SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFERENT PERIODS.

1. Vocabulary and Grammar. —The oldest English or Anglo-Saxon differs from modern English both in vocabulary and in grammar—in the words it uses and in the inflexions it employs. The difference is often startling. And yet, if we look closely at the words and their dress, we shall most often find that the words which look so strange are the very words with which we are most familiar—words that we are in the habit of using every day; and that it is their dress alone that is strange and antiquated. The effect is the same as if we were to dress a modern man in the clothes worn a thousand years ago: the chances are that we should not be able to recognise even our dearest friend.

2. A Specimen from Anglo-Saxon. —Let us take as an example a verse from the Anglo-Saxon version of one of the Gospels. The well-known verse, Luke ii. 40, runs thus in our oldest English version:—

Sóþlíce ðaet cild weox, and waes gestrangod, wisdómes full; and Godes gyfu waes on him.

Now this looks like an extract from a foreign language; but it is not: it is our own veritable mother-tongue. Every word is pure ordinary English; it is the dress—the spelling and the inflexions—that is quaint and old-fashioned. This will be plain from a literal translation:—

Soothly that child waxed, and was strengthened, wisdoms full (= full of wisdom); and God’s gift was on him.

3. A Comparison. —This will become plainer if we compare the English of the Gospels as it was written in different periods of our language. The alteration in the meanings of words, the changes in the application of them, the variation in the use of phrases, the falling away of the inflexions—all these things become plain to the eye and to the mind as soon as we thoughtfully compare the different versions. The following are extracts from the Anglo-Saxon version (995), the version of Wycliffe (1389) and of Tyndale (1526), of the passage in Luke ii. 44, 45:—

Anglo-Saxon.	Wycliffe.	Tyndale.
Wéndon ðaet he on heora gefére wáere, ðá comon hig ánes daeges faer, and hine sóhton betweox his magas and his cúðan.	Forsothe thei gessinge him to be in the felowschipe, camen the wey of á day, and souȝten him among his cosyns and knowen.	For they supposed he had bene in the company, they cam a days iorney, and sought hym amonge their kynsfolke and acquayntaunce.
Ða hig hyne ne fúndon, hig gewendon to Hierusalem, hine sécende.	And thei not fyndinge, wenten aȝen to Jerusalem, sekynge him.	And founde hym not, they went backe agayne to Hierusalem, and sought hym.

The literal translation of the Anglo-Saxon version is as follows:—

(They) weened that he on their companionship were (= was), when came they one day’s faring, and him sought betwixt his relations and his couth (folk = acquaintances).

When they him not found, they turned to Jerusalem, him seeking.

4. The Lord’s Prayer. —The same plan of comparison may be applied to the different versions of the Lord’s Prayer that have come down to us; and it will be seen from this comparison that the greatest changes have taken place in the grammar, and especially in that part of the grammar which contains the inflexions.

THE LORD’S PRAYER.

1130.	1250.	1380.	1526.
Reign of Stephen.	Reign of Henry III.	Wycliffe’s Version.	Tyndale’s Version.
Fader ure, þe art on heofone.	Fadir ur, that es in hevene,	Our Fadir, that art in hevenys,	Our Father which art in heaven;
Sy gebletsod name þin,	Halud thi nam to nevene;	Halewid be thi name;	Halowed be thy name;
Cume þin rike.	Thou do as thi rich rike;	Thi kingdom come to;	Let thy kingdom come;
Si þin wil swa swa on heofone and on eorþan.	Thi will on erd be wrought, eek as it is wrought in heven ay.	Be thi wil done in erthe, as in hevene.	Thy will be fulfilled as well in earth as it is in heven.
Breod ure degwamlich geof us to daeg.	Ur ilk day brede give us to day.	Give to us this day oure breed ovir othir substaunce ,	Geve us this day ur dayly bred,
And forgeof us ageltes ura swa swa we forgeofen agiltendum urum.	Forgive thou all us dettes urs, als we forgive till ur detturs.	And forgive to us our dettis , as we forgiven to oure dettouris .	And forgeve us oure dettes as we forgeve ur detters.
And ne led us on costunge.	And lede us not into temptacioun ;	And ledde us in na fandung.	And leade us not into temptation,
Ac alys us fram yfele. Swa beo hit.	But sculd us fra ivel thing. Amen.	But delyvere us from yvel. Amen.	But delyver us from evyll. For thyne is the kyngdom, and the power, and the glorye, for ever. Amen.

It will be observed that Wycliffe’s version contains five Romance terms— substaunce , dettis , dettouris , temptacioun , and delyvere .

5. Oldest English and Early English. —The following is a short passage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under date 1137: first, in the Anglo-Saxon form; second, in Early English, or—as it has sometimes been called—Broken Saxon; third, in modern English. The breaking-down of the grammar becomes still more strikingly evident from this close juxtaposition.

(i)	Hí	swencton	Þá	wreccan	menn
(ii)	Hí	swencten	the	wrecce	men
(iii)	They	swinked (harassed)	the	wretched	men

(i)	Þaes landes	mid	castel-weorcum.
(ii)	Of-the-land	mid	castel-weorces.
(iii)	Of the land	with	castle-works.

(i)	Ða	Þá	castelas	waeron	gemacod,
(ii)	Tha	the	castles	waren	maked,
(iii)	When	the	castles	were	made,

(i)	Þá	fyldon	hí	hí	mid	yfelum	mannum.
(ii)	thá	fylden	hi	hi	mid	yvele	men.
(iii)	then	filled	they	them	with	evil	men.

6. Comparisons of Words and Inflexions. —Let us take a few of the most prominent words in our language, and observe the changes that have fallen upon them since they made their appearance in our island in the fifth century. These changes will be best seen by displaying them in columns:—

Anglo-Saxon.	Early English.	Middle English.	Modern English.
heom.	to heom.	to hem.	to them.
seó.	heó.	ho, scho.	she.
sweostrum.	to the swestres.	to the swistren.	to the sisters.
geboren.	gebore.	iboré.	born.
lufigende.	lufigend.	lovand.	loving.
weoxon.	woxen.	wexide.	waxed.

7. Conclusions from the above Comparisons. —We can now draw several conclusions from the comparisons we have made of the passages given from different periods of the language. These conclusions relate chiefly to verbs and nouns; and they may become useful as a KEY to enable us to judge to what period in the history of our language a passage presented to us must belong. If we find such and such marks, the language is Anglo-Saxon; if other marks, it is Early English; and so on.

I.—MARKS OF ANGLO-SAXON.	II.—MARKS OF EARLY ENGLISH (1100-1250).	III.—MARKS OF MIDDLE ENGLISH (1250-1485).
Verbs.	Verbs.	Verbs.
Infinitive in an . Pres. part. in ende . Past part. with ge . 3d plural pres. in ath . 3d plural past in on . Plural of imperatives in ath .	Infin. in en or e . Pres. part. in ind . ge of past part. turned into i or y . 3d plural in en .	Infin. with to (the en was dropped about 1400). Pres. part. in inge . 3d plural in en . Imperative in eth .
Nouns.	Nouns.	Nouns.
Plurals in an , as , or a . Dative plural in um .	Plural in es . Dative plural in es .	Plurals in es (separate syllable). Possessives in es (separate syllable).

8. The English of the Thirteenth Century. —In this century there was a great breaking-down and stripping-off of inflexions. This is seen in the Ormulum of Orm, a canon of the Order of St Augustine, whose English is nearly as flexionless as that of Chaucer, although about a century and a half before him. Orm has also the peculiarity of always doubling a consonant after a short vowel. Thus, in his introduction, he says:—

That is, “This book is named Ormulum, for the (reason) that Orm wrought it.” The absence of inflexions is probably due to the fact that the book is written in the East-Midland dialect. But, in a song called “The Story of Genesis and Exodus,” written about 1250, we find a greater number of inflexions. Thus we read:—

That is, “Hunger waxed (increased) in the land of Canaan; and Jacob for that (reason) sent his ten sons into Egypt to bring corn: he remained at home that was youngest born.”

9. The English of the Fourteenth Century. —The four greatest writers of the fourteenth century are—in verse, Chaucer and Langlande ; and in prose, Mandeville and Wycliffe . The inflexions continue to drop off; and, in Chaucer at least, a larger number of French words appear. Chaucer also writes in an elaborate verse-measure that forms a striking contrast to the homely rhythms of Langlande. Thus, in the “Man of Lawes Tale,” we have the verse:—

Here, with the exception of the imperative in Haveth som routhe (= have some pity), stant , and ben (= are ), the grammar of Chaucer is very near the grammar of to-day. How different this is from the simple English of Langlande! He is speaking of the great storm of wind that blew on January 15, 1362:—

Here it is the spelling of Langlande’s English that differs most from modern English, and not the grammar.—Much the same may be said of the style of Wycliffe (1324-1384) and of Mandeville (1300-1372). In Wycliffe’s version of the Gospel of Mark, v. 26, he speaks of a woman “that hadde suffride many thingis of ful many lechis (doctors), and spendid alle hir thingis; and no-thing profitide.” Sir John Mandeville’s English keeps many old inflexions and spellings; but is, in other respects, modern enough. Speaking of Mahomet, he says: “And ȝee schulle understonds that Machamete was born in Arabye, that was first a pore knave that kept cameles, that wenten with marchantes for marchandise.” Knave for boy, and wenten for went are the two chief differences—the one in the use of words, the other in grammar—that distinguish this piece of Mandeville’s English from our modern speech.

10. The English of the Sixteenth Century. —This, which is also called Tudor-English, differs as regards grammar hardly at all from the English of the nineteenth century. This becomes plain from a passage from one of Latimer’s sermons (1490-1555), “a book which gives a faithful picture of the manners, thoughts, and events of the period.” “My father,” he writes, “was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pound a year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine.” In this passage, it is only the old-fashionedness, homeliness, and quaintness of the English—not its grammar—that makes us feel that it was not written in our own times. When Ridley, the fellow-martyr of Latimer, stood at the stake, he said, “I commit our cause to Almighty God, which shall indifferently judge all.” Here he used indifferently in the sense of impartially —that is, in the sense of making no difference between parties ; and this is one among a very large number of instances of Latin words, when they had not been long in our language, still retaining the older Latin meaning.

11. The English of the Bible (i).—The version of the Bible which we at present use was made in 1611; and we might therefore suppose that it is written in seventeenth-century English. But this is not the case. The translators were commanded by James I. to “follow the Bishops’ Bible”; and the Bishops’ Bible was itself founded on the “Great Bible,” which was published in 1539. But the Great Bible is itself only a revision of Tyndale’s, part of which appeared as early as 1526. When we are reading the Bible, therefore, we are reading English of the sixteenth century, and, to a large extent, of the early part of that century. It is true that successive generations of printers have, of their own accord, altered the spelling, and even, to a slight extent, modified the grammar. Thus we have fetched for the older fet , more for moe , sown for sowen , brittle for brickle (which gives the connection with break ), jaws for chaws , sixth for sixt , and so on. But we still find such participles as shined and understanded ; and such phrases as “they can skill to hew timber” (1 Kings v. 6), “abjects” for abject persons , “three days agone” for ago , the “captivated Hebrews” for “the captive Hebrews,” and others.

12. The English of the Bible (ii).—We have, again, old words retained, or used in the older meaning. Thus we find, in Psalm v. 6, the phrase “them that speak leasing,” which reminds us of King Alfred’s expression about “leasum spellum” (lying stories). Trow and ween are often found; the “champaign over against Gilgal” (Deut. xi. 30) means the plain ; and a publican in the New Testament is a tax-gatherer, who sent to the Roman Treasury or Publicum the taxes he had collected from the Jews. An “ill-favoured person” is an ill-looking person; and “bravery” (Isa. iii. 18) is used in the sense of finery in dress.—Some of the oldest grammar, too, remains, as in Esther viii. 8, “Write ye, as it liketh you,” where the you is a dative. Again, in Ezek. xxx. 2, we find “Howl ye, Woe worth the day!” where the imperative worth governs day in the dative case. This idiom is still found in modern verse, as in the well-known lines in the first canto of the “Lady of the Lake”:—