A Brief History of the English Language and Literature Part 6

It will be observed that Wycliffe's version contains five Romance terms-- _substaunce_, _dettis_, _dettouris_, _temptacioun_, and _delyvere_.

5. +Oldest English and Early English.+-- The following is a short pa.s.sage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under date 1137: first, in the Anglo-Saxon form; second, in Early English, or-- as it has sometimes been called-- Broken Saxon; third, in modern English. The breaking-down of the grammar becomes still more strikingly evident from this close juxtaposition.

(i) Hi swencton a wreccan menn (ii) Hi swencten the wrecce men (iii) They swinked (hara.s.sed) the wretched men

(i) aes landes mid castel-weorc.u.m.

(ii) Of-the-land mid castel-weorces.

(iii) Of the land with castle-works.

(i) a a castelas waeron gemacod, (ii) Tha the castles waren maked, (iii) When the castles were made,

(i) a fyldon hi hi mid yfelum mannum.

(ii) tha fylden hi hi mid yvele men.

(iii) then filled they them with evil men.

6. +Comparisons of Words and Inflexions.+-- Let us take a few of the most prominent words in our language, and observe the changes that have fallen upon them since they made their appearance in our island in the fifth century. These changes will be best seen by displaying them in columns:--

ANGLO-SAXON. EARLY ENGLISH. MIDDLE ENGLISH. MODERN ENGLISH.

heom. to heom. to hem. to them.

seo. heo. ho, scho. she.

sweostrum. to the swestres. to the swistren. to the sisters.

geboren. gebore. ibore. born.

lufigende. lufigend. lovand. loving.

weoxon. woxen. wexide. waxed.

7. +Conclusions from the above Comparisons.+-- We can now draw several conclusions from the comparisons we have made of the pa.s.sages given from different periods of the language. These conclusions relate chiefly to verbs and nouns; and they may become useful as a KEY to enable us to judge to what period in the history of our language a pa.s.sage presented to us must belong. If we find such and such marks, the language is Anglo-Saxon; if other marks, it is Early English; and so on.

I.-- MARKS OF ANGLO-SAXON.

II.-- MARKS OF EARLY ENGLISH (1100-1250).

III.-- MARKS OF MIDDLE ENGLISH (1250-1485).

VERBS.

Infinitive in +an+.

Infin. in +en+ or +e+.

Infin. with +to+ (the +en+ was dropped about 1400).

Pres. part. in +ende+.

Pres. part. in +ind+.

Pres. part. in +inge+.

Past part. with +ge+.

+ge+ of past part. turned into +i+ or +y+.

3d plural pres. in +ath+.

3d plural past in +on+.

3d plural in +en+.

3d plural in +en+.

Plural of imperatives in +ath+.

Imperative in +eth+.

NOUNS.

Plurals in +an+, +as+, or +a+.

Plural in +es+.

Plurals in +es+ (separate syllable).

Dative plural in +um+.

Dative plural in +es+.

Possessives in +es+ (separate syllable).

8. +The English of the Thirteenth Century.+-- In this century there was a great breaking-down and stripping-off of inflexions. This is seen in the +Ormulum+ of Orm, a canon of the Order of St Augustine, whose English is nearly as flexionless as that of Chaucer, although about a century and a half before him. Orm has also the peculiarity of always doubling a consonant after a short vowel. Thus, in his introduction, he says:--

"iss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum Forr i att Orrm itt wrohhte."

That is, "This book is named Ormulum, for the (reason) that Orm wrought it." The absence of inflexions is probably due to the fact that the book is written in the East-Midland dialect. But, in a song called "The Story of Genesis and Exodus," written about 1250, we find a greater number of inflexions. Thus we read:--

"Hunger wex in lond Chanaan; And his x sunes Jacob for-an Sente in to Egypt to bringen coren; He bilefe at hom e was gungest boren."

That is, "Hunger waxed (increased) in the land of Canaan; and Jacob for that (reason) sent his ten sons into Egypt to bring corn: he remained at home that was youngest born."

9. +The English of the Fourteenth Century.+-- The four greatest writers of the fourteenth century are-- in verse, +Chaucer+ and +Langlande+; and in prose, +Mandeville+ and +Wycliffe+. The inflexions continue to drop off; and, in Chaucer at least, a larger number of French words appear.

Chaucer also writes in an elaborate verse-measure that forms a striking contrast to the homely rhythms of Langlande. Thus, in the "Man of Lawes Tale," we have the verse:--

"O queenes, lyvynge in prosperitee, d.u.c.h.esses, and ladyes everichone, Haveth som routhe on hir adversitee; An emperoures doughter stant allone; She hath no wight to whom to make hir mone.

O blood roial! that stondest in this drede Fer ben thy frendes at thy grete nede!"

Here, with the exception of the imperative in _Haveth som routhe_ (= have some pity), _stant_, and _ben_ (= _are_), the grammar of Chaucer is very near the grammar of to-day. How different this is from the simple English of Langlande! He is speaking of the great storm of wind that blew on January 15, 1362:--

"Piries and Plomtres weore pa.s.schet to e grounde, In ensaumple to Men at we scholde do e bettre, Beches and brode okes weore blowen to e eore."

Here it is the spelling of Langlande's English that differs most from modern English, and not the grammar. --Much the same may be said of the style of Wycliffe (1324-1384) and of Mandeville (1300-1372). In Wycliffe's version of the Gospel of Mark, v. 26, he speaks of a woman "that hadde suffride many thingis of ful many lechis (doctors), and spendid alle hir thingis; and no-thing profitide." Sir John Mandeville's English keeps many old inflexions and spellings; but is, in other respects, modern enough. Speaking of Mahomet, he says: "And ?ee schulle understonds that Machamete was born in Arabye, that was first a pore knave that kept cameles, that wenten with marchantes for marchandise."

_Knave_ for boy, and _wenten_ for went are the two chief differences-- the one in the use of words, the other in grammar-- that distinguish this piece of Mandeville's English from our modern speech.

10. +The English of the Sixteenth Century.+-- This, which is also called Tudor-English, differs as regards grammar hardly at all from the English of the nineteenth century. This becomes plain from a pa.s.sage from one of Latimer's sermons (1490-1555), "a book which gives a faithful picture of the manners, thoughts, and events of the period." "My father," he writes, "was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pound a year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine." In this pa.s.sage, it is only the old-fas.h.i.+onedness, homeliness, and quaintness of the English-- not its grammar-- that makes us feel that it was not written in our own times.

When Ridley, the fellow-martyr of Latimer, stood at the stake, he said, "I commit our cause to Almighty G.o.d, which shall indifferently judge all." Here he used _indifferently_ in the sense of _impartially_-- that is, in the sense of _making no difference between parties_; and this is one among a very large number of instances of Latin words, when they had not been long in our language, still retaining the older Latin meaning.

11. +The English of the Bible+ (i).-- The version of the Bible which we at present use was made in 1611; and we might therefore suppose that it is written in seventeenth-century English. But this is not the case. The translators were commanded by James I. to "follow the Bishops' Bible"; and the Bishops' Bible was itself founded on the "Great Bible," which was published in 1539. But the Great Bible is itself only a revision of Tyndale's, part of which appeared as early as 1526. When we are reading the Bible, therefore, we are reading English of the sixteenth century, and, to a large extent, of the early part of that century. It is true that successive generations of printers have, of their own accord, altered the spelling, and even, to a slight extent, modified the grammar. Thus we have _fetched_ for the older _fet_, _more_ for _moe_, _sown_ for _sowen_, _brittle_ for _brickle_ (which gives the connection with _break_), _jaws_ for _chaws_, _sixth_ for _sixt_, and so on. But we still find such participles as _s.h.i.+ned_ and _understanded_; and such phrases as "they can skill to hew timber" (1 Kings v. 6), "abjects" for _abject persons_, "three days agone" for _ago_, the "captivated Hebrews"

for "the captive Hebrews," and others.

12. +The English of the Bible+ (ii).-- We have, again, old words retained, or used in the older meaning. Thus we find, in Psalm v. 6, the phrase "them that speak leasing," which reminds us of King Alfred's expression about "leasum spellum" (lying stories). _Trow_ and _ween_ are often found; the "champaign over against Gilgal" (Deut. xi. 30) means the _plain_; and a publican in the New Testament is a tax-gatherer, who sent to the Roman Treasury or Public.u.m the taxes he had collected from the Jews. An "ill-favoured person" is an ill-looking person; and "bravery" (Isa. iii. 18) is used in the sense of finery in dress. --Some of the oldest grammar, too, remains, as in Esther viii. 8, "Write ye, as it liketh you," where the _you_ is a dative. Again, in Ezek. x.x.x. 2, we find "Howl ye, Woe worth the day!" where the imperative _worth_ governs _day_ in the dative case. This idiom is still found in modern verse, as in the well-known lines in the first canto of the "Lady of the Lake":--

"Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day That cost thy life, my gallant grey!"