Chapter VI: Section III

_On the Changes which have taken place in the English Language.
Effect of the Norman Conquest, as a Cause of these Changes
exaggerated. Dr. Johnson’s Opinion. Sir Walter Scott’s. Speech of
__“__Wamba__”__ in Ivanhoe. Some of the most important Changes
have occurred since the time of Chaucer. The modern English, the
Provincial Dialects of Lancashire and other English Counties, and
the Lowland Scotch, different Fragments of the Anglo-Saxon. The
Provincial English Auxiliary Verb, __“__I Bin,__”__ &c._

That extensive changes have taken place in many Human languages, within a comparatively limited period, is a truth of which the proofs are alike abundant and indisputable. The various dialects that sprang from the Latin after the downfall of the Roman Empire, the emanation of numerous dialects in the Scandinavian Kingdoms from one ancient tongue, “The Danska Tunge” or “Norse,” and finally the successive phases of transition through which the English language itself has passed since the period of the Norman conquest, conspire, with other examples of the same kind, at once to establish the occurrence of such changes, and to exhibit in a striking point of view their extraordinary variety and extent.

In order to account for differences, so characteristic and apparently so fundamental, as many of the languages which are the offspring of these changes display, it has generally been deemed necessary to ascribe them to the agency of a _violent disturbing cause_. Hence the origin of an opinion that may be regarded as the prevalent one, viz. that these varieties of dialect have been mainly produced by the influence of Foreign invasions and conquests, and the consequent admixture of the Languages of the dominant, with those of vanquished, nations.

The grounds of this conclusion may be appropriately tested—and its fallacy, as I conceive, satisfactorily established—in one single instance, which I have been naturally led to select as involving considerations of peculiar interest to English readers. I allude to the influence which the Norman conquest of England is supposed to have exercised, in the production of those peculiar features, which distinguish the modern language of England from the original Anglo-Saxon tongue.

The share which the Norman conquest may have had in the formation of those peculiarities may be best determined by investigating 1st the immediate, and 2d the remote, consequences of that event.

On the subject of the immediate effects of the Norman conquest, it is highly interesting to observe that Dr. Johnson thus expresses himself in the following remarkable passage:

“About the year 1150 the Saxon began to take a form in which the beginning of the present English may be plainly discovered; this change seems not to have been the effect of the Norman conquest, for very _few French words_ are found to have been introduced in the first Hundred years after it; the language must, therefore, have been altered by _causes like those which, notwithstanding the care of writers and societies instituted to obviate them, are even now daily making innovations in every living language_. I have exhibited a specimen of the language of this age from the year 1135 to 1140 of the Saxon Chronicle, of which the latter part was apparently written near the time to which it relates.”(31)

Yet Professor Rask of Copenhagen, a writer of great learning and ability, in alluding to the changes that occurred at this period, attempts to account for them by vaguely attributing them to an infusion of the speech of the “old northern settlers,” (in other words—the Danes,) and to the ascendancy of the Norman French as a court language.(32) But the facts are singularly at variance with his conclusions! The sway of the Danish kings had produced, as he admits, no material alteration in the English language, even during its continuance; and how then could it have done so a century after its termination? Nor can the ascendancy of the Norman Court be accepted as a satisfactory explanation of these results, since the changes to be accounted for did not consist in the adoption of Norman words, but in an internal change in the structure and inflections of the original Anglo-Saxon itself, unattended by the introduction of any Foreign admixture.

It is obvious, then, that the conclusion of Professor Rask cannot be regarded as a deduction naturally suggested by the phenomena, with which he was so profoundly conversant, but must be viewed rather as a result of the influence which the popular and generally received opinions on the subject, must have exercised upon his mind. Highly instructive is it to mark in this instance an example of the extent to which even erudite and admirable philologists have frequently been betrayed into inconsistency and error, by the supposed necessity of referring the revolutions which languages have undergone, to some abrupt and violent social revolution, with which, being connected in the order of events, they are also and not unnaturally conceived to be equally connected by the relation of cause and effect!

It may be assumed therefore, agreeably to the views of Dr. Johnson, that the Norman conquest had no _immediate_ effect on the language of the Anglo-Saxons. It remains then to inquire in what manner the influence of that event was felt at a more distant period, viz.: about a century afterwards, during the reigns of John and Richard Cœur de Lion, the period during which the intermingling of the Norman and Saxon races and tongues is believed to have been consummated. During this period also, we possess the guidance of a great master, who has embodied all the philosophy of this subject in a few pathetic words which he has put into the mouth of a jester.(33)

“Truly,” said Wamba, without stirring from the spot, “I have consulted my legs upon this matter, and they are altogether of opinion, that to carry my gay garments through these sloughs would be an act of unfriendship to my sovereign person and royal wardrobe; wherefore Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers, or of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little else than to be converted into Normans before morning to thy no small ease and comfort.”

“The swine turned Normans to my comfort,” quoth Gurth; “expound that to me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, to read riddles.”

“Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on their four legs?” demanded Wamba.

“Swine, fool, swine,” said the herd; “every fool knows that.”

“And swine is good Saxon,” said the Jester; “but how call you the sow when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung by the heels, like a traitor?”

“Pork,” answered the swineherd.

“I am very glad every fool knows that too,” said Wamba, “and Pork, I think, is good Norman-French; and so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a Norman, and is called Pork, when she is carried to the Castle-hall to feast among the nobles. What dost thou think of this, friend Gurth, ha?”

“It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy fool’s pate!”

“Nay, I can tell you more,” said Wamba, in the same tone. “There is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and bondmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. ‘Mynheer Calf,’ too, becomes ‘Monsieur de Veau,’ in the like manner: he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.”

“By St. Dunstan,” answered Gurth, “thou speakest but sad truths; little is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been reserved with much hesitation, solely for the purpose of enabling us to endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and the fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten distant lands with their bones, leaving few here who have either the will or the power to protect the unfortunate Saxon!”

The effect of the Norman Conquest was simply to introduce among the Saxon population a certain class of new terms, which—though they were eventually embodied in their language—are still readily distinguishable from the Stock on which they were thus engrafted. But the general structure and composition of the language remained unaffected by any Foreign alloy. The most common verbs, nouns, and grammatical inflections and forms—Horne Tooke’s “epea pteroenta” of the English language—remained, and have since continued to be, pure, unadulterated Anglo-Saxon!

Such was the character of those modifications in the English Tongue that flowed from the Norman Conquest. Partial and peculiar were those changes in their nature—brief, also, was the interval of which they were the result! A period can be fixed, at which it is certain that the dialect of the Norman had ceased to encroach on that of the Anglo-Saxon people. In the age of Chaucer, for example, the Norman and Saxon races had long become undistinguishable, and the languages they spoke had blended into one. Can the same age be fixed upon as an epoch at which the process of transition in the English language had also been arrested? That considerable changes have since occurred will not be disputed—for it is an historical fact which does neither admit of doubt nor discussion. But had all _important_ changes ceased at that time? Can it be said that—in the time of Chaucer—that progressive revolution which has so widely separated the modern English from the original Anglo-Saxon had gone through all its stages? Can it be said that the innovations which have since occurred are few in number, and trifling in point of character, compared to those which belong to earlier periods of our History?

The answer to these inquiries involves a truth that I believe will be found no less startling to the Philologist than to the general reader, in whose mind the changes which the English language has undergone are associated with the violent shock given by the Norman Conquest to Anglo-Saxon institutions. The truth to which I allude—and it is one for which I apprehend few inquirers will be prepared—is this: that the changes which have occurred in the English language since the age of Chaucer are at least equal in importance to those which took place in the antecedent periods of our history. Novel as this conclusion may appear, the proofs are so simple and so conclusive, as to place its accuracy beyond the possibility of doubt.

The features which distinguish different languages from each other are divisible into two classes—Words and Grammatical inflections. In both these features marked differences have arisen between our modern English and its parent Saxon, and to both these classes we must refer in forming our conclusion as to the relative importance of the alterations which have taken place in our language at two different epochs.

1st. The difference in words between the language of Chaucer and our modern English will be sufficiently obvious, from a cursory glance at the venerable remains of that poet. How many terms are there in the pages of the father of English poetry that require the aid of a glossary to render them intelligible even to an educated Englishman! These terms too, be it observed—and it is a reflection highly deserving of the attention of those who may still cling to the impression that the Norman Conquest has been the sole agent of those phases through which the English Tongue has passed—do not consist exclusively of Anglo-Saxon roots, but comprise also a large number of Norman words which have shared the same fate!

2d. Still more striking have been those Changes in the Grammatical forms of the English which may be referred to the last four centuries.

The ancient Saxon was a language of inflections—the modern English is a language of simple forms. Thus, in the Anglo-Saxon the terminations of the Verb were varied in different Persons, as they are in the Latin “Hab-_eo_, Hab-_emus_, Hab-_ent_,” and in the German “Hab-_e_, Hab-_en_, Hab-_en_.” These inflections have, for the most part, progressively disappeared from the English, which expresses the changes of Persons by separate Pronouns, in conjunction with a Root, in most instances unvarying, as “I _Have_, We _Have_, They _Have_.” There is distinct evidence that this change has, in a great measure, perhaps principally, taken place since the time of Chaucer—whose writings, to a great extent, preserve the Anglo-Saxon inflections, such as “They Hav-_en_,”(34) &c., corresponding with the German “Sie Hab-_en_,” &c.

Slow and almost imperceptible have been the steps in this as in other examples of that revolution of which the progress may be faintly traced in the writings of Spenser, and Shakspeare, and Milton, and even in those of the great modern Masters of the last century. In our _own_ generation it has not been consummated! A striking instance occurs in the old inflection of the third person singular “He Giv-_eth_,” still partially used in the venerable forms of Scripture. This inflection, now fast passing into oblivion, trifling as it may appear, forms a link which serves to associate the English language not only with the German, but with the Latin and the Sanscrit!(35)

The Auxiliary Verb may probably be regarded as the most important part of Language. Now it is highly deserving of remark, that in the Anglo-Saxon there existed an Auxiliary Verb, “Beo, or Beonne, To Be,” which has been abandoned in the modern English. This Verb is interesting, not merely from its important functions as a part of Language, but also from its forming a link, as will hereafter appear, between the Anglo-Saxon, the German, the dialects of the English Provinces, and of the Scottish Lowlands. From the English of Literature it has been lost since the days of Chaucer, by whom it is commonly used, as in the following example:

“These two sinnes _bin_ so nigh cosins.”—_Person’s Tale._

The peculiarities which distinguish the dialects of the English Counties from the language of the higher classes of society are not, as is perhaps generally supposed, the results of the capricious deviation of uncultivated minds from an established standard. On the contrary, they appear clearly for the most part to be various relics or Fragments of Old English or Anglo-Saxon, which the more educated classes have lost. For example, To “axe” (for To ask,) “I conne,” (I can,) expressions used by the peasantry of Shropshire, are words of Saxon origin that occur in Chaucer. In an able work on the peculiarities of the dialect of Lancashire, by Mr. Collier,(36) it has been shown with much learning and research that those peculiarities are to be recognized in Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, and other old English writers. Obsolete Norman, as well as Saxon, words occur in this dialect. Similar inferences with regard to the Lowland Scotch may be drawn from Mr. Jamieson’s work on that branch of the Anglo-Saxon.

Some very interesting results will be found to flow from a Comparison of the “_Pronunciation_” of different English Counties, and of the Lowland Scotch, with that of the educated classes of modern England. One of the most marked differences between the modern English and the German consists in the superior _breadth_ or _distinctness_ which is given in the German to words which are uttered with a comparatively _narrow_ and _indistinct_ sound in Modern English. There is every reason to believe that the Anglo-Saxon Pronunciation was similar to the German, and that the present English mode has been the result of progressive innovation. Of the various dialects of the Anglo-Saxon, the Lowland Scotch, in its pronunciation, as well as in individual words, approaches nearest to the Continental German.(37) But, as intimated above, many of the characteristics of German articulation have been preserved also in the Provincial dialects of England. Moreover, it is interesting to observe, that _different_ primitive peculiarities have been preserved in _different_ counties. For example, the English of the educated classes differs from the Continental German, and, as it is believed, from the Anglo-Saxon also,(38) in giving a _narrow_ sound to the vowels A and U. Now the Shropshire dialect has preserved the broad A; (“Hair,” for instance, is pronounced “_H-ā-r,_” as it is by the Germans!) On the other hand, in Lancashire and Cheshire the broad U forms the prominent feature in the dialect of the peasantry; (for example, “Butter” and “Gutter” are pronounced “_Bootter_” and “_Gootter_!”)

As already noticed, the Anglo-Saxon Auxiliary Verb forms in numerous instances an important connecting link. Thus the modern English and the modern German Auxiliary Verbs differ totally in the present tense.

English. German. I am, Ich bin, Thou art, Du bist, He is. Er ist.

We are, Wir sind, You are, Ihr seyd, They are. Sie sind.

But both these Verbs co-exist in the present tense in the old Anglo-Saxon.

_Anglo-Saxon_(39) Verb the source of the English “I am,” and Anglo-Saxon Verb corresponding with the German “Ich bin.”

Indicative Present.

_Singular._

1, Eom; 1, Beo, 2, Eort; 2, Byst, 3, Is.; 3, By & Byd.

_Plural._

1, 2, 3, Synd.; 1, 2, 3, Beod & Beo.

Subjunctive Present.

_Singular._

1, 2, 3, Sy (Seo); 1, 2, 3, Beo.

_Plural._

1, 2, 3, Sy’n; 1, 2, 3, Beon.

Indicative Imperfect.

_Singular._

1, Wæs; 1, 2, 3, Beo. 2, Wære, 3, Wæs.

_Plural._

1, 2, 3, Weron; 1, 2, 3, Beod.

Infinitive Present.

Wesanne; Beonne.

Participle Active.

Wesende; Beonde.

Participle Past.

Gewesen.

But though the present tense of the Verb “Beo” or “Beonne” does not exist in modern English, it has been preserved in a remarkable manner in the Shropshire and other dialects, in which it runs thus:

Provincial English. German. I Be, or I Bin, Ich Bin, Thou Bist, Du Bist, He Is. Er Ist. We Bin, Yō Bin, They Bin.

The word “Bin” or “Ben” is used by Chaucer for the 1st, 2d, and 3d Persons Plural,(40) as in the passage previously quoted: “These two sinnes _bin_ so nigh cosins.” (_Person’s Tales._)

These are singular but highly instructive examples of the caprices of “the great Innovator!”