English Dialects From The Eighth Century To The Present Day Part 4

I ask and command, whosoever may have my land, that he every year give to the domestics at Folkestone fifty measures of malt, and six measures of meal, and three weys [_heavy weights_] of bacon and cheese, and four hundred loaves, and one rother [_ox_], and six sheep.... To the domestics at Christ's church, from the land at Challock: that is, then, thirty vessels of ale, and three hundred loaves, of which fifty shall be white loaves, one wey of bacon and cheese, one old rother, four wethers, one swine or six wethers, six goose-fowls, ten hen-fowls, thirty tapers, if it be a day in winter, a jar full of honey, a jar full of b.u.t.ter, and a jar full of salt.

At pp. 152-175 of the same volume, Dr Sweet gives 1204 Kentish glosses of a very early date. No. 268 is: "_Cardines_, hearran"; and in several modern dialects, including Hamps.h.i.+re, the upright part of a gate to which the hinges are fastened is called a _harr_.

Several years ago, M. Paul Mayer found five short sermons in a Kentish dialect in MS. Laud 471, in the Bodleian Library, along with their French originals. They are printed in Morris's _Old English Miscellany_, and two of them will be found in _Specimens of Early English_, Part I, p. 141. The former of these is for the Epiphany, the text being taken from Matt. ii 1. The date is just before 1250.

I give an extract.

The kinges hem wenten and hi seghen the sterre thet yede bifore hem, alwat hi kam over tho huse war ure loverd was; and alswo hi hedden i-fonden ure loverd, swo hin an-urede, and him offrede hire offrendes, gold, and stor, and mirre. Tho nicht efter thet aperede an ongel of hevene in here slepe ine metinge, and hem seide and het, thet hi ne solde ayen wende be herodes, ac be an other weye wende into hire londes.

That is:

The kings went (them), and they saw the star that went before them until it came over the house where our Lord was; and as-soon-as they had found our Lord, so (they) honoured him, and offered him their offerings, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. The night after that (there) appeared an angel from heaven in their sleep, in a dream, and said to-them and commanded, that they should not wend again near Herod, but by another way wend to their lands.

In the days of Edward II (1307-27) flourished William of Sh.o.r.eham, named from Sh.o.r.eham (Kent), near Otford and Sevenoaks, who was appointed vicar of Chart-Sutton in 1320. He translated the Psalter into English prose, and wrote some religious poems, chiefly relating to church-services, which were edited by T. Wright for the Percy Society in 1849. His poem "On Baptism" is printed in _Specimens of Early English_, Part II. I give an extract:

In water ich wel the cristny her{1} As G.o.de him-self hyt dighte{2}; For mide to wessche{3} nis{4} nothynge That man cometh to so lighte{5} In londe{6}; Nis non that habben hit ne may{7} That habbe hit wile founde{8}.

This bethe{9} the wordes of cristning By thyse Englissche costes{10}-- "Ich{11} cristni the{12} ine the Vader{13} name And Sone and Holy Gostes"-- And more, "Amen!" wane hit{14} is ised{15} thertoe, Confermeth thet ther-to-fore{16}.

{Footnotes: 1: _I desire thee to christen here_ 2: _ordaine it_ 3: _to wash with_ 4: _is not_ 5: _easily_ 6: _in (the) land_ 7: _there is noe that may not have it_ 8: _that will try to have it_ 9: _these are_ 10: _coasts, regions_ 11: _I_ 12: _thee_ 13: _Father's_ 14: _when it_ 15: _said_ 16: _that which precedes_ }

In the year 1340, Dan Michel of Northgate (Kent) translated into English a French treatise on Vices and Virtues, under the t.i.tle _The Ayenbite of Inwyt_, literally, "The Again-biting of In-wit," i.e.

Remorse of Conscience. This is the best specimen of the Kentish dialect of the fourteenth century, and is remarkable for being much more difficult to make out than other pieces of the same period. The whole work was edited by Dr Morris for the Early English Text Society in 1866. A sermon of the same date and in the same dialect, and probably by the same author, is given in _Specimens of Early English_, Part II. The sermon is followed by the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and the "Credo" or Apostles' Creed, all in the same dialect; and I here give the last of these, as being not difficult to follow:

Ich leve ine G.o.d, Vader almighti, makere of hevene and of erthe.

And ine Iesu Crist, His zone onlepi [_only son_], oure lhord, thet y-kend [_conceived_] is of the Holy Gost, y-bore of Marie mayde, y-pyned [_was crucified_, lit. _made to suffer_] onder Pouns Pilate, y-nayled a rode [_on a cross_], dyad, and be-bered; yede [_went_]

doun to h.e.l.le; thane thridde day aros vram the dyade; steay [_rose, ascended_] to hevenes; zit [_sitteth_] athe [_on the_] right half of G.o.d the Vader almighti; thannes to comene He is, to deme the quike and the dyade. Ich y-leve ine the Holy Gost; holy cherche generalliche; Mennesse of halyen [_communion of holy-ones_]; Lesnesse of zennes [_remission of sins_]; of vlesse [_flesh, body_]

arizinge; and lyf evrelestinde. Zuo by hyt [_so be it_].

A few remarks may well be made here on some of the peculiarities of Southern English that appear here. The use of _v_ for _f_ (as in _vader_, _vram_, _vlesshe_), and of _z_ for _s_ (as in _zone_, _zit_, _zennes_) are common to this day, especially in Somersets.h.i.+re. The spelling _lhord_ reminds us that many Anglo-Saxon words began with _hl_, one of them being _hl{-a}fweard_, later _hl{-a}ford_, a lord; and this _hl_ is a symbol denoting the so-called "whispered _l_,"

sounded much as if an aspirate were prefixed to the _l_, and still common in Welsh, where it is denoted by _ll_, as in _llyn_, a lake.

In every case, modern English subst.i.tutes for it the ordinary _l_, though _lh_ (= _hl_) was in use in 1340 in Southern. The prefix _y-_, representing the extremely common A.S. (Anglo-Saxon) prefix _ge-_, was kept up in Southern much longer than in the other dialects, but has now disappeared; the form _y-clept_ being archaic. The plural suffix _-en_, as in _haly-en_, holy ones, saints, is due to the fact that Southern admitted the use of that suffix very freely, as in _cherch-en_, churches, _sterr-en_, stars, etc.; whilst Northern only admitted five such plurals, viz. _egh-en_, _ey-en_, eyes (Shakespeare's _eyne_), _hos-en_, stockings, _ox-en_, _shoo-n_, shoes, and _f{-a}-n_, foes; _ox-en_ being the sole survivor, since _shoon_ (as in _Hamlet_, IV iv 26) is archaic. The modern _child-r-en_, _breth-r-en_, are really double plurals; Northern employed the more original forms _childer_ and _brether_, both of which, and especially the former, are still in dialectal use. _Evrelest-inde_ exhibits the Southern _-inde_ for present participles.

But the word _zennes_, sins, exhibits a peculiarity that is almost solely Kentish, and seldom found elsewhere, viz. the use of _e_ for _i_. The explanation of this rests on an elementary lesson in Old English phonology, which it will do the reader no harm to acquire.

The modern symbol _i_ (when denoting the _short_ sound, as in _pit_) really does double duty. It sometimes represents the A.S. short _i_, as in _it_ (A.S. _hit_), _sit_ (A.S. _sittan_), _bitten_ (A.S.

_b{)i}ten_), etc.; and sometimes the A.S. short _y_, as in _pyt_, a pit. The sound of the A.S. short _i_ was much the same as in modern English; but that of the short _y_ was different, as it denoted the "mutated" form of short _u_ for which German has a special symbol, viz. _u_, the sound intended being that of the German _u_ in _schutzen_, to protect. In the latter case, Kentish usually has the vowel _e_, as in the modern Kentish _pet_, a pit, and in the surname _Petman_ (at Margate), which means _pitman_; and as the A.S. for "sin"

was _synn_ (dat. _synne_), the Kentish form was _zenne_, since Middle English substantives often represent the A.S. dative case. The Kentish plural had the double form, _zennes_ and _zennen_, both of which occur in the _Ayenbite_, as might have been expected.

The poet Gower, who completed what may be called the first edition of his poem named the _Confessio Amantis_ (or Confession of a Lover) in 1390, was a Kentish man, and well acquainted with the Kentish dialect.

He took advantage of this to introduce, occasionally, Kentish forms into his verse; apparently for the sake of securing a rime more easily. See this discussed at p. ci of vol. II of Macaulay's edition of Gower. I may ill.u.s.trate this by noting that in _Conf. Amant._ i 1908, we find _pitt_ riming with _witt_, whereas in the same, v 4945, _pet_ rimes with _let_.

We know that, in 1386, the poet Chaucer was elected a knight of the s.h.i.+re for Kent, and in 1392-3 he was residing at Greenwich. He evidently knew something of the Kentish dialect; and he took advantage of the circ.u.mstance, precisely as Gower did, for varying his rimes.

The earliest example of this is in his _Book of the d.u.c.h.ess_, l. 438, where he uses the Kentish _ken_ instead of _kin_ (A.S. _cynn_) in order to secure a rime for _ten_. In the _Canterbury Tales_, E 1057, he has _kesse_, to kiss (A.S. _cyssan_), to rime with _stedfastnesse_.

In the same, A 1318, he has _fulfille_, to fulfil (cf. A.S. _fyllan_, to fill), to rime with _wille_; but in Troilus, iii 510, he changes it to _fulfelle_, to rime with _telle_; with several other instances of a like kind.

It is further remarkable that some Kentish forms seem to have established themselves in standard English, as when we use _dent_ with the sense of _dint_ (A.S. _dynt_). When we speak of _the left hand_, the form _left_ is really Kentish, and occurs in the _Ayenbite of Inwyt_; the Midland form is properly _lift_, which is common enough in Middle English; see the _New English Dictionary_, s.v. _Left_, adj.

_Hemlock_ is certainly a Kentish form; cf. A.S. _hymlice_, and see the _New English Dictionary_. So also is _kernel_ (A.S. _cyrnel_); _knell_ (A.S. _cnyllan_, verb); _merry_ (A.S. _myrge_, _myrige_); and perhaps _stern_, adj. (A.S. _styrne_).

There are some excellent remarks upon the vocalism of the Kentish dialect in Middle English by W. Heuser, in the German periodical ent.i.tled _Anglia_, vol XVII pp. 73-90.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MERCIAN DIALECT

I. EAST MIDLAND

The Mercian district lies between the Northern and Southern, occupying an irregular area which it is very difficult to define. On the east coast it reached from the mouth of the Humber to that of the Thames.

On the western side it seems to have included a part of Lancas.h.i.+re, and extended from the mouth of the Lune to the Bristol Channel, exclusive of a great part of Wales.

There were two chief varieties of it which differed in many particulars, viz. the East Midland and the West Midland. The East Midland included, roughly speaking, the counties of Lincoln, Rutland, Northampton, and Buckingham, and all the counties (between the Thames and Humber) to the east of these, viz. Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, Hertford, Middles.e.x, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Ess.e.x. We must also certainly include, if not Oxfords.h.i.+re, at any rate the city of Oxford.

This is by far the most important group of counties, as it was the East Midland that finally prevailed over the rest, and was at last accepted as a standard, thus rising from the position of a dialect to be the language of the Empire. The Midland prevailed over the Northern and Southern dialects because it was intermediate between them, and so helped to interpret between North and South; and the East Midland prevailed over the Western because it contained within its area all three of the chief literary centres, namely, Oxford, Cambridge, and London. It follows from this that the Old Mercian dialect is of greater interest than either the Northumbrian or Anglo-Saxon.

Unfortunately, the amount of extant Old Mercian, before the Conquest, is not very large, and it is only of late years that the MSS.

containing it have been rightly understood. Practically, the study of it dates only from 1885, when Dr Sweet published his _Oldest English Texts_.

But there is more Mercian to be found than was at first suspected; and it is desirable to consider this question.

An important discovery was that the language of the oldest Glossaries seems to be Mercian. We have extant no less than four Glossaries in MSS. of as early a date as the eighth century, named respectively, the Epinal, Erfurt, Corpus, and Leyden Glossaries. The first is now at Epinal, in France (in the department Vosges); the second, at Erfurt, near Weimar, in Germany; the third, in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; and the fourth, at Leyden, in Holland. The Corpus MS. may be taken as typical of the rest. It contains an enumeration of a large number of difficult words, arranged, but imperfectly, in alphabetical order; and after each of these is written its gloss or interpretation. Thus the fifth folio begins as follows:

Abminiculum . adiutorium.

Abelena . haeselhnutu.

Abiecit . proiecit.

Absida . sacrarium.

Abies . etspe.

Ab ineunte aetate . infantia.

The chief interest of these Glossaries lies in the fact that a small proportion of the hard words is explained, not in Latin, but in Mercian English, of which there are two examples in the six glosses here quoted. Thus Abelena, which is another spelling of Abellana or Avellana, "a filbert," is explained as "haeselhnutu"; which is a perfectly familiar word when reduced to its modern form of "hazel-nut."

And again, Abies, which usually means "a fir-tree," is here glossed by "etspe." But this is certainly a false spelling, as we see by comparing it with the following glosses in Epinal and Erfurt (Nos. 37, 1006):--"Abies. saeppae--saepae"; and "Tremulus. aespae--espae." This shows that the scribe ought to have explained Abies by "saeppae,"

meaning the tree full of sap, called in French _sapin_; but he confused it with another tree, the "trembling" tree, of which the Old Mercian name was "espe" or "espae," or "aespae," and he miswrote _espe_ as _etspe_, inserting a needless _t_. This last tree is the one which Chaucer called the _asp_ in l. 180 of his _Parliament of Fowls_, but in modern times the adjectival suffix _-en_ (as in _gold-en_, _wood-en_) has been tacked on to it, and it is now the _aspen_.

The interpretation of these ancient glosses requires very great care, but they afford a considerable number of interesting results, and are therefore valuable, especially as they give us spellings of the eighth century, which are very scarce.

One of the oldest specimens of Old Mercian that affords intelligible sentences is known as the "Lorica Prayer," because it occurs in the same MS. (Ll. 1. 10 in the Cambridge University Library) as the "Lorica Glosses," or the glosses which accompany a long Latin prayer, really a charm, called "lorica" or "breast-plate," because it was recited thrice a day to protect the person who used it from all possible injury and accident. I give this Prayer as ill.u.s.trating the state of our language about A.D. 850.

And the georne gebide gece and miltse fore alra his haligra gewyrhtum and ge-earningum and boenum be [hiwe]num, tha the _domino deo_ gelicedon from fruman middan-geardes; thonne gehereth he thec thorh hiora thingunge. Do thonne fiorthan sithe thin hleor thriga to iorthan, fore alle G.o.des cirican, and sing thas fers: _domini est salus, saluum fac populum tuum, domine, praetende misericordiam tuam_. Sing thonne _pater noster_. Gebide thonne fore alle geleaffulle menn _in mundo_. Thonne bistu thone deg dael-niomende thorh Dryhtnes gefe alra theara G.o.da the aenig monn for his noman gedoeth, and thec alle soth-festae fore thingiath _in caelo et in terra_. _Amen_.{1}

{Footnote 1: I write _hiwenum_ in l. 2 in place of an illegible word.}

That is:--

And earnestly pray for-thyself for help and mercy by-reason-of the deeds and merits and prayers of all his saints on-behalf-of the [households] that have pleased the Lord G.o.d from the beginning of the world; then will He hear thee because-of their intercession.

Bow-down then, at the fourth time, thy face thrice to the earth before all G.o.d's church, and sing these verses: The Lord is my salvation, save Thy people, O Lord: show forth Thy mercy. Sing then a pater-noster. Pray then for all believing men in the world. Then shalt thou be, on that day, a partaker, by G.o.d's grace, of all the good things that any man doth for His name, and all true-men will intercede for thee in heaven and in earth. Amen.

Another discovery was the a.s.signment of a correct description to the glosses found in a doc.u.ment known as the _Vespasian Psalter_; so called because it is an early Latin Psalter, or book of Psalms, contained in a Cotton MS. in the British Museum, marked with the cla.s.s-mark "Vespasian, A. 1." This Psalter is accompanied throughout with glosses which were at first mistakenly thought to be in a Northumbrian dialect, and were published as such by the Surtees Society in 1843. They were next, in 1875, wrongly supposed to be Kentish; but since they were printed by Sweet in 1885 it has been shown that they are really Mercian. This set of glosses is very important for the study of Old Mercian, because they are rather extensive; they occupy 213 pages of the _Oldest English Texts_, and are followed by 20 more pages of similar glosses to certain Latin canticles and hymns that occur in the same MS.