Mugglestone - The Oxford History of English

28 terry hoad

There has been disagreement as to whether or not this indicates a particularly close relationship between Old Frisian and Old English. It is known that in Proto-Germanic the vowel in such words was æ¯ . If, as some scholars think, West Germanic as a whole Wrst changed this vowel to a¯, and in Old Frisian and Old English it subsequently recovered something like its original sound, that may suggest a close connection between those two languages. Linguists look on ‘shared innovations’ as having some value for indicating relationships between languages. If, on the other hand, Old Frisian and Old English have merely preserved the Proto-Germanic vowel unchanged, along with Gothic, while the other languages have innovated with a¯, the similarity between Old Frisian and Old English may be just a matter of coincidence. Linguists do not treat ‘shared retentions’ as normally of much help in determining relationship.

One important grammatical similarity between Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon is to be found in the system of personal pronouns. For the first and second persons singular (‘I’ and ‘you’), Gothic, Old Norse, and Old High German have diVerent forms for the accusative case (direct object: ‘Please help me’, ‘My friend saw you’) and the dative case (indirect object: ‘Send me [¼ to me] a letter’, or with a preposition: ‘The man gave the book to you’). In contrast, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, and Old English have just one form:

However, accusative forms mec and þec are also found in some dialects of Old English, and the alternation between accusative me¯, þe¯, and mec, þec could result either from both forms having been brought to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, or

preliminaries: before english 29

from mec, þec having been the only accusative forms brought with them and dative me¯, þe¯ having taken over that function after the settlement. Old Saxon also has, relatively infrequently, accusative mik, thik.

Once the individual Indo-European languages had begun to take separate form, the possibility arose that words would be borrowed from one language into another, as has happened in much more recent times as English has been carried around the globe. Identifying borrowings at a very early date (as distinct from two languages having each developed the same word from their common source) is usually a very uncertain business, and caution is needed in drawing any conclusions from supposed cases. An example which has been accepted by many scholars is the word which appears in Gothic as the noun reiks ‘ruler’, and both there and in the other Germanic languages as the adjective ‘powerful’ (Old Norse rı´kr, Old High German rı¯hhi, Old Saxon rı¯ki, Old Frisian rı¯ke, Old English rı¯ce; the word is the same as modern English rich). There exist elsewhere in IndoEuropean the corresponding forms Latin re¯x and Old Irish rı´ (‘king’). The vowel -¯ı- in Gothic reiks, etc. (Gothic ei represents ¯ı), makes it easier to explain the Germanic word as having been borrowed from an early Celtic form *rı¯gs than as its having developed independently in Germanic from the same Indo-European origins as the Celtic and Latin words. Scholars have related this interpretation of the linguistic material to the question of the earliest movements and interrelationships of the peoples speaking Indo-European languages, believing the borrowing to have happened some centuries before the beginning of the Christian era as the Germanic peoples were expanding from their original homeland and encountering the Celts on their way. It has been assumed that it indicates something of the nature of Celtic political organization, relative to that of the Germanic speakers, at the time the borrowing occurred.

Another frequently cited example of what is very probably a borrowing from Celtic is the word that appears in modern English as iron (Gothic eisarn, etc.). Corresponding forms in Celtic are Old Irish iarn and Welsh haearn. If the assumption of borrowing from Celtic into Germanic is correct, that may contribute to an understanding of the transmission of iron-working capabilities from one people to another at an early date.

Subsequent contact with Roman traders and armies led to borrowing from that source, too. An early case would be the Latin word caupo¯ (‘peddler, shopkeeper, innkeeper’) having been borrowed as the basis for Germanic words meaning ‘merchant’ (Old Norse kaupmaðr, Old High German koufo, koufman, Old English cy¯pa, ce¯apmann), ‘to trade, buy and/or sell’ (Gothic kaupo¯n, Old Norse kaupa, Old High German koufen, coufo¯n, Old Saxon ko¯pon, Old Frisian ka¯pia, English ce¯apian, cy¯pan), ‘act of buying and/or selling’ (Old Norse kaup,

preliminaries: before english 31

account of the sounds and inXectional forms of Indo-European. Benveniste (1973) discusses the Indo-European vocabulary related to a number of key areas of social organization.

Accessible and informative accounts of the Germanic language family are Bammesberger (1992) and Robinson (1992). Bammesberger provides, in particular, a more systematic account of the sounds and forms of Proto-Germanic than has been given here, while Robinson outlines the historical background relevant to the various languages and gives brief descriptions of their linguistic characteristics (with commentary on passages of text illustrative of each language). Useful too, although somewhat technical, are JasanoV (1997) and Nielsen (1981, 1989, and 1998). Lass (1987) and (1994a) also give some attention to aspects of the Germanic and Indo-European antecedents to Old English.

Runes are dealt with brieXy in Page (1987), and more fully in Elliott (1989) and (for English runes) Page (1999). See also pp. 41–4 of this volume.

On the history of the Scandinavian languages, from their Germanic and Indo-Euro- pean origins to the later twentieth century, see Haugen (1976). For a similar treatment of German see Keller (1978).

Aspects of the vocabulary of the early Germanic languages, with reference to the cultural environment in which they developed, are dealt with in Green (1998).

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank John Hines for his assistance in the preparation of this chapter.

2

BEGINNINGS AND

TRANSITIONS: OLD

ENGLISH

Susan Irvine

Moððe word fræt. Me þæt þuhte wrætlicu wyrd, þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn, þæt se wyrm forswealg wera gied sumes, þeof in þystro, þrymfæstne cwide

ond þæs strangan staþol. Stælgiest ne wæs 5 wihte þy gleawra, þe he þam wordum swealg.

(‘A moth devoured the words. That seemed to me a strange happening, when I heard of that wonder, that the worm, a thief in the darkness, swallowed up a man’s speech, the glorious utterance and its Wrm support. The thievish visitor was not at all the wiser for swallowing those words.’)

THIS short but evocative poem from the Exeter Book, one of the four major extant Old English manuscripts containing poetry, provides a valuable insight into language from an Anglo-Saxon perspective. The poem, known as the ‘Book-Moth Riddle’, explores the transience of language, both spoken and written. It also acts as a sombre reminder that we rely for our knowledge of Old English on a relatively small number of manuscripts which have survived the ravages of time. More importantly perhaps, through its sophisticated wordplay on the insubstantial nature of words it reminds us that these manuscripts reXect a living spoken language which was as familiar to its speakers

beginnings and transitions: old english 33

as modern English is to us today. In considering both speech and writing, the poem further draws our attention to the transition from orality to literacy in the use of the vernacular in Anglo-Saxon England, a transition which had enormous implications for the development of the Old English language. Although the written form of the language is necessarily the subject of this chapter, the strenuous attempts by Anglo-Saxon scribes to reproduce their spoken language in writing, without the conventions which we now take for granted, can be seen to underlie many of the linguistic features and developments which will be discussed here.

Old English is the term denoting the form of the English language used in England for approximately seven centuries (c450–1150 ad). It is a synthetic language (like Latin) rather than an analytic one (like modern English): it relies on inXections (or endings) on words to denote their function in the sentence. In nouns, pronouns, and adjectives it distinguishes between diVerent cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental), genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and numbers (singular, plural, and—in some pronouns— dual). Just as in the antecedent stages of the language which have been discussed in the previous chapter, adjectives are not invariable (as they are in modern English) but are inXected strong or weak, depending on the syntactic circumstances in which they Wnd themselves. In verbs, Old English distinguishes between diVerent tenses (present and past), moods (indicative, subjunctive, and imperative), numbers (singular and plural), and persons (Wrst, second, and third). Further discussion of these features, with detailed examples, will be found at pp. 45–6.

The term Old English, although it identiWes a distinctive form of the English language, covers in fact a wide range of linguistic usages. In a period marked by enormous changes—political, social, and cultural—it is hardly surprising to Wnd that the language too was far from stable. The theme of this chapter is transitions: the transition in the use of the vernacular from orality to literacy mentioned above was accompanied by a series of other transitions aVecting Old English. These transitions can be viewed from both internal and external perspectives: internal in the sense of changes in spelling, grammar, and vocabulary, and external in the sense of the links between these changes and social and political events. This chapter will analyse the Old English language both in terms of its linguistic characteristics and also in relation to the external factors which so indelibly inXuenced it.

A useful framework within which one might examine the development of the Old English language is provided by Wve historical watersheds, each of which had signiWcant linguistic implications. First, the invasion of Britain (purportedly in

beginnings and transitions: old english 35

particularly northern interest. The northern recension also incorporated extra material from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, including a translation of Bede’s account of the migration. This recension is now best represented by the Peterborough Chronicle (also known as the E manuscript of the Chronicle). The following passage (which survives only in this manuscript) is taken from the entry for 449 in the Peterborough Chronicle :

-Da comon þa men of þrim megðum Germanie: of Aldseaxum, of Anglum, of Iotum. Of Iotum comon Cantwara 7 Wihtwara, þet is seo megð þe nu eardaþ on Wiht, 7 þet cyn on

(‘Those people came from three nations of Germany: from the Old Saxons, from the Angles, and from the Jutes. From the Jutes came the inhabitants of Kent and the Wihtwara, that is, the race which now dwells in the Isle of Wight, and that race in Wessex which is still called the race of the Jutes. From the Old Saxons came the East Saxons, the South Saxons, and the West Saxons. From the land of the Angles, which has lain waste between the Jutes and the Saxons ever since, came the East Anglians, the Middle Anglians, the Mercians, and all of the Northumbrians.’)

The Anglo-Saxon migrations were undoubtedly, as Chapter 1 has suggested, a much more complex process than this account acknowledges. The settlement of the various Germanic peoples in diVerent regions of the country was, however, an important factor in the linguistic diversity which characterized Old English, since dialectal distinctiveness can be linked to geographical areas. The terms Kentish, West Saxon, and Anglian (the latter also divided into Northumbrian and Mercian), which are used to describe the main dialects of Old English, suggest how, for the early stages in the writing of Old English at least, a correspondence can be clearly established between locality and linguistic forms (see Fig. 2.1).

The exact nature of this correspondence in any particular text or manuscript is, however, notoriously diYcult to identify. The passage cited above, for example, already illustrates some of the diYculties of attempting to draw conclusions about dates or provenances of Old English texts from dialect evidence. Although it incorporated material composed much earlier, the Peterborough Chronicle was itself copied in about 1122 at Peterborough (and it continued thereafter up to 1154). Its own linguistic forms may well be attributable to a variety of factors: the late West Saxon archetype from which this version of the Chronicle seems ultimately to have derived, Anglian inXuence at some stage in transmission, the Peterborough scribe’s own East Midland dialect (which is, in fact, an early Middle English designation which corresponds in many of its features to Anglian, the antecedent Old English

beginnings and transitions: old english 37

variety; see Fig. 4.1), or the late date of the copy (the language of which shows signs of the transition to early Middle English). Thus, for example, within the passage, the scribe uses two diVerent spellings for the ‘Old Saxons’, Aldseaxum in line 1 and Ealdseaxum in line 3. The latter is the normal West Saxon spelling (where ealdrepresents the sound-change known as breaking, by which a front vowel followed by a back consonant or group of consonants is diphthongized; here æ has been broken to ea before ld ). The former spelling, which is non-West Saxon, might be the result of the vestige of an Anglian form introduced in textual transmission (in Anglian æ, rather than being broken to ea as in West Saxon, would instead normally be retracted to a and hence articulated with the tongue pulled back). Alternatively, it might be the product of the scribe’s own East Midland dialect (in which unbroken forms would also be typical) or it might provide evidence of the early Middle English monophthongization of diphthongs by which ea was monophthongized to æ which later became a.

The link between dialect and geographical area can in some cases, however, be more clearly established, as in the various versions (fourteen in all) of the Old English poem known as Cædmon’s Hymn. The story behind the composition of this poem—the spontaneous utterance of an illiterate cow-herd who miraculously receives the gift of poetry (see further, pp. 75–6)—is also related by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History. Bede himself quotes only a Latin translation of the poem, but several manuscripts contain what is purportedly the vernacular original. The version thought to be the closest to the original is written in a Northumbrian dialect on the last page of the earliest Latin manuscript of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (the so-called Moore Manuscript):

Nu scylun hergan hefænricæs uard, metudæs mæcti end his modgidanc, uerc uuldurfadur, sue he uundra gihuæs, eci dryctin, or astelidæ.

He ærist scop aelda barnum 5 heben til hrofe, haleg scepen;

tha middungeard moncynnæs uard, eci dryctin, æfter tiadæ

Wrum foldu, frea allmectig.

(‘Now [we] must praise the Guardian of the heavenly kingdom, the Creator’s might and His intention, the glorious Father’s work, just as He, eternal Lord, established the beginning of every wonder. He, holy Creator, Wrst shaped heaven as a roof for the children of men, then He, Guardian of mankind, eternal Lord, almighty Ruler, afterwards fashioned the world, the earth, for men.’)