The state of the language in England between Old English and Middle English. - page 4
Keywords: Middle English, Old English, History of English Language, Peterborough Chronicle
By elliot5200 on 17/02/2007 16:27:00
Level: Bachelor Honours Degree (BA, BEng, BSc etc)
Page Number: 4 of 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
England.
The progressive nature of North is evident from the Northumbrian gloss, the Lindisfarne Gospel, which originates from the late-Old English period. In the Gospel, there is already evidence of losing the final –n in verb infinitives, such as in efneglæda and sealla. This is also demonstrated by the second and third person singular and the plural of present tense verbs, which are usually written -es or ¬-as. Examples from the text include hēa gebiddas and stondes gē. Moreover, instead of having an ea before r as in West Saxon, the Lindesfarne Gospel uses an a, such as in arð, which is a typical characteristic of Northumbrian. Thus, this late Northumbrian text demonstrates the dialect divergences from West Saxon.
Burnley (1992) argues however, that in some ways, the South was more progressive than the North. This is exemplified by the long ā used in Old English, in such words as hām, which rounded to ō in the South, but remained the same in the North. Also, whilst in late West Saxon, the plural dative inflexion -um changed to -an¬ and -on in speech, its original form was retained much longer in the North.
In conclusion, the neatness of Sweet’s argument is clearly oversimplified, considering that levelled inflexions were in use before Middle English, as demonstrated by the Peterborough Chronicle. This is supported by Malone (1930), who argues that levelled inflexions actually started in the tenth century, rather than the eleventh. It took over a century after the Conquest until the changes in language were in place in England and some areas were faster to adopt linguistic characteristics of Anglo-Norman than others. Thus, the transition from Old English to Middle English was far from an automatic process.
Bibliography
Bödtker, A. 1909 ‘French Words in English After 1066’ Modern Language Notes: 214-217
Burnley, David 1992. The History of the English Language: A Source Book. New York: Longman: 63-77
Clanchy, M.T. 1988. England and its Rulers. London: Fontana Press: 56-61
Clark, Cecily (ed) 1958. The Peterborough Chronicle 1070-1154. Oxford: Oxford University Press: xxxvii-lxxiv, 2-127
Crystal, David 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 32-3
Malone, Kemp 1930. ‘When Did Middle English Begin?’ Curme Volume of Linguistic Studies: 110-17
Oxford English Dictionary: website at www.oed.com, accessed on 8/12/06
Shores, David 1970. ‘The Peterborough Chronicle: Continuity and Change in the English Language’ South Atlantic Bulletin: 19-29
Sweet, Henry 1874. ‘History of English Sounds’ Transactions of the Philological Society: 160
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