Early Britain Anglo-Saxon Britain

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE AN­GLO-​SAX­ON LAN­GUAGE.

A de­scrip­tion of An­glo-​Sax­on Britain, how­ev­er brief, would not be com­plete with­out some ac­count of the En­glish lan­guage in its ear­li­est and purest form. But it would be im­pos­si­ble with­in rea­son­able lim­its to give any­thing more than a short gen­er­al state­ment of the re­la­tion which the old En­glish tongue bears to the kin­dred Teu­ton­ic di­alects, and of the main dif­fer­ences which mark it off from our mod­ern sim­pli­fied and mod­ified speech. All that can be at­tempt­ed here is such a broad out­line as may en­able the gen­er­al read­er to grasp the true con­nex­ion be­tween mod­ern En­glish and so-​called An­glo-​Sax­on, on the one hand, as well as be­tween An­glo-​Sax­on it­self and the par­ent Teu­ton­ic lan­guage on the oth­er. Any full in­ves­ti­ga­tion of gram­mat­ical or et­ymo­log­ical de­tails would be be­yond the scope of this lit­tle vol­ume.

The tongue spo­ken by the En­glish and Sax­ons at the pe­ri­od of their in­va­sion of Britain was an al­most un­mixed Low Dutch di­alect. Orig­inal­ly de­rived, of course, from the prim­itive Aryan lan­guage, it had al­ready un­der­gone those changes which are summed up in what is known as Grimm's Law. The prin­ci­pal con­so­nants in the old Aryan tongue had been reg­ular­ly and slight­ly al­tered in cer­tain di­rec­tions; and these al­ter­ations have been car­ried still fur­ther in the al­lied High Ger­man lan­guage. Thus the orig­inal word for _fa­ther_, which close­ly re­sem­bled the Latin _pa­ter_, be­comes in ear­ly En­glish or An­glo-​Sax­on _fæder_, and in mod­ern High Ger­man _vater_. So, again, among the nu­mer­als, our _two_, in ear­ly En­glish _twa_, an­swers to Latin _duo_ and mod­ern High Ger­man _zwei_; while our _three_, in old En­glish _threo_, an­swers to Latin _tres_, and mod­ern High Ger­man _drei_. So far as these per­mu­ta­tions are con­cerned, San­scrit, Greek, and Latin may be re­gard­ed as most near­ly re­sem­bling the prim­itive Aryan speech, and with them the Celtic di­alects main­ly agree. From these, the En­glish varies one de­gree, the High Ger­man two. The fol­low­ing ta­ble rep­re­sents the na­ture of such changes ap­prox­imate­ly for these three groups of lan­guages:–

-----------------+------------+---------------+---------------+ Greek, San­scrit, | | | | Latin, Celtic | p. b. f. | t. d. th. | k. g. ch. | -----------------+------------+---------------+---------------+ Goth­ic, En­glish, | | | | Low Dutch | f. p. b. | th. t. d. | ch. k. g. | -----------------+------------+---------------+---------------+ | | | | High Ger­man | b. f. p. | d. th. t. | g. ch. k. | -----------------+------------+---------------+---------------+

In prac­tice, sev­er­al mod­ifi­ca­tions arise; for ex­am­ple, the law is on­ly true for old High Ger­man, and that on­ly ap­prox­imate­ly, but its gen­er­al truth may be ac­cept­ed as gov­ern­ing most in­di­vid­ual cas­es.

Judged by this stan­dard, En­glish forms a di­alect of the Low Dutch branch of the Aryan lan­guage, to­geth­er with Frisian, mod­ern Dutch, and the Scan­di­na­vian tongues. With­in the group thus re­strict­ed its affini­ties are clos­est with Frisian and old Dutch, less close with Ice­landic and Dan­ish. While the En­glish still lived on the shores of the Baltic, it is prob­able that their lan­guage was per­fect­ly in­tel­li­gi­ble to the an­ces­tors of the peo­ple who now in­hab­it Hol­land, and who then spoke very slight­ly dif­fer­ent lo­cal di­alects. In oth­er words, a sin­gle Low Dutch speech then ap­par­ent­ly pre­vailed from the mouth of the Elbe to that of the Scheldt, with small lo­cal vari­ations; and from this speech the An­glo-​Sax­on and the mod­ern En­glish have de­vel­oped in one di­rec­tion, while the Dutch has de­vel­oped in an­oth­er, the Frisian di­alect long re­main­ing in­ter­me­di­ate be­tween them. Scan­di­na­vian ceased, per­haps, to be in­tel­li­gi­ble to En­glish­men at an ear­li­er date, the old Ice­landic be­ing al­ready marked off from An­glo-​Sax­on by strong pe­cu­liar­ities, while mod­ern Dan­ish dif­fers even more wide­ly from the spo­ken En­glish of the present day.

The re­la­tion of An­glo-​Sax­on to mod­ern En­glish is that of di­rect parent­age, it might al­most be said of ab­so­lute iden­ti­ty. The lan­guage of _Be­owulf_ and of Æl­fred is not, as many peo­ple still imag­ine, a dif­fer­ent lan­guage from our own; it is sim­ply En­glish in its ear­li­est and most un­mixed form. What we com­mon­ly call An­glo-​Sax­on, in­deed, is more En­glish than what we com­mon­ly call En­glish at the present day. The first is tru­ly En­glish, not on­ly in its struc­ture and gram­mar, but al­so in the whole of its vo­cab­ulary: the sec­ond, though al­so tru­ly En­glish in its struc­ture and gram­mar, con­tains a large num­ber of Latin, Greek, and Ro­mance el­ements in its vo­cab­ulary. Nev­er­the­less, no break sep­arates us from the orig­inal Low Dutch tongue spo­ken in the marsh lands of Sleswick. The En­glish of _Be­owulf_ grows slow­ly in­to the En­glish of Æl­fred, in­to the En­glish of Chaucer, in­to the En­glish of Shake­speare and Mil­ton, and in­to the En­glish of Macaulay and Ten­nyson.

Old words drop out from time to time, old gram­mat­ical forms die away or be­come oblit­er­at­ed, new names and verbs are bor­rowed, first from the Nor­man-​French at the Con­quest, then from the clas­si­cal Greek and Latin at the Re­nais­sance; but the con­ti­nu­ity of the lan­guage re­mains un­bro­ken, and its sub­stance is still es­sen­tial­ly the same as at the be­gin­ning. The Cor­nish, the Irish, and to some ex­tent the Welsh, have left off speak­ing their na­tive tongues, and adopt­ed the lan­guage of the dom­inant Teu­ton; but there nev­er was a time when En­glish­men left off speak­ing An­glo-​Sax­on and took to En­glish, Nor­man-​French, or any oth­er form of speech what­so­ev­er.

An il­lus­tra­tion may serve to ren­der clear­er this fun­da­men­tal and im­por­tant dis­tinc­tion. If at the present day a body of En­glish­men were to set­tle in Chi­na, they might learn and use the Chi­nese names for many na­tive plants, an­imals, and man­ufac­tured ar­ti­cles; but how­ev­er many of such words they adopt­ed in­to their vo­cab­ulary, their lan­guage would still re­main es­sen­tial­ly En­glish. A vis­itor from Eng­land would have to learn a num­ber of un­fa­mil­iar words, but he would not have to learn a new lan­guage. If, on the oth­er hand, a body of French­men were to set­tle in a neigh­bour­ing Chi­nese province, and to adopt ex­act­ly the same Chi­nese words, their lan­guage would still re­main es­sen­tial­ly French. The di­alects of the two set­tle­ments would con­tain many words in com­mon, but nei­ther of them would be a Chi­nese di­alect on that ac­count. Just so, En­glish since the Nor­man Con­quest has graft­ed many for­eign words up­on the na­tive stock; but it still re­mains at bot­tom the same lan­guage as in the days of Eadgar.

Nev­er­the­less, An­glo-​Sax­on dif­fers so far in ex­ter­nals from mod­ern En­glish, that it is now nec­es­sary to learn it sys­tem­at­ical­ly with gram­mar and dic­tio­nary, in some­what the same man­ner as one would learn a for­eign tongue. Most of the words, in­deed, are more or less fa­mil­iar, at least so far as their roots are con­cerned; but the in­flex­ions of the nouns and verbs are far more com­pli­cat­ed than those now in use: and many ob­so­lete forms oc­cur even in the vo­cab­ulary. On the oth­er hand the id­ioms close­ly re­sem­ble those still in use; and even where a root has now dropped out of use, its mean­ing is of­ten im­me­di­ate­ly sug­gest­ed by the cog­nate High Ger­man word, or by some ar­cha­ic form pre­served for us in Chaucer, Shake­speare, or Mil­ton, as well as by oc­ca­sion­al sur­vival in the Low­land Scotch and oth­er lo­cal di­alects.

En­glish in its ear­ly form was an in­flex­ion­al lan­guage; that is to say, the mu­tu­al re­la­tions of nouns and of verbs were chiefly ex­pressed, not by means of par­ti­cles, such as _of_, _to_, _by_, and so forth, but by means of mod­ifi­ca­tions ei­ther in the ter­mi­na­tion or in the body of the root it­self. The nouns were de­clined much as in Greek and Latin; the verbs were con­ju­gat­ed in some­what the same way as in mod­ern French. Ev­ery noun had gen­der ex­pressed in its form.

The fol­low­ing ex­am­ples will give a suf­fi­cient idea of the com­mon­er forms of de­clen­sion in the clas­si­cal West Sax­on of the time of Æl­fred. The pro­nun­ci­ation has al­ready been briefly ex­plained in the pref­ace.

SING. PLUR.

(1.) _Nom._ stan (_a stone_). _Nom._ stanas. _Gen._ stanes. _Gen._ stana. _Dat._ stane. _Dat._ stanum. _Acc._ stan. _Acc._ stanas.

This is the com­mon­est de­clen­sion for mas­cu­line nouns, and it has fixed the nor­mal plu­ral for the mod­ern En­glish.

SING. PLUR.

(2.) _Nom._ fot (_a foot_). _Nom._ fet. _Gen._ fotes. _Gen._ fo­ta. _Dat._ fet. _Dat._ fo­tum. _Acc._ fot. _Acc._ fet.

Hence our mod­ified plu­rals, such as _feet_, _teeth_, and _men_.

SING. PLUR.

(3.) _Nom._ wudu (_a wood_). _Nom._ wu­da. _Gen._ wu­da. _Gen._ wu­da. _Dat._ wu­da. _Dat._ wudum. _Acc._ wudu. _Acc._ wu­da.

All these are for mas­cu­line nouns.

The com­mon­est fem­inine de­clen­sion is as fol­lows:–

SING. PLUR.

(4.) _Nom._ gi­fu (_a gift_). _Nom._ gi­fa. _Gen._ gife. _Gen._ gife­na. _Dat._ gife. _Dat._ gi­fum. _Acc._ gife. _Acc._ gi­fa.

Less fre­quent is the mod­ified form:

SING. PLUR.

(5.) _Nom._ boc (_a book_). _Nom._ bec. _Gen._ bec. _Gen._ bo­ca. _Dat._ bec. _Dat._ bocum. _Acc._ boc. _Acc._ bec.

Of neuters there are two prin­ci­pal de­clen­sions. The first has the plu­ral in _u_; the sec­ond leaves it un­changed.

SING. PLUR.

(6.) _Nom._ scip (_a ship_). _Nom._ scipu. _Gen._ scipes. _Gen._ sci­pa. _Dat._ scipe. _Dat._ scipum. _Acc._ scip. _Acc._ scipu.

SING. PLUR.

(7.) _Nom._ hus (_a house_). _Nom._ hus. _Gen._ hus­es. _Gen._ husa. _Dat._ huse. _Dat._ husum. _Acc._ hus. _Acc._ hus.

Hence our “col­lec­tive” plu­rals, such as _fish_, _deer_, _sheep_, and _trout_.

There is al­so a weak de­clen­sion, much the same for all three gen­ders, of which the mas­cu­line form runs as fol­lows:–

SING. PLUR.

_Nom._ gu­ma (_a man_). _Nom._ gu­man. _Gen._ gu­man. _Gen._ gu­me­na. _Dat._ gu­man. _Dat._ gu­man. _Acc._ gu­man. _Acc._ gu­man.

Ad­jec­tives are de­clined through­out, as in Latin, through all the cas­es (in­clud­ing an in­stru­men­tal), num­bers, and gen­ders. The demon­stra­tive pro­noun or def­inite ar­ti­cle _se_ (the) may stand as an ex­am­ple.

SING.

Masc. Fem. Neut. _Nom._ se, seo, thæt. _Gen._ thæs, thære, thæs. _Dat._ tham, thære, tham. _Acc._ thone, tha, thæt. _In­st._ thy, thære, thy.

PLUR.

Masc. Fem. Neut. _Nom._ tha. _Gen._ thara. _Dat._ tham. _Acc._ tha. _In­st._ --

Verbs are con­ju­gat­ed about as ful­ly as in Latin. There are two prin­ci­pal forms: strong verbs, which form their preterite by vow­el mod­ifi­ca­tion, as _binde_, pret. _band_; and weak verbs, which form it by the ad­di­tion of _ode_ or _de_ to the root, as _lu­fige_, pret. _lu­fode_; _hire_, pret. _hirde_. The present and preterite of the first form are as fol­lows:–

IND. SUBJ.

_Pres. sing._ 1. binde. binde. 2. bind­est. binde. 3. bindeth. binde.

_plur._ 1, 2, 3. bindath. binden.

_Pret. sing._ 1. band. bunde. 2. bunde. bunde. 3. band. bunde.

_plur._ 1, 2, 3. bun­don. bun­den.

Both the gram­mat­ical forms and still more the or­thog­ra­phy vary much from time to time, from place to place, and even from writ­er to writ­er. The forms used in this work are for the most part those em­ployed by West Sax­ons in the age of Æl­fred.

A few ex­am­ples of the lan­guage as writ­ten at three pe­ri­ods will en­able the read­er to form some idea of its re­la­tion to the ex­ist­ing type. The first pas­sage cit­ed is from King Æl­fred's trans­la­tion of Oro­sius; but it con­sists of the open­ing lines of a para­graph in­sert­ed by the king him­self from his own ma­te­ri­als, and so af­fords an ex­cel­lent il­lus­tra­tion of his style in orig­inal En­glish prose. The read­er is rec­om­mend­ed to com­pare it word for word with the par­al­lel slight­ly mod­ernised ver­sion, bear­ing in mind the in­flex­ion­al ter­mi­na­tions.

Ohthere sæde his hlaforde, | Oth­here said [to] his lord, Æl­frede cyninge, thæt he | Æl­fred king, that he of all eal­ra North­mon­na northmest | North­men north­most abode. bude. He cwæth thæt he | He quoth that he abode bude on thæm lande north­wear­dum | on the land north­ward against with tha West-​sæ. | the West Sea. He said, He sæde theah thæt thæt land | though, that that land was sie swithe lang north tho­nan; | [or ex­tend­ed] much north ac hit is eall weste, bu­ton on | thence; eke it is all waste, feawum stowum sty­ccemælum | but [ex­cept that] on few stows wi­ciath Finnas, on huntothe | [in a few places] piece­meal on win­tra, and on sumera on | dwelleth Finns, on hunt­ing on fis­cathe be thære sæ. He | win­ter, and on sum­mer on sæde thæt he æt su­mum cirre | fish­ing by the sea. He said wolde fan­di­an hu longe thæt | that he at some time [on one land northry­hte læge, oth­the | oc­ca­sion] would seek how long hwæther ænig monn be northan | that land lay northright [due thæm westenne bude. Tha | north], or whether any man by for he northry­hte be thæm | north of the waste abode. lande: let him ealne weg | Then fore [fared] he northright, thæt weste land on thæt ste­or­bord, | by the land: left all the and tha wid-​sæ on thæt | way that waste land on the bæcbord thrie da­gas. Tha | star­board of him, and the wide wæs he swa fe­or north swa tha | sea on the back­board [port, hwæl-​huntan fir­rest farath. | French _babord_] three days. | Then was he so far north as | the whale-​hunters fur­thest | fareth.

In this pas­sage it is easy to see that the vari­ations which make it in­to mod­ern En­glish are for the most part of a very sim­ple kind. Some of the words are ab­so­lute­ly iden­ti­cal, as _his_, _on_, _he_, _and_, _land_, or _north_. Oth­ers, though dif­fer­ences of spelling mask the like­ness, are prac­ti­cal­ly the same, as _sæ_, _sæde_, _cwæth_, _thæt_, _lang_, for which we now write _sea_, _said_, _quoth_, _that_, _long_. A few have un­der­gone con­trac­tion or al­ter­ation, as _hlaford_, now _lord_, _cyn­ing_, now _king_, and _ste­or­bord_, now _star­board_. _Stow_, a place, is now ob­so­lete, ex­cept in lo­cal names; _sty­ccemælum_, stick­meal, has been Nor­man­ised in­to _piece­meal_. In oth­er cas­es new ter­mi­na­tions have been sub­sti­tut­ed for old ones; _huntath_ and _fis­cath_ are now re­placed by _hunt­ing_ and _fish­ing_; while _hunta_ has been su­per­seded by _hunter_. On­ly six words in the pas­sage have died out whol­ly: _buan_, to abide (_bude_); _swithe_, very; _wi­cian_, to dwell; _cirr_, an oc­ca­sion; _fan­di­an_, to en­quire (con­nect­ed with _find_); and _bæcbord_, port, which still sur­vives in French from Nor­man sources. _Dæg_, day, and _ænig_, any, show how ex­ist­ing En­glish has soft­ened the fi­nal _g_ in­to a _y_. But the main dif­fer­ence which sep­arates the mod­ern pas­sage from its an­cient pro­to­type is the con­sis­tent drop­ping of the gram­mat­ical in­flex­ions in _hlaforde_, _Æl­frede_, _eal­ra_, _feawum_, and _fan­di­an_, where we now say, _to his lord_, _of all_, _in few_, and _to en­quire_.

The next pas­sage, from the old En­glish epic of _Be­owulf_, shows the lan­guage in an­oth­er as­pect. Here, as in all po­et­ry, ar­cha­ic forms abound, and the syn­tax is in­ten­tion­al­ly in­volved. It is writ­ten in the old al­lit­er­ative rhythm, de­scribed in the next chap­ter:–

Be­owulf math­elode bearn Ecgth­eowes; Hwæt! we the thas sæ-​lac sunu Healf­denes Leod Scyldin­ga lus­tum bro­hton, Tires to tac­ne, the thu her to-​lo­cast. Ic thæt un-​softe eal­dre gedigde Wigge un­der wætere, we­ore genethde Ear­foth­lice; æt ri­hte wæs Guth getwæfed nymthe mec god scylde.

* * * * *

Be­owulf spake, the son of Ecgth­eow: See! We to thee this sea-​gift, son of Healf­dene, Prince of the Scyld­ings, joy­ful­ly have brought, For a to­ken of glo­ry, that thou here look­est on. That I un­soft­ly, glo­ri­ous­ly ac­com­plished, In war un­der wa­ter: the work I dared, With much labour: right­ly was The bat­tle di­vid­ed, but that a god shield­ed me.

Or, to trans­late more pro­saical­ly:–

“Be­owulf, the son of Ecgth­eow, ad­dressed the meet­ing. See, son of Healf­dene, Prince of the Scyld­ings; we have joy­ful­ly brought thee this gift from the sea which thou be­hold­est, for a proof of our val­our. I ob­tained it with dif­fi­cul­ty, glo­ri­ous­ly, fight­ing be­neath the waves: I dared the task with great toil. Even­ly was the bat­tle de­creed, but that a god af­ford­ed me his pro­tec­tion.”

In this short pas­sage, many of the words are now ob­so­lete: for ex­am­ple, _math­elian_, to ad­dress an as­sem­bly (_con­cionari_); _lac_, a gift; _wig_, war; _guth_, bat­tle; and _leod_, a prince. _Ge-​digde_, _ge-​nethde_, and _ge-​twæfed_ have the now ob­so­lete par­ti­cle _ge_-, which bears much the same sense as in High Ger­man. On the oth­er hand, _bearn_, a bairn; _sunu_, a son; _sæ_, sea; _tacen_, a to­ken; _wæter_, wa­ter; and _we­orc_, work, still sur­vive: as do the verbs _to bring_, _to look_, and _to shield_. _Lust_, plea­sure, whence _lus­tum_, joy­ful­ly, has now re­strict­ed its mean­ing in mod­ern En­glish, but re­tains its orig­inal sense in High Ger­man.

A few lines from the “Chron­icle” un­der the year 1137, dur­ing the reign of Stephen, will give an ex­am­ple of An­glo-​Sax­on in its lat­er and cor­rupt form, caught in the act of pass­ing in­to Chauce­ri­an En­glish:–

This gære for the King | This year fared the King Stephan ofer sæ to Nor­man­di; | Stephen over sea to Nor­mandy; and ther wes un­der | and there he was fan­gen, for­thi thæt hi wen­den | ac­cept­ed [re­ceived as duke] thæt he sculde ben al­suic alse | be­cause that they weened the eom wæs, and for he | that he should be just as his hadde get his tre­sor; ac he | un­cle was, and be­cause he todeld it and scatered sotlice. | had got his trea­sure: but he Mi­cel hadde Hen­ri king | to-​dealt [dis­tribut­ed] and gadered gold and sylver, and | scat­tered it sot-​like [fool­ish­ly]. na god ne dide men for his | Muck­le had King saule tharof. Tha the King | Hen­ry gath­ered of gold and Stephan to Englaland com, | sil­ver; and man did no good tha ma­cod he his gader­ing | for his soul there­of. When æt Ox­ene­ford, and thar he | that King Stephan was come nam the bis­cop Roger of | to Eng­land, then maked he Sere­beri, and Alexan­der | his gath­er­ing at Ox­ford, and bis­cop of Lin­coln, and the | there he took the bish­op Can­cel­er Roger, hise neves, | Roger of Sal­is­bury, and Alexan­der, and dide ælle in prisun, til | bish­op of Lin­coln, and hi iafen up hire cas­tles. | the Chan­cel­lor Roger, his | nephew, and did them all in | prison [put them in prison] | till they gave up their cas­tles.

The fol­low­ing pas­sage from Æl­fric's Life of King Os­wold, in the best pe­ri­od of ear­ly En­glish prose, may per­haps be in­tel­li­gi­ble to mod­ern read­ers by the aid of a few ex­plana­to­ry notes on­ly. _Mid_ means _with_; while _with_ it­self still bears on­ly the mean­ing of _against_:–

“Æfter tham the Au­gusti­nus to Englalande be­com, wæs sum æthele cyn­ing, Os­wold ge-​hat­en [_hight_ or _called_], on North-​hym­bra-​lande, ge-​lyfed swithe on God. Se ferde [went] on his iu­gothe [youth] fram his freon­dum and magum [re­la­tions] to Scot­lande on sæ, and thær sona wearth ge-​ful­lod [bap­tised], and his ge-​fer­an [com­pan­ions] samod the mid him sithe­don [jour­neyed]. Be­twux tham wearth of-​sla­gen [off-​slain] Ead­wine his eam [un­cle], North-​hym­bra cyn­ing, on Crist ge-​lyfed, fram Bryt­ta cyninge, Cead­wal­la ge-​ciged [called, named], and twe­gen his æfter-​gen­gan bin­nan twam gearum [years]; and se Cead­wal­la sloh and to sceame tu­code tha North-​hym­bran leode [peo­ple] æfter heo­ra hlafordes fylle, oth thæt [un­til] Os­wold se eadi­ga his yfel­nysse ad­wæscte [ex­tin­guished]. Os­wold him com to, and him cen­lice [bold­ly] with feaht mid lytlum werode [troop], ac his ge­leafa [be­lief] hine ge-​trymde [en­cour­aged], and Crist him ge-​fyl­ste [helped] to his feon­da [fiends, en­emies] slege.”

It will be no­ticed in ev­ery case that the syn­tac­ti­cal ar­range­ment of the words in the sen­tences fol­lows as a whole the rule that the gov­erned word pre­cedes the gov­ern­ing, as in Latin or High Ger­man, not _vice ver­sa_, as in mod­ern En­glish.

A brief list will show the prin­ci­pal mod­ifi­ca­tions un­der­gone by nouns in the pro­cess of mod­erni­sa­tion. _Stan_, stone; _snaw_, snow; _ban_, bone. _Cræft_, craft; _stæf_, staff; _bæc_, back. _Weg_, way; _dæg_, day; _nægel_, nail; _fu­gol_, fowl. _Gear_, year; _geong_, young. _Fin­ger_, fin­ger; _win­ter_, win­ter; _ford_, ford. _Æfen_, even; _mor­gen_, morn. _Monath_, month; _he­ofon_, heav­en; _heafod_, head. _Fot_, foot; _toth_, tooth; _boc_, book; _freond_, friend. _Modor_, moth­er; _fæder_, fa­ther; _do­htor_, daugh­ter. _Sunu_, son; _wudu_, wood; _caru_, care; _de­nu_, dene (val­ley). _Scip_, ship; _cild_, child; _ce­orl_, churl; _cynn_, kin; _ceald_, cold. Wher­ev­er a word has not be­come whol­ly ob­so­lete, or as­sumed a new ter­mi­na­tion, (_e.g._, _gi­fu_, gift; _mor­gen_, morn-​ing), it usu­al­ly fol­lows one or oth­er of these analo­gies.

The changes which the En­glish lan­guage, as a whole, has un­der­gone in pass­ing from its ear­li­er to its lat­er form, may best be con­sid­ered un­der the two heads of form and mat­ter.

As re­gards form or struc­ture, the lan­guage has been sim­pli­fied in three sep­arate ways. First, the nouns and ad­jec­tives have for the most part lost their in­flex­ions, at least so far as the cas­es are con­cerned. Sec­ond­ly, the nouns have al­so lost their gen­der. And third­ly, the verbs have been sim­pli­fied in con­ju­ga­tion, weak preterites be­ing of­ten sub­sti­tut­ed for strong ones, and dif­fer­en­tial ter­mi­na­tions large­ly lost. On the oth­er hand, the plu­ral of nouns is still dis­tin­guished from the sin­gu­lar by its ter­mi­na­tion in _s_, which is de­rived from the first de­clen­sion of An­glo-​Sax­on nouns, not as is of­ten as­sert­ed, from the Nor­man-​French us­age. In oth­er words, all plu­rals have been as­sim­ilat­ed to this the com­mon­est mod­el; just as in French they have been as­sim­ilat­ed to the fi­nal _s_ of the third de­clen­sion in Latin. A few plu­rals of the oth­er types still sur­vive, such as _men_, _geese_, _mice_, _sheep_, _deer_, _ox­en_, _chil­dren_ and (di­alec­ti­cal­ly) _peasen_. To make up for this loss of in­flex­ions, the lan­guage now em­ploys a larg­er num­ber of par­ti­cles, and to some ex­tent, of aux­il­iaries. In­stead of _wines_, we now say _of a friend_; in­stead of _wine_, we now say _to a friend_; and in­stead of _winum_, we now say _to friends_. En­glish, in short, has al­most ceased to be in­flex­ion­al and has be­come an­alyt­ic.

As re­gards mat­ter or vo­cab­ulary, the lan­guage has lost in cer­tain di­rec­tions, and gained in oth­ers. It has lost many old Teu­ton­ic roots, such as _wig_, war; _rice_, king­dom; _tun­gol_, light; with their deriva­tives, _wigend_, war­rior; _rix­ian_, to rule; _tun­gol-​wite­ga_, as­trologer; and so forth. The rel­ative num­ber of such loss­es to the sur­vivals may be rough­ly gauged from the pas­sages quot­ed above. On the oth­er hand, the lan­guage has gained by the in­cor­po­ra­tion of many Ro­mance words, short­ly af­ter the Nor­man Con­quest, such as _place_, _voice_, _judge_, _war_, and _roy­al_. Some of these have en­tire­ly su­per­seded na­tive old En­glish words. Thus the Nor­man-​French _un­cle_, _aunt_, _cousin_, _nephew_, and _niece_, have whol­ly oust­ed their An­glo-​Sax­on equiv­alents. In oth­er in­stances the Ro­mance words have en­riched the lan­guage with sym­bols for re­al­ly new ideas. This is still more strik­ing­ly the case with the di­rect im­por­ta­tions from the clas­si­cal Greek and Latin which be­gan at the pe­ri­od of the Re­nais­sance. Such words usu­al­ly re­fer ei­ther to ab­stract con­cep­tions for which the En­glish lan­guage had no suit­able ex­pres­sion, or to the ac­cu­rate ter­mi­nol­ogy of the ad­vanced sci­ences. In ev­ery-​day con­ver­sa­tion our vo­cab­ulary is al­most en­tire­ly En­glish; in speak­ing or writ­ing up­on philo­soph­ical or sci­en­tif­ic sub­jects it is large­ly in­ter­mixed with Ro­mance and Græ­co-​Latin el­ements. On the whole, though it is to be re­gret­ted that many strong, vig­or­ous or po­et­ical old Teu­ton­ic roots should have been al­lowed to fall in­to dis­use, it may safe­ly be as­sert­ed that our gains have far more than out­bal­anced our loss­es in this re­spect.

It must nev­er be for­got­ten, how­ev­er, that the whole frame­work of our lan­guage still re­mains, in ev­ery case, pure­ly En­glish–that is to say, An­glo-​Sax­on or Low Dutch–how­ev­er many for­eign el­ements may hap­pen to en­ter in­to its vo­cab­ulary. We can frame many sen­tences with­out us­ing one word of Ro­mance or clas­si­cal ori­gin: we can­not frame a sin­gle sen­tence with­out us­ing words of En­glish ori­gin. The Au­tho­rised Ver­sion of the Bible, “The Pil­grim's Progress,” and such po­ems as Ten­nyson's “Do­ra,” con­sist al­most en­tire­ly of Teu­ton­ic el­ements. Even when the vo­cab­ulary is large­ly clas­si­cal, as in John­son's “Ras­se­las” and some parts of “Par­adise Lost,” the gram­mat­ical struc­ture, the prepo­si­tions, the pro­nouns, the aux­il­iary verbs, and the con­nect­ing par­ti­cles, are all nec­es­sar­ily and pure­ly En­glish. Two ex­am­ples will suf­fice to make this prin­ci­ple per­fect­ly clear. In the first, which is the most fa­mil­iar quo­ta­tion from Shake­speare, all the words of for­eign ori­gin have been print­ed in ital­ics:–

To be, or not to be,–that is the _ques­tion_: Whether 'tis _no­bler_ in the mind to _suf­fer_ The slings and ar­rows of _out­ra­geous for­tune_; Or to take _arms_ against a sea of _trou­bles_, And, by _op­pos­ing_, end them? To die,–to sleep,– No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-​ache, and the thou­sand _nat­ural_ shocks That flesh is _heir_ to,–'tis a _con­sum­ma­tion_ _De­vout­ly_ to be wished. To die,–to sleep;– To sleep! _per­chance_ to dream: ay, there's the rub For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuf­fled off this _mor­tal_ coil, Must give us _pause_: there's the _re­spect_ That makes _calami­ty_ of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The _op­pres­sor's_ wrong, the proud man's _con­tu­me­ly_, The _pangs_ of _de­spised_ love, the law's _de­lay_, The _in­so­lence_ of _of­fice_, and the _spurns_ That _pa­tient mer­it_ of the un­wor­thy takes, When he him­self might his _qui­etus_ make With a bare bod­kin?

Here, out of 167 words, we find on­ly 28 of for­eign ori­gin; and even these are En­glished in their ter­mi­na­tions or ad­juncts. _No­ble_ is Nor­man-​French; but the com­par­ative _no­bler_ stamps it with the Teu­ton­ic mark. _Op­pose_ is Latin; but the par­tici­ple _op­pos­ing_ is true En­glish. _De­vout_ is nat­uralised by the na­tive ad­ver­bial ter­mi­na­tion, _de­vout­ly_. _Op­pres­sor's_ and _de­spised_ take En­glish in­flex­ions. The for­ma­tive el­ements, _or_, _not_, _that_, _the_, _in_, _and_, _by_, _we_, and the rest, are all En­glish. The on­ly com­plete sen­tence which we could frame of whol­ly Latin words would be an im­per­ative stand­ing alone, as, “Ob­serve,” and even this would be En­glish in form.

On the oth­er hand, we may take the fol­low­ing pas­sage from Mr. Her­bert Spencer as a spec­imen of the large­ly La­tinised vo­cab­ulary need­ed for ex­press­ing the ex­act ideas of sci­ence or phi­los­ophy. Here al­so bor­rowed words are print­ed in ital­ics:–

“The _con­sti­tu­tion_ which we _as­sign_ to this _ethe­ri­al medi­um_, how­ev­er, like the _con­sti­tu­tion_ we _as­sign_ to _sol­id sub­stance_, is _nec­es­sar­ily_ an _ab­stract_ of the _im­pres­sions re­ceived_ from _tan­gi­ble_ bod­ies. The _op­po­si­tion_ to _pres­sure_ which a _tan­gi­ble_ body _of­fers_ to us is not shown in one _di­rec­tion_ on­ly, but in all _di­rec­tions_; and so like­wise is its _tenac­ity_. _Sup­pose count­less lines ra­di­at­ing_ from its _cen­tre_ on ev­ery side, and it _re­sists_ along each of these _lines_ and _co­heres_ along each of these _lines_. Hence the _con­sti­tu­tion_ of those _ul­ti­mate units_ through the _in­stru­men­tal­ity_ of which _phe­nom­ena_ are _in­ter­pret­ed_. Be they _atoms_ of _pon­der­able mat­ter_ or _molecules_ of _ether_, the _prop­er­ties_ we _con­ceive_ them to _pos­sess_ are noth­ing else than these _per­cep­ti­ble prop­er­ties ide­alised_.”

In this case, out of 122 words we find no less than 46 are of for­eign ori­gin. Though this large pro­por­tion suf­fi­cient­ly shows the amount of our in­debt­ed­ness to the clas­si­cal lan­guages for our ab­stract or spe­cialised sci­en­tif­ic terms, the ab­so­lute­ly in­dis­putable na­ture of the En­glish sub­stra­tum re­mains clear­ly ev­ident. The tongue which we use to-​day is en­riched by valu­able loan words from many sep­arate sources; but it is still as it has al­ways been, En­glish and noth­ing else. It is the self-​same speech with the tongue of the Sleswick pi­rates and the West Sax­on over-​lords.