and the further assimilation to the Germans of the South, in language as well as customs, is attributed to the annexation of all these counties to the Scottish crown. Here, again, our groundwork of facts is scanty. Nor should it be overlooked, that, although the North-Eastern dialects of Scotland exhibit many Norse words in their vocabulary, the grammar of all of them is as decidedly Anglo-Saxon as that of Yorkshire or Norfolk. This fact has greater importance than we might at first suppose; since the Scandinavian tongues have grammatical peculiarities, distinguishing them clearly from all those of the Teutonic stock. As to the Lothians and other Scottish provinces lying southward of the Forth, no doubt arises. We have learned that they were covered by Anglo-Saxon emigrants: and the descendants of these invaders gradually spread themselves towards the west. It was only in consequence of political occurrences, and not till a considerable time after the invasions, that they were separated from the more southerly Teutonic communities. Further, in the twelfth century and later, the Scottish kings cherished the Saxon institutions and habits with constant eagerness. The speech of these South-Eastern counties, which became that of Scottish literature, was, in its earliest periods, just one of the Anglian or Northumbrian varieties of the Anglo-Saxon. It preserved its original character, and underwent changes closely resembling those which took place in England; and this fact, by the way, is in itself enough to overthrow the old supposition, that the Norman Conquest was the cause which destroyed the AngloSaxon tongue; since the Normans in the Scottish kingdom were always very few, chiefly malcontent barons from the south. In the fourteenth century, when the language of Scotland began to be freely used in metrical composition, it was not at all further distant from the standard English of the time, than were other English dialects which, like the Scottish, were frequently applied to literary uses. 13. Barbour, contemporary with Chaucer, has already been described as having really written in purer English than that which was used in the Canterbury Tales. The Scottish poet's dialect has its closest parallel (and the resemblance is often striking) in the more homely and popular diction of Piers Plowman. The provincial spelling is a mere accident, which must not be allowed to mislead us. We may take, from "The Bruce," the animated panegyric on freedom, often though it has been quoted elsewhere. * *Text from Jamieson's Bruce and Wallace; 1820. 3 14 A! fredome is a noble thing! That at29 hys hart hym drawis to. 21 14. The close likeness of the two tongues did not last very long after the War of Independence. Before the end of the fif 2 Have. 3 Gives; Anglo-Saxon, gifan. • Ease 1 Makes. Lives; Anglo-Saxon, libban; Danish, leven; German, leben. 6 The a for o, so frequent in the Scottish dialect, is Anglo-Saxon, and, as we have seen, lingered long in the English. 7 Nor. 10 Please. 8 Else. 9 Not and nought. See Chaucer's prose. 11 Fail. 12 Yearned, longed for: Anglo-Saxon, geornian, to desire. 13 Over, above. 14 Doom. 17 But. 15 Coupled. 16 Thraldom; Anglo-Saxon, thræl; thirlian, to pierce, drill. 18 Perfectly: Scottish; said to be per-quair, by book: quair is used by Chaucer, and gives our quire (of paper). 19 S- for sch- or sh-, an Anglian peculiarity. 22 See Note 16. 20 Know. 23 Abandoned; nearly French. 21 Prize. 24 To; modern Scottish. It is really good Anglo-Saxon, though less common than to. 25 In Old Scottish spelling (and in Moso-Gothic) quh- answers to the Anglo-Saxon hw-, and the English wh-. 28 Yet? 27 Scottish; much; from the Anglo-Saxon adjective mycel, mycle, great; comparative, mare; superlative, mæst. At, relative, Scottish for that. 28 Live. 29 teenth century, the literary language of Scotland, although it continued to be called English by those who wrote in it, differed widely from that of England, although not so far as to make it difficult of comprehension to an Englishman familiar with Chaucer. The deviation is quite established in the poems of Dunbar, and is made more palpable by the pedantic Latinisms which, as we have learned, now infected all the Scottish poetry, coalescing very badly with the native Teutonic diction. The striking personifications in his masterpiece, "The Daunce," are for several reasons unsuitable as specimens. We are partly indemnified by the opening of the very beautiful poem, "The Thistle and the Rose," which commemorates, in the allegorical manner of similar poems by Chaucer and his French masters, the marriage of James the Fourth with the Princess Margaret of England, celebrated in the year 1503.* 1 Quhen Merch wes with variand' windis past, And lusty May, that mudder is of flouris, In bed at morrow, sleiping as I lay, 66 And halsit11 me, with visage paill and grene: Sé how the lusty morrow dois up spring!" Varying; the Anglo-Saxon present participle in -nde; to be found in Chaucer. 2 Leave of. 6 3 An; Anglo-Saxon and Scottish. From Anglo-Saxon and Old English, lust, pleasure, desire. i. e. Their prayers; "horæ," an ecclesiastical phrase. 7 Red; see Chaucer. 8 Was; Anglo-Saxon, was. 9 See Chaucer's Death of Arcite, Note 12. 10 Looked. "Literally, embraced (from hals, neck); thence saluted. 12 From the spleen, from the heart. 14 Lovers; Anglo-Saxon, lufian, to love. 13 Awake. 15 Slumbering. * Text from Laing's "Poems of William Dunbar;" 1834. Me thocht fresche May befoir my bed up stude, Hevinly of colour, quhyt, reid, broun, and blew,— "Slugird!" scho20 said, "Awalk annone"1 for schame, 16 Forged, fashioned. 17 Embalmed. 18 While, until. 19 Gleams, beams; Anglo-Saxon, leoma, a beam or ray of light; leoman, to shine or gleam. 20 She; common in England in the fourteenth century. 21 Anon. elsewhere, desire. 22 Courage; but meaning, as in Lydgate, and often 23 Glad. CHAPTER IV. THE SOURCES OF THE MODERN ENGLISH TONGUE; AND THEIR COMPARATIVE IMPORTANCE. 1. Two points-The Grammar-The Vocabulary-Doctrine as to each.-GRAMMAR. 2. English Grammar in Substance Anglo-Saxon-Enumeration of Particulars.-3. General Doctrine-Our Deviations in Verbs few-The chief of them-Our Deviations in Nouns and their Allies many-Description of them-Consequences. 4. Position of Modern English among European Tongues-Leading Facts cominon to the History of all-Comparison of the Gothic Tongues with the Classical-Comparison of the English Tongue with both.-VOCABULARY. 5. Glossarial Elements to be Weighed not Numbered-The Principal Words of the English Tongue Anglo-Saxon-Seven Classes of Words from Saxon Roots. 6. Words from Latin Roots-Periods of Introduction-Kinds-Uses. 7. Words from French Roots-Periods of IntroductionKinds and Uses. 8. Words from Greek Roots. 9. Words from Tongues yielding few. 10. Estimate, by Number, of Saxon Words Lost-Remarks. 11. Estimate of the Number of Saxon Words Retained-Proportion as tested by the Dictionaries— Proportion as tested by Specimens from Popular Writers. 1. OUR hasty survey of the Origin and Progress of the English Language has now been carried down to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Its organization may be held to have been by that time complete. The laws determining the changes to be made on words, and regulating the grammatical structure of sentences, had been definitively fixed and were generally obeyed: all that had still to be gained in this particular was an increase of ease and dexterity in the application of the rules. The vocabulary, doubtless, was not so far advanced. It was receiving constant accessions; and the three-and-a-half centuries that have since elapsed have increased our stock of words immensely. But this is a process which is still going on, and which never comes to a stop in the speech of any people: and, the grammar being once thoroughly founded, the effects of glossarial changes are only secondary, until the time arrives when they co-operate with other causes in breaking up a language altogether. In brief, all the alterations which our tongue has suffered since the end of the middle ages, may be regarded as nothing more than changes and developments of Style; that is, as varieties in the manner in which individuals express their meaning, all of them using the same language. Here, therefore, we may endeavour to sum up our results. |