History of the English language
English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the fifth to seventh centuries by Germanic invaders and settlers from what is now northwest Germany and the Netherlands.
The Old English of the Anglo-Saxon era developed into Middle English, the language as spoken between the Norman Conquest and the late 15th century. A significant influence on the shaping of Middle English came from contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavians who conquered and colonised parts of Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries; this contact led to much lexical borrowing and grammatical simplification. Another important influence came from the conquering Normans, who spoke a form of French called Old Norman, which in Britain developed into Anglo-Norman. Many Norman and French loanwords entered the language in this period, especially in vocabulary related to the church, the court system and the government. The system of orthography that became established during the Middle English period is by and large still in use today – later changes in pronunciation, however, combined with the adoption of various foreign spellings, mean that the spelling of modern English words appears highly irregular.
Early Modern English – the language used by Shakespeare – is dated from around 1500. It incorporated many Renaissance-era loans from Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as borrowings from other European languages, including French, German and Dutch. Significant pronunciation changes in this period included the ongoing Great Vowel Shift, which affected the qualities of most long vowels. Modern English proper, similar in most respects to that spoken today, was in place by the late 17th century. The English language came to be exported to other parts of the world through British colonisation, and is now the dominant language in Britain and Ireland, the United States and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many smaller former colonies, as well as being widely spoken in India, parts of Africa, and elsewhere. Largely thanks to United States influence, English has taken on the status of a global lingua franca.
Old English consisted of a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain. The Late West Saxon dialect eventually became dominant; however, a greater input to Middle English came from the Anglian dialects. Geographical and social variation between English dialects and accents remains significant today. Scots, a form of English traditionally spoken in parts of Scotland and the north of Ireland, is often regarded as a separate language.
- Proto-English 1
- Old English 2
- Middle English 3
- Early Modern English 4
- Modern English 5
Phonological changes 6
- Introduction 6.1
- Vowel changes 6.2
- Examples 6.3
Grammatical changes 7
Evolution of English pronouns 7.1
- Interrogative pronouns 7.1.1
- First person personal pronouns 7.1.2
- Second person personal pronouns 7.1.3
- Third person personal pronouns 7.1.4
- Evolution of English pronouns 7.1
- Beowulf 8.1
- Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan 8.2
- Ayenbite of Inwyt 8.3
- Canterbury Tales 8.4
- Paradise Lost 8.5
- Oliver Twist 8.6
- See also 9
- Notes 10
- References 11
- External links 12
English has its roots in the languages of the Germanic peoples of northern Europe. In the times of the Roman Empire, most of the Germanic-inhabited area (Germania) remained independent from Rome, although some southwestern parts were within the empire. Some Germanics served in the Roman military, and troops from Germanic tribes such as the Tungri, Batavi and Frisii served in Britain (Britannia) under Roman command. Germanic settlement and power expanded during the Migration Period, which saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Germanic settlement of Britain took place from the 5th to the 7th century, following the end of Roman rule on the island. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that around the year 449 Vortigern, King of the Britons, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles allegedly led by the Germanic brothers Hengist and Horsa) to help repel invading Picts, in return for lands in the southeast of Britain. This led to waves of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. (The Chronicle was not a contemporaneous work, however, and cannot be regarded as an accurate record for such early events.) Bede, who wrote his Ecclesiastical History in 731 AD, writes of invasion by Angles, Saxons and Jutes, although the precise nature of the invasion and settlement process and the contributions made by these particular groups are the subject of much dispute among historians.
The languages spoken by the Germanic peoples who initially settled in Britain were part of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic language family. They consisted of dialects from the Ingvaeonic grouping, spoken mainly around the North Sea coast, in regions that lie within modern Denmark, north-west Germany and the Netherlands. Due to specific similarities between early English and Old Frisian, an Anglo-Frisian grouping is also identified.
These dialects had most of the typical West Germanic features, including a significant amount of grammatical inflection. Vocabulary came largely from the core Germanic stock, although due to the Germanic peoples' extensive contacts with the Roman world, the settlers' languages already included a number of loanwords from Latin. These included the predecessor of Modern English wine, which had been borrowed into early Germanic from the Latin vinum.
After the Anglo-Saxon settlement, the Germanic language displaced the indigenous Brythonic languages and Latin in most of the areas of Britain that later became England. The original Celtic languages remained in parts of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall (where Cornish was spoken into the 18th century), although large numbers of compound Celtic-Germanic placenames survive, hinting at early language mixing. Latin also remained in these areas as the language of the Celtic Church and of higher education for the nobility. Latin was later to be reintroduced to England by missionaries from both the Celtic and Roman churches, and it would, in time, have a major impact on English. What is now called Old English emerged over time out of the many dialects and languages of the colonizing tribes. Even then, Old English continued to exhibit local variation, the remnants of which continue to be found in dialects of Modern English. The most famous surviving work from the Old English period is the epic poem Beowulf, composed by an unknown poet.
Old English varied widely from modern Standard English, and most native English speakers today find Old English unintelligible. Nevertheless, English remains a Germanic language, and approximately half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English. Many non-standard dialects such as Scottish English (with its heavy Scots influence) and Northumbrian English have retained features of Old English in vocabulary and pronunciation. Old English was spoken until some time in the 12th or 13th century.
In the 10th and 11th centuries, Old English was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Old Norse, spoken by the Norsemen who invaded and settled mainly in the North East of England (see Jórvík and Danelaw). The Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians spoke related languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammar was more divergent.
The Germanic language of the Old English-speaking inhabitants was influenced by extensive contact with Norse colonisers, resulting perhaps in cases of morphological simplification of Old English, including the loss of grammatical gender and explicitly marked case (with the notable exception of the pronouns). The Vikings had a very significant effect on English culture and language by interacting with ordinary people, which was further encouraged by the Christianization of the Danes. Converting the Danes allowed intermarriage, further forcing the two groups to mingle and encouraging language cohabitation. While the heightened level of mingling indicates large amounts of lexical borrowing, it is difficult to define how and when those borrowings occurred. That being said, English borrowed approximately two thousand words from Old Norse, including anger, bag, both, hit, law, leg, same, skill, sky, take, window, and many others, possibly even including the pronoun they.
The introduction of Christianity from around 600 encouraged the addition of over 400 Latin loan words into Old English, such as priest, paper, and school, and fewer Greek loan words. The Old English period formally ended some time after the Norman conquest of 1066, when the language was influenced to an even greater extent by the Normans, who spoke a French dialect called Old Norman.
For centuries following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and high-ranking nobles in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles spoke Anglo-Norman, a variety of Old Norman, originating from a northern langue d'oïl dialect. Merchants and lower-ranked nobles were often bilingual in Anglo-Norman and English, whilst English continued to be the language of the common people. Middle English was influenced by both Anglo-Norman and, later, Anglo-French (see characteristics of the Anglo-Norman language).
The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive a style of English is, the more it tends to be from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it tends to contain Latin and French influences.
Until the 14th century, Anglo-Norman and then French was the language of the courts and government, but for example the Pleading in English Act 1362 made English the only language in which court proceedings could be held, though the official record remained in Latin.
Even after the decline of Norman French, standard French retained the status of a formal or prestige language—as in most of Europe during the period—and had a significant influence on the vernacular English, which is visible in Modern English today (see English language word origins and List of English words of French origin). A tendency for French-derived words to have more formal connotations has continued to the present day. For example, most modern English speakers consider a "cordial reception" (from French) to be more formal than a "hearty welcome" (from Germanic). Another example is the unusual circumstance of the words for animals being separate from the words for their meat, e.g. beef and pork (from the French bœuf and porc) are the products of "cows" and "pigs"—animals with Germanic names.
English was also influenced by the Celtic languages it was displacing, especially the Brittonic substrate, most notably with the introduction of the continuous aspect (to be doing or to have been doing), which is a feature found in many modern languages but developed earlier and more thoroughly in English. Brittonic influence on English grammar spread from the north and west toward the south and south-east of England.
While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continued until 1154, most other literature from this period was in Old Norman or Latin. A large number of Norman words were taken into Old English, with many doubling for Old English words. The Norman influence is the hallmark of the linguistic shifts in English over the period of time following the invasion, producing what is now referred to as Middle English.
English literature reappeared after 1200, when a changing political climate and the decline in Anglo-Norman made it more respectable. The Provisions of Oxford, released in 1258, was the first English government document to be published in the English language after the Norman Conquest. In 1362, Edward III became the first king to address Parliament in English. By the end of the century, even the royal court had switched to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in limited circles somewhat longer, but it had ceased to be a living language.
Geoffrey Chaucer is the most famous writer from the Middle English period, and The Canterbury Tales is his best-known work. Although the spelling of Chaucer's English varies from that of Modern English, his works can be read with minimal assistance.
The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, both in grammar and in vocabulary. While Old English is a heavily inflected language (synthetic), an overall diminishing of grammatical endings occurred in Middle English (analytic). Grammar distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were leveled to -e. The older plural noun marker -en largely gave way to -s, and grammatical gender was discarded. Approximately 10,000 French (and Norman) loan words entered Middle English, particularly terms associated with government, church, law, the military, fashion, and food.
English spelling was also influenced by Norman in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being spelled th rather than with the Old English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth), which did not exist in Norman. These letters remain in the modern Icelandic alphabet, having been borrowed from Old English via Old West Norse.
Early Modern English
English underwent extensive sound changes during the 1400s, while its spelling conventions remained largely constant. Modern English is often dated from the Great Vowel Shift, which took place mainly during the 15th century. The language was further transformed by the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration and by the standardising effect of printing. As a result, the language acquired self-conscious terms such as "accent" and "dialect". By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 16th - early 17th century), the language had become clearly recognisable as Modern English. In 1604, the first English dictionary was published, the Table Alphabeticall.
Increased literacy and travel facilitated the adoption of many foreign words, especially borrowings from Latin and Greek from the time of the Renaissance. In the 17th century, Latin words were often used with their original inflections, but these eventually disappeared. As there are many words from different languages and English spelling is variable, the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, most notably in the West Country. During the period, loan words were borrowed from Italian, German, and Yiddish. British acceptance of and resistance to Americanisms began during this period.
The first authoritative and full featured English dictionary, the Dictionary of the English Language, was published by Samuel Johnson in 1755. To a high degree, the dictionary standardised both English spelling and word usage. Meanwhile, grammar texts by Lowth, Murray, Priestly, and others attempted to prescribe standard usage even further.
Early Modern English and Late Modern English vary essentially in vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from the Industrial Revolution and the technology that created a need for new words as well as international development of the language. The British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries. British English and American English, the two major varieties of the language, are spoken by 400 million people. Received Pronunciation of British English is considered the traditional standard. The total number of English speakers worldwide may exceed one billion.
Over the last 2,000 years or so, English has undergone extensive changes in its vowel system but many fewer changes to its consonants.
In the Old English period, a number of umlaut processes affected vowels in complex ways, and unstressed vowels were gradually eroded, eventually leading to a loss of grammatical case and grammatical gender in the Early Middle English period. The most important umlaut process was *i-mutation (c. 500 CE), which led to pervasive alternations of all sorts, many of which survive in the modern language: e.g. in noun paradigms (foot vs. feet, mouse vs. mice, brother vs. brethren); in verb paradigms (sold vs. sell); nominal derivatives from adjectives ("strong" vs. "strength", broad vs. breadth, foul vs. filth) and from other nouns (fox vs. "vixen"); verbal derivatives ("food" vs. "to feed"); and comparative adjectives ("old" vs. "elder"). Consonants were more stable, although velar consonants were significantly modified by palatalization, which produced alternations such as speak vs. speech, drink vs. drench, wake vs. watch, bake vs. batch.
The pre-cluster shortening, which resulted in the vowel alternations in child vs. children, keep vs. kept, meet vs. met; and trisyllabic laxing, which is responsible for alternations such as grateful vs. gratitude, divine vs. divinity, sole vs. solitary.
Among the more significant recent changes to the language have been the development of rhotic and non-rhotic accents (i.e. "r-dropping"); the trap-bath split in many dialects of British English; and flapping of t and d between vowels in American English and Australian English.
The following table shows the principal developments in the stressed vowels, from Old English through Modern English (where C indicates any consonant):
(c. 900 AD)
(c. 1400 AD)
Early Modern English
(c. 1600 AD)
|Modern English||Modern Spelling||Examples|
|ɑː||ɔː||oː||oʊ||oa, oCe||oak, boat, whole, stone|
|æː, æːɑ||ɛː||eː||iː||ea||heal, beat, cheap|
|eː, eːo||eː||iː||ee, -e||feed, deep, me, be|
|iː, yː||iː||ǝi||aɪ||iCe||ride, time, mice|
|oː||oː||uː||uː||oo, -o||moon, food, do|
|uː||uː||ǝu||aʊ||ou||mouse, out, loud|
|ɑ, æ, æɑ||a||æ||æ||a||man, sat, wax|
|aː||ɛː||eɪ||aCe||name, bake, raven|
|e, eo||e||ɛ||ɛ||e||help, tell, seven|
|ɛː||eː||iː||ea, eCe||speak, meat, mete|
|i, y||ɪ||ɪ||ɪ||i||written, sit, kiss|
|o||o||ɔ||ɒ||o||god, top, beyond|
|ɔː||oː||oʊ||oa, oCe||foal, nose, over|
|u||ʊ||ɤ||ʌ||u, o||buck, up, love, wonder|
The following chart shows the primary developments of English vowels in the last 600 years in more detail, since Late Middle English of Chaucer's time. The Great Vowel Shift can be seen in the dramatic developments between c. 1400 and 1600 AD.
Neither of the above tables cover the history of Middle English diphthongs, the changes before /r/, or various special cases and exceptions. For details, see phonological history of English as well as the articles on Old English phonology and Middle English phonology.
The vowel changes over time can be seen in the following example words, showing the changes in their form over the last 2,000 years:
|Proto-Germanic, c. 0 AD||ainaz||twai||θriːz||feðwoːr||fimf||sehs||seβun||moːðeːr||hertoːː||hauzijanã|
|West Germanic, c. 400 AD||ain||twai||θriju||fewwur||fimf||sehs||seβun||moːdar||herta||haurijan|
|Late Old English, c. 900 AD||aːn||twaː||θreo||feowor||fiːf||siks||sĕŏvon||moːdor||hĕŏrte||heːran, hyːran|
|(Late Old English spelling)||(ān)||(twā)||(þrēo)||(fēowor)||(fīf)||(six)||(seofon)||(mōdor)||(heorte)||(hēran, hȳran)|
|Late Middle English, c. 1350 AD||ɔːn||twoː||θreː||fowǝr||fiːvǝ||siks||sevǝn||moːðǝr||hertǝ||hɛːrǝ(n)|
|(Late Middle English spelling)||(oon)||(two)||(three)||(fower)||(five)||(six)||(seven)||(mother)||(herte)||(heere(n))|
|Early Modern English, c. 1600 AD||oːn >! wʊn||twuː > tuː||θriː||foːr||fǝiv||siks||sevǝn||mʊðǝr||hert||heːr|
|Modern English, c. 2000 AD||wʌn||tuː||θriː||fɔː(r)||faiv||sɪks||sevǝn||mʌðǝ(r)||hɑrt/hɑːt||hiːr/hiǝ|
The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to Latin, modern German and Icelandic. Old English distinguished between the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases, and for strongly declined adjectives and some pronouns also a separate instrumental case (which otherwise and later completely coincided with the dative). In addition, the dual number was distinguished from the singular and plural. Declension was greatly simplified during the Middle English period, when the accusative and dative cases of the pronouns merged into a single oblique case that also replaced the genitive case after prepositions. Nouns in Modern English no longer decline for case, except for the genitive.
Evolution of English pronouns
Pronouns such as whom and him (contrasted with who and he), are a conflation of the old accusative and dative cases, as well as of the genitive case after prepositions (while her also includes the genitive case). This conflated form is called the oblique case or the object (objective) case, because it is used for objects of verbs (direct, indirect, or oblique) as well as for objects of prepositions. (See object pronoun.) The information formerly conveyed by distinct case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order. In Old English as well as modern German and Icelandic as further examples, these cases had distinct forms.
Although some grammarians continue to use the traditional terms "accusative" and "dative", these are functions rather than morphological cases in Modern English. That is, the form whom may play accusative or dative roles (as well as instrumental or prepositional roles), but it is a single morphological form, contrasting with nominative who and genitive whose. Many grammarians use the labels "subjective", "objective", and "possessive" for nominative, oblique, and genitive pronouns.
Modern English nouns exhibit only one inflection of the reference form: the possessive case, which some linguists argue is not a case at all, but a clitic (see the entry for genitive case for more information).
|Case||Old English||Middle English||Modern English|
|Accusative||hwone, hwæne||whom||who, whom1|
1 - In some dialects who is used where Formal English only allows whom, though variation among dialects must be taken into account.
2 - Usually replaced by of what (postpositioned).
First person personal pronouns
|Case||Old English||Middle English||Modern English|
|Singular||Nominative||iċ||I, ich, ik||I|
|Genitive||mīn||min, mi||my, mine|
|Genitive||ūser, ūre||ure, our||our, ours|
(Old English also had a separate dual, wit ("we two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.)
Second person personal pronouns
|Case||Old English||Middle English||Modern English|
|Singular||Nominative||þū||þu, thou||thou (you)|
|Accusative||þē, þeċ||þé, thee||thee (you)|
|Genitive||þīn||þi, þīn, þīne, thy; thin, thine||thy, thine (your, yours)|
|Plural||Nominative||ġē||ye, ȝe, you||you|
|Accusative||ēow, ēowiċ||you, ya|
Note that the ye/you distinction still existed, at least optionally, in Early Modern English: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" from the King James Bible.
|Old English||Middle English||Modern English|
|Accusative||þē, þeċ||ēow, ēowiċ||thee||you|
|Genitive||þīn||ēower||your, yours||thy, thine||your, yours||your, yours|
(Old English also had a separate dual, ȝit ("ye two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.)
Third person personal pronouns
|Case||Old English||Middle English||Modern English|
|Feminine Singular||Nominative||hēo||heo, sche, ho, he, ȝho||she|
|Accusative||hīe||hire, hure, her, heore||her|
|Genitive||hir, hire, heore, her, here||her, hers|
|Neuter Singular||Nominative||hit||hit, it||it|
|Accusative||hit, it, him|
|Plural||Nominative||hīe||he, hi, ho, hie, þai, þei||they|
|Accusative||hem, ham, heom, þaim, þem, þam||them|
|Genitive||hira||here, heore, hore, þair, þar||their, theirs|
(The origin of the modern forms is generally thought to have been a borrowing from Old Norse forms þæir, þæim, þæira. The two different roots co-existed for some time, although currently the only common remnant is the shortened form 'em. Cf. also the demonstrative pronouns.)
! Wē in, , . Oft , , , . , hē, under , , him , . Þæt wæs!
Which, as translated by Francis Barton Gummere, reads:
Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan
This is the beginning of The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, a prose text in Old English dated to the late 9th century. The full text can be found at Wikisource.
Ōhthere sǣde his hlāforde, Ælfrēde cyninge, ðæt hē ealra Norðmonna norþmest būde. Hē cwæð þæt hē būde on þǣm lande norþweardum wiþ þā Westsǣ. Hē sǣde þēah þæt þæt land sīe swīþe lang norþ þonan; ac hit is eal wēste, būton on fēawum stōwum styccemǣlum wīciað Finnas, on huntoðe on wintra, ond on sumera on fiscaþe be þǣre sǣ. Hē sǣde þæt hē æt sumum cirre wolde fandian hū longe þæt land norþryhte lǣge, oþþe hwæðer ǣnig mon be norðan þǣm wēstenne būde. Þā fōr hē norþryhte be þǣm lande: lēt him ealne weg þæt wēste land on ðæt stēorbord, ond þā wīdsǣ on ðæt bæcbord þrīe dagas. Þā wæs hē swā feor norþ swā þā hwælhuntan firrest faraþ. Þā fōr hē þā giet norþryhte swā feor swā hē meahte on þǣm ōþrum þrīm dagum gesiglau. Þā bēag þæt land, þǣr ēastryhte, oþþe sēo sǣ in on ðæt lond, hē nysse hwæðer, būton hē wisse ðæt hē ðǣr bād westanwindes ond hwōn norþan, ond siglde ðā ēast be lande swā swā hē meahte on fēower dagum gesiglan. Þā sceolde hē ðǣr bīdan ryhtnorþanwindes, for ðǣm þæt land bēag þǣr sūþryhte, oþþe sēo sǣ in on ðæt land, hē nysse hwæþer. Þā siglde hē þonan sūðryhte be lande swā swā hē meahte on fīf dagum gesiglan. Ðā læg þǣr ān micel ēa ūp on þæt land. Ðā cirdon hīe ūp in on ðā ēa for þǣm hīe ne dorston forþ bī þǣre ēa siglan for unfriþe; for þǣm ðæt land wæs eall gebūn on ōþre healfe þǣre ēas. Ne mētte hē ǣr nān gebūn land, siþþan hē from his āgnum hām fōr; ac him wæs ealne weg wēste land on þæt stēorbord, būtan fiscerum ond fugelerum ond huntum, ond þæt wǣron eall Finnas; ond him wæs āwīdsǣ on þæt bæcbord. Þā Boermas heafdon sīþe wel gebūd hira land: ac hīe ne dorston þǣr on cuman. Ac þāra Terfinna land wæs eal wēste, būton ðǣr huntan gewīcodon, oþþe fisceras, oþþe fugeleras.
Ohthere said to his lord, King Alfred, that he of all Norsemen lived north-most. He quoth that he lived in the land northward along the North Sea. He said though that the land was very long from there, but it is all wasteland, except that in a few places here and there Finns [i.e. Sami] encamp, hunting in winter and in summer fishing by the sea. He said that at some time he wanted to find out how long the land lay northward or whether any man lived north of the wasteland. Then he traveled north by the land. All the way he kept the waste land on his starboard and the wide sea on his port three days. Then he was as far north as whale hunters furthest travel. Then he traveled still north as far as he might sail in another three days. Then the land bowed east (or the sea into the land — he did not know which). But he knew that he waited there for west winds (and somewhat north), and sailed east by the land so as he might sail in four days. Then he had to wait for due-north winds, because the land bowed south (or the sea into the land — he did not know which). Then he sailed from there south by the land so as he might sail in five days. Then a large river lay there up into the land. Then they turned up into the river, because they dared not sail forth past the river for hostility, because the land was all settled on the other side of the river. He had not encountered earlier any settled land since he travelled from his own home, but all the way waste land was on his starboard (except fishers, fowlers and hunters, who were all Finns). And the wide sea was always on his port. The Bjarmians have cultivated their land very well, but they did not dare go in there. But the Terfinn’s land was all waste except where hunters encamped, or fishers or fowlers.
Ayenbite of Inwyt
From Ayenbite of Inwyt ("the prick of conscience"), a translation of an French confessional prose work into the Kentish dialect of Middle English, completed in 1340:
Nouwille þet ye hou is
þet þis boc is Engliss of Kent.
Þis boc is vor men
Vor vader and vor moder and vor oþer
vor to vram alle manyere
þet ine ne no voul .
' ase god' in his name ,
Þet þis boc made god him þet bread,
Of angles of hevene, and þerto his ,
And his þet he is . Amen.
Whan that Aprill with his shoures
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in
Of which vertu engendred is the ;
Whan Zephirus with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the his half cours ,
And smale maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open
(So in ),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge ,
To , in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they ,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That whan that they were .
Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.
The evening arrived: the boys took their places; the master in his cook's uniform stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out, and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared, the boys whispered each other and winked at Oliver, while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery. He rose from the table, and advancing, basin and spoon in hand, to the master, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity— "Please, sir, I want some more." The master was a fat, healthy man, but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder, and the boys with fear. "What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice. "Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more." The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle, pinioned him in his arms, and shrieked aloud for the beadle.
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- Dark, Ken, 2000. Britain and the End of the Roman Empire. Brimscombe, Gloucestershire, Tempus, pp. 43-47.
- Oppenheimer, Stephen, 2006. The Origins of the British London, Robinson, pp. 364-374.
- Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. The History of the English Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 79-81.
- Crystal, David. 2004. The Stories of English. London: Penguin. pp. 24-26.
- "Geordie dialect". Bl.uk. 2007-03-12. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
- "4.1 The change from Old English to Middle English". Uni-kassel.de. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
- The Oxford history of English lexicography, Volume 1 By Anthony Paul Cowie
- Fennell, B (2001). A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
- Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. The History of the English Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 92-105.
- Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. The History of the English Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 91-92.
- La langue française et la mondialisation, Yves Montenay, Les Belles lettres, Paris, 2005
- Filppula, Markku, Juhani Klemola and Heli Pitkänen (eds.). 2002. The Celtic Roots of English. Joensuu: University of Joensuu, Faculty of Humanities.
- David L. White On the Areal Pattern of ‘Brittonicity’ in English and Its Implications in Hildegard L. C. Tristram (ed.). 2006. The Celtic Englishes IV – The Interface Between English and the Celtic Languages. Potsdam: University of Potsdam
- Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. The History of the English Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 158-178.
- Crystal, David. 2004. The Stories of English. London: Penguin. pp. 341-343.
- See Fausto Cercignani, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.
- Algeo, John. 2010. The Origins and Development of the English Language. Boston, MA: Wadsworth. pp. 140-141.
- Algeo, John. 2010. The Origins and Development of the English Language. Boston, MA: Wadsworth. pp. 182-187.
- Peter S. Baker (2003). "Pronouns". The Electronic Introduction to Old English. Oxford:
- Original translation for this article: In this close translation readers should be able to see the correlation with the original.
Translation: Now I want that you understand how it has come [i.e., happened]
that this book is written with [the] English of Kent.
This book is made for unlearned men
for father, and for mother, and for other kin
them for to protect [i.e., in order to protect them] from all manner of sin
[so] that in their conscience [there] not remain no foul wen [i.e., blemish].
"Who [is] like God?" [the author's name is "Michael", which in Hebrew means "Who is like God?"] in His name said
that this book made God give him that bread
of angels of heaven and in addition His council
and receive his soul when he has died. Amen.
- Spelling based on The Riverside Chaucer, third edition, Larry D. Benson, gen. ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.
- Cercignani, Fausto, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.
- Mallory, J. P (2005). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27616-1
- Ringe, Donald R. and Taylor, Ann (2014). The Development of Old English - A Linguistic History of English, vol. II, 632p. ISBN 978-0199207848. Oxford.
- Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0-85991-513-1
- The History of English Podcast
- Penn Corpora of Historical English
- Scandinavian loans in Old and Middle English, and their legacy in the dialects of England and modern standard English