Merging of Old and Middle English

MERGING OF OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH It is not to be supposed that English underwent no change in phonology and accidence during the O.E. period. On the con trary, many of the features which are characteristic of M.E. were, gradually but surely, coming into being during the centuries be fore the Norman Conquest, although, owing to the rigidity of scribal tradition prior to this event, the language of the 11th cen tury still continues to be spelt, as though no important change had taken place since the days of Alfred. But in spite of the fetters of convention, the vigilance of the scribe is occasionally relaxed, and scattered spellings in which the writer lapses for a moment into something like a faithful record of pronunciation, allow us to perceive that the vowel usually written e had become e, that the diphthong ea had been monophthongized to th, and in eastern areas eo had become e, and that in unstressed syllables, the vowels u, a, o, e, were no longer distinguished in pronunciation. Less than 10o years after the Conquest, it is evident from the chaotic spellings of the latest entries in the Peterborough Chronicle, which ends in 1154, that the old scribal rules were but dimly remembered, at least in this East Midland area. On the other hand, it is possible, in spite of the numerous orthographic inconsistencies of this ms., to arrive at a fairly clear view of the sounds of the dialect, and it is evident that the new era in Eng fish speech has begun. It might indeed appear as if greater changes had come about in the 90 years since the Conquest, than during the whole period covered by the records before the death of the Confessor.

In reality no such rapid development has taken place, and the discrepancies in spelling, accidence and syntax between this part of the Chronicle and "pure" Anglo-Saxon of the latest pre Conquest type, are due to the fact that the written documents had ceased for centuries to give a true picture of the language as it was actually spoken, while the Peterborough ms. is a pretty faithful record of living speech. There was, indeed, no break or sudden upheaval in the development of English caused by the Norman Conquest, and it is probable that apart from the vocabulary, our language would have developed into its present form, if that great historical event had never happened. So far as prose is concerned, the old purely literary tradition largely perished through the re moval of English clerics and scholars, and a new style, based upon the spoken language, had to be formed.

Retention of Old Spellings.

English texts from the 12th to about the middle of the 13th century often retain O.E. spellings, especially when, as in some homilies and chartularies, the scribe had older documents under his eye which he copied or adapted, but the spelling is not consistent, the symbols, while occurring in their old places, are also put to new uses, and we find new and phonetic spellings by the side of the old stereotyped mode of writing. It is a period of scribal experiment. Owing to the tenta tive and unsettled character of the spelling, this is often regarded as a transition period between 0. and M.E., as though the spelling faithfully reflected processes of change active in the language itself. Apart from the obvious fact that every age is one of transi tion, it would probably be more just to suppose that in actual speech the passage between the two epochs had long been made, that most of the characteristic phonological features of M.E. had already developed, although the scribes had not yet hit upon a fixed and consistent manner of expressing them.

One of the most enterprising spelling reformers of this age is one Orm, apparently of Scandinavian stock, the author of an ex ceedingly tedious scriptural metrical paraphrase of over 20,000 short lines, himself the scribe of the unique ms. This writer, whose work was, for sufficient reason, evidently not much in de mand, hit on the plan of doubling a consonant after a short vowel, which makes his book valuable to the modern philologist as one of the chief authorities on English quantities round about the year 1200. He also invented a special form of the letter g to ex press the initial sound in good. Yet Orm does not recognize in his spelling the change, which by his time had certainly come about, of O.E. a to o, e.g., O.E. ham, M.E. horn, "home," and he adheres to the use of the O.E. symbol ae to express a long vowel in words where it is quite misleading as expressing the pronunciation of his own dialect.

During the later part of the 13th and the early part of the 14th century, English spelling gradually became more or less fixed, and the sounds are written in the various great dialectal areas, with fair consistency, to express the several characteristic regional types. English spelling was really benefited by the adoption of several symbols and graphic devices from Norman scribes, such as the Continental form of g to express a stop, leaving z the modi fication of the O.E. symbol, free for the expression of the y (con sonantal) sound for which g is also used; the use of qu-, as in queen, etc., instead of O.E. cw-; the use of v, or u instead of O.E. f, to express a voiced sound as in over, ouer for O.E. ofer; ou instead of u to express the vowel in O.E. hti s, "house"; the Fr. symbol if instead of O.E. y for the sound in O.E. hyll, liydan, "hill, to hide," etc. (that of Mod. Fr. u) ; o instead of O.E. a for the sake of clarity when the surrounding letters were n, w, e.g., sone, "son," for O.E. sonu.

In Fr. c before i, etc., expressed the s- sound, and this was sometimes written also in words of native origin, e.g., seldcene, "rare," etc., and it still survives in mice. Since c to Norman eyes would, or might, imply s before i and e, k was written to prevent ambiguity where O.E. had usually c, in such words as kin, ke pert, O.E. cvnn, cepan, "kin, keep," etc. The sound expressed in O.E.

by cg, as in bryeg, "bridge," was written gg, dg, in M.E., and the front consonant written c in O.E., which occurred before original front vowels, was written cji, and later cch, -tch, medially or finally, e.g., O.E., cin, "chin," ceorl, "churl," eeac, "jaw," secean, "seek," tceisan, "teach," wreeea "exile, wretch " O.E. chin, cherl, cheke, sechen, techen, wrecche, etc. The sound, or its fore runner, expressed by se in O.E. was written sch, sk, O.E. steal, "shall," M.E. s(c)hal, O.E. "to wish," M.E. wis(c)hen, etc.

These innovations in spelling, however, do not indicate changes in pronunciation. On the other hand the language of the M.E. period is distinguished from that which precedes it by many notable changes in phonology. The chief of these may be briefly summarized. O.E. as already stated, was rounded, and acquired a sound, written o, or more rarely, oa, resembling most probably the vowel now heard in saw. This change took place in the dialects of the midlands and the south, but in the north, O.E. a was fronted, whether long or short, to a sound which by the end of the 13th century, was probably approximately that of Fr. é. The diphthongs ea and eo were monophthongized—the former to a sound, not very different from that heard in Fr. tete, the latter to a vowel like that in Fr. peu, which subsequently was unrounded to é, long or short, in the more easterly dialects of the south and South Mid lands, while farther west it remained a round vowel, and was later raised to a sound like that of Fr. pu. O.E. ae in the Midlands, for the most part, and in Essex, was retracted to a, while in Kent, Middlesex, and parts of the South-West midlands it was raised to e. The corresponding long vowel became a in Essex and a limited area in adjacent counties, but, in those dialects in which it had not, already in O.E., become e ( =sound of Fr. e), it appears to have passed into the vowel heard in Fr. pere. O.E. y (=Fr. n) was un rounded gradually to i over a large area, a process which probably began in O.E. itself in the East Midlands, and spread west and south, while in many westerly areas of the south and Midlands, it appears to have retained for centuries later its old sound, and as stated above, was written u in M.E.

New diphthongs developed from the O.E. combinations -oh, -Oeh-, -eh-, which became respectively -ouk-, -auh-, -ei-, -eih-. The diphthong ei was monophthongized to i over a wide area, in some regions of the south-east, as early as the 13th cen tury. Great changes were wrought in the external form of English by a lengthening process which affected a, e, ö in open syllables (those not "closed" by a consonant) so that beran, "to bear," became beren, broken, P.P. became broken, and tacan, "take," became taken. These changes were extremely important for the later history of English, since, while M.E. short vowels underwent comparatively little change, the long vowels were subsequently completely altered in character. Before double consonants, and most combinations of consonants, long vowels were shortened. This fact also had considerable effect upon the outward com plexion of the language. For instance O.E. fedan, "to feed," had a Pret. fedde. In M.E. the long vowel remains in f eden, but is shortened before -dd- in fedde, which explains the difference be tween the present-day feed—fed, and similar shortening in dozens of other weak Preterites.

The changes in accidence can only be very briefly summarized here. The decay, as it is often called, in the inflexional system of O.E., and the levelling out of older distinctions, was primarily due, not to the Norman Conquest, but to a tendency which continues to this day, and is a deep rooted characteristic of English, to obscure vowels in unstressed positions.

The elaborate inflexions of the definite article gave way very early in the north and Midlands before the newly-formed invari able f e used in all cases, genders and numbers. By the middle of the 14th century, except in a few rare survivals, the old inflected forms had everywhere disappeared. Nouns retain, after the earliest period, no case distinctions except the possessive, which was formed according to the commonest O.E. type, in -es. A certain number of scattered survivals of feminine possessives without -s occur throughout M.E., and into the 16th century; a few fossilized forms such as Lady Chapel still persist. The main plural type of inflexion for nouns in M.E. is -es, though in some southern dialects weak plurals in -en, -yn, are fairly frequent, and sporadic forms such as soweyn, Halwyn, applen, etc., are found in late r 5th cen tury texts. A few examples of mutated Pl.—tooth—teeth, mouse —mice—still survive to the present time, and in M.E., a few others survive here and there—get, "goats," the rare M.E. bech, "books," ky, "cows," etc. In O.E. neuter words consisting of one long syllable had no ending in the Nom. and Acc. Pl., and a few of these invariables such as sheep, deer, swine (now felt as a col lective) survive, but as late as the r5th and r6th centuries, thing, horse, apple, thank, year, etc., are not infrequent in the plural. The, case-endings of adjectives are for the most part levelled under -c in M.E. Scattered survivals of the old strong endings are found, however, into the r 3th century and even later in some areas, e.g., Acc. Sing. Masc. mucelne; Dat. Sing. Fem. in -re; Dat. Pl. in -en after prepositions ; Gen. P1. in -re. Chaucer has occasion ally aller, O.E. ealra, Gen. P1. and fossil forms such as alderbest, etc. ; allermost is found in the 15th century. The weak suffix -en hardly persists after the 12th century in adjectives.

Adoption of

Scandinavian Forms.—The gradual adoption of the Scandinavian forms they, their, them in place of the native forms has already been noted. A curious form his in O.E. is used as an Acc. Pl. in the Third Pers. Masc. in 13th century texts, especially in S.E. Midlands, the south-east and in Middlesex; in Kent as late as the first half of the r4th century. The O.E. Acc. Sing. Masc. hine, is found as hive, hin into the r 3th century, and survives to-day as 'en, in many provincial dialects. In M.E. its place is taken by the Dat. him. The old Fern. heo remains as heo, he, hue, etc., in the south right into the r 5th century, but in the north-east Midlands, and by Chaucer's time in the London dialect, it is superseded by scho, sche, she. Peter borough Chronicle already has this pronoun, written scæ. The origin of this form has not been satisfactorily established. The Possess. Fern. is hire, here, or in those dialects which use hue for Nom. Fern., Kure. Some texts distinguish between hire, "her," and here, "their," but many use both forms indifferently. Hir or her is used generally for the Acc. Fern., though a few texts use hi for this. The Neuter hit is found with the aspirate as late as Queen Elizabeth's letters, though it is frequent from early M.E. onwards. The Possessive Neuter is his right into the Modern period, its being apparently first recorded in the first third of the 1 nth cen tury. All the pronouns had weak forms without h- in unstressed positions, e, im, er, it, occurring very early. The Duals inc and unc are still used in the. r3th century. In the Sec. Pers. 3e, "ye," is used in the early r4th century in respectful address of a single person. In the Pl. 3e, ye is strictly confined to the Nom. and you to the Acc. and Dat. until about the middle of the r 6th century, when many writers begin to use the forms indiscriminately.

The main differences between O. and M.E. in the forms of strong verbs, apart from the normal qualitative and quantitative changes in the vowels, arise from new analogical formations, as when a verb is influenced by and assimilated to those in another gradation class, e.g., P.P. spoken instead of spoken through the influence of broken, or when a simplification of forms takes as in the difference between Pret. Sing. and Pl. is eliminated, both forms taking either the type of the Sing., or of the P.P. Such dis tinctions are fond, Pret. Sing. "found," founden Pret. Pl.; can, Sing., cunnen, Pl.; rod Pret. Sing. of riden, "to ride," riden, "they rode," etc., still survive in Chaucer.

The possibilities for new analogical formations in the strong verbs are very numerous, and common verbs such as give, get, bid, choose, have an enormous number of variant forms in M.E. and Early Modern. The history of these and many other strong verbs demands individual treatment.

The personal endings of the verbs undergo little change in M.E. One novelty is the gradual elimination of -eth in the Third Sing. Pres. in favour of -es. The latter can be traced to O.E. -as in the north, but during the r4th century is fairly common in the more northerly areas of East Midlands and to a certain extent in Nor folk. It is doubtful whether the -s in Third Pres., which later appeared also in the London dialect, and during the r 6th century in standard and literary English, can be traced to this source, and whether it may not rather be due to the analogy of is. The -s form was certainly colloquial in origin and was felt as unsuited to the most exalted prose style in the r 6th century, though in poetry it is frequently used, by the side of -eth, for metrical reasons. A Pres. Pl. in -en, in place of older -e i , was found on the analogy of the Subjunctive or of the Preterite and became typical of the Midland dialect. This form appeared to be getting the upper hand in London texts by the middle of the r 7th century, and later became the sole form. The Pres. Part. has originally three forms in M.E. -inde, -ende, -ande. Speaking generally, the first is typical of the south, including London; the second of the Midland dialect; the last of the north. During the r3th century a new ending -inge of a doubtful origin, comes into use, first in the more southerly areas, but early in the next century, this form is found, together with -and, in N.E. Midlands. Early London texts have -inde, but in the r4th century -ing is firmly es tablished as the sole form in this area. The P.P., which in O.E. had the prefix le-, preserves this, first as 3e- later as i- in southern dialects of M.E., including that of London. Strong P.P.'s end in -en in the Midlands, but in -e in the south and very commonly in the dialect of London.

Among the most interesting problems for the student of M.E. are those connected with the numerous varieties of dialect ex hibited in the texts, and the gradual emergence of one regional type as that of preponderating importance, and of wider cur rency than any other, that is the formation of a standard of literary usage. The dialectal variety revealed by the mss. of the M.E. period is far richer and more complicated than that dis coverable from the written records before the Norman Conquest. This does not mean that a new process of speech differentiation was at work, associated with, or promoted by, the altered social and political conditions, whereby fresh dialect types were created. The linguistic variety, the multiplicity of regional forms of speech, differing from each other in varying degrees, according as they were severally spoken in adjacent or distant areas, existed before the Conquest, but most of the variants found no expression in written form in the O.E. period, owing to the outstanding supremacy of the West Saxon type.

Of the features which mark dialect individuality, some are phonological and consist in a characteristic development of O.E. vowel sounds, others consist in details of inflexion. Vocabulary is an uncertain guide to dialect, as the regional distribution of particular words is at present but imperfectly ascertained. It may be admitted, however, that the presence of a large number of Scandinavian words in a M.E. text would tend to show an easterly, Midland, or northern origin, rather than one from the south. The difficulty of deciding with certainty from what precise area a given M.E. text emanates, arises from the fact that this is known concerning so few texts, that a standard or touchstone which can be applied as a test of dialect is often lacking, so that, while it may be possible to say generally that a text is, say East Midland or South-western from the character of its dialect, it may not be easy to determine whether the text in question was written in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lines., or Cambridgeshire, whether in Wilts, Dorset, or Devon, and so on.

Since about 191 o, considerable fresh light has been shed upon the problems of the geographical diffusion and distribution of phonological features in M.E. by a series of investigations into the early forms of place-names (see PLACE-NAMES) in a number of areas. These names are composed of elements which are familiar also as independent, separate words in English, and these elements vary from area to area in accordance with dialect habit, no less when compounded as names, than when occurring as independent words. Such elements as O.E. hyrst, "wood," hyll, "landing-place," leak, "field," hedh, "high," staepel, "steeple," . neof or, . "lower," heorot, . "hart," mad, "meadow," hæl, "heath," and so on, exhibit, when recorded in place-names, in local chartularies, etc., of the early centuries after the Conquest, the forms characteristic of the dialect of the area in which the place is situated. The written forms of place names also reflect the changes which are taking place within the dialect from age to age. By the systematic use of this new source of information, the area of origin of many M.E. texts, and that within comparatively narrow limits, has been settled with a considerable degree of probability.

It has further been shown that certain combinations of dialect features found in texts, formerly supposed to be mutually in compatible, and ascribed to scribal influence, really are typical of a genuine dialect, and occur in the place names forms of a par ticular area. The results of recent investigations in this field have yielded a far more minute knowledge of the areas over which the main distinctive phonological features are distributed, a knowledge of the possible combinations of features, and of the way in which the general complexion of a dialect may vary according to the period. A general principle of some importance which has been established by recent regional surveys of M.E. dialects is that these were not severally confined within clear-cut borders but that they dovetailed and melted by imperceptible stages, each into those of adjacent areas. Further, there were many areas which were definitely what may be called border areas, in the speech of which, features characteristic of several dialect types were intimately intermingled.

All this is not without significance for the proper understanding of the development of what, by the end of the i4th century, was rapidly becoming the leading form of English in literature and in written documents of all kinds, which was destined to become the sole type used in writing, and to gain universal currency as the polite spoken standard. As long ago as the '8os of last cen tury, Morbach, basing his observations on the i4th and i 5th century sources, proved conclusively that the language of Chaucer was ultimately the dialect of London, and of the official docu ments. Chaucer's dialect exhibits what used to be called a "mix ture" of types, some features of which were called "Kentish," others East Midland, while yet others were described, generally, as "Southern." The prevailing view was that this London dialect had grown up from a combination of elements imported from outside, chiefly by traders coming from East Anglia to the great market and centre of commerce in the metropolis. The facts may now be differently explained.

In the early 13th century, from the sources now available, it is possible to distinguish two markedly distinct types of dialect in the areas from which the later London dialect sprang—a city type which is almost identical with that of Essex, and what may be called the county dialect of Middlesex. There is further, a third, intermediate, type preserved in a collection of charters written at Westminster about i 25o or a bit later. The later Nth century London dialect of Davie, Chaucer and the official Records, is a blend of the old City and Middlesex types, together with cer tain features which, apparently, are to be traced to the adjacent areas of Herts. It is essentially a regional dialect. The chief feature formerly regarded as Kentish (e for O.E. y) is certainly of the old City-Essex type, the "southern" features are those of the old Middlesex type, which was very near to West Saxon in many respects, while of the "Midland" characteristics, some are found in the i 3th century City documents, and others, as stated, have come in from Herts. (For the latest account of the early and later London dialect in M.E., together with references to sources and authorities, see the work of B. A. Mackenzie cit. in Bibli ography.)