English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day.
by Walter W. Skeat.
PREFACE
The following brief sketch is an attempt to present, in a popular form, the history of our English dialects, from the eighth century to the present day. The evidence, which is necessarily somewhat imperfect, goes to show that the older dialects appear to have been few in number, each being tolerably uniform over a wide area; and that the rather numerous dialects of the present day were gradually developed by the breaking up of the older groups into subdialects.
This is especially true of the old Northumbrian dialect, in which the speech of Aberdeen was hardly distinguishable from that of Yorkshire, down to the end of the fourteenth century; soon after which date, the use of it for literary purposes survived in Scotland only. The chief literary dialect, in the earliest period, was Northumbrian or "Anglian," down to the middle of the ninth century. After that time our literature was mostly in the Southern or Wessex dialect, commonly called "Anglo-Saxon," the dominion of which lasted down to the early years of the thirteenth century, when the East Midland dialect surely but gradually rose to pre-eminence, and has now become the speech of the empire. Towards this result the two great universities contributed not a little. I proceed to discuss the foreign elements found in our dialects, the chief being Scandinavian and French. The influence of the former has long been acknowledged; a due recognition of the importance of the latter has yet to come. In conclusion, I give some selected specimens of the use of the modern dialects.
I beg leave to thank my friend Mr P. Giles, M.A., Hon. LL.D. of Aberdeen, and University Reader in Comparative Philology, for a few hints and for kindly advice.
W. W. S.
Cambridge
3 March 1911
CHAPTER I
DIALECTS AND THEIR VALUE
According to the New English Dictionary, the oldest sense, in English, of the word _dialect_ was simply "a manner of speaking"
or "phraseology," in accordance with its derivation from the Greek _dialectos_, a discourse or way of speaking; from the verb _dialegesthai_, to discourse or converse.
The modern meaning is somewhat more precise. In relation to a language such as English, it is used in a special sense to signify "a local variety of speech differing from the standard or literary language."
When we talk of "speakers of dialect," we imply that they employ a provincial method of speech to which the man who has been educated to use the language of books is unaccustomed. Such a man finds that the dialect-speaker frequently uses words or modes of expression which he does not understand or which are at any rate strange to him; and he is sure to notice that such words as seem to be familiar to him are, for the most part, strangely pronounced. Such differences are especially noticeable in the use of vowels and diphthongs, and in the mode of intonation.
The speaker of the "standard" language is frequently tempted to consider himself as the dialect-speaker's superior, unless he has already acquired some elementary knowledge of the value of the science of language or has sufficient common sense to be desirous of learning to understand that which for the moment lies beyond him. I remember once hearing the remark made--"What is the good of dialects? Why not sweep them all away, and have done with them?" But the very form of the question betrays ignorance of the facts; for it is no more possible to do away with them than it is possible to suppress the waves of the sea. English, like every other literary language, has always had its dialects and will long continue to possess them in secluded districts, though they are at the present time losing much of that archaic character which gives them their chief value. The spread of education may profoundly modify them, but the spoken language of the people will ever continue to devise new variations and to initiate developments of its own. Even the "standard" language is continually losing old words and admitting new ones, as was noted long ago by Horace; and our so-called "standard" pronunciation is ever imperceptibly but surely changing, and never continues in one stay.
In the very valuable _Lectures on the Science of Language_ by Professor F. Max Muller, the second Lecture, which deserves careful study, is chiefly occupied by some account of the processes which he names respectively "phonetic decay" and "dialectic regeneration"; processes to which all languages have always been and ever will be subject.
By "phonetic decay" is meant that insidious and gradual alteration in the sounds of spoken words which, though it cannot be prevented, at last so corrupts a word that it becomes almost or wholly unmeaning.
Such a word as _twenty_ does not suggest its origin. Many might perhaps guess, from their observation of such numbers as _thirty, forty_, etc., that the suffix _-ty_ may have something to do with _ten_, of the original of which it is in fact an extremely reduced form; but it is less obvious that _twen-_ is a shortened form of _twain_. And perhaps none but scholars of Teutonic languages are aware that _twain_ was once of the masculine gender only, while _two_ was so restricted that it could only be applied to things that were feminine or neuter. As a somewhat hackneyed example of phonetic decay, we may take the case of the Latin _mea domina_, i.e. my mistress, which became in French _ma dame_, and in English _madam_; and the last of these has been further shortened to _mam_, and even to _'m_, as in the phrase "Yes, 'm." This shows how nine letters may be reduced to one.
Similarly, our monosyllable _alms_ is all that is left of the Greek _ele{-e}mosyn{-e}_. Ten letters have here been reduced to four.
This irresistible tendency to indistinctness and loss is not, however, wholly bad; for it has at the same time largely contributed, especially in English, to such a simplification of grammatical inflexions as certainly has the practical convenience of giving us less to learn. But in addition to this decay in the forms of words, we have also to reckon with a depreciation or weakening of the ideas they express. Many words become so hackneyed as to be no longer impressive.
As late as in 1820, Keats could say, in stanza 6 of his poem of _Isabella_, that "His heart beat awfully against his side"; but at the present day the word _awfully_ is suggestive of schoolboys' slang.
It is here that we may well have the benefit of the principle of "dialectic regeneration." We shall often do well to borrow from our dialects many terms that are still fresh and racy, and instinct with a full significance. Tennyson was well aware of this, and not only wrote several poems wholly in the Lincolnshire dialect, but introduced dialect words elsewhere. Thus in _The Voyage of Maeldune_, he has the striking line: "Our voices were thinner and fainter than any flittermouse-shriek." In at least sixteen dialects a _flittermouse_ means "a bat."
I have mentioned Tennyson in this connexion because he was a careful student of English, not only in its dialectal but also in its older forms. But, as a matter of fact, nearly all our chief writers have recognised the value of dialectal words. Tennyson was not the first to use the above word. Near the end of the Second Act of his _Sad Shepherd_, Ben Jonson speaks of:
Green-bellied snakes, blue fire-drakes in the sky, And giddy flitter-mice with leather wings.
Similarly, there are plenty of "provincialisms" in Shakespeare. In an interesting book entitled _Shakespeare, his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood_, by J.R. Wise, there is a chapter on "The Provincialisms of Shakespeare," from which I beg leave to give a short extract by way of specimen.
"There is the expressive compound 'blood-boltered' in _Macbeth_ (Act IV, Sc. 1), which the critics have all thought meant simply blood-stained. Miss Baker, in her _Glossary of Northamptonshire Words_, first pointed out that 'bolter' was peculiarly a Warwickshire word, signifying to clot, collect, or cake, as snow does in a horse's hoof, thus giving the phrase a far greater intensity of meaning. And Steevens, too, first noticed that in the expression in _The Winter's Tale_ (Act III, Sc. 3), 'Is it a boy or a child?'--where, by the way, every actor tries to make a point, and the audience invariably laughs--the word 'child' is used, as is sometimes the case in the midland districts, as synonymous with girl; which is plainly its meaning in this passage, although the speaker has used it just before in its more common sense of either a boy or a girl."
In fact, the _English Dialect Dictionary_ cites the phrase "is it a lad or a child?" as being still current in Shropshire; and duly states that, in Warwickshire, "dirt collected on the hairs of a horse's leg and forming into hard masses is said to _bolter_." Trench further points out that many of our pure Anglo-Saxon words which lived on into the formation of our early English, subsequently dropped out of our usual vocabulary, and are now to be found only in the dialects. A good example is the word _eme_, an uncle (A.S. _{-e}am_), which is rather common in Middle English, but has seldom appeared in our literature since the tune of Drayton. Yet it is well known in our Northern dialects, and Sir Walter Scott puts the expression "Didna his _eme_ die" in the mouth of Davie Deans (_Heart of Midlothian_, ch. XII). In fact, few things are more extraordinary in the history of our language than the singularly capricious manner in which good and useful words emerge into or disappear from use in "standard" talk, for no very obvious reason. Such a word as _yonder_ is common enough still; but its corresponding adjective _yon_, as in the phrase "yon man," is usually relegated to our dialects. Though it is common in Shakespeare, it is comparatively rare in the Middle English period, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. It only occurs once in Chaucer, where it is introduced as being a Northern word; and it absolutely disappears from record in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries.
Bosworth's _Anglo-Saxon Dictionary_ gives no example of its use, and it was long supposed that it would be impossible to trace it in our early records. Nevertheless, when Dr Sweet printed, for the first time, an edition of King Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory's _Pastoral Care_, an example appeared in which it was employed in the most natural manner, as if it were in everyday use. At p. 443 of that treatise is the sentence--"Aris and gong to geonre byrg," i.e. Arise and go to yon city. Here the A.S. _geon_ (pronounced like the modern _yon_) is actually declined after the regular manner, being duly provided with the suffix _-re_, which was the special suffix reserved only for the genitive or dative feminine. It is here a dative after the preposition _to_.
There is, in fact, no limit to the good use to which a reverent study of our dialects may be put by a diligent student. They abound with pearls which are worthy of a better fate than to be trampled under foot. I will content myself with giving one last example that is really too curious to be passed over in silence.
It so happens that in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of _Beowulf_, one of the most remarkable and precious of our early poems, there is a splendid and graphic description of a lonely mere, such as would have delighted the heart of Edgar Allan Poe, the author of _Ulalume_. In Professor Earle's prose translation of this passage, given in his _Deeds of Beowulf_, at p. 44, is a description of two mysterious monsters, of whom it is said that "they inhabit unvisited land, wolf-crags, windy bluffs, the dread fen-track, where the mountain waterfall amid precipitous gloom vanisheth beneath--flood under earth. Not far hence it is, reckoning by miles, that the Mere standeth, and over it hang rimy groves; a wood with clenched roots overshrouds the water." The word to be noted here is the word _rimy_, i.e. covered with rime or hoar-frost. The original Anglo-Saxon text has the form _hrinde_, the meaning of which was long doubtful. Grein, the great German scholar, writing in 1864, acknowledged that he did not know what was intended, and it was not till 1880 that light was first thrown upon the passage. In that year Dr Morris edited, for the first time, some Anglo-Saxon homilies (commonly known as the _Blickling Homilies_, because the MS. is in the library of Blickling Hall, Norfolk); and he called attention to a passage (at p. 209) where the homilist was obviously referring to the lonely mere of the old poem, in which its overhanging groves were described as being _hrimige_, which is nothing but the true old spelling of _rimy_. He naturally concluded that the word _hrinde_ (in the MS. of Beowulf) was miswritten, and that the scribe had inadvertently put down _hrinde_ instead of _hrimge_, which is a legitimate contraction of _hrimige_.
Many scholars accepted this solution; but a further light was yet to come, viz. in 1904. In that year, Dr Joseph Wright printed the fifth volume of the _English Dialect Dictionary_, showing that in the dialects of Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire, the word for "hoarfrost" is not _rime_, but _rind_, with a derived adjective _rindy_, which has the same sense as _rimy_. At the same time, he called attention yet once more to the passage in _Beowulf_. It is established, accordingly, that the suspected mistake in the MS. is no mistake at all; that the form _hrinde_ is correct, being a contraction of _hrindge_ or _hrindige_, plural of the adjective _hrindig_, which is preserved in our dialects, in the form _rindy_, to this very day.
In direct contradiction of a common popular error that regards our dialectal forms as being, for the most part, "corrupt," it will be found by experience that they are remarkably conservative and antique.
CHAPTER II
DIALECTS IN EARLY TIMES
The history of our dialects in the earliest periods of which we have any record is necessarily somewhat obscure, owing to the scarcity of the documents that have come down to us. The earliest of these have been carefully collected and printed in one volume by Dr Sweet, entitled _The Oldest English Texts_, edited for the Early English Text Society in 1885. Here we already find the existence of no less than four dialects, which have been called by the names of Northumbrian, Mercian, Wessex (or Anglo-Saxon), and Kentish. These correspond, respectively, though not quite exactly, to what we may roughly call Northern, Midland, Southern, and Kentish. Whether the limits of these dialects were always the same from the earliest times, we cannot tell; probably not, when the unsettled state of the country is considered, in the days when repeated invasions of the Danes and Norsemen necessitated constant efforts to repel them. It is therefore sufficient to define the areas covered by these dialects in quite a rough way. We may regard the Northumbrian or Northern as the dialect or group of dialects spoken to the north of the river Humber, as the name implies; the Wessex or Southern, as the dialect or group of dialects spoken to the south of the river Thames; the Kentish as being peculiar to Kent; and the Mercian as in use in the Midland districts, chiefly to the south of the Humber and to the north of the Thames. The modern limits are somewhat different, but the above division of the three chief dialects (excluding Kentish) into Northern, Midland, and Southern is sufficient for taking a broad general view of the language in the days before the Norman Conquest.
The investigation of the differences of dialect in our early documents only dates from 1885, owing to the previous impossibility of obtaining access to these oldest texts. Before that date, it so happened that nearly all the manuscripts that had been printed or examined were in one and the same dialect, viz. the Southern (or Wessex). The language employed in these was (somewhat unhappily) named "Anglo-Saxon"; and the very natural mistake was made of supposing that this "Anglo-Saxon"
was the sole language (or dialect) which served for all the "Angles"
and "Saxons" to be found in the "land of the Angles" or England. This is the reason why it is desirable to give the more general name of "Old English" to the oldest forms of our language, because this term can be employed collectively, so as to include Northumbrian, Mercian, "Anglo-Saxon" and Kentish under one designation. The name "Anglo-Saxon"
was certainly rather inappropriate, as the speakers of it were mostly Saxons and not Angles at all; which leads up to the paradox that they did not speak "English"; for that, in the extreme literal sense, was the language of the Angles only! But now that the true relationship of the old dialects is known, it is not uncommon for scholars to speak of the Wessex dialect as "Saxon," and of the Northumbrian and Mercian dialects as "Anglian"; for the latter are found to have some features in common that differ sharply from those found in "Saxon."
Manuscripts in the Southern dialect are fairly abundant, and contain poems, homilies, land-charters, laws, wills, translations of Latin treatises, glossaries, etc.; so that there is considerable variety.
One of the most precious documents is the history known as the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which was continued even after the Conquest till the year 1154, when the death and burial of King Stephen were duly recorded.
But specimens of the oldest forms of the Northern and Midland dialects are, on the other hand, very much fewer in number than students of our language desire, and are consequently deserving of special mention.
They are duly enumerated in the chapters below, which discuss these dialects separately.
Having thus sketched out the broad divisions into which our dialects may be distributed, I shall proceed to enter upon a particular discussion of each group, beginning with the Northern or Northumbrian.
CHAPTER III
THE DIALECTS OF NORTHUMBRIA; TILL A.D. 1000
In Professor Earle's excellent manual on Anglo-Saxon Literature, chapter V is entirely occupied with "the Anglian Period," and begins thus:--"While Canterbury was so important a seminary of learning, there was, in the Anglian region of Northumbria, a development of religious and intellectual life which makes it natural to regard the whole brilliant period from the later seventh to the early ninth century as the Anglian Period.... Anglia became for a century the light-spot of European history; and we here recognise the first great stage in the revival of learning, and the first movement towards the establishment of public order in things temporal and spiritual."
Unfortunately for the student of English, though perhaps fortunately for the historian, the most important book belonging to this period was written in Latin. This was the _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, or the Church History of the Anglian People. The writer was Beda, better known as "the Venerable Bede," who was born near Wearmouth (Durham) in 672, and lived for the greater part of his life at Jarrow, where he died in 735. He wrote several other works, also in Latin, most of which Professor Earle enumerates. It is said of Beda himself that he was "learned in our native songs," and it is probable that he wrote many things in his native Northumbrian or Durham dialect; but they have all perished, with the exception of one precious fragment of five lines, printed by Dr Sweet (at p. 149) from the St Gall MS. No. 254, of the ninth century. It is usually called Beda's Death-song, and is here given:
Fore there neidfaerae naenig uuiurthit thonc-snotturra than him thar[f] sie, to ymbhycggannae, aer his hin-iong[a]e, huaet his gastae, godaes aeththa yflaes, aefter deoth-daege doemid uueorth[a]e.
Literally translated, this runs as follows: