less as the English of the present day. Let us note a few of the more prominent changes.—The first personal pronoun Ic or Ich loses the guttural, and becomes I.-The pronouns him, them, and whom, which are true datives, are used either as datives or as objectives.-The imperative plural ends in eth. "Riseth up," Chaucer makes one of his characters say, "and stondeth by me!"-The useful and almost ubiquitous letter e comes in as a substitute for a, u, and even an. Thus nama becomes name, sunu (son) becomes sune, and withutan changes into withute. The dative of adjectives is used as an adverb. Thus we find softë, brightë employed like our softly, brightly. -The n in the infinitive has fallen away; but theë is sounded as a separate syllable. Thus we find brekë, smitë for breken and smiten. 9. General View. In the time of King Alfred, the WestSaxon speech-the Wessex dialect took precedence of the rest, and became the literary dialect of England. But it had not, and could not have, any influence on the spoken language of other parts of England, for the simple reason that very few persons were able to travel, and it took days—and even weeks—for a man to go from Devonshire to Yorkshire. In course of time the Midland dialect-that spoken between the Humber and the Thames - became the predominant dialect of England; and the East Midland variety of this dialect became the parent of modern standard English. This predominance was probably due to the fact that it, soonest of all, got rid of its inflexions, and became most easy, pleasant, and convenient to use. And this disuse of inflexions was itself probably due to the early Danish settlements in the east, to the larger number of Normans in that part of England, to the larger number of thriving towns, and to the greater and more active communication between the eastern seaports and the Continent. The inflexions were first confused, then weakened, then forgotten, finally lost. The result was an extreme simplification, which still benefits all learners of the English language. Instead of spending a great deal of time on the learning of a large number of inflexions, which are to them arbitrary and meaningless, foreigners have only to fix their attention on the words and phrases themselves, that is, on the very pith and marrow of the language—indeed, on the language itself. Hence the great German grammarian Grimm, and others, predict that English will spread itself all over the world, and become the universal language of the future. In addition to this almost complete sweeping away of all inflexions,-which made Dr Johnson say, "Sir, the English language has no grammar at all,”—there were other remarkable and useful results which accrued from the coming in of the Norman-French and other foreign elements. 10. Monosyllables.-The stripping off of the inflexions of our language cut a large number of words down to the root. Hundreds, if not thousands, of our verbs were dissyllables, but, by the gradual loss of the ending en (which was in Anglo-Saxon an), they became monosyllables. Thus bindan, drincan, findan, became bind, drink, find; and this happened with hosts of other verbs. Again, the expulsion of the guttural, which the Normans never could or would take to, had the effect of compressing many words of two syllables into one. Thus haegel, twaegen, and faegen, became hail, twain, and fain.In these and other ways it has come to pass that the present English is to a very large extent of a monosyllabic character. So much is this the case, that whole books have been written for children in monosyllables. It must be confessed that the monosyllabic style is often dull, but it is always serious and homely. We can find in our translation of the Bible whole verses that are made up of words of only one syllable. Many of the most powerful passages in Shakespeare, too, are written in monosyllables. The same may be said of hundreds of our proverbs-such "Cats hide their claws"; "Fair words please fools"; that has most time has none to lose." Great poets, like Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, understand well the fine effect to be produced from the mingling of short and long words of the homely English with the more ornate Romance language. the following verse from Matthew Arnold the words are all monosyllables, with the exception of tired and contention (which is Latin) : as, "He In "Let the long contention cease; Geese are swans, and swans are geese; Thou art tired. Best be still!" In Tennyson's "Lord of Burleigh," when the sorrowful husband comes to look upon his dead wife, the verse runs almost entirely in monosyllables : "And he came to look upon her, And he looked at her, and said: An American writer has well indicated the force of the English monosyllable in the following sonnet :— "Think not that strength lies in the big, round word, To whom can this be true who once has heard The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak, So that each word gasped out is like a shriek Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length; And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase, Which glows but burns not, though it beam and shine; It will be observed that this sonnet consists entirely of monosyllables, and yet that the style of it shows considerable power and vigour. The words printed in italics are all derived from Latin, with the exception of the word phrase, which is Greek. 11. Change in the Order of Words.-The syntax—or order of words of the oldest English was very different from that of Norman-French. The syntax of an Old English sentence was clumsy and involved; it kept the attention long on the strain ; it was rumbling, rambling, and unpleasant to the ear. It kept the attention on the strain, because the verb in a subordinate clause was held back, and not revealed till we had come to the end of the clause. Thus the Anglo-Saxon wrote (though in different form and spelling)— “When Darius saw, that he overcome be would." The newer English, under French influence, wrote— "When Darius saw that he was going to be overcome." This change has made an English sentence lighter and more easy to understand, for the reader or hearer is not kept waiting for the verb; but each word comes just when it is expected, and therefore in its "natural" place. The Old English sentence -which is very like the German sentence of the present day— has been compared to a heavy cart without springs, while the newer English sentence is like a modern well-hung English carriage. Norman-French, then, gave us a brighter, lighter, freer rhythm, and therefore a sentence more easy to understand and to employ, more supple, and better adapted to everyday use. 12. The Expulsion of Gutturals.-(i) Not only did the Normans help us to an easier and pleasanter kind of sentence, they aided us in getting rid of the numerous throat-sounds that infested our language. It is a remarkable fact that there is not now in the French language a single guttural. There is not an h in the whole language. The French write an h in several of their words, but they never sound it. Its use is merely to serve as a fence between two vowels-to keep two vowels separate, as in la haine, hatred. No doubt the Normans could utter throatsounds well enough when they dwelt in Scandinavia; but, after they had lived in France for several generations, they acquired a great dislike to all such sounds. No doubt, too, many, from long disuse, were unable to give utterance to a guttural. This dislike they communicated to the English; and hence, in the present day, there are many people-especially in the south of England-who cannot sound a guttural at all. The muscles in the throat that help to produce these sounds have become atrophied -have lost their power for want of practice. The purely English part of the population, for many centuries after the Norman invasion, could sound gutturals quite easily-just as the Scotch and the Germans do now; but it gradually became the fashion in England to leave them out. (ii) In some cases the 13. The Expulsion of Gutturals. guttural disappeared entirely; in others, it was changed into or represented by other sounds. The ge at the beginning of the passive (or past) participles of many verbs disappeared entirely. Thus gebróht, gebóht, geworht, became brought, bought, and wrought. The g at the beginning of many words also dropped off. Thus Gyppenswich became Ipswich; gif became if; genoh, enough. The guttural at the end of words-hard g or c-also disappeared. Thus halig became holy; eordhlic, earthly; gastlic, ghastly or ghostly. The same is the case in dough, through, plough, etc.—the guttural appearing to the eye but not to the ear.-Again, the guttural was changed into quite different sounds-into labials, into sibilants, into other sounds also. The following are a few examples: (a) The guttural has been softened, through Norman-French influence, into a sibilant. Thus rigg, egg, and brigg have become ridge, edge, and bridge. (b) The guttural has become a labial-f—as in cough, enough, trough, laugh, draught, etc. (c) The guttural has become an additional syllable, and is represented by a vowel-sound. Thus sorg and mearh have become sorrow and marrow. (d) In some words it has disappeared both to eye and ear. Thus makëd has become made. 14. The Story of the GH.-How is it, then, that we have in so many words the two strongest gutturals in the language―g and h-not only separately, in so many of our words, but combined? The story is an odd one. Our Old English or Saxon scribes wrote-not light, might, and night, but liht, miht, and niht. When, however, they found that the Norman-French gentlemen would not sound the h, and say-as is still said in Scotland -licht, &c., they redoubled the guttural, strengthened the h with a hard g, and again presented the dose to the Norman. But, if the Norman could not sound the h alone, still less could he sound the double guttural; and he very coolly let both alone |