14. The close likeness of the two Tongues did not last very long after the War of Independence. Before the end of the fifteenth century, the literary language of Scotland, although it continued to be called English by those who wrote in it, differed widely from that of England, although not so far as to make it difficult of comprehension to an Englishman familiar with Chaucer. The deviation is quite established in the poems of Dunbar, and is made more palpable by the pedantic Latinisms which, as we have 6 The a for o, so frequent in the Scottish dialect, is Anglo-Saxon, and, as we have seen, lingered long in the English. Not and nought. See Chaucer's prose. 11 Fail. Nor. 10 Please. 8 Else. 12 Yearned, longed for: Anglo-Saxon, geornian, to desire. 13 Over, above. 14 Doom. 15 Coupled. 17 But. 18 Thraldom; Anglo-Saxon, thral; thirlian, to pierce, drill. 18 Perfectly: Scottish; said to be per-quair, by book: quair is used by Chaucer, and gives our quire (of paper). 19 S for sch- or sh-, an Anglian peculiarity. 20 Know. 22 See Note 16. 23 Abandoned; nearly French. 21 Prize: 24 To; modern Scottish. It is really good Anglo-Saxon, though less common than to. 25 In Old Scottish spelling (and in Moso-Gothic) quh- answers to the AngloSaxon hw-, and the English wh-. 26 Yet? 27 Scottish; much; from the Anglo-Saxon adjective mycel, mycle, great; comparative, mare; superlative, mast. 28 Live. 29 At, relative, Scottish for that. learned, now infected all the Scottish poetry, coalescing very badly with the native Teutonic diction. The striking personifications in his masterpiece, "The Daunce," are for several reasons unsuitable as specimens. We are partly indemnified by the opening of the very beautiful poem, "The Thistle and the Rose," which commemorates, in the allegorical manner of similar poems by Chaucer and his French masters, the marriage of James the Fourth with the Princess Margaret of England, celebrated in the year 1503.* Quhen Merch wes with variand windis past, In bed at morrow, sleiping as I lay, And halsit11 me, with visage paill and grene: up stude, Me thocht fresche May befoir my bed In brycht atteir of flouris forgit16 new, Hevinly of colour, quhyt, reid, broun, and blew,— Varying; the Anglo-Saxon present participle in -nde; to be found in Chaucer. 2 Leave of. 3 An; Anglo-Saxon and Scottish. 4 From Anglo-Saxon and Old English, lust, pleasure, desire. 5 Mother; Anglo-Saxon, moder, modor, modur. 7 Red; see Chaucer. 10 Looked. 9 See Chaucer's Death of Arcite, Note 12. 12 From the spleen, from the heart. 14 Lovers; Anglo-Saxon, lufian, to love. 16 Forged, fashioned. 17 Embalmed. 13 Awake. 15 Slumbering. 18 While, until. 19 Gleams, beams; Anglo-Saxon, leoma, a beam or ray of light; lemman, to shine or gleam. * Text from Laing's "Poems of William Dunbar ;" 1834. "Slugird!" scho20 said, "Awalk annone21 for schame, To raise up luvaris with confort and delyt : Quhois hairt sum tyme hes glaid23 and blisfull bene, 20 She; common in England in the fourteenth century. 21 Anon. where, desire. 22 Courage: but meaning, as in Lydgate, and often else23 Glud. CHAPTER IV. THE SOURCES OF THE MODERN ENGLISH TONGUE; AND THEIR COMPARATIVE IMPORTANCE. 1. Two Points-The Grammar-The Vocabulary-Doctrine as to each.GRAMMAR. 2. English Grammar in Substance Anglo-Saxon-Enumeration of Particulars.-3. General Doctrine-Our Deviations in Verbs few -The chief of them-Our Deviations in Nouns and their Allies many -Description of them-Consequences.-4. Position of Modern English among European Tongues-Leading Facts common to the History of all -Comparison of the Gothic Tongues with the Classical-Comparison of the English Tongue with both.-VOCABULARY. 5. Glossarial Elements to be Weighed not Numbered-The Principal Words of the English Tongue Anglo-Saxon-Seven Classes of Words from Saxon Roots.6. Words from Latin Roots-Periods of Introduction-Kinds-Uses.7. Words from French Roots-Periods of Introduction-Kinds and Uses. -8. Words from Greek Roots.-9. Words from Tongues yielding few. -10. Estimate, by Number, of Saxon Words Lost-Remarks.-11. Estimate of the Number of Saxon Words Retained-Proportion as tested by the Dictionaries-Proportion as tested by Specimens from Popular Writers. 1. OUR hasty survey of the Origin and Progress of the English Language has now been carried down to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Its organization may be held to have been by that time complete. The laws determining the changes to be made on words, and regulating the grammatical structure of sentences, had been definitively fixed and were generally obeyed: all that had still to be gained in this particular was an increase of ease and dexterity in the application of the rules. The vocabulary, doubtless, was not so far advanced. It was receiving constant accessions; and the threeand-a-half centuries that have since elapsed have increased our stock of words immensely. But this is a process which is still going on, and which never comes to a stop in the speech of any people and, the grammar being once thoroughly founded, the effects of glossarial changes are only secondary, until the time arrives when they co-operate with other causes in breaking up a language altogether. In brief, all the alterations which our tongue has suffered, since the end of the middle ages, may be regarded as nothing more than changes and developments of Style; that is, as varieties in the manner in which individuals express their meaning, all of them using the same language. Here, therefore, we may endeavour to sum up our results. We have no time to spare for eulogies on the English Language. It is not only the object of affection to all of us, for the love we bear to our homes and our native land, and for the boundless wealth of pleasant associations awakened by its familiar sounds. It is worthy, by its remarkable combination of strength, precision, and copiousness, of being, as it already is, spoken by many millions, and these the part of the human race that appear likely to control, more than any others, the future destinies of the world. It may also be remarked, that the very nature of our tongue, the position it occupies between the Teutonic languages and those of Roman origin, fits it especially for the mighty functions which press more and more upon it.* Again, it is not our part to determine, with the accuracy of philosophical grammar, the character of our language, or the principles which dictate its laws. Our investigation is strictly Historical: and it will be closed when we have obtained a general view of the relations which the Modern English bears to those other tongues, from which it derives its laws and its materials. The leading doctrines may be asserted in two or three sentences. First, our Grammar, the system of laws constituting our Etymology and Syntax, is Anglo-Saxon in all its distinctive characteristics. Secondly, our Dictionary, though we take it in its latest and fullest state, derives a very large proportion of its words from the Anglo-Saxon. The only other tongues to which it owes much are those of the Classical stock: the French and Latin furnishing a very great number of words; and the Greek giving to our ordinary speech hardly any thing directly, though much through the Latin. These two points, the Grammatical and the Glossarial character of the English language, will now successively be glanced at. THE GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2. In regard to our Grammar, so many facts have gathered about "It is calculated that, before the lapse of the present century, a time that so many now alive will live to witness, English will be the native and vernacular language of about one hundred and fifty millions of human beings." Watts: in Latham's "English Language; Ed. 1850. |