, and cultural forces
discussed above have determined the international status of English, which would be the
same even if the language had had a much smaller lexicon and eight inflectional cases for
nouns, as Indo-European did. The inflections of Latin did nothing to slow its spread when
the Roman legions made it the world language that it was for several centuries.
7
See Vivian J.Cook, “Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and Second Language Learning,” Applied
Linguistics, 6 (1985), 2–18, and her Second Language Learning and Language Teaching (2nd ed.,
London, 1996).
English present and future 9

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9. Cosmopolitan Vocabulary.
One of the most obvious characteristics of Present-day English is the size and mixed
character of its vocabulary. English is classified as a Germanic language. That is to say, it
belongs to the group of languages to which German, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Swedish,
and Norwegian also belong. It shares with these languages similar grammatical structure
and many common words. On the other hand, more than half of its vocabulary is derived
from Latin. Some of these borrowings have been direct, a great many through French,
some through the other Romance languages. As a result, English also shares a great
number of words with those languages of Europe that are derived from Latin, notably
French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. All of this means that English presents a
somewhat familiar appearance to anyone who speaks either a Germanic or a Romance
language. There are parts of the language which one feels one does not have to learn, or
learns with little effort. To a lesser extent the English vocabulary contains borrowings
from many other languages. Instead of making new words chiefly by the combination of
existing elements, as German does, English has shown a marked tendency to go outside
its own linguistic resources and borrow from other languages. In the course of centuries
of this practice English has built up an unusual capacity for assimilating outside elements.
We do not feel that there is anything “foreign” about the words chipmunk, hominy,
moose, raccoon, and skunk, all of which we have borrowed from the Native American.
We are not conscious that the words brandy, cruller, landscape, measles, uproar, and
wagon are from Dutch. And so with many other words in daily use. From Italian come
balcony, canto, duet, granite, opera, piano, umbrella, volcano; from Spanish, alligator,
cargo, contraband, cork, hammock, mosquito, sherry, stampede, tornado, vanilla; from
Greek, directly or indirectly, acme, acrobat, anthology, barometer, catarrh, catastrophe,
chronology, elastic, magic, tactics, tantalize, and a host of others; from Russian, steppe,
vodka, ruble, troika, glasnost, perestroika; from Persian, caravan, dervish, divan, khaki,
mogul, shawl, sherbet, and ultimately from Persian jasmine, paradise, check, chess,
lemon, lilac, turban, borax, and possibly spinach. A few minutes spent in the
examination of any good etymological dictionary will show that English has borrowed
from Hebrew and Arabic, Hungarian, Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Malay, Chinese, the
languages of Java, Australia, Tahiti, Polynesia, West Africa, and from one of the
aboriginal languages of Brazil. And it has assimilated these heterogeneous elements so
successfully that only the professional student of language is aware of their origin.
Studies of vocabulary acquisition in second language learning support the impression that
many students have had in studying a foreign language: Despite problems with faux
amis—those words that have different meanings in two different languages—cognates
generally are learned more rapidly and retained longer than words that are unrelated to
A history of the english language 10

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words in the native language lexicon.
8
The cosmopolitan vocabulary of English with its
cognates in many languages is an undoubted asset.
10. Inflectional Simplicity.
A second feature that English possesses to a preeminent degree is inflectional simplicity.
Within the Indo-European family of languages, it happens that the oldest, classical
languages—Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin—have inflections of the noun, the adjective, the
verb, and to some extent the pronoun that are no longer found in modern languages such
as Russian or French or German. In this process of simplifying inflections English has
gone further than any other language in Europe. Inflections in the noun as spoken have
been reduced to a sign of the plural and a form for the possessive case. The elaborate
Germanic inflection of the adjective has been completely eliminated except for the simple
indication of the comparative and the superlative degrees. The verb has been simplified
by the loss of practically all the personal endings, the almost complete abandonment of
any distinction between the singular and the plural, and the gradual discard of the
subjunctive mood. The complicated agreements that make German difficult for the non-
native speaker are absent from English.
It must not be thought that these developments represent a decay of grammar on the
one hand or a Darwinian evolution toward progress, simplicity, and efficiency on the
other. From the view of a child learning a first language, these apparent differences in
complexity seem to matter not at all. As Hans H. Hock and Brian D.Joseph put it, “the
speakers of languages such as English are quite happy without all those case endings,
while speakers of modern ‘case-rich’ language such as Finnish or Turkish are just as
happy with them.”
9
However, it is worth trying to specify, as ongoing research in second
language acquisition is doing, those features that facilitate or complicate the learning of
English by adult speakers of various languages. To the extent that the simplification of
English inflections does not cause complications elsewhere in the syntax, it makes the
task easier for those learning English as a foreign language.
11. Natural Gender.
English differs from all other major European languages in having adopted natural (rather
than grammatical) gender. In studying other European languages the student must learn
8
See Gunilla M.Andeman and Margaret A.Rogers, Words, Words, Words: The Translator and the
Language Learner, especially Paul Meara, “The Classical Research in L2 Vocabulary Acquisition,”
pp. 27–40, and Peter Newmark, “Looking at English Words in Translation,” pp. 56–62 (Clevedon,
UK, 1996). See also John Holmes and Rosinda G.Ramos, “False Friends and Reckless Guessers:
Observing Cognate Recognition Strategies,” in Second Language Reading and Vocabulary
Learning, ed. Thomas Huckin, Margot Haynes, and James Coady (Norwood, NY, 1993), pp. 86–
108.
9
Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship (Berlin, 1996), p. 144.
English present and future 11

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both the meaning of every noun and also its gender. In the Romance languages, for
example, there are only two genders, and all nouns that would be neuter in English are
there either masculine or feminine. Some help in these languages is afforded by
distinctive endings that at times characterize the two classes. But even this aid is lacking
in the Germanic languages, where the distribution of the three genders appears to the
English student to be quite arbitrary. Thus in German sonne (sun) is feminine, mond
(moon) is masculine, but kind (child), mädchen (maiden), and weib (wife) are neuter. The
distinction must be constantly kept in mind, since it not only affects the reference of
pronouns but also determines the form of inflection and the agreement of adjectives. In
the English language all this was stripped away during the Middle English period, and
today the gender of every noun in the dictionary is known instantly. Gender in
English is determined by meaning. All nouns naming living creatures are masculine or
feminine according to the sex of the individual, and all other nouns are neuter.
12. Liabilities.
The three features just described are undoubtedly of great advantage in facilitating the
acquisition of English by non-native speakers. On the other hand, it is equally important
to recognize the difficulties that the foreign student encounters in learning our language.
One of these difficulties is the result of that very simplification of inflections which we
have considered among the assets of English. It is the difficulty, of which foreigners often
complain, of expressing themselves not only logically, but also idiomatically. An idiom is
a form of expression peculiar to one language, and English is not alone in possessing
such individual forms of expression. All languages have their special ways of saying
things. Thus a German says was für ein Mann (what for a man) whereas in English we
say what kind of man; the French say il fait froid (it makes cold) whereas we say it is
cold. The mastery of idioms depends largely on memory. The distinction between My
husband isn’t up yet and My husband isn’t down yet or the quite contradictory use of the
word fast in go fast and stand fast seems to the foreigner to be without reasonable
justification. It is doubtful whether such idiomatic expressions are so much more
common in English than in other languages—for example, French—as those learning
English believe, but they undoubtedly loom large in the minds of nonnative speakers.
A more serious criticism of English by those attempting to master it is the chaotic
character of its spelling and the frequent lack of correlation between spelling and
pronunciation. Writing is merely a mechanical means of recording speech. And
theoretically the most adequate system of spelling is that which best combines simplicity
with consistency. In alphabetic writing an ideal system would be one in which the same
sound was regularly represented by the same character and a given character always
represented the same sound. None of the European languages fully attains this high ideal,
although many of them, such as Italian or German, come far nearer to it than English. In
English the vowel sound in believe, receive, leave, machine, be, see, is in each case
represented by a different spelling. Conversely the symbol a in father, hate, hat, and
many other words has nearly a score of values. The situation is even more confusing in
A history of the english language 12

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our treatment of the consonants. We have a dozen spellings for the sound of sh: shoe,
sugar, issue, nation, suspicion, ocean, nauseous, conscious, chaperon, schist, fuchsia,
pshaw. This is an extreme case, but there are many others only less disturbing, and it
serves to show how far we are at times from approaching the ideal of simplicity and
consistency.
We shall consider in another place the causes that have brought about this diversity.
We are concerned here only with the fact that one cannot tell how to spell an English
word by its pronunciation or how to pronounce it by its spelling. English-speaking
children undoubtedly waste much valuable time during the early years of their education
in learning to spell their own language, and to the foreigner our spelling is appallingly
difficult. To be sure, it is not without its defenders. There are those who emphasize the
useful way in which the spelling of an English word often indicates its etymology. Again,
a distinguished French scholar has urged that since we have preserved in thousands of
borrowed words the spelling that those words have in their original language, the
foreigner is thereby enabled more easily to recognize the word. It has been further
suggested that the very looseness of our orthography makes less noticeable in the written
language the dialectal differences that would be revealed if the various parts of the
English-speaking world attempted a more phonetic notation on the basis of their local
pronunciation. And some phonologists have argued that this looseness permits an
economy in representing words that contain predictable phonological alternants of the
same morphemes (e.g., divinedivinity, crimecriminal). But in spite of these
considerations, each of which is open to serious criticism, it seems as though some
improvement might be effected without sacrificing completely the advantages claimed.
That such improvement has often been felt to be desirable is evident from the number of
occasions on which attempts at reform have been made. In the early part of the twentieth
century a movement was launched, later supported by Theodore Roosevelt and other
influential people, to bring about a moderate degree of simplification (see § 231). It was
suggested that since we wrote has and had we could just as well write hav instead of
have, and in the same way ar and wer since we wrote is and was. But though logically
sound, these spellings seemed strange to the eye, and the advantage to be gained from the
proposed simplifications was not sufficient to overcome human conservatism or
indifference or force of habit. It remains to be seen whether the extension of English in
the future will some day compel us to consider the reform of our spelling from an
impersonal and, indeed, international point of view. For the present, at least, we do not
seem to be ready for simplified spelling.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
An influential introduction to the study of language, and still valuable, is Leonard Bloomfield,
Language (New York, 1933). Classic works by other founders of modern linguistics are Edward
Sapir, Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (New York, 1921); Otto Jespersen,
Language, Its Nature, Development and Origin (New York, 1922); and Ferdinand de Saussure,
Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics), ed. C.Bally et al., trans. Wade
Baskin (New York, 1959). Among the many general works that incorporate recent linguistic
advances, see especially Victoria A.Fromkin and Robert Rodman, An Introduction to Language
(6th ed., New York, 1998). Of great historical importance and permanent value is Hermann
English present and future 13

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Paul’s Principien der Sprachgeschichte, trans. H.A.Strong under the title Principles of the
History of Language (rev. ed., London, 1891). Introductions to historical linguistics include
Winfred Lehmann, Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (3rd ed., New York, 1992); Raimo
Anttila, An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics (2nd ed., Amsterdam, 1989);
Hans Henrich Hock and Brian D.Joseph, Language History, Language Change, and Language
Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics (Berlin, 1996); and
Lyle Campbell, Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (Cambridge, MA, 1999). For
applications of linguistic theory to traditional diachronic issues, see Robert D.King, Historical
Linguistics and Generative Grammar (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1969); Elizabeth C.Traugott, A
History of English Syntax (New York, 1972); David Lightfoot, Principles of Diachronic Syntax
(Cambridge, UK, 1979) and his How to Set Parameters: Arguments from Language Change
(Cambridge, MA, 1991). Sociolinguistic applications to historical problems figure prominently
in Suzanne Romaine, Socio-historical Linguistics: Its Status and Methodology (Cambridge, UK,
1982); Jean Aitchison, Language Change: Progress or Decay? (2nd ed., Cambridge, UK,
1991); James Milroy, Linguistic Variation and Change: On the Historical Sociolinguistics of
English (Oxford, 1992); and Tim William Machan and Charles T.Scott, eds., English in Its
Social Contexts: Essays in Historical Sociolinguistics (New York, 1992). The advanced student
may consult Henry M.Hoenigswald, Language Change and Linguistic Reconstruction (Chicago,
1960); Hans Henrich Hock’s Principles of Historical Linguistics (2nd ed., Berlin, 1991); and
Roger Lass, Historical Linguistics and Language Change (Cambridge, UK, 1997). A clear
overview of how grammatical forms arise from lexical items is by Paul J.Hopper and Elizabeth
Closs Traugott, Grammaticalization (Cambridge, UK, 1993). H.Pedersen’s Linguistic Science in
the Nineteenth Century, trans. John W.Spargo (Cambridge, MA, 1931; reprinted as The
Discovery of Language, 1962) gives an illuminating account of the growth of comparative
philology; a briefer record will be found in Book I of Jespersen’s Language. A concise history
of linguistic study is R.H.Robins, A Short History of Linguistics (3rd ed., London, 1990), and a
generally excellent survey of both the study and substance of linguistics is Frederick
J.Newmeyer, ed., Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey (4 vols., Cambridge, UK, 1988).
Statistics on the number of people speaking the languages of the world may be found in
Ethnologue: Languages of the World, ed. Barbara F.Grimes (14th ed., 2 vols., Dallas, 2000),
and at the website, www.sil.org/ethnologue. Since the spread of English is largely a matter of
population, the question of population growth is of importance. For current statistics and
bibliography, see the quarterly journal Population Index (Office of Population Research,
Princeton) and Statistical Yearbook and Demographic Yearbook, both published by the United
Nations. On the cosmopolitan character of the English vocabulary, see Mary S.Serjeantson, A
History of Foreign Words in English (London, 1935).
Two valuable reference works for the English language are Tom McArthur, ed., The Oxford
Companion to the English Language (Oxford, 1992) and David Crystal, The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of the English Language (Cambridge, UK, 1995). English as a world language has
received perhaps more scholarly and popular attention during the past three decades than any
other topic. A readable introduction is by David Crystal, English as a Global Language
(Cambridge, UK, 1997), who has also written on endangered languages in Language Death
(Cambridge, UK, 2000). Implications and points of view are summarized by Tom McArthur,
The English Languages (Cambridge, UK, 1998) and presented in essays in World Englishes
2000, ed. Larry E. Smith and Michael L.Forman (Honolulu, 1997). For detailed descriptions of
the worldwide varieties, see the essays in the following collections: Richard W.Bailey and
Manfred Görlach, eds. English as a World Language (Ann Arbor, MI, 1982); John B.Pride, ed.,
New Englishes (Rowley, MA, 1982); John Platt, H.Weber, and H.M. Lian, The New Englishes
(London, 1984); Braj B.Kachru, ed., The Other Tongue: English across Cultures (2nd ed.,
Urbana, IL, 1992); and Edgar W.Schneider, ed., Englishes around the World (2 vols.,
Amsterdam, 1997). Three periodicals treat the subject: English World-Wide, English Today, and
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World Englishes. For additional studies of national and areal varieties and on pidgins and
creoles, see the references in Chapter 10.
For a historical overview of the tradition of English language study, see Helmut Gneuss, Die
Wissenschaft von der englischen Sprache: Ihre Entwicklung bis zum Ausgang des 19
Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1990). Among the better known older histories of English the following
may be listed: G.P.Marsh, Lectures on the English Language (1860; rev. ed., New York, 1885),
and The Origin and History of the English Language (1862; rev. ed., New York, 1885);
T.R.Lounsbury, A History of the English Language (2nd ed., New York, 1894); O.F.Emerson,
The History of the English Language (New York, 1894); Henry Bradley, The Making of English
(1904; rev. Bergen Evans and Simeon Potter, New York, 1967); Otto Jespersen, Growth and
Structure of the English Language (1905; 10th ed., Oxford, 1982); H.C.Wyld, The Historical
Study of the Mother Tongue (New York, 1906), and A Short History of English (1914; 3rd ed.,
London, 1927); G.P.Krapp, Modern English, Its Growth and Present Use (1909; rev.
A.H.Marckwardt, New York, 1969); René Huchon, Histoire de la langue anglaise (2 vols.,
Paris, 1923–1930); and G.H.McKnight, Modern English in the Making (New York, 1928;
reprinted as The Evolution of the English Language, 1968). Among the numerous later titles,
which may readily be found in bibliographies and publishers’ catalogues, note especially
Barbara M.J.Strang, A History of English (London, 1970); Thomas Pyles and John Algeo, The
Origins and Development of the English Language (4th ed., New York, 1993); and
C.M.Millward, A Biography of the English Language (2nd ed., New York, 1996). A six-volume
Cambridge History of the English Language, edited by Richard Hogg (Cambridge, UK, 1992–)
is now complete except for the final volume. The history of English syntax receives its most
impressive documentation in F.T.Visser, An Historical Syntax of the English Language (3 vols.,
Leiden, Netherlands, 1963–1973). Such compendiums of data are now increasingly
computerized, as in the ambitious project at the University of Helsinki described in essays
edited by M.Rissanen, M.Kytö, and M.Palander-Collin, Early English in the Computer Age:
Explorations through the Helsinki Corpus (Berlin, 1993). For all references prior to 1923, the
student should consult the invaluable Bibliography of Writings on the English Language by
Arthur G.Kennedy (Cambridge and New Haven, 1927) supplemented by R.C.Alston, A
Bibliography of the English Language…to the Year 1800 (Leeds, UK, 1965–1987). The most
complete record of current publications is the Bibliographie linguistique des années 1939–1947
(2 vols., Utrecht-Brussels, 1949–1950) and its annual supplements, published with the support
of UNESCO. See also the annual bibliography of the Modern Language Association (vol. 3,
Linguistics) and Jacek Fisiak’s selective and convenient Bibliography of Writings for the
History of the English Language (2nd ed., Berlin, 1987).
English present and future 15

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2
The Indo-European Family of Languages
13. Language Constantly Changing.
In the mind of the average person language is associated with writing and calls up a
picture of the printed page. From Latin or French as we meet it in literature we get an
impression of something uniform and relatively fixed. We are likely to forget that writing
is only a conventional device for recording sounds and that language is primarily speech.
Even more important, we tend to forget that the Latin of Cicero or the French of Voltaire
is the product of centuries of development and that language as long as it lives and is in
actual use is in a constant state of change.
Speech is the product of certain muscular movements. The sounds of language are
produced by the passage of a current of air through cavities of the throat and face
controlled by the muscles of these regions. Any voluntary muscular movement when
constantly repeated is subject to gradual alteration. This is as true of the movements of
the organs of speech as of any other parts of the body, and the fact that this alteration
takes place largely without our being conscious of it does not change the fact or lessen its
effects. Now any alteration in the position or action of the organs of speech results in a
difference in the sound produced. Thus each individual is constantly and quite
unconsciously introducing slight changes in his or her speech. There is no such thing as
uniformity in language. Not only does the speech of one community differ from that of
another, but the speech of different individuals of a single community, even different
members of the same family, also is marked by individual peculiarities. Members of a
group, however, are influenced by one another, and there is a general similarity in the
speech of a given community at any particular time. The language of any district or even
country is only the sum total of the individual speech habits of those composing it and is
subject to such changes as occur in the speech of its members, so far as the changes
become general or at least common to a large part of it.
Although the alteration that is constantly going on in language is for the most part
gradual and of such nature as often to escape the notice of those in whose speech it is
taking place, after a period of time the differences that grow up become appreciable. If
we go back to the eighteenth century we find Alexander Pope writing
Good-nature and good-sense must even join;
To err is human, to forgive, divine….
where it is apparent that he pronounced join as jine. Again he writes

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Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes Tea.
It is demonstrable that he pronounced tea as tay. Elsewhere he rhymes full—rule; give—
believe; glass—place; ear—repair; lost—boast; thought—fault; obliged—besieged;
reserve—starve. Since Pope’s time the pronunciation of at least one in each of these pairs
has changed so that they are no longer considered good rhymes. If we go back to
Chaucer, or still further, to King Alfred (871–899), we find still greater differences. King
Alfred said bān (bone), hū (how), hēah (high); in fact all the long vowels of his
pronunciation have undergone such change as to make the words in which they occur
scarcely recognizable to the typical English-speaking person today.
14. Dialectal Differentiation.
As previously remarked, where constant communication takes place among the people
speaking a language, individual differences become merged in the general speech of the
community, and a certain conformity prevails. But if any separation of one community
from another takes place and lasts for a considerable length of time, differences grow up
between them. The differences may be slight if the separation is slight, and we have
merely local dialects. On the other hand, they may become so considerable as to render
the language of one district unintelligible to the speakers of another. In this case we
generally have the development of separate languages. Even where the differentiation has
gone so far, however, it is usually possible to recognize a sufficient number of features
which the resulting languages still retain in common to indicate that at one time they
were one. It is easy to perceive a close kinship between English and German. Milch and
milk, brot and bread, fleisch and flesh, wasser and water are obviously only words that
have diverged from a common form. In the same way a connection between Latin and
English is indicated by such correspondences as pater with English father, or frāter with
brother, although the difference in the initial consonants tends somewhat to obscure the
relationship. When we notice that father corresponds to Dutch vader, Gothic fadar, Old
Norse faðir, German vater, Greek patēr, Sanskrit pitar-, and Old Irish athir (with loss of
the initial consonant), or that English brother corresponds to Dutch broeder, German
bruder, Greek phrātēr, Sanskrit bhrātar-, Old Slavic bratŭ, Irish brathair, we are led to
the hypothesis that the languages of a large part of Europe and part of Asia were at one
time identical.
15. The Discovery of Sanskrit.
The most important discovery leading to this hypothesis was the recognition that
Sanskrit, a language of ancient India, was one of the languages of the group. This was
first suggested in the latter part of the eighteenth century and fully established by the
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beginning of the nineteenth.
1
The extensive literature of India, reaching back further than
that of any of the European languages, preserves features of the common language much
older than most of those of Greek or Latin or German. It is easier, for example, to see the
resemblance between the English word brother and the Sanskrit bhrātar-than between
brother and frāter. But what is even more important, Sanskrit preserves an unusually full
system of declensions and conjugations by which it became clear that the inflections of
these languages could likewise be traced to a common origin. Compare the following
forms of the verb to be:
Old English
Gothic
Latin
Greek
Sanskrit
eom
(am)
im
sum
eimi
asmi
eart
(art)
is
es
ei
asi
is
(is)
ist
est
esti
asti
sindon
(are)
sijum
sumus
esmen
smas
sindon
(are)
sijuþ
estis
este
stha
sindon
(are)
sind
sunt
eisi
santi
The Sanskrit forms particularly permit us to see that at one time this verb had the same
endings (mi, si, ti, mas, tha, nti) as were employed in the present tense of other verbs, for
example:
Sanskrit
Greek
dádāmi
dídōmi
(I give)
dádāsi
dídōs
dádāti
dídōsi
dadmás
dídomen
(dial. didomes)
datthá
dídote
dáda(n)ti
didóāsi
(dial. dídonti)
The material offered by Sanskrit for comparison with the other languages of the group,
both in matters of vocabulary and inflection, was thus of the greatest importance. When
we add that Hindu grammarians had already gone far in the analysis of the language, had
recognized the roots, classified the formative elements, and worked out the rules
according to which certain sound-changes occurred, we shall appreciate the extent to
which the discovery of Sanskrit contributed to the recognition and determination of the
relation that exists among the languages to which it was allied.
1
In a famous paper of 1786, Sir William Jones, who served as a Supreme Court justice in India,
proposed that the affinity of Sanskrit to Greek and Latin could be explained by positing a common,
earlier source. See Garland Cannon, The Life and Mind of Oriental Jones: Sir William Jones, the
Father of Modern Linguistics (Cambridge, UK, 1990), pp. 241–70.
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16. Grimm’s Law.
A further important step was taken when in 1822 a German philologist, Jacob Grimm,
following up a suggestion of a Danish contemporary, Rasmus Rask, formulated an
explanation that systematically accounted for the correspondences between certain
consonants in the Germanic languages and those found for example in Sanskrit, Greek,
and Latin. His explanation, although subsequently modified and in some of the details of
its operation still a subject of dispute, is easily illustrated. According to Grimm, a p in
Indo-European, preserved as such in Latin and Greek, was changed to an f in the
Germanic languages. Thus we should look for the English equivalent of Latin piscis or
pēs to begin with an f, and this is what we actually find, in fish and foot respectively.
What is true of p is true also of t and k: in other words, the original voiceless stops (p, t,
k) were changed to fricatives (f, þ, h). So Latin trēs=English three, Latin centum=English
hundred. A similar correspondence can be shown for certain other groups of consonants,
2
and the Consequently Sanskrit bhárāmi (Greek
)=English bear, Sanskrit
dhā=English do, Latin hostis (from *ghostis)=English guest. And the original voiced
stops (b, d, g) changed to voiceless ones in the Germanic languages, so that Latin
cannabis=English hemp (showing also the shift of initial k to h), Latin decem=English
ten, Latin genu=English knee. In High German some of these consonants underwent a
further change, known as the Second or High German Sound-Shift. It accounts for such
differences as we see in English open and German offen, English eat and German
essen.formulation of these correspondences is known as Grimm’s Law. The cause of the
change is not known. It must have taken place sometime after the segregation of the
Germanic from neighboring dialects of the parent language. There are words in Finnish
borrowed from Germanic that do not show the change and that therefore must have
resulted from a contact between Germanic and Finnish before the change occurred. There
is also evidence that the shifting was still occurring as late as about the fifth century B.C.
It is often assumed that the change was due to contact with a non-Germanic population.
The contact could have resulted from the migration of the Germanic tribes or from the
penetration of a foreign population into Germanic territory. Whatever its cause, the
Germanic sound-shift is the most distinctive feature marking off the Germanic languages
from the languages to which they are related.
Certain apparent exceptions to Grimm’s Law were subsequently explained by Karl
Verner and others. It was noted that between such a pair of words as Latin centum and
English hundred the correspondence between the c and h was according to rule, but that
between the t and d was not. The d in the English word should have been a voiceless
fricative, that is, a þ. In 1875 Verner showed that when the Indo-European accent was not
on the vowel immediately preceding, such voiceless fricatives became voiced in
Germanic. In West Germanic the resulting ð became a d, and the word hundred is
therefore quite regular in its correspondence with centum. The explanation was of
importance in accounting for the forms of the preterite tense in many strong verbs. Thus
2
The aspirates (bh, dh, gh) became voiced fricatives (ν, ð, γ) then voiced stops (b, d, g).
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in Old English the preterite singular of cweþan (to say) is ic cwœþ but the plural is we
In the latter word the accent was originally on the ending, as it was in the
past participle (cweden), where we also have a d.
3
The formulation of this explanation is
known as Verner’s Law, and it was of great significance in vindicating the claim of
regularity for the sound-changes that Grimm’s Law had attempted to define.
17. The Indo-European Family.
The languages thus brought into relationship by descent or progressive differentiation
from a parent speech are conveniently called a family of languages. Various names have
been used to designate this family. In books written a century ago the term Aryan was
commonly employed. It has now been generally abandoned and when found today is used
in a more restricted sense to designate the languages of the family located in India and the
plateau of Iran. A more common term is Indo-Germanic, which is the most usual
designation among German philologists, but it is open to the objection of giving undue
emphasis to the Germanic languages. The term now most widely employed is Indo-
European, suggesting more clearly the geographical extent of the family. The parent
tongue from which the Indo-European languages have sprung had already become
divided and scattered before the dawn of history. When we meet with the various peoples
by whom these languages are spoken they have lost all knowledge of their former
association. Consequently we have no written record of the common Indo-European
language. By a comparison of its descendants, however, it is possible to form a fair idea
of it and to make plausible reconstructions of its lexicon and inflections.
The surviving languages show various degrees of similarity to one another, the
similarity bearing a more or less direct relationship to their geographical distribution.
They accordingly fall into eleven principal groups: Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Hellenic,
Albanian, Italic, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Hittite, and Tocharian. These are the
branches of the Indo-European family tree, and we shall look briefly at each.
4
18. Indian.
The oldest literary texts preserved in any Indo-European language are the Vedas or
sacred books of India. These fall into four groups, the earliest of which, the Rig-veda, is a
3
Cf. the change of s to z (which became r medially in West Germanic) in the form of cēosan—
cēas—curon—coren noted in § 46.
4
For a recent theory of a “superfamily” called Nostratic, which would include a number of
Eurasian language families, see Mark Kaiser and V.Shevoroshkin, “Nostratic,” Annual Review of
Anthropology, 17 (1988), 309–29. Vladislav M.Illich-Svitych and Aron Dolgopolsky have
proposed that the Indo-European, the Afro-Asiatic, and the Dravidian language families, among
others, are related in this superfamily. See also Colin Renfrew, “The Origins of Indo-European
Languages,” Scientific American, 261 (October 1989), 106–14.
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collection of about a thousand hymns, and the latest, the Atharva-veda, a body of
incantations and ritual formulas connected with many kinds of current religious practice.
These books form the basis of Brahman philosophy and for a long time were preserved
by oral transmission by the priests before being committed to writing. It is therefore
difftcult to assign definite dates to them, but the oldest apparently go back to nearly 1500
B.C. The language in which they are written is known as Sanskrit, or to distinguish it
from a later form of the language, Vedic Sanskrit. This language is also found in certain
prose writings containing directions for the ritual, theological commentary, and the like
(the Brahmanas), meditations for the use of recluses (the Aranyakas), philosophical
speculations (the Upanishads), and rules concerning various aspects of religious and
private life (the Sutras).
The use of Sanskrit was later extended to various writings outside the sphere of
religion, and under the influence of native grammarians, the most important of whom was
Panini in the fourth century B.C., it was given a fixed, literary form. In this form it is
known as Classical Sanskrit. Classical Sanskrit
is the medium of an extensive Indian literature including the two great national epics the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, a large body of drama, much lyric and didactic poetry,
and numerous works of a scientific and philosophical character. It is still cultivated as a
learned language and formerly held a place in India similar to that occupied by Latin in
medieval Europe. At an early date it ceased to be a spoken language.
Alongside of Sanskrit there existed a large number of local dialects in colloquial use,
known as Prakrits. A number of these eventually attained literary form; one in particular,
Pāli, about the middle of the sixth century B.C. became the language of Buddhism. From
these various colloquial dialects have descended the present languages of India, Pakistan,
and Bangladesh, spoken by some 600 million people. The most important of these are
Hindi, Urdu (the official language of Pakistan), Bengali (the official language of
Bangladesh), Punjabi, and Marathi. Urdu is by origin and present structure closely related
to Hindi, both languages deriving from Hindustani, the colloquial form of speech that for
four centuries was widely used for intercommunication throughout northern India. Urdu
differs from Hindi mainly in its considerable mixture of Persian and Arabic and in being
written in the Perso-Arabic script instead of Sanskrit characters. Romany, the language of
the Gypsies, represents a dialect of northwestern India which from about the fifth century
A.D. was carried through Persia and into Armenia and from there has spread through
Europe and even into America.
19. Iranian.
Northwest of India and covering the great plateau of Iran is the important group of
languages called Iranian. The Indo-European population that settled this region had lived
and probably traveled for a considerable time in company with the members of the Indian
branch. Such an association accounts for a number of linguistic features that the two
groups have in common. Of the people engaged in this joint migration a part seem to
have decided to settle down on this great tableland while the rest continued on into India.
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Subsequent movements have carried Iranian languages into territories as remote as
southern Russia and central China. From early times the region has been subjected to
Semitic influence, and many of the early texts are preserved in Semitic scripts that make
accurate interpretation difftcult. Fortunately the past few decades have seen the recovery
of a number of early documents, some containing hitherto unknown varieties of Iranian
speech, which have contributed greatly to the elucidation of this important group of
languages.
The earliest remains of the Iranian branch fall into two divisions, an eastern and a
western, represented respectively by Avestan and Old Persian. Avestan is the language of
the Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrians. It is some-times called Zend, although
the designation is not wholly accurate. Strictly speaking, Zend is the language only of
certain late commentaries on the sacred text. The Avesta consists of two parts, the Gathas
or metrical sermons of Zoroaster, which in their original form may go back as far as 1000
B.C., and the Avesta proper, an extensive collection of hymns, legends, prayers, and legal
prescriptions that seem to spring from a period several hundred years later. There is
considerable difference in the language of the two parts. The other division of Iranian,
Old Persian, is preserved only in certain cuneiform inscriptions which record chiefly the
conquests and achievements of Darius (522–486 B.C.) and Xerxes (486–466 B.C.). The
most extensive is a trilingual record (in Persian, Assyrian, and Elamite) carved in the side
of a mountain at Behistan, in Media, near the city of Kirmanshah. Besides a
representation of Darius with nine shackled prisoners, the rebel chieftains subjugated by
him, there are many columns of text in cuneiform characters. A later form of this
language, found in the early centuries of our era, is known as Middle Iranian or Pahlavi,
the official language of church and state during the dynasty of the Sassanids (A.D. 226–
652). This is the ancestor of modern Persian. Persian, also known as Farsi, has been the
language of an important culture and an extensive literature since the ninth century. Chief
among the literary works in this language is the great Persian epic the Shahnamah.
Persian contains a large Arabic admixture so that today its vocabulary seems almost as
much Arabic as Iranian. In addition to Persian, several other languages differing more or
less from it are today in use in various provinces of the old empire—Afghan or Pashto
and Baluchi in the eastern territories of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Kurdish in the
west, in Kurdistan. Besides these larger groups there are numerous languages and dialects
in the highlands of the Pamir, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and in the valleys of the
Caucasus.
20. Armenian.
Armenian is found in a small area south of the Caucasus Mountains and the eastern end
of the Black Sea. The penetration of Armenians into this region is generally put between
the eighth and sixth centuries B.C. They evidently came into their present location by
way of the Balkans and across the Hellespont. The newcomers conquered a population of
which remnants are still perhaps to be found in the Caucasus and whose language may
have influenced Armenian in matters of accent and phonology. Armenian shows a
shifting of certain consonants that recalls the shifts in Germanic described above and
which, like those, may be due to contact with other languages. Moreover, like the south
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Caucasus languages, Armenian lacks grammatical gender. Armenian is not linked to any
other special group of the Indo-European family by common features such as connect
Indian with Iranian. It occupies a somewhat isolated position. But in ancient times Thrace
and Macedonia were occupied by two peoples—the Thraco-Phrygians, whom Herodotus
mentions as very numerous, and the Macedonians, whose kings for a time adopted Greek
and enjoyed a short but brilliant career in Greek history. The Phrygians, like the
Armenians, passed into Asia Minor and are familiar to us as the Trojans of Homer. Their
language shows certain affinities with Armenian; and, if we knew more about it, we
should probably find in it additional evidence for the early association of the two peoples.
Unfortunately we have only scanty remains of Phrygian and Macedonian—chiefly place
names, glosses, and inscriptions—enough merely to prove their Indo-European character
and give a clue to the linguistic affiliation.
Armenian is known to us from about the fifth century of our era through a translation
of the Bible in the language. There is a considerable Armenian literature, chiefly
historical and theological. The Armenians for several centuries were under Persian
domination, and the vocabulary shows such strong Iranian influence that Armenian was
at one time classed as an Iranian language. Numerous contacts with Semitic languages,
with Greek, and with Turkish have contributed further to give the vocabulary a rich
character.
21. Hellenic.
At the dawn of history the Aegean was occupied by a number of populations that differed
in race and in language from the Greeks who entered these regions later. In Lemnos, in
Cyprus, and Crete especially, and also on the Greek mainland and in Asia Minor,
inscriptions have been found written in languages which may in some cases be Indo-
European and in others are certainly not. In the Balkans and in Asia Minor were
languages such as Phrygian and Armenian, already mentioned, and certainly Indo-
European, as well as others (Lydian, Carian, and Lycian) that show some resemblance to
the Indo-European type but whose relations are not yet determined. In Asia Minor the
Hittites, who spoke an Indo-European language (see § 27), possessed a kingdom that
lasted from about 2000 to 1200 B.C.; and in the second millennium B.C. the eastern
Mediterranean was dominated, at least commercially, by a Semitic people, the
Phoenicians, who exerted a considerable influence upon the Hellenic world.
Into this mixture of often little-known populations and languages the Greeks
penetrated from the north shortly after a date about 2000 B.C. The entrance of the
Hellenes into the Aegean was a gradual one and proceeded in a series of movements by
groups speaking different dialects of the common language. They spread not only
through the mainland of Greece, absorbing the previous populations, but also into the
islands of the Aegean and the coast of Asia Minor. The earliest great literary monuments
of Greek are the Homeric poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, believed to date from the
eighth century B.C. Of the Greek language we recognize five principal dialectal groups:
the Ionic, of which Attic is a subdialect, found (except for Attic) in Asia Minor and the
islands of the Aegean Sea; Aeolic in the north and northeast; Arcadian-Cyprian in the
Peloponnesus and Cyprus; Doric, which later replaced Arcadian in the Peloponnesus; and
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Northwest Greek in the north central and western part of the Greek mainland. Of these,
Attic, the dialect of the city of Athens, is by far the most studied. It owes its supremacy
partly to the dominant political and commercial position attained by Athens in the fifth
century, partly to the great civilization that grew up there. The achievements of the
Athenians in architecture and sculpture, in science, philosophy, and literature in the great
age of Pericles (495–429 B.C.) and in the century following were extremely important for
subsequent civilization. In Athens were assembled the great writers of Greece—the
dramatists Æchylus, Euripides, and Sophocles in tragedy, Aristophanes in comedy, the
historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the orator Demosthenes, the philosophers Plato and
Aristotle. Largely because of the political and cultural prestige of Athens, the Attic
dialect became the basis of a koiné or common Greek that from the fourth century
superseded the other dialects; the conquests of Alexander (336–323 B.C.) established this
language in Asia Minor and Syria, in Mesopotamia and Egypt, as the general language of
the eastern Mediterranean for purposes of international communication. It is chiefly
familiar to modern times as the language of the New Testament and, through its
employment in Constantinople and the Eastern Empire, as the medium of an extensive
Byzantine literature. The various dialects into which the language of modern Greece is
divided represent the local differentiation of this koiné through the course of centuries. At
the present time two varieties of Greek (commonly called Romaic, from its being the
language of the eastern Roman Empire) are observable in Greece. One, the popular or
demotic, is the natural language of the people; the other, the “pure,” represents a
conscious effort to restore the vocabulary and even some of the inflections of ancient
Greek. Both are used in various schools and universities, but the current official position
favors the demotic.
22. Albanian.
Northwest of Greece on the eastern coast of the Adriatic is the small branch named
Albanian. It is possibly the modern remnant of Illyrian, a language spoken in ancient
times in the northwestern Balkans, but we have too little knowledge of this early tongue
to be sure. Moreover, our knowledge of Albanian, except for a few words, extends back
only as far as the fifteenth century of our era, and, when we first meet with it, the
vocabulary is so mixed with Latin, Greek, Turkish, and Slavonic elements—owing to
conquests and other causes—that it is somewhat difficult to isolate the original Albanian.
For this reason its position among the languages of the Indo-European family was slow to
be recognized. It was formerly classed with the Hellenic group, but since the beginning of
the present century it has been recognized as an independent member of the family.
23. Italic.
The Italic branch has its center in Italy, and to most people Italy in ancient times suggests
Rome and the language of Rome, Latin. But the predominant position occupied by Latin
in the historical period should not make us forget that Latin was only one of a number of
languages once found in this area. The geographical situation and agreeable climate of
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the peninsula seem frequently and at an early date to have invited settlement, and the later
population represents a remarkably diverse culture. We do not know much about the
early neolithic inhabitants; they had been largely replaced or absorbed before the middle
of the first millennium B.C. But we have knowledge of a number of languages spoken in
different districts by the sixth century before our era. In the west, especially from the
Tiber north, a powerful and aggressive people spoke Etruscan, a non-Indo-European
language. In northwestern Italy was situated the little known Ligurian. Venetic in the
northeast and Messapian in the extreme southeast were apparently offshoots of Illyrian,
already mentioned. And in southern Italy and Sicily, Greek was the language of
numerous Greek colonies. All these languages except Etruscan were apparently Indo-
European. More important were the languages of the Italic branch itself. Chief of these in
the light of subsequent history was Latin, the language of Latium and its principal city,
Rome. Closely related to Latin were Umbrian, spoken in a limited area northeast of
Latium, and Oscan, the language of the Samnites and of most of the southern peninsula
except the extreme projections. All of these languages were in time driven out by Latin as
the political influence of Rome became dominant throughout Italy. Nor was the extension
of Latin limited to the Italian peninsula. As Rome colonized Spain and Gaul, the district
west of the Black Sea, northern Africa, the islands of the Mediterranean, and even
Britain, Latin spread into all these regions until its limits became practically co-terminous
with those of the Roman Empire. And in the greater part of this area it has remained the
language, though in altered form, to the present day.
The various languages that represent the survival of Latin in the different parts of the
Roman Empire are known as the Romance or Romanic languages. Some of them have
since spread into other territory, particularly in the New World. The most extensive of the
Romance languages are French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. French is primarily the
language of northern France, although it is the language of literature and education
throughout the country. In the Middle Ages it was divided into a number of dialects,
especially Norman, Picard, Burgundian, and that of the Ile-de-France. But with the
establishment of the Capetians as kings of France and the rise of Paris as the national
capital, the dialect of Paris or the Ile-de-France gradually won recognition as the official
and literary language. Since the thirteenth century the Paris dialect has been standard
French. In the southern half of France the language differed markedly from that of the
north. From the word for yes the language of the north was called the langue d’oïl, that of
the south the langue d’oc. Nowadays the latter is more commonly known as Provençal. In
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was the language of an innovative literature, the
lyrics of the troubadours, but it has since yielded to the political and social prestige of
French. A patriotic effort at the close of the nineteenth century, corresponding to similar
movements on behalf of Irish, Norwegian, and other submerged languages, failed to
revive the language as a medium of literature, and Provençal is today merely the regional
speech of southern France. In the Iberian peninsula Spanish and Portuguese, because of
their proximity and the similar conditions under which they have developed, have
remained fairly close to each other. In spite of certain differences of vocabulary and
inflection and considerable differences in the sounds of the spoken language, a Spaniard
can easily read Portuguese. The use of Spanish and Portuguese in Central and South
America and in Mexico has already been referred to. Italian has had the longest
continuous history in its original location of any of the Romance languages, because it is
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nothing more than the Latin language as this language has continued to be spoken in the
streets of Rome from the founding of the city. It is particularly important as the language
of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and the vernacular language in which the cultural
achievements of the Renaissance first found expression. Romanian is the easternmost of
the Romance languages, representing the continued influence of Roman legions in
ancient Dacia. In addition to these six languages, about a dozen Romance languages are
spoken by smaller populations. Other languages on the Iberian peninsula are Catalan, a
language of the northeast but also found in Corsica, and one with an extensive literature,
and Galician in the northwest, similar to both Spanish and Portuguese, having features of
each, just as Catalan shares features of Provençal and Spanish. The Rhaeto-Romanic
group in southeastern Switzerland and adjacent parts of the Tyrol includes Romansch and
dialects in which Germanic elements are especially prominent. Walloon is a dialect of
French spoken in southern Belgium.
The Romance languages, while representing a continuous evolution from Latin, are
not derived from the Classical Latin of Cicero and Virgil. Classical Latin was a literary
language with an elaborate and somewhat artificial grammar. The spoken language of the
masses, Vulgar Latin (from Latin vulgus, the common people), differed from it not only
in being simpler in inflection and syntax but also to a certain extent divergent in
vocabulary. In Classical Latin the word for horse was equus, but the colloquial word was
caballus. It is from the colloquial word that French cheval, Provençal caval, Spanish
caballo, Italian cavallo, etc., are derived. In like manner where one wrote pugna (fight),
urbs (city), os (mouth), the popular, spoken word was battualia (Fr. bataille), villa (Fr.
ville), bucca (Fr. bouche). So verberare=battuere (Fr. battre), osculari=basiare (Fr.
baiser), ignis=focus (Fr. feu), ludus=jocus (Fr. jeu). It was naturally the Vulgar Latin of
the marketplace and camp that was carried into the different Roman provinces. That this
Vulgar Latin developed differently in the different parts of Europe in which it was
introduced is explained by a number of factors. In the first place, as Gustav Gröber
observed, Vulgar Latin, like all language, was constantly changing, and because the
Roman provinces were established at different times and the language carried into them
would be more or less the language then spoken in the streets of Rome, there would be
initial differences in the Vulgar Latin of the different colonies.
5
These differences would
be increased by separation and the influence of the languages spoken by the native
populations as they adopted the new language. The Belgae and the Celts in Gaul,
described by Caesar, differed from the Iberians in Spain. Each of these peoples
undoubtedly modified Latin in accordance with the grammars of their own languages, as
normally happens when languages come into contact.
6
It is not difficult to understand the
divergence of the Romance languages, and it is not the least interesting feature of the
Romance group that we can observe here in historical time the formation of a number of
5
The Roman colonies were established in Corsica and Sardinia in 231 B.C.Spain became a
province in 197 B.C., Provence in 121 B.C., Dacia in A.D. 107.
6
The principle can be illustrated by a modern instance. The Portuguese spoken in Brazil has no
sound like the English th. Brazilians who learn English consequently have difficulty in acquiring
this sound and tend to substitute some other sound of their own language for it. They say dis for
this and I sink so for I think so. If we could imagine English introduced into Brazil as Latin was
introduced into Gaul or Spain, we could only suppose that the 165 million people of Brazil would
universally make such a substitution, and the th would disappear in Brazilian English.
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distinct languages from a single parent speech. Such a process of progressive
differentiation has brought about, over a greater area and a longer period of time, the
differences among the languages of the whole Indo-European family.
24. Balto-Slavic.
The Balto-Slavic branch covers a vast area in the eastern part of Europe. It falls into two
groups, the Baltic and the Slavic, which, in spite of differences, have sufficient features in
common to justify their being classed together.
There are three Baltic languages: Prussian, Latvian, and Lithuanian. Prussian is now
extinct, having been displaced by German since the seventeenth century. Latvian is the
language of about two million people in Latvia. Lithuanian is spoken by about three
million people in the Baltic state of Lithuania. It is important among the Indo-European
languages because of its conservatism. It is sometimes said that a Lithuanian peasant can
understand certain simple phrases in Sanskrit. Although the statement implies too much,
Lithuanian preserves some very old features that have disappeared from practically all the
other languages of the family.
The similarities among the various languages of the Slavic group indicate that as late
as the seventh or eighth century of our era they were practically identical or at least were
united by frequent intercourse. At the present time they fall into three divisions: East
Slavic, West Slavic, and South Slavic. The first two still cover contiguous areas, but the
South Slavs, in the Balkan peninsula, are now separated from the rest by a belt of non-
Slavic people, the Hungarians and the Romanians.
The earliest form in which we possess a Slavic language is a part of the Bible and
certain liturgical texts translated by the missionaries Cyril and Methodius in the ninth
century. The language of these texts is South Slavic, but it probably approximates with
considerable closeness the common Slavic from which all the Slavic languages have
come. It is known as Old Church Slavonic or Old Bulgarian and continued to be used
throughout the Middle Ages and indeed well into modern times as the ecclesiastical
language of the Orthodox Church.
East Slavic includes three varieties. Chief of these is Russian, the language of about
175 million people. It is found throughout the north, east, and central parts of Russia, was
formerly the court language, and is still the official and literary language of the country.
Belorussian (White Russian) is the language of about 9 million people in Belarus and
adjacent parts of Poland. Ukrainian is spoken by about 50 million people in Ukraine.
Nationalist ambitions have led the Ukrainians to stress the difference between their
language and Russian, a difference that, from the point of view of mutual intelligibility,
causes some difficulty with the spoken language. Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian
constitute the largest group of Slavic languages.
West Slavic includes four languages. Of these Polish is the largest, spoken by about 36
million people within Poland, by about 5 million in the United States, and by smaller
numbers in the former Soviet Union and other countries. Next in size are the mutually
intelligible languages of the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Czech, spoken by about 10
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million people, and Slovak, spoken by 5 million. The fourth language, Sorbian, is spoken
by only 100,000 people in Germany, in a district a little northeast of Dresden.
South Slavic includes Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, and modern Macedonian,
not to be confused with ancient Macedonian, an Indo-European language of uncertain
affinity. Bulgarian was spoken in the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula when the
region was overrun by a non-Slavic people. But the conqueror was absorbed by the
conquered and adopted their language. Modern Bulgarian has borrowed extensively from
Turkish for the language of everyday use, while the literary language is much closer to
Russian. The history of Yugoslavia and the fortunes of its languages illustrate tragically
the quip that “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” Serbo-Croatian represents
the union of Serbian, formerly the language of Serbia, and Croatian, spoken before World
War I by the Croats of Bosnia and Croatia. The two languages are practically identical
but use different alphabets. With the breakup of Yugoslavia we can expect references to
Serbo-Croatian to be replaced by references separately to Serbian and Croatian. Slovene
is spoken by about 1.5 million people in Slovenia, at the head of the Adriatic.
The Slavic languages constitute a more homogeneous group than the languages of
some of the other branches. They have diverged less from the common type than those,
for example, of the Germanic branch and in a number of respects preserve a rather
archaic aspect. Moreover the people speaking the Baltic languages must have lived for
many centuries in fairly close contact with the Slavs after the two had separated from the
parent Indo-European community.
25. Germanic.
The common form that the languages of the Germanic branch had before they became
differentiated is known as Germanic or Proto-Germanic. It antedates the earliest written
records of the family and is reconstructed by philologists in the same way as is the parent
Indo-European. The languages descended from it fall into three groups: East Germanic,
North Germanic, and West Germanic.
The principal language of East Germanic is Gothic. By the third century the Goths had
spread from the Vistula to the shore of the Black Sea and in the following century they
were Christianized by a missionary named Ulfilas (311–383), whose father seems to have
been a Goth and his mother a Greek (Cappadocian). Our knowledge of Gothic is almost
wholly due to a translation of the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament made by
Ulfilas. Except for some runic inscriptions in Scandinavia it is the earliest record of a
Germanic language we possess. For a time the Goths played a prominent part in
European history, including in their extensive conquests both Italy, by the Ostrogoths,
and Spain, by the Visigoths. In these districts, however, their language soon gave place to
Latin, and even elsewhere it seems not to have maintained a very tenacious existence.
Gothic survived longest in the Crimea, where vestiges of it were noted down in the
sixteenth century. To the East Germanic branch belonged also Burgundian and Vandalic,
but our knowledge of these languages is confined to a small number of proper names.
North Germanic is found in Scandinavia, Denmark, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.
Runic inscriptions from the third century preserve our earliest traces of the language. In
its earlier form the common Scandinavian language is conveniently spoken of as Old
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Norse. From about the eleventh century on, dialectal differences become noticeable. The
Scandinavian languages fall into two groups: an eastern group including Swedish and
Danish, and a western group including Norwegian and Icelandic. Norwegian ceased to be
a literary language in the fourteenth century, and Danish (with Norwegian elements) is
one written language of Norway.
7
Of the early Scandinavian languages Old Icelandic is
by far the most literary. Iceland was colonized by settlers from Norway about A.D. 874
and early preserved a body of heroic literature unsurpassed among the Germanic peoples.
Among the more important monuments are the Elder or Poetic Edda, a collection of
poems that probably date from the tenth or eleventh century, the Younger or Prose Edda
compiled by Snorri Sturluson (1178–1241), and about forty sagas, or prose epics, in
which the lives and exploits of various traditional figures are related.
West Germanic is of chief interest to us as the group to which English belongs. It is
divided into two branches, High and Low German, by the operation of a Second (or High
German) Sound-Shift analogous to that described above as Grimm’s Law. This change,
by which West Germanic p, t, k, d, etc. were changed into other sounds, occurred about
A.D. 600 in the southern or mountainous part of the Germanic area but did not take place
in the lowlands to the north. Accordingly in early times we distinguish as Low German
tongues Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, Old Frisian, and Old English. The last two are
closely related and constitute a special or Anglo-Frisian subgroup.
8
Old Saxon has
become the essential constituent of modern Low German or Plattdeutsch; Old Low
Franconian, with some mixture of Frisian and Saxon elements, is the basis of modern
Dutch in the Netherlands and Flemish in northern Belgium; and Frisian survives in the
Netherland province of Friesland, in a small part of Schleswig, in the islands along the
coast, and other places. High German comprises a number of dialects (Middle, Rhenish,
and East Franconian, Bavarian, Alemannic, etc.). It is divided chronologically into Old
High German (before 1100), Middle High German (1100–1500), and Modern High
German (since 1500). High German, especially as spoken in the midlands and used in the
imperial chancery, was popularized by Luther’s translation of the Bible (1522–1532) and
since the sixteenth century has gradually established itself as the literary language of
Germany.
7
The union of Norway and Denmark for 400 years made Danish the language of culture. The latter
half of the nineteenth century witnessed the beginning of a movement to make the Norwegian
dialects into a national language (Landsmål), but this regeneration of the national speech has not
succeeded in displacing Dano-Norwegian (Bokmål ‘book language,’ formerly Riksmål ‘national
language’) as the dominant language. An amalgam of rural speech in normalized form (Nynorsk
‘New Norwegian’) is trying to compete in literature, the theater, etc. and is further complicating the
linguistic problem. The whole conflict is treated historically in Einar Haugen, Language Conflict
and Language Planning: The Case of Modern Norwegian (Cambridge, MA, 1966).
8
The West Germanic languages may be classified in different ways according to the features
selected as the basis of division. Thus it is very common to divide them into an Anglo-Frisian
group and a German group that includes Old Saxon. The division given in the text is none the less
basic and is here retained for the sake of simplicity.
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26. Celtic.
The Celtic languages formed at one time one of the most extensive groups in the Indo-
European family. At the beginning of the Christian era the Celts were found in Gaul and
Spain, in Great Britain, in western Germany, and northern Italy—indeed, they covered
the greater part of Western Europe. A few centuries earlier their triumphal progress had
extended even into Greece and Asia Minor. The steady retreat of Celtic before advancing
Italic and Germanic tongues is one of the surprising phenomena of history. Today Celtic
languages are found only in the far corners of France and the British Isles; in the areas in
which they were once dominant they have left but little trace of their presence.
The language of the Celts in Gaul who were conquered by Caesar is known as Gallic.
Since it was early replaced by Latin we know next to nothing about it. A few inscriptions,
some proper names (cf. Orgetorix), one fragmentary text, and a small number of words
preserved in modern French are all that survive. With respect to the Celtic languages in
Britain we are better off, although the many contradictory theories of Celticists
9
make it
impossible to say with any confidence how the Celts came to England. The older view,
which is now questioned, holds that the first to come were Goidelic or Gaelic Celts.
Some of these may have been driven to Ireland by the later invaders and from there may
have spread into Scotland and the Isle of Man. Their language is represented in modern
times by Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. The later Brythonic Celts, after occupying for
some centuries what is now England, were in turn driven westward by Germanic invaders
in the fifth century. Some of the fugitives crossed over into Brittany. The modern
representatives of the Brythonic division are Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.The remnants of
this one-time extensive group of languages are everywhere losing ground at the present
day. Spoken by minorities in France and the British Isles, these languages are faced with
the competition of two languages of wider communication, and some seem destined not
to survive this competition. Cornish became extinct in the eighteenth century, and Manx,
once spoken by all the native inhabitants of the Isle of Man, has died out since World
War II. In Scotland Gaelic is found only in the Highlands. It is spoken by 75,000 people,
of whom fewer than 5,000 do not know English as well. Welsh is still spoken by about
one-quarter of the people, but the spread of English among them is indicated by the fact
that the number of those who speak only Welsh had dropped from 30 percent in 1891 to 2
percent in 1950 and is still slowly decreasing. Irish is spoken by about 500,000 people,
most of whom are bilingual. Whether nationalist sentiment will succeed in arresting the
declining trend that has been observable here as in the other Celtic territory remains to be
seen. If language planning efforts fail, it seems inevitable that eventually another branch
of the Indo-European family of languages will disappear.
9
For a summary of these theories, see T.Rice Holmes, Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius
Caesar (2nd ed., Oxford, 1936), pp. 444–58. See also Myles Dillon and Nora K.Chadwick, The
Celtic Realms (2nd ed., London, 1972), chaps. 1, 2, and 9.
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27. Twentieth-century Discoveries.
Besides the nine branches described above, discoveries in the twentieth century added
two new groups to the family: Hittite and Tocharian. Until recently the Hittites have been
known to us chiefly from references in the Old Testament. Abraham bought the burial
place for Sarah from a Hittite (Gen. 23), and Bathsheba, whom David coveted, was the
wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 11). Their language was preserved only in a few
uninterpreted documents. In 1907, however, an archaeological expedition uncovered the
site of the Hittite capital in Asia Minor, at Boghazköi, about ninety miles east of Ankara,
containing the royal archives of nearly 10,000 clay tablets. The texts were written in
Babylonian cuneiform characters, and some were in the Babylonian language
(Akkadian), the diplomatic language of the day. Most of the tablets, however, were in an
unknown language. Although a number of different languages seem to have been spoken
in the Hittite area, nine-tenths of the tablets are in the principal language of the kingdom.
It is apparently not the original language of the district, but it has been given the name
Hittite. The sudden opening up of so extensive a collection of texts has permitted
considerable progress to be made in the study of this language. The most remarkable
effect upon Indo-European studies has been the confirmation of a hypothesis made by
Ferdinand de Saussure in 1879. On the basis of internal evidence Saussure had proposed
for Indo-European certain sound patterns that did not occur in any of the languages then
known. Twenty years after the discovery of the Hittite tablets it could be demonstrated
that Saussure’s phonological units, which had become known as “laryngeals,” occurred
in Hittite much as he had proposed for Indo-European. The number and phonetic features
of laryngeals in Indo-European are still a matter of debate, but there is general agreement
that at least one laryngeal must be posited for the parent language.
10
In the reconstruction
of Indo-European syntax, Hittite has provided invaluable evidence. A strong argument
can now be made that Hittite and the oldest hymns of the Rig-veda represent the Object-
Verb structure of Indo-European, which by the time of Classical Greek and Latin had
been largely modified to a Verb-Object pattern.
11
A large proportion of the Hittite
vocabulary comes from a non-Indo-European source. The blending with foreign elements
appears to be as great as in Albanian. By some scholars Hittite is treated as coordinate
with Indo-European, and the period of joint existence is designated Indo-Hittite. It is
sufficient, however, to think of Hittite as having separated from the Indo-European
community some centuries (perhaps 500 years or more) before any of the other groups
began to detach themselves.
10
See Winfred P.Lehmann, Proto-Indo-European Phonology (Austin, TX, 1952), pp. 22–35, 85–
114, et passim, and the essays in Evidence for Laryngeals, ed. Werner Winter (The Hague, 1965).
11
See Winfred P.Lehmann, Proto-Indo-European Syntax (Austin, TX, 1974), pp. 34–35, 238–51, et
passim. See also Calvert Watkins, “Preliminaries to the Reconstruction of Indo-European Sentence
Structure,” in Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, ed. Horace G.Lunt
(The Hague, 1964).
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Tocharian is the name given to the language in which some fragmentary texts were
discovered in the early part of the present century in western China (Xinjiang Uygur).
Some of them contain the name of a king who according to Chinese evidence reigned in
the early part of the seventh century of our era. To the philologist the discovery is of
some importance because the language belongs with the Hellenic, Italic, Germanic, and
Celtic groups as a centum language rather than with the eastern or satem groups (see page
39), with which we should expect it to be most closely related.
12
28. The Home of the Indo-Europeans.
It is obvious that if the languages just described represent the progressive differentiation
of an original speech, this speech, which we may for convenience call the Indo-European
language, must have been spoken by a population somewhere at some time. What can be
learned of these people and their early location?
Concerning their physical character, practically nothing can be discerned. Continuity
in language and culture does not imply biological descent. It is not an uncommon
phenomenon in history for a people to give up their own language and adopt another.
Sometimes they adopt the language of their conquerors, or of those whom they have
conquered, or that of a people with whom they have simply become merged in a common
territory. The Indo-European languages are spoken today in many cultures that until
recently have had completely unrelated heritages. And to judge by the large variety of
people who have spoken these languages from early times, it is quite possible that the
people of the original Indo-European community already represented a wide ethnic
diversity. Neither can we form any very definite idea of the date at which this people
lived as a single, more or less coherent community. The period of their common life must
have extended over a considerable stretch of time. It is customary to place the end of their
common existence somewhere between 3500 and 2500 B.C.
With respect to the location of this community at a time shortly before their dispersal,
we have at least a basis for inference. To begin with, we may assume that the original
home was in that part of the world in which the languages of the family are chiefly to be
found today, and we may omit from consideration Africa, Australia, and the American
continents because we know that the extension of Indo-European languages in these areas
has occurred in historical times. History and its related sciences, anthropology and
archaeology, enable us also to eliminate certain other regions, such as the British Isles
and the peninsulas of Southern Europe. Early literary tradition occasionally preserves
traces of a people at a former stage in their history. The earliest books of the Hindus, for
example, the Vedas, show an acquaintance with the Indus but not with the Ganges,
indicating that the Indo-Europeans entered India from the northwest. In general, we may
12
It has been suggested that the Tocharians, perhaps originally from the Balkans, formed part of the
extensive migration from Europe into eastern Asia in the eighth and ninth centuries B.C., a
migration that resulted in the overthrow of the Chou dynasty in China in 771 B.C. On the basis of
archaeological and other evidence it is believed that Illyrians, Thracians, Phrygians, and Germanic
peoples (especially Scandinavians) were among those that took part in the movement. See Robert
Heine-Geldern, “Das Tocharerproblem und die Pontische Wanderung,” Saeculum, 2 (1951), 225–
55.
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be fairly sure that the only regions in which it is reasonable to seek the original home of
the Indo-European family are the mainland of Europe and the western part of Asia.Prior
to the middle of the nineteenth century it was customary to assume an Asiatic home for
the family. Such an opinion was the natural result of biblical tradition that placed the
Garden of Eden in the neighborhood of Mesopotamia. This notion seemed to find
confirmation in the discovery that Sanskrit, situated in Asia, not only was an Indo-
European language but was also in many ways closest in form to the parent speech.
Finally, Europe had seen the invasion of the Hun and the Turk and other Asiatic peoples,
and it seemed natural to think of the movements of population as generally westward. But
it was eventually recognized that such considerations formed a very slender basis for
valid conclusions. It was observed that by far the larger part of the languages of this
family have been in Europe from the earliest times to which our knowledge extends. Was
it not more natural to suppose that the few representatives of the family in Asia should
have made their way eastward than that nearly all the languages of Europe should have
been the result of Asiatic incursions? In the course of the nineteenth century the
comparative study of the Indo-European languages brought to light a number of facts that
seemed to support such a supposition.
The evidence of language itself furnishes the most satisfactory criterion yet discovered
on which to base a solution of the problem. It is obvious that those elements of the
vocabulary which all or a considerable number of the branches of the family have in
common must have formed a part of the original word-stock. In fact, a word common to
two or three branches of the family, if the branches have not been in such proximity to
each other as to suggest mutual influence, is likely to have been in the original language.
Now the Indo-European languages generally have a common word for winter and for
snow. It is likely that the original home of the family was in a climate that at certain
seasons at least was fairly cold. On the other hand it is not certain that there was a
common word for the sea. Instead, some branches of the family, when in the course of
their wanderings they came into contact with the sea, had to develop their own words for
the new conception. The original community was apparently an inland one, although not
necessarily situated at a great distance from the coast. Still more instructive is the
evidence of the fauna and flora known to the Indo-European community. As Harold
H.Bender, whose Home of the Indo-Europeans is an admirable survey of the problem,
puts it, “There are no anciently common Indo-European words for elephant, rhinoceros,
camel, lion, tiger, monkey, crocodile, parrot, rice, banyan, bamboo, palm, but there are
common words, more or less widely spread over Indo-European territory, for snow and
freezing cold, for oak, beech, pine, birch, willow, bear, wolf, otter, beaver, polecat,
marten, weasel, deer, rabbit, mouse, horse, ox, sheep, goat, pig, dog, eagle, hawk, owl,
jay, wild goose, wild duck, partridge or pheasant, snake, tortoise, crab, ant, bee, etc.” The
force of this list is not in the individual items but in the cumulative effect of the two
groups. Two words in it, however, have been the object of special consideration, beech
and bee. A word corresponding to English beech is found in a number of Indo-European
languages and was undoubtedly part of the parent vocabulary. The common beech
(Fagus silvatica Linnaeus) is of relatively limited range: It is practically confined to
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central Europe and is not native east of Poland and Ukraine.
13
The testimony of this word
as to the original home of the Indo-European family would be persuasive if we could be
sure that in the parent speech the word always designated what we know as the beech
tree. But although this is its meaning in Latin and the Germanic languages, the word
means “oak” in Greek, “elder” and “elm” in other languages.
14
In like manner the
familiarity of the Indo-European community with the bee is evident from a common
word for honey (Latin mel, Greek
English mildew, etc.) and a common word for
an intoxicating drink made from honey, called mead in Old English. The honeybee is
indigenous over almost all Europe but is not found in those parts of Asia that have ever
been considered as possible locations of the Indo-European community. From evidence
such as this a European home for the Indo-European family has come to be considered
more probable.
One other linguistic consideration that figured prominently in past discussions is
worth citing because of its intrinsic interest. The branches of the Indo-European family
fall into two well-defined groups according to the modification that certain consonants of
the parent speech underwent in each. They are known as the centum and satem groups
from the words for hundred in Latin and Avestan, respectively. The centum group
includes the Hellenic, Italic, Germanic, and Celtic branches. To the satem group belong
Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, and Albanian. A line running roughly from
Scandinavia to Greece separates the two and suggests a line of cleavage from which
dispersion eastward and westward might have taken place. Although this division has
been cited as supporting a homeland in central Europe—in the general area of the present
Baltic states—linguists have been unable to find additional characteristics that would
have been associated with such a fundamental split. With increasing knowledge about the
classification of dialects and the spread of linguistic change, it has become more plausible
to view the centum-satum division as the result of a sound change in the eastern section
of the Indo-European speech community that spread through Indo-Iranian, Armenian,
Slavic, and into Baltic.
15
It is still useful to speak of centum and satem languages, but the
classification itself does not permit deductions about early migrations.
16
From the nature of the case, the original home of the Indo-European languages is still
a matter of much uncertainty, and many divergent views are
13
This is the area of the “beech line,” which earlier arguments drew while ignoring that the eastern
beech (Fagus orientalis) differs very little from the common beech and constitutes about one-
quarter of the tree population of the Caucasus east to the Caspian Sea. See Paul Friedrich, Proto-
Indo-European Trees (Chicago, 1970), pp. 112–13.
14
The validity of the evidence drawn from the beech tree receives strong support from Wilhelm
Wissmann, Der Name der Buche (Berlin, 1952; Deutsche Akad. der Wissenschaften zu Berlin,
Vorträge und Schriften, Heft 50). Problems in the etymologies of the various forms are treated by
George S.Lane, “The Beech Argument: A Re-evaluation of the Linguistic Evidence,” Zeitschrift für
vergleichende Sprachforschung, 81 (1967), 197–212.
15
See Winfred P.Lehmann, Historical Linguistics (3rd ed., New York, 1992), pp. 27–28.
16
Accordingly Tocharian, as a centum language in satem territory, is no longer regarded as the
anomalous problem that it was in earlier studies. See George S.Lane, “Tocharian: Indo-European
and Non-Indo-European Relationships,” in Indo-European and Indo-Europeans, p. 79.
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held by scholars. During the past thirty years impressive new discoveries have come from
archaeological excavations in Russia and Ukraine. Graves in the steppe area between the
River Don and the Urals have yielded evidence of an Indo-European “Kurgan” culture
that existed north of the Caspian Sea from the fifth through the third millennia B.C. It is
especially interesting to note the characteristic flora and fauna of the area during that
period, as described by Marija Gimbutas: “The Kurgan people lived in the steppe and
forest-steppe zone, but in the fifth and fourth millennia the climate was warmer and
damper than at present and what is now the steppe zone was more forested. Mixed
forests, including oak, birch, fir, beech, elder, elm, ash, aspen, apple, cherry and willow,
extended along rivers and rivulets in which such forest animals as aurochs, elk, boar, wild
horse, wolf, fox, beaver, squirrel, badger, hare, and roe deer were present.”
17
Gimbutas,
who first proposed the name of the culture, believes that the Kurgan people were the
original Indo-Europeans, an opinion shared by many archaeologists and linguists. Some
scholars accept the descriptions by American and Soviet archaeologists of the early
periods of Kurgan culture but propose different directions of migration.
18
Although the
Indo-European homeland may prove impossible to locate precisely, one can expect new
evidence and new interpretations of old evidence from both linguistics and archaeology.
19
At present it is sufficient to observe that most of the proposed locations can be
accommodated in the district east of the Germanic area stretching from central Europe to
the steppes of southern Russia.
The civilization that had been attained by the people of this community at the time of
their dispersal was approximately that known as neolithic. Copper was, however, already
in use to a limited extent. The Indo-Europeans were no longer purely nomadic but had
settled homes with houses and some agriculture. Here the evidence drawn from the
vocabulary must be used with caution. We must be careful not to attribute to words their
modern significance. The existence of a word for plow does not necessarily indicate
anything more than the most primitive kind of implement. The Indo-Europeans raised
grain and wool and had learned to spin and weave. They kept cattle and had for food not
only the products of their own labor but such fruit and game as have always served the
needs of primitive communities. They recognized the existence of a soul, believed in
gods, and had developed certain ethical ideas. Without assuming complete uniformity of
achievement throughout the area covered by this linguistic group, we may believe that the
cultural development attained by the Indo-European was already considerable.
17
“Proto-Indo-European Culture: The Kurgan Culture during the Fifth, Fourth, and Third Millennia
B.C.,” in Indo-European and Indo-Europeans, pp. 159–60.
18
It has been argued that the traditional linguistic evidence in favor of the north European plain is
sufficient to assume that the Kurgans migrated east at an early date. See Ward H.Goodenough,
“The Evolution of Pastoralism and Indo-European Origins,” in Indo-European and Indo-
Europeans, pp. 253–65.
19
A significant example is Colin Renfrew’s theory that reverses the direction of influence between
the steppes and western Europe and sees the Indo-European culture spreading through the peaceful
diffusion of agriculture rather than through conquest. See his Archaeology and Language:
ThePuzzle of Indo-European Origins (Cambridge, UK, 1988).
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
The standard work on the Indo-European languages is K.Brugmann and B.Delbrück’s Grundriss
der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen (2nd ed., Strassburg, 1897–
1911). See also H.Hirt’s Indogermanische Grammatik (7 vols., Heidelberg, 1921–1937).
Goodbrief handbooks are A.Meillet, Introduction à l’étude comparative des langues indo-
européennes (8th ed., Paris, 1937); J.Schrijnen, Einführung in das Studium der
indogermanischen Sprachwissenschaft, trans. W.Fischer (Heidelberg, 1921); Robert
S.P.Beekes, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction (Amsterdam, 1995); and
Oswald Szemérenyi, Einführung in die vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft (4th ed., Darmstadt,
Germany, 1990), trans. as Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics (Oxford, 1997).
Summaries of what is known about the many languages in this important family are in
W.B.Lockwood, A Panorama of Indo-European Languages (London, 1972) and Philip Baldi,
An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages (Carbondale, IL, 1983). The Indo-European
vocabulary is discussed in illuminating detail by Emile Benveniste, Indo-European Language
and Society, trans. Elizabeth Palmer (London, 1973). The standard etymological dictionary is
Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (2 vols., Bern, 1959–1969),
which may be used with Calvert Watkins’ helpful appendix to The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed., New York, 2000) for examining Indo-European
roots with reflexes in Modern English. Important studies of Indo-European phonology and
morphology are by Jerzy Kuryłowicz, The Inflectional Categories of Indo-European
(Heidelberg, 1964), and two volumes in Indogermanische Grammatik, ed. J.Kuryłowicz and
M.Mayrhofer: Calvert Watkins, Geschichte der indogermanischen Verbalflexion, vol. 3, part 1
(Heidelberg, 1969), and Manfred Mayrhofer, Lautlehre (Segmentale Phonologie des
Indogermanischen), vol. 1 (Heidelberg, 1986). The laryngeal theory is the subject of essays in
Alfred Bammesberger, ed., Die Laryngaltheorie und die Rekonstruktion des indogermanischen
Laut- und Formensystems (Heidelberg, 1988). For the Germanic languages H.Paul’s Grundriss
der germanischen Philologie (2nd ed., Strassburg, 1900–1909, with some parts published
separately in a third edition, extensively revised) is indispensable to the advanced student. Basic
works in their field are W. Streitberg, Urgermanische Grammatik (Heidelberg, 1896), and
E.Prokosch, A Comparative Germanic Grammar (Philadelphia, 1939). A good brief treatment
of the Germanic languages is A.Meillet, Caractères généraux des langues germaniques (4th ed.,
Paris, 1930), trans. W.P.Dismukes, General Characteristics of the Germanic Languages (Coral
Gables, FL, 1970). Hermann Collitz’s “A Century of Grimm’s Law,” Language, 2 (1926) gives
an interesting account of the development of this important earmark of the Germanic languages.
For a new reconstruction of the Indo-European system of stops and the implications for
Grimm’s Law, and much else on Indo-European language and culture, see Thomas
V.Gamkrelidze and V.V.Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, trans. Johanna
Nichols (2 vols., Berlin, 1995); see also Paul J.Hopper, “Glottalized and Murmured Occlusives
in Indo-European,” Glossa, 7 (1973), 141–65. A convenient summary of more than forty “laws”
and the scholarship on them is N.E.Collinge, The Laws of Indo-European (Amsterdam, 1985).
The literature on Hittite and Tocharian is scattered. An admirable statement of the Hittite question
will be found in J.Friedrich, “Die bisherigen Ergebnisse der Hethitischen Sprachforschung,” in
Stand und Aufgaben der Sprachwissenschaft: Festschrift für Wilhelm Streitberg (Heidelberg,
1924), and the same author’s Hethitisch und ‘Kleinasiatische’ Sprachen (Berlin, 1931).
Advanced students may supplement this with E.H.Sturtevant’s A Comparative Grammar of the
Hittite Language (Philadelphia, 1933) and the same author’s papers in Language and the Trans.
Amer. Philol. Assoc. They may also consult Ferdinand Sommer, Hethiter und Hethitisch
(Stuttgart, 1947), and J.Friedrich, Hethitisches Elementarbuch, I (2nd ed., Heidelberg, 1960). A
recent argument for the Indo-Hittite hypothesis and a short period of separation is Norbert
Oettinger, Indo-Hittite-Hypothese und Wortbildung (Innsbruck, Austria, 1986). The principle
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facts in regard to Tocharian are contained in A.Meillet’s article, “Le Tokharien,”
Indogermanisches Jahrbuch, 1 (1913), 1–19; see also the introduction to A.J.Van Windekens,
Morphologie comparée du Tokharien (Louvain, Belgium, 1944; Bibliothèque du Muséon, vol.
17), and Holger Pedersen, Tocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen
Sprachvergleichung (Copenhagen, 1941; Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab., Hist.-filol.
Meddelser, vol. 28, no. 1).
Convenient accounts of the question of the original home of the Indo-European family are Colin
Renfrew, Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins (Cambridge, UK,
1987) and J.P.Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth
(London, 1989). Older studies contain much linguistic information that is useful, including
Harold H.Bender, The Home of the Indo-Europeans (Princeton, 1922); M.Much, Die Heimat
der Indogermanen im Lichte der urgeschichtlichen Forschung (Berlin, 1902); H.Hirt, Die
Indogermanen, ihre Verbreitung, ihre Urheimat und ihre Kultur (2 vols., Strassburg, 1905–
1907); S. Feist, Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen (Berlin, 1913), chap. 20,
and Indogermanen und Germanen (Halle, Germany, 1914); and the popular but scholarly little
book Die Indogermanen, by O.Schrader (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1916). Hirt summed up his own
views and gave an excellent account of the question in the first volume of his Indogermanische
Grammatik (1927), chap. 6. In addition, the following may be consulted: a group of interesting,
though sometimes highly speculative papers assembled from various contributors by Wilhelm
Koppers under the title Die Indogermanen- und Germanen-Frage, in vol. 4 of the Wiener
Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik (1936); Ernst Meyer, Die Indogermanenfrage
(Marburg, Germany, 1948), with a useful bibliography; Hans Krahe, Sprache und Vorzeit:
Europäische Vorgeschichte nach dem Zeugnis der Sprache (Heidelberg, 1954); and Walter
Porzig, Die Gliederung des indogermanischen Sprachgebiets (Heidelberg, 1954). Impressive
developments in archaeology during the past three decades have not settled the question. In a
series of books and articles, Marija Gimbutas has argued for the lower Volga Steppe, as in her
“Old Europe in the Fifth Millennium B.C.: The European Situation on the Arrival of the Indo-
Europeans,” in The Indo-Europeans in the Fourth and Third Millennia, ed. Edgar C.Polomé
(Ann Arbor, MI, 1982), 1–60. See also the essays in six numbers of the Journal of Indo-
European Studies, published in three parts: vol. 8, 1–2 and 3–4 (1980), and vol. 9, 1–2 (1981),
under the title The Transformation of European and Anatolian Cultures c. 4500–2500 B.C. and
Its Legacy, ed. Marija Gimbutas.
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3
Old English
29. The Languages in England before English.
We are so accustomed to thinking of English as an inseparable adjunct to the English
people that we are likely to forget that it has been the language of England for a
comparatively short period in the world’s history. Since its introduction into the island
about the middle of the fifth century it has had a career extending through only 1,500
years. Yet this part of the world had been inhabited by humans for thousands of years:
50,000 according to more moderate estimates, 250,000 in the opinion of some. During
this long stretch of time, most of it dimly visible through prehistoric mists, the presence
of a number of cultures can be detected; and each of these cultures had a language.
Nowhere does our knowledge of the history of humankind carry us back to a time when
humans did not have a language. What can be said about the early languages of England?
Unfortunately, little enough.
What we know of the earliest inhabitants of England is derived wholly from the
material remains that have been uncovered by archaeological research. The classification
of these inhabitants is consequently based upon the types of material culture that
characterized them in their successive stages. Before the discovery of metals, human
societies were dependent upon stone for the fabrication of such implements and weapons
as they possessed. Generally speaking, the Stone Age is thought to have lasted in England
until about 2000 B.C., although the English were still using some stone weapons in the
battle of Hastings in 1066. Stone, however, gradually gave way to bronze, as bronze was
eventually displaced by iron about 500 or 600 B.c.
1
Because the Stone Age was of long
duration, it is customary to distinguish between an earlier and a later period, known as the
Paleolithic (Old Stone) Age and the Neolithic (New Stone) Age.
Paleolithic humans, the earliest inhabitants of England, entered at a time when this
part of the world formed a part of the continent of Europe, when there was no English
Channel and when the North Sea was not much more than an enlarged river basin. The
people of this period were short of stature, averaging about five feet, long-armed and
short-legged, with low foreheads and poorly developed chins. They lived in the open,
under rock shelters or, later, in caves. They were dependent for food upon the vegetation
that grew wild and such animals as they could capture and kill. Fortunately, an abundance
of fish and game materially lessened the problem of existence. Their weapons scarcely
1
The Iron Age begins in Southern Europe rather earlier. The metal was apparently just coming into
use in the eastern Mediterranean in Homeric times. One of the prizes in the funeral games in the
Iliad, by which Achilles commemorated the death of his friend Patroclus, was an ingot of iron.

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extended beyond a primitive sledge or ax, to which they eventually learned to affix a
handle. More than one distinct group is likely to be represented in this early stage of
culture. The humans whose remains are found in the latest Paleolithic strata are
distinguished by a high degree of artistic skill. But representations of boar and mastodon
on pieces of bone or the walls of caves tell us nothing about the language of their
designers. Their language disappeared with the disappearance of the race, or their
absorption into the later population. We know nothing about the language, or languages,
of Paleolithic culture.
“Neolithic” is likewise a convenient rather than scientific term to designate the
peoples who, from about 5000 B.C., possess a superior kind of stone implement, often
polished, and a higher culture generally. The predominant type in this new population
appears to have come from the south and, from its widespread distribution in the lands
bordering on the Mediterranean, is known as the Mediterranean race. It was a dark race
of slightly larger stature than the Paleolithic population. The people of this
technologically more advanced culture had domesticated the common domestic animals
and developed elementary agriculture. They made crude pottery and did a little weaving,
and some lived in crannogs, structures built on pilings driven into swamps and lakes.
They buried their dead, covering the more important members of society with large
mounds or barrows, oval in shape. But they did not have the artistic gifts of late
Paleolithic peoples. Their language has not survived, and because our hope of learning
anything about the language they spoke rests upon our finding somewhere a remnant of
the race still speaking that language, that hope, so far as England is concerned, is dead. In
a corner of the Pyrenees mountains of Spain, however, there survives a small community
that is believed by some to represent this non-Indo-European culture. These people are
the Basques, and their language shows no affiliation with any other language now known.
Allowing for the changes it has doubtless undergone through the centuries, the Basque
language may furnish us with a clue to the language of at least one group in the Neolithic
cultures of Europe.
The first people in England about whose language we have definite knowledge are the
Celts. It used to be assumed that the coming of the Celts to England coincided with the
introduction of bronze into the island. But the use of bronze probably preceded the Celts
by several centuries. We have already described the Celtic languages in England and
called attention to the two divisions of them, the Gaelic or Goidelic branch and the
Brythonic branch. Celtic was probably the first Indo-European tongue to be spoken in
England. One other language, Latin, was spoken rather extensively for a period of about
four centuries before the coming of English. Latin was introduced when Britain became a
province of the Roman Empire. Because this was an event that has left a significant mark
upon later history, it will be well to consider it separately.
30. The Romans in Britain.
In the summer of 55 B.C.Julius Caesar, having completed the conquest of Gaul, decided
upon an invasion of England. What the object of his enterprise was is not known for
certain. It is unlikely that he contemplated the conquest of the island; probably his chief
purpose was to discourage the Celts of Britain from coming to the assistance of Celts in
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Gaul, should the latter attempt to throw off the Roman yoke.
2
The expedition that year
almost ended disastrously, and his return the following year was not a great success. In
crossing the Channel some of his transports encountered a storm that deprived him of the
support of his cavalry. The resistance of the Celts was unexpectedly spirited. It was with
difficulty that he effected a landing, and he made little headway. Because the season was
far advanced, he soon returned to Gaul. The expedition had resulted in no material gain
and some loss of prestige. Accordingly the following summer he again invaded the
island, after much more elaborate preparations. This time he succeeded in establishing
himself in the southeast. But after a few encounters with the Celts, in which he was
moderately successful, he exacted tribute from them (which was never paid) and again
returned to Gaul. He had perhaps succeeded in his purpose, but he had by no means
struck terror into the hearts of the Celts, and Britain was not again troubled by Roman
legions for nearly a hundred years.
31. The Roman Conquest.
It was in A.D. 43 that the Emperor Claudius decided to undertake the actual conquest of
the island. With the knowledge of Caesar’s experience behind him, he did not
underestimate the problems involved. Accordingly an army of 40,000 was sent to Britain
and within three years had subjugated the peoples of the central and southeastern regions.
Subsequent campaigns soon brought almost all of what is now England under Roman
rule. The progress of Roman control was not uninterrupted. A serious uprising of the
Celts occurred in A.D. 61 under Boudicca (Boadicea), the widow of one of the Celtic
chiefs, and 70,000 Romans and Romanized Britons are said to have been massacred.
Under the Roman Governor Agricola (A.D. 78–85) the northern frontier was advanced to
the Solway and the Tyne, and the conquest may be said to have been completed. The
Romans never penetrated far into the mountains of Wales and Scotland. Eventually they
protected the northern boundary by a stone wall stretching across England at
approximately the limits of Agricola’s permanent conquest. The district south of this line
was under Roman rule for more than 300 years.
32. Romanization of the Island.
It was inevitable that the military conquest of Britain should have been followed by the
Romanization of the province. Where the Romans lived and ruled, there Roman ways
were found. Four great highways soon spread fanlike from London to the north, the
northwest, the west, and the southwest, while a fifth cut across the island from Lincoln to
the Severn. Numerous lesser roads connected important military or civil centers or
branched off as spurs from the main highways. A score of small cities and more than a
2
In the opinion of R.G.Collingwood, Caesar’s intention was to conquer the whole island.
See R.G.Collingwood and J.N.L.Myres, Roman Britain and the English Settlements (2nd
ed., Oxford, 1937), p. 34.
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hundred towns, with their Roman houses and baths, temples, and occasional theaters,
testify to the introduction of Roman habits of life. The houses were equipped with
heating apparatus and water supply, their floors were paved in mosaic, and their walls
were of painted stucco—all as in their Italian counterparts. Roman dress, Roman
ornaments and utensils, and Roman pottery and glassware seem to have been in general
use. By the third century Christianity had made some progress in the island, and in A.D.
314, bishops from London and York attended a church council in Gaul. Under the
relatively peaceful conditions that existed everywhere except along the frontiers, where
the hostile penetration of the unconquered population was always to be feared, there is
every reason to think that Romanization had proceeded very much as it had in the other
provinces of the empire. The difference is that in Britain the process was cut short in the
fifth century.
33. The Latin Language in Britain.
Among the other evidences of Romanization must be included the use of the Latin
language. A great number of inscriptions have been found, all of them in Latin. The
majority of these proceed no doubt from the military and official class and, being in the
nature of public records, were therefore in the official language. They do not in them-
selves indicate a widespread use of Latin by the native population. Latin did not replace
the Celtic language in Britain as it did in Gaul. Its use by native Britons was probably
confined to members of the upper classes and some inhabitants of the cities and towns.
Occasional graffiti scratched on a tile or a piece of pottery, apparently by the worker who
made it, suggest that in some localities Latin was familiar to the artisan class. Outside the
cities there were many fine country houses, some of which were probably occupied by
the well-to-do. The occupants of these also probably spoke Latin. Tacitus tells us that in
the time of Agricola the Britons, who had hitherto shown only hostility to the language of
their conquerors, now became eager to speak it. At about the same time, a Greek teacher
from Asia Minor was teaching in Britain, and by A.D. 96 the poet Martial was able to
boast, possibly with some exaggeration, that his works were read even in this far-off
island. On the whole, there were certainly many people in Roman Britain who habitually
spoke Latin or upon occasion could use it. But its use was not sufficiently widespread to
cause it to survive, as the Celtic language survived, the upheaval of the Germanic
invasions. Its use probably began to decline after 410, the approximate date at which the
last of the Roman legions were officially withdrawn from the island. The few traces that
it has left in the language of the Germanic invaders and that can still be seen in the
English language today will occupy us later.
34. The Germanic Conquest.
About the year 449 an event occurred that profoundly affected the course of history. In
that year, as traditionally stated, began the invasion of Britain by certain Germanic tribes,
the founders of the English nation. For more than a hundred years bands of conquerors
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and settlers migrated from their continental homes in the region of Denmark and the Low
Countries and established themselves in the south and east of the island, gradually
extending the area they occupied until it included all but the highlands in the west and
north. The events of these years are wrapped in much obscurity. Although we can form a
general idea of their course, we are still in doubt about some of the tribes that took part in
the movement, their exact location on the continent, and the dates of their respective
migrations.
The traditional account of the Germanic invasions goes back to Bede and the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle. Bede in his Ecdesiastical History of the English People, completed in
731, tells us that the Germanic tribes that conquered England were the Jutes, Saxons, and
Angles. From what he says and from other indications, it seems possible that the Jutes
and the Angles had their home in the Danish peninsula, the Jutes in the northern half
(hence the name
THE HOME OF THE ENGLISH
Note. The location of the Germanic tribes that invaded
England is still a matter of dispute. The above map
presents the traditional view, based upon the rather late
testimony (eighth century) of Bede. An alternative opinion
places the Angles on the middle Elbe and the Jutes near the
Frisians.
Jutland) and the Angles in the south, in Schleswig-Holstein, and perhaps a small area at
the base. The Saxons were settled to the south and west of the Angles, roughly between
the Elbe and the Ems, possibly as far as the Rhine. A fourth tribe, the Frisians, some of
A history of the english language 42

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whom almost certainly came to England, occupied a narrow strip along the coast from the
Weser to the Rhine, together with the islands opposite. But by the time of the invasions
the Jutes had apparently moved down to the coastal area near the mouth of the Weser,
and possibly also around the Zuyder Zee and the lower Rhine, thus being in contact with
both the Frisians and Saxons.
Britain had been exposed to attacks by the Saxons from as early as the fourth century.
Even while the island was under Roman rule these attacks had become sufficiently
serious to necessitate the appointment of an officer known as the Count of the Saxon
Shore, whose duty it was to police the southeastern coast. At the same time the
unconquered Picts and Scots in the north were kept out only at the price of constant
vigilance. Against both of these sources of attack the Roman organization seems to have
proved adequate. But the Celts had come to depend on Roman arms for this protection.
They had, moreover, under Roman influence settled down to a more peaceful mode of
life, and their military traditions had lapsed. Consequently when the Romans withdrew in
410 the Celts found themselves at a disadvantage. They were no longer able to keep out
the warlike Picts and Scots. Several times they called upon Rome for aid, but finally the
Romans, fully occupied in defending their own territory at home, were forced to refuse
assistance. It was on this occasion that Vortigern, one of the Celtic leaders, is reported to
have entered into an agreement with the Jutes whereby they were to assist the Celts in
driving out the Picts and Scots and to receive as their reward the isle of Thanet on the
northeastern tip of Kent.
The Jutes, who had not been softened by contact with Roman civilization, were fully a
match for the Picts and Scots. But Vortigern and the Celts soon found that they had in
these temporary allies something more serious to reckon with than their northern
enemies. The Jutes, having recognized the weakness of the Britons, decided to stay in the
island and began making a forcible settlement in the southeast, in Kent.
3
The settlement
of the Jutes was a very different thing from the conquest of the island by the Romans.
The Romans had come to rule the Celtic population, not to dispossess it. The Jutes came
in numbers and settled on the lands of the Celts. They met the resistance of the Celts by
driving them out. Moreover the example of the Jutes was soon followed by the migration
of other continental tribes. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle some of the Saxons
came in 477, landed on the south coast, and established themselves in Sussex. In 495
further bands of Saxons settled a little to the west, in Wessex.
4
Finally in the middle of
the next century the Angles occupied the east coast and in 547 established an Anglian
kingdom north of the Humber. Too much credence, of course, cannot be put in these
statements or dates. There were Saxons north of the Thames, as the names Essex and
3
On the basis of archaeological evidence it has been maintained that the bulk of those who settled
in Kent were Franks from the lower Rhine area, and it is suggested that with the Frisians they
joined leaders who were Jutes, possibly from Jutland. See C.F.C.Hawkes, “The Jutes of Kent,” in
Dark-Age Britain: Studies Presented to E.T.Leeds (London, 1956), pp. 91–111. We must
remember, however, that the possession of an ornament does not establish its maker or place of
manufacture. See the remarks of T.C.Lethbridge in the same volume, p. 114.
4
It will be recalled that the King Arthur of romance is thought by some to represent a military
leader of the Celts, possibly a Roman or Romanized Celt, who led this people, at the beginning of
the sixth century, in their resistance to the Germanic invaders, and who enjoyed an unusual, if
temporary, success.
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Middlesex (the districts of the East Saxons and Middle Saxons) indicate, and the
Angles had already begun to settle in East Anglia by the end of the fifth century. But the
entries in the Chronicle may be taken as indicating in a general way a succession of
settlements extending over more than a century which completely changed the character
of the island of Britain.
35. Anglo-Saxon Civilization.
It is difftcult to speak with surety about the relations of the newcomers and the native
population. In some districts where the inhabitants were few, the Anglo-Saxons probably
settled down beside the Celts in more or less peaceful contact. In others, as in the West
Saxon territory, the invaders met with stubborn resistance and succeeded in establishing
themselves only after much fighting. Many of the Celts undoubtedly were driven into the
west and sought refuge in Wales and Cornwall, and some emigrated across the Channel
to Brittany. In any case such civilization as had been attained under Roman influence was
largely destroyed. The Roman towns were burnt and abandoned. Town life did not attract
a population used to life in the open and finding its occupation in hunting and agriculture.
The organization of society was by families and clans with a sharp distinction between
eorls, a kind of hereditary aristocracy, and the ceorls or simple freemen. The business of
the community was transacted in local assemblies or moots, and justice was administered
through a series of fines—the wergild—which varied according to the nature of the crime
and the rank of the injured party. Guilt was generally determined by ordeal or by
compurgation. In time various tribes combined either for greater strength or, under the
influence of a powerful leader, to produce small kingdoms. Seven of these are eventually
recognized, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex, and are
spoken of as the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. But the grouping was not very permanent,
sometimes two or more being united under one king, at other times kingdoms being
divided under separate rulers. In the early part of the seventh century Northumbria gained
political supremacy over a number of the other kingdoms and held an undoubted
leadership in literature and learning as well. In the eighth century this leadership passed
to Mercia. Finally, in the ninth century, Wessex under the guidance of Egbert (802–839)
began to extend its influence until in 830 all England, including the chieftains of Wales,
acknowledged Egbert’s overlordship. The result can hardly be called a united kingdom,
but West Saxon kings were able to maintain their claim to be kings of all the English, and
under Alfred (871–889) Wessex attained a high degree of prosperity and considerable
enlightenment.
5
The Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, called the Celts Wealas (foreigners), from which the word
Welsh is derived.
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36. The Names “England” and “English.”
The Celts called their Germanic conquerors Saxons indiscriminately, probably because
they had had their first contact with the Germanic peoples through the Saxon raids on the
coast.
5
Early Latin writers, following Celtic usage, generally call the Germanic
inhabitants of England Saxones and the land Saxonia. But soon the terms Angli and
Anglia occur beside Saxones and refer not to the Angles individually but to the West
Germanic tribes generally. Æthelbert, king of Kent, is styled rex Anglorum by Pope
Gregory in 601, and a century later Bede called his history the Historia Ecclesiastica
Gentis Anglorum. In time Angli and Anglia become the usual terms in Latin texts. From
the beginning, however, writers in the vernacular never call their language anything but
Englisc (English). The word is derived from the name of the Angles (OE Engle) but is
used without distinction for the language of all the invading tribes. In like manner the
land and its people are early called Angelcynn (Angle-kin or race of the Angles), and this
is the common name until after the Danish period. From about the year 1000 Englaland
(land of the Angles) begins to take its place. The name English is thus older than the
name England.
6
It is not easy to say why England should have taken its name from the
Angles. Possibly a desire to avoid confusion with the Saxons who remained on the
continent and the early supremacy of the Anglian kingdoms were the predominant factors
in determining usage.
7
37. The Origin and Position of English.
The English language of today is the language that has resulted from the history of the
dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes who came to England in the manner described. It
is impossible to say how much the speech of the Angles differed from that of the Saxons
or that of the Jutes. The differences were certainly slight. Even after these dialects had
been subjected to several centuries of geographical and political separation in England,
the differences were not great. As we have seen above (§ 25) English belongs to the Low
West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. This means in the first place that it
shares certain characteristics common to all the Germanic languages. For example, it
shows the shifting of certain consonants described above (§ 16) under the head of
Grimm’s Law. It possesses a “weak” as well as a “strong” declension of the adjective and
6
The spelling England no longer represents the pronunciation of the word. Under the influence of
the nasal -ng the e has undergone the regular change to i (cf. OE streng>string; ME weng >wing).
The spelling Ingland occurs in Middle English, and the vowel is accurately represented in the
Spanish Inglaterra and Italian Inghilterra.
7
The term Anglo-Saxon is occasionally found in Old English times and is often employed today to
designate the earliest period of English. It went out of use after the Norman Conquest until revived
in the sixteenth century by the antiquarian William Camden. Although amply justified by usage, it
is logically less defensible than the term Old English, which has the advantage of suggesting the
unbroken continuity of English throughout its existence, but it is too convenient a synonym to be
wholly discarded.
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a distinctive type of conjugation of the verb—the so-called weak or regular verbs such as
fill, filled, filled, which form their past tense and past participle by adding -ed or some
analogous sound to the stem of the present. And it shows the adoption of a strong stress
accent on the first or the root syllable of most words,
8
a feature of great importance in all
the Germanic languages because it is chiefly responsible for the progressive decay of
inflections in these languages. In the second place it means that English belongs with
German and certain other languages because of features it has in common with them and
that enable us to distinguish a West Germanic group as contrasted with the Scandinavian
languages (North Germanic) and Gothic (East Germanic). These features have to do
mostly with certain phonetic changes, especially the gemination or doubling of
consonants under special conditions, matters that we do not need to enter upon here. And
it means, finally, that English, along with the other languages of northern Germany and
the Low Countries, did not participate in the further modification of certain consonants,
known as the Second or High German Sound-Shift.
9
In other words it belongs with the
dialects of the lowlands in the West Germanic area.
38. The Periods in the History of English.
The evolution of English in the 1,500 years of its existence in England has been an
unbroken one. Within this development, however, it is possible to recognize three main
periods. Like all divisions in history, the periods of the English language are matters of
convenience and the dividing lines between them purely arbitrary. But within each of the
periods it is possible to recognize certain broad characteristics and certain special
developments that take place. The period from 450 to 1150 is known as Old English. It is
sometimes described as the period of full inflections, because during most of this period
the endings of the noun, the adjective, and the verb are preserved more or less
unimpaired. From 1150 to 1500 the language is known as Middle English.
10
During this
period the inflections, which had begun to break down toward the end of the Old English
period, become greatly reduced, and it is consequently known as the period of leveled
inflections. The language since 1500 is called Modern English. By the time we reach this
stage in the development a large part of the original inflectional system has disappeared
entirely, and we therefore speak of it as the period of lost inflections. The progressive
decay of inflections is only one of the developments that mark the evolution of English in
its various stages. We shall discuss in their proper place the other features that are
characteristic of Old English, Middle English, and Modern English.
8
This is obscured somewhat in Modern English by the large number of words borrowed from
Latin.
9
The effect of this shifting may be seen by comparing the English and the German words in the
following pairs: English open—German offen; English water—German wasser; English pound—
German pfund; English tongue—German zunge.
10
Some of the developments which distinguish Middle English begin as early as the tenth century,
but a consideration of the matter as a whole justifies the date 1150 as the general line of
demarcation.
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39. The Dialects of Old English.
Old English was not an entirely uniform language. Not only are there differences between
the language of theearliest written records (about A.D. 700) and that of the later literary
texts, but the language differed somewhat from one locality to another. We can
distinguish four dialects in Old English times: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and
Kentish. Of these Northumbrian and Mercian are found in the region north of the Thames
settled by the Angles. They possess certain features in common and are sometimes
known collectively as Anglian. But Northum-brian, spoken north of the Humber, and
Mercian, between the Humber and the Thames, each possess certain distinctive features
as well. Unfortunately we know less about them than we should like since they are
preserved mainly in charters, runic inscriptions, a few brief fragments of verse, and some
interlinear translations of portions of the Bible. Kentish is known from still scantier
remains and is the dialect of the Jutes in the southeast. The only dialect in which there is
an extensive collection of texts is West Saxon, which was the dialect of the West Saxon
kingdom in the southwest. Nearly all of Old English literature is preserved in manuscripts
transcribed in this region. The dialects probably reflect differences already present in the
continental homes of the invaders. There is evidence, however, that some features
developed in England after the settlement. With the ascendancy of the West Saxon
kingdom, the West Saxon dialect attained something of the position of a literary standard,
and both for this reason and because of the abundance of the materials it is made the basis
of the study of Old English. Such a start as it had made toward becoming the standard
speech of England was cut short by the Norman Conquest, which, as we shall see,
reduced all dialects to a common level of unimportance. And when in the late Middle
English period a standard English once more began to arise, it was on the basis of a
different dialect, that of the East Midlands.
40. Some Characteristics of Old English.
The English language has undergone such change in the course of time that one cannot
read Old English without special study. In fact a page of Old English is likely at first to
present a look of greater strangeness than a page of French or Italian because of the
employment of certain characters that no longer form a part of our alphabet. In general
the differences that one notices between Old and Modern English concern spelling and
pronunciation, the lexicon, and the grammar.
The pronunciation of Old English words commonly differs somewhat from that of
their modern equivalents. The long vowels in particular have undergone considerable
modification. Thus the Old English word stān is the same word as Modern English stone,
but the vowel is different. A similar correspondence is apparent in hālig—holy, gān—go,
bān—bone, rāp—rope, hlāf—
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THE DIALECTS OF OLD ENGLISH
Note. Only the major dialect areas are indicated. That the
Saxon settlements north of the Thames (see § 34) had their
own dialect features is apparent in Middle English.
loaf, bāt—boat. Other vowels have likewise undergone changes in fōt (foot), cēne (keen),
metan (mete),
(fire), riht (right), hū (how), and hlūd (loud), but the identity of these
words with their modern descendants is still readily apparent. Words like hēafod (head),
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fæger (fair), or sāwol (soul) show forms that have been contracted in later English. All of
these cases represent genuine differences of pronunciation. However, some of the first
look of strangeness that Old English has to the modern reader is due simply to differences
of spelling. Old English made use of two characters to represent the sound of th: þ and ð,
thorn and eth, respectively, as in the word wiþ (with) or ðā (then), which we no longer
employ. It also expressed the sound of a in hat by a digraph œ (ash), and since the sound
is of very frequent occurrence, the character contributes not a little to the unfamiliar
appearance of the page. Likewise Old English represented the sound of sh by sc, as in
scēap (sheep) or scēotan (shoot), and the sound of k by c, as in cynn (kin) or nacod
(naked); c was also used for the affricate now spelled ch, as in
(speech).
Consequently a number of words that were in all probability pronounced by King Alfred
almost as they are by us present a strange appearance in the written or printed text. Such
words as ecg (edge), scip (ship), bæc (back), benc (bench), þorn (thorn), pæt (that) are
examples. It should be noted that the differences of spelling and pronunciation that figure
so prominently in one’s first impression of Old English are really not very fundamental.
Those of spelling are often apparent rather than real, as they represent no difference in the
spoken language, and those of pronunciation obey certain laws as a result of which we
soon learn to recognize the Old and Modern English equivalents.
A second feature of Old English that would quickly become apparent to a modern
reader is the rarity of those words derived from Latin and the absence of those from
French which form so large a part of our present vocabulary. Such words make up more
than half of the words now in common use. They are so essential to the expression of our
ideas, seem so familiar and natural to us, that we miss them in the earlier stage of the
language. The vocabulary of Old English is almost purely Germanic. A large part of this
vocabulary, moreover, has disappeared from the language. When the Norman Conquest
brought French into England as the language of the higher classes, much of the Old
English vocabulary appropriate to literature and learning died out and was replaced later
by words borrowed from French and Latin. An examination of the words in an Old
English dictionary shows that about 85 percent of them are no longer in use. Those that
survive, to be sure, are basic elements of our vocabulary and by the frequency with which
they recur make up a large part of any English sentence. Apart from pronouns,
prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, and the like, they express fundamental
concepts like mann (man), wīf (wife, woman), cild (child), hūs (house), weall (wall), mete
(meat, food), gœrs (grass), lēaf (leaf), fugol (fowl, bird), gōd (good), hēah (high), strang
(strong), etan (eat), drincan (drink),
(sleep), libban (live), feohtan (fight). But
the fact remains that a considerable part of the vocabulary of Old English is unfamiliar to
the modern reader.
The third and most fundamental feature that distinguishes Old English from the
language of today is its grammar.
11
Inflectional languages fall into two classes: synthetic
11
The principal Old English grammars, in the order of their publication, are F.A.March, A
Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language (New York, 1870), now only of historical
interest; P.J.Cosijn, Altwestsächsische Grammatik (Haag, 1883–1886); E.Sievers, An Old English
Grammar, trans. A.S.Cook (3rd ed., Boston, 1903); K.D.Bülbring, Altenglisches Elementarbuch
(Heidelberg, 1902); Joseph and Elizabeth M.Wright, Old English Grammar (2nd ed., Oxford,
1914), and the same authors’ An Elementary Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1923); Karl Brunner,
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and analytic. A synthetic language is one that indicates the relation of words in a sentence
largely by means of inflections. In the case of the Indo-European languages these most
commonly take the form of endings on the noun and pronoun, the adjective and the verb.
Thus in Latin the nominative murus (wall) is distinguished from the genitive muri (of the
wall), dative muro (to the wall), accusative murum, etc. A single verb form like
laudaverunt (they have praised) conveys the idea of person, number, and tense along with
the meaning of the root, a conception that we require three words for in English. The
Latin sentence Nero interfecit Agrippinam means “Nero killed Agrippina.” It would mean
the same thing if the words were arranged in any other order, such as Agrippinam
interfecit Nero, because Nero is the form of the nominative case and the ending -am of
Agrippinam marks the noun as accusative no matter where it stands. In Modern English,
however, the subject and the object do not have distinctive forms, nor do we have, except
in the possessive case and in pronouns, inflectional endings to indicate the other relations
marked by case endings in Latin. Instead, we make use of a fixed order of words. It
makes a great deal of difference in English whether we say Nero killed Agrippina or
Agrippina killed Nero. Languages that make extensive use of prepositions and auxiliary
verbs and depend upon word order to show other relationships are known as analytic
languages. Modern English is an analytic, Old English a synthetic language. In its
grammar Old English resembles modern German. Theoretically the noun and adjective
are inflected for four cases in the singular and four in the plural, although the forms are
not always distinctive, and in addition the adjective has separate forms for each of the
three genders. The inflection of the verb is less elaborate than that of the Latin verb, but
there are distinctive endings for the different persons, numbers, tenses, and moods. We
shall illustrate the nature of the Old English inflections in the following paragraphs.
41. The Noun.
The inflection of the Old English noun indicates distinctions of number (singular and
plural) and case. The case system is somewhat simpler than that of Latin and some of the
other Indo-European languages. There is no ablative, and generally no locative or
instrumental case, these having been merged with the dative. In the same way the
vocative of direct address is generally identical with the nominative form. Thus the Old
English noun has only four cases. The endings of these cases vary with different nouns,
but they fall into certain broad categories or declensions. There is a vowel declension and
a consonant declension, also called the strong and weak declensions, according to
whether the stem ended in Germanic in a vowel or a consonant, and within each of these
types there are certain subdivisions. The stems of nouns belonging to the vowel
declension ended in one of four vowels in Germanic (although these have disappeared in
Old English): a, ō, i, or u, and the inflection varies accordingly. It is impossible here to
Altenglische Grammatik (3rd ed., Halle, Germany, 1965), based on Sievers; Randolph Quirk and
C.L.Wrenn, An Old English Grammar (2nd ed., London, 1973); and Alistair Campbell, Old English
Grammar (Oxford, 1959). The first volume, on phonology, has appeared in Richard M.Hogg’s A
Grammar of Old English (Oxford, 1992). Two classroom texts with grammars and readings are
F.G.Cassidy and Richard N.Ringler, Bright’s Old English Grammar & Reader (3rd ed., New York,
1971), and Bruce Mitchell and Fred C.Robinson, A Guide to Old English (5th ed., Oxford, 1992).
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present the inflections of the Old English noun in detail. Their nature may be gathered
from two examples of the strong declension and one of the weak: stān (stone), a
masculine a-stem; giefu (gift), a feminine ō-and hunta (hunter), a masculine consonant-
stem. Forms are given for the four cases, nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative:
N.
stān
gief-u
hunt-a
G.
stān-es
gief-e
hunt-an
D.
stān-e
gief-e
hunt-an
Singular
A.
stān
gief-e
hunt-an
N.
stān-as
gief-a
hunt-an
G.
stān-a
gief-a
hunt-ena
D.
stān-um
gief-um
hunt-um
Plural
A.
stān-as
gief-a
hunt-an
It is apparent from these examples that the inflection of the noun was much more
elaborate in Old English than it is today. Even these few paradigms illustrate clearly the
marked synthetic character of English in its earliest stage.
42. Grammatical Gender.
As in Indo-European languages generally, the gender of Old English nouns is not
dependent upon considerations of sex. Although nouns designating males are often
masculine and those indicating females feminine, those indicating neuter objects are not
necessarily neuter. Stān (stone) is masculine, mōna (moon) is masculine, but sunne (sun)
is feminine, as in German. In French the corresponding words have just the opposite
genders: pierre (stone) and lune (moon) are feminine while soleil (sun) is masculine.
Often the gender of Old English nouns is quite illogical. Words like mœgden (girl), wīf
(wife), bearn (child, son), and cild (child), which we should expect to be feminine or
masculine, are in fact neuter, while wīfmann (woman) is masculine because the second
element of the compound is masculine. The simplicity of Modern English gender has
already been pointed out (§ 11) as one of the chief assets of the language. How so
desirable a change was brought about will be shown later.
43. The Adjective.
An important feature of the Germanic languages is the development of a twofold
declension of the adjective: one, the strong declension, used with nouns when not
12
When the stem is short the adjective ends in -u in the nominative singular of the
feminine and the nominative and accusative plural of the neuter.
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accompanied by a definite article or similar word (such as a demonstrative or possessive
pronoun), the other, the weak declension, used when the noun is preceded by such a
word. Thus we have in Old English gōd mann (good man) but sē gōda mann (the good
man). The forms are those of the nominative singular masculine in the strong and weak
declensions respectively, as illustrated below.
STRONG DECLESION
WEAK DECLENSION
Masc.
Fem.
Neut.
Masc.
Fem.
Neut.
N.
gōd
gōd
12
gōd
gōd-a
gōd-e
gōd-e
G.
gōd-es
gōd-re
gōd-es
gōd-an
gōd-an
gōd-an
D.
gōd-um
gōd-re
gōd-um
gōd-an
gōd-an
gōd-an
A.
gōd-ne
gōd-e
gōd
gōd-an
gōd-an
gōd-e
Singular
I.
gōd-e
gōd-e
N.
gōd-e
gōd-a
gōd
gōd-an
G.
gōd-ra
gōd-ra
gōd-ra
gōd-ena or gōd-ra
D.
gōd-um
gōd-um
gōd-um
gōd-um
Plural
A.
gōd-e
gōd-a
gōd
gōd-an
This elaboration of inflection in the Old English adjective contrasts in the most striking
way with the complete absence of inflection from the adjective in Modern English. Such
complexity is quite unnecessary, as the English language demonstrates every day by
getting along without it. Its elimination has resulted in a second great advantage that
English possesses over some other languages.
44. The Definite Article.
Like German, its sister language of today, Old English possessed a fully inflected definite
article. How complete the declension of this word was can be seen from the following
forms:
SINGULAR
PLURAL
Masc.
Fem.
Neut.
All Genders
N.
sē
sēo
ðæt
ðā
G.
ðæs
ðæs
ðāra
D.
A.
ðone
ðā
ðæ
ðā
I.
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While the ordinary meaning of sē, sēo, ðœt is ‘the’, the word is really a demonstrative
pronoun and survives in the Modern English demonstrative that. Its pronominal character
appears also in its not infrequent use as a relative pronoun (=who, which, that) and as a
personal pronoun (=he, she, it). The regular personal pronoun, however, is shown in the
next paragraph.
45. The Personal Pronoun.
From the frequency of its use and the necessity for specific reference when used, the
personal pronoun in all languages is likely to preserve a fairly complete system of
inflections. Old English shows this tendency not only in having distinctive forms for
practically all genders, persons, and cases but also in preserving in addition to the
ordinary two numbers, singular and plural, a set of forms for two people or two things—
the dual number. Indo-European had separate forms for the dual number in the verb as
well, and these appear in Greek and to a certain extent in Gothic. They are not found,
however, in Old English, and the distinction between the dual and the plural was
disappearing even from the pronoun in Old English. The dual forms are shown, however,
in the following table of the Old English personal pronoun:
N. ic
ðū
hē (he)
hēo (she)
hit (it)
G. mīn
ðīn
his
hiere
his
D. mē
ðē
him
hiere
him
Singular
A. mē (mec)
ðē (ðec)
hine
hīe
hit
N. wit (we two)
git (ye two)
G. uncer
incer
D. unc
inc
Dual
A. unc
inc
N. wē
gē
hīe
G. ūser (ūre)
ēower
hiera
D. ūs
ēow
him
Plural
A. ūs (ūsic)
ēow (ēowic)
hīe
46. The Verb.
The inflection of the verb in the Germanic languages is much simpler than it was in Indo-
European times. A comparison of the Old English verb with the verbal inflection of
Greek or Latin will show how much has been lost. Old English distinguished only two
simple tenses by inflection, a present and a past, and, except for one word, it had no
inflectional forms for the passive as in Latin or Greek. It recognized the indicative,
subjunctive, and imperative moods and had the usual two numbers and three persons.
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A peculiar feature of the Germanic languages was the division of the verb into two
great classes, the weak and the strong, often known in Modern English as regular and
irregular verbs. These terms, which are so commonly employed in modern grammars, are
rather unfortunate because they suggest an irregularity in the strong verbs that is more
apparent than real. The strong verbs, like sing, sang, sung, which represent the basic
Indo-European type, are so called because they have the power of indicating change of
tense by a modification of their root vowel. In the weak verbs, such as walk, walked,
walked, this change is effected by the addition of a “dental,” sometimes of an extra
syllable.
The apparent irregularity of the strong verbs is due to the fact that verbs of this type
are much less numerous than weak verbs. In Old English, if we exclude compounds,
there were only a few over 300 of them, and even this small number falls into several
classes. Within these classes, however, a perfectly regular sequence can be observed in
the vowel changes of the root. Nowadays these verbs, generally speaking, have different
vowels in the present tense, the past tense, and the past participle. In some verbs the
vowels of the past tense and past participle are identical, as in break, broke, broken, and
in some all three forms have become alike in modern times (bid, bid, bid). In Old English
the vowel of the past tense often differs in the singular and the plural; or, to be more
accurate, the first and third person singular have one vowel while the second person
singular and all persons of the plural have another. In the principal parts of Old English
strong verbs, therefore, we have four forms: the infmitive, the preterite singular (first and
third person), the preterite plural, and the past participle. In Old English the strong verbs
can be grouped in seven general classes. While there are variations within each class,
they may be illustrated by the following seven verbs:
I. drīfan
(drive)
drāf
drifon
(ge) drifen
II. cēosan
(choose)
cēas
curon
13
coren
III. helpan
(help)
healp
hulpon
holpen
IV. beran
(bear)
bær
boren
V. sprecan
(speak)
spræc
sprecen
VI. faran
(fare, go)
fōr
fōron
faren
VII. feallan
(fall)
fēoll
fēollon
feallen
14
13
The change of s to r is due to the fact that the accent was originally on the final syllable
in the preterite plural and the past participle. It is known as Grammatical Change or
Verner’s Law for the scholar who first explained it (cf. § 16). In Modern English the s
has been restored in the past participle (chosen) by analogy with the other forms. The
initial sound has been leveled in the same way.
14
The personal endings may be illustrated by the conjugation of the first verb in the above list,
drīfan:
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The origin of the dental suffixes by which weak verbs form their past tense and past
participle is strongly debated. It was formerly customary to explain these as part of the
verb do, as though I worked was originally I work—did (i.e., I did work). More recently
an attempt has been made to trace these forms to a type of verb that formed its stem by
adding -to- to the root. The origin of so important a feature of the Germanic languages as
the weak conjugation is naturally a question to which we should like very much to find
the answer. Fortunately it is not of prime importance to our present purpose of describing
the structure of Old English. Here it is sufficient to note that a large and important group
of verbs in Old English form their past tense by adding -ede, -ode, or -de to the present
stem, and their past participles by adding -ed, -od, or -d. Thus fremman (to perform) has a
preterite fremede and a past participle gefremed; lufian (to love) has lufode and gelufod;
libban (to live) has lifde and gelifd. The personal endings except in the preterite singular
are similar to those of the strong verbs and need not be repeated. It is to be noted,
however, that the weak conjugation has come to be the dominant one in our language.
Many strong verbs have passed over to this conjugation, and practically all new verbs
added to our language are inflected in accordance with it.
INDICATIVE
SUBJUNCTIVE
Present
Present
ic
drīf-e
ic
drīf-e
ðū
drīf-st (-est)
ðū
drīf-e
hē
drīf-ð(-eð)
hē
drīf-e
wē
drīf-að
wē
drīf-en
gē
drīf-að
gē
drīf-en
hīe
drīf-að
hīe
drīf-en
Past
Past
ic
drāf
ic
drif-e
ðū
drif-e
ðū
drif-e
hē
drāf
hē
drif-e
wē
drif-on
wē
drīf-en
gē
drif-on
gē
drif-en
hīe
drif-on
hīe
drif-en
In addition to these forms the imperative was drīf (sing.) and drīfað (plur.), the present participle
drīfende, and the gerund (i.e., the infinitive used as a verbal noun) tō drīfenne.
47. The Language Illustrated.
We have spoken of the inflections of Old English in some detail primarily with the object
of making more concrete what is meant when we call the language in this stage synthetic.
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In the later chapters of this book we shall have occasion to trace the process by which
English lost a great part of this inflectional system and became an analytic language, so
that the paradigms which we have given here will also prove useful as a point of
departure for that discussion. The use of these inflections as well as the other
characteristics of the language so far pointed out may be seen in the following specimens.
The first is the Lord’s Prayer, the clauses of which can easily be followed through the
modern form, which is familiar to us from the King James version of the Bible.
Fæder ūre,
þū þe eart on heofonum,
sī þīn nama gehālgod.
Tōbecume þīn rīce.
Gewurþe ðīn willa on eorðan swā swā on heofonum.
Ūrne gedæghwāmlīcan hlāf syle ūs tō dæg.
And forgyf ūs ūre gyltas, swā swā wē forgyfað ūrum gyltendum.
And ne
þū ūs on costnunge,
ac,
ūs of yfele. Sōþlīce.
The second specimen is from the Old English translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History
and tells the story of the coming of the missionaries to England under St. Augustine in
597:
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48. The Resourcefulness of the Old English Vocabulary.
To one unfamiliar with Old English it might seem that a language which lacked the large
number of words borrowed from Latin and French that now form so important a part of
our vocabulary would be somewhat limited in resources. One might think that Old
English, while possessing adequate means of expression for the affairs of simple
everyday life, would be unable to make the fine distinctions that a literary language is
called upon to express. In other words, an Anglo-Saxon might seem like someone today
who is learning to speak a foreign language and who can manage in a limited way to
convey the meaning without having a sufficient command of the vocabulary to express
those subtler shades of thought and feeling, the nuances of meaning, that one is able to
suggest in one’s native language. This, however, is not so. When our means are limited
we often develop unusual resourcefulness in utilizing those means to the full. Such
resourcefulness is characteristic of Old English. The language in this stage shows great
flexibility, a capacity for bending old words to new uses. By means of prefixes and
suffixes a single root is made to yield a variety of derivatives, and the range of these is
greatly extended by the ease with which compounds are formed. The method can be
made clear by an illustration. The word mōd, which is our word mood (a mental state),
meant in Old English ‘heart’, ‘mind’, ‘spirit’, and hence ‘boldness’ or ‘courage’,
sometimes ‘pride’ or ‘haughtiness’. From it, by the addition of a common adjective
ending, was formed the adjective mōdig with a similar range of meanings (spirited, bold,
high-minded, arrogant, stiff-necked), and by means of further endings the adjective
mōdiglic ‘magnanimous’, the adverb mōdiglīce ‘boldly’,
15
The original is here somewhat normalized.
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‘proudly’, and the noun mōdignes ‘magnanimity’, ‘pride’. Another ending converted
mōdig into a verb mōdigian, meaning ‘to bear oneself proudly or exultantly’, or
sometimes, ‘to be indignant’, ‘to rage’. Other forms conveyed meanings whose relation
to the root is easily perceived: gemōdod ‘disposed’, ‘minded’, mōdfull ‘haughty’,
mōdlēas ‘spiritless’. By combining the root with other words meaning ‘mind’ or
‘thought’ the idea of the word is intensified, and we get mōdsefa, mōdgeþanc,
mōdgeþoht, mōdgehygd, mōdgemynd, mōdhord (hord=treasure), all meaning ‘mind’,
‘thought’, ‘understanding’. Some sharpening of the concept is obtained in mōdcræft
‘intelligence’, and mōdcræftig ‘intelligent’. But the root lent itself naturally to
combination with other words to indicate various mental states, such as glœdmōdnes
‘kindness’, mōdlufu ‘affection’ (lufu=love), unmōd ‘despondency’, mōdcaru ‘sorrow’
(caru=care), mōdlēast ‘want of courage’, mādmōd ‘folly’, ofermōd and ofermōdigung
‘pride’, ofermōdig ‘proud’, hēahmōd ‘proud’, ‘noble’, mōdhete ‘hate’ (hete=hate). It will
be seen that Old English did not lack synonyms for some of the ideas in this list. By a
similar process of combination a number of adjectives were formed: micelmōd
‘magnanimous’, swīþmōd ‘great of soul’ (swīþ=strong), stīþmōd ‘resolute’, ‘obstinate’
(stīþ=stiff, strong), gūþmōd ‘warlike’ (gūþ=war, battle), torhtmōd ‘glorious’
(torht=bright), mōdlēof ‘beloved’ (lēof−dear). The examples given are sufficient to
illustrate the point, but they far from tell the whole story. From the same root more than a
hundred words were formed. If we had space to list them, they would clearly show the
remarkable capacity of Old English for derivation and word formation, and what variety
and flexibility of expression it possessed. It was more resourceful in utilizing its native
material than Modern English, which has come to rely to a large extent on its facility in
borrowing and assimilating elements from other languages.
49. Self-explaining Compounds.
In the list of words given in the preceding paragraph are a considerable number that we
call self-explaining compounds. These are compounds of two or more native words
whose meaning in combination is either self-evident or has been rendered clear by
association and usage. In Modern English greenhouse, railway, sewing machine, one-way
street, and coffee-table book are examples of such words. Words of this character are
found in most languages, but the type is particularly prevalent in Old English, as it is in
modern German. Where in English today we often have a borrowed word or a word made
up of elements derived from Latin and Greek, German still prefers self-explaining
compounds. Thus, for hydrogen German says Wasserstoff (water-stuff); for telephone
Fernsprecher
(far-speaker);
and
for
fire
insurance
company
Feur|versicherungs|gesellschaft. So in Old English many words are formed on this
pattern. Thus we have lēohtfæt ‘lamp’ (lēoht light+fœt vessel), medu-heall ‘mead-hall’,
dœgred ‘dawn’ (day-red), ealohūs ‘alehouse’, ealoscop ‘minstrel’, ēarhring ‘earring’,
eorþcrœft ‘geometry, fiscdēag ‘purple’ (lit. fish-dye), fōtādl ‘gout’ (foot-disease),
gimmwyrhta ‘jeweler’ (gem-worker), fiellesēocnes ‘epilepsy’ (falling-sickness; cf.
Shakespeare’s use of this expression in Julius Caesar), frumweorc ‘creation’ (fruma
beginning+work), and many more. The capacity of English nowadays to make similar
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words, though a little less frequently employed than formerly, is an inheritance of the Old
English tradition, when the method was well-nigh universal. As a result of this capacity
Old English seems never to have been at a loss for a word to express the abstractions of
science, theology, and metaphysics, even those it came to know through contact with the
church and Latin culture.
50. Prefixes and Suffixes.
As previously mentioned, a part of the flexibility of the Old English vocabulary comes
from the generous use made of prefixes and suffixes to form new words from old words
or to modify or extend the root idea. In this respect it also resembles modern German.
Among the words mentioned in the preceding paragraphs there are several that are
formed with the suffixes -ig, -full, -lēas, -līce, -nes, and -ung. Others frequently employed
include the adjective suffixes -sum (wynsum) and -wīs (rihtwīs), the noun suffixes -dōm
(cyningdōm, eorldōm), -end, and -ere denoting the agent, -hād (cildhād), -ing in
patronymics, -ung (dagung dawn), -scipe (frēondscipe), and many more. In like manner
the use of prefixes was a fertile resource in word building. It is particularly a feature in
the formation of verbs. There are about a dozen prefixes that occur with great frequency,
such as ā-, be-, for-, fore-, ge-, mis-, of-, ofer-, on-, tō-, un-, under-, and wiþ-. Thus, with
the help of these, Old English could make out of a simple verb like settan (to set) new
verbs like āsettan ‘place’, besettan ‘appoint’, forsettan ‘obstruct’ foresettan ‘place
before’, gesettan ‘people’, ‘garrison’, ofsettan ‘afflict’, onsettan ‘oppress’, tōsettan
‘dispose’, unsettan ‘put down’, and wiþsettan ‘resist’. The prefix wiþenters into more
than fifty Old English verbs, where it has the force of against or away. Such, for
example, are wiþcēosan ‘reject’ (cēosan=choose), wiþcweþan ‘deny’ (cweþan=say),
wiþdrīfan ‘repel’, wiþsprecan ‘contradict’, and wiþstandan. Of these fifty verbs
withstand is the only one still in use, although in Middle English two new verbs,
withdraw and withhold, were formed on the same model. The prefix ofer- occurs in more
than a hundred Old English verbs. By such means the resources of the English verb were
increased almost tenfold, and enough such verbs survive to give us a realization of their
employment in the Old English vocabulary.
In general one is surprised at the apparent ease with which Old English expressed
difficult ideas adequately and often with variety. ‘Companionship’ is literally rendered by
gefērascipe; ‘hospitality’ by giestlīþnes (giest stranger, liþe gracious); gītsung
‘covetousness’ (gītsian=to be greedy). Godcundlic ‘divine’, indryhten ‘aristocratic’
(dryhten=prince), giefolnes ‘liberality’ (giefu=gift), gaderscipe ‘matrimony’ (gadrian=to
gather),
‘medicine’ (
=physician) illustrate, so to speak, the method
of approach. Often several words to express the same idea result. An astronomer or
astrologer may be a tunglere (tungol=star), tungolcræftiga, tungolwītega, a
tīdymbwlātend (tīd=time, ymb=about, wlātian=to gaze), or a tīdscēawere (scēawian= see,
scrutinize). In poetry the vocabulary attains a remarkable flexibility through the wealth of
synonyms for words like war, warrior, shield, sword, battle, sea, ship—sometimes as
many as thirty for one of these ideas—and through the bold use of metaphors. The king is
the leader of hosts, the giver of rings, the protector of eorls, the victory-lord, the heroes’
treasure-keeper. A sword is the product of files, the play of swords a battle, the battle-seat
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a saddle, the shield-bearer a warrior. Warriors in their woven war-shirts, carrying battle-
brand or war-shaft, form the iron-clad throng. A boat is the sea-wood, the wave-courser,
the broad-bosomed, the curved-stem, or the foamy-necked ship, and it travels over the
whale-road, the sea-surge, the rolling of waves, or simply the water’s back. Synonyms
never fail the Beowulf poet. Grendel is the grim spirit, the prowler on the wasteland, the
lonely wanderer, the loathed one, the creature of evil, the fiend in Hell, the grim monster,
the dark death-shadow, the worker of hate, the mad ravisher, the fell spoiler, and the
incarnation of a dozen other attributes characteristic of his enmity toward humankind. No
one can long remain in doubt about the rich and colorful character of the Old English
vocabulary.
51. Old English Syntax.
One of the most obvious features of syntactic style in any language is the degree to which
grammatical and semantic relationships are expressed by subordinate clauses. A high
proportion of long sentences with subordination, as in the prose of Edward Gibbon or
Henry James or the poetry of John Milton, is known as hypotactic style, whereas shorter
sentences and a higher proportion of principal clauses, as in the prose of Ernest
Hemingway, is paratactic. Parataxis may also be interpreted as immature and childish, as
in examples given by S.O.Andrew:
Then I asked him; then he replied…
They came to a place on the road; there stood a temple.
There lived in the convent a certain monk; he was called Martin:
he said…
16
16
S.O.Andrew, Syntax and Style in Old English (Cambridge, UK, 1940), p. 87.
There are clear differences in our modern perceptions of Old English written in this
paratactic style and Old English written with many embedded clauses. The problem is in
determining whether a particular clause is independent or subordinate, because the words
that do the subordinating are often ambiguous. Thus, Old English þā the beginning of a
clause can be either an adverb translated ‘then’ and introducing an independent clause, or
a subordinating conjunction translated ‘when’ and introducing a dependent clause.
Similarly,
can be translated as ‘there’ or ‘where’, þonne as ‘then’ or ‘when’, swā
as ‘so’ or ‘as’,
as ‘formerly’ or ‘ere’, siððan as ‘afterward’ or ‘since’, nū as ‘now’ or
‘now that’, þēah as ‘nevertheless’ or ‘though’, and forðām as ‘therefore’ or ‘because’. In
each pair the first word is an adverb, and the style that results from choosing it is a
choppier style with shorter sentences, whereas the choice of the second word, a
conjunction, results in longer sentences with more embedded clauses. Current research in
Old English syntax aims to understand the use of these ambiguous subordinators and
adverbs. The conclusions that emerge will affect our modern perception of the
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sophistication of Old English writing in verse and prose. Earlier editors tended to read a
high degree of parataxis in Old English and to punctuate their editions accordingly. This
reading fitted in with the idea that English subordinating conjunctions had their origins in
adverbs. However, one can accept the adverbial origin of conjunctions and still argue, as
Andrew did in 1940, that Old English style had attained a high degree of subordination
(although Andrew’s conclusions now seem extreme). Furthermore, it is important to bear
in mind that parataxis and hypotaxis are stylistic options and not syntactic necessities,
because Old English clearly had the means for a highly subordinated style. Syntactic
investigators now find generally more hypotaxis than earlier editors did, but the efforts
are directed toward discovering specific structural cues before making generalizations.
The most obvious cues are in the word order of the clause as a whole, which includes
familiar historical patterns of subject and verb such as S…V, VS, and SV. These patterns
have been intensively analyzed for the principles operating in the placement of the finite
verb, which typically occurs in second position in main clauses, and in final position in
subordinate clauses.
17
In addition, there are more subtle cues in the patterning of
auxiliaries, contractions, and other structures.
18
Finally, as Bruce
17
See Robert P.Stockwell and Donka Minkova, “Subordination and Word Order Change in the
History of English,” in Historical English Syntax, ed. Dieter Kastovksy (Berlin, 1991), pp. 367–
409. See also two essays in Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, ed. Ans van Kemenade and
Nigel Vincent (Cambridge, UK, 1997): Anthony Kroch and Ann Taylor, “Verb Movement in Old
and Middle English: Dialect Variation and Language Contact,” pp. 297–325; and Ans van
Kemenade, “V2 and Embedded Topicalization in Old and Middle English,” pp. 326–52.
18
See, for example, Daniel Donoghue, Style in Old English Poetry: The Test of the Auxiliary (New
Haven, CT, 1987), and Mary Blockley, “Uncontracted Negation as a Cue to Sentence Structure in
Old English Verse,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 89 (1990), 475–90.
Mitchell reminds us, it may be anachronistic to impose modern categories that result from
our translations into words such as ‘then’ and ‘when’, “implying that the choice was
simply between a subordinate clause and an independent clause in the modern sense of
the words.”
19
We should be especially cautious about imposing modern notions that
equate hypotaxis with sophistication and parataxis with primitiveness until we know
more about the full range of syntactic possibilities in Old English. Ongoing research in
this subject promises to revise our ideas of the grammatical, semantic, and rhythmic
relationships in Old English verse and prose.
52. Old English Literature.
The language of a past time is known by the quality of its literature. Charters and records
yield their secrets to the philologist and contribute their quota of words and inflections to
our dictionaries and grammars. But it is in literature that a language displays its full
power, its ability to convey in vivid and memorable form the thoughts and emotions of a
19
Old English Syntax, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1985), I, § 1879.
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people. The literature of the Anglo-Saxons is fortunately one of the richest and most
significant of any preserved among the early Germanic peoples. Because it is the
language mobilized, the language in action, we must say a word about it.
Generally speaking, this literature is of two sorts. Some of it was undoubtedly brought
to England by the Germanic conquerors from their continental homes and preserved for a
time in oral tradition. All of it owes its preservation, however, and not a little its
inspiration to the reintroduction of Christianity into the southern part of the island at the
end of the sixth century, an event whose significance for the English language will be
discussed in the next chapter. Two streams thus mingle in Old English literature, the
pagan and the Christian, and they are never quite distinct. The poetry of pagan origin is
constantly overlaid with Christian sentiment, while even those poems that treat of purely
Christian themes contain every now and again traces of an earlier philosophy not wholly
forgotten. We can indicate only in the briefest way the scope and content of this
literature, and we shall begin with that which embodies the native traditions of the
people.
The greatest single work of Old English literature is Beowulf. It is a poem of some
3,000 lines belonging to the type known as the folk epic, that is to say, a poem which,
whatever it may owe to the individual poet who gave it final form, embodies material
long current among the people. It is a narrative of heroic adventure relating how a young
warrior, Beowulf, fought the monster Grendel, which was ravaging the land of King
Hrothgar, slew it and its mother, and years later met his death while ridding his own
country of an equally destructive foe, a fire-breathing dragon. The theme seems
somewhat fanciful to a modern reader, but the character of the hero, the social conditions
pictured, and the portrayal of the motives and ideals that animated people in early
Germanic times make the poem one of the most vivid records we have of life in the
heroic age. It is not an easy life. It is a life that calls for physical endurance, unflinching
courage, and a fine sense of duty, loyalty, and honor. A stirring expression of the heroic
ideal is in the words that Beowulf addresses to Hrothgar before going to his dangerous
encounter with Grendel’s mother: “Sorrow not…. Better is it for every man that he
avenge his friend than that he mourn greatly. Each of us must abide the end of this
world’s life; let him who may, work mighty deeds ere he die, for afterwards, when he lies
lifeless, that is best for the warrior.”
Outside of Beowulf Old English poetry of the native tradition is represented by a
number of shorter pieces. Anglo-Saxon poets sang of the things that entered most deeply
into their experience—of war and of exile, of the sea with its hardships and its
fascination, of ruined cities, and of minstrel life. One of the earliest products of Germanic
tradition is a short poem called Widsith in which a scop or minstrel pretends to give an
account of his wanderings and of the many famous kings and princes before whom he has
exercised his craft. Deor, another poem about a minstrel, is the lament of a scop who for
years has been in the service of his lord and now finds himself thrust out by a younger
man. But he is no whiner. Life is like that. Age will be displaced by youth. He has his
day. Peace, my heart! Deor is one of the most human of Old English poems. The
Wanderer is a tragedy in the medieval sense, the story of a man who once enjoyed a high
place and has fallen upon evil times. His lord is dead and he has become a wanderer in
strange courts, without friends. Where are the snows of yesteryear? The Seafarer is a
monologue in which the speaker alternately describes the perils and hardships of the sea
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and the eager desire to dare again its dangers. In The Ruin the poet reflects on a ruined
city, once prosperous and imposing with its towers and halls, its stone courts and baths,
now but the tragic shadow of what it once was. Two great war poems, the Battle of
Brunanburh and the Battle of Maldon, celebrate with patriotic fervor stirring encounters
of the English, equally heroic in victory and defeat. In its shorter poems, no less than in
Beowulf, Old English literature reveals at wide intervals of time the outlook and temper
of the Germanic mind.
More than half of Anglo-Saxon poetry is concerned with Christian subjects.
Translations and paraphrases of books of the Old and New Testament, legends of saints,
and devotional and didactic pieces constitute the bulk of this verse. The most important
of this poetry had its origin in Northumbria and Mercia in the seventh and eighth
centuries. The earliest English poet whose name we know was Cædmon, a lay brother in
the monastery at Whitby. The story of how the gift of song came to him in a dream and
how he subsequently turned various parts of the Scriptures into beautiful English verse
comes to us in the pages of Bede. Although we do not have his poems on Genesis,
Exodus, Daniel, and the like, the poems on these subjects that we do have were most
likely inspired by his example. About 800 an Anglian poet named Cynewulf wrote at
least four poems on religious subjects, into which he ingeniously wove his name by
means of runes. Two of these, Juliana and Elene, tell well-known legends of saints. A
third, Christ, deals with Advent, the Ascension, and the Last Judgment. The fourth, The
Fates ofthe Apostles, touches briefly on where and how the various apostles died. There
are other religious poems besides those mentioned, such as the Andreas, two poems on
the life of St. Guthlac, a portion of a fine poem on the story of Judith in the Apocrypha;
The Phoenix, in which the bird is taken as a symbol of the Christian life; and Christ and
Satan, which treats the expulsion of Satan from Paradise together with the Harrowing of
Hell and Satan’s tempting of Christ. All of these poems have their counterparts in other
literatures of the Middle Ages. They show England in its cultural contact with Rome and
being drawn into the general current of ideas on the continent, no longer simply
Germanic, but cosmopolitan.
In the development of literature, prose generally comes late. Verse is more effective
for oral delivery and more easily retained in the memory. It is there-fore a rather
remarkable fact, and one well worthy of note, that English possessed a considerable body
of prose literature in the ninth century, at a time when most other modern languages in
Europe had scarcely developed a literature in verse. This unusual accomplishment was
due to the inspiration of one man, the Anglo-Saxon king who is justly called Alfred the
Great (871–899). Alfred’s greatness rests not only on his capacity as a military leader and
statesman but on his realization that greatness in a nation is no merely physical thing.
When he came to the throne he found that the learning which in the eighth century, in the
days of Bede and Alcuin, had placed England in the forefront of Europe, had greatly
decayed. In an effort to restore England to something like its former state he undertook to
provide for his people certain books in English, books that he deemed most essential to
their welfare. With this object in view he undertook in mature life to learn Latin and
either translated these books himself or caused others to translate them for him. First as a
guide for the clergy he translated the Pastoral Care of Pope Gregory, and then, in order
that the people might know something of their own past, inspired and may well have
arranged for a translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. A
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history of the rest of the world also seemed desirable and was not so easily to be had. But
in the fifth century when so many calamities were befalling the Roman Empire and those
misfortunes were being attributed to the abandonment of the pagan deities in favor of
Christianity, a Spanish priest named Orosius had undertaken to refute this idea. His
method was to trace the rise of other empires to positions of great power and their
subsequent collapse, a collapse in which obviously Christianity had had no part. The
result was a book which, when its polemical aim had ceased to have any significance,
was still widely read as a compendium of historical knowledge. This Alfred translated
with omissions and some additions of his own. A fourth book that he turned into English
was The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, one of the most famous books of the
Middle Ages. Alfred also caused a record to be compiled of the important events of
English history, past and present, and this, as continued for more than two centuries after
his death, is the well-known Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. King Alfred was the founder of
English prose, but there were others who carried on the tradition. Among these is Ælfric,
the author of two books of homilies and numerous other works, and Wulfstan, whose
Sermon to the English is an impassioned plea for moral and political reform.
So large and varied a body of literature, in verse and prose, gives ample testimony to
the universal competence, at times to the power and beauty, of the Old English language.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For the prehistory of Europe and Britain, authoritative studies include V.G.Childe, The Dawn of
European Civilization (6th ed., London, 1957), J.G.D.Clark, The Mesolithic Age in Britain
(Cambridge, UK, 1932), and Stuart Piggott, The Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles
(Cambridge, UK, 1954). For the Roman occupation of England the work of F.Haverfield is
important, especially The Romanization of Roman Britain, rev. G.Macdonald (4th ed., Oxford,
1923), and The Roman Occupation of Britain (Oxford, 1924). A standard handbook is
R.G.Collingwood and lan Richmond, The Archaeology of Roman Britain (rev. ed., London,
1969). The Roman occupation and the Germanic invasions were originally treated in one
volume of the Oxford History of England in 1936, Roman Britain and the English Settlements, a
classic known as “Collingwood and Myres,” but the expansion of knowledge in both subjects
made two separate volumes necessary: Peter Salway, Roman Britain (Oxford, 1981) and
J.N.L.Myres, The English Settlements (Oxford, 1986). F.M.Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (3rd
ed., Oxford, 1971), also in the Oxford History, is a masterly account of the period, to which may
be added R.H.Hodgkin, A History of the Anglo-Saxons (3rd ed., Oxford, 1952); Kenneth
Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh, 1953); P.Hunter Blair, An
Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (2nd ed., Cambridge, UK, 1977); and Dorothy Whitelock,
The Beginnings of English Society, Pelican History of England, Vol. 2 (1952; rev. ed.,
Baltimore, MD, 1974). A useful aid to the histories in illustrating the geographic framework is
David Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto, 1981). For further historical studies, see
Simon Keynes, Anglo-Saxon History: A Select Bibliography, OEN Subsidia 13 (Binghamton,
NY, 1987). An excellent overview of archaeology is David M.Wilson, ed., The Archaeology of
Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1976). The importance for Anglo-Saxon studies of the Sutton
Hoo excavation in 1939 is documented in the text and illustrations of R.Bruce-Mitford’s The
Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (3 vols., London, 1978–1983). For the phonology and morphology of
Old English the best sources are the grammars mentioned on p. 56. Two works that provide
Indo-European and Germanic background to the synchronic grammars are Samuel Moore and
Thomas A. Knott, Elements of Old English (10th ed., Ann Arbor, MI, 1969) and, informed by
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recent linguistics, Roger Lass, Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion (Cambridge,
UK, 1994). For larger structures, see Bruce Mitchell, Old English Syntax (2 vols., Oxford, 1985)
and Mary Blockley, Aspects of Old English Poetic Syntax: Where Clauses Begin (Urbana, IL,
2001). A major resource for the study of Old English is the Dictionary of Old English, in
progress at Toronto. The new dictionary will replace J.Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary,
ed. T.N.Toller (Oxford, 1898), and Toller’s Supplement (Oxford, 1921). Among the associated
projects of the new dictionary are R.L.Venezky and Antonette di Paolo Healey, A Microflche
Concordance to Old English (Toronto, 1980) and R.L.Venezky and Sharon Butler, A Microfiche
Concordance to Old English: The High Frequency Words (Toronto, 1985). Separate from the
dictionary is A Thesaurus of Old English, ed. Jane Roberts and Christian Kay (2 vols., 2nd ed.,
Amsterdam, 2001). For both of these sources and other lexical studies, see Alfred
Bammesberger, ed., Problems of Old English Lexicography: Studies in Memory of Angus
Cameron (Regensburg, Germany, 1985). The main works on Old English etymology are
F.Holthausen, Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (2nd ed., Heidelberg, 1974) and
A.Bammesberger, Beiträge zu einem etymologischen Wörterbuch des Altenglischen
(Heidelberg, 1979). Other linguistic scholarship can be found listed in Matsuji Tajima, Old and
Middle English Language Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1923–1985 (Amsterdam, 1988).
A literary reference that is also valuable for language study is Stanley B.Greenfield and Fred
C.Robinson, A Bibliography of Publications on Old English Literature to the End of 1972
(Toronto, 1980); see also Stanley B.Greenfield and Daniel G.Calder, A New Critical History of
Old English Literature (New York, 1986) and Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge, eds., The
Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature (Cambridge, UK, 1991). Current
bibliographies of Anglo-Saxon studies appear annually in the Old English Newsletter and in
Anglo-Saxon England.
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4
Foreign Influences on Old English
53. The Contact of English with Other Languages.
The language that was described in the preceding chapter was not merely the product of
the dialects brought to England by the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles. These formed its basis,
the sole basis of its grammar and the source of by far the largest part of its vocabulary.
But other elements entered into it. In the course of the first 700 years of its existence in
England it was brought into contact with at least three other languages, the languages of
the Celts, the Romans, and the Scandinavians. From each of these contacts it shows
certain effects, especially additions to its vocabulary. The nature of these contacts and the
changes that were effected by them will form the subject of this chapter.
54. The Celtic Influence.
Nothing would seem more reasonable than to expect that the conquest of the Celtic
population of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons and the subsequent mixture of the two peoples
should have resulted in a corresponding mixture of their languages; that consequently we
should find in the Old English vocabulary numerous instances of words that the Anglo-
Saxons heard in the speech of the native population and adopted. For it is apparent that
the Celts were by no means exterminated except in certain areas, and that in most of
England large numbers of them were gradually assimilated into the new culture. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that at Andredesceaster or Pevensey a deadly struggle
occurred between the native population and the newcomers and that not a single Briton
was left alive. The evidence of the place-names in this region lends support to the
statement. But this was probably an exceptional case. In the east and southeast, where the
Germanic conquest was fully accomplished at a fairly early date, it is probable that there
were fewer survivals of a Celtic population than elsewhere. Large numbers of the
defeated fled to the west. Here it is apparent that a considerable Celtic-speaking
population survived until fairly late times. Some such situation is suggested by a whole
cluster of Celtic place-names in the northeastern corner of Dorsetshire.
1
It is altogether
likely that many Celts were held as slaves by the conquerors and that many of the Anglo-
Saxons chose Celtic mates. In parts of the island, contact between the two peoples must
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55. Celtic Place-Names and Other Loanwords.
When we come, however, to seek the evidence for this contact in the English language,
investigation yields very meager results. Such evidence as there is survives chiefly in
place-names.
2
The kingdom of Kent, for example, owes its name to the Celtic word Canti
or Cantion, the meaning of which is unknown, while the two ancient Northumbrian
kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia derive their designations from Celtic tribal names. Other
districts, especially in the west and southwest, preserve in their present-day names traces
of their earlier Celtic designations. Devonshire contains in the first element the tribal
name Dumnonii, Cornwall means the ‘Cornubian Welsh’, and the former county
Cumberland (now part of Cumbria) is the ‘land of the Cymry or Britons’. Moreover, a
number of important centers in the Roman period have names in which Celtic elements
are embodied. The name London itself, although the origin of the word is somewhat
uncertain, most likely goes back to a Celtic designation. The first syllable of Winchester,
Salisbury, Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester, Lichfield, and a score of other names of cities is
traceable to a Celtic source, and the earlier name of Canterbury (Durovernum) is
originally Celtic. But it is in the names of rivers and hills and places in proximity to these
natural features that the greatest number of Celtic names survive. Thus the Thames is a
Celtic river name, and various Celtic words for river or water are preserved in the names
Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk, Dover, and Wye. Celtic words meaning ‘hill’ are found in place-
names like Barr (cf. Welsh bar ‘top’, ‘summit’), Bredon (cf. Welsh bre ‘hill), Bryn Mawr
(cf. Welsh bryn ‘hill and mawr ‘great’), Creech, Pendle (cf. Welsh pen ‘top’), and others.
Certain other Celtic elements occur more or less frequently such as cumb (a deep valley)
in names like Duncombe, Holcombe, Winchcombe; torr (high rock, peak) in Torr,
Torcross,
1
R.E.Zachrisson, Romans, Kelts, and Saxons in Ancient Britain (Uppsala, Sweden, 1927), p. 55.
2
An admirable survey of the Celtic element in English place-names is given by E.Ekwall in the
Introduction to the Survey of English Place-Names, ed. A.Mawer and F.M.Stenton for the English
Place-Name Society, 1, part 1 (Cambridge, UK, 1924), pp. 15–35.
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Torhill; pill (a tidal creek) in Pylle, Huntspill; and brocc (badger) in Brockholes,
Brockhall, etc. Besides these purely Celtic elements a few Latin words such as castra,
fontana, fossa, portus, and vīcus were used in naming places during the Roman
occupation of the island and were passed on by the Celts to the English. These will be
discussed later. It is natural that Celtic place-names should be more common in the west
than in the east and southeast, but the evidence of these names shows that the Celts
impressed themselves upon the Germanic consciousness at least to the extent of causing
the newcomers to adopt many of the local names current in Celtic speech and to make
them a permanent part of their vocabulary.
Outside of place-names, however, the influence of Celtic upon the English language is
almost negligible. Not more than a score of words in Old English can be traced with
reasonable probability to a Celtic source. Within this small number it is possible to
distinguish two groups: (1) those that the AngloSaxons learned through everyday contact
with the natives, and (2) those that were introduced by the Irish missionaries in the north.
The former were transmitted orally and were of popular character; the latter were
connected with religious activities and were more or less learned. The popular words
include binn (basket, crib), bratt (cloak), and brocc (brock or badger); a group of words
for geographical features that had not played much part in the experience of the Anglo-
Saxons in their continental home—crag, luh (lake), cumb (valley), and torr
3
(outcropping
or projecting rock, peak), the two latter chiefly as elements in place-names; possibly the
words dun (dark colored), and ass (ultimately from Latin asinus). Words of the second
group, those that came into English through Celtic Christianity, are likewise few in
number. In 563 St. Columba had come with twelve monks from Ireland to preach to his
kinsmen in Britain. On the little island of lona off the west coast of Scotland he
established a monastery and made it his headquarters for the remaining thirty-four years
of his life. From this center many missionaries went out, founded other religious houses,
and did much to spread Christian doctrine and learning. As a result of their activity the
words ancor (hermit),
(magician), cine (a gathering of parchment leaves), cross,
clugge (bell), gabolrind (compass), mind (diadem), and perhaps
(history) and
cursian (to curse), came into at least partial use in Old English.
It does not appear that many of these Celtic words attained a very permanent place in
the English language. Some soon died out, and others acquired only local currency. The
relation of the two peoples was not such as to bring
3
Cf. E.Ekwall, “Zu zwei keltischen Lehnwörtern in Altenglischen,” Englische Studien, 54 (1920),
102–10.
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about any considerable influence on English life or on English speech. The surviving
Celts were a submerged people. The Anglo-Saxon found little occasion to adopt Celtic
modes of expression, and the Celtic influence remains the least of the early influences
that affected the English language.
56. Three Latin Influences on Old English.
If the influence of Celtic upon Old English was slight, it was doubtless so because the
relation of the Celt to the Anglo-Saxon was that of a submerged culture and because the
Celt was not in a position to make notable contributions to Anglo-Saxon civilization. It
was quite otherwise with the second great influence exerted upon English—that of
Latin—and the circumstances under which they met. Latin was not the language of a
conquered people. It was the language of a highly regarded civilization, one from which
the Anglo-Saxons wanted to learn. Contact with that civilization, at first commercial and
military, later religious and intellectual, extended over many centuries and was constantly
renewed. It began long before the Anglo-Saxons came to England and continued
throughout the Old English period. For several hundred years, while the Germanic tribes
who later became the English were still occupying their continental homes, they had
various relations with the Romans through which they acquired a considerable number of
Latin words. Later when they came to England they saw the evidences of the long Roman
rule in the island and learned from the Celts additional Latin words that had been
acquired by them. And a century and a half later still, when Roman missionaries
reintroduced Christianity into the island, this new cultural influence resulted in a quite
extensive adoption of Latin elements into the language. There were thus three distinct
occasions on which borrowing from Latin occurred before the end of the Old English
period, and it will be of interest to consider more in detail the character and extent of
these borrowings.
57. Chronological Criteria.
In order to form an accurate idea of the share that each of these three periods had in
extending the resources of the English vocabulary it is first necessary to determine as
closely as possible the date at which each of the borrowed words entered the language.
This is naturally somewhat difftcult to do, and in the case of some words it is impossible.
But in a large number of cases it is possible to assign a word to a given period with a high
degree of probability and often with certainty. It will be instructive to pause for a moment
to inquire how this is done.
The evidence that can be employed is of various kinds and naturally of varying value.
Most obvious is the appearance of the word in literature. If a given word occurs with fair
frequency in texts such as Beowulf, or the poems of Cynewulf, such occurrence indicates
that the word has had time to pass into current use and that it came into English not later
than the early part of the period of Christian influence. But it does not tell us how much
earlier it was known in the language, because the earliest written records in English do
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not go back beyond the year 700. Moreover the late appearance of a word in literature is
no proof of late adoption. The word may not be the kind of word that would naturally
occur very often in literary texts, and so much of Old English literature has been lost that
it would be very unsafe to argue about the existence of a word on the basis of existing
remains. Some words that are not found recorded before the tenth century (e.g., pīpe
‘pipe’, cīese ‘cheese’) can be assigned confidently on other grounds to the period of
continental borrowing.
The character of the word sometimes gives some clue to its date. Some words are
obviously learned and point to a time when the church had become well established in the
island. On the other hand, the early occurrence of a word in several of the Germanic
dialects points to the general circulation of the word in the Germanic territory and its
probable adoption by the ancestors of the English on the continent. Testimony of this
kind must of course be used with discrimination. A number of words found in Old
English and in Old High German, for example, can hardly have been borrowed by either
language before the Anglo-Saxons migrated to England but are due to later independent
adoption under conditions more or less parallel, brought about by the introduction of
Christianity into the two areas. But it can hardly be doubted that a word like copper,
which is rare in Old English, was nevertheless borrowed on the continent when we find it
in no less than six Germanic languages.
Much the most conclusive evidence of the date at which a word was borrowed,
however, is to be found in the phonetic form of the word. The changes that take place in
the sounds of a language can often be dated with some definiteness, and the presence or
absence of these changes in a borrowed word constitutes an important test of age. A full
account of these changes would carry us far beyond the scope of this book, but one or
two examples may serve to illustrate the principle. Thus there occurred in Old English, as
in most of the Germanic languages, a change known as i-umlaut
4
This change affected
certain accented vowels and diphthongs (œ,
and
) when they were
followed in the next syllable by an or j. Under such circumstances œ and ă became ĕ,
and became ā became
and became The diphthongs
became
later
Thus *baŋkiz>benc (bench), *mūsiz>
plural of mūs (mouse), etc. The
change occurred in English in the course of the seventh century, and when we find it
taking place in a word borrowed from Latin it indicates that the Latin word had
4
Umlaut is a German word meaning ‘alteration of sound’. In English this is sometimes called
mutation.
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been taken into English by that time. Thus Latin monēta (which became *munit in
Prehistoric OE)>mynet (a coin, Mod. E. mint) and is an early borrowing. Another change
(even earlier) that helps us to date a borrowed word is that known as palatal
diphthongization. By this sound-change an or in early Old English was changed to a
diphthong (
and
respectively) when preceded by certain palatal consonants (ċ, ġ,
sc). OE cīese (L. cāseus, cheese), mentioned above, shows both i–umlaut and palatal
diphthongization
In many words
evidence for date is furnished by the sound-changes of Vulgar Latin. Thus, for example,
an intervocalic p (and p in the combination pr) in the late Latin of northern Gaul (seventh
century) was modified to a sound approximating a v, and the fact that L. cuprum, coprum
(copper) appears in OE as copor with the p unchanged indicates a period of borrowing
prior to this change (cf. F. cuivre). Again Latin ĭ changed to ẹ before A.D. 400 so that
words like OE biscop (L. episcopus), disc (L. discus), sigel, ‘brooch’ (L. sigillum), etc.,
which do not show this change, were borrowed by the English on the continent. But
enough has been said to indicate the method and to show that the distribution of the Latin
words in Old English among the various periods at which borrowing took place rests not
upon guesses, however shrewd, but upon definite facts and upon fairly reliable phonetic
inferences.
58. Continental Borrowing (Latin Influence of the Zero Period).
The first Latin words to find their way into the English language owe their adoption to
the early contact between the Romans and the Germanic tribes on the continent. Several
hundred Latin words found in the various Germanic dialects at an early date—some in
one dialect only, others in several—testify to the extensive intercourse between the two
peoples. The Germanic population within the empire by the fourth century is estimated at
several million. They are found in all ranks and classes of society, from slaves in the
fields to commanders of important divisions of the Roman army. Although they were
scattered all over the empire, they were naturally most numerous along the northern
frontier. This stretched along the Rhine and the Danube and bordered on Germanic
territory. Close to the border was Treves, in the third and fourth centuries the most
flourishing city in Gaul, already boasting Christian churches, a focus of eight military
roads, where all the luxury and splendor of Roman civilization were united almost under
the gaze of the Germanic tribes on the Moselle and the Rhine. Traders, Germanic as well
as Roman, came and went, while Germanic youth returning from within the empire must
have carried back glowing accounts of Roman cities and Roman life. Such intercourse
between the two peoples was certain to carry words from one language to the other.
The frequency of the intercourse may naturally be expected to diminish somewhat as
one recedes from the borders of the empire. Roman military operations, for example,
seldom extended as far as the district occupied by the Angles or the Jutes. But after the
conquest of Gaul by Caesar, Roman merchants quickly found their way into all parts of
the Germanic territory, even into Scandinavia, so that the inhabitants of these more
remote sections were by no means cut off from Roman influence. Moreover,
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intercommunication between the different Germanic tribes was frequent and made
possible the transference of Latin words from one tribe to another. In any case some sixty
words from the Latin can be credited with a considerable degree of probability to the
ancestors of the English in their continental homes.
The adopted words naturally indicate the new conceptions that the Germanic peoples
acquired from this contact with a higher civilization. Next to agriculture the chief
occupation of the Germanic tribes in the empire was war, and this experience is reflected
in words like camp (battle), segn (banner), pīl (pointed stick, javelin), weall (wall), pytt
(pit),
(road, street), mīl (mile), and miltestre (courtesan). More numerous are the
words connected with trade. They traded amber, furs, slaves, and probably certain raw
materials for the products of Roman handicrafts, articles of utility, luxury, and
adornment. The words cēap (bargain; cf. Eng., cheap, chapman) and mangian (to trade)
with its derivatives mangere (monger), mangung (trade, commerce), and mangunghūs
(shop) are fundamental, while pund (pound), mydd (bushel), sēam (burden, loan), and
mynet (coin) are terms likely to be employed. From the last word Old English formed the
words mynetian (to mint or coin) and mynetere (money-changer). One of the most
important branches of Roman commerce with the Germanic peoples was the wine trade:
hence such words in English as wīn (wine), must (new wine), eced (vinegar), and flasce
5
(flask, bottle). To this period are probably to be attributed the words cylle (L. culleus,
leather bottle), cyrfette (L. curcurbita, gourd), and sester (jar, pitcher). A number of the
new words relate to domestic life and designate household articles, clothing, and the like:
cytel (kettle; L. catillus, catīnus) mēse (table), scamol (L. scamellum, bench, stool; cf.
modern shambles), teped (carpet, curtain; L. tapētum), pyle (L. pulvinus, pillow), pilece
(L. pellicia, robe of skin), and sigel (brooch, necklace; L. sigillum). Certain other words
of a similar kind probably belong here, although the evidence for their adoption thus
early is not in every case conclusive: cycene (kitchen; L. coquīna), cuppe (L. cuppa, cup),
disc (dish; L. discus), cucler (spoon; L. cocleārium), mortere
5
The OE flasce should have become flash in Modern English, so that the word was probably
reintroduced later and may have been influenced (as the OED suggests) by the Italian fiasco.
(L. mortārium, a mortar, a vessel of hard material), līnen (cognate with or from L. līnum,
flax), līne (rope, line; L. līnea), and gimm (L. gemma, gem). The speakers of the
Germanic dialects adopted Roman words for certain foods, such as cīese (L. cāseus
cheese), spelt (wheat), pipor (pepper), senep (mustard; L. sināpi), cisten (chestnut tree; L.
castanea), cires (bēam) (cherry tree; L. cerasus), while to this period are probably to be
assigned butere (butter; L.
),
6
ynne (lēac) (L. ūnio, onion), plūme (plum), pise
(L. pisum, pea), and minte (L. mentha, mint). Roman contributions to the building arts are
evidenced by such words as cealc (chalk), copor (copper), pic (pitch), and tigele (tile),
while miscellaneous words such as mūl (mule), draca (dragon), pāwa (peacock), the
adjectives sicor (L. sēcūrus, safe) and calu (L. calvus, bald), segne (seine), pīpe (pipe,
musical instrument), biscop (bishop), cāsere (emperor), and Sæternesdæg (Saturday) may
be mentioned. OE cirice (church) derives from a word borrowed into West Germanic
during this period, though probably from Greek κυρικóv covrather than from Latin.
7
In general, if we are surprised at the number of words acquired from the Romans at so
early a date by the Germanic tribes that came to England, we can see nevertheless that the
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words were such as they would be likely to borrow and such as reflect in a very
reasonable way the relations that existed between the two peoples.
59. Latin through Celtic Transmission (Latin Influence of the First
Period).
The circumstances responsible for the slight influence that Celtic exerted on Old English
limited in like manner the Latin influence that sprang from the period of Roman
occupation. From what has been said above (see page 45) about the Roman rule in
Britain, the extent to which the country was Romanized, and the employment of Latin by
certain elements in the population, one would expect a considerable number of Latin
words from this period to have remained in use and to appear in the English language
today. But this is not the case. It would be hardly too much to say that not five words
outside of a few elements found in place-names can be really proved to owe their
presence in English to the Roman occupation of Britain.
8
It is probable that the use of
Latin as a spoken language did not long survive the end of Roman rule in the island and
that such vestiges as remained for a time were lost in the disorders that accompanied the
Germanic invasions. There was thus no opportunity for direct contact between Latin and
Old English in England, and such Latin words as could have found their way into English
would have had to come in through Celtic transmission. The Celts, indeed, had adopted a
considerable number of Latin words—more than 600 have been identified—but the
relations between the Celts and the English were such, as we have already seen, that these
words were not passed on. Among the few Latin words that the Anglo-Saxons seem
likely to have acquired upon settling in England, one of the most likely, in spite of its
absence from the Celtic languages, is ceaster. This word, which represents the Latin
castra (camp), is a common designation in Old English for a town or enclosed
community. It forms a familiar element in English place-names such as Chester,
Colchester, Dorchester, Manchester, Winchester, Lancaster, Doncaster, Gloucester,
Worcester, and many others. Some of these refer to sites of Roman camps, but it must not
be thought that a Roman settlement underlies all the towns whose names contain this
common element. The English attached it freely to the designation of any enclosed place
intended for habitation, and many of the places so designated were known by quite
different names in Roman times. A few other words are thought for one reason or another
to belong to this period: port (harbor, gate, town) from L. portus and porta; munt
6
Butter is a difficult word to explain. The unweakened t suggests early borrowing. Butter was
practically unknown to the Romans; Pliny has to explain its meaning and use. But a well-known
allusion in Sidonius Apollinaris testifies to its use among the Burgundians on their hair. The bishop
complains of the rancid odor of Burgundian chiefs with buttered hair.
7
The OED has an interesting essay on the uncertainties of the etymology of church. Other words
that probably belong to the period of continental borrowing are ynce (ounce, inch), palenise
(palace), solor (upper room), tæfel (chessboard), miscian (to mix), and olfend (camel), but there is
some uncertainty about their origin or history.
8
J.Loth in Les Mots latins dans les langues brittoniques (Paris, 1892, p. 29) assigns fifteen words to
this period. Some of these, however, are more probably to be considered continental borrowings.
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(mountain) from L. mōns, montem; torr (tower, rock) possibly from L. turris, possibly
from Celtic; wīc (village) from L. vīcus. All of these words are found also as elements in
place-names. It is possible that some of the Latin words that the Germanic speakers had
acquired on the continent, such as street (L. strāta via), wall, wine, and others, were
reinforced by the presence of the same words in Celtic. At best, however, the Latin
influence of the First Period remains much the slightest of all the influences that Old
English owed to contact with Roman civilization.
60. Latin Influence of the Second Period: The Christianizing of Britain.
The greatest influence of Latin upon Old English was occasioned by the conversion of
Britain to Roman Christianity beginning in 597. The religion was far from new in the
island, because Irish monks had been preaching the gospel in the north since the founding
of the monastery of lona by Columba in 563. However, 597 marks the beginning of a
systematic attempt on the part of Rome to convert the inhabitants and make England a
Christian country. According to the well-known story reported by Bede as a tradition
current in his day, the mission of St. Augustine was inspired by an experience of the man
who later became Pope Gregory the Great. Walking one morning in the marketplace at
Rome, he came upon some fair-haired boys about to be sold as slaves and was told that
they were from the island of Britain and were pagans. “‘Alas! what pity,’ said he, ‘that
the author of darkness is possessed of men of such fair countenances, and that being
remarkable for such a graceful exterior, their minds should be void of inward grace?’ He
therefore again asked, what was the name of that nation and was answered, that they were
called Angles. ‘Right,’ said he, ‘for they have an angelic face, and it is fitting that such
should be co-heirs with the angels in heaven. What is the name,’ proceeded he, ‘of the
province from which they are brought?’ It was replied that the natives of that province
were called Deiri. ‘Truly are they de ira’ said he, ‘plucked from wrath, and called to the
mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province called?’ They told him his name was
Ælla; and he, alluding to the name, said ‘Alleluia, the praise of God the Creator, must be
sung in those parts.’” The same tradition records that Gregory wished himself to
undertake the mission to Britain but could not be spared. Some years later, however,
when he had become pope, he had not forgotten his former intention and looked about for
someone whom he could send at the head of a missionary band. Augustine, the person of
his choice, was a man well known to him. The two had lived together in the same
monastery, and Gregory knew him to be modest and devout and thought him well suited
to the task assigned him. With a little company of about forty monks Augustine set out
for what seemed then like the end of the earth.
It is not easy to appreciate the difftculty of the task that lay before this small band.
Their problem was not so much to substitute one ritual for another as to change the
philosophy of a nation. The religion that the Anglo-Saxons shared with the other
Germanic tribes seems to have had but a slight hold on the people at the close of the sixth
century; but their habits of mind, their ideals, and the action to which these gave rise were
often in sharp contrast to the teachings of the New Testament. Germanic philosophy
exalted physical courage, independence even to haughtiness, loyalty to one’s family or
leader that left no wrong unavenged. Christianity preached meekness, humility, and
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patience under suffering and said that if a man struck you on one cheek you should turn
the other. Clearly it was no small task that Augustine and his forty monks faced in trying
to alter the age-old mental habits of such a people. They might even have expected
difficulty in obtaining a respectful hearing. But they seem to have been men of exemplary
lives, appealing personality, and devotion to purpose, and they owed their ultimate
success as much to what they were as to what they said. Fortunately, upon their arrival in
England one circumstance was in their favor. There was in the kingdom of Kent, in
which they landed, a small number of Christians. But the number, though small, included
no less a person than the queen. Æthelberht, the king, had sought his wife among the
powerful nation of the Franks, and the princess Bertha had been given to him only on
condition that she be allowed to continue undisturbed in her Christian faith. Æthelberht
set up a small chapel near his palace in Kentwara-byrig (Canterbury), and there the priest
who accompanied Bertha to England conducted regular services for her and the numerous
dependents whom she brought with her. The circumstances under which Æthelberht
received Augustine and his companions are related in the extract from Bede given in § 47
above. Æthelberht was himself baptized within three months, and his example was
followed by numbers of his subjects. By the time Augustine died seven years later, the
kingdom of Kent had become wholly Christian.
The conversion of the rest of England was a gradual process. In 635 Aidan, a monk
from the Scottish monastery of lona, independently undertook the reconversion of
Northumbria at the invitation of King Oswald. Northumbria had been Christianized
earlier by Paulinus but had reverted to paganism after the defeat of King Edwin by the
Welsh and the Mercians in 632. Aidan was a man of great sympathy and tact. With a
small band of followers he journeyed from town to town, and wherever he preached he
drew crowds to hear him. Within twenty years he had made all Northumbria Christian.
There were periods of reversion to paganism, and some clashes between the Celtic and
the Roman leaders over doctrine and authority, but England was slowly won over to the
faith. It is significant that the Christian missionaries were allowed considerable freedom
in their labors. There is not a single instance recorded in which any of them suffered
martyrdom in the cause they espoused. Within a hundred years of the landing of
Augustine in Kent all England was Christian.
61. Effects of Christianity on English Civilization.
The introduction of Christianity meant the building of churches and the establishment of
monasteries. Latin, the language of the services and of ecclesiastical learning, was once
more heard in England. Schools were established in most of the monasteries and larger
churches. Some of these became famous through their great teachers, and from them
trained men went out to set up other schools at other centers. The beginning of this
movement was in 669, when a Greek bishop, Theodore of Tarsus, was made archbishop
of Canterbury. He was accompanied by Hadrian, an African by birth, a man described by
Bede as “of the greatest skill in both the Greek and Latin tongues.” They devoted
considerable time and energy to teaching. “And because,” says Bede, “they were
abundantly learned in sacred and profane literature, they gathered a crowd of
disciples…and together with the books of Holy Writ, they also taught the arts of poetry,
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astronomy, and computation of the church calendar; a testimony of which is that there are
still living at this day some of their scholars, who are as well versed in the Greek and
Latin tongues as in their own, in which they were born.” A decade or two later Aldhelm
carried on a similar work at Malmesbury. He was a remarkable classical scholar. He had
an exceptional knowledge of Latin literature, and he wrote Latin verse with ease. In the
north the school at York became in time almost as famous as that of Canterbury. The two
monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow were founded by Benedict Biscop, who had been
with Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury, and who on five trips to Rome brought back a
rich and valuable collection of books. His most famous pupil was the Venerable Bede, a
monk at Jarrow. Bede assimilated all the learning of his time. He wrote on grammar and
prosody, science and chronology, and composed numerous commentaries on the books of
the Old and New Testament. His most famous work is the Ecclesiastical History of the
English People (731), from which we have already had occasion to quote more than once
and from which we derive a large part of our knowledge of the early history of England.
Bede’s spiritual grandchild was Alcuin, of York, whose fame as a scholar was so great
that in 782 Charlemagne called him to be the head of his Palace School. In the eighth
century England held the intellectual leadership of Europe, and it owed this leadership to
the church. In like manner vernacular literature and the arts received a new impetus.
Workers in stone and glass were brought from the continent for the improvement of
church building. Rich embroidery, the illumination of manuscripts, and church music
occupied others. Moreover the monasteries cultivated their land by improved methods of
agriculture and made numerous contributions to domestic economy. In short, the church
as the carrier of Roman civilization influenced the course of English life in many
directions, and, as is to be expected, numerous traces of this influence are to be seen in
the vocabulary of Old English.
62. The Earlier Influence of Christianity on the Vocabulary.
From the introduction of Christianity in 597 to the close of the Old English period is a
stretch of more than 500 years. During all this time Latin words must have been making
their way gradually into the English language. It is likely that the first wave of religious
feeling that resulted from the missionary zeal of the seventh century, and that is reflected
in intense activity in church building and the establishing of monasteries during this
century, was responsible also for the rapid importation of Latin words into the
vocabulary. The many new conceptions that followed in the train of the new religion
would naturally demand expression and would at times find the resources of the language
inadequate. But it would be a mistake to think that the enrichment of the vocabulary that
now took place occurred overnight. Some words came in almost immediately, others only
at the end of this period. In fact, it is fairly easy to divide the Latin borrowings of the
Second Period into two groups, more or less equal in size but quite different in character.
The one group represents words whose phonetic form shows that they were borrowed
early and whose early adoption is attested also by the fact that they had found their way
into literature by the time of Alfred. The other contains words of a more learned character
first recorded in the tenth and eleventh centuries and owing their introduction clearly to
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the religious revival that accompanied the Benedictine Reform. It will be well to consider
them separately.
It is obvious that the most typical as well as the most numerous class of words
introduced by the new religion would have to do with that religion and the details of its
external organization. Words are generally taken over by one language from another in
answer to a definite need. They are adopted because they express ideas that are new or
because they are so intimately associated with an object or a concept that acceptance of
the thing involves acceptance also of the word. A few words relating to Christianity such
as church and bishop were, as we have seen, borrowed earlier. The Anglo-Saxons had
doubtless plundered churches and come in contact with bishops before they came to
England. But the great majority of words in Old English having to do with the church and
its services, its physical fabric and its ministers, when not of native origin were borrowed
at this time. Because most of these words have survived in only slightly altered form in
Modern English, the examples may be given in their modern form. The list includes
abbot, alms, altar, angel, anthem, Arian, ark, candle, canon, chalice, cleric, cowl,
deacon, disciple, epistle, hymn, litany, manna, martyr, mass, minster, noon, nun, offer,
organ, pall, palm, pope, priest, provost, psalm, psalter, relic, rule, shrift, shrine, shrive,
stole, subdeacon, synod, temple, and tunic. Some of these were reintroduced later. But the
church also exercised a profound influence on the domestic life of the people. This is
seen in the adoption of many words, such as the names of articles of clothing and
household use—cap, sock, silk, purple, chest, mat, sack;
9
words denoting foods, such as
beet, caul (cabbage), lentil (OE lent), millet (OE mil), pear, radish, doe, oyster (OE
ostre), lobster, mussel, to which we may add the noun cook;
10
names of trees, plants, and
herbs (often cultivated for their medicinal properties), such as box, pine,
11
aloes, balsam,
fennel, hyssop, lily, mallow, marshmallow, myrrh, rue, savory (OE sæþrige), and the
general word plant. A certain number of words having to do with education and learning
reflect another aspect of the church’s influence. Such are school, master, Latin (possibly
an earlier borrowing), grammatic(al), verse, meter, gloss, notary (a scribe). Finally we
may mention a number of words too miscellaneous to admit of profitable classification,
like anchor, coulter, fan (for winnowing), fever, place (cf. marketplace), spelter
(asphalt), sponge, elephant, phoenix, mancus (a coin), and some more or less learned or
literary words, such as calend, circle, legion, giant, consul, and talent. The words cited in
these examples are mostly nouns, but Old English borrowed also a number of verbs and
adjectives such as āspendan (to spend; L. expendere), bemūtian (to exchange; L. mūtāre),
dihtan (to compose; L. dictāre) pīnian (to torture; L. poena), pinsian (to weigh; L.
pēnsāre), pyngan (to prick; L. pungere), sealtian (to dance; L. saltāre), temprian (to
temper; L. temperāre), trifolian (to grind; L. trībulāre), tyrnan (to turn; L. tornāre), and
crisp (L. crispus, ‘curly’). But enough has been said to indicate the extent and variety of
the borrowings from Latin in the early days
9
Other words of this sort, which have not survived in Modern English, are cemes (shirt), swiftlere
(slipper), sūtere (shoemaker), byden (tub, bushel), bytt (leather bottle), cēac (jug), læfel (cup), orc
(pitcher), and
(blanket, rug).
10
Cf. also OE cīepe (onion, L. cēpa),
(turnip, L. nāpus), sigle (rye, V.L. sigale).
11
Also sæppe (spruce-fir), mōrbēam (mulberry tree).
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of Christianity in England and to show how quickly the language reflected the broadened
horizon that the English people owed to the church.
63. The Benedictine Reform.
The flourishing state of the church that resulted in these significant additions to the
English language unfortunately did not continue uninterrupted. One cause of the decline
is to be attributed to the Danes, who at the end of the eighth century began their ravages
upon the country. Lindisfarne was burnt in 793, and Jarrow, Bede’s monastery, was
plundered the following year. In the ninth century throughout Northumbria and Mercia
churches and monasteries lay everywhere in ruins. By the tenth century the decline had
affected the moral fiber of the church. It would seem as though once success had been
attained and a reasonable degree of security, the clergy relaxed their efforts. Wealthy men
had given land freely to religious foundations in the hope of laying up spiritual reserves
for themselves against the life in the next world. Among the clergy poverty gave way to
ease, and ease by a natural transition passed into luxury. Probably a less worthy type was
drawn by these new conditions into the religious profession. We hear much complaint
about immoderate feasting and drinking and vanity in dress. In the religious houses
discipline became lax, services were neglected, monasteries were occupied by groups of
secular priests, many of them married; immorality was flagrant. The work of education
was neglected, and learning decayed. By the time of Alfred things had reached such a
pass that he looked upon the past as a golden age which had gone, “when the Kings who
ruled obeyed God and His evangelists,” and when “the religious orders were earnest
about doctrine, and learning, and all the services they owed to God”; and he lamented
that the decay of learning was so great at the beginning of his reign “that there were very
few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English, or translate
a letter from Latin into English, and I believe not many beyond the Humber. So few were
there that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the
kingship.” A century later Ælfric, abbot of Eynsham, echoed the same sentiment when he
said, “Until Dunstan and Athelwold revived learning in the monastic life no English
priest could either write a letter in Latin, or understand one.” It is hardly likely, therefore,
that many Latin words were added to the English language during these years when
religion and learning were both at such a low ebb.
But abuses when bad enough have a way of bringing about their own reformation.
What is needed generally is an individual with the zeal to lead the way and the ability to
set an example that inspires imitation. King Alfred had made a start. Besides restoring
churches and founding monasteries, he strove for twenty years to spread education in his
kingdom and foster learning. His efforts bore little fruit. But in the latter half of the tenth
century three great religious leaders, imbued with the spirit of reform, arose in the
church: Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 988), Athelwold, bishop of Winchester (d.
984), and Oswald, bishop of Worcester and archbishop of York (d. 992). With the
sympathetic support of King Edgar these men effected a genuine revival of monasticism
in England. The true conception of the monastic life was inseparable from the observance
of the Benedictine Rule. Almost everywhere in England this had ceased to be adhered to.
As the first step in the reform the secular clergy were turned out of the monasteries and
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their places filled by monks pledged to the threefold vow of chastity, obedience, and
poverty. In their work of restoration the reformers received powerful support from the
example of continental monasteries, notably those at Fleury and Ghent. These had
recently undergone a similar reformation under the inspiring leadership of Cluny, where
in 910 a community had been established on even stricter lines than those originally laid
down by St. Benedict. Dunstan had spent some time at the Abbey of Blandinium at
Ghent; Oswald had studied the system at Fleury; and Athelwold, although wanting to go
himself, had sent a representative to Fleury for the same purpose. On the pattern of these
continental houses a number of important monasteries were recreated in England, and
Athelwold prepared a version of the Benedictine Rule, known as the Concordia
Regularis, to bring about a general uniformity in their organization and observances. The
effort toward reform extended to other divisions of the church, indeed to a general
reformation of morals, and brought about something like a religious revival in the island.
One of the objects of special concern in this work of rehabilitation was the improvement
of education—the establishment of schools and the encouragement of learning among the
monks and the clergy. The results were distinctly gratifying. By the close of the century
the monasteries were once more centers of literary activity. Works in English for the
popularizing of knowledge were prepared by men who thus continued the example of
King Alfred, and manuscripts both in Latin and the vernacular were copied and
preserved. It is significant that the four great codices in which the bulk of Old English
poetry is preserved date from this period. We doubtless owe their existence to the reform
movement.
64. Influence of the Benedictine Reform on English.
The influence of Latin upon the English language rose and fell with the fortunes of the
church and the state of learning so intimately connected with it. As a result of the
renewed literary activity just described, a new series of Latin importations took place.
These differed somewhat from the earlier Christian borrowings in being words of a less
popular kind and expressing more often ideas of a scientific and learned character. They
are especially frequent in the works of Ælfric and reflect not only the theological and
pedagogical nature of his writings but also his classical tastes and attainments. His
literary activity and his vocabulary are equally representative of the movement. As in the
earlier Christian borrowings a considerable number of words have to do with religious
matters: alb, Antichrist, antiphoner, apostle, canticle, cantor, cell, chrism, cloister,
collect, creed, dalmatic, demon, dirge, font, idol, nocturn, prime, prophet, sabbath,
synagogue, troper. But we miss the group of words relating to everyday life characteristic
of the earlier period. Literary and learned words predominate. Of the former kind are
accent, brief (the verb), decline (as a term of grammar), history, paper, pumice, quatern
(a quire or gathering of leaves in a book), term(inus), title. A great number of plant names
are recorded in this period. Many of them are familiar only to readers of old herbals.
Some of the better known include celandine, centaury, coriander, cucumber, ginger,
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hellebore, lovage, periwinkle, petersili (parsley), verbena.
12
A few names of trees might
be added, such as cedar, cypress, fig, laurel, and magdāla (almond).
13
Medical terms, like
cancer, circulādl (shingles), paralysis, scrofula, plaster, and words relating to the animal
kingdom, like aspide (viper), camel, lamprey, scorpion, tiger, belong apparently to the
same category of learned and literary borrowings. It would be possible to extend these
lists considerably by including words that were taken over in their foreign form and not
assimilated. Such words as epactas, corporale, confessores, columba (dove), columne,
cathedra, catacumbas, apostata, apocalipsin, acolitus, absolutionem, invitatorium,
unguentum, cristalla, cometa, bissexte, bibliothece, basilica, adamans, and prologus
show at once by their form their foreign character. Although many of them were later
reintroduced into the language, they do not constitute an integral part of the vocabulary at
this time. In general, the later borrowings of the Christian period come through books. An
occasional word assigned to this later period may have been in use earlier, but there is
nothing in the form to indicate it, and in the absence of any instance of its use in the
literature before Alfred it is safer to put such borrowings in the latter part of the Old
English period.
65. The Application of Native Words to New Concepts.
The words that Old English borrowed in this period are only a partial indication of the
extent to which the introduction of Christianity affected the lives and thoughts of the
English people. The English did not always adopt a foreign word to express a new
concept. Often an old word was applied to a new thing and by a slight adaptation made to
express a new meaning. The Anglo-Saxons, for example, did not borrow the Latin word
deus, because their own word God was a satisfactory equivalent. Likewise heaven and
hell express conceptions not unknown to Anglo-Saxon paganism and are consequently
English words. Patriarch was rendered literally by hēahfœder (high father), prophet by
wītega (wise one), martyr often by the native word þrōwere (one who suffers pain), and
saint by hālga (holy one). Specific members of the church organization such as pope,
bishop, and priest, or monk and abbot represented individuals for which the English had
no equivalent and therefore borrowed the Latin terms; however they did not borrow a
general word for clergy but used a native expression, ðœt gāstlice folc (the spiritual folk).
The word Easter is a Germanic word taken over from a pagan festival, likewise in the
spring, in honor of Eostre, the goddess of dawn. Instead of borrowing the Latin word
praedicāre (to preach) the English expressed the idea with words of their own, such as
(to teach) or bodian (to bring a message); to pray (L. precāre) was rendered by
biddan (to ask) and other words of similar meaning, prayer by a word from the same
12
A number of interesting words of this class have not survived in modern usage, such as aprotane
(wormwood), armelu (wild rue), caric (dry fig), elehtre (lupin), mārūfie (horehound), nepte
(catnip), pollegie (pennyroyal), hymele (hop-plant).
13
Most of these words were apparently bookish at this time and had to be reintroduced later from
French.
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root, gebed. For baptize (L. baptizāre) the English adapted a native word fullian (to
consecrate) while its derivative fulluht renders the noun baptism. The latter word enters
into numerous compounds, such as fulluhtbœþ (font), fulwere (baptist), fulluht-fœder
(baptizer), fulluht-hād (baptismal vow), fulluht-nama (Christian name), fulluht-stōw
(baptistry), fulluht-tīd (baptism time), and others. Even so individual a feature of the
Christian faith as the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was expressed by the Germanic
word hūsl (modern housel), while lāc, the general word for sac-rifice to the gods, was
also sometimes applied to the Sacrifice of the Mass. The term Scriptures found its exact
equivalent in the English word gewritu, and ēvangelium was rendered by godspell,
originally meaning good tidings. Trinity (L .trinitas) was translated þrines (three-ness),
the idea of God the Creator was expressed by scieppend (one who shapes or forms),
fruma (creator, founder), or metod (measurer). Native words like fæder (father), dryhten
(prince), wealdend (ruler), þēoden (prince), weard (ward, protector), hlāford (lord) are
frequent synonyms. Most of them are also applied to Christ, originally a Greek word and
the most usual name for the Second Person of the Trinity, but
(Savior) is also
commonly employed. The Third Person (Spiritus Sanctus) was translated Hālig Gäst
(Holy Ghost). Latin diabolus was borrowed as dēofol (devil) but we find fēond (fiend) as
a common synonym. Examples might be multiplied. Cross is rōd (rood), trēow (tree),
gealga (gallows), etc.; resurrection is
from ārīsan (to arise); peccatum is synn
(sin), while other words like mān, firen, leahtor, wōh, and scyld, meaning ‘vice’, ‘crime’,
‘fault’, and the like, are commonly substituted. The Judgment Day is Doomsday. Many of
these words are translations of their Latin equivalents and their vitality is attested by the
fact that in a great many cases they have continued in use down to the present day. It is
important to recognize that the significance of a foreign influence is not to be measured
simply by the foreign words introduced but is revealed also by the extent to which it
stimulates the language to independent creative effort and causes it to make full use of its
native resources.
66. The Extent of the Influence.
To be sure, the extent of a foreign influence is most readily seen in the number of words
borrowed. As a result of the Christianizing of Britain some 450 Latin words appear in
English writings before the close of the Old English period. This number does not include
derivatives or proper names, which in the case of biblical names are very numerous. But
about 100 of these were purely learned or retained so much of their foreign character as
hardly to be considered part of the English vocabulary. Of the 350 words that have a right
to be so considered, some did not make their way into general use until later—were, in
fact, reintroduced later. On the other hand, a large number of them were fully accepted
and thoroughly incorporated into the language. The real test of a foreign influence is the
degree to which the words that it brought in were assimilated. This is not merely a
question of the power to survive; it is a question of how completely the words were
digested and became indistinguishable from the native word-stock, so that they could
enter into compounds and be made into other parts of speech, just like native words.
When, for example, the Latin noun planta comes into English as the noun plant and later
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is made into a verb by the addition of the infinitive ending -ian (plantian) and other
inflectional elements, we may feel sure that the word has been assimilated. This
happened in a number of cases as in gemartyrian (to martyr), sealmian (to play on the
harp), culpian (to humiliate oneself), fersian (to versify), glēsan (to gloss), and crispian
(to curl). Assimilation is likewise indicated by the use of native formative suffixes such
as -dōm, -hād, -ung to make a concrete noun into an abstract (martyrdōm, martyrhād,
martyrung). The Latin influence of the Second Period was not only extensive but
thorough and marks the real beginning of the English habit of freely incorporating
foreign elements into its vocabulary.
67. The Scandinavian Influence: The Viking Age.
Near the end of the Old English period English underwent a third foreign influence, the
result of contact with another important language, the Scandinavian. In the course of
history it is not unusual to witness the spectacle of a nation or people, through causes too
remote or complex for analysis, suddenly emerging from obscurity, playing for a time a
conspicuous, often brilliant, part, and then, through causes equally difficult to define,
subsiding once more into a relatively minor sphere of activity. Such a phenomenon is
presented by the Germanic inhabitants of the Scandinavian peninsula and Denmark, one-
time neighbors of the Anglo-Saxons and closely related to them in language and blood.
For some centuries the Scandinavians had remained quietly in their northern home. But in
the eighth century a change, possibly economic, possibly political, occurred in this area
and provoked among them a spirit of unrest and adventurous enterprise. They began a
series of attacks upon all the lands adjacent to the North Sea and the Baltic. Their
activities began in plunder and ended in conquest. The Swedes established a kingdom in
Russia; Norwegians colonized parts of the British Isles, the Faroes, and Iceland, and from
there pushed on to Greenland and the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland; the Danes
founded the dukedom of Normandy and finally conquered England. The pinnacle of their
achievement was reached in the beginning of the eleventh century when Cnut, king of
Denmark, obtained the throne of England, conquered Norway, and from his English
capital ruled the greater part of the Scandinavian world. The daring sea rovers to whom
these unusual achievements were due are commonly known as Vikings,
14
and the period
of their activity, extending from the middle of the eighth century to the beginning of the
eleventh, is popularly known as the Viking Age. It was to their attacks upon, settlements
in, and ultimate conquest of England that the Scandinavian influence upon Old English
was due.
14
The term viking is usually thought to be derived from Old Norse vīk, a bay, as indicating “one
who came out from, or frequented, inlets of the sea.” It may, however, come from OE wīc, a camp,
“the formation of temporary encampments being a prominent feature of viking raids” (OED).
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68. The Scandinavian Invasions of England.
In the Scandinavian attacks upon England three well-marked stages can be distinguished.
The first is the period of early raids, beginning according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
in 787 and continuing with some intermissions until about 850. The raids of this period
were simply plundering attacks upon towns and monasteries near the coast. Sacred
vessels of gold and silver, jeweled shrines, costly robes, and valuables of all kinds were
carried off, and English people were captured to be made slaves. Noteworthy instances
are the sacking of Lindisfarne and Jarrow in 793 and 794. But with the plundering of
these two famous monasteries the attacks apparently ceased for forty years, until renewed
in 834 along the southern coast and in East Anglia. These early raids were apparently the
work of small isolated bands.
The second stage is the work of large armies and is marked by widespread plundering
in all parts of the country and by extensive settlements. This new development was
inaugurated by the arrival in 850 of a Danish fleet of 350 ships. Their pirate crews
wintered in the isle of Thanet and the following spring captured Canterbury and London
and ravaged the surrounding country. Although defeated by a West Saxon army, they
soon renewed their attacks. In 866 a large Danish army plundered East Anglia and in 867
captured York. In 869 the East Anglian king, Edmund, met a cruel death in resisting the
invaders. The incident made a deep impression on all England, and the memory of his
martyrdom was vividly preserved in English tradition for nearly two centuries. The
eastern part of England was now largely in the hands of the Danes, and they began
turning their attention to Wessex. The assault upon Wessex began shortly before the
accession of King Alfred (871–899). Even the greatness of this greatest of English kings
threatened to prove insufficient to withstand the repeated attacks of the Northmen. After
seven years of resistance, in which temporary victories were invariably succeeded by
fresh defeats, Alfred was forced to take refuge with a small band of personal followers in
the marshes of Somerset. But in this darkest hour for the fortunes of the English, Alfred’s
courage and persistence triumphed. With a fresh levy of men from Somerset, Wiltshire,
and Hampshire, he suddenly attacked the Danish army under Guthrum at Ethandun (now
Edington, in Wiltshire). The result was an overwhelming victory for the English and a
capitulation by the Danes (878).
The Treaty of Wedmore (near Glastonbury), which was signed by Alfred and Guthrum
the same year, marks the culmination of the second stage in the Danish invasions.
Wessex was saved. The Danes withdrew from Alfred’s territory. But they were not
compelled to leave England. The treaty merely defined the line, running roughly from
Chester to London, to the east of which the foreigners were henceforth to remain. This
territory was to be subject to Danish law and is hence known as the Danelaw. In addition
the Danes agreed to accept Christianity, and Guthrum was baptized. This last provision
was important. It might secure the better observance of the treaty, and, what was more
important, it would help to pave the way for the ultimate fusion of the two groups.
The third stage of the Scandinavian incursions covers the period of political
adjustment and assimilation from 878 to 1042. The Treaty of Wedmore did not put an
end to Alfred’s troubles. Guthrum was inclined to break faith, and there were fresh
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invasions from outside. But the situation slowly began to clear. Under Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder (900–925) and grandson Athelstan (925–939) the English began a
series of counterattacks that put the Danes on the defensive. One of the brilliant victories
of the English in this period was Athelstan’s triumph in 937 in the battle of Brunanburh,
over a combined force of Danes and Scots, a victory celebrated in one of the finest of Old
English poems. By the middle of the century a large part of eastern England, though still
strongly Danish in blood and custom, was once more under English rule.
Toward the end of the century, however, when England seemed at last on the point of
solving its Danish problem, a new and formidable succession of invasions began. In 991
a substantial Viking fleet, which may have been under the command of Olaf Tryggvason,
attacked and pillaged various towns along the southeast coast of England. It then sailed
up the Blackwater to the vicinity of Maldon, where it was met by Byrhtnoth, the valiant
earl of the East Saxons, in a battle celebrated in another famous Old English war poem,
The Battle of Maldon. Here the English, heroic in defeat, lost their leader, and soon the
invaders were being bribed by large sums to refrain from plunder. The invasions now
began to assume an official character. In 994 Olaf, who shortly became king of Norway,
was joined by Svein, king of Denmark, in a new attack on London. The sums necessary
to buy off the enemy became greater and greater, rising in 1012 to the amazing figure of
£48,000. In each case the truce thus bought was temporary, and Danish forces were soon
again marching over England, murdering and pillaging. Finally Svein determined to
make himself king of the country. In 1014, supported by his son Cnut, he crowned a
series of victories in different parts of England by driving Æthelred, the English king,
into exile and seizing the throne. Upon his sudden death the same year his son succeeded
him. Three years of fighting established Cnut’s claim to the throne, and for the next
twenty-five years England was ruled by Danish kings.
69. The Settlement of the Danes in England.
The events here rapidly summarized had as an important consequence the settlement of
large numbers of Scandinavians in England. However temporary may have been the stay
of many of the attacking parties, especially those that in the beginning came simply to
plunder, many individuals remained behind when their ships returned home. Often they
became permanent settlers in the island. Some indication of their number may be had
from the fact that more than 1,400 places in England bear Scandinavian names. Most of
these are naturally in the north and east of England, the district of the Danelaw, for it was
here that the majority of the invaders settled. Most of the new inhabitants were Danes,
although there were considerable Norwegian settlements in the northwest, especially in
what is now Cumbria, and in a few of the northern counties. The presence of a large
Scandinavian element in the population is indicated not merely by placenames but by
peculiarities of manorial organization, local government, legal procedure, and the like.
Thus we have to do not merely with large bands of marauders, marching and
countermarching across England, carrying hardship and devastation into all parts of the
country for upward of two centuries, but also with an extensive peaceable settlement by
farmers who intermarried with the English, adopted many of their customs, and entered
into the everyday life of the community. In the districts where such settlements took
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place, conditions were favorable for an extensive Scandinavian influence on the English
language.
70. The Amalgamation of the Two Peoples.
The amalgamation of the two peoples was greatly facilitated by the close kinship that
existed between them. The problem of the English was not the assimilation of an alien
people representing an alien culture and speaking a wholly foreign tongue. The policy of
the English kings in the period when they were reestablishing their control over the
Danelaw was to accept as an established fact the mixed population of the district and to
devise a modus vivendi for its component elements. In this effort they were aided by the
natural adaptability of the Scandinavian. Generations of contact with foreign
communities, into which their many enterprises had brought them, had made the
Scandinavians a cosmopolitan people. The impression derived from a study of early
English institutions is that in spite of certain native customs that the Danes continued to
observe, they assimilated to most of the ways of English life. That many of them early
accepted Christianity is attested by the large number of Scandinavian names found not
only among monks and abbots, priests and bishops, but also among those who gave land
to monasteries and endowed churches. It would be a great mistake to think of the relation
between Anglo-Saxon and Dane, especially in the tenth century, as uniformly hostile.
One must distinguish, as we have said, between the predatory bands that continued to
traverse the country and the large numbers that were settled peacefully on the land.
Alongside the ruins of English towns—Symeon of Durham reports that the city of
Carlisle remained uninhabited for 200 years after its destruction by the Danes—there
existed important communities established by the newcomers. They seem to have
grouped themselves at first in concentrated centers, parceling out large tracts of land from
which the owners had fled, and preferring this form of settlement to too scattered a
distribution in a strange land. Among such centers the Five Boroughs—Lincoln,
Stamford, Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham—became important foci of Scandinavian
influence. It was but a question of time until these large centers and the multitude of
smaller communities where the Northmen gradually settled were absorbed into the
general mass of the English population.
71. The Relation of the Two Languages.
The relation between the two languages in the district settled by the Danes is a matter of
inference rather than exact knowledge. Doubtless the situation was similar to that
observable in numerous parts of the world today where people speaking different
languages are found living side by side in the same region. Although in some places the
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Scandinavians gave up their language early
15
there were certainly communities in which
Danish or Norse remained for some time the usual language. Up until the time of the
Norman Conquest the Scandinavian language in England was constantly being renewed
by the steady stream of trade and conquest. In some parts of Scotland, Norse was still
spoken as late as the seventeenth century. In other districts in which the prevailing speech
was English there were doubtless many of the newcomers who continued to speak their
own language at least as late as 1100 and a considerable number who were to a greater or
lesser degree bilingual. The last-named circumstance is rendered more likely by the
frequent intermarriage between the two peoples and by the similarity between the two
tongues. The Anglian dialect resembled the language of the Northmen in a number of
particulars in which West Saxon showed divergence. The two may even have been
mutually intelligible to a limited extent. Contemporary statements on the subject are
conflicting, and it is difficult to arrive at a conviction. But wherever the truth lies in this
debatable question, there can be no doubt that the basis existed for an extensive
interaction of the two languages upon each other, and this conclusion is amply borne out
by the large number of Scandinavian elements subsequently found in English.
72. The Tests of Borrowed Words.
The similarity between Old English and the language of the Scandinavian invaders makes
it at times very difficult to decide whether a given word in Modern English is a native or
a borrowed word. Many of the more common words of the two languages were identical,
and if we had no Old English literature from the period before the Danish invasions, we
should be unable to say that many words were not of Scandinavian origin. In certain
cases, however, we have very reliable criteria by which we can recognize a borrowed
word. These tests are not such as the lay person can generally apply, although
occasionally they are sufficiently simple. The most reliable depend upon differences in
the development of certain sounds in the North Germanic and West Germanic areas. One
of the simplest to recognize is the development of the sound sk. In Old English this was
early palatalized to sh (written sc), except possibly in the combination scr, whereas in the
Scandinavian countries it retained its hard sk sound. Consequently, while native words
like ship, shall, fish have sh in Modern English, words borrowed from the Scandinavians
are generally still pronounced with sk: sky, skin, skill, scrape, scrub, bask, whisk. The OE
scyrte has become shirt, while the corresponding ON form skyrta gives us skirt. In the
same way the retention of the hard pronunciation of k and g in such words as kid, dike
16
(cf. ditch), get, give, gild, and egg is an indication of Scandinavian origin. Occasionally,
though not very often, the vowel of a word gives clear proof of borrowing. For example,
15
On this question see E.Ekwall, “How Long Did the Scandinavian Language Survive in
England?” Jespersen Miscellany, pp. 17–30, and R.I.Page, “How Long Did the
Scandinavian Language Survive in England? The Epigraphical Evidence,” in England
Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed.
P.Clemoes and K.Hughes (Cambridge, UK, 1971), pp. 165–81.
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the Germanic diphthong ai becomes ā in Old English (and has become ō in Modern
English) but became ei or ē in Old Scandinavian. Thus aye, nay (beside no from the
native word), hale (cf. the English form (w)hole), reindeer, and swain are borrowed
words, and many more examples can be found in Middle English and in the modern
dialects. Thus there existed in Middle English the forms geit, gait, which are from
Scandinavian, beside gāt, gōt from the OE word. The native word has survived in
Modern English goat. In the same way the Scandinavian word for loathsome existed in
Middle English as leiþ, laiþ beside lāþ, lōþ. Such tests as these, based on sound-
developments in the two languages, are the most reliable means of distinguishing
Scandinavian from native words. But occasionally meaning gives a fairly reliable test.
Thus our word bloom (flower) could come equally well from OE blōma or Scandinavian
blōm. But the OE word meant an ‘ingot of iron’, whereas the Scandinavian word meant
‘flower, bloom’. It happens that the Old English word has survived as a term in
metallurgy, but it is the Old Norse word that has come down in ordinary use. Again, if the
initial g in gift did not betray the Scandinavian origin of this word, we should be justified
in suspecting it from the fact that the cognate OE word gift meant the ‘price of a wife’,
and hence in the plural ‘marriage’, whereas the ON word had the more general sense of
‘gift, present’. The word plow in Old English meant a measure of land, in Scandinavian
the agricultural implement, which in Old English was called a sulh. When neither the
form of a word nor its meaning proves its Scandinavian origin we can never be sure that
we are dealing with a borrowed word. The fact that an original has not been preserved in
Old English is no proof that such an original did not exist. Nevertheless when a word
appears in Middle English that cannot be traced to an Old English source but for which
an entirely satisfactory original exists in Old Norse, and when that word occurs chiefly in
texts written in districts where Danish influence was strong, or when it has survived in
dialectal use in these districts today, the probability that we have here a borrowed word is
fairly strong. In every case final judgment must rest upon a careful consideration of all
the factors involved.
73. Scandinavian Place-Names.
Among the most notable evidences of the extensive Scandinavian settlement in England
is the large number of places that bear Scandinavian names. When we find more than 600
places like Grimsby, Whitby, Derby, Rugby, and Thoresby, with names ending in -by,
nearly all of them in the district occupied by the Danes, we have a striking evidence of
the number of Danes who settled in England. For these names all contain the Danish
word by, meaning ‘farm’ or ‘town’, a word that is also seen in our word by-law (town
law). Some 300 names like Althorp, Bishopsthorpe, Gawthorpe, and Linthorpe contain
the Scandinavian word thorp (village). An almost equal number contain the word thwaite
16
The k in this could be accounted for on the basis of the oblique cases, but it is more
probably due to Scandinavian influence. It is possible that the retention of the hard k and
g is due to Anglian rather than Scandinavian tendencies.
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(an isolated piece of land)—Applethwaite, Braithwaite, Cowperthwaite, Langthwaite,
Satterthwaite. About a hundred places bear names ending in toft (a piece of ground, a
messuage)—Brimtoft, Eastoft, Langtoft, Lowestoft, Nortoft. Numerous other
Scandinavian elements enter into English place-names, which need not be particularized
here. It is apparent that these elements were commonplace in the speech of the people of
the Danelaw. It has been remarked above that more than 1,400 Scandinavian place-names
have been counted in England, and the number will undoubtedly be increased when a
more careful survey of the material has been made. These names are not uniformly
distributed over the Danelaw. The largest number are found in Yorkshire and
Lincolnshire. In some districts in these counties as many as 75 percent of the place-names
are of Scandinavian origin. Cumbria contributes a large number, reflecting the extensive
Norse settlements in the northwest, while Norfolk, with a fairly large representation,
shows that the Danes were numerous in at least this part of East Anglia. It may be
remarked that a similarly high percentage of Scandinavian personal names has been
found in the medieval records of these districts. Names ending in -son, like Stevenson or
Johnson, conform to a characteristic Scandinavian custom, the equivalent of Old English
patronymic being -ing, as in Browning.
74. The Earliest Borrowing.
The extent of this influence on English place-nomenclature would lead us to expect a
large infiltration of other words into the vocabulary. But we should not expect this
infiltration to show itself at once. The early relations of the invaders with the English
were too hostile to lead to much natural intercourse, and we must allow time for such
words as the Anglo-Saxons learned from their enemies to find their way into literature.
The number of Scandinavian words that appear in Old English is consequently small,
amounting to only about two score. The largest single group of these is such as would be
associated with a sea-roving and predatory people. Words like barda (beaked ship),
cnearr (small warship), scegþ (vessel), liþ (fleet), scegþmann (pirate), dreng (warrior), hā
(oarlock) and
(rower in a warship), bātswegen (boatman, source of Modern
English boatswain), hofding (chief, ringleader), orrest (battle), rān (robbery, rapine), and
fylcian (to collect or marshal a force) show in what respects the invaders chiefly
impressed the English. A little later we find a number of words relating to the law or
characteristic of the social and administrative system of the Danelaw. The word law itself
is of Scandinavian origin, as is the word outlaw. The word māl (action at law), hold
(freeholder), wapentake (an administrative district), hūsting (assembly), and riding
(originally thriding, one of the former divisions of Yorkshire) owe their use to the Danes.
In addition to these, a number of genuine Old English words seem to be translations of
Scandinavian terms: bōtlēas (what cannot be compensated), hāmsōcn (attacking an
enemy in his house), lahcēap (payment for reentry into lost legal rights), landcēap (tax
paid when land was bought) are examples of such translations.
17
English legal
17
Cf. E.Björkman, Scandinavian Loan-words in Middle English (Halle, Germany, 1900–1902), p.
12.
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terminology underwent a complete reshaping after the Norman Conquest, and most of
these words have been replaced now by terms from the French. But their temporary
existence in the language is an evidence of the extent to which Scandinavian customs
entered into the life of the districts in which the Danes were numerous.
75. Scandinavian Loanwords and Their Character.
It was after the Danes had begun to settle down peaceably in the island and enter into the
ordinary relations of life with the English that Scandinavian words began to
enter in numbers into the language. If we examine the bulk of these words with a view to
dividing them into classes and thus discovering in what domains of thought or experience
the Danes contributed especially to English culture and therefore to the English language,
we shall not arrive at any significant result. The Danish invasions were not like the
introduction of Christianity, bringing the English into contact with a different civilization
and introducing them to many things, physical as well as spiritual, that they had not
known before. The civilization of the invaders was very much like that of the English
themselves. Consequently the Scandinavian elements that entered the English language
are such as would make their way into it through the give-and-take of everyday life. Their
character can best be conveyed by a few examples, arranged simply in alphabetical order.
Among nouns that came in are axle-tree, band, bank, birth, boon, booth, brink, bull, calf
(of leg), crook, dirt, down (feathers), dregs, egg, fellow, freckle, gait, gap, girth, guess,
hap, keel, kid, leg, link, loan, mire, race, reef (of sail), reindeer, rift, root, scab, scales,
score, scrap, seat, sister, skill, skin, skirt, sky, slaughter, snare, stack, steak, swain, thrift,
tidings, trust, want, window. The list has been made somewhat long in order to better
illustrate the varied and yet simple character of the borrowings. Among adjectives we
find awkward, flat, ill, loose, low, meek, muggy, odd, rotten, rugged, scant, seemly, sly,
tattered, tight, and weak. There are also a surprising number of common verbs among the
borrowings, like to bait, bask, batten, call, cast, clip, cow, crave, crawl, die, droop, egg
(on), flit, gape, gasp, get, give, glitter, kindle, lift, lug, nag, raise, rake, ransack, rid, rive,
scare, scout (an idea), scowl, screech, snub, sprint, take, thrive, thrust. Lists such as these
suggest better than any explanation the familiar, everyday character of the words that the
Scandinavian invasions and subsequent settlement brought into English.
76. The Relation of Borrowed and Native Words.
It will be seen from the words in the above lists that in many cases the new words could
have supplied no real need in the English vocabulary. They made their way into English
simply as the result of the mixture of the two peoples. The Scandinavian and the English
words were being used side by side, and the survival of one or the other must often have
been a matter of chance. Under such circumstances a number of things might happen. (1)
Where words in the two languages coincided more or less in form and meaning, the
modern word stands at the same time for both its English and its Scandinavian ancestors.
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Examples of such words are burn, cole, drag, fast, gang, murk(y) scrape, thick. (2)
Where there were differences of form, the English word often survived. Beside such
English words as bench, goat, heathen, yarn, few, grey, loath, leap, flay, corresponding
Scandinavian forms are found quite often in Middle English literature and in some cases
still exist in dialectal use. We find screde, skelle, skere with the hard pronunciation of the
initial consonant group beside the standard English shred, shell, sheer; wae beside woe,
the surviving form except in welaway; trigg the Old Norse equivalent of OE trēowe
(true). Again where the same idea was expressed by different words in the two languages
it was often, as we should expect, the English word that lived on. We must remember that
the area in which the two languages existed for a time side by side was confined to the
northern and eastern half of England. Examples are the Scandinavian words attlen beside
English think (in the sense of purpose, intend), bolnen beside swell, tinen (ON
)
beside lose, site (ON
) beside sorrow, roke (fog) beside mist, reike beside path. (3)
In other cases the Scandinavian word replaced the native word, often after the two had
long remained in use concurrently. Our word awe from Scandinavian, and its cognate eye
(aye) from Old English are both found in the Ormulum (c. 1200). In the earlier part of the
Middle English period the English word is more common, but by 1300 the Scandinavian
form begins to appear with increasing frequency and finally replaces the Old English
word. The two forms must have been current in the everyday speech of the northeast for
several centuries, until finally the pronunciation awe prevailed. The Old English form is
not found after the fourteenth century. The same thing happened with the two words for
egg, ey (English) and egg (Scandinavian). Caxton complains at the close of the fifteenth
century (see the passage quoted in § 151) that it was hard even then to know which to
use. In the words sister (ON syster, OE sweostor), boon (ON bōn, OE bēn) loan (ON lān,
OE
), weak (ON veikr, OE wāc) the Scandinavian form lived. Often a good Old
English word was lost, since it expressed the same idea as the foreign word. Thus the
verb take replaced the OE niman;
18
cast superseded the OE weorpan, while it has itself
been largely displaced now by throw; cut took the place of OE snīðan and ceorfan, which
survives as carve. Old English had several words for anger (ON angr), including torn,
grama, and irre, but the Old Norse word prevailed. In the same way the Scandinavian
word bark replaced OE rind, wing replaced OE feþra, sky took the place of ūprodor and
wolcen (the latter now being preserved only in the poetical word welkin), and window
(=wind-eye) drove out the equally appropriate English word
(eye-thirl, i.e.,
eye-hole; cf. nostril=nose thirl, nose hole). (4) Occasionally both the English and the
Scandinavian words were retained with a difference of meaning or use, as in the
following pairs (the English word is given first): no—nay,
18
For a detailed study, see Alarik Rynell, The Rivalry of Scandinavian and Native Synonyms in
Middle English, especially taken and nimen… (Lund, 1948; Lund Studies in English, vol. 13).
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whole—hale, rear—raise, from—fro, craft—skill, hide—skin, sick—ill. (5) In certain
cases a native word that was apparently not in common use was reinforced, if not
reintroduced, from the Scandinavian. In this way we must account for such words as till,
dale, rim, blend, run, and the Scottish bairn. (6) Finally, the English word might be
modified, taking on some of the character of the corresponding Scandinavian word. Give
and get with their hard g are examples, as are scatter beside shatter, and Thursday instead
of the OE Thunresdæg. Some confusion must have existed in the Danish area between
the Scandinavian and the English form of many words, a confusion that is clearly
betrayed in the survival of such hybrid forms as shriek and screech. All this merely goes
to show that in the Scandinavian influence on the English language we have to do with
the intimate mingling of two tongues. The results are just what we should expect when
two rather similar languages are spoken for upwards of two centuries in the same area.
77. Form Words.
If further evidence were needed of the intimate relation that existed between the two
languages, it would be found in the fact that the Scandinavian words that made their way
into English were not confined to nouns and adjectives and verbs but extended to
pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and even a part of the verb to be. Such parts of speech
are not often transferred from one language to another. The pronouns they, their, and
them are Scandinavian. Old English used hīe, hiera, him (see § 45). Possibly the
Scandinavian words were felt to be less subject to confusion with forms of the singular.
Moreover, though these are the most important, they are not the only Scandinavian
pronouns to be found in English. A late Old English inscription contains the Old Norse
form hanum for him. Both and same, though not primarily pronouns, have pronominal
uses and are of Scandinavian origin. The preposition till was at one time widely used in
the sense of to, besides having its present meaning; and fro, likewise in common use
formerly as the equivalent of from, survives in the phrase to and fro. Both words are from
the Scandinavian. From the same source comes the modern form of the conjunction
though, the Old Norse equivalent of OE þēah. The Scandinavian use of at as a sign of the
infinitive is to be seen in the English ado (at-do) and was more widely used in this
construction in Middle English. The adverbs aloft, athwart, aye (ever), and seemly, and
the earlier heþen (hence) and hweþen (whence), are all derived from the Scandinavian.
Finally the present plural are of the verb to be is a most significant adoption. While we
aron was the Old English form in the north, the West Saxon plural was syndon (cf.
German sind), and the form are in Modern English undoubtedly owes its extension to the
influence of the Danes. When we remember that in the expression they are both the
pronoun and the verb are Scandinavian we realize once more how intimately the
language of the invaders has entered into English.
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78. Scandinavian Influence outside the Standard Speech.
We should miss the full significance of the Scandinavian influence if we failed to
recognize the extent to which it is found outside the standard speech. Our older literature
and the modern dialects are full of words that are not now in ordinary use. The ballads
offer many examples. When the Geste of Robin Hood begins “Lythe and listin,
gentilmen” it has for its first word an Old Norse synonym for listen. When a little later on
the Sheriff of Nottingham says to Little John, “Say me no we, wight yonge man, What is
nowe thy name?” he uses the ON vigt (strong, courageous). In the ballad of Captain Car
the line “Busk and bowne, my merry men all” contains two words from the same source
meaning prepare. The word gar, meaning to cause or make one do something, is of
frequent occurrence. Thus, in Chevy Chace we are told of Douglas’ men that “Many a
doughetë the(y) garde to dy”—that is, they made many a doughty man die. In Robin
Hood and Guy of Gisborne the Virgin Mary is addressed: “Ah, deere Lady! sayd Robin
Hoode, Thou art both mother and may!” in which may is a Scandinavian form for maid.
Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, in the ballad of that name, “bigget a bower on yon burn-
brae,” employing in the process another word of Norse origin, biggen (to build), a word
also used by Burns in To a Mouse: “Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!…And naething now
to big a new ane.” In Burns and Scott we find the comparative worse in the form waur:
“A’ the warld kens that they maun either marry or do waur” (Old Mortality), also an old
word (ON verre) more commonly found in the form used by Chaucer in the Book of the
Duchess: “Allas! how myghte I fare werre?” Examples could be multiplied, but it is
sufficiently evident that there is much Scandinavian material in the dialects besides what
has found its way into the standard speech.
79. Effect on Grammar and Syntax.
That the Scandinavian influence not only affected the vocabulary but also extended to
matters of grammar and syntax as well is less capable of exact demonstration but is
hardly to be doubted. Inflections are seldom transferred from one language to another. A
certain number of inflectional elements peculiar to the Northumbrian dialect have been
attributed to Scandinavian influence,
19
among others the -s of the third person singular,
present indicative, of verbs and the participial ending -and (bindand), corresponding to -
end and -ind in the Midlands and South, and now replaced by -ing. The words scant,
want, athwart preserve in the
19
W.Keller, “Skandinavischer Einfluss in der englischen Flexion,” Probleme der englischen
Sprache und Kultur: Festschrift Johannes Hoops (Heidelberg, 1925), pp. 80–87.
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final t the neuter adjective ending of Old Norse. But this is of no great significance. It is
much more important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian
languages differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so
nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way
of mutual understanding. In the mixed population that existed in the Danelaw these
endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and
finally lost. It seems but natural that the tendency toward the loss of inflections, which
was characteristic of the English language in the north even in Old English times, was
strengthened and accelerated by the conditions that prevailed in the Danelaw, and that
some credit must be given the Danes for a development that, spreading to other parts and
being carried much farther, resulted after the Norman Conquest in so happily simplifying
English grammar. Likewise, the way words are put together in phrases and clauses—what
we call syntax—is something in which languages less often influence one another than in
matters of vocabulary. The probability of such influence naturally varies with the degree
of intimacy that exists between the speakers of two languages. In those parts of
Pennsylvania—the “Pennsylvania Dutch” districts—where German and English have
mingled in a jargon peculiar to itself, German turns of expression are frequently found in
the English spoken there. It is quite likely that the English spoken in the districts where
there were large numbers of Danes acquired certain Danish habits of expression. A
modern Dane like Jespersen
20
notes that the omission of the relative pronoun in relative
clauses (rare in Old English) and the retention or omission of the conjunction that are in
conformity with Danish usage; that the rules for the use of shall and will in Middle
English are much the same as in Scandinavian; and that some apparently illogical uses of
these auxiliaries in Shakespeare (e.g., “besides it should appear” in the Merchant of
Venice, III, ii, 289) do not seem strange to a Dane, who would employ the same verb.
Logeman
21
notes the tendency, common to both languages, to put a strong stress at times
on the preposition and notes the occurrence of locutions such as “he has some one to
work for” that are not shared by the other Germanic languages. It is possible, of course,
that similarities such as these are merely coincidences, that the Scandinavian languages
and English happened to develop in these respects along similar lines. But there is
nothing improbable in the assumption that certain Scandinavian turns
20
Growth and Structure of the English Language, 10th ed., pp. 76–77. Jespersen’s tentative
speculations encounter problems described by E.Einenkel, “Die dänischen Elemente in der Syntax
der englischen Sprache,” Anglia, 29 (1906), 120–28. They also are unsupported by the earliest
Danish and Norwegian usage as recorded in runic inscriptions. See Max S.Kirch, “Scandinavian
Influence on English Syntax,” PMLA, 74 (1959), 503–10.
21
Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, 116 (1906), 281–86.
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of phrase and certain particular usages should have found their way into the idiom of
people in no small part Danish in descent and living in intimate contact with the speakers
of a Scandinavian tongue.
80. Period and Extent of the Influence.
It is hardly possible to estimate the extent of the Scandinavian influence by the number of
borrowed words that exist in Standard English. That number, if we restrict the list to
those for which the evidence is fully convincing, is about 900. These, as the examples
given above show, are almost always words designating common everyday things and
fundamental concepts. To this group we should probably be justified in adding an equal
number in which a Scandinavian origin is probable or in which the influence of
Scandinavian forms has entered. Furthermore there are, according to Wright, the editor of
the English Dialect Dictionary, thousands of Scandinavian words that are still a part of
the everyday speech of people in the north and east of England and in a sense are just as
much a part of the living language as those that are used in other parts of the country and
have made their way into literature. He notes that “if we exclude all sc- words of various
origins which are common to the standard language and the dialects, it is a remarkable
fact that the English Dialect Dictionary contains 1,154 simple words beginning with sc-
(sk-).”
22
Locally, at least, the Scandinavian influence was tremendous. The period during
which this large Danish element was making its way into the English vocabulary was
doubtless the tenth and eleventh centuries. This was the period during which the merging
of the two peoples was taking place. The occurrence of many of the borrowed words in
written records is generally somewhat later. A considerable number first make their
appearance in the Ormulum at the beginning of the thirteenth century. But we must
attribute this fact to the scarcity of literary texts of an earlier date, particularly from the
region of the Danelaw. Because of its extent and the intimate way in which the borrowed
elements were incorporated, the Scandinavian influence is one of the most interesting of
the foreign influences that have contributed to the English language.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
On the relation of the various peoples in Anglo-Saxon England some interesting observations,
especially inferences drawn from place-names, will be found in R.E. Zachrisson’s Romans,
Kelts, and Saxons in Ancient Britain (Uppsala, Sweden, 1927). For the history of the period, see
F.M.Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed., Oxford, 1971). A readable account of the
introduction of Christianity will be found in
22
Joseph and Elizabeth M.Wright, An Elementary Middle English Grammar, p. 82.
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W.Hunt’s The English Church from Its Foundation to the Norman
Conquest (London, 1899), or, in more detail, in A.J.Mason, The Mission of
St. Augustine to England according to the Original Documents
(Cambridge, 1897). Among modern histories of the English church, see
especially Margaret Deanesly, The Pre-Conquest Church in England (2nd
ed., London, 1963), and H.Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to
Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1972). These may be supplemented for
the period of the Benedictine Reform by J.A.Robinson’s The Times of St.
Dunstan (Oxford, 1923) and David Knowles, The Monastic Order in
England (2nd ed., Cambridge, UK, 1963). The fullest discussion of the
Latin element in Old English is Alois Pogatscher, Zur Lautlehre der
griechischen, lateinischen und romanischen Lehnworte im Altenglischen
(Strassburg, 1888). A.Keiser’s The Influence of Christianity on the
Vocabulary of Old English Poetry (Urbana, IL, 1919), Otto Funke’s Die
gelehrten lateinischen Lehn-und Fremdwörter in der altenglischen
Literatur von der Mitte des X. Jahrhunderts bis um das Jahr 1066 (Halle,
Germany, 1914), and Helmut Gneuss’s Lehnbildungen und
Lehnbedeutungen im Altenglischen (Berlin, 1955) are also valuable. A
general discussion of the Latin and Greek element in English will be found
in Roland G.Kent, Language and Philology (Boston, 1923), in the series
Our Debt to Greece and Rome.
The most extensive consideration of the Celtic loanwords in Old English is Max Förster, Keltisches
Wortgut im Englischen (Halle, Germany, 1921), which may be supplemented by the important
reviews of Ekwall (Anglia Beiblatt, XXXIII, 74–82) and Pokorny (Zeit. für Celtische Phil, XIV,
298). Förster adds to his findings in “Englisch-Keltisches,” Englische Studien, 56 (1922), 204–
39, and Wolfgang Keller discusses “Keltisches im englischen Verbum” in Anglica:
Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie, Alois Brandl zum 70. Geburtstage überreicht
(Leipzig, 1925; Palaestra, 147–48), I, 55–66.
Excellent accounts of early Scandinavian activities are T.D.Kendrick, A History of the Vikings
(New York, 1930); David Wilson, The Vikings and Their Origins (London, 1970); Peter Foote
and D.M.Wilson, The Viking Achievement (London, 1970); P.H.Sawyer, Kings and Vikings:
Scandinavia and Europe, AD 700–1100 (London, 1982); Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings
(2nd ed., Oxford, 1984); J. Graham-Campbell, The Viking World (2nd ed., London, 1990), and
Else Roesdahl, The Vikings (London, 1991). Essays by various specialists, including those
participating in significant archaeological findings, are collected in R.T.Farrell, ed., The Vikings
(London, 1982) and in Colin Renfrew, ed., The Prehistory of Orkney (Edinburgh, 1985). On all
of these topics, Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder (21 vols., Copenhagen, 1956–
1978) is an encyclopedic work of great importance. For King Alfred, see C.Plummer, Life and
Times of Alfred the Great (Oxford, 1902), and Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, eds. and
trans., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources
(Harmondsworth, UK, 1983). F.M. Stenton’s “The Danes in England” (1927) is reprinted in
Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Doris Stenton (Oxford, 1970). H.R.Loyn surveys the
general historical background in The Vikings in Britain (London, 1977); and R.A.Hall focuses
on recent archaeological work in “The Five Boroughs of the Danelaw: a Review of Present
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Knowledge,” Anglo-Saxon England, 18 (1989), 149–206. The standard discussion of the
Scandinavian element in English is E.Björkman’s Scandinavian Loan-words in Middle English
(Halle, 1900–1902), which may be supplemented by his “Zur dialektischen Provenienz der
nordischen Lehnworter im Englischen,” Språkvetenskapliga sällskapets i Upsala forhandlingar
1897–1900 (1901), pp. 1–28, and Nordische Personnamen in England in alt-und
frühmittelenglischer Zeit (Halle, Germany, 1910). Earlier studies include A. Wall’s “A
Contribution towards the Study of the Scandinavian Element in the English Dialects,” Anglia,
20 (1898), 45–135, and G.T. Flom’s Scandinavian Influence on Southern Lowland Scotch (New
York, 1900). More recent scholarship is surveyed by B.H.Hansen, “The Historical Implications
of the Scandinavian Linguistic Element in English: A Theoretical Evaluation,” Nowele, 4
(1984), 53–95. The Scandinavian influence on local nomenclature is extensively treated in
H.Lindkvist’s Middle-English Place-Names of Scandinavian Origin, part I (Uppsala, Sweden,
1912). Gillian Fellows-Jensen has published a valuable series of studies on place-names,
including Scandinavian Settlement Names in Yorkshire (Copenhagen, 1972), and, in similar
format, Scandinavian Settlement Names in the East Midlands (Copenhagen, 1978) and
Scandinavian Settlement Names in the North-West (Copenhagen, 1985). The claims for
Scandinavian influence on English grammar and syntax are set forth in the articles mentioned in
footnotes to § 79. Much of this material is embodied in an excellent overall treatment by John
Geipel, The Viking Legacy: The Scandinavian Influence on the English and Gaelic Languages
(Newton Abbot, UK, 1971). Literary and historical relations between Anglo-Saxons and
Vikings are treated in recent essays collected in John D.Niles and Mark Amodio, eds., Anglo-
Scandinavian England (Lanham, MD, 1989) and in Donald Scragg, ed., The Battle of Maldon
AD 991 (Oxford, 1991).
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5
The Norman Conquest and the Subjection of
English, 1066–1200
81. The Norman Conquest.
Toward the close of the Old English period an event occurred that had a greater effect on
the English language than any other in the course of its history. This event was the
Norman Conquest in 1066. What the language would have been like if William the
Conqueror had not succeeded in making good his claim to the English throne can only be
a matter of conjecture. It would probably have pursued much the same course as the other
Germanic languages, retaining perhaps more of its inflections and preserving a
predominantly Germanic vocabulary, adding to its word-stock by the characteristic
methods of word formation already explained, and incorporating words from other
languages much less freely. In particular it would have lacked the greater part of that
enormous number of French words that today make English seem, on the side of
vocabulary, almost as much a Romance as a Germanic language. The Norman Conquest
changed the whole course of the English language. An event of such far-reaching
consequences must be considered in some detail.
82. The Origin of Normandy.
On the northern coast of France directly across from England is a district extending some
seventy-five miles back from the Channel and known as Normandy. It derives its name
from the bands of Northmen who settled there in the ninth and tenth centuries, at the
same time that similar bands were settling in the north and east of England. The Seine
offered a convenient channel for penetration into the country, and the settlements of
Danes in this region furnish a close parallel to those around the Humber. A generation
after Alfred reached an agreement with the North-men in England, a somewhat similar
understanding was reached between Rollo, the leader of the Danes in Normandy, and
Charles the Simple, king of France. In 912 the right of the Northmen to occupy this part
of France was recognized; Rollo acknowledged the French king as his overlord and
became the first duke of the Normans. In the following century and a half a succession of
masterful dukes raised the dukedom to a position of great influence, over-shadowing at
times the power of the king of France.
The adaptability of the Scandinavian, always a marked characteristic of this people,
nowhere showed itself more quickly. Readily adopting the ideas and customs of those
among whom they came to live, the Normans had soon absorbed the most important
elements of French civilization. Moreover they injected fresh vigor into what they

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borrowed. They profited from their contact with French military forces and, adding
French tactics to their own impetuous courage, soon had one of the best armies, if we
may use the term, in Europe. They took important features of Frankish law, including the
idea of the jury and, with a genius for organization that shows up as clearly in the
Norman kingdom of Sicily as in Normandy and later in England, made it one of the
outstanding legal systems of the world. They accepted Christianity and began the
construction of those great Norman cathedrals that are still marvels to the modern
architect. But most important of all, for us, they soon gave up their own language and
learned French. So rapidly did the old Scandinavian tongue disappear in the Norman
capital that the second duke was forced to send his son to Bayeux so that he might learn
something of the speech of his forefathers. In the eleventh century, at the time of the
Norman Conquest, the civilization of Normandy was essentially French, and the
Normans were among the most advanced and progressive of the peoples of Europe.
For some years before the Norman Conquest the relations between England and
Normandy had been fairly close. In 1002 Æthelred the Unready had married a Norman
wife and, when driven into exile by the Danes, took refuge with his brother-in-law, the
duke of Normandy. His son Edward, who had thus been brought up in France, was almost
more French than English. At all events, when in 1042 the Danish line died out and
Edward, known as the Confessor, was restored to the throne from which his father had
been driven, he brought with him a number of his Norman friends, enriched them, and
gave them important places in the government. A strong French atmosphere pervaded the
English court during the twenty-four years of his reign.
83. The Year 1066.
When in January 1066, after a reign of twenty-four years, Edward the Confessor died
childless, England was again faced with the choice of a successor. And there was not
much doubt as to where the choice would fall. At his succession Edward had found
England divided into a few large districts, each under the control of a powerful earl. The
most influential of these nobles was Godwin, earl of the West Saxon earldom. He was a
shrewd, capable man and was soon Edward’s principal adviser. Except for one brief
interval, he was the virtual ruler of England until the time of his death. His eldest son,
Harold, succeeded to his title and influence and during the last twelve years of Edward’s
reign exercised a firm and capable influence over national affairs. The day after Edward’s
death Harold was elected king.
His election did not long go unchallenged. William, the duke of Normandy at this
time, was a second cousin to the late king. Although this relationship did not give him
any right of inheritance to the English throne, he had nevertheless been living in
expectation of becoming Edward’s successor. Edward seems to have encouraged him in
this hope. While William had been on a brief visit in England, Edward had assured him
that he should succeed him. Even Harold had been led, though unwillingly, to
acknowledge his claim. Having on one occasion fallen into William’s hands, it seems he
had been forced to swear, as the price of his freedom, not to become a candidate or
oppose William’s election. But the English had had enough of French favorites, and
when the time came Harold did not consider himself bound by his former pledge.
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Only by force could William hope to obtain the crown to which he believed himself
entitled. Perhaps the difftculty involved in an armed invasion of England would have
discouraged a less determined claimant. But William was an exceptionally able man.
From infancy he had surmounted difftculties. Handicapped by the taint of illegitimacy,
the son of his father by a tanner’s daughter of Falaise, he had succeeded to the dukedom
of Normandy at the age of six. He was the object of repeated attempts upon his life, and
only the devoted care of his regents enabled him to reach maturity. In early manhood he
had had to face a number of crucial contests with rebellious barons, powerful neighbors,
and even his overlord, the French king. But he had emerged triumphantly from them all,
greatly strengthened in position and admirably schooled for the final test of his fortune.
William the Great, as the chroniclers called him, was not the man to relinquish a kingdom
without a struggle.
Having determined upon his course of action, he lost no time in beginning
preparations. He secured the cooperation of his vassals by the promise of liberal rewards,
once England was his to dispose of. He came to terms with his rivals and enemies on the
continent. He appealed to the pope for the sanction of his enterprise and received the
blessing of the Church. As a result of these inducements, the ambitious, the adventurous,
and the greedy flocked to his banner from all over France and even other parts of Europe.
In September he landed at Pevensey, on the south coast of England, with a formidable
force.
His landing was unopposed. Harold was occupied in the north of England meeting an
invasion by the king of Norway, another claimant to the throne, who had been joined by a
brother of Harold’s, Tostig, returning from exile. Hardly had Harold triumphed in battle
over the invaders when word reached him of William’s landing. The news was scarcely
unexpected, but the English were not fully prepared for it. It was difficult to keep a
medieval army together over a protracted period. William’s departure had been delayed,
and with the coming of the harvest season many of those whom Harold had assembled a
few months before, in anticipation of an attack, had been sent home. Harold was forced to
meet the invader with such forces as he had. He called upon his brothers-in-law in the
earldoms of Mercia and Northumbria to join him and repel the foreigner by a united
effort. But they hung back. Nevertheless, hurrying south with his army, Harold finally
reached a point between the Norman host and London. He drew up his forces on a broad
hill at Senlac, not far from Hastings, and awaited William’s attack. The battle began at
about nine o’clock in the morning. So advantageous was Harold’s position and so well
did the English defend themselves that in the afternoon they still held their ground. For
William the situation was becoming desperate, and he resorted to a desperate stratagem.
His only hope lay in getting the English out of their advantageous position on the hill.
Because he could not drive them off, he determined to try to lure them off and ordered a
feigned retreat. The English fell into the trap. Thinking the Normans were really fleeing,
a part of the English army started in pursuit, intending to cut them down in their flight.
But the Normans made a stand, and the battle was renewed on more even terms. Then
happened one of those accidents more easily possible in medieval than in modern
warfare. Harold, always in the thick of the fight, was killed during the battle. According
to tradition, he was pierced in the eye by a Norman arrow (although the Bayeux Tapestry
supplies contradictory evidence about the arrow). In any event, his death seems to have
been instantaneous. Two of his brothers had already fallen. Deprived of their leaders, the
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English became disorganized. The confusion spread. The Normans were quick to profit
by the situation, and the English were soon in full retreat. When night fell they were
fleeing in all directions, seeking safety under the cover of darkness, and William was left
in possession of the field.
Although William had won the battle of Hastings and eliminated his rival, he had not
yet attained the English crown. It was only after he had burnt and pillaged the southeast
of England that the citizens of London decided that further resistance would be useless.
Accordingly they capitulated, and on Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned king of
England.
84. The Norman Settlement.
William’s victory at Hastings and his subsequent coronation in London involved more
than a mere substitution of one monarch for another. It was not as though he had been
chosen originally as the successor of Edward. In that case there would doubtless have
been more French favorites at court, as in the time of the Confessor, and Normans in
certain important offices. But the English nobility would have remained intact, and the
English government would have continued with its tradition unbroken. But William’s
possession of the throne had been a matter of conquest and was attended by all the
consequences of the conquest of one people by another.
One of the most important of these consequences was the introduction of a new
nobility.
1
Many of the English higher class had been killed on the field at Hastings. Those
who escaped were treated as traitors, and the places of both alike were filled by William’s
Norman followers. This process was repeated several times during the next four years
while the Conquest was being completed. For William’s coronation did not win
immediate recognition throughout England. He was in fact acknowledged only in the
southeast. Upon his return from a visit to Normandy the following year he was faced with
serious rebellions in the southwest, the west, and the north. It was necessary for him to
enter upon a series of campaigns and to demonstrate, often with ruthless severity, his
mastery of the country. As a result of these campaigns the Old English nobility was
practically wiped out. Although many lesser landholders kept small estates, the St.
Albans Chronicler was but slightly exaggerating when he said that scarcely a single noble
of English extraction remained in the kingdom.
2
In 1072 only one of the twelve earls in
England was an Englishman, and he was executed four years later.
3
What was true in the
time of the Conqueror was true also in the reigns of his sons, and later. For several
generations after the Conquest the important positions and the great estates were almost
1
On the fate of the Old English aristocracy see F.M.Stenton, “English Families and the Norman
Conquest,” Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., 4th ser., 26 (1944), 1–12.
2
Roger of Wendover, ed. H.O.Coxe, II, 23 (Eng. Hist. Soc.).
3
P.V.D.Shelly, English and French in England, 1066–1100 (Philadelphia, 1921), p. 32.
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always held by Normans or men of foreign blood. As an English poet, Robert of
Brunne (1338), sums up the situation,
To Frankis & Normanz, for þar grete laboure,
To Flemmynges & Pikardes, þat were with him in stoure,
He gaf londes bityme, of whilk þer successoure
Hold
þe seysyne, with fulle grete honoure.
4
In like manner Norman prelates were gradually introduced into all important positions in
the church. The two archbishops were Normans. Wulfstan of Worcester was the only Old
English bishop who retained his office until the end of the Conqueror’s reign, and even
his exceptional personality did not prevent him from being scorned by Lanfranc as a
simple and untutored man, ignorant of the French language and unable to assist in the
king’s councils.
5
The English abbots were replaced more slowly, but as fast as vacancies
occurred through death or deprivation they were filled generally by foreigners. In 1075
thirteen of the twenty-one abbots who signed the decrees of the Council of London were
English; twelve years later their number had been reduced to three. Foreign monks and
priests followed the example of their superiors and sought the greater opportunities for
advancement that England now offered. A number of new foundations were established
and entirely peopled by monks brought over from Norman houses.
It is less easy to speak with certainty of the Normans in the lower walks of life who
came into England with William’s army. Many of them doubtless remained in the island,
and their number was increased by constant accretions throughout the rest of the eleventh
century and the whole of the next. The numerous castles that the Conqueror built were
apparently garrisoned by foreign troops.
6
In the chronicles of the period we find instances
extending all through the twelfth century of foreign forces being brought to England.
Many of these doubtless made but a short stay in the island, but it is safe to say that every
Norman baron was surrounded by a swarm of Norman retainers. William of Newburgh
speaks of the bishop of Ely, in the reign of Richard I, as surrounding his person with an
army of friends and foreign soldiers, as well as arranging marriages between Englishmen
of position and his relations, “of whom he brought over from Normandy multitudes for
this purpose.”
7
Ecclesiastics, it would seem, sometimes entered upon their office
accompanied by an armed band of supporters. Turold, who became abbot of
Peterborough in 1070, is
4
Chronicle, ed. Hearne, I, 72:
5
Roger of Wendover, II, 52.
6
OrdericVitalis, Bk. IV, passim.
7
William of Newburgh, Bk. IV, chap. 14, 16.
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To French and Normans, for their great labor,
To Flemings and Picards, that were with him in battle,
He gave lands betimes, of which their successors
Hold yet the seizin, with full great honor.
described as coming at the head of 160 armed Frenchmen to take possession of his
monastery;
8
and Thurston, appointed abbot of Glastonbury in 1082, imposed certain
innovations in the service upon the monks of the abbey by calling for his Norman
archers, who entered the chapter house fully armed and killed three of the monks, besides
wounding eighteen.
9
Likewise merchants and craftsmen from the continent seem to have
settled in England in considerable numbers.
10
There was a French town beside the
English one at Norwich and at Nottingham,
11
and French Street in Southampton, which
retains its name to this day, was in the Middle Ages one of the two principal streets of the
town.
12
It is quite impossible to say how many Normans and French people settled in
England in the century and a half following the Conquest,
13
but because the governing
class in both church and state was almost exclusively made up from among them, their
influence was out of all proportion to their number.
85. The Use of French by the Upper Class.
Whatever the actual number of Normans settled in England, it is clear that the members
of the new ruling class were sufficiently predominant to continue to use their own
language. This was natural enough at first, as they knew no English; but they continued
to do so for a long time to come, picking up some knowledge of English gradually but
making no effort to do so as a matter of policy. For 200 years after the Norman Conquest,
French remained the language of ordinary intercourse among the upper classes in
England. At first those who spoke French were those of Norman origin, but soon through
8
Freeman, Norman Conquest, IV, 457, 459.
9
Freeman, IV, 390–93. Both incidents are related in the Peterborough Chronicle.
10
A contemporary biographer of Thomas Becket tells us that many natives of Rouen and Caen
settled in London, preferring to dwell in this city because it was better fitted for commerce and
better supplied with the things in which they were accustomed to trade. Materials for the History of
Thomas Becket, IV, 81 (Rolls Series).
11
W.Cunningham, Alien Immigrants to England, pp. 35–36.
12
P.Studer, Oak Book of Southampton, I, xii ff.
13
F.York Powell in Traill’s Social England, I, 346, says: “One may sum up the change in England
by saying that some 20,000 foreigners replaced some 20,000 Englishmen; and that these
newcomers got the throne, the earldoms, the bishoprics, the abbacies, and far the greater portion of
the big estates, mediate and immediate, and many of the burgess holdings in the chief towns.” We
do not know what the estimate is based upon, but unless it refers, as it seems to do, to the years
immediately following the Conquest, it does not seem to be too high.
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intermarriage and association with the ruling class numerous people of English extraction
must have found it to their advantage to learn the new language, and before long the
distinction between those who spoke French and those who spoke English was not ethnic
but largely social. The language of the masses remained English, and it is reasonable to
assume that a French soldier settled on a manor with a few hundred English peasants
would soon learn the language of the people among whom his lot was cast. The situation
was well described, about the year 1300, by the writer of a chronicle which goes by the
name of Robert of Gloucester:
Pus com lo engelond in to normandies hond.
& þe normans ne couþe speke þo bote hor owe speche
& speke french as hii dude atom, & hor children dude also teche;
So þat heiemen of þis lond þat of hor blod come
Holdeþ alle þulke spreche þat hii of hom nome.
Vor bote a man conne frenss me telþ of him lute.
Ac lowe men holdeþ to engliss & to hor owe speche
Ich wene þer ne beþ in al þe world contreyes none
Pat ne holdeþ to hor owe speche bote engelond one.
Ac wel me wot uor to conne boþe wel it is,
Vor þe more þat a mon can, þe more wurþe he is.
14
(7537–47)
An instructive parallel to the bilingual character of England in this period is furnished by
the example of Belgium today. Here we find Flemish and French (Walloon) in use side
by side. (Flemish is only another name for the Dutch spoken in Belgium, which is
practically identical to that of the southern Netherlands.) Although the use of the two
languages here is somewhat a matter of geography—Flemish prevailing in the north and
French in the part of the country lying toward France—it is also to some extent
dependent upon the social and cultural position of the individual. French is often spoken
by the upper classes, even in Flemish districts, while in such a city as Brussels it is
possible to notice a fairly clear division between the working classes, who speak Flemish,
and the higher economic and social groups, who attend French schools, read French
newspapers, and go to French theaters. In the interest of accuracy, it may be noted
14
Thus came, lo! England into Normandy’s hand.
And the Normans didn’t know how to speak then but their own speech
And spoke French as they did at home, and their children did also teach;
So that high men of this land that of their blood come
Hold all that same speech that they took from them.
For but a man know French men count of him little.
But low men hold to English and to their own speech yet.
I think there are in all the world no countries
That don’t hold to their own speech but England alone.
But men well know it is well for to know both,
For the more that a man knows, the more worth he is.
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parenthetically that fluency in French is becoming less common in the north, especially
among the younger generation.
86. Circumstances Promoting the Continued Use of French.
The most important factor in the continued use of French by the English upper class until
the beginning of the thirteenth century was the close connection that existed through all
these years between England and the continent. From the time of the Conquest the kings
of England were likewise dukes of Normandy. To the end of his life William the
Conqueror seems to have felt more closely attached to his dukedom than to the country
he governed by right of conquest. Not only was he buried there, but in dividing his
possessions at his death he gave Normandy to his eldest son and England to William, his
second son. Later the two domains were united again in the hands of Henry I. Upon the
accession of Henry II, English possessions in France were still further enlarged. Henry, as
count of Anjou, inherited from his father the districts of Anjou and Maine. By his
marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine he came into possession of vast estates in the south,
so that when he became king of England he controlled about two-thirds of France, all the
western part of the country from the English Channel to the Pyrenees.
Under the circumstances it is not surprising that the attention of the English should
often be focused upon affairs in France. Indeed, English kings often spent a great part of
their time there. The Conqueror and his sons were in France for about half of their
respective reigns. Henry I (1100–1135) was there for a total of more than seventeen out
of the thirty-five years of his reign, sometimes for periods of three and four years at a
time.
15
Although conditions at home kept Stephen (1135–1154) for the most part in
England, Henry II (1154–1189) spent nearly two-thirds of his long reign in France. When
we remember that, except for Henry I, no English king until Edward IV (1461–1483)
sought a wife in England, it is easy to see how continentally minded English royalty was
and how natural a thing would seem the continued use of French at the English court.
What was true of the royal family was equally true of the nobility in general. The
English nobility was not so much a nobility of England as an Anglo-French aristocracy.
Nearly all the great English landowners had possessions likewise on the continent,
frequently contracted continental marriages, and spent much time in France, either in
pursuance of their own interests or those of the king. When we remember that on many of
the occasions when the king and his nobles crossed the Channel they were engaged in
military operations and were accompanied by military forces, that the business of
ecclesiastics and merchants constantly took them abroad, we can readily see how this
constant going and coming across the narrow seas made
15
W.Farrer, “An Outline Itinerary of King Henry the First,” Eng. Hist. Rev., 34 (1919), 303–82,
505–79.
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the continued use of French by those concerned not only natural but inevitable.
87. The Attitude toward English.
There is no reason to think that the preference that the governing class in England
showed for French was anything more than a natural result of circumstances. The idea
that the newcomers were actively hostile to the English language is without foundation.
16
It is true that English was now an uncultivated tongue, the language of a socially inferior
class, and that a bishop like Wulfstan might be subjected to Norman disdain in part, at
least, because of his ignorance of that social shibboleth.
17
Henry of Huntington’s
statement that it was considered a disgrace to be called an Englishman may be set down
to rhetorical exaggeration. It is unreasonable to expect a conquered people to feel no
resentment or the Norman never to be haughty or overbearing. But there is also plenty of
evidence of mutual respect and peaceful cooperation, to say nothing of intermarriage,
between the Normans and the English from the beginning. The chronicler Orderic Vitalis,
himself the son of a Norman father and an English mother, in spite of the fact that he
spent his life from the age of ten in Normandy, always refers to himself as an
Englishman.
According to the same chronicler
18
William the Conqueror made an effort himself at
the age of forty-three to learn English, that he might understand and render justice in the
disputes between his subjects, but his energies were too completely absorbed by his many
other activities to enable him to make much progress. There is nothing improbable in the
statement. Certainly the assertion of a fourteenth-century writer
19
that the Conqueror
considered how he might destroy the “Saxon” tongue in order that English and French
might speak the same language seems little less than silly in view of the king’s efforts to
promote the belief that he was the authentic successor of the Old English kings and in the
light of his use of English alongside of Latin, to the exclusion of French, in his charters.
His youngest son, Henry I, may have known some English, though we must give up the
pretty story of his interpreting the English words in a charter to the monks of
Colchester.
20
If later kings
16
On this subject see the excellent discussion in Shelly, English and French in England.
17
Roger of Wendover, ed. H.O.Coxe, II, 52.
18
Ordericus Vitalis, ed. Prevost, II, 215.
19
Robert Holkot, on the authority of John Selden, Eadmeri Monachi Cantuariensis Historiae
Novorum siue sui Saeculi Libri VI (London, 1623), p. 189.
20
The story was considered authentic by so critical a student as J.Horace Round (“Henry I as an
English Scholar,” Academy, Sept. 13, 1884, p. 168), but the charter was proved by J.Armitage
Robinson to be a forgery. Cf. C.W.David, “The Claim of King Henry I to Be Called Learned,”
Anniversary Essays in the Medieval History by Students of Charles Homer Haskins (Boston, 1929),
pp. 45–56.
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for a time seem to have been ignorant of the language,
21
their lack of acquaintance with it
is not to be attributed to any fixed purpose. In the period with which we are at the
moment concerned—the period up to 1200—the attitude of the king and the upper classes
toward the English language may be characterized as one of simple indifference. They
did not cultivate English—which is not the same as saying that they had no acquaintance
with it—because their activities in England did not necessitate it and their constant
concern with continental affairs made French for them much more useful.
88. French Literature at the English Court.
How completely French was the English court at this time is clearly shown by the
literature produced for royal and noble patronage. In an age that had few of our modern
means of entertainment, literature played a much more important part in the lives of the
leisured class. And it is interesting to find a considerable body of French literature being
produced in England from the beginning of the twelfth century, addressed to English
patrons and directed toward meeting their special tastes and interests. We do not know
much about the literary conditions at the court of the Conqueror himself, although his
recognition of learning is to be seen in many of his appointments to high ecclesiastical
positions. His daughter Adela was a patron of poets, and his son Henry I, whether or not
he deserved the title Beauclerc that contemporaries gave him,
22
was at least married
successively to two queens who were generous in their support of poets. His court was
the center of much literary activity
23
Matilda, his first wife, was especially partial to
foreign poets.
24
For Adelaide of Louvain, his second wife, David related the
achievements of her husband, the king, in French verse. The work is lost, but we know of
it from the statement of a contemporary poet, Geoffrey Gaimar, who boasted that he
knew more tales than David ever knew or than Adelaide had in books. Likewise for
Adelaide, Philippe de Thaun wrote his Bestiary, a poem describing rather fancifully the
nature of various animals and adding to each description a moral still more fanciful.
Gaimar wrote his History of the English, likewise in French verse, for Lady Custance “li
Gentil,” who also paid him a mark of silver for a copy of David’s poem, which she kept
in her chamber. At the same time Samson de Nanteuil devoted
21
We do not know whether William Rufus and Stephen knew English. Henry II understood it,
although he apparently did not speak it (see § 91). Richard I was thoroughly French; his whole stay
in England amounted to only a few months. He probably knew no English. Concerning John’s
knowledge of English we have no evidence. As Freeman remarks (Norman Conquest, II, 129), the
royal family at this time is frequently the least English in England and is not to be used as a norm
for judging the diffusion of the two languages.
22
The question is decided in the negative by David, “The Claim of King Henry I.”
23
For a fuller treatment of the subject, see an excellent study by K.J.Holzknecht, Literary
Patronage in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1923), chap. 12.
24
William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, II, 494 (Rolls Series).
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11,00 lines of verse to be Proverbs of Solomon for Lady Adelaide de Condé, wife of a
Lincolnshire baron. In the reign of Henry II Wace wrote his celebrated Roman de Brut
and presented it to the queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. It is a legendary history of Britain, in
which the exploits of King Arthur occupy a prominent place, and was certain to interest a
royal family anxious to know something about the history of the country over which it
had come to rule. Later Wace undertook in his Roman de Rou to write a similar account
of the dukes of Normandy. Works of devotion and edification, saints’ lives, allegories,
chronicles, and romances of Horn, Havelok, Tristan, and other heroes poured forth in the
course of the twelfth century. It is indicative of the firm roots that French culture had
taken on English soil that so important a body of literature in the French language could
be written in or for England, much of it under the direct patronage of the court.
89. Fusion of the Two Peoples.
As we look back over any considerable stretch of history we are likely to experience in
the perspective a foreshortening that makes a period of 150 years seem relatively small,
and we fail to realize that changes that seem sudden are in rality quite a natural in the
course of a lifetime or a succession of generations. In the years following the Norman
Conquest the sting of defeat and the hardships incident to so great a political and social
disturbance were gradually forgotten. People accepted the new order as something
accomplished; they accepted it as a fact and adjusted themselves to it. The experience of
our own time shows how quickly national antagonisms and the biterness of war can be
allayed, and what a decade or two in the twentieth century can accomplish in this respect
must be allowed to have been possible also in the eleventh. The fusion of Normans and
English was rapid, but not more rapid than national interest and the intercourse of
everyday life would normally bring about. The distinction between French and English
that appears among the Domesday jurors
25
or a document of 1100 addressed by Henry I
“to all his faithful people, both French and English, in Hertfordshire” does not long
survive. When a distinction is made it soon comes to be between the English, meaning all
people of England, and the French, meaning the inhabitants of Franch. This early fusion
of French and English in England is quite clear from a variety of evidences. It is evident
in the marriage of Normans to English women, as when Robert d’Oily further enriched
himself by marrying Eadgyth, the daughter of a great English landowner, or when the
parents of Orderic Vitalis, already mentioned, were united.
26
It is evident from the way in
which the English gave their support to
25
Round, Feudal England, pp.120–21.
26
Matthew Paris speaks of the Conqueror as promoting mariages between the Norrnans and the
English. Cf. Gesta Abbatum, I, 44 (Rolls Series).
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their rulers and Norman prelates, as when William II and Henry I drove off foreign
invaders with armies made up almost wholly of English troops or when, Anselm and
Becket found their staunchest supporters among the English.
27
It is evident in many other
ways. Between 1072 and 1079 Wulfstan brought about some sort of spiritual federation
between the monks of Worcester and six other English monasteries—Evesham, Chertsey,
Bath, Pershore, Winchecombe, and Gloucester—in which we find “the heads of these
great monasteries, some Norman, some English,…binding themselves together without
respect of birth or birthplace, in the closest spiritual fellowship.”
28
Norman nobles
identified themselves with their new country by founding monasteries on their estates and
chose burial for themselves and their families in their adopted land rather than in
Normandy.
29
In the towns the associations incident to trade are spoken of by Orderic
Vitalis as another factor in bringing about a union between the two peoples.
30
Everywhere there are signs of convergence. The fusion seems to have gone forward
rapidly in the reign of Henry I, and by the end of the twelfth century an English jurist was
able to write: “Now that the English and Normans have been dwelling together, marrying
and giving in marriage, the two nations have become so mixed that it is scarcely possible
to-day, speaking of free men, to tell who is English, who of Norman race.”
31
Only the
events of the next century, the loss of Normandy, and the growing antagonism toward
France were necessary to complete the union, psychological as well as physical, of all the
inhabitants of England.
90. The Diffusion of French and English.
The difftcult question of the extent to which English and French were used in England
after the Norman Conquest is not easily answered. The evidence on which we can base a
conclusion is scattered, must be carefully appraised, and is not always easy to harmonize.
From time to time writers of the period tell us that such a one spoke both French and
English or that he was ignorant of one or the other language. At times incidents in the
chroniclers enable us to draw a pretty safe inference. Books and treatises, such as the
Ancrene Riwle and the various thirteenth-century works on husbandry, when we know
the individuals for whom they were written, or the social class, at least, to which they
belong, shed some light on the problem. From the thirteenth century on, something can
be gleaned from the proceedings of the courts, where the language in
27
Hardy, Catalogue of Materials, II, xxiv.
28
Freeman, Norman Conquest, IV, 382–87.
29
Shelly, English and French in England, p. 42.
30
Freeman, IV, chap. VII.
31
Dialogus de Scaccario (1177). Stubbs, Select Charters (4th ed., 1881), p. 168. The Dialogus de
Scaccario is edited and translated by Charles Johnson (London, 1950).
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which a man testifies is occasionally noted. The appearance of manuals from about 1250
for the teaching of French is significant. In the fourteenth century poets and writers often
preface their works with an explanation of the language employed and incidentally
indulge from time to time in valuable observations of a more general linguistic nature. In
the fifteenth century the evidence becomes fairly abundant—letters public and private,
the acts and records of towns, guilds, and the central government, and a variety of
incidental allusion. From all of this accumulated testimony the situation can be easily
enough stated in general terms, as, indeed, has already been done (§ 85): French was the
language of the court and the upper classes, English the speech of the mass of the people.
Can we, however, define the position of the two languages more specifically? The
question to be asked is really twofold: (1) When and how generally did the upper class
learn English? (2) How far down in the social scale was a knowledge of French at all
general?
91. Knowledge of English among the Upper Class.
We have already remarked that the use of French was not confined to persons of foreign
extraction, but that all those who were brought into association with the governing class
soon acquired a command of it. It was a mark of social distinction. On the other hand, the
fact that English was the language of the greater part of the population made it altogether
likely that many of the upper class would acquire some familiarity with it. Such appears
to have been the case, at least by the twelfth century. The evidence comes mostly from
the reign of Henry II.
32
The most striking instance is that reported (c. 1175) by William of
Canterbury in his life of Becket. On one occasion Helewisia de Morville, wife of a man
of Norman descent and mother of one of Becket’s murderers, invoked the aid of her
husband in an emergency by crying out, “Huge de Morevile, ware, ware, ware, Lithulf
heth his swerd adrage!”
33
Clearly her husband, whatever language he spoke, understood
English. Henry II himself seems to have understood English, though he did not speak it.
According to a story twice told by Giraldus Cambrensis
34
he was once addressed by a
Welshman in English. Understanding the remark, “the king, in French, desired Philip de
Mercros, who held the reins of his horse, to ask the rustic if he had dreamt this.” When
the knight explained the king’s question in English, the peasant replied in the same
language he had used before, ad-
32
Some of William the Conqueror’s English writs were addressed to Normans. But this hardly
implies that they understood English any more than the king himself did. It is doubtful whether the
recipients in many cases could have read the writ themselves in any language.
33
Maerials for the History of Thomas Becket, I, 128 (Rolls Series).
34
Itinerary through Wales, Bk. I, chap. 6; Conquest of Ireland, Bk. I, chap. 40.
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dressing himself to the king, not the interpreter. That the king’s knowledge of English did
not extend to an ability to speak the language is in harmony with the testimony of Walter
Map, who credits him with “having a knowledge of all the languages which are spoken
from the Bay of Biscay to the Jordan, but making use only of Latin and French.”
35
His
wife, however, Eleanor of Aquitaine, always required an interpreter when people spoke
English.
36
The three young women of aristocratic family for whom the Ancrene Riwle, or
Rule for Anchoresses, was probably written about 1200 were advised to do their reading
in either French or English, and the original language of the Rule itself was almost
certainly English.
That English survived for a considerable time in some monasteries is evident from the
fact that at Peterborough the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was continued until 1154. Among
churchmen the ability to speak English was apparently fairly common. Gilbert Foliot,
bishop of London, a man of Norman descent, was, according to Walter Map,
37
very fluent
in Latin, French, and English. Hugh of Nonant, bishop of Coventry, a native of
Normandy, must have known English, since he criticizes a fellow bishop for his
ignorance of it,
38
while Giraldus Cambrensis, bishop-elect of St. Davids, had such a
knowledge of English that he could read and comment upon the language of Alfred and
compare the dialects of northern and southern England.
39
At the same date Abbot
Samson, head of the great abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, is thus described by Jocelyn de
Brakelond: “He was an eloquent man, speaking both French and Latin, but rather careful
of the good sense of that which he had to say than of the style of his words. He could read
books written in English very well, and was wont to preach to the people in English, but
in the dialect of Norfolk where he was born and bred.”
From these instances we must not make the mistake of thinking such a knowledge of
English universal among people of this station. Others could be cited in which bishops
and abbots were unable to preach in anything but Latin or French.
40
St. Hugh, bishop of
Lincoln in the time of Henry II, did not un-
35
De Nugis Curialium, V, vi (trans. Tupper and Ogle).
36
Richard of Devizes, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, III, 431
(Rolls Series).
37
De Nugis, I, xii. However, his fluency in three languages may have been mentioned because it
was unusual.
38
Cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest, V, 831.
39
Descr. of Wales, Bk. I, chap. 6.
40
For example, Jofrid, abbot of Croyland, if we can trust the fourteenth-century continuation of
Pseudo-Ingulph. The abbot of Durham who visited St. Godric (died 1170) needed an interpreter
because Godric spoke English. Cf. Libellus de Vita et Miracula S.Godrici, p. 352 (Surtees Soc.,
xx).
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derstand English but required an interpreter.
41
One of the most notorious cases of a man
who did not know English and who was not only an important ecclesiastic but also one of
the chief men of the kingdom is that of William Longchamp, bishop of Ely and
chancellor of England in the reign of Richard I. The incident is alluded to in a number of
chroniclers, of his seeking to escape from England in 1191, disguised as a woman and
carrying under his arm some cloth as if for sale. When approached at Dover by a possible
purchaser, who asked how much he would let her have an ell for, he was unable to reply
because he was utterly unacquainted with the English language.
42
It is true that both of
these men were foreigners, one a Burgundian, the other a Norman, and the fact of their
not knowing English is set down by contemporaries as something worth noting. Among
those of lower rank, whose position brought them into contact with both the upper and
the lower class—stewards and bailiffs, for example—or men like the knight of
Glamorgan, whom we have seen acting as Henry’s interpreter, the ability to speak
English as well as French must have been quite general. And among children whose
parents spoke different languages a knowledge of English is to be assumed even from the
days of the Conqueror if we may consider the case of Orderic Vitalis as representative.
His father was Norman and his mother (presumably) English. He was taught Latin by an
English priest and at the age of ten was sent to St. Evroult in Normandy. There he says
“like Joseph in Egypt, I heard a language which I did not know.”
The conclusion that seems to be justified by the somewhat scanty facts we have to go
on in this period is that a knowledge of English was not uncommon at the end of the
twelfth century among those who habitually used French; that among churchmen and
men of education it was even to be expected; and that among those whose activities
brought them into contact with both upper and lower classes the ability to speak both
languages was quite general.
92. Knowledge of French among the Middle Class.
If by the end of the twelfth century a knowledge of English was not unusual among
members of the highest class, it seems equally clear that a knowledge of French was often
found somewhat further down in the social scale. Among the knightly class French seems
to have been cultivated even when the mother tongue was English. In the reign of Henry
II a knight in England got a man from Normandy to
41
Magna Vita, ed. Dimick, pp. 157, 268 (Rolls Series).
42
One of the fullest accounts is in Roger of Hoveden, III, 141–47 (Rolls Series).
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teach his son French.
43
That an ability to speak French was expected among this class
may be inferred from an incident in one of the chroniclers describing a long-drawn-out
suit (1191) between the abbey of Croyland and the prior of Spalding. Four supposed
knights were called to testify that they had made a view of the abbot. They were neither
knights nor holders of a knight’s fee, and the abbot testified that they had never come to
make a view of him. The chronicler adds that “the third one of them did not so much as
know how to speak French.”
44
Next to the knights the inhabitants of towns probably
contained the largest number of those among the middle class who knew French. In many
towns, especially in important trading centers, men with Norman names were the most
prominent burgesses and probably constituted a majority of the merchant class.
45
The
likelihood that stewards and bailiffs on manors spoke both languages has already been
mentioned. In fact, a knowledge of French may sometimes have extended to the free
tenants. At any rate Jocelyn de Brakelond relates that the Abbot Samson conferred a
manor upon a man bound to the soil “because he was a good farmer and didn’t know how
to speak French.” William Rothwell has discussed the complex situation in medieval
England as a result of the presence of three languages—Latin, French, and English—and
has noted the greater likelihood of French in regions nearer London: “Latin and French
would be found primarily in those places where the business of government was
transacted and would be used by men for whom they constituted a professional
qualification, not a vernacular.”
46
It has sometimes been urged that because preaching to
the people was often done in French, such a fact argues for an understanding of the
language. But we are more than once told in connection with such notices that the people,
although they did not understand what was said, were profoundly moved.
47
It would be a
mistake to consider that a knowledge of French was anything but exceptional among the
common people as a whole. The observation of a writer at the end of the thirteenth
century,
43
Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, I, 347; Freeman, V, 891.
44
Continuation of Pseudo-Ingulph, trans. H.T.Riley, p. 286. The continuation in which this incident
occurs is not to be confused with the fourteenth-century forgery but is a genuine work of
considerable value (Gross).
45
At Southampton at the time of the Domesday survey the number of those who settled in the
borough “after King William came into England” was sixty-five French born and thirty-one
English born. The figures represent men and many of them doubtless had families. Cf. J.S.Davies,
A History of Southampton (Southampton, UK, 1883), pp. 26–28.
46
“Language and Government in Medieval England,” Zeitschrift für französischen Sprache und
Literatur, 93 (1983), 259.
47
As, for example, by Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerary through Wales, Bk. I, chap. 11. A similar
instance, equally specific though less trustworthy, is in the continuation of Pseudo-Ingulph
attributed to Peter of Blois (trans. Riley, p. 238).
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Lewede men cune Ffrensch non,
Among an hondryd vnneþis on
48
was probably true at all times in the Middle Ages.
49
Recent insights from sociolinguistics into the structures of pidgin and creole language
have led some linguists to ask whether Middle English was a creole. Much of the ensuing
controversy hinges on the definitions that are given to pidgin and creole (for a related
problem see § 250.8). A pidgin is a simplified language used for communication between
speakers of different languages, typically (during the past five centuries) for trading
purposes between speakers of a European language such as Portuguese, Spanish, French,
or English and speakers of an African or Asian language. If the simplified language is
then learned as a first language by a new generation of speakers and its structures and
vocabulary are expanded to serve the needs of its community of speakers, it is known as a
creole. The linguistic situation in England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had
certain external parallels with that in the present-day Caribbean or the South Pacific,
where languages are regularly in contact, and pidgins and creoles develop. However, to
call Middle English a creole stretches the word beyond its usefulness. Manfred Görlach
reviews the evidence, finds a lack of “any texts that could justify the assumption that
there was a stable pidgin or creole English in use in thirteenth-century French
households,” and concludes: “The English-speaking majority among the population of
some ninety percent did not unlearn their English after the advent of French, nor did they
intentionally modify its structures on the French pattern—as Renaissance writers
modelled their English on Latin. Influence of French on inflections and, by and large, on
syntactical structures cannot be proved, but appears unlikely from what we know about
bilingualism in Middle English times.”
50
48
The Romance of Richard the Lion-hearted, ed. Brunner, lines 23–24:
Common men know no French.
Among a hundred scarcely one.
49
Vising, in his Anglo-Norman Language and Literature, pp. 15–18, and in his other contributions
mentioned in the bibliography to this chapter, cites a number of passages from poets who explain
why they are writing in French as evidence for “the complete dominance of the Anglo-Norman
language during the second half of the twelfth and most of the thirteenth century in nearly all
conditions of life, and of its penetration even into the lower strata of society.” But the point in every
case is that their work is “translaté hors de latin en franceys a l’aprise de lay gent” and is intended
for those “ke de clergie ne ount apris,” that is, who know no Latin. Even in the one instance in
which the poet included in his appeal “Li grant e li mendre,” his words need apply only to those
less than “the great” who can understand his work in French, “Q’ en franceis le poent entendre.”
50
Manfred Görlach, “Middle English—a Creole?” in Linguistics across Historical and
Geographical Boundaries, ed. D.Kastovsky and A.Szwedek (2 vols., Berlin, 1986), I, 337, 338.
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Thus in the period preceding the loss of Normandy in 1204 there were some who
spoke only French and many more who spoke only English. There was likewise a
considerable number who were genuinely bilingual as well as many who had some
understanding of both languages while speaking only one. That the latter class—those
who were completely or to some extent bilingual—should have been fairly numerous
need cause no surprise. Among people accustomed to learn more through the ear than
through the eye, learning a second language presents no great problem. The ability to
speak one or more languages besides one’s native tongue is largely a matter of
opportunity, as can be seen in a number of European countries today. In this connection
we may again recall the situation of Belgium, where the majority of the people can get
along in either Flemish or French, regardless of which of the two languages they
habitually use.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
John Le Patourel’s The Norman Empire (Oxford, 1976) furnishes an excellent background to the
events discussed in this chapter. It may be supplemented by a work that it partly superseded,
Charles H.Haskins’s The Normans in European History (Boston, 1915). Among other older
scholarship, disputes between E.A.Freeman and J.H. Round and their followers on the meaning
of Englishness after the Conquest have subsided, but there is still much of value in Round’s
Feudal England (London, 1895) and in Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest (6 vols.,
1867–1879), available in an abridged edition by J.W.Burrow (Chicago, 1974). David
C.Douglas, William the Conqueror (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964) is an authoritative
treatment of William I and his age. Other histories of the period include Austin L.Poole, From
Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087–1216 (2nd ed., Oxford, 1955), H.R.Loyn, The Norman
Conquest (3rd ed., London, 1982), R.Allen Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest
(2nd ed., Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1985), and Marjorie Chibnall, Anglo-Norman England, 1066–
1166 (Oxford, 1986). Standard works on their respective subjects are V.H.Galbraith, Domesday
Book: Its Place in Administrative History (Oxford, 1974) and Frank Barlow, The English
Church, 1066–1154 (London, 1979). Henry G.Richardson and George O.Sayles’s The
Governance of Medieval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1963) is
contentious but valuable. On the relations between France and England, see T.F.Tout, France
and England: Their Relations in the Middle Ages and Now (Manchester, 1922), especially chap.
3. The first attempt of much value to determine the position of the French and English
languages in England, except for Freeman’s discussion, was Oscar Scheibner, Ueber die
Herrschaft der französischen Sprache in England vom XI. bis zum XIV. Jahrhundert (Annaberg,
Germany, 1880). A valuable attempt to collect the documentary evidence is Johan Vising’s
Franska Språket i England (3 parts, Göteborg, Sweden, 1900–1902). The author’s views are
epitomized in Le Français en Angleterre: mémoire sur les études de l’anglo-normand (Mâcon,
France, 1901) and Anglo-Norman Language and Literature (London, 1923). For criticism of
Vising’s influential studies, see lan Short, “On Bilingualism in Anglo-Norman England,”
Romance Phil, 33 (1980), 467–79, and the essays cited by William Rothwell in this chapter and
the next.
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6
The Reestablishment of English, 1200–1500
93. Changing Conditions after 1200.
How long the linguistic situation just described would have continued if the conditions
under which it arose had remained undisturbed is impossible to say. As long as England
held its continental territory and the nobility of England were united to the continent by
ties of property and kindred, a real reason existed for the continued use of French among
the governing class in the island. If the English had permanently retained control over the
two-thirds of France that they once held, French might have remained permanently in use
in England. But shortly after 1200 conditions changed. England lost an important part of
its possessions abroad. The nobility gradually relinquished their continental estates. A
feeling of rivalry developed between the two countries, accompanied by an antiforeign
movement in England and culminating in the Hundred Years’ War. During the century
and a half following the Norman Conquest, French had been not only natural but more or
less necessary to the English upper class; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries its
maintenance became increasingly artificial. For a time certain new factors helped it to
hold its ground, socially and officially. Meanwhile, however, social and economic
changes affecting the English-speaking part of the population were taking place, and in
the end numbers told. In the fourteenth century English won its way back into universal
use, and in the fifteenth century French all but disappeared. We must now examine in
detail the steps by which this situation came about.
94. The Loss of Normandy.
The first link in the chain binding England to the continent was broken in 1204 when
King John lost Normandy. John, seeing the beautiful Isabel of Angouleme, fell violently
in love with her and, no doubt having certain political advantages in mind, married her in
great haste (1200), notwithstanding the fact that she was at the time formally betrothed to
Hugh of Lusignan, the head of a powerful and ambitious family. To make matters worse,
John, anticipating hostility from the Lusignans, took the initiative and wantonly attacked
them. They appealed for redress to their common overlord, the king of France. Philip saw
in the situation an opportunity to embarrass his most irritating vassal. He summoned John
(1202) to appear before his court at Paris, answer the charges against him, and submit to
the judgment of his peers. John maintained that as king of England he was not subject to
the jurisdiction of the French court; Philip replied that as duke of Normandy he was. John
demanded a safe conduct, which Philip offered to grant only on conditions that John
could not accept. Consequently, on the day of the trial the English king did not appear,
and the court declared his territory confiscated according to feudal law. Philip proceeded

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at once to carry out the decision of the court and invaded Normandy. A succession of
victories soon put the greater part of the duchy in his control. One after another of John’s
supporters deserted him. His unpopularity was increased by the news of the death of the
young prince Arthur, John’s nephew and captive, who was married to Philip’s daughter
and who, it was firmly believed, had been murdered. In 1204 Rouen surrendered, and
Normandy was lost to the English crown.
So far as it affected the English language, as in other respects as well, the loss of
Normandy was wholly advantageous. King and nobles were now forced to look upon
England as their first concern. Although England still retained large continental
possessions, they were in the south of France and had never been so intimately connected
by ties of language, blood, and property interests as had Normandy. It gradually became
apparent that the island kingdom had its own political and economic ends and that these
were not the same as those of France. England was on the way to becoming not merely a
geographical term but once more a nation.
95. Separation of the French and English Nobility.
One of the important consequences of the event just described was that it brought to a
head the question of whether many of the nobility owed their allegiance to England or to
France. After the Norman Conquest a large number held lands in both countries. A kind
of interlocking aristocracy existed, so that it might be difficult for some of the English
nobility to say whether they belonged more to England or to the continent. Some steps
toward a separation of their interests had been taken from time to time. The example of
the Conqueror, who left Normandy to his son Robert and England to William Rufus, was
occasionally followed by his companions. The Norman and English estates of William
Fitz Osbern were divided in this way at his death in 1071, and of Roger de Montgomery
in 1094, though the latter were afterwards reunited.
1
On several occasions Henry I
confiscated the English estates of unruly Norman barons. But in 1204 the process of
separation was greatly accelerated, for by a decree of 1204–1205 the king of France
announced that he had confiscated the lands of several great barons, including the earls of
Warenne, Arundel, Leicester, and Clare, and of all those knights who had their abode in
England.
2
For the most part the families that had estates on both sides of the Channel
were compelled to give up one or the other. Sometimes they divided into branches and
made separate terms; in other cases great nobles preferred their larger holdings in
England and gave up their Norman lands.
3
John’s efforts at retaliation came to the same
1
For other instances see F.M.Powicke, The Loss of Normandy (Manchester, 1913), p. 482.
2
Powicke, pp. 403, 415.
3
Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, I, 557; J.R.Strayer, The Administration of Normandy
under Saint Louis (Cambridge, MA, 1932), p. 7.
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effect. It is true that the separation was by no means complete. In one way or another
some nobles succeeded in retaining their positions in both countries. But double
allegiance was generally felt to be awkward,
4
and the voluntary division of estates went
on. The action of Simon de Montfort in 1229 must have had many parallels. “My brother
Amaury,” he says, “released to me our brother’s whole inheritance in England, provided
that I could secure it; in return I released to him what I had in France.”
5
The course of the
separation may be said to culminate in an incident of 1244, which may best be told in the
words of a contemporary chronicler:
In the course of those days, the king of France having convoked, at Paris,
all the people across the water who had possessions in England thus
addressed them: “As it is impossible that any man living in my kingdom,
and having possessions in England, can competently serve two masters,
he must either inseparably attach himself to me or to the king of
England.” Wherefore those who had possessions and revenues in England
were to relinquish them and keep those which they had in France, and vice
versa. Which, when it came to the knowledge of the king of England, he
ordered that all people of the French nation, and especially Normans, who
had possessions in England, should be disseized of them. Whence it
appeared to the king of France that the king of England had broken the
treaties concluded between them, because he had not, as the king of
France had done, given the option to those who were to lose their lands in
one or other of the two kingdoms, so that they might themselves choose
which kingdom they would remain in. But as he was much weakened in
body since his return from Poitou, he did not wish to renew the war, and
preferred to keep silence; he even sought to repress the impetuous
complaints of the Normans, as well as the furious and greedy desire that
they manifested to rise against the king of England.
6
The action of Louis was no doubt a consequence of the assistance Henry III attempted to
give to the Count de la Marche and other rebellious French nobles in 1243, and although
Matthew Paris is our only authority for it, there is no reason to doubt its authenticity. We
may perhaps doubt whether these decrees were any more rigidly enforced than previous
orders of a similar sort had been, but the cumulative effect of the various causes
4
Confiscations continued, as in 1217 and 1224. Cf. Kate Norgate, The Minority of Henry III
(London, 1912), pp. 77, 220–21.
5
Charles Bémont, Simon de Montfort (Oxford, 1930), p. 4.
6
Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, trans. J.A.Giles, I, 481–82. Although Matthew Paris puts this
action of Louis IX and Henry III under the year 1244, it is possible that it belongs to the previous
year. As early as July 1243, Henry ordered inquiry to be made to determine what magnates of
England had stood with the king of France in the last war (Cal. Close Rolls, 1242–47, p. 69), and
on January 24, 1244, he granted to his son Edward “a moiety of all the lands which the king has
ordered to be taken into his hands and which belonged to men of the fealty of the king of France,
and those holding of him” (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1232–47, p. 418).
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described was to make the problem of double allegiance henceforth negligible. We may
be sure that after 1250 there was no reason for the nobility of England to consider itself
anything but English. The most valid reason for its use of French was gone.
96. French Reinforcements.
At the very time when the Norman nobility was losing its continental connections and
had been led to identify itself wholly with England, the country experienced a fresh
invasion of foreigners, this time mostly from the south of France. The invasion began in
the reign of King John, whose wife, mentioned above, was from the neighborhood of
Poitou. A Poitevin clerk, Peter des Roches, was made bishop of Winchester, and rose to
be chancellor and later justiciar of England. He is only the most important among a
considerable number of foreign adventurers who attracted John’s attention and won his
favor. But what began as a mere infiltration in the time of John became a flood in that of
his son. Henry III, in spite of his devotion to English saints, was wholly French in his
tastes and connections. Not only was he French on his mother’s side, but he was related
through his wife to the French king, St. Louis. How intimate were the relations between
the royal families of France and England at this time may be seen from the fact that
Henry III, his brother Richard of Cornwall, Louis IX, and Louis’ brother Charles of
Anjou were married to the four daughters of the count of Provence. As a result of
Henry’s French connections three great inundations of foreigners poured into England
during his reign. The first occurred in the year 1233, during the rule of Peter des Roches,
a vivid picture of which is given by a contemporary: “The seventeenth year of King
Henry’s reign he held his court at Christmas at Worcester, where, by the advice of Peter
bishop of Winchester, as was said, he dismissed all the native officers of his court from
their offices, and appointed foreigners from Poitou in their places…. All his former
counsellors, bishops and earls, barons and other nobles, he dismissed abruptly, and put
confidence in no one except the aforesaid bishop of Winchester and his son Peter de
Rivaulx; after which he ejected all the castellans throughout all England, and placed the
castles under the charge of the said Peter…. The king also invited men from Poitou and
Brittany, who were poor and covetous after wealth, and about two thousand knights and
soldiers came to him equipped with horses and arms, whom he engaged in his service,
placing them in charge of the castles in the various parts of the kingdom; these men used
their utmost endeavors to oppress the natural English subjects and nobles, calling them
traitors, and accusing them of treachery to the king; and he, simple man that he was,
believed their lies, and gave them the charge of all the counties and baronies.”
7
The king,
the same chronicler adds, “invited such legions of people from Poitou that they entirely
filled England, and wherever the king went he was surrounded by crowds of these
foreigners; and nothing was done in England except what the bishop of Winchester and
his host of foreigners determined on.”
8
7
Roger of Wendover, trans. J.A.Giles, II, 565–66.
8
Ibid., II,567–68.
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In 1236 Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Provence brought a second stream of
foreigners to England. The new queen inherited among other blessings eight maternal
uncles and a generous number of more distant relatives. Many of them came to England
and were richly provided for. Matthew Paris writes, under the following year, “Our
English king…has fattened all the kindred and relatives of his wife with lands,
possessions, and money, and has contracted such a marriage that he cannot be more
enriched, but rather impoverished.”
9
One of the queen’s uncles, Peter of Savoy, was
given the earldom of Richmond; another, Boniface, was made archbishop of Canterbury.
Peter was further empowered by letters-patent to enlist in Henry’s services as many
foreigners as he saw fit.
10
The Provençals who thus came to England as a consequence of
Henry’s marriage were followed ten years later, upon the death of his mother, by a third
foreign influx, this one, like the first, from Poitou. Upon the death of King John, Henry’s
mother had married her first love and borne him five sons. Henry now enriched his
Poitevin half-brothers and their followers and married their daughters to English nobles.
To one he gave the castle of Hertford and a rich wife. Another he made bishop of
Winchester, “notwithstanding his youth, his ignorance of learning, and his utter
incapacity for such a high station.”
11
Of a third the same chronicler says that when he left
England “the king filled his saddle bags with such a weight of money that he was obliged
to increase the number of his horses.”
12
Meanwhile marriages with the strangers were
promoted by both the king and the queen,
13
Henry’s own brother, Richard, earl of
Cornwall, for example, being married to the queen’s sister. Everywhere ecclesiastical
dignities were given to strangers, sometimes to reward favorites, sometimes to please the
pope. The great bishop Grosseteste, who lived at this time, made an estimate of all the
revenues of foreigners in England and found that the income of foreign ecclesiastics
alone was three times that of the king. In short, in the course of Henry III’s long reign
(1216–1272), the country was eaten up by strangers. Even London, says Matthew Paris,
whom we have so often quoted, “was full to overflowing, not only of Poitevins, Romans,
9
Chronica Majora, trans. Giles, I, 122.
10
O.H.Richardson, The National Movement in the Reign of Henry III (New York, 1897), p.75.
11
Matthew Paris, II, 433.
12
Ibid., II, 247. For the extent to which these foreigners were enriched, see Harold S.Snellgrove,
The Lusignans in England, 1247–1258 (Albuquerque, 1950; Univ. of New MexicoPub. in History,
No. 2).
13
Nothing can equal the impression that would be gained of this period by reading a hundred pages
of Matthew Paris. Perhaps a few quotations will help to complete the picture: “My dear earl, I will
no longer conceal from you the secret desire of my heart, which is, to raise and enrich you, and to
advance your interests, by marrying your eldest legitimate son to the daughter of Guy, count of
Angouleme, my uterine brother” (III, 15). “At the instigation of the queen, Baldwin de Rivers
married a foreign lady, a Savoyard, and a relation of the queen’s. The county of Devon belonged to
this Baldwin, and thus the noble possessions and heritages of the English daily devolved to
foreigners” (III, 219). “At the beginning of the month of May [1247],…two ladies of Provence
were, by the forethought and arrangement of Peter of Savoy, married to two noble youths, namely,
Edmund earl of Lincoln, and Richard de Bourg, whom the king had for some years brought up in
his palace. At this marriage the sounds of great discontent and anger were wafted through the
kingdom, because, as they said, these females, although unknown, were united to the nobles against
their wills” (II, 230). “In the same year, on the 13th of August, by the wish and proposal of the
king, Johanna, the daughter of Warin de Muntchesnil, was married to William de Valence, the
king’s uterine brother; for, the eldest son and heir of the said Warin being dead, a very rich
inheritance awaited this daughter Johanna, who was the only daughter left” (II, 230).
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and Provengals, but also of Spaniards, who did great injury to the English.”
14
97. The Reaction against Foreigners and the Growth of National
Feeling.
The excesses of Henry III in his reckless bestowal of favor upon for eigners were not so
completely unfavorable to the English language as might be supposed. A reaction was
bound to follow. Even the milder tendencies of John toward the favoring of aliens led the
patriotic chancellor, Hubert de Burgh, during the minority of John’s son, to adopt a
vigorous policy of “England for the English.” When Henry came of age and under the
rule of Peter des Roches the first great inpouring of Poitevins occurred, the antagonism
aroused was immediate. At a council held at Winchester in 1234 a number of the bishops
told the king: “Lord king,…the counsel which you now receive and act upon, namely,
that of Peter bishop of Winchester, and Peter de Rivaulx, is not wise or safe, but…cruel
and dangerous to yourselves and to the whole kingdom. In the first place, they hate the
English people…; they estrange your affections from your people, and those of your
people from you…; they hold your castles and the strength of your dominions in their
own hands, as though you could not place confidence in your own people;…they have
your treasury, and all the chief trusts and escheats under their own control;… [and] by the
same counsel all the natural subjects of your kingdom have been dismissed from your
court.”
15
Upon the threat of excommunication the king yielded and dismissed the
foreigners from office. But they were soon back, and popular feeling grew steadily more
bitter. As Matthew Paris wrote, “At this time (1251), the king day by day lost the
affections of his natural subjects.” The following year the great reforming bishop,
Grosseteste, expressed the feeling of native churchmen when he said: “The church is
being worn out by constant oppressions; the pious purposes of its early benefactors are
being brought to naught by the confiscation of its ample patrimony to the uses of aliens,
while the native English suffer. These aliens are not merely foreigners; they are the worst
enemies of England. They strive to tear the fleece and do not even know the faces of the
sheep; they do not understand the English tongue, neglect the cure of souls, and
impoverish the kingdom.”
16
Opposition to the foreigner became the principal ground for
such national feeling as existed and drove the barons and the middle class together in a
common cause. It is significant that the leader of this coalition, Simon de Montfort, was
Norman-born, though he claimed his inheritance in England by right of his grandmother.
The practical outcome of the opposition was the Provisions of Oxford (1258) and their
aftermath, the Barons’ War (1258–1265). Twice during these years the foreigners were
driven from England, and when peace was finally restored and a little later Edward I
(1272–1307) came to the throne we enter upon a period in which England becomes
conscious of its unity, when
14
III, 151.
15
Roger of Wendover, II, 583–84.
16
Quoted by Richardson, National Movement (New York, 1897), pp. 32–33.
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the governmental officials are for the most part English, and when the king, in a
summons to Parliament (1295), can attempt to stir up the feelings of his subjects against
the king of France by claiming that it was “his detestable purpose, which God forbid, to
wipe out the English tongue.”
The effect of the foreign incursions in the thirteenth century was undoubtedly to delay
somewhat the natural spread of the use of English by the upper classes that had begun.
But it was also to arouse such widespread hostility to foreigners as greatly to stimulate
the consciousness of the difference between those who for a generation or several
generations had so participated in English affairs as to consider themselves Englishmen,
and to cause them to unite against the newcomers who had flocked to England to bask in
the sun of Henry’s favor. One of the reproaches frequently leveled at the latter is that they
did not know English. It would be natural if some knowledge of English should come to
be regarded as a proper mark of an Englishman.
98. French Cultural Ascendancy in Europe.
The stimulus given to the use of French in England by foreign additions to the upper class
coincides smoothly with another circumstance tending in the same direction. This was the
wide popularity that the French language enjoyed all over civilized Europe in the
thirteenth century. At this time France was commonly regarded as representing
chivalrous society in its most polished form, and the French language was an object of
cultivation at most of the other courts of Europe, just as it was in the eighteenth century.
Adenet le Roi tells us in one of his romances that all the great lords in Germany had
French teachers for their children.
17
Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante, in explaining
why he wrote his great encyclopedia, Li Tresor (c. 1265), in French, says: “And if anyone
should ask why this book is written in Romance, according to the language of the French,
seeing that I am Italian, I should say that it is for two reasons: one, because I am now in
France, and the other because that speech is the most delectable and the most common to
all people.” At about the same time another Italian, Martino da Canale, translated “the
ancient history of the Venetians from Latin into French” “because the French language is
current throughout the world and is the most delightful to read and to hear.” Similar
testimony
(Berte aus Grans Piés, 148 ff.)
17
Avoit une coustume ens el tiois pays
Que tout li grant seignor, li conte et li marchis
Avoient entour aus gent françoise tousdis
Pour aprendre françoise lor filles et lor fis;
Li rois et la roïne et Berte o le cler vis
Sorent près d’aussi bien la françois de Paris
Com se il fussent né au bourc à Saint Denis.
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comes from Norway and Spain, even Jerusalem and the East
18
The prestige of French
civilization, a heritage to some extent from the glorious tradition of Charlemagne, carried
abroad by the greatest of medieval literatures, by the fame of the University of Paris, and
perhaps to some extent by the enterprise of the Normans themselves, would have
constituted in itself a strong reason for the continued use of French among polite circles
in England.
99. English and French in the Thirteenth Century.
The thirteenth century must be viewed as a period of shifting emphasis upon the two
languages spoken in England. The upper classes continued for the most part to speak
French, as they had done in the previous century, but the reasons for doing so were not
the same. Instead of being a mother tongue inherited from Norman ancestors, French
became, as the century wore on, a cultivated tongue supported by social custom and by
business and administrative convention. Meanwhile English made steady advances. A
number of considerations make it clear that by the middle of the century, when the
separation of the English nobles from their interests in France had been about completed,
English was becoming a matter of general use among the upper classes. It is at this time,
as we shall see, that the adoption of French words into the English language assumes
large proportions. The transference of words occurs when those who know French and
have been accustomed to use it try to express themselves in English. It is at this time also
that the literature intended for polite circles begins to be made over from French into
English (see § 110). There is evidence that by the close of the century some children of
the nobility spoke English as their mother tongue and had to be taught French through the
medium of manuals equipped with English glosses.
There is no need to heap up evidence of the continued use of French by the upper class
in this century. Even at the close of the century it was used in Parliament
19
in the law
courts, in public negotiations generally.
20
Treatises on
18
Cf. Nyrop, Grammaire historique de la langue française, I, 30; Brunot, Histoire de la langue
française, I, 358–a99. Writers still speak of the wide popularity of French at a much later date.
Christine de Pisan at the beginning of the fifteenth century calls it “la plus commune par I’universel
monde” (Le Livre des Trois Vertus, quoted in R. Thomassy, Essai sur les écrits politiques de
Christine de Pisan (Paris, 1838), pp. lxxxi–lxxxii) and cf. the anonymous author of La Manière de
langage (1396), ed. P. Meyer, Rev. Critique, 10 (1870), 373–408.
19
In the reign of Edward I the archbishop of Canterbury presented to the king and the leaders of the
army a Latin letter from the pope and explained its contents in French (Matthew of West-minster,
trans. C.D.Young, II, 546). The petitions to Parliament at this time are mostly in French, and
sometimes the statutes themselves, though these were commonly drawn up in Latin (Statutes of the
Realm, I, xl, and R.L.Atkinson, “Interim Report on Ancient Petitions,” typed transcript bound in
the copy of Lists and Indexes, no. 1, in the Literary Search Room of the Public Record Office).
20
As when Edward I was called in (1291) to settle the dispute concerning the Scottish succession
(Rymer, Foedera, II, 553).
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husbandry that have come down to us from this time are all in French. All of them
21
seem
intended for the owners of estates, except possibly Seneschaucie, which is on the duties
of the seneschal. French was read by the educated, including those who could not read
Latin.
22
That the ability was on the decline is suggested by the action of a chronicler at
the end of the century who, after citing a petition to Parliament “written in the French
language in conformity with the usual custom,” translates it into Latin in order that it
“may be more easily understood by those of posterity who may not be so well versed in
the above language.”
23
That the knowledge of French, even of those who attempted to use it in this period,
was sometimes imperfect is quite clear. One author of a French poem says he hardly
knows how to write the language because he was never in Paris or at the abbey of St.
Denis.
24
The most interesting evidence, however, is to be found in the bills or petitions
presented to the justices in eyre at the close of the thirteenth and the beginning of the
fourteenth centuries by those seeking redress at the law. Custom required these bills to be
in French. They are obviously not written by lawyers or by the complainants themselves,
but by professional scribes or possibly the parish priest. As the editor of a volume of such
petitions
25
says, “The text of the bills makes it plain that the draftsmen were struggling
with the forms of a language that was far from being a living tongue with them,” and he
offers good reason for believing “that they neither spoke French nor were accustomed to
hear it spoken in their own neighborhood.” Furthermore, declension and conjugation are
often incorrect or peculiar, and the writers make the most obvious mistakes in gender,
such as using la before a man’s name and le before a woman’s (“le avant dit Aliz”). Yet,
21
Four are edited by E.Lamond, Walter of Henley’s Husbandry (London, 1890). One was sup-
posedly written by Bishop Grosseteste in 1240–1241 for the countess of Lincoln. Walter of
Henley’s treatise exists in an English version that is attributed in the manuscripts to Grosseteste. If
we could trust the attribution, it would constitute evidence that some of the landowners at this time
preferred to read English. But the translation belongs probably to a later date.
22
A French poem on the calendar is addressed to “simpli gent lettre,” that is, those who could read,
while Grosseteste’s Château d’Amour was “por ceus ki ne sevent mie ne lettrure ne clergie,” that is,
those who could neither read at all nor understand Latin, but could understand French when it was
read to them.
23
Continuation of Pseudo-Ingulph, Ingulph’s Chronicle, trans. H.T.Riley, p. 330.
24
Je ne sai guers romanz faire…
Car jeo ne fu unques a Parye
Ne al abbaye de saint Denys.
(Antikrist, latter part of the thirteenth century, cited by Vising, Franska Språket i England, III, 9.)
25
W.C.Bolland, Select Bills in Eyre, A.D. 1292–1333 (London, 1914), pp. xix–xx, xxx–xxxi
(Selden Soc).
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singularly enough, the handwriting of some of the worst is excellent and seems clearly to
point to an educated person.
26
The spread of English among the upper classes was making steady progress.
References to a knowledge of the language on the part of members of this class are now
seldom found, especially in the latter part of the century, probably because it had become
general. We do not know whether Henry III understood English, though he probably did.
His brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall, who was elected emperor of Germany in 1257,
certainly did, for Matthew Paris tells us that he was chosen partly “on account of his
speaking the English language, which is similar in sound to the German.”
27
Henry’s son,
Edward I, notwithstanding his Provengal mother, spoke English readily, perhaps even
habitually.
28
While the references to the language are not numerous, they are suggestive.
Here a bishop preaches in it;
29
there a judge quotes it,
30
monks joke in it;
31
friars use it to
explain to the people of Worcester a legal victory.
32
A royal proclamation is issued in it.
33
The clearest indication of the extent to which the English language had risen in the
social scale by the middle of the thirteenth century is furnished by a little treatise written
by Walter of Bibbesworth to teach children French—how to speak and how to reply,
“Which every gentleman ought to know.” French is treated as a foreign language, and the
child is taken on a very practical course through life, learning the names of the parts of
the body, the articles of its
26
William Rothwell summarizes the situation well: “The true role of French in thirteenth-century
England was not at all that of a vernacular, except possibly in the case of the king’s immediate
entourage.” Also, “French as a vernacular was declining steadily before the twelfth century gave
way to the thirteenth, but as a language of culture and administration it prospered all through the
thirteenth century and even beyond,” in “The Role of French in Thirteenth-Century England,”
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 58 (1975–76), 455, 462.
27
Chronica Majora, trans. Riley, III, 209.
28
Cf. an incident in Walter of Hemingburgh, I, 337 (Eng. Hist. Soc.); Freeman, V, 533.
29
Grosseteste (cf. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, p. 32).
30
W.C.Bolland, The Year Books (Cambridge, 1921), p. 76.
31
Giraldus Cambrensis, Opera, IV, 209 (Rolls Series).
32
Annals of Worcester, Annales Monastici, IV, 504 (Rolls Series).
33
The agreement reached by the barons and the king in 1258 and known as the Provisions of
Oxford was made public by a proclamation that bound everyone in England to the acceptance of it.
The proclamation, issued by the king October 18, 1258, was in French and English and was
directed “To alle hise holde ilaerde and ileawede” (to all his faithful subjects, learned and lay) in
every county. It is the first proclamation to be issued in English since the Norman Conquest, and,
although the only one for a good while, is very likely the result of Simon de Montfort’s desire to
reach the people of the middle class, the lesser barons, and the inhabitants of the towns.
For the text of the proclamation, as entered on the Patent Roll, see A.J.Ellis, “On the Only English
Proclamation of Henry III,” Trans. Philol. Soc. (1868), pp. 1–135. The actual copy sent to the
sheriff of Oxford was later found and published by W.W.Skeat, “The Oxford MS. of the Only
English Proclamation of Henry III,” ibid. (1880–1881), Appendix VI. A facsimile of this copy is
given in Octavus Ogle, Royal Letters Addressed to Oxford (Oxford, 1892).
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clothing, food, household utensils and operations, meals, and the like, together with terms
of falconry and the chase and other polite accomplishments. The important words are
provided with an interlinear English gloss. The person for whom the little manual was
prepared was Dionysia, the daughter of William de Munchensy. The latter was among the
leaders of the barons in the battle of Lewes and was related, through his sister’s marriage,
to the half-brother of King Henry III. Dionysia herself was later married to one of the
sons of the earl of Oxford. She thus belonged to the upper circle of the nobility, and it is
therefore highly significant that the language she knew, and through which she acquired
French, was English. Since the treatise was certainly written in the thirteenth century (not
later than 1250) and the number of manuscripts that have come down to us shows that it
had much wider circulation than in just the family for which it was originally written, we
may feel quite sure that the mother tongue of the children of the nobility in the year 1300
was, in many cases, English.
34
Finally, it is interesting to note the appearance at this time of an attitude that becomes
more noticeable later, the attitude that the proper language for Englishmen to know and
use is English. In the Cursor Mundi, an encyclopedic poem on biblical subjects, written
shortly before or shortly after the year 1300, we may detect a mild but nonetheless clear
protest against the use of French and a patriotic espousal of English:
Pis ilk bok es translate
Into Inglis tong to rede
For the love of Inglis lede,
35
Inglis lede of Ingland,
For the commun at
36
understand.
Frankis rimes here I redd
Comunlik in ilka sted;
37
Mast
38
es it wroght for Frankis man,
Quat
39
is for him na Frankis can?
In Ingland the nacion,
Es Inglis man þar in commun;
Pe speche þat man wit mast may spede;
Mast þarwit to speke war nede.
34
The treatise has been edited by William Rothwell, Walter de Bibbesworth: Le Tretiz (London,
1990). On the date see Baugh, “The Date of Walter of Bibbesworth’s Traité,” Festschrift für
Walther Fischer (Heidelberg, 1959), pp. 21–33.
35
people
36
to
37
each place
38
most
39
what
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Selden was for ani chance
Praised Inglis tong in France;
Give we ilkan
40
þare langage,
Me think we do þam non outrage.
To laud
41
and Inglis man I spell
Pat understandes þat I tell…
(Cursor Mundi, Prologue, II. 232–50)
The Provisions of Oxford, mentioned above, were in Latin, French, and English. Latin
was naturally the language of record. It is certain that the document was sent in English
to the sheriffs of every county to be publicized. Whether it was also sent in French is not
known but seems likely. At all events, fourteen years before (1244), the Annals of Burton
record a letter from the dean of Lincoln asking the bishop of Lichfield to proclaim a
directive from the pope excommunicating those who broke the provisions of Magna
Carta, the pronouncement to be in lingua Anglicana et Gallicana.
42
In 1295 a document
was read before the county court at Chelmsford, Essex, and explained in gallico et
anglico,
43
but this may represent no more than the survival of a custom of making
important announcements in both languages. We may sum up the situation by saying that
in the latter part of the thirteenth century English was widely known among all classes of
people, though not necessarily by everyone.
100. Attempts to Arrest the Decline of French.
At the close of the thirteenth century and especially in the course of the next we see clear
indications that the French language was losing its hold on England in the measures
adopted to keep it in use. The tendency to speak English was becoming constantly
stronger even in those two most conservative institutions, the church and the universities.
Already in the last decades of the thirteenth century the great Benedictine monasteries of
Canterbury and Westminster adopted regulations forbidding the novices to use English in
school or cloister and requiring all conversation to be in French.
44
Similar regulations
were found necessary at the universities. A fourteenth-century statute of Oxford required
the students to construe and translate in both English and French “lest the French
language be entirely disused.”
45
Supplementary ordinances drawn up for Exeter College
40
each one
41
ignorant, lay
42
Annales Monastici, I, 322 (Rolls Series).
43
W.A.Morris, The Early English County Court (Berkeley, 1926), p. 173.
44
Customary of the Benedictine Monasteries of Saint Augustine, Canterbury, and Saint Peter,
Westminster, ed. E.H.Thompson, Henry Bradshaw Soc., XXIII, 210; XXVIII, 164.
45
Munimenta Academica, II, 438 (Rolls Series).
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by Bishop Stapleton in 1322 and 1325, and the foundation statutes of Oriel (1326) and
Queen’s (1340), required that the conversation of the students be in Latin or in French.
As early as 1284 at Merton, Archbishop Peckham found that Latin was not spoken, as the
rules required. Some time later conditions at this fine old college were clearly in a bad
way; the Fellows talked English at table and wore “dishonest shoes.”
46
Among the
Cambridge colleges Peterhouse had a similar rule. Students were expected to speak Latin
except that they might use French “for a just or reasonable cause…but very rarely
English.
47
The primary purpose of these regulations was of course to insure an easy
command of the Latin language, but it is evident that without them the language that
would have been spoken, if not Latin, would have been English. According to Froissart, a
further effort to keep the French language from going out of use was made by parliament
in 1332, which decreed “that all lords, barons, knights, and honest men of good towns
should exercise care and diligence to teach their children the French language in order
that they might be more able and better equipped in their wards.”
48
Such efforts as these
indicate how artificial was the use of French in England by the fourteenth century.
If further evidence were needed it would be found in the appearance of numerous
manuals for learning French. As early as 1250 we find a short Latin treatise on the French
verb. Walter of Bibbesworth’s Traité of about the same date has already been mentioned.
In succeeding years there are several adaptations of it, fuller in treatment and with more
attention to pronunciation. They form an unbroken series from that time down to our own
textbooks of the present day, and in them all French is treated frankly as a foreign
language.
49
These works have traditionally been understood as books for children, but it
is possible that they functioned more as manuals for adults, both for the adults’ own use
and for instructing children. If so, the need for help in French extended at least a
generation further back.
50
101. Provincial Character of French in England.
One factor against the continued use of French in England was the circumstance that
Anglo-French was not “good” French. In the Middle Ages there were four principal
dialects of French spoken in France: Norman, Picard (in the northeast), Burgundian (in
the east), and the Central French of Paris (the Ile-de-France). At the date of the Norman
Conquest and for some time after, each enjoyed a certain local prestige,
51
46
C.E.Mallet, A History of the University of Oxford (3 vols., London, 1924–1927), I, 118.
47
Documents Relating to the University and Colleges of Cambridge (1852), II, 31.
48
Œuvres de Froissart, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, II, 419.
49
A full account of these books is given in K.Lambley, The Teaching and Cultivation of the French
Language in England (Manchester, 1920), and G.T.Clapton and W.Stewart, Les Études françaises
dans l’enseignement en Grande-Bretagne (Paris, 1929).
50
See William Rothwell, “The Teaching of French in Medieval England,” Mod. Lang. Rev., 63
(1968), 37–46.
51
Roger Bacon notes the four dialects and says: “A fitting and intelligible expression in the dialect
of the Picards is out of place among the Burgundians, nay, among their nearer Gallic neighbors.”
The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, trans. R.B.Burke (Philadelphia, 1928), I, 75.
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but with the rapid rise of the Capetian power in the thirteenth century the linguistic
supremacy of Paris followed upon its political ascendancy. The French introduced into
England was possibly a mixture of various northern dialectal features, but with Norman
predominating, and under the influence of English linguistic tendencies, it gradually
developed into something quite different from any of the continental dialects. The
difference was noticed quite early,
52
and before long the French of England drew a smile
from continental speakers. It was the subject of humorous treatment in literature,
53
and
English writers became apologetic. One poet says, “A false French of England I know,
for I have not been elsewhere to acquire it; but you who have learned it elsewhere, amend
it where there is need.”
54
The more ambitious sent their children to France to have the
“barbarity” taken off their speech.
55
But the situation did not mend. Everybody is familiar
with the gentle fun that Chaucer makes of the Prioress:
And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.
One might well feel some hesitancy about speaking a language of which one had to be
slightly ashamed.
102. The Hundred Years’ War.
In the course of the centuries following the Norman Conquest the connection of England
with the continent, as we have seen, had been broken. It was succeeded by a conflict of
interests and a growing feeling of antagonism that culminated in a long period of open
hostility with France (1337–1453). The causes of this struggle are too complex to be
entered into here, but the active interference of France in England’s efforts to control
Scotland led Edward III finally to put forth a claim to the French throne and to invade
France. The great victories of the English at Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) fanned
English patriotism to a white heat, though this auspicious beginning of the struggle was
followed by a depressing period of reverses and though the contest was interrupted by
long periods of truce. In the reign of Henry V England again enjoyed a brief period of
success, notably in the victory against great odds at Agincourt (1415). But the success did
not
52
Walter Map says that “if one is faulty in his use of this tongue, we say that he speaketh French of
Marlborough.” De Nugis Curialium, V, vi (trans. Tupper and Ogle).
53
H.Albert, Mittelalterlicher Englisch-französischer Jargon (Halle, Germany, 1922).
54
A life of Edward the Confessor in Anglo-French verse of the latter part of the thirteenth century;
cf. A.T.Baker in Mod. Lang. Rev., 3 (1907–1908), 374–75. William of Wadington makes a similar
excuse: “No one ought to blame me for the French or the verse, for I was born in England and
nourished and brought up there.” So too does Gower (Vising, Franska Språket i England, III, 9).
55
Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia (1212), chap. 20, ed. G.G.Leibnitz, Scriptores Rerum
Brunsvicensium (Hanover, Germany, 1707), I, 945.
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continue after the young king’s death, and the exploits of Joan of Arc (1429) marked the
beginning of the end. Although this protracted war again turned people’s attention to the
continent, and the various expeditions might have tended to keep the French language in
use, it seems to have had no such effect, but rather the opposite. Probably the intervals
between the periods of actual fighting were too long and the hindrances to trade and other
intercourse too discouraging. The feeling that remained uppermost in the minds of most
people was one of animosity, coupled with a sense of the inevitability of renewed
hostilities. During all this time it was impossible to forget that French was the language
of an enemy country, and the Hundred Years’ War is probably to be reckoned as one of
the causes contributing to the disuse of French.
103. The Rise of the Middle Class.
A feature of some importance in helping English to recover its former prestige is the
improvement in the condition of the mass of the people and the rise of a substantial
middle class. As we have seen, the importance of a language is largely determined by the
importance of the people who speak it. During the latter part of the Middle English period
the condition of the laboring classes was rapidly improving. Among the rural population
villeinage was dying out. Fixed money payments were gradually substituted for the days’
work due the lord of the manor, and the status of the villein more nearly resembled that of
the free tenants. The latter class was itself increasing; there was more incentive to
individual effort and more opportunity for a person to reap the rewards of enterprise. The
process by which these changes were being brought about was greatly accelerated by an
event that occurred in the year 1349.
In the summer of 1348 there appeared in the southwest of England the first cases of a
disease that in its contagiousness and fatality exceeded anything previously known. It
spread rapidly over the rest of the country, reaching its height in 1349 but continuing in
the north into the early months of 1350. The illness, once contracted, ran a very rapid
course. In two or three days the victims either died or showed signs of recovery.
Generally they died. Immunity was slight, and in the absence of any system of quarantine
the disease spread unimpeded through a community. The mortality was unbelievably
high, though it has often been exaggerated. We can no more believe the statement that
scarcely one-tenth of the people were left alive than we can the assertion of the same
chronicler that all those born after the pestilence had two “cheek-teeth in their head less
than they had afore.” Careful modern studies based on the data contained in episcopal
registers show that 40 percent of the parish clergy died of the plague, and while this is
apparently higher than for the population at large, the death rate during the plague
approximated 30 percent. It is quite sufficient to justify the name “The Black Death.”
The effects of so great a calamity were naturally serious, and in one direction at least
are fully demonstrable. As in most epidemics, the rich suffered less than the poor. The
poor could not shut themselves up in their castles or retreat to a secluded manor. The
mortality was accordingly greatest among the lower social orders, and the result was a
serious shortage of labor. This is evident in the immediate rise in wages, a rise which the
Statute of Laborers was insufficient to control or prevent. Nor was this result merely
temporary if we may judge from the thirteen reenactments of the statute in the course of
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the next hundred years. Villeins frequently made their escape, and many cotters left the
land in search of the high wages commanded by independent workers. Those who were
left behind felt more acutely the burden of their condition, and a general spirit of
discontent arose, which culminated in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. By and large, the
effect of the Black Death was to increase the economic importance of the laboring class
and with it the importance of the English language which they spoke.
56
We may also note at this time the rise of another important group—the craftsmen and
the merchant class. By 1250 there had grown up in England about two hundred towns
with populations of from 1,000 to 5,000; some, like London or York, were larger. These
towns became free, self-governing communities, electing their own officers, assessing
taxes in their own way, collecting them and paying them to the king in a lump sum,
trying their own cases, and regulating their commercial affairs as they saw fit. The
townsfolk were engaged for the most part in trade or in the manufacturing crafts and
banded together into commercial fraternities or guilds for their mutual protection and
advantage. In such an environment there arose in each town an independent, sometimes a
wealthy and powerful class, standing halfway between the rural peasant and the
hereditary aristocracy.
Such changes in the social and economic life benefited particularly the English-
speaking part of the population, and enable us better to understand the final triumph of
English in the century in which these changes largely occur.
104. General Adoption of English in the Fourteenth Century.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century English was once more known by everyone.
The most conclusive evidence of this is the direct testimony of contemporaries. So much
of the polite literature of England until a generation or two
56
As a result of the plague English must also have made its way more rapidly in the monasteries, as
we know it did in the schools, and probably elsewhere. Forty-seven monks and the abbot died at St.
Albans in 1349. Their places were filled by men who often knew no other language than English.
We may judge of the situation from the words of the chronicler Knighton: “But, within a short
time, a very great multitude of men whose wives had died of the pestilence flocked to Holy Orders,
of whom many were illiterate and almost sheer lay folk, except in so far as they could read, though
not understand.”
before had been in French that writers seemed to feel called upon to justify their use of
English. Accordingly they frequently begin with a prologue explaining their intention in
the work that follows and incidentally make interesting observations on the linguistic
situation. From a number of such statements we may select three quotations. The first is
from a collection of metrical homilies written in the north of England about the year
1300:
Forthi wil I of my povert
Schau sum thing that Ik haf in hert,
On Ingelis tong that alle may
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Understand quat I wil say;
For laued men havis mar mister
Godes word for to her
Than klerkes that thair mirour lokes,
And sees hou thai sal lif on bokes.
And bathe klerk and laued man
Englis understand kan,
That was born in Ingeland,
And lang haves ben thar in wonand,
Bot al men can noht, I-wis,
Understand Latin and Frankis.
Forthi me think almous it isse
To wirke sum god thing on Inglisse,
That mai ken lered and laued bathe.
57
57
North English Homily Cycle, ed. John Small, English Metrical Homilies from Manuscripts of the
Fourteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1862), pp. 3–4:
Therefore will I of my poverty
Show something that I have in heart
In English tongue that all may
Understand what I will say;
For laymen have more need
God’s word for to hear
Than clerks that look in their Mirror
And see in books how they shall live.
And both clerk and layman
Can understand English,
Who were born in England
And long have been dwelling therein,
But all men certainly cannot
Understand Latin and French.
Therefore methinks it is alms (an act of charity)
To work some good thing in English
That both learned and lay may know.
The allusion to clerks that have their Mirror is probably a reference to the Miroir, or Les Evangiles
des Domees, an Anglo-French poem by Robert of Gretham.
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Here we are told that both learned and unlearned understand English. A still more
circumstantial statement, serving to confirm the above testimony, is found in William of
Nassyngton’s Speculum Vitae or Mirror of Life (c. 1325):
In English tonge I schal
telle,
wyth me so longe wil dwelle.
No Latyn wil I speke no waste,
But English, þat men vse mast,
58
can eche man vnderstande,
is born in Ingelande;
For þat langage is most chewyd,
59
Os wel among lered
60
os lewyd.
61
Latyn, as I trowe, can nane
But þo, þat haueth it in scole tane,
62
And somme can Frensche and no Latyn,
vsed han
63
cowrt and dwellen þerein,
And somme can of Latyn a party,
can of Frensche but febly;
And somme vnderstonde wel Englysch,
can noþer Latyn nor Frankys.
Boþe lered and lewed, olde and
Alle vnderstonden english tonge.
64
(11, 61–78)
Here the writer acknowledges that some people who have lived at court know French, but
he is quite specific in his statement that old and young, learned and unlearned, all
understand the English tongue. Our third quotation, although the briefest, is perhaps the
most interesting of all. It is from the opening lines of a romance called Arthur and
Merlin, written not later than the year 1325 and probably in the opening years of the
century:
58
most
59
showed, in evidence
60
learned
61
unlearned, lay
62
taken, learned
63
have
64
Englische Studien, 7 (1884), 469.
65
English people
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is, þat Inglische
65
Inglische
66
vnderstond,
was born in Inglond;
Freynsche vse þis gentilman,
Ac euerich
67
Inglische can.
68
Mani noble ich haue
69
no Freynsche couþe
70
seye.
71
The special feature of this passage is not the author’s statement that everybody knows
English, which we have come to expect, but his additional assertion that at a time when
gentlemen still “used” French he had seen many a noble who could not speak that
language.
Although, as these quotations show, English was now understood by everyone, it does
not follow that French was unknown or had entirely gone out of use. It still had some
currency at the court although English had largely taken its place; we may be sure that the
court that Chaucer knew spoke English even if its members commonly wrote and often
read French. A dozen books owned by Richard II in 1385, most of them romances, seem
from their titles to have been all French, though he spoke English fluently and Gower
wrote the Confessio Amantis for him in English. Robert of Brunne, who wrote his
Chronicle in 1338, implies that French is chiefly the language of two groups, the
educated classes and the French.
72
That in England French was the accomplishment
mainly of the educated in the fourteenth century is implied by the words of Avarice in
Piers Plowman (B-text, V, 239): “I lerned nevere rede on boke, And I can no Frenche in
feith but of the ferthest ende of Norfolke.” Among the learned we must include the legal
profession and the church. French was the language of lawyers and of the law courts
down to 1362. We may likewise believe that ecclesiastics could still commonly speak
French. We are told that Hugh of Eversdone, the cellarer, who was elected abbot of St.
Albans in 1308, knew English and French very well, though he was not so competent in
Latin;
73
and an amusing story of the bishop of Durham who was consecrated in 1318
66
English language
67
everybody
68
knows
69
seen
70
could
71
Arthour and Merlin, ed. E.Kölbing (Leipzig, 1890).
72
Frankis spech is cald Romance, So sais clerkes & men of France (Prol. to part II).
73
Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum, II, 113–14 (Rolls Series).
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attests his knowledge of French while revealing an even greater ignorance of the
language of the service.
74
We have already seen that French was kept up as the language
of conversation in the monasteries of St. Augustine at Canterbury and St. Peter at
Westminster. It was so also at St. Mary’s Abbey, York, as appears from the Ordinal
drawn up in 1390, and was probably the case generally. Chaucer’s prioress spoke French,
though she told her tale to the Canterbury pilgrims in English, and the instructions from
the abbot of St. Albans to the nuns of Sopwell in 1338 are in French.
75
But clerks of the
younger generation in Langland’s time seem to have been losing their command of the
language.
76
Outside the professions, French seems to have been generally known to
government officials and the more substantial burgesses in the towns. It was the language
of parliament and local administration. The business of town councils and the guilds
seems to have been ordinarily transacted in French, though there are scattered instances
of the intrusion of English. French was very common at this time in letters and dispatches
and local records, and was probably often written by people who did not habitually speak
it. An anonymous chronicle of about 1381 is written in French, but, as the editor remarks,
it is the French of a man who is obviously thinking in English;
77
and the poet Gower, who
wrote easily in Latin, French, and English, protests that he knows little French.
78
In spite
of Trevisa’s statement (see § 106) about the efforts of “uplondish” men to learn French in
order to liken themselves to gentlemen,
79
French can have had but little currency among
the middle classes outside of the towns.
80
It is interesting to note that the chief
disadvantage that Trevisa sees in the fact that children no longer learn French is that “it
will be harm for them if they shall pass the sea and travel in strange lands,” though his
scholarly instincts led him to add “and in many other places.”
74
Although he had been carefully coached for his consecration, he stumbled at the word
metropoliticae, and finally, when he could not pronounce it, exclaimed, Seit pur dite (let it be
considered as said). Later, after making a vain effort to achieve the word aenigmate, he remarked to
those present, Par Seint Lowys, il ne fu pas curteis, qui ceste parole ici escrit (Robert de
Graystanes, Historia…Ecclesiae Dunelmensis. Chap. 48, in Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres,
Surtees Soc., IX, 118).
75
Monast. Ang., III, 365–66.
76
Gramer, the grounde of al, bigyleth now children;
For is none of this newe clerkes, who so nymeth hede,
That can versifye faire ne formalich enditen;
Ne
on amonge an hundreth that an auctour can construe,
Ne rede a lettre in any langage but in Latyn or in Englissh.
(Piers Plowman, B-text, XV, 365–69)
77
The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333 to 1381, from a MS. written at St. Mary’s Abbey, York, ed.
V.H.Galbraith (Manchester, 1927), p. xvii.
78
Mirour de I’Omme, ed. Macaulay, I, 21775.
79
It must be remembered that the term “uplondish” does not only refer to the rural population but
doubtless includes everyone outside of London, just as the word “country” on London pillar-boxes
does today.
80
It is a mistake to argue, as has been several times done, from the Contes Moralisés of Nichole
Bozon that French was widely known among the English middle class. Though this Minorite of the
later fourteenth century seems to have the middle class chiefly in mind, these brief items are not
sermons, but anecdotes and memoranda for sermons, and do not furnish any evidence that the
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author or those for whose help he made the collection actually preached in French. They are like
the similar collections in Latin.
It is clear that the people who could speak French in the fourteenth century were
bilingual. Edward III knew English,
81
and Richard II addressed the people in it at the time
of Wat Tyler’s rebellion. Outside the royal family it would seem that even among the
governing class English was the language best understood. When Edward III called a
parliament in 1337 to advise him about prosecuting his claim to the throne of France, it
was addressed by a lawyer who, according to Froissart, was very competent in Latin,
French, and English. And he spoke in English, although, as we have seen, French was
still the usual language of Parliament, “to the end that he might be better understood by
all, for one always knows better what one wishes to say and propose in the language to
which he is introduced in his infancy than in any other.”
82
Ten years before, a similar
incident occurred when the privileges which Edward II confirmed to the city of London
were read before the mayor, aldermen, and citizens assembled in the Guildhall and were
explained to them in English by Andrew Horn, the city chamberlain.
83
In 1362 the
chancellor opened Parliament for the first time with a speech in English.
84
English
likewise appears at this time in the acts of towns and guilds. In 1388 Parliament required
all guilds to submit a report on their foundation, statutes, property, and the like. The
returns are mostly in Latin, but forty-nine of them are in English, outnumbering those in
French.
85
The Customal of Winchester, which exists in an Anglo-Norman text of about
1275, was translated into English at the end of the fourteenth century.
86
Finally, in the last
year of the century, in the proceedings at the deposition of Richard II, the articles of
accusation were read to the assembled Parliament in Latin and English, as was the
document by which Richard renounced the throne. The order deposing him was read to
him in English, and Henry IV’s speeches claiming the throne and later accepting it were
delivered in English.
87
Thus the proceedings would seem to have been conspicuous for
the absence of French. There can be no doubt in the light of instances such as these that
in the fourteenth century English is again the principal tongue of all England.
81
O.F.Emerson, “English or French in the Time of Edward III,” Romanic Rev., 7 (1916), 127–43.
82
Œuvres de Froissart, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, II, 326.
83
Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, I, 325 (Rolls Series). Andrew Horn was a
member of the Fishmongers’ Company and the author of Le Miroir des Justices. He could
doubtless have explained the privileges in French.
84
English was again used in 1363, 1365, and 1381. Rotuli Parliamentorum, II, 268, 275, 283; III,
98.
85
Printed in Toulmin Smith, English Gilds (Early English Text Soc., O.S. 40).
86
J.S.Furley, The Ancient Usages of the City of Winchester (Oxford, 1927), p. 3.
87
Annales Ricardi II et Henrici IV, pp. 281–86 (Rolls Series); Rotuli Parliamentorum, III, 423;
J.H.Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth, I, 4–18.
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105. English in the Law Courts.
In 1362 an important step was taken toward restoring English to its dominant place as the
language of the country. For a long time, probably from a date soon after the Conquest,
French had been the language of all legal proceedings. But in the fourteenth century such
a practice was clearly without justification, and in 1356 the mayor and aldermen of
London ordered that proceedings in the sheriffs’ court of London and Middlesex be in
English.
88
Six years later, in the Parliament held in October 1362, the Statute of Pleading
was enacted, to go into effect toward the end of the following January:
Because it is often shewed to the king by the prelates, dukes, earls, barons,
and all the commonalty, of the great mischiefs which have happened to
divers of the realm, because the laws, customs, and statutes of this realm
be not commonly known in the same realm; for that they be pleaded,
shewed, and judged in the French tongue, which is much unknown in the
said realm; so that the people which do implead, or be impleaded, in the
king’s court, and in the courts of others, have no knowledge nor
understanding of that which is said for them or against them by their
serjeants and other pleaders; and that reasonably the said laws and
customs shall be most quickly learned and known, and better understood
in the tongue used in the said realm, and by so much every man of the said
realm may the better govern himself without offending of the law, and the
better keep, save, and defend his heritage and possessions; and in divers
regions and countries, where the king, the nobles, and others of the said
realm have been, good governance and full right is done to every person,
because that their laws and customs be learned and used in the tongue of
the country: the king, desiring the good governance and tranquillity of his
people, and to put out and eschew the harms and mischiefs which do or
may happen in this behalf by the occasions aforesaid, hath ordained and
established by the assent aforesaid, that all pleas which shall be pleaded in
his courts whatsoever, before any of his justices whatsoever, or in his
other places, or before any of his other ministers whatsoever, or in the
courts and places of any other lords whatsoever within the realm, shall be
pleaded, shewed, defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English
tongue, and that they be entered and enrolled in Latin.
89
88
R.R.Sharpe, Calendar of Letter-Books…of the City of London, Letter-Book G (London, 1905), p.
73. There are sporadic instances of the use of English in other courts even earlier. Thus in the
action against the Templars in 1310 “frater Radulphus de Malton, ordinis Templi…deposuit in
Anglico.” Wilkins, Concilia (1737), II, 357; cf. also p. 391.
89
Statutes of the Realm, I, 375–76. The original is in French. The petition on which it was based is
in Rotuli Parliamentorum, II, 273.
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All this might have been said in one sentence: Hereafter all lawsuits shall be conducted in
English. But it is interesting to note that the reason frankly stated for the action is that
“French is much unknown in the said realm.” Custom dies hard, and there is some reason
to think that the statute was not fully observed at once. It constitutes, however, the
official recognition of English.
106. English in the Schools.
From a time shortly after the Conquest, French had replaced English as the language of
the schools. In the twelfth century there are patriotic complaints that Bede and others
formerly taught the people in English, but their lore is lost; other people now teach our
folk.
90
A statement of Ranulph Higden in the fourteenth century shows that in his day the
use of French in the schools was quite general. At the end of the first book of his
Polychronicon (c. 1327), a universal history widely circulated, he attributes the
corruption of the English language which he observes in part to this cause:
This apayrynge of þe burþe tunge is bycause of tweie þinges; oon is for
children in scole
þe vsage and manere of alle oþere naciouns
beeþ compelled for to leue hire owne langage, and for to construe hir
lessouns and here þynges in Frensche, and so þey haueþ seþ þe Normans
come first in to Engelond. Also gentil men children beeþ
to
speke Frensche from þe tyme þet þey beeþ i-rokked in here cradel, and
kunneþ speke and playe wiþ a childes broche; and vplondisshe men wil
likne hym self to gentil men, and fondeþ wiþ greet besynesse for to speke
Frensce, for to be [more] i-tolde of.
91
However, after the Black Death, two Oxford schoolmasters were responsible for a great
innovation in English education. When the translator of Higden’s book, John Trevisa,
came to the above passage he added a short but extremely interesting observation of his
own:
manere was moche i-vsed to fore þe firste moreyn and is siþþe
sumdel i-chaunged; for Iohn Cornwaile, a maister of grammer, chaunged
þe lore in gramer scole and construccioun of Frensche in to Englische; and
Richard Pencriche lerned þat manere techynge of hym and oþere men of
Pencrich; so þat now, þe
of oure Lorde a þowsand þre hundred and
foure score and fyue, and of þe secounde kyng Richard after þe conquest
nyne, in alle þe gramere scoles of Engelond, children leueþ Frensche and
construeþ and lerneþ an Englische,
90
Anglia, 3 (1880), 424.
91
Polychronicon, II, 159 (Rolls Series), from the version of Trevisa made 1385–1387.
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and haueþ þerby auauntage in oon side and disauauntage in anoþer side;
here auauntage is, þat þey lerneþ her gramer in lasse tyme þan children
were i-woned to doo; disauauntage is þat now children of gramer scole
conneþ na more Frensche þan can hir lift heele, and þat is harme for hem
and þey schulle passe þe see and trauaille in straunge landes and in many
oþer places. Also gentil men haueþ now moche i-left for to teche here
children Frensche.
By a fortunate circumstance we know that there was a John Cornwall licensed to teach
Latin grammar in Oxford at this time; his name appears in the accounts of Merton in
1347, as does that of Pencrich a few years later.
92
The innovation was probably due to a
scarcity of competent teachers. At any rate, after 1349 English began to be used in the
schools and by 1385 the practice had become general.
107. Increasing Ignorance of French in the Fifteenth Century.
The statement already quoted (page 145) from a writer of the beginning of the fourteenth
century to the effect that he had seen many nobles who could not speak French indicates
a condition that became more pronounced as time went on. By the fifteenth century the
ability to speak French fluently seems to have been looked upon as an accomplishment.
93
Even the ability to write it was becoming less general among people of position. In 1400
George Dunbar, earl of March, in writing to the king in English, says: “And, noble
Prince, marvel ye not that I write my letters in English, for that is more clear to my
understanding than Latin or French.”
94
Another very interesting case is offered by a letter
from Richard Kingston, dean of Windsor, addressed to the king in 1403. Out of deference
to custom, the dean begins bravely enough in French, but toward the close, when he
becomes particularly earnest, he passes instinctively from French to English in the middle
of a sentence.
95
An incident that occurred in 1404 seems at first sight to offer an extreme case. The
king of France had refused to recognize Henry IV when he seized the English throne, and
his kinsman, the count of Flanders, supported him in
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