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The words which have thus succeeded one another do not always cover equal areas: the elder word is usually the more comprehensive, and the later words are apt to be more specific, as in the following instance :

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33. In such transitions the change is conspicuous, and requires little comment; but in the other set mentioned above it requires some attention to seize the alteration which has taken place. Man spells in old Saxon as in modern English, but yet it has altered in grammatical habit, in application, and in convertible use.

In grammatical habit it has altered; for in Saxon it had a genitive mannes, a dative men, an (archaic) accusative mannan, a plural men, a genitive plural manna, and a dative plural mannum. Of these it has lost the whole, except the formation of the simple plural.

In application it has altered; for in Saxon times man was as applicable to women as to men, whereas now it is limited

to one sex.

In convertible use it has suffered greatly; for the Saxon speech enjoyed the possession of this word as a pronoun, just as German now. In German, man sagt (man says) is equivalent to our expression they say or it is said. German spelling distinguishes between the substantive and the pronoun by giving the former a double n at the close, in addition to the distinction of the initial capital, which in German belongs to substantives: thus, substantive Mann, pronoun man. In Saxon (towards the close of the period) the distinction of the n is sometimes seen, with a preference of

the vowel a for the substantive, and o for the pronoun. following is of the eleventh century :

...

ac

Ærest mon sceal God lufian... Ne sceal mon mann slean ælcne mann mon sceal â weorpian. and ne sceal nan mann don oðrum þæt he nelle þæt him mon do.

First, we must love God must not slay man

The

we

but every

man we must aye respect; and no man should do to another that he would not to himself were done.

singularly embarrassed for

Our language is at present want of this most useful pronoun. At one time we have to put a we, at another time a you, at another time a they, at other times one or somebody; and it often happens that none of these will serve, and we must have recourse to the passive verb, as in the close of the quotation. There are probably few English speakers or writers who have not felt the awkwardness resulting from our loss of this most regrettable old pronoun. No other of the great languages labours under a like inability. So far about the word man, which is an example of the slowest-moving of words, which has not altered in its spelling, and which is yet seen to have undergone alterations of another kind. The other instances shall be more lightly touched on.

34. Thing. This word had to itself a large symbolic function which is now partitioned: 'On mang pisum þingum,' Among these things; 'Ic seah sellic ping singan on recede,' I saw a strange thing singing on the hall. But in Saxon it covered a greater variety of ground than it does now: 'Me wear Grendles ping undyrne cuð,' The matter of Grendel was made known to me; 'Beadohilde ne was hyre broðra dead on sefan swa sâr, swa hyre sylfre ping,' Her brother's death was not so sore on Beadohild's heart as was her own concern; For his þingum,' On his account.

35. Smith. This word is now applied only to handicraftsmen in metals. But in early literature it had its metaphorical applications. Not only do we read of the armourer by the

name of wapna smið, the weapon-smith; but we have the promoter of laughter called hleahtor smið, laughter-smith ; we have the teacher called lâr smið, lore-smith; we have the warrior called wig smið, war-smith.

36. Heap is now only applied to inert matter, but in Saxon to a crowd of men: as, 'Hengestes heap,' Hengest's troop (Beowulf, 1091); 'þegna heap,' an assembly of thanes; 'preosta heap,' a gathering of priests. In Norfolk may still be heard such a sentence as this: 'There was a heap of folks in church to-day.'

Can. This verb was used in Saxon in a manner very like its present employment. But when we examine into it, we find the sense attached to it was not, as now, that of possibility, but of knowledge and skill. When a boy in his French exercises comes to the sentence 'Can you swim?' he is directed to render it into French by 'Savez vous nager?' that is 'Know you to swim?' There is something strange to us in this; and yet Can you swim?' meant exactly the same; for in Saxon, CUNNAN is to know: 'Ic can,' I know; 'pu canst,' thou knowest. It had, moreover, a use in Saxon which it has now lost, but which it has retained in German, where fennen, to know, is the proper word for speaking of acquaintance with persons. So in Saxon: 'Canst þu pone preost pe is gehaten Eadsige?' Knowest thou the priest that is called Eadsige?

37. On is a common preposition in Saxon, but its area of incidence is different. We often find that an AngloSaxon on cannot be rendered by the same preposition in modern English, e. g. Pone pe he geseah on pære cyrcan,' Whom he saw in the church; Landferð se ofersæwisca hit gesette on Leden,' Landferth from over the sea put it into Latin; 'Swa swa we on bocum redað,' As we read in books; *Sum mann on Winceastre,' A man at Winchester. In certain

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cases where of is now used, as, 'bishop of Winchester,' 'abbot of Abingdon,' we find on in the Saxon formula: 'biscop on Winceastre,'' abbot on Abbandune.' There are, however, instances in which this preposition needs not to be otherwise rendered in modern English, e. g. ‘Eode him þa ham hal on his fotum, se pe ær was geboren on bære to cyrcan': He went off then home whole on his feet, he who before was borne on bier to church.

One of the least changed is the preposition TO. This will mostly stand in an English translation out of Saxon: 'And se halga him cwæp to, ponne þu cymst to Winceastre,' And the saint said to him, When thou comest to Winchester: 'Se mann wearð þa gebroht to his bedde,' The man was then brought to his bed.

38. With in Saxon meant against, and we have still a relic of that sense in our compound verb WITHSTand, which means to stand against, to oppose. We have all but lost the old preposition which stood where the ordinary WITH now stands. It was MID, and it still keeps its old place in the German mit. We have not utterly lost the last vestiges of it, for it does reappear now and then in poetry in a sort of disguise, as if it were not its own old self, but a maimed form of a compound of itself, amid; and so it gets printed like this 'mid.

An is a word in Saxon and also in modern English, and it is the same identical word in the two languages. But in the former it represents the first numeral, which we now call WON and write ONE; in the latter it is the indefinite article.

By such examples we see that words which in their visible form remain unaltered, may yet have become greatly changed in regard to their place and office in the language.

39. Such were some of the features of the Saxon speech, as well as we can illustrate them by a reference to modern

English. Speaking relatively to the times, it was not a rude language, but probably the most disciplined of all the vernaculars of western Europe, and certainly the most cultivated of all the dialects of the Gothic barbarians. Its grammar was regulated, its orthography mature and almost fixed. It was capable, not of poetry alone, but of eloquent prose also, and it was equal to the task of translating the Latin authors, which were the literary models of the day. The extant Anglo-Saxon books are but as a few scattered splinters of the old Anglo-Saxon literature. Even if we had no other proof of the fact, the capability to which the language had arrived would alone be sufficient to assure us that it must have been diligently and largely cultivated. To this pitch of development it had reached, first by inheriting the relics of the Romano-British civilisation, and afterwards by four centuries and a half of Christian culture under the presiding influence of Latin as the language of religion and of higher education. Latin happily did not then what it has since done in many lands; it did not operate to exclude the native tongue and to cast it into the shade, but to the beneficent end of regulating, fostering, and developing it.

§ 5. Effects of the Norman Conquest.

40. Such was the state of our language when its insular security was disturbed by the Norman invasion. Great and speedy was the effect of the Conquest in ruining the ancient grammar, which rested almost entirely on literary culture. The leading men in the state having no interest in the vernacular, its cultivation fell immediately into neglect. The chief of the Saxon clergy deposed or removed, who should now keep up that supply of religious Saxon literature, f the copiousness of which we may judge even in our day

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