Formation of Germanic States in Britain

88. The Germanic tribes which conquered Britain formed seveM separate kingdoms, which during four centuries struggled with one? another for supremacy: Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wessex, Mercia, East, Anglia, and Northumbria, which consisted of two regions, Bernicia and Deira. In this prolonged struggle it was sometimes Northumbria,' and sometimes Mercia, that would take the upper hand.

In 828 the struggle came to an end with the decisive victory of Wessex. Ecgberht, king of Wessex, subdued Mercia and Northumbria.; Since then kings of Wessex became kings of England, and the capital! of Wessex, Winchester (some 100 kilometers south-west of London) 1 became the capital of England.

Down to the end of the 6th century Anglo-Saxon Britain was! almost entirely isolated from Europe, and particularly, from Rome.I In 597 Pope Gregory I sent a mission to England in order to spread, Christianity among the Germanic conquerors and to include England; into the sphere of his political influence. Christianity also penetrated! into England from Ireland, which had not been invaded by Germanic] tribes. Irish monks had great influence in Northumbria under king! Oswine (642—670). In the 7th century Christianity spread all overj England. The Latin language was at the time an international lan-j guage of the church and of church science in Western Europe. As aj result of new ties with Rome the Latin language was introduced in| England as the language of the church.

This development had an important consequence for the English language: it adopted a considerable number of Latin words which.] were directly or indirectly connected with religious and church no'-] tions.

Writings in Old English

89.' In OE two alphabets were used: the Runic and the Latin! A few "Runic documents have come down to us. We shall mention the] two most widely known ones.

One is "the Ruthwell Cross, a religious poem engraved on a tall stone cross near the village of Ruthwell in South-East Scotland.

The other is the Runic Casket (often called Frank's Casket), made of whalebone, and found in France near the town of Clermont-Ferrand, now in the British Museum in London. The Runic text is a short poem about whaleboneJ

Both these texts are probably of the 9th century.

After the Anglo-Saxons came into contact with Roman culture the Runic alphabet was superseded by the Latin. As the OE sound system differed materially from the Latin, the Latin alphabet proved insufficient to denote all OE sounds. To fill this gap Anglo-Saxon scribes borrowed some letters from the Runic alphabet. In other cases a Latin letter was used to denote several sounds. For example, the letter 3 (a modified form of Latin g) denoted several sounds, and so did the letter c. From the Runic alphabet the letter ]) was taken to denote the sound [6], which was also denoted by В and a special rune for the sound [w].

The oldest English documents available belong to the end of the 7th century; our ideas of the language of the 5th and 6th centuries are based on comparing documents of a later time with data of other languages, mainly Gothic.

90.Tsince the very earliest times there were three main dialects in OE: (1) Northumbrian, spoken by Angles living north of the Hum-ber, (2) Mercian, spoken by Angles between the Humber and the Thames, (3) West-Saxon, the language of the Saxons south of the Thames, (4) Kentish, the language of the Jutes. The rise of Wessex as a political power in the 9th century had its consequences for the West-Saxon dialect: in the course of that century it became the dominating literary language of the epochT?

The West-Saxon dialect is represented by the works of king Alfred (lived 849—900), both original compositions and translations of Latin texts, also by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (till 891Д works of the abbot y^lfric (10th century) and sermons of Wulfstan (early llth century).

_L The Northumbrian dialect: the Runic texts of the Ruthwell Cross and Frank's Casket, translation of the gospels, Caedmon's Hymn and Bede's Dying Song.

The Mercian dialect: Translation of the Psalter (9th century) and hymns.

The Kentish dialect: Translation of Psalms L — LXX and old charters!!

The superiority of the West-Saxon dialect both in quantity and importance of the documents using it confirms its dominating position as the literary language of the period.

The epic poems of the OE period: Beowulf, Genesis, Exodus, Judith, and poems by the monk Gynewulf: Elene, Andreas, Juliana, and others| ^cann°t ^ш the shape they have come down to us be said to belong To any definite dialect. Alongside West-Saxon they contain * number of Anglian forms. It seems that they were originally written

in an Anglian dialect, but in the period of West-Saxon hegemony scribes substituted many Anglian forms by West-Saxon ones.

91. Writings in OE (from the 7th to the llth century) are very
numberous and belong to different kinds of literature.

On the one hand, there is a great variety of prose texts, part of them translations from the Latin, and on the other a number of poems of different genres and sizes.

['Among the prose works, we should first of all note the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, и year-for-year account of the events in English history, starting at 787.~\This seems to have been compiled in the reign of king Alfred, somewhere in the 880s or 890s. The Chronicle is characterized by a very simple syntax, with very little subordination, mainly consisting of brief statements of events which occurred in this or that particular year.

Then there are a number of texts associated, in one way or another, with the name of king Alfred.

92. The work usually called King Alfred's Orosius is a long text
based on the Historia adversus paganos (A History against the Hea
thens by the Spanish monk Paulus Orosius, 5th century). However,
what makes this text particularly valuable for us is king Alfred's own
original additions to the text, containing geographical information
which had just become available to him. The best known of these is
the passage telling of the voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, two.
Scandinavian travellers who arrived in England and told Alfred of
their experiences. Ohthere had rounded the North Cape and sailed
eastward on to what is now called the Kola peninsula and the White
Sea. He had met Finnish tribesmen on his way and was able to con
verse with them.

Wulfstan had chosen a different route. He had sailed to the East along the Baltic and had reached what is now Estonia. He described to Alfred some habits of the "Ests", as he called them. Beside their value as samples of the earliest original OE prose, these passages-have considerable interest for the historian studying Eastern Europe of the Middle Ages.

93. Another translation made either by Alfred himself or on his
orders is that of Bede's Ecclesiastical History~of the English People
(Baeda, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum). Bede (672—735)
gave in his work a detailed account of the early history of England
well into the 8th century. The story of the arrival of the Angles, Sax
ons, and Jutes in Britain in 449 is one of the most famous passages
of the book. Another is the story of the poet Caedmon.

94. Last not least, we mention among Alfred's translations that
of The Pastoral Care (Cura Pastoralis) by Pope Gregory I (ab.
540-604).

IV. MIDDLE ENGLISH

regions. [The relation between the two languages corresponded to that between Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians: they were spoken by the same social layers and had equal rights. The result was a blending of Scandinavian and English dialects/this process being especially intensive in the North and East.

Influence of Scandinavian dialects made itself felt in -two spheres: vocabulary and morphology (see § 297, 345).

 

The Scandinavian Conquest

274. The Scandinavian conquest of England was a great military
and political event, which also influenced the English language.
Scandinavian inroads into England had begun as early as the 8tt
century. The Anglo-Saxons offered the invaders a stubborn resistance,
which is seen in-the narrations of the Chroniclei_ln the late 9th. cen
tury the Scandinavians had occupied the whole of English territory
north of the Thames. In 878 king Alfred made peace with the in
vaders (the so-called Wedmore peace). The territory occupied by the
Scandinavians was to remain in their powejl it was henceforward
called Danelas (literally: "Danish law"). The Scandinavians, ir
their turn, recognized the nominal supremacy of the king of Eng
land.

The northern and eastern parts of England were most thicklj settled _by Scandinavians; there were fewer of them in the central territories. About this very time the Scandinavians invaded Irelanc and occupieij some of its coastal regions.

In the late 10th century war in England was resumed, and in 1013 the whole country fell to the invaders. King yEthelred fled tc Normandy. In 1016 the Danish king Knut (or Canute) became rulei of England. England became part of a vast Scandinavian empire in Northern Europe. Scandinavian power in England lasted until 1042, when it was overthrown, and the power of the Old English nobility was restored under king Edward the Confessor/]

275. The Scandinavian conquest had far-reaching consequences
for the English language.LThe Scandinavian dialects spoken by the
invaders belonged to the North Germanic languages and their pho
netic and grammatical structure was similar to that of Old English.
They had the same morphological categories; strong and weak de
clension of substantives, „the strong substantives falling into several
types, according to the stem vowel; strong and weak declension of
adjectives; seven classes of strong and three classes of weak verbs.

Close relationship between English and Scandinavian dialects made mutual 'understanding without translation quite possible] On the other hand, mass settlement of Scandinavians in Northern"and Eastern England gave their language a great influence in these

The Norman Conquest

276. [The Norman conquest of England began in 1066] It proved
to be a turning-point in English history and had a considerable in
fluence on the English' language. The Normans were by origin a
Scandinavian tribe (Norman < Norfman). In the 9th century they
began inroads" on the northern coast of France and occupied the ter
ritory on both shores of the Seine estuary. Under a treaty concluded
in 912 with the Norman chief Rollo, the French king Charles the
Simple ceded to the Normans this stretch of the coast, which since
then came to be called Normandy.QDuring the century and a half
between the Normans' settlement in France and their invasion of
England they had undergone a powerful influence of French culture.
Mixing with the local population, they adopted the French language
and in the mid-eleventh century, in spite of their Scandinavian ori
gin, they were bearers of French feudal culture and of the French
languagej¹ _

pn 1066 king Edward the Confessor diecQiWilliam, Duke of Normandy, who had long claimed the English "throne, assembled an army with the help of Norman barons, landed in England, and routed the English troops under king'Harold near Hastings on October 14, 1066.-|In the course of a few years, putting down revolts in various parts of the country, the Normans became masters of England.[The ruling, class of Anglo-Saxon nobility vanished almost completely: some of them perished in battles and uprisings, others were executed, the remainder emigrated. This nobility was replaced by Norman barons, who spoke French, namely, its Norman dialecQ Thus, as a result of the conquest England came to be ruled by a foreign ruling class.

[William confiscated the estates of the Anglo-Saxon nobility and distributed them among the Norman barons. All posts in the church, from abbots upwards, were given to persons of French culture. Frenchmen arrived in England in great numbers. Among them were' merchants, soldiers, teachers, seeking for a new field of activity:] During the reign of William the Conqueror (1066—1087) about 200 000 Frenchmen settled in England. U"his influx lasted for about two centuries?'The civil war in the reign of king Stephen (1135— 1154) and the anarchy caused by it favoured the influx of Norman barons, who seized English estates. When king John Lackland lost

SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE

298. A considerable part of the vocabulary was common to Eng
lish and to Scandinavian dialects. In many words the root was the
same, while endings were different. In the following list we show the
OE words and their Scandinavian counterparts.

OE Scandinavian	OE
dom 'judgement',	domr	sunu 'son'
'sentence'
fisc 'fish'	fiskr	heorte 'heart'
cynins 'king'	konongr	tlma 'time'
stan 'stone'	steinn	ox a 'ox'
af> 'oath'	ei|>r	fot,.'foot'
hlaford 'lord'	lavardr	faeder 'father'
wind 'wind'	vindr	modor 'mother'
das3 'day'	dagr	seoc 'sick'
heafod 'head'	hofod	сиб 'known*
treo 'tree'	tre	bltan 'bite'
cynn 'kin'	kyn	fleotan 'fleet'
wis 'wise'	viss	зеобап 'seethe'
s66 'true'	sa5r	bindan 'bind'
hal 'whole'	heill	weorban 'become'
lytel 'little'	Htell	beran 'bear'
micel, mycel 'large'	mikell	stelan 'steal'
3earu 'ready'	gerr	cwe5an 'say'
3od 'good'	godr	sittan 'sit'
ic Т	ek	faran 'go'
bidan 'wait'	bida	hebban 'lift'
ЗПрап 'catch'	gripa	standan 'stand'
аэз 'egg'	egg	hatan 'call'
3iefu 'gift'	giof	feallan 'fall'

Scandinavian srnir

hiarta

time

oxe, uxe

fotr

fader

moder

siukr

ku5r

bita

fllota

зюба

binda

ver6a

bera

stela

kue6a

sitia

fara

hefia

standa

heita

falla

299. Another part of Scandinavian vocabulary did not correspond
to English. It is in this sphere that Scandinavian dialects influenced
English. This influence covered a considerable semantic field, in
cluding both political terms and everyday words.

С Among these words were: lagu (MnE law), wrang (MnE wrong), husbonda (MnE husband) 'master of the house', sister, casten (MnE cast), callen (MnE call), taken (MnE take), feologa (MnE fellow), skye (MnE sky) 'cloud', 'sky',13

HEven the 3rd person plural personal pronoun was taken over from Scandinavian into English. UThe Scandinavian pronoun fieir penetrated into English and, superseding the OE pronoun hie, became ME they.'In a similar way the genitive of the Scandinavian pronoun, fieirra, superseded the native hira and became ME their3 and the dative feim superseded the native him and became ME

 

Grammatical Structure

MORPHOLOGY The Substantive

134.\Three grammatical categories are represented in the OE substantives, just as in many other Germanic and Indo-European languages: gender, number, and case. Of these three, gender is a

lexico-grammatical category, that is, every substantive with all its forms belongs to tne gender (masculine, feminine or neuter). The other two are purely grammatical categories: substantives are inflected for number and case. There are two numbers: singular and plural, and four cases: nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative.¹? In representing the system of OE substantive morphology, two approaches are possible, and both have been tried out.

One is, to regard the OE language as a stage in the historical development of Germanic languages. From this point of view, such types of substantives as a-stems, o-stems, i-stems, u-stems, n-stems, etc. are distinguished, although there is little in the OE forms themselves to show any traces of these stems. This is the traditional

approach.

The other view takes the OE substantive forms as such, purely synchronically, and classifies them according to the facts immediately visible in the OE texts. This more modern view is to be found, for example, in An Old English Grammar by Randolph Quirk and C. L. Wrenn, published in London in 1955.

Each of the two views has much to recommend itself, and it would be futile to try to disprove either one or the other.

In this book we shall mainly follow the traditional (diachronic) view, but we shall also give a sketch of the classification resulting from the synchronic approach.

According to the traditional view, then,uwe distinguish, in the first place, between strong declension and weak declension of substantives. The strong declension includes nouns with vocalic stems_ (-а-, -о-, -i-, -u-), and the weak declension comprises n-stems only.^? There are also some minor types, which we shall consider after the strong and the weak declensions.

THE STRONG DECLENSION ^v

a-stems²

135. a-stems may be either masculine or neuter. The difference between the two genders is only seen in the nominative, and accusative plural always had the ending -as. In the neuter substantives, the ending depends on two factors: on the number of syllables and on the quantity (shortness or length) of the root syllable. In mono-

¹ As demonstrative pronouns and adjectives agreeing with a substantive some
times take the form of the instrumental case, it would perhaps be quite justified to
recognize an instrumental case in substantives, too (it would always be the same
as the dative). But we will adhere to the traditional view, which assumes a four-
case system in substantives.

² Germanic a-stems are sometimes regarded as o-stems, because their -a- cor
responds to IE -о-. This approach is found, for instance in A. I. Smirnitsky's Reader
in the History of the English Language. Since this is a matter of terminology rather
than of the essence of things, it is not worth arguing about. It is only essential to
avoid confusion in this matter.

syllabic words with a short root syllable the nom. and ace. plural have the ending -u; in monosyllabic substantives with a long root syllable these cases have no ending at all. In dissyllabic substantives with a short root syllable these cases have no ending; in dissyllables with a long root syllable they have the ending -u. These differences obviously depend on rhythmical causes.

Singular

Masculine

Neuter Neuter

Monosyllabic Dissyllabic

Short Long Short Long

syllable syllable syllable syllable

Nom. stan 'stone' Gen. stanes Dat. stane Ace. stan

scip 'ship' ban 'bone' reced 'house' nleten 'ox'

scipes banes recedes nietenes

scipe bane recede nletene

scip ban reced meten

Plural ban bana banum ban

nietenu nietena nletenum nietenu

reced receda recedum reced

scipu scipa scipum scipu-

Nom. stanas

Gen. stana

Dat. stanum

Ace. stanas

Substantives having the vowel ae in the singular change it into a in the plural. This depends on the difference in phonetic environment-between the two numbers: in the singular the root vowel is either in a closed syllable (in the nominative and accusative), or else there is a front vowel in the ending (in the genitive and dative; in the plural, on the other hand, the ending always has a back vowel (u or a).

Masculine

Singular Nom. daas 'day'

Plural

Neuter Singular Plural

fast 'vessel' fatu

Gen. Dat. Ace. daej

fsetes fata

faete fatum

fast fatu

In substantives ending in -f and -£ these consonants become voiced before a case ending. Thus, the genitive singular of the masculine substantive peep 'path' is psefies with a voiced [6]; the consonant is also voiced in the plural papas. The genitive singular of the neuter substantive llf 'life' is lifes with a voiced [v], and the consonant is also voiced in the genitive plural Ufa. This change is not reflected in the spelling, as in OE [f] and [v], [6] and [6] were positional allophones of the same phoneme, not separate phonemes (compare §286 for ME).

3 Б, А, Ильиш

The Pronoun

148. ^There are several types of pronouns in OE: personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, definite, indefinite, negative,

and relative. "Л

PERSONAL

149. In OE, as in Gothic, there are besides singular and plural personal pronouns, also dual pronouns for the 1st and 2nd persons.

¹ Randolph Quirk and C. L. Wrenn. An Old English Grammar. London, 1955, p. 19—31.

The Adjective

159,LForms of the OE adjective express the categories of gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), number (singular and plural), and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and, partly, instrumental).

Every adjective can be declined according to the strong and to the weak declension. The use of this or that declension depends on the conditions stated above, with reference to all Old Germanic languages (see § 53 ff.). 1

The Verb

STRONG VERBS

, С

1751 Strong verbs are divided into seven classes, according to vowel'gradation. In classes I—V the gradation system is based on the following principle: the first vowel is found in the infinitive and in the present forms, the second vowel in the 1st and 3rd person singular, past indicative, the third in the 2nd person singular and in the plural past indicative and the past subjunctive, the fourth in_Lhe 2nd participle. The 6th and 7th classes have a different system. '_j

Some verbs, besides gradation, also have so-called grammatical alternation (German grammatischer Wechsel), which was accounted for by Verner's law (see § 26); one consonant is found in the infinitive and in.the past singular, while the other is found in the past plural and in the second participle/^/

Verbs having grammatical alternation are marked by a dagger (t).

Infinitive

 

Past

Past

Second

Singular Plural Participle Class I

 

wrltan 'write'

eo

beodan 'offer' tceosan 'choose'

a

wrat sna}}

Class

ea

bead ceas

II

i

writon snidon

u

budon curon

i

writen sniden

о

boden coren

Class III

(a) before "nasal -f- consonant"
i a(o) u u

drincan 'drink' dranc druhcon druncen

(b) before "t + consonant"__

I ea u о

helpan 'help', healp hulpon holpen

¹ In numbering the classes of strong verbs, we follow the order adopted in most works on Old Germanic languages. Some authors have a different order. Thus, Henry Sweet in his A New English Grammar (vol. I, Oxford, 1892) calls 1st class that which is our 7th, 2nd — 6th, 3rd — 3rd, 4th — 4th, 5th — 5th, 6th — ' 1st, 7th — 2nd. In Rene Houchon's Histoire de la langue anglaise (vol. I, Paris, 1923) the 1st class is our 5th, 2nd —4th, 3rd-3rd, 4th—1st, 5th — 2nd, 6th —6th, 7th —7th. Thus only the 3rd class is the same in all systems.

WEAK VERBS r—

ISl^There are three classes of weak verbs in OE, corresponding to classes I — III of weak verbs in GothicJClass IV of Gothic verbs (the type fullnan, fuUnoda, fullnodedum 'get filled') has no counterpart in other Germanic languages.

jJEvery weak verb is characterized by three forms: infinitive, past tense, and second participle. As the past plural can be derived from the past singular by replacing the -e-ending of the singular by the -on-ending of the plural, there is no need to quote the past plural as one of the main forms of the verb. The stem of the second participle is always identical with that of the past tensej

CLASS I

Regular Verbs

182. The r-egular class I verbs always have mutation of their root vowel due to an original i-element in the suffix.

I) Verbs with a long root vowel drop the -i- no matter what consonant followed the root vowel.

(II a) Verbs with a short root vowel followed by -r- keep the -i-, and the -r- is not lengthened. (II b) Verbs with a short root vowel followed by a consonant other than г drop the -i- and'their.consonant is lengthened (West Germanic consonant lengthening, see § 36).

Infinitive Past Second participle

(I) deman 'judge' demde demed

hieran 'hear', hlerde hlered

(Ha) nerian 'save' nerede nered

styrian 'stir' styrede styred

(lib) fremman 'commit' fremede fremed

cnyssan 'push' cnysede cnysed

When the -d- of the suffix is preceded by a voiceless consonant it changes into -t-; in the second'participle both -t and -ed are found.

cepan 'keep' cepte cept, ceped 5retan 'greet' jrette згёЧ, sreted

In the latter half of the 14th century victory of English becar evident: French' lost one position after another. Buf only in the 15t century did it finally disappear from English social life.

280. In the struggle between the two languages there are sor important dates, marking its successive stages.

[_The first English kings after the conquest did not know the lish language. Henry IV (1399—1413) was the first king whos mother tongue was English. After the conquest Anglo-Saxon laws were first translated into Latin, then into French. French was also the language teachers used in schools. Official and private letters, agreements, and other documents were written in Latin in the first centuries after the conquest. In the 13th century letters written in French appear; isolated letters in French are found as late as 1440. Courts of law also used French in their procedures; parliamentary busjness was conducted in French, jj

1A symptom of the rise of English came in 1258, when Henry III addressed the population of the country in a Proclamation written in English (the London dialect]^

In mid-14th century the influence of English rose. In 1362 (under king Edward III) Parliament, acting on a petition of the City of London, ruled that courts of law should conduct their business in English, as "French was too little known". In the same year English was first used in Parliament itself. About this very time French was replaced by English as the language in which teaching was conducted in schools] Thus, by the end of the 14th century supremacy of Anglo-Norman came to an end, though some scattered remains of it stayed on till a much later time, and[lsolated French formulas have survived until the present, such as the motto on the British coat-of-arms: "Dieu et mon droit" ("God and my right"). J

The victory of English was due to the rise of social layers that spoke, it — the gentry and the town bourgeoisie, which took the upper hand in the struggle against the feudal top layer of society.

Rise of the London Dialect

281. Hand in hand with this process there developed another, viz., \the rise of a national language based on the London dialect. Its cause was the great shifts in social structure characterizing the English of the 14th century.

It was the time when new elements made themselves felt inside the feudal society — the town merchants, bearers of the new social structure which was to replace feudalism^Growth of commerce and industry, development, of money circulation — these were the manifestations of social changes. They marked the end of feudal scattered economy and formation of wider economic ties between various parts of the country-Д

138 -.

These economic and political acts exercised a decisive influence on the language situation in England.tUnder the new social structure which was asserting itself the existence of many separate' dialects whose speakers did not understand one another could not last. New social relations created the need for a unified national language standing above dialects and equally intelligible in all parts of the country? But they did not merely create the need: they also created the conditions for its realization- The problem of a united national language became urgent, Such was the other aspect of linguistic changes in this «poch.

282. un the 14th century there were three main groups of dialects in English: Northern, Midland, and SouthernTlThe boundary line between North and Midland was the Humber river, that between Midland and South, ran approximately along the Thames.

ГГЬе dialects differed from each other by essential phonetic and morphological feature^ These differences corresponded to the territorial position of the dialects: discrepancies between the extreme dialects were greater than those between each of the extremes and the Midland.

John Trevisa, translator of Ranulphus Higden's Polychronicon, says:

Men of £e est wi£ men of f>e west, as it were under fe same partye of hevene, acorde|j more in sownynge of speche, £an men of fie norf» wi|) men of |зе sou^e. Therfore it is, ^at Mercii, p"at bep" men of myddel Englond, as it were partyners wif> fje endes, understondef) better £e sydelangagis, nor])eren and norfieren, f»an norp"eren and soferen undirstondi^ eip"er o|>er.

'Men of the East with men of the West, as it were under the same part of heaven, agree more in pronunciation of speech, than men of the North with men of the South. Therefore the Mercians, who are men of Middle England, as it were partners with the ends, understand the side languages, Northern and Southern, better than Northerners and Southerners understand one another'.

Then Trevisa goes on to quote the following statement by William of Malmesbury (former half of the 12th century): '

Alle |>e langage^ of Norp"humbres, and specialiche at ^orke, is so scharp, slittenge and frotynge and unschape, £at we sou'p'eren men may fat language unnep'e understonde.

'All the language of the Northumbrians, especially at York, is so sharp, shrill, grating, and unshapely, that we Southerners can hardly understand that language'.

283.^-A special position among the dialects belonged to the dialect of London, which after the Norman conquest became the capital of England. London is situated on the Thames, thus, it lies on the boundary line between the Midland and. the Southern dialects^ In the 13th century it already showed a mixture of Midland and Southern

elements, with the latter prevailing. As time passed, Midland elements grew at the expense of Southern ones.

Towards the end of the 14th century London dialect became influential in other parts of the country. This was due to the growth of its importance as an economic and political centre.

London's geographical position was extremely favourable for a quick growth of its political importance and its role as the birthplace of a national language.uMany roads along which England's internal trade was conducted crossed in London. Owing to the great depth of the Thames, sea ships could easily reach London, and it became a centre of the country's trade with the continent. London's role as a trade centre attracted many people from different parts of the country and paved the way for elements of other dialects to penetrate into London English..'

[Thus, the London dialect, which became the base of the national English language, was a complex formation, reflecting various influences connected with the social and political life of the periocPIt contained, alongside East Midland, also South-Eastern (Kentish) and partly South-Western elements.

The London dialect of those centuries is represented by several important documents: Henry Ill's Proclamation of 1258, poems by Adam Davy (early 14th century), the works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340—1400), John Gower (1325—1408), and John Wycliffe (1.320— 1384) Л Analysis of these documents shows that East Midland elements gradually rose at the expense of South-Eastern опез.

Thus, in the course of the 14th century the ending -eth of the present indicative plural was superseded by the ending -en, typical of Midland dialects. The nominative case of the 3rd person plural personal pronoun hii was superseded by they (of the Midland dialects; the form is of Scandinavian origin, see § 298); the prefix y-from OE 3e- of the second participle was gradually dropped, etc. Towards the end of the century the London dialect had arisen as a type of language essentially corresponding to the Midland dialects. It became the base of the national language.

284. Some 19th-century scholars ' were inclined to ascribe a very great role in the formation of the national language to Chaucer. They thought that Chaucer had for the first time united various elements and laid the foundations of the national language. This view, as was shown by later investigations, was very much exaggerated. Chaucer's merit is that of having made a masterly use of the London dialect, not of having created it. "The dialect of London would, in any case, have become, nay, it was already becoming, the chief form of English used in writings of every kind, and that from the pressure of political, economic, and social factors; but there can be no doubt that the process was greatly hastened, so far as pure literature is

¹ For example, B. Ten Brink. Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst. Leipzig, 1884. 140

302. Many French words, as was stated above, were connected with the life of the ruling class, the French nobility. We can state here several main semantic spheres of French words:

£~(1) Government, the court, and jurisdiction: prince, baron, noble, governen, government, royal, court, justice, judge, condemnen, ac-quiten (MnE acquit), sentence. However, the words king and queen survived and were not replaced by their French synonyms.

(2) Army and military life: werre (MnE war), army, bataille
(MnE battle), regiment, lance, mail, castle, banner, harness, siege,
victory, defeat.

(3) Religion and church: religion, saint, frere (MnE friar), preyen
(MnE pray), sermon, conscience, cloistre, chapel.

(4) Town professions: bocher (MnE butcher), peintre (MnE
painter), tailor. However, words of OE origin are used to denote
country professions: miller, shoemaker, shepherd, smith.

(5) Art notions: art, colour, figure, image, column, ornament.

(6) Amusements: plesir (MnE pleasure), leysir (MnE leisure),
ese (MnE ease), feste (MnE feast), dinner, soper (MnE supper),
rosten (MnE roast), deintee (MnE dainty)^

Many other words were also taken over, which were not connected with any specific semantic sphere, suchas: air, place, coveren, river, large, change, and a number of others. —

Some words taken over in that period did not survive in the living language; thus, the substantive amity, which is still found in Shakespeare (about 1600), gave way to the native English word friendship; the substantive moiety (also found in Shakespeare) gave way to the native word half, etc.

¹ At the same time the opposite process took place: English words were adopted into the Anglo-Norman language. This is a question of the history of French dialects,

nations, are compelled to abandon their own language and to construe their lessons and their subjects in French, and have done so since the Normans first came into England. Also gentlemen's children are taught to speak French from the time they are rocked in their cradle and can speak and play with a child's toy'.

CThe decline of English was reflected in literature. During the 12th and the early 13th century literature in English was on the decline. This was a time when French-language literature flourished in England (see § 314)/]

278. The Norman conquest put an end to the dominating position of the West Saxon literary language. In the 12th and 13th centuries all English dialects were on an equal footing and independent of each other. In some of them, especially in the North, Scandinavian influence on the vocabulary became more pronounced.

Under such circumstances, with two languages spoken in the country, they were bound to struggle with each other, and also to influence each other. This process lasted for three centuries — the 12th, 13th, and 14th. Its results were twofold: (1) the. struggle for supremacy between French and English ended in favour of English, but (2) the English language emerged from this struggle in a considerably changed condition: its vocabulary was enriched by a great number of French words, while its grammatical structure underwent material changes. -