The English Language Part 106

What--whilke way is he goon? he gan to crie.

The wyf come lepynge _in_ at a ren; She saide--Allas, youre hors goth to the fen With wylde mares, as faste as he may go.

Unthank come on this hand that _band_ him so-- And he that _bet_ sholde have knet the reyne.

Alas! quod John, Alayn, for Criste's peyne, Lay down thi swerde, and I _wil_ myn alswa; I is ful _swift_--G.o.d wat--as is a ra-- By G.o.ddes _herte_ he sal nought scape us bathe.

Why ne hadde thou put the capel in the lathe?

Il hayl, by G.o.d, Aleyn, thou _is_ fonne."

"Excepting the obsolete forms _hethen_ (hence), _swa_, _lorn_, _whilke_, _alswa_, _capel_--all the above provincialisms are still, more or less, current in the north-west part of Yorks.h.i.+re. _Na_, _ham_(e), _fra_, _banes_, _attanes_, _ra_, _bathe_, are pure Northumbrian. _w.a.n.g_ (cheek or temple) is seldom heard, except in the phrase _w.a.n.g tooth_, _dens molaris_.

_Ill_, adj., for _bad_--_lathe_ (barn)--and _fond_ (foolish)--are most frequently and familiarly used in the West Riding, or its immediate borders."

Now this indicates a cla.s.s of writings which, in the critical history of our local dialect, must be used with great caution and address. An imitation of dialect may be so lax as to let its only merit consist in a deviation from the standard idiom.

In the Lear of Shakspeare we have speeches from a Kentish clown. Is this the dialect of the character, the dialect of the writer, or is it some conventional dialect appropriated to theatrical purposes? I think the latter.

In Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub, one (and more than one of the characters) speaks thus. His residence is the neighbourhood of London, Tottenham Court.

Is it no sand? nor b.u.t.termilk? if't be, Ich 'am no zive, or watering-pot, to draw Knots in your 'casions. If you trust me, zo-- If not, _pra_forme 't your zelves, '_C_ham no man's wife, But resolute Hilts: you'll vind me in the b.u.t.try.

_Act_ I. _Scene_ 1.

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I consider that this represents the dialect of the neighbourhood of London, not on the strength of its being put in the mouth of a man of Tottenham, but from other and independent circ.u.mstances.

Not so, however, with the provincialisms of another of Ben Jonson's plays, the Sad Shepherd:--

---- shew your sell Tu all the sheepards, bauldly; gaing amang hem.

Be mickle in their eye, frequent and fugeand.

And, gif they ask ye of Eiarine, Or of these claithes; say that I ga' hem ye, And say no more. I ha' that wark in hand, That web upon the luime, sall gar em thinke.

_Act_ II. _Scene_ 3.

The scene of the play is Sherwood Forest: the language, however, as far as I may venture an opinion, is not the language from which the present Nottinghams.h.i.+re dialect has come down.

-- 691. _Caution._--Again, the word _old_, as applied to language, has a double meaning.

The language of the United States was imported from England into America in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The language of South Australia has been introduced within the present generation. In one sense, the American English is older than the Australian. It was earliest separated from the mother-tongue.

The language, however, of America may (I speak only in the way of ill.u.s.tration, and consequently hypothetically), in the course of time, become the least old of the two; the word _old_ being taken in another sense. It may change with greater rapidity. It may lose its inflections. It may depart more from the structure of the mother-tongue, and preserve fewer of its _old_ elements. In this sense the Australian (provided that it has altered least, and that it retain the greatest number of the _old_ inflections) will be the older tongue of the two.

Now what may be said of the language of two countries, may be said of the dialects of two districts. The one dialect may run its changes apace; the other alter but by degrees. {545} Hence, of two works in two such dialects, the one would appear older than the other, although in reality the two were cotemporary.

Hence, also, it is a lax expression to say that it is the old forms (the archaisms) that the provincial dialects retain. The provincial forms are archaic only when the current language changes more rapidly than the local idiom. When the local idiom changes fastest, the archaic forms belong to the standard mode of speech.

The provincial forms, _goand_, _slepand_, for _going_ and _sleeping_, are archaic. Here the archaism is with the provincial form.

The forms _almost_, _horses_, _nought but_, contrasted with the provincialisms _ommost_, _hosses_, _n.o.bbot_, are archaic. They have not been changed so much as they will be. Here the archaism (that is, the nearer approach to the older form) is with the standard idiom. A sequestered locality is preservative of old forms. But writing and education are preservatives of them also.

-- 692. With these preliminaries a brief notice of the English dialects, in their different stages, may begin.

_The districts north of the Humber._--There is so large an amount of specimens of the dialects of this area in the Anglo-Saxon stage of our language, the area itself so closely coincides with the political division of the kingdom of Northumberland, whilst the present arrangement (more or less provisional) of the Anglo-Saxon dialects consists of the divisions of them into the, 1, West-Saxon; 2, Mercian; and 3, Northumbrian, that it is best to give a general view of the whole tract before the minuter details of the different counties which compose them are noticed. The _data_ for the Northumbrian division of the Anglo-Saxon dialects are as follows:--

1. _Wanley's Fragment of Caedmon._--The north-east of Yorks.h.i.+re was the birth-place of the Anglo-Saxon monk Caedmon. Nevertheless, the form in which his poems in full have come down to us is that of a West-Saxon composition.

This indicates the probability of the original work having first been re-cast, and afterwards lost. Be this as it may, the {546} following short fragment has been printed by Wanley, from an ancient MS., and by Hickes from Bede, Hist. Eccl., 4, 24, and it is considered, in the first form, to approach or, perhaps, to represent the Northumbrian of the original poem.

1. 2.

_Wanley._ _Hickes._

Nu seylun hergan Nu we sceolan herigean Herfaen-ricaes uard, Heofon-rices weard, Metudes maecti, Metodes mihte, End his modgethanc. And his modgethanc.

Uerc uuldur fadur, Weorc wuldor-faeder, Sue he uundra gihuaes, Sva he wundra gewaes, Eci drictin, Ece driten, Ord stelidae. Ord onstealde.

He aerist scopa, Ne ['ae]rest scop, Elda barnum, Eoran bearnum, Heben til hrofe; Heofon to rofe; Haleg scepen: Halig scyppend: Tha mittungeard, Da middangeard, Moncynnaes uard, Moncynnes weard, Eci drictin, Ece drihten, aefter tiaae, aefter teode, Firum foldu, Firum foldan, Frea allmectig. Frea almihtig.

_Translation._

Now we should praise For earth's bairns, The heaven-kingdom's preserver, Heaven to roof; The might of the Creator, Holy shaper; And his mood-thought. Then mid-earth, The glory-father of works, Mankind's home, As he, of wonders, each Eternal Lord, Eternal Lord, After formed, Originally established. For the homes of men, He erst shaped, Lord Almighty.

2. _The death-bed verses of Bede._

Fore the neidfaerae, Before the necessary journey, Naenig uuiurthit No one is Thoc-snotturra Wiser of thought Than him tharf sie Than he hath need To ymbhycganne, To consider, {547} Aer his hionongae, Before his departure, Huaet, his gastae, What, for his spirit, G.o.daes aeththa yflaes, Of good or evil, aefter deothdaege, After the death-day, Doemid uuieorthae. Shall be doomed.

From a MS. at St. Gallen; quoted by Mr. Kemble, _Archaeologia_, vol. xxviii.

3. _The Ruthwell Runes._--The inscription in Anglo-Saxon Runic letters, on the Ruthwell Cross, is thus deciphered and translated by Mr. Kemble:--

. . . . . . . mik. . . . . . . me.

Riiknae kyningk The powerful King, Hifunaes hlafard, The Lord of Heaven, Haelda ic ne daerstae. I dared not hold.

Bismerede ungket men, They reviled us two, Ba aetgaed[r]e, Both together, Ik (n)ibaedi bist(e)me(d) I stained with the pledge of crime.

. . . . geredae . . . . prepared Hinae gamaeldae Himself spake Estig, a he walde Benignantly when he would An galgu gistiga Go up upon the cross, Modig fore Courageously before Men, . . . . . Men . . . . .

Mid stralum giwundaed, Wounded with shafts, Alegdun hiae hinae, They laid him down, Limwerigne. Limb-weary.

Gistodun him . . . They stood by him.

Krist waes on rodi; Christ was on cross.

Hwerae ther fusae Lo! there with speed Fearran cwomu From afar came aeilae ti laenum. n.o.bles to him in misery.

Ic that al bih (eold) I that all beheld . . . . . sae (...) . . . . . . . . . .

Ic w(ae)s mi(d) ga(l)gu I was with the cross ae (. . . .) rod . ha . . . . . . . . . . . .

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"The dialect of these lines is that of Northumberland in the seventh, eighth, and even ninth centuries. The first peculiarity is in the _ae_ for _e_ in the oblique cases, and which I have observed in the cotemporary MS.

of Cuberht's letter at St. Gallen. This, which is strictly organic, and represents the uncorrupted Gothic genitive in _-as_, and dative in _-a_, as well as the Old Saxon forms of the substantive, is evidence of great antiquity. But that which is, perhaps, the most characteristic of the Northumbrian dialect is the formation of the infinitive in _-a_ and _-ae_, instead of _-an_ (_haeldae_, _gistiga_). The Durham Book has, I believe, throughout but one single verb, which makes the infinitive in _-an_, and that is the anomalous word _bean_=_to be_; even _wosa_ and _wiortha_ following the common rule. The word _ungket_ is another incontrovertible proof of extreme antiquity, having, to the best of my knowledge, never been found but in this pa.s.sage. It is the dual of the first personal p.r.o.noun _Ic_, and corresponds to the very rare dual of the second personal p.r.o.noun _incit_, which occurs twice in Caedmon."[78]

4. _The Cotton Psalter._--This is a Latin Psalter in the Cotton collection, accompanied by an Anglo-Saxon interlineation. Place uncertain. Time, ninth century or earlier. The following points of difference between this and the West-Saxon are indicated by Mr. Garnett, Phil. Soc. No. 27.

COTTON PSALTER. WEST-SAXON.

Boen, _prayer_ Ben.