The English Language Part 27

7. The use of broader vowels; as in _iclep_u_d_ or _iclep_o_d_ (for _iclep_e_d_ or _ycl_e_pt_); _geong_o_st_, youngest; _ascode_, asked; _eldore_, elder.

8. The use of the strong preterits (_see_ the chapter on the tenses of verbs), where in the present English the weak form is found; _wex_, _wop_, _dalf_, for _waxed_, _wept_, _delved_.

9. The omission not only of the gerundial termination _-enne_, but also of the infinitive sign _-en_ after _to_; _to honte_, _to speke_;--in contradistinction to Semi-Saxon.

10. The subst.i.tution of _-en_ for _-e_ or _-e_ in the first and second persons plural of verbs; _we wollen_, we will: _heo schullen_, they should;--_ditto_.

11. The comparative absence of the articles _se_ and _seo_;--_ditto_. {122}

12. The subst.i.tution of _ben_ and _beeth_, for _synd_ and _syndon_=_we_, _ye_, _they are_;--in contradistinction to Semi-Saxon.

-- 179. The degree to which the Anglo-Saxon was actually influenced by the Anglo-Norman has been noticed. The degree wherein the two languages came in contact is, plainly, another consideration. The first is the question, How far one of two languages influenced the other? The second asks, How far one of two languages had the opportunity of influencing the other? Concerning the extent to which the Anglo-Norman was used, I retail the following statements and quotations.

1. "Letters even of a private nature were written in Latin till the beginning of the reign of Edward I., soon after 1270, when a sudden change brought in the use of French."--_Mr. Hallam, communicated by Mr.

Stevenson_ (_Literature of Europe, I. 52, and note_).

2. Conversation between the Members of the Universities was ordered to be carried on either in Latin or French:--"_Si qua inter se proferant, colloquio Latino vel saltem Gallico perfruantur._"--_Statutes of Oriel College, Oxford.--Hallam, ibid._ from Warton.

3. "The Minutes of the Corporation of London, recorded in the Town Clerk's Office, were in French, as well as the Proceedings in Parliament, and in the Courts of Justice."--_Ibid._

4. "In Grammar Schools, boys were made to construe their Latin into French,"--_Ibid._ "_Pueri in scholis, contra morem caeterarum nationum, et Normannorum adventu, derelicto proprio vulgari, construere Gallice compelluntur. Item quod filii n.o.bilium ab ipsis cunabulorum crepundiis ad Gallic.u.m idioma informantur. Quibus profecto rurales homines a.s.simulari volentes, ut per hoc spectabiliores videantur, Francigenari satagunt omni nisu._"--_Higden_ (_Ed. Gale_, p. 210).

That there was French in England before the battle of Hastings appears on the authority of Camden:--

"Herein is a notable argument of our ancestors' steadfastness in esteeming and retaining their own tongue. For, as _before the Conquest_, they misliked nothing more in King Edward the Confessor, than that he was Frenchified, and accounted the desire of a foreign language then to be a foretoken of the bringing in of foreign powers, which indeed happened."--_Remains_, p. 30.

-- 180. In Chaucer and Mandeville, and perhaps in all the writers of the reign of Edward III., we have a transition {123} from the Old to the Middle English. The last characteristic of a grammar different from that of the present English, is the plural form in _-en_; _we tellen_, _ye tellen_, _they tellen_. As this disappears, which it does in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (Spenser has it continually), the Middle English may be said to pa.s.s into the New or Modern English.

-- 181. The _present_ tendencies of the English may be determined by observation; and as most of them will be noticed in the etymological part of this volume, the few here indicated must be looked upon as ill.u.s.trations only.

1. The distinction between the subjunctive and indicative mood is likely to pa.s.s away. We verify this by the very general tendency to say _if it is_, and _if he speaks_, for _if it be_, and _if he speak_.

2. The distinction (as far as it goes) between the participle pa.s.sive and the past tense is likely to pa.s.s away. We verify this by the tendency to say _it is broke_, and _he is smote_, for _it is broken_, and _he is smitten_.

3. Of the double forms, _sung_ and _sang_, _drank_ and _drunk_, &c. one only will be the permanent.

As stated above, these tendencies are a few out of a number, and have been adduced in order to indicate the subject rather than to exhaust it.

-- 182. What the present language of England would have been had the Norman Conquest never taken place, the a.n.a.logy of Holland, Denmark, and of many other countries enables us to determine. It would have been much as it is at present. What it would have been had the _Saxon_ conquest never taken place, is a question wherein there is far more speculation. Of France, of Italy, of Wallachia, and of the Spanish Peninsula, the a.n.a.logies all point the same way. They indicate that the original Celtic would have been superseded by the Latin of the conquerors, and consequently that our language in its later stages would have been neither British nor Gaelic, but Roman. Upon these a.n.a.logies, however, we may refine. Italy, was from the beginning, Roman; the Spanish Peninsula was invaded full early; no ocean divided Gaul from Rome; and the war against the ancestors of the Wallachians was a war of extermination.

{124}

CHAPTER III.

ON THE LOWLAND SCOTCH.

-- 183. The term _Lowland_ is used to distinguish the Scotch of the South-east from the Scotch of the Highlands. The former is English in its immediate affinities, and Germanic in origin; the latter is nearly the same language with the Gaelic of Ireland, and is, consequently, Celtic.

The question as to whether the Lowland Scotch is a dialect of the English, or a separate and independent language, is a verbal rather than a real one.

Reasons for considering the Scotch and English as _dialects_ of one and the same language lie in the fact of their being (except in the case of the more extreme forms of each) mutually intelligible.

Reasons for calling one a dialect of the other depend upon causes other than philological, _e.g._, political preponderance, literary development, and the like.

Reasons for treating the Scotch as a separate substantive language lie in the extent to which it has the qualities of a regular cultivated tongue, and a separate substantive literature--partially separate and substantive at the present time, wholly separate and substantive in the times anterior to the union of the crowns, and in the hands of Wyntoun, Blind Harry, Dunbar, and Lindsay.

-- 184. Reasons for making the _philological_ distinction between the English and Scotch dialects exactly coincide with the geographical and political boundaries between the two kingdoms are not so easily given. It is not likely that the Tweed and Solway should divide modes of speech so accurately as they divide laws and customs; that broad and trenchant lines of demarcation should separate the Scotch {125} from the English exactly along the line of the Border; and that there should be no Scotch elements in Northumberland, and no Northumbrian ones in Scotland. Neither is such the case. Hence, in speaking of the Lowland Scotch, it means the language in its typical rather than in its transitional forms; indeed, it means the _literary_ Lowland Scotch which, under the first five Stuarts, was as truly an independent language as compared with the English, as Swedish is to Danish, Portuguese to Spanish, or _vice versa_.

-- 185. This limitation leaves us fully sufficient room for the notice of the question as to its _origin_; a notice all the more necessary from the fact of its having created controversy.

What is the _prima facie_ view of the relations between the English of England, and the mutually intelligible language (Scotch or English, as we choose to call it) of Scotland? One of three:--

1. That it originated in England, and spread in the way of extension and diffusion northwards, and so reached Scotland.

2. That it originated in Scotland, and spread in the way of extension and diffusion southwards, and so reached England.

3. That it was introduced in each country from a common source.

In any of these cases it is Angle, or Saxon, or Anglo-Saxon, even as English is Angle, or Saxon, or Anglo-Saxon.

-- 186. A view, however, different from these, and one disconnecting the Lowland Scotch from the English and Anglo-Saxon equally, is what may be called the _Pict_ doctrine. Herein it is maintained that the Lowland _Scotch is derived from the Pict, and that the Picts were of Gothic_ origin. The reasoning upon these matters is to be found in the Dissertation upon the Origin of the Scottish Language prefixed to Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary: two extracts from which explain the view which the author undertakes to combat:--

_a._ "It is an opinion which, after many others, has been pretty generally received, and, perhaps, almost taken for granted, that the language spoken in the Lowlands of {126} Scotland is merely a corrupt dialect of the English, or at least of the Anglo-Saxon."

_b._ "It has generally been supposed that the Saxon language was introduced into Scotland in the reign of Malcolm Canmore by his good queen and her retinue; or partly by means of the intercourse which prevailed between the inhabitants of Scotland and those of c.u.mberland, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham, which were held by the Kings of Scotland as fiefs of the crown of England. An English writer, not less distinguished for his amiable disposition and candour than for the cultivation of his mind, has objected to this hypothesis with great force of argument."

-- 187. Now, as against any such notion as that involved in the preceding extracts, the reasoning of the learned author of the Scottish Dictionary may, perhaps, be valid. No such view, however, is held, at the present moment, by any competent judge; and it is doubtful whether, in the extreme way in which it is put forward by the opponent of it, it was ever maintained at all.

Be this, however, as it may, the theory which is opposed to it rests upon the following positions--

1. That the Lowland Scotch were Picts.

2. That the Picts were Goths.

In favour of this latter view the chief reasons are--

1. That what the Belgae were the Picts were also.

2. That the Belgae were Germanic.

Again--

1. That the natives of the Orkneys were Picts.

2. That they were also Scandinavian.