Argument

For my graduation thesis I decided to work on „The British Isles dialects” mostly on
the Old and Middle English dialects. I have always been interested in this continuous change
of the English language and this time I have the opportunity to demonstrate how this language
has evolved during the Old and Middle Age.

The English language like all living languages, is in a continuous state of variation
across time. The language of one generation of speakers will differ slightly from another, and
at any one time there are advanced and conservative forms whether they belong to regional,
educational or class dialects. Change takes place at every level of language. New words are
needed in the vocabulary to refer to new things or concepts, while other words are dropped
when they no longer have any use in society. For example the meaning of words changes: -
buxom once meant obedient, spill meant kill and knight meant boy.

Old English will probably not read like grammatical contemporary English, because
word order and grammatical structure have also changed. Pronunciation in particular is
always being modified and varies widely from one regional or social group to another. Since
the spelling of words in writing has been standardised, changes in pronunciation are not
marked in the spelling , the orthography of the language.

The reason why I have chosen this theme is that of enlargement of my knowledge of the
English language and the main aim of this thesis is to provide a general overview of the major
dialects of Old and Middle English. The materials I have selected in creating this thesis will
help me evaluate and understand the peculiarities of foundation and development of this
language, mainly its dialects and accents.

My aim is:

 to examine the most dominant OE and ME British dialects;

 to compare their vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation and to clarify what is the
difference between them;
 to show the peculiarities of British dialects;

1
 My work will consist of two chapters. The first chapter deals with the Old English
Dialects while the second one with the Middle English Dialects. Each chapter will include a
historical background and a map illustrating each period’s dialects. In the first chapter I will
present the four major dialects of the OE: the Northumbrian, the West Saxon, the Mercian and
the Kentish.
The second chapter deals with the five major dialects of the ME: the Northern, the West
Midlands, the East Midlands,the Kentish and the Southern, plus the London dialect created by
the famous writer Geoffrey Chaucer.

2
 Introduction
“Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and
the weapons of its future conquests”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Language is the most important means of human being. Many peoples on the Earth
have no means of representing their speech in the form of writing. In fact, some authorities
estimate that there are more than two thousand languages in the world which have never been
reduced to writing. Writing, therefore, must be considered a secondary manifestation of
language. Likewise, other such representations and devices exist, some rather crude and some
more elaborate; gesture, facial expressions, code signals, weather- vanes, and road signs are
among them.

The variety of languages is as great as variety of the peoples. Some languages have
much in common – they belong to one family, other languages differ much and it seems that
they have nothing in common but the thing that brings together all of them is that people use
it to communicate with each other. One and the same language may differ in different regions
of the country. The most widespread reason is the influence of the other cultures. Such form
of a language which is spoken only in one area, with words or grammar that are slightly
different from other forms of the same language is called the dialect.

A dialect is a variety of a given language which is spoken by a smaller and a more

homogeneous group of persons than the national language.When mentioning dialects one
must consider two situations. The speech differences among people are due to two reasons: to
the fact that they live in different areas of the country and to their belonging to different social
classes. That is why, when reffering to dialects, the linguist uses the phrase regional dialect
mening the form of language used bya speech community living in a certain area of the
general territory of the given language and the phrase social or class dialect,meaning the form
of language spoken by a social group within the same region.1

In order to understand the nature and origin of conditions prevailing in dialects today
we must learn to understand the circumstances which fostered. Dialects have deep roots in the
history of the English language.If we look back at the history of the British Isles, wee see that

1
Horia Hulban, Syntheses in English Lexicology and Semantics,ed. Spanda, Iasi, 2011, pag.232-233

3
different ethnic groups inhabited them, each ethnic group leaving more visible traces in
certain areas of the Island of Albion.Even when settled by tribes belonging to the same ethnic
group, as in the case of Angles, Jutes and Saxons. The differences of speech among these
tribes left their marks, giving birth to the Anglian dialect, the Kentish dialect and the Saxon
dialect. The centring of social life in small districts , the difficulties in transportation, which
made communication regional, the rivalry between or among the tribes of that early period
encouraged the formation of dialects.2

For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Kings of England
spoke only French. A large number of French words were assimilated into Old English, which
also lost most of its inflections, the result being Middle English. The five principal dialects
ME were: Southern, Kentish, East Midlands, West Midlands and Northern. Around the year
1500, the Great Vowel Shift transformed Middle English to Modern English.
Dialects are varieties of a single language which are mutually comprehensible; that is
speakers of different dialects can talk to and understand each other. Dialect is a concept that
tends to be confused with accent; however, it should be explained that dialect has to do with
lexical, grammatical and phonetic differences between different language varieties, whereas
accent refers solely to pronunciation.An unfamiliar dialect may de difficult to understand at
first because of of its pronunciation or the use of unknown dialect words, but with familiarity
these difficulties disappear.3

Dialects have most of their vocabulary and grammar in common; therefore we can
make a fairly short list of features to look for when describing the differences between
dialects:

 Spelling: the alphabetical symbols used and their relation to the contrasting
sounds of the dialectal accent.Some differences of spelling in ME texts do not
reflect differences of pronunciation, eg. i, y, u, v; ʒ, gh, ss, sh; þ, th, hw, wh, qu
etc.
 Pronunciation- differences from OE and between dialects.
 Word forms- pronouns: What are the forms of the personal pronouns?

2
Ibidem, op. cit., pag. 233
3
Dennis Freeborn, From Old English to Standard English, ed. Macmillan, Londra, an 1992,pag.63-64.

4
 Word inflexions: - on nouns: what suffixes are used to mark the plural?
-on verbs: what are the present tense suffixes, and the forms
of past tense, past and present paticiples and infinitive?
 Grammar: how are negatives formed? Examine word order within the phrase
and the clause.
 Vocabulary: Is the source of the words OE, ON, OF or another language and in
what proportion?

I will further use this list to, or parts of it, to examine the OE and ME dialects.

5
 Chapter I: Old English Dialects
From the 5th century to the 12th (ca.450-1150)

1.1 The development of the English language

The origins of the English language can be traced back to the settlement of the Angles,
Saxons and Jutes in Britain in the fifth century AD. Before de Anglos-Saxons, Britain was
inhabited by Celts, comprising three groups: the Gaels ( ca.800 BC),still represented by their
descendents in the Scottish Highlands, Ireland and Wales, the Belgae(about 100 BC) and the
Cymri (about 50 BC). The languages spoken by the three Germanic tribes were mutually
intelligible and quickly fused together to form Old English. Old English differed from
Modern English in spelling, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.Over eighty-five percent
of Old English words do not exist any more.The words that are left generally refer to
everyday common objects or family relations.

In the middle of the fifth century, Britain was a province of the Roman Empire for over
400 years, and was governed from Rome.The official language of government was Latin.It
would have been spoken not only by the Roman civil officials, military officers and settlers,
but also by those Britons who served under the Romans, or those who needed to deal with
them.The term Romano-British is used to describe those ”romanised” Britons and their way of
life.4

The Saxons had been raiding the east coast of Roman Britain for plunder since the early
third century and by AD 443 the Roman legions had been withdrawn from Britain to defend
Rome itself consequenlty leaving Britain undefended, open not only for raiding and plunder,
but also for invasion and settlement.About 449 AD the norman raiders began setting in Britain
and by 829 AD all of England had come under the control of the King Egbert, the grandfather
of Alfred the Great.As a result then Anglo-Saxons did achieve what Romans could not,
namely „imposition of a new language”5in Britain, for centuries to come.

4
Dennis Freeborn, From Old English to Standard English, ed. Macmillan, Londra, an 1992,pag.7
5
Adrian Poruciuc,A concise History of the English Language, ed. Casa editorial Demiurg,Iasi, an 2004,pag.21

6
 1.1.1 Written Old English
1.1.1.2 Runes
The writing system for the earliest English was based on the use of signs called runes,
which were devised for carving in wood or stone. Few examples have survived in Britain, the
most famous of which can be found on a 18-foot cross now in the church at Ruthwell,
Dumfriesshire.On the Ruthwell Cross are some runic inscriptions in the Northumbrian dialect
which are part of a famous Old English poem called The Dream of the Rood,6in which the
cross relates the events of the Crucification.

The runic alphabet was probably an adaptation of a North-Italian alphabet that had
spread early throughout the Germanic North of Europe.The runes were rather different from
Greek and Roman letters, avoiding curves and horizontal lines because of the writing
surface(slips of wood or bark) and the writing instrument(knife). 7

The Anglo-Saxons also used this system for all sorts of inscriptions, for notes, lots and
for personal indentification.The Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet was also known as futhorc (or
fuþorc) and contained 26 to 33 characters. They remained in use in Anglo-Saxon England
throughout the 6th to 10th centuries, although runic script became increasingly confined to
manuscript tradition as a topic of antiquarian interest after the 9th century, and it disappeared
even as a learned curiosity soon after the Norman conquest. To understand better the meaning
of runes I will show an illustration of the futhroc and a transliteration of its characters.

Fig.1 The Runic Alphabet

6
Dennis Freeborn,op.cit ,pag.17:”rood comes from the OE word rod meaning cross”.
7
Edith Iarovici, op.cit. pag.22

7
Rune Image Old English name Name meaning Transliteration IPA
feoh "wealth" f [f], [v]
ur "aurochs" u
þorn "thorn" þ, ð, th [θ], [ð]
ós "[a] god" ó
rad "ride" r
cen "torch" c [k]
gyfu "gift" ȝ [ɡ], [j]
wynn "joy" w, ƿ [w]
hægl "hail (precipitation)" h
nyd "need, distress" n
is "ice" i
ger "year, harvest" j
eoh "yew" eo
peorð (Unknown) p
eolh "elk-sedge" x
sigel "Sun" s [s], [z]
Tiw "Tiw" t
beorc "birch" b
eh "horse" e
mann "man" m
lagu "lake" l
ing "Ing (a hero)" ŋ
éðel "estate" œ
dæg "day" d
ac "oak" a
æsc "ash-tree" æ
yr "bow" y
ior "eel" ia, io
ear "grave" ea

Fig.2 Illustration of the runes used to create an Anglo-Saxon rune poem (Cotton
Library), listed with their names, their transliteration and their approximate phonetic
value in IPA notation ;

8
1.1.1.3 The Old English Alphabet

Facsimiles of original OE writing are hard to decipher at first because some of the
letters look different from the shapes familiar to us.In printing and witing OE today, present-
day shapes of Roman letters are used, with three additional non-Roman letters which were
devised for writing OE.These were necessary because some sounds in OE did not have an
equivalant in Latin, and so no Roman letter was available. They were:

 <æ> - a vowel pronounced /æ/ and called ash –derived from Latin.It is today popularly
known as ‘short a’, as in Modern English cat.
 <þ> - a consonant pronounced /θ/or /ð/; the letter is called thorn from its runic name
– now replaced by <th>.
 <ð> - a consonant also pronounced /θ/or /ð/;the letter is called eth – derived from
Irish writing and now replaced by <th>.

Another non-Roman letter used in writing was:

 <p> - pronounced /w/ and called wynn from its runic name.This letter is usually not
used in printing OE today but is replaced by <w>.Letter <w> was not part of the OE
alphabet.

Fig. 3 The OE Latin Alphabet

9
 1.1.2 Early writing

Written English as we know it had to wait for the establishment of the Church and the
building of monasteries, at which time the monks wrote manuscripts in Latin, the language of
Church.8 This did not happen until the seventh century with the founding of the Benedictine
monarchy. In the beginning the writing was theological in nature and soon because of the
influence of Alfred the Great a substantial body of prose in everyday life was created. In that
century,’’ much of the north of England was converted to Christianity by monks from Ireland,
while Augustine was sent by the Pope to preach Christianity to the English, which began in
the south, in Kent.”9

To give a first impression of the changes in the language since it was brought to
Britain I will show two short texts in Old English, with their word-for-word translations,
which were written down in the ninth century. The first is the beginning of a description of
the island of Britain, while the second tells how the Britons were conquered by the Romans in
Ad 47.

OE:“Brittene ingland is ehta hund mila lang.

7Twa hund brad.7 her sind on þis

Inglande fif geþeode.englisc.7 pyhtisc.7

Boc leden.Erest weron bugend þises

landes brittes.” 10

WW:“of –Britain island is eight hundred miles long.

& two hundred broad.& here are in this

Island five languages.english.& british.

&welsh. & scottish.& pictish.& book latin.

Frist were inhabitants of-this land britons.11 ”

8
Dennis Freeborn,op.cit, pag.18
9
Ibidem, op.cit,pag 19.
10
Ibidem, op.cit, pag 2:”the sign <7> was used in manuscript for and, like <&> today”
11
Ibidem. op.cit, pag. 2

10
 The scribe wrote five languages and then listed six.He had divided into two what
should have been one language-Brito-Welsh. The Old English words brittisc and wilsc
referred to the same people.

Fig. 4 The original manuscript:

The second text:

OE: xlvii. Her Claudius romana cining gewat mid here on brytene.7 ingland geeode.7
ealle pyhtas.7 wals underþeodde romana rice.
WW:47. Here Claudius romans’king went with army in britain.& island over-ran.& all
picts. &welsh made –subject-to romans’empire.12

One of the most important writings of this period was the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which
survived in several manuscripts. I will present further another short text from the
Peterborough Chronicle:

OE: dc.xi. Her kynegils feng to rice.on weast seaxum.7heold.xxxi.wintra.

WW:611. Here cynegils took the kingdom.among west saxons.& held 31 winters.13

12
Ibidem, op. cit. pag. 2

11
1.2 Dialects

The English were not a politically unified nation until late OE times and as they
originally came from different parts of western Europe they spoke different dialects of West
Germanic.They settled in different parts of Britain but they were able to communicate with
each other.Dialects are varieties of a langiage that differ in pronunciation, vocabulary or
grammar, but are not different enough to prevent understanding.14

The study of the dialects spoken in England up to the close of the 11th century is rendered
difficult by the scarcity of Old English texts and by the fact that the differences between two
texts may be due to difference of date as well as of dialect.The manuscripts that have been
preserved enable us only to establish the chief dialects an their principal characteristics.There
were four main dialects in OE:Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish. 15

Fig.5 Map illustrating the four

OE dialects

13
Ibidem, op. cit, pag. 9
14
Ibidem op.cit, pag 15
15
Edith Iarovici, A History of the English Language, ed. Pedagogica si Didactica,Bucuresti,1973.pag 19.

12
 1.2.1 The Northumbrian Dialect

1.2.1.1 General Characteristics

The Northumbrian dialect, which extended from the Humber through Yorkshire into
the Lowlands of Scotland and had been brought to Britain by Anglian tribes, was later
reinforced but also modified to a certain extent by the speech of the Scandinavians.16

Northumbrian was recorded in a written form quite early.Most significant is the

inscription in runic characters, on the stone cross of Ruthwell, belonging to the end of the 7th
century, or the beginning of the 8th century.The text is a fragment from a well-known
Christian poem, The Dream of the Rood, preserved in fuller form in a later manuscript. 17

Its main characteristics appear in certain manuscripts which must therefore be

Northumbrian, namely the two earliest manuscripts of Cædmon’s Hymn (9 lines), the
earliest manuscripts of Bede’s Deathsong (5 lines) and of the Leiden Riddle, etc. They all
seem to belong to the 9th century.There are also three Latin manuscripts containing 10th
century Northumbrian interlinear glosses: The Durham Ritual, The Lindisfarne Gospels, and
The Rushworth Gospels.18

In order to understand better this dialect I will use a Ruthwell fragment to illustrate
runic-written Northumbrian OE and also a fragment from Bede’s Deathsong:

ᛣᚱᛁᛋᛏ ᚹᚫᛋ ᚩᚾ ᚱᚩᛞᛁ ᚻᚹᛖᚦᚱᚨ / ᚦᛖᚱ ᚠᚢᛋᚨ ᚠᛠᚱᚱᚪᚾ ᛣᚹᚩᛗᚢ / ᚨᚦᚦᛁᛚᚨ ᛏᛁᛚ ᚪᚾᚢᛗ
Krist wæs on rodi. Hweþræ'/ þer fusæ fearran kwomu / æþþilæ til anum.
"Christ was on the cross. Yet / the brave came there from afar / to their
lord." ( The Dream of the Rood)19

Fore ðæm nedfere nænig wiorðe
ðonc snottora ðon him ðearf siæ
to ymbhycgenne ær his hinionge
hwæt his gastæ godes oððe yfles
æfter deað dæge doemed wiorðe.
( Bede’s Deathsong in OE)20
Facing Death, that fateful journey,
no man can be wiser that he
who reflects, while breath yet remains,
on whether his life brought others
happiness (or pains),
since his soul may yet win delight's
(or night's) way after death-day.(MnE)

16
Edith Iarovici, op.cit. pag. 19
17
Adrian Poruciuc, A History of Medieval English,ed. Casa Editoriala Demiurg, Iasi, 1999, pag.39
18
Edith Iarovici, op. cit. pag. 19
19
http://www.dreamofrood.co.uk/
20
http://www.thehypertexts.com/Bede's%20Death%20Song%20Modern%20English%20Translation.htm

13
  Main features of the Northumbrian dialect:

 a from Common Germanic a before r + consonant (especially when p,b,f,m or w

precedes the a or follows the r), as against ea in most non-Northumbrian texts, e.g
in barn – bearn („child”), ward – weard („protector”);
 the rounding of a vowel or diphtong after w, eg. in worða („to become”) as
opposed to West Saxon weorðan;cuoða as opposed to cweðan;
 the tendency towards the loss of final –n, especially in late texts (but not with
certain categories of words such as the past participles of strong verbs), eg. in
biʒeonda (“beyond”) as opposed to West Saxon biʒeondan; wosa (“to be”) as
against wesan.
 the monophthongization of the diphtongs ēa, ēo and īo to æ(later often),ē and ī
respectively when they were followed by c, ʒ or h, alone or preceded by l or r, eg.
æʒe, ēʒe („eye”), werc („work”), as opposed to ēaʒe and weorc;

1.2.1.2 Grammar
In OE the order of words in a clause was more variable than that of MnE, and there
were many inflections on nouns, adjectives and verbs. Today, the order of the elements in a
declarative clause is SP(C/O)(A);that is, the subject comes first, followed by the predicator,
then the complements or objects, and last the adverbial, if any.This pattern was already
common in OE, as the following examples illustrate:

S P A
Seo næddre cwæþ to þam wife
the serpent said to the wife
S P O
hi gehyrdon his stemne
they heard his voice
S P O &S P

14
 seo næddre bepæhte me and ic ætt
the serpent deceived me and I ate21( OE version of the Garden of Eden)

MnE verbs derive from a set of OE verbs whose past tense was marked with /t/ or /d/
in a dental suffix, which are now called weak verbs. The irregular verbs in MnE derive from a
much larger set of verbs in OE, marked by changes of vowel which linguists have called
strong verbs.22

MnE OE
ride-rode-ridden ridan-rad-riden
choose-chose-chosen ceosan-ceas-coren
drink-drank-drunk drincan-dranc-druncen

Some strong verbs became weak in Northumbrian: - stígan (ascend), grípan (catch); -
réocan (smell) - past reohte, súpan (taste); - bindan (bind) - past binde, worpan (throw),
fregnan (ask); - hebban (lift) past hefde; - sceadan (divide) - past sceadade.

Here are some peculiarities of the Northumbrian dialect:

 n in case endings of the Weak declension nouns is dropped, and the forms end in -u, -
o, -a, -e. So in fact weak nouns lose the declension in the singular, and for example
steorra (a star) will sound steorra in all four cases, while in Saxon it is steorran in
genitive, dative and accusative. The same with sunne (the sun).
 Feminine ó-stem nouns take in the singular genitive the ending -es. In Saxon it is
usually -e.
 The infinitive often ends in -a (drinca – „to drink”). This is the direct Old Norse
influence, and even today's Norwegian has this infinitive ending.
 the 1st person singular Present indicative ends in -u, -o (ic drincu –„I drink” ) instead
of West Germanic and Saxon -e.
 the 2nd person singular Present indicative and the 2nd singular Past indicative of
Weak verbs ends in -s (þu drinces – „thou drinkest”), while in Saxon it is -est.

21
Edith Iarovici, op.cit, pag. 34
22
Ibidem, op. cit., pag. 37

15
  the 3rd person singular Present indicative ends in -s (hé drinces – „he drinks”).
 the plural indicative present ends in -as (hia drincas – „they drink”).
 The plural indicative past ends in -un (hia ségun – „they saw”)

1.2.1.3 Pronunciation

In order to illustrate how the Northumbrian words are pronounced I will begin by
analysing the vowels and consonants used in this dialect. First of all the 1. short vowels :

 /a/ in originally closed syllables normaly appears as /æ/; eg.:a) before simple
consonants:bæd, gebræ, gebær,spræc,fær; b) before consonat groups: æfter, cræfte,
dærsto, gefrægn, ongægn.
 /e/ in place of æ appears in cweð, gecueð, gefregn, agef ,etc.
 /i/ remains the same in the singular and plural forms of the pret.ind. pret. part. and in
the strong verbs : astigon, besmitten, gedrifen, awrite,gesliten.
 /o/ remains unchanged in the pret. part. of strong verbs, such as:beboden, boren,
gobroceno, gewordne, ofcorfen but in some words always apparently in close
connection with a labial consonant, /o/ appears as /u/: full, fugul, lufo,lufað, ulfum.
 /u/ remains the same in pret. pl. ind. and pret. opt. of strong verbs, such as: unbunden,
gebunden, guldon, wurpon, wunnon; but by the falling out of a nasal before a voiceless
consonant, u transforms in /ū/: usum, cuðo, cuðamen,suð.23

2. The long vowels:

 /ā/ is represented by /ē/ with a few examples of æ in the third stem of strong verbs:
beron, brecon, geton, ongeton, ber, beer, toweron.
 /ī/ appears as /ī/ in strong verbs: bites, awritt, higna, dieg, gesuica, toslito.

23
Margaret Dutton Kellum. The language of the Northumbrian gloss to the Gospel of St. Luke, publisher H. Holt
and Company, New York, 1906, pag. 22-40.

16
  /ō/ appears as /ō/ in all forms of the strong verbs:wop, moder, unrod, awox, boc, god.
 /ū/ appears as /ū/ in: brucco, buta,uta, ðusendo.

Most of the consonants behave like in MnE with some few exceptions:

 Initial /j/ is expressed by /i/ in foreign proper names: iacobe, iares, iones, iudisca.
 Medial /j/ is lost after a long closed syllable: /jo/-, /ja/- stem nouns; /j/ is retained,
written as /g/ between vowels in:boege, buego, tuoge,ðriga.
 Final /j/ is very rare æg, greceig.
 /r/ corresponds to /z/:grecoren, betro, mara, herganne, forlure.24

1.2.1.4 Vocabulary

Northumbrian has hundreds perhaps thousands, of words which are different from other
dialects.Here are some example of such words:

 a for I
 aye for "yes"
 bairn/grandbairn for "child/grandchild"
 cannit for 'cannot'
 canny for "pleasant" or like in the Scottish dialect "quite" therefore someone could be
"canny canny"
 clart for "mud" as in "there's clarts on yar boots"
 dee for do
 divint for "don't"
 divvie for "stupid person"
 doon for down, own is often replaced with oon.
 fitha ir fatha for "father"
 gaan for going
 gadgie for man

24
Ibidem, op.cit. pag. 45-60.

17
  gan for "go"
 g'is for "Give me", compare "Gimme"
 hadaway for "get away"
 hairn (or hen) similar to hinny,for below
 hyairm/ yairm/ hyem for "home"
 is for "me".
 knaa for "to know/know"
 ma for "my"
 mair for "more" (compare with German "mehr")
 mam/ maa a variation of mother
 ner/ na/ nar for "no"
 nowt for "nothing"
 owt for "anything"
 sel for "self" as in masel/ mesel, yasel, hisel, horsel, waselves, thaselves
25
 ya for you/your.etc

1.2.2. The Mercian Dialect

1.2.2.1 General Characteristics

The Mercian dialect (which was developed on an Anglian basis, with some influence
from the Saxon-Jutish south)26was spoken between the Humber and the Thames.It spread
westward as far as the borders of Wales, where Celtic was spoken. Mercian written
attestations are rather scarce, few texts – some glossaries and glosses- have been preserved,as
a result we know next to nothing about the Mercian dialect, whose descendent was to become
27
the basis of the national language in Late Middle English. In later times it was the Midland
English of Mercian descent which, together with relics of Wessex standard we now recognize
as literary English.28

25
http://geordiedictionary.tripod.com/northumbrianlanguagedictionary/index.html
26
Adrian Poruciuc,op.cit. pag.41
27
Edith Iarovici, op. cit. pag. 20
28
Adrian Poruciuc, op. cit. pag 29

18
 Regarding the Mercian OE surviving texts, worth mentioning are the Vespasian
Psalter ( a collection of hymns) and the Rushworth Gospels(Latin text glossed by Farman and
Oweun in the 10th century29) ;these might give us some idea of the dialect once spoken in the
heart of England.Here is a short text from the Vespasian Psalter more precisely from Psalm
22:

1.Drihten me ræt; ne byð me nanes godes wan.

2.And he me geset on swyðe good feohland.

And fedde me be wætera staðum.

3.and min mod gehwyrfde of unrotnesse on gefean.

He me gelædde ofer þa wegas rihtwisnesses for his naman.

4. þeah ic nu gange on midde þa sceade deaðes, ne ondræde

Ic me nan yfel, forþan þu byst mid, me Drihten.

Þin gyrd and þin stæf me afrefredon;

þæt is þin þreaung and eft þin frefrung30

 Main features of the Mercian Dialect

 the raising of æ to e and a to æ, eg. in deʒ (“day”) – plural dæʒas, feder (“father”)
beside dæʒa, dæʒaa, fæder in the other dialects;

 the backmutation of æ to ea, under the influence of a back vowel in the follwong
syllable ( but not when the intervening consonant was c or ʒ), eg. in featu “vessels” as
against fatu.

29
www.bartlebly.com; ‘Farman was a priest of Harewood, seven miles north-east of Leeds ”
30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyigu8uOTGQ

19
  /a/ tendency to maintain the front rounded vowel /æ/ which wa unrounded to /ē/ in
West Saxon, eg. in æle („oil”), æþel (‘home”), as opposed to West Saxon ele, ēþel;

 the retention of the ending –u or –o for the first person singular prsent indicative of
verbs, which was superseded by –e in West Saxon and Kentish, eg. in bindu („I
bind”), dæmu („I judge”), as opposed to binde, dēme. 31

1.2.2.2 Grammar
The Mercian grammar has the same structure as other West Germanic dialects.

The Verbs can be conjugated from the infinitive into the present tense, the past
singular, the past plural and the past participle. The future tense requires an auxiliary verb,
like will (Mercian wyllen). There are three moods: indicative, subjunctive and imperative.
Like most inflected languages, Mercian has a few irregular verbs (such as “to be” bēon and
“have” habben). For basic understanding the four principal parts must be known for each
strong verb: weak verbs are easier and more numerous, they all form the past participle with -
ed.32 eg. weak verbs: settaþ, wemmaþ, cwemalþ, woenaþ,selaþ etc. and strong verbs:
cweoþan, gehalden, fallen, biddan ,drincan etc.33

The Nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and four cases:
nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. These, in addition, all have singular and plural
forms. They can also be strong or weak;eg. strong masculine noun stān (stone) and weak
masculine noun name (name).34

31
Edith Iarovici, op.cit. pag. 23
32
Dennis Freeborn, op.cit, pag. 38
33
www.archive.org
34
Ibidem, op.cit, pag. 36

20
1.2.2.3 Pronunciation
The letters /b/, /d/, /g/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /q/, /s/, /t/, /v/, /w/, and /z/ behave like Modern
English; for example:

 /c/ is always pronounced hard, like cat, never soft like cell.
 /ċ/ is pronounced like /ch/ in cheese.
 /ġġ/ and /cg/ are pronounced as dge as in wedge.
 /r/ always rolled in Scottish style (rrr)
 /f/ pronounced /v/ as in very (as in found in Modern Welsh).
 /æ/ the /a/ as in man
 /a/ shortened as in barn
 /ē/ like the /ay/ in bay
 /e/ like the /e/ in bed
 /ī/ like the /ee/ in creek
 /i/ as in bin
 /ō/ as in the /o/ in the Scottish och
 /o/ as in cot
 /ū/ like /oo/ in moo
 /u/ like the /ou/ in Doug35

1.2.2.4 Vocabulary
The Mercian vocabulary is largely derived from Proto-Germanic, with Latin
loanwords coming via the use of Latin as the language of the Catholic Church, and Norse
loanwords that arrived as part of the Norse incursions and foundation of the Danelaw36 which
covered much of the midlands and north of England.

35
Ibidem, op.cit. pag.32
36
www.ethymonline.com; „Danelaw (c.1050) was the Danish law in force over that large part of England under
Viking rule after c.878; the application to the land itself is modern (1837)”.

21
 Here are some examples of such words:

 helpeð – (he) helps

 léht – light
 dêd – deed
 hiorde – herd
 dâl – deal
 gylden – golden
 fálleð – he falls
 weorpeð – he throws
 æðelen – noble
 ðe and ðet- who/wich/that37

1.2.3 The West Saxon Dialect

1.2.3.1 General characteristics

The West Saxon dialect was spoken in the South-East over an area slightly larger than
the present county of Kent, developed out of the speech of the Jutes. There were two stages of
this dialect: Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon. In the 9th century it began to be used
as a sort of common literary standard owing to the hegemony of Wessex established by King
Alfred and his successors to Alfred’s writings and educational activities, and to the decay of
Northumbrian learning. The major part of Old English literature has survived only in a West
Saxon form, and later local documents are written mainly in this dialect and contain very few
typical local forms.38

Alfredian achievements include translations from Latin to English (Pope Gregory’s

Pastoral Care; philosophic-historical works by Orosius, Boethius, Bede), travel reports

37
http://www.libraryindex.com/encyclopedia/pages/cpxktl89xf/philology-aryan-languages-sanskrit.html
38
Edith Iarovici, op.cit., pag. 20

22
(Ohthere’s and Wulfstan’s), religious texts as well as the beginning of the Chronicle. One
century later the prose of Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies and Lives of the Saints marked a peak
of stylistic refinement, whose West Saxon roots were obvious.39 Other well known writings
recorded in this language include Beowulf and Judith.

In order to have a better understanding of this dialect I will show a fragment from
Saint John’s Gospel written in the West Saxon language with its translation:

Caput III Chapter 3

1.Sōðlīce sum Phariseisc man wæs 1.Now there was a man of the Pharisees,
genenmed Nichodeus, sē wæs Iudea ealdor. named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

2.þēs cōm tō him on niht, and cwæð tō him, 2. This man came to Jesus by night and said
Rabbī, þæt ys, Lārēow, wē witon þæt ðū cō to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a
me fram Gode; ne maeg nān man þās tācn teacher come from God; for no one can do
wyrcan þe ðū wyrcst, būton God bēo mid these signs that you do, unless God is with
him.40 him."41

 Main features of the West Saxon Dialect

 /æ/ from Common Germanic /æ/ beside /e/ in most other dialects, eg. in dæd
(“deed”), hær (“here”) as opossed to dēd, hēr;

39
Adrian Poruciuc, op.cit., pag. 29
40
James Wilson Bright, Lancelot Minor Harris, The Gospel of Saint John in West-Saxon,University of
California,year 1904.
41
http://biblescripture.net/John.html

23
  the diphthongization of vowels after platal consonants, eg. in ʒielþ (“boast”),
forʒieldan (“to pay”) beside ʒelþ, forʒeldan in other dialects;

 the change of /ēa/ and /īo/ to /īe/ by mutation, eg. in hīeran (“to hear”), þīestru
(“darkness”), hliehhan (“to laugh”) as against hēran, þīostru, hlehhan in
other dialects;

 no back mutation in many words which have it in the other dialects, eg. in
ʒebedu (“prayers”), wita (“scholar”) beside ʒebeodu, wiota;

 syncopated forms of the 3rd person singular present indicative, eg. in cīest
(“choose”), hielt (“holds”) as against cēoseð, haldeð in other dialects.42

1.2.3.2 Grammar
The West Saxon grammar is similar to the other dialects in many ways, as the verbs
are divided in the same two main classes: the Strong and Weak; have four moods: indicative,
subjunctive, infinitive and imperative; only two tenses: past and present; two numbers and
three persons; two participles:present and past. Some examples of strong and weak verbs:

Strong Weak

cwelan – die cwellan – kill

licgan- lie lecgan – lay

sittan – sit settan – set

beornan - burn bærnan - burn43

42
Edith Iarovici, op.cit.pag.22
43
Wyatt, Alfred John, An elementary Old English grammar (early West Saxon ),publisher Cambridge University
Press, year 1897, pag. 45

24
 Every noun in OE belongs to either the strong or the weak declension;in the West
Saxon dialect all the weak nouns end in a vowel in the nominative singular: eg. the weak
masculine nouns end in –a while the feminine and neuter nouns end in –e;

The gender of the nouns can be determined in two ways:

 by meaning: names of males are masculine, names of females are feminine

and names of small creatures are neuter; eg. cyning-the king, sēo cwēn- the
queen, ðæt cild – the child;
 by termination: a) nouns ending in –a, -að,- els, -erd, -ere,- dōn,- hād, are
masculine.
b) nouns ending in –estre,-nes,-ræden,-ð, -fu are feminine.
c) nouns ending in -ern,-rīce,-lāc are neuter.44

1.2.3.3 Pronunciation
Like the other dialects the every word must be fully sounded whatever its position.
The vowels /a/,/e/,/i/,/o/,/u/ in OE had what may be called their „continental” or Italian sound:

 /a/ pronounced short /a/ like in answer.

 /ā/ for /a/ like in father.
 /āe/ for /a/ like in care.
 /ē/ for /ey/ like in they.
 /i/ for /i/ like in pin.
 /ī/ for /i/ like in machine.
 /u/ for /u/ like in pu.t
 /ū/ for /u/ like in rule.

44
Wyatt, Alfred John, An elementary Old English grammar(early West Saxon ),publisher Cambridge University
Press, year 1897, pag. 33

25
  /y/ for /u/ like in ger. huübsch or fr. ultérieur45

The pronunciation of the consonants /b/,/d/,/k/,/l/,/m/,/n/,/p/,/r/,/t/,/w/,/x/ does not

differ materially from that of MnE;

The consonants /f/ ,/s/,/ð/,/þ/ are a) voiceless whenever possible, always when inicial
eg. fōd-food, hors- horse, siððan – since; b)voiced when medial:eg. ofer – over, hālsian – to
greet, wiðinnan – within.46

1.2.3.4 Vocabulary

Being influenced by Latin considered at that time the "language for all serious
writing", some of the West Saxon words were latinized .Here are some examples:

 engel – angel- lat.angelus

 feallan – fall- lat.cadere
 ðēofol – demon – lat. dæmonium
 cynehelm- crown- lat. corona
 rōd – cross- lat. crux
 wēsten – desert- desertum
 strang – force – lat.fortis
 cnēoris -generation- lat.generatio
 hæðen – gentle -lat. gentilis
 unscyldig- innoncence- lat. innocens
 āstyrian – move – lat. movere
 synfull – sinfull –lat. peccator47

45
Ibidem, op.cit., pag. 12
46
Ibidem, op. cit., pag. 15
47
Ph.D Mattie Anstice Harris, A Glossary of the West Saxon Gospels: Latin-West Saxon and West Saxon-Latin,
publisher Lamson Wolffe and Company,New York, 1899

26
 1.2.4 The Kentish Dialect

1.2.4.1. General characteristics

The Kentish dialect, which was spoken in the South-East over an area slightly larger
than the present country of Kent, developed out of the speech of the Jutes.Only a few glosses
and charters concerning the disposal of property have been preserved. According to Karl
Brunner48, the latter may have been copied by some scribes who were not of Kentish origin.It
is therefore hardly possible to draw any ample and precise conclusions concerning the
Kentish dialect.

The Kentish was closely related to its dominant neighbor, West Saxon. However
Kentish documentary relics, few as they are, reveal some important differences between the
two southern dialects.As Karl Brunner suggested that the Kentish dialect was more closely
connected- lexically and phonologically- with North Germanic than was West Saxon.49 Also
most of those differences must have originated in the initial linguistic distinction between
Saxons and Jutes.

As I have already mentioned the Kentish dialect was spoken over the whole
southeastern part of England, including London and Essex, but during the Middle English
period its area was steadily diminished by the encroachment of the East Midland dialect,
especially after London became an East Midland-speaking city ; in late Middle English the
Kentish dialect was confined to Kent and Sussex. In the Early Modern period, after the
London dialect had begun to replace the dialects of neighboring areas, Kentish died out,
leaving no descendants.

In order to have a better understanding of the Kentish I will show a fragment from a
sermon ,witten in this dialect with its translation:

48
Hans Friede Nielsen,The Old English dialects and the continental germanic languages,Odense
University,1979, pag.3:”Karl Brunner was one the leading grammars of the OE, best known for his Altenglische
Grammatik.”
49
Ibidem, op. cit., pag. 3.

27
 OE: “Tho kinges hem wenten and hi seghen tho sterre thet yede bifore hem, alwat hi
kam over tho huse war ure loverd was; and alswo hi hedden i-fonden ure loverd, swo hin an-
urede, and him offrede hire offrendes, gold, and stor, and mirre. Tho nicht efter thet aperede
an ongel of hevene in here slepe ine metinge, and hem seide and het, thet hi ne solde ayen
wende be herodes, ac be an other weye wende into hire londes.”

MnE: “The kings went (them), and they saw the star that went before them until it
came over the house where our Lord was; and as-soon-as they had found our Lord, so (they)
honoured him, and offered him their offerings, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. The night
after that (there) appeared an angel from heaven in their sleep, in a dream, and said to-them
and commanded, that they should not wend again near Herod, but by another way wend to
their lands.”50

Another fragment taken from a charter called The Will of Badanoth Beotting:

„Ic Badanoþ beotting cýþo and wrítan háto hú mín willa is þet mín ærfe lond fere þé ic
et Aeþelnurfe cyninge begæt and gebohte mid fullum fríodóme on æ'ce ærfe æfter mínum
dage and mínra ærfewearda, þet is mínes wífes and mínra bearna; íc wille æ'rist mé siolfne
Gode allmehtgum forgeofan to þére stówe æt Cristes cirican and mín bearn þer liffest gedóan
and wíb and cild þæ'm hláforde and hígum and þæ're stówe befestan ober mínne dei tó friþe
and tó mundbyrde and tó hlæforddóme on þæ'm þingum þé him þearf síe and híe brucen
londes hiora dei and higon gefeormien tó mínre tíde swæ híe sóelest þurhtíon megen and
higon ús mid heora godcundum gódum swé gemýnen swæ' ús árlic and him ælmeslíc síe and
þonne ofer hiora dei wífes and cildad.”51

50
www.petrichor.net
51
http://babaev.tripod.com/archive/grammar44.html

28
  Main features of the Kentish dialect

 the lowering and unrounding of /y/ to/ ē/, eg. in senn („sin”) beside synn in the other
dialects;

 the raising to /ē/ of the /ǣ/ coming from mutated /ā/ ( from Common Germanic ai), eg.
in ēniʒ („any”) and mēst („most”) as against ǣniʒ and mǣst in the other dialects.52

1.2.4.2 Grammar

Even though this dialect is not as peculiar as the others, it still has some special
features. For instance Kentish has the -o ending in the 1st person singular of the Present
tense;eg.” I call”will be ic ható. Other examples from the text above are: cýþo („I could”),
háto („I have”) . As I have already mentioned the Kentish dialect was usually compared to
the West Saxon dialect, both having a somewhat similar grammar.(see page 22).

52
Edith Iarovici, op. cit., pag. 22

29
1.2.4.3 Pronunciation

Here are some peculiarities of the Kentish pronunciation:

 the use of /v/ for /f/ (as in vader, vram, vlesshe), and of /z/ for /s/ (as in zone, zit,
zennes).
 the spelling lhord reminds us that many Anglo-Saxon words began with hl, one of
them being hlāfweard, later hlāford, a lord; and this hl is a symbol denoting the so-
called "whispered /l/" sounded much as if an aspirate were prefixed to the /l/, and still
common in Welsh, where it is denoted by ll, as in llyn, a lake.
 /i/ sometimes represents the short /i/, as in it (A.S. hit), sit (A.S. sittan), bitten (A.S.
bĭten), etc; and sometimes the A.S. short y, as in pyt, a pit.
 the sound of the Anglo-Saxon short /i/ was much the same as in modern English; but
that of the short /y/ was different, as it denoted the "mutated" form of short /u/ for
which German has a special symbol, /ü/, the sound intended being that of the German
üin schützen, to protect.
 Kentish usually has the vowel /e/, as in the modern Kentish pet, a pit, and in the
surname Petman which means pitman; and as the A.S. for "sin" was synn (dat.
synne).53

53
William Frank Bryan, Studies in the dialects of the Kentish charters of the old English period,Wisconsin,
1915,pag. 5-25.

30
1.2.4.4 Vocabulary

The Kentish dialect appears to have been very colourful in the past, with many interesting
agricultural words appearing .Many of these seem to have disappeared in the modern age:

 scithers – scissors
 fanteeg - to be flustered
 abed – in bed
 akers – acorns
 muster- mister
 ferian – to become
 ober – over
 ferian - to become
 wíb - a wife
 liffest - while living
 brúcan - to let them use
 mínre tíde - on my anniversary
 mit heora godcundum gódum - in their divine service
 dreän – to drip
 hover – light, puffy54

54
W. D. Parish and W. F. Shaw, A dictionary of the Kentish dialect and provincialisms in use in the county of
Kent, London,1887

31
 Chapter II: Middle English Dialects
From the 12th to the 16th century (ca. 1150-1500)

2.1 The linguistic consequences of the Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest, which took place in 1066 had a greater effect on the English
language than any other event in the course of its history.Nevertheless, it must not be regarded
55
as a revolutionary factor in the evolution of English. After the conquest of England by
William I , Norman French, not English became the language of the ruling classes and their
servants, because almost all of the former Englsih nobility were dispossessed of their
lands.The chronicler Robert Mannyng, writing in the NE Midlands dialect in 1338, refers to
this:

“To Frankis & Normanz for þare grete laboure

To Flemmynges & Pikardes þat were with him in stoure (=battle)

He gaf londes bityme of whilk þer successoure

Hold ʒit þe seyseyne (= possession of land) with fulle grete honoure’’.56

William’s policy of dispossessing the Anglo-Saxon nobility held in the Church

also.French-speaking bishops and abbots were in time appointed to the principal offices, and
many French monks entered the monasteries.Latin remained the principal kanguage of both
Church and State for official writing in documents, while French became the “prestige
language” of communication.

In what is referred to as the Middle English period English underwent momentous

changes from both a grammatical and a lexical point of view:

55
Edith Iarovici, op.cit., pag. 79
56
Dennis Freeborn, op.cit., pag. 44

32
 1. Changes in spelling conventions, letter forms and the alphabet used by the Middle
English scribes, which had what was called the “continental values”:
 /a/ represents rougly the same sound as in Italian or French( long or
short)
 /e/ represents either the sound in French dé or that in bête;
 /i/ represents the vowel in French vite;
 /o/ sometimes renders the vowel sound in French beau and other
times that in French corps;
 /u/ never stands for the vowel in MnE tune or but, it stand either for
the vowel in French lune or the MnE spoon;
 most consonants sounds were rendered in the same way as on the
Continent and so they had generally been in Old English.57
2. Changes in pronunciation, inferred from the written words:
 The diphthong au was rendered both by au and aw in the middle of
words, eg. naught, clau(“claw’), sawe(“saw”)
 /u/ was less often used for /v/: euel became evil;
 /ʒ/ disappeared and was completely replaced by /y/ in the initial
position.eg. ye, yonder- and by gh in medial position eg. light, right.
 the sound /w/ in the initial position before another consonant began
to be weaker and sometimes even to disappear, eg. ME wlappen –
MnE lap.
 shortening of vowels:all long vowels followed by two consonants
were subjected to shortening ;eg. fēdde>fedde(“to feed”).
 lenghthening of vowels: in the 13th century, the vowels /a/ ,/e/,/o/ in
open syllables were lengthened;eg.care>cāre,talu>tāle,
maken>māken, spere>spęre, werian>węren, etc.58 59
3. Changes in word structure, suffixes and prefixes:
 Derivation remained a capital word-building factor in ME.Though a
number of OE affixes became unproductive during the ME
evolution, many others retained their creative capacity; eg. a)

57
Edith Iarovici, op.cit., pag.94
58
Ibidem, op.cit, pag. 98-99
59
Ibidem, op.cit, pag. 98-99

33
 prefixes:ēth-ēthmōd(“kindness”),forþ-, y-yclad; b) suffixes: -hede,
-lees,-ly, -lyng,-more, - nesse;
 It is to be observed, however that the productivity of Latin-French
formants was still very low in ME: prefixes de-,dis-, pro-, re-; and
suffixes –able, -ess, -ment, -ous, -ry,-ty.
 Other suffixes borrowed from French:-ard/-erde; eg.
couherde(“coward”), bastard and –ault/-ald/-aud; eg.
herald(‘leader”), ribald.60

4. Changes in grammar and word order:

 The word order of Middle English becomes, as a result of the loss
of inflections, much more important. The basic Subject + Verb +
Complement word order of Modern English became paramount
now.
 Inversions were gradually restricted to interrogative and emphatic
sentences: eg.what hastow lost?; acorsed be thi comyng.
 Negative sentences still used OE ne+inversion.ME noght was used
for emphatic reinforcements too.61
 ME grammar was characterized by a general leveling and reduction
of inflexions.
 The first person singular of verbs in the present tense ends in -e
(“ich here” – “I hear”), the second person in -(e)st (“þou spekest”
– “thou speakest”), and the third person in -eþ (“he comeþ” – “he
cometh/he comes”). (/þ/ is pronounced like the unvoiced /th/ in
“think”).
 In the past tense, weak verbs are formed by adding an -ed(e), -d(e)
or -t(e) ending. These, without their personal endings, also form
past participles, together with past-participle prefixes derived from
Old English: i-, y- and sometimes bi-.

60
Adrian Poruciuc, op.cit., pag. 134
61
Ibidem, op.cit., pag. 121

34
  The OE grammatical gender was given up and replaced by a more
comfortable category of gender in keeping with sex and animate-
inanimate.
5. Changes in vocabulary- new words appear, old ones are no longer used:
 The development of the vocabulary in ME is due to the inner resources of the
language as well as to the borrowing of words and morphems from other
languages.
 affixation: eg. beggestere, dullard, redynesse, warmth, foolish, herty, misaly,
becall, oversleeþ, etc.
 composition:eg. earth-quake, father- in-law, hous-hold, sweet-smelling, light-
hearted, blindfelle(“to blindfold”)
 change of meaning: eg. OE cnafa(‘child/boy”)> ME knave/cniht, hund
(“dog”)>hound, sellan(“to give’) >selle (“to sell”).
 very few French words had been borrowed before the Norman
Conquest.According to F.Kluge they were castle, mantle, purse,
62
trail.K.Brunner mentions only proud, pride, sott(‘stupid”) and castle.
 following the Norman Conquest a massive borrowing of foreign words became
a dominant linguistic phenomenon.
 the French loan words may be divided into the following groups, according to
the main spheres of activity:
a) Feudal Administartion: governe, estat, roial, court, duk, prince, baron,
noble, page, statut, vassal, marquis, squyer(“squire’).
b) Law: justice, court, sentence, evidence, crime, defence, summon,
fraude, heir, legacie, etc.
c) Army and Military Life: siege, defense, lance, mail, banner, victorie,
sergeaunt, aid, challenge, enemy, spy, march, etc.
d) Religion: preyer, sermon, service, pitee, sacrefise, chapel, mercy,
temptation etc.
e) Trades: fisherman, weaver, saddler, miller, baker, shepherd,
skinner.tailor, draper, etc.
f) Art, Literature, Science: art, painting, prolog, preface, colour, figure,
palais, mansion, piler, tretiz, peine, pous, estomac, remedie, poison, etc.

62
Edith Iarovici, op. cit., pag. 104

35
 g) Fashion, Meals and Leisure: robe, cape, cloke, cote, froc, coler, veile,
beef,pork, peche, cherise, soper, fruit, appétit, mustard, plesir, leysir,
ese, delite, recreation, music, revel, conversation, etc.
h) Miscellaneous Words: aventure, ager, air, coste, grief, honour, able,
amiable, marie, declare, posse, plese, people, river, piece, move,
honest, ferme, tendre, tempest, use, criem etc.63

2.2 General Characterictics of the ME Dialects

Alongside the gradual victory of English in its struggle with French, another very
important process took place, namely the establishment of the national language. Feudalism
had deepened and multiplied dialectal divergences of speech. One of the striking
characteristics of Middle English was its enormous variety in the different parts of the
country.64

More than OE, ME may rightly be called a fundamentally dialectal period. During the
two centuries that followed Hastings, with only French and Latin used as high-education
languages and without any normative authority left, English dialects developed freely. 65

Chaucer was worried by the great variety of English and feared his work would be
spoiled by dialectal forms used by copyists:

“And for ther is so great diversite

In Englissh and in writing of our tonge,
So prey I God that non miswrite the,
Ne the mysmetre for defaute of tonge.
And red wherso thow be, or ells songe,
That thow be understonde, God I biseche! ”

63
Ibidem, op. cit., pag. 106-109.
64
Ibidem, op.cit., pag. 89
65
Adrian Poruciuc, op.cit., pag. 92

36
 (“ And as there is such great variation in English and in writing our language, I pray
God that no one will copy you wrongly, my book, or spoil your metre through fault of
language.And whenever you are read or else sung, I beseech God that you may be
understood.” Troilus and Criseyde, Book V)

One result of the Norman Conquest of 1066 was to place all four OE dialects more or
less on a level. West Saxon lost its supremacy, and the centre of culture and learning
gradually shifted from Winchester to London. The old Northumbrian dialect became divided
into Scottish and Northern, although little is known of either of these divisions before the end
of the 13th century the old Mercian dialect was split into East and West Midland.

West Saxon became slightly diminished in area and was more appropriately named the
South Western dialect. The Kentish dialect was considerably extended and was called South
Eastern accordingly. All five Middle English dialects ,Northern, West Midland, East Midland,
South Western, and South Eastern, went their own ways and developed their own
characteristics.66

66
www.britannica.com

37
 Fig.6 The Middle English Dialects

2.3 The Northern(Scots) Dialects

2.3.1 General characteristics

The Northern dialects of ME came from the Northumbrian dialects of OE. By contrast
with these southernmost dialects, Northern Middle English evolved rapidly: the inflectional
systems of its nouns and verbs were already sharply reduced by 1300, and its syntax is also
innovative.These developments were probably the result of Scandinavian influence. In the
aftermath of the great Scandinavian invasions of the 860's and 870's, large numbers of
Scandinavian families settled in northern and northeastern England. When the descendants of
King Alfred the Great of Wessex reconquered those areas, the Scandinavian settlers, who
spoke Old Norse, were obliged to learn OE. But in some areas their settlements had so
completely displaced the preexisting English settlements that they cannot have had sufficient
contact with native speakers of OE to learn the language well. They learned it badly, carrying

38
over into their English various features of Norse and also producing a simplified syntax that
was neither good English nor good Norse.67

I will present now an extract from Bruce, a verse chronicle of the life and heroic deed
of Robert Bruce (1274-1329), written by John Barbour in about 1375, and I will comment the
main features of the northern dialect found in this text:

Middle English Modern English

Ah freedom is a noble thing

A fredome is a noble thing
Freedom makes man to have liking
Fredome mays man to haiff liking
Freedom all solace to man gives
Fredome all solace to man giffis
He lives at ease that freely lives
He levys at es yat frely levys
A noble heart may have no ease
A noble hart may haiff nane es
Nor else nought that may him please
Na ellys nocht yat may him ples
If freedom fails, for free liking
Gyff fredome failʒhe, for fre liking
Is yearned over all other thing.
Is ʒharnyt our all oyer thing.
Nor he that aye has lived free
Na he yat ay has levyt fre
May not know well the property
May nacht knaw weill the propyrte
The anger nor the wretched doom
Ye angyr na ye wrechyt dome
That is coupled to foul thralldom
Yat is cowplyt to foule thrldome
But if he had assayed it.68
Bot gyff he had assayit it.

2.3.2 Main features of the Northern dialect

1. Grammar
 The word order of verse is often more marked and less normal than that of
prose, as in Fredome all solace to man giffis, in which the direct object all
solace and adverbial to man precede the verb, and so cannot be good evidence
of normal spoken usage.The relative pronoun is that, as in MnE , but spelt yat.

67
www.ling.uppen.edu
68
Dennis Freebon, op.cit., pag. 71-72

39
  The –ing suffix on liking marks a noun which derives from a verb, sometimes
called a gerund.
 The infinitive has no inflection, as in haiff, knaw and pless.Present tense: the
3rd person singular inflection is spelt <is> or <ys> as in giffis and levys.Other
verbs have only /s/ as in has and mays.Past participle: this is spelt <yt> as in
ʒharnyt, levyt and cowplyt and the OE prefix ge- has been lost.69
 With the lost of the final /e/ all inflection of the adjective was lost.
 The plural of þis(this) is þer or þir.
 The ending of the present indicative first person singular and the present
indicative plural was –es, unless the subject was a personal pronoun which
preceded or followed the verb in which case the ending was - e.
 The ending of the present participle was –and(e) while the past participle was –
en.
 The ending of imperartive plural was –es.70

2. Pronunciation
 <ei> <ai> - in haiff the ai represents /a:/; in weill the ei is /e:/;not all uses of
<i> following a vowel mark this feature, however in failʒhe <ai> amrks the
diphthong derived from Old French faillir,similar the pronoun thai.
 <ʒh> - is written for <ʒ> representing the consonant /j/ as in failʒhe, /failjɘ/.
 <ff> - these doubled letter probably indicate unvoiced final consonants in haiff
and gyff.
 <ch> - is written for <ʒ> and <gh> used in other dialectical areas for the sound
of /x/ as in nocht as well as the /tʃ/ in wrechyt.
 <y> - is used for <th> is some function words like the and that, as well as an
alternative for<i>.
 /ʃ/ became /s/ in unaccented syllables and in words that were generally
pronounced with little stress; eg. englisc>inglis, sceal>sal, scolde>sulde.
 /g/ and /k/ appear in many words which have /j/ and /tʃ/: gif, kirk,chirche.
 OE /ā/ did not change into ōbut remained /ā/;eg. stān>stan.
 OE /hw/ was spelled in the North /qu/; eg. OE hwæt>Northern ME quat.71

69
Ibidem, op.cit., pag. 72-73
70
G. Wahr, op.cit., pag 77-78

40
 3. Vocabulary

 In a Northern dialect we would expect to find words derived from Old Norse
but the text contains only two, angyr and ay as against seven from Old French.
 Other words that give away the dialect:
ME MnE
Alswa Also
Banes Bones
Bathe Both
Il-hail Ill health
Lang Long
Naan None
Ra Roe(deer)
Saule Soul
Waat Wist
Wha Who
Til Till
Wanges Wangs (back teeth)
Fares Fares
Gas Goes
Ille Ill
Swayn swain72

71
Ibidem, op. cit., pag 77
72
Ibidem, op.cit., pag. 81

41
 2.4 The Southern and Kentish Dialects

2.4.1 General characteristics

The Southern dialect of Middle English was spoken in the area west of Sussex and
south and southwest of the Thames. It was the direct descendant of the West Saxon dialect of
Old English, which was the colloquial basis for the Anglo-Saxon court dialect of Old English.
Southern Middle English is a conservative dialect (though not as conservative as Kentish),
which shows little influence from other languages — most importantly, no Scandinavian
influence.Descendants of Southern Middle English still survive in the working-class country
dialects of the extreme southwest of England.73

Kentish was originally spoken over the whole southeastern part of England, including
London and Essex, but during the Middle English period its area was steadily diminished by
the encroachment of the East Midland dialect, especially after London became an East
Midland-speaking city; in late Middle English the Kentish dialect was confined to Kent and
Sussex. In the Early Modern period, after the London dialect had begun to replace the dialects
of neighboring areas, Kentish died out, leaving no descendants. Kentish is interesting to
linguists because on the one hand its sound system shows distinctive innovations (already in
the Old English period), but on the other its syntax and verb inflection are extremely
conservative; as late as 1340, Kentish syntax is still virtually identical with Old English
syntax.

I will present now an extract from the translated history called Polychronicon, written
by John of Trevisa and I will comment the main features of the southern dialect found in this
text:
“As hyt ys y-knowe houʒ meny maner people buþ in þis ylond þer buþ also so meny
people longages and tonges. Noþeles walschmen and scottes þat buþ noʒt ymelled wiþ oþer
nacions holdeþ wel nyʒ here furste longage and spreche…
Also englischmen þeyʒ hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre maner speche souþeron
norþeron and myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, as hy come of þre maner people of
Germania, noþeles by commyxstion and mellyng furst wiþ danes and asterward wiþ normans

73
www.ling.upenn.edu

42
in menye þe contray lonagage ys apeyred and some vseþ strange wlaffyng chyteryng harryng
and garryng, grisbittyng.”74

2.4.2 Main features of the Southern Dialects

1. Grammar
 In the south the OE pronoun forms remained much longer that in North for example
where the forms they, them and their replaced the older OE pronouns beginning
with<h>. Therefore the forms of she and they are therefore two of the clues which
help to determine the dialect of the manuscript.
 Here are the Southern forms of the personal pronoun: 1st person singular-ihc,I; 3rd
person singular feminine pronoun- heo, he, she; 3rd person plural –
hi,they,ho,heo,hoe,hom.
 Infinitives that complement a main verb are marked by for to, as in compelled for to
leue… and for to construe and for to speke, for to be.
 The verbs in the plural form end in –eth, eg. hitteth (“to strike”)
 The past participle of the strong and weak verbs often had the prefix i, y from OE; eg.
icumen- past participle of cumen.
 /y/ preserved its original quality, though the sounds were spelled in /u/,/ui/ instead of
/y/; eg. fyr>vur, vuir, fyllan>vullen; 75

2. Pronunciation
 Persistence of /ʒ/:houʒ, noʒt, nyʒ.
 Voicing of fricatives :for > vor
 Seggen pronounced /zɛǰən/
 /ǣ/ became long open /ē/

74
Dennis Freeborn, op.cit., pag. 64
75
G. Wahr, Historical outlines of English sounds and Middle English grammar, for courses in Chaucer, Middle
English, and the history of the English language,1919, pag.72-73

43
  /eo/ became /ö/ :heorte>heörte
 The OE initial voiceless consonants /f/, /s/, /þ/ changed into the voiced spirants /v/,/z/,
/ð/; eg. song>zong, þæt>pæt.
 OE ā became <ō>. eg. stān>stoon.
 Final /e/ was retained in pronunciation throught the fourteenth century;

3. Vocabulary

ME MnE
Buþ But
þis This
noþel Noble
noʒt Not
hyt That
houʒ House
holdeþ Hold
longage language76

I will present an extract from a book written by Michael of Northgate, a monk of

St.Augustine’s, Canterbury, which provides good evidence for the dialect of Kent at that time:

ME MnE
Nou ich wille þet ye ywyte Now I want you to know
Hou it is ywent How it has come about
Þet þis boc is ywrite That this book has been written
Mid Engliss of Kent. In the English of Kent.
Þis boc is ymad uor lewede men This book is made for common folk
Hem uor to berʒe uram alle To protect them from all
Manyere zen. Kinds of sin.77

76
Francis Henry Stratmann ,Middle English dictionary containing words used by English writers from the twelfth
to the fifteenth century,Oxford,1891

44
2.4.3 Main features of the Kentish dialect

1. Grammar
 He yaf ofte his kertel > he gave often his coat: the adverb often in MnE either preceds
the verb, he often gave, or follows the object, he gave his coat often.
 his moder him byete ofte>his mother him beat often : the direct object him or it, now
follows the verb in MnE.
 Þanne bevil þet> then befell that: a MnE clause must contain a subject; here the
dummy subject it would be used,hence then it befell that.
 His moder nes naʒt þer> his mother ne was not there:the OE negative ne preceded the
verb, as in ne wæs, was not. The emphatic noʒt, naʒt came to be used to reinforce the
negative.
 For to pasi þet yer>(in order to) last the year: the phrase for to in a structure like I
want for to go is found in all ME texts.
 The use of the OE pronoun form þæt for the MnE the.78

2. Pronunciation
 OE <y> became Kentish <ē>, <ȩ>.
 The OE initial voiceless consonants /f/, /s/, /þ/ changed into the voiced spirants /v/,/z/,
/ð/; eg. fyr>ver, fyllan>vellen.
 OE /ēa/ became in Kentish a sound which is spelled /ea/, /ia/, /ya/, /yea/: OE
strēam>striam, stream.
 OE /ēo/ became in Kentish a sound which is spelled /ie/,/ye/,/i/, /y/: OE bēon>bien,
byen.
 OE īe became in Kentish a sound which is spelled /ie/,/ye/,: OE nīed >nied, nyed.79

77
Dennis Freeborn, op. cit., pag.66
78
Ibidem, op. cit., pag.67.68
79
G. Wahr, Historical outlines of English sounds and Middle English grammar, for courses in Chaucer, Middle
English, and the history of the English language,1919, pag.73-74

45
 3. Vocabulary
 Being a more conservative dialect the Kentish vocabulary consists mainly
on OE words.

ME MnE
oʒene Own
hatte Called
uolueld Completed
beringe Birth
kertel Coat
sserte Shirt
þanne Then
ygadered Gathered
ywyte Know
boc Book
berʒe Protect
manyere kinds80

2.5 The West Midlands Dialects

2.5.1 General Characteristics

The East-Midland and West-Midland dialects of Middle English are intermediate

between the Northern and Southern/Kentish extremes. In the West Midlands there is a
gradation of dialect peculiarities from Northern to Southern as one moves from Lancashire to
Cheshire and then down the Severn valley. This dialect has left modern descendants in the
working- class country dialects of the area.
This is the most conservative of the dialect areas in the Middle English period and is
fairly well-documented in literary works. It is the western half of the Old English dialect area
Mercia.During the ME period the Mercian dialect developed in different ways.The East
80
Francis Henry Stratmann ,Middle English dictionary containing words used by English writers from the twelfth
to the fifteenth century,Oxford,1891

46
Midlands was part of the Danelaw but the West Midlands was not so the language of the East
Midlands changed partly under the influence of the Danish Old Norse speakers wo settled
there.As a result OE Mercian became two ME dialects: East Midlands and West
Midlands.81
Further I will present and extract from the famous poem Piers Plowman written in the
West Midlands dialect:
ME MnE
In a somur sesoun whan softe was þe sonne In a summer season when the sun shone
Y shope me into shroudes as y a shep were softly
In abite as an heremite vnholy of werkes, I wrapped myself in woolens as if I were a
Wente forth in þe world wondres to here sheep;
And say many sellies and selkouthe thynges. In a hermit's habit, unholy in his works,
Ac on a May mornyng on Maluerne hulles I went out into the world to hear wonders
Me biful for to slepe, for werynesse of And to see many strange and seldom known
walked things
And in a launde as y lay, lened y and slepte But on a May morning in the Malvern Hills
And merueylousliche me mette ,as y may I happened to fall asleep, worn out from
telle. (Prologue)82 walking;
And in a meadow as I lay sleeping,
I dreamed most marvelously, as I recall.83

2.5.2 Main features of the West Midlands dialects

1. Grammar
 Because the Midlands dialects were more advanced in their loss of
grammatical inflections they tend to resemble MnE more closely in their
grammar.
 3rd person plural pronouns:they, hir, hem ,heo,heom, them,ham;

81
Dennis Freeborn, op.cit., pag.82
82
Ibidem, op.cit, pag.89
83
www.questia.com

47
  3rd person singular pronouns:hue, she, ha,he.
 Strong verbs:bot, fel, let, schrank, start.
 Weak verbs: blykked, faltered, foyned, gripped, roled, hit, sette, layd, scade,
blede.84
 The past participle of the strong and weak verbs often had the prefix i, y
from OE; eg. icumen- past participle of cumen.
 The ending of the present indicative plural of verbs was-e(n).
 The ending of the present participle of the verbs was –ende, later-inge or –
ing.85

2. Pronunciation
 Final /e/ was retained in pronunciation throught the fourteenth century.
 OE /ā/ became /ō/. eg. stān>stoon.
 OE /y/ and /i/ became /ī/ and /i/; eg. fyr>fīr, fyllan>fillen.
 /ʒ/ was used in many poems to represent several sounds because it has
developed from two sources;firstly from the OE letter /ʒ/ and secondly, as a
form of letter /z/:
 /j/ : for example yʒe-lyddeʒ- eye-lids, ʒeres- years;
 /x/ : similar to Scots loch (lox) or German bach(bax) after /a/, /o/ or /u/;eg.
raʒt- reached, laʒt- laughed, hyʒt- height,etc.
 /w/ : a developing sound change from OE ɣ; eg. arʒe- arrow, saʒe- saw,
broʒeʒ - brows, etc.
 /s/ :/ʒ/ and /tʒ/ were both used for the letter /z/ – and letters /z/ and /tz/ had
been used in OF for the sound /ts/, which changed to /s/ and later to /z/; eg.
hedleʒ- headless, resounʒ- reasons, hatʒ- has.
 /z/: /ʒ/ represented the voiced sound /z/ in /es/ noun and verb suffixes; eg.
discouereʒ, lokkeʒ, renkkeʒ, boʒeʒ, haldeʒ.86

84
Dennis Freeborn, op.cit., pag.86
85
G. Wahr, Historical outlines of English sounds and Middle English grammar, for courses in Chaucer, Middle
English, and the history of the English language,1919, pag.74-76

86
Dennis Freeborn, op.cit., pag. 82-83

48
 3. Vocabulary
 There are relatively few words of French origin, and even fewer from ON. The
south and west of England had not been settled by Danes and Norwegians, so
the scarcity of ON words is understandable.
ME MnE

Welde Use
ʒerne Eager
laʒeʒ Laugh
sourquydrye Pride
wale Find
burne Knight
giserne Battle-axe
ryche Splendid
syþen Afterwards
fulsun Help
seʒ saw
lach Seize
helden Turn
ʒeldeʒ replies87

87
Ibidem, op. cit., 85-86

49
 2.6 The East Midlands Dialects

2.6.1 General characteristics

The East Midlands dialect is of a greater importance because it became the basis of
the national language, particulary the dialect of London, which was the economic, political
and cultural centre of the country. The northern parts of its dialect area were also an area of
heavy Scandinavian settlement, so that northern East-Midland Middle English shows the
same kinds of rapid development as its Northern neighbor. But the subdialect boundaries
within East-Midland were far from static: the more northerly variety spread steadily
southward, extending the influence of Scandinavianized English long after the Scandinavian
population had been totally assimilated.

In the 13th century this part of England, especially Norfolk and Suffolk, began to
outstrip the rest of the country in prosperity and population because of the excellence of its
agriculture, and – crucially - increasing numbers of well-to-do speakers of East-Midland
began to move to London, bringing their dialect with them. By the second half of the 14th
century the dialect of London and the area immediately to the northeast, which had once been
Kentish, was thoroughly East-Midland, and a rather Scandinavianized East Midland at that.
Since the London dialect steadily gained in prestige from that time on and began to develop
into a literary standard, the northern, Scandinavianized variety of East-Midland became the
basis of standard Modern English. For that reason, East-Midland is by far the most important
dialect of Middle English for the subsequent development of the language.88

Further I will present and extract from The travels of Sir John Mandeville, which was
one of the most popular books written in the 14th century, in the SE Midlands dialect:

„Now shall I seye ʒou sewyngly of contrees and yles þat ben beʒonde the contrees þat
I haue spoken of.Wherfore I seye ʒou, in passynge ve the lond of Cathaye toward the high
Ynde, and toward Bacharye. Men passen be a kyngdom þat men clepen Caldilhe, þat is a full
fair contre.
And þere groweth a manner of fruyt, as þough it weren gowrdes; and whan þei ben
rype, men kutten hem ato, and men fynden withinne a lytyll best, in flesch, in bon, and blode
as þough it were a lytill lomb, withouten wolle.And men eten bothe the frut and the best: and

88
Edith Iarovici, op. cit, 90-91

50
þat is a gret mervueylle.Of þat frute I haue eten, allþough it were wondirfull: but þat I knowe
wel, þat god is merueyllous in his werkes.”

2.6.2 Main features of the East Midlands dialects

1. Grammar

 The plural ending of the nouns –es, slowly became the normal plural ending.
 3rd person plural:he, here, hem,they,them
 1st person singular: ic, icc,hic,ich.
 3rd person singular feminine: hoe, she, sche(13th century), scae(12th century).89
 Verbs:
a) 3rd person singular present tense suffix <-eþ>
b) 3rd person plural present tense suffix(-en)
c) Past participle –en is retained but the prefix <y-> is lost in general in the East
Midlands dialect;
d) Infinitive suffix –en is generally retained in EM but may be dropped in London
dialect.
 The ending of the indefinite participle was <-ende> later the- ing form.
 Plural inflexion of the present indicative became –en, -es, -e;90

2. Pronunciation

 OE long /a:/ has rounded to /:ɔ/ and is now spelt /o/ or /oo.
 OE short /æ/ written /æ/ is now /a/ and written /a/.
 OE /eo/ has smoothed and is now spelt /e/.
 OE /y/ has unrounded to /i/, spelt /i/;eg. fyllen>fillen
 /v / is changed with /f/:eg. vane, vat, vane,vent, vixen>fane, fat,fane, fixen.
 Final /e/ was retained in pronunciation throught the fourteenth century

89
Dennis Freeborn, op. cit., pag. 60-63
90
Edith Iarovici, op. cit., pag.134-135

51
 3.Vocabulary

 The East Midlands dialect owes much of its vocabulary to Nordic influences,
the region having been incorporated in the Norse controlled Danelaw in the
late 9th century.

ME MnE
Schall Shall
Sewyngly In what follows
Contree Country
Kutten Cut
Blode Blood
Frut Fruit
Bothe Both
Best Beast
Passynge Passing
Atwyn Apart, in two
Folle At full, in great detail
Rype Ripe
lytyll91 little

91
Dennis Freeborn, op.cit., pag. 95-96

52
 2.7 The London dialect

2.7.1 The creation of a Standard English

The London dialect in the late 14th century derived from a mixture of ME dialects,
but was strongly influenced by the East Midlands dialect in particular.London naturally
attracted large numbers of men and women and thier families from other areas of the country,
to find work, bringing their own dialectal soeech with them. Historians have identified a
considerable migration of people from the East Midlands to London from the late 13th century
to the mid-fourteenth century, some of whom must have become the dominant social class
whose language carried prestige and was imitated by others.But because people from other
parts of the country also migrated to London there are also features of Southern and Kentish
in the London dialect.92

In the same manner H. C. Wyld reached the following conclusions, in his History of
Modern Colloquial English :

„We found that London English was in its earlier phases, of a definetly
Southern type, and more particularly of a Central, rather that an East Southern
type.We witnessed the gradual appearance of more and more East Midland elements
and of some South Eastern or Knetish peculiarities;The East Midland elements gain
ground more and more, sometimes being used alongside of the corresponding
Southern elements, sometimes exclusively, instead of the latter.By the end of the 14th
century we found that London speech had become predominantly East Midland in
character, and that the purely Central Southern elements were very greatly reduced
though still in excess of what they are in Standard or Written English at the present
time...” 93

The dialect of London, the commercial, intellectual, and political center of power, was
becoming the prestige dialect. The idea of "the King's English" underlies Trevisa's comment

92
Ibidem, op.cit., pag. 95
93
Edith Iarovici, op. cit., pag. 92

53
on the Northern dialect, and it appears directly in Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe for the
first time:

„God save the king, that is lord of this langage” [(Astr Pro.56-57)]

So the present day Standard English derives in its origins from the East Midlands dialect
of ME, and this explains why it is comparatively easy to read Chaucer’s English of the late
14th century, as well as other East Midlands texts.

2.7.2 Chaucer’s Literary English

The literary language that Chaucer fashioned became the standard written language of
elegant writers and the language of London became the written standard for all formal
English.

The poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to
standardise the London Dialect of the Middle English language; a combination of Kentish
and Midlands dialect. This is probably overstated: the influence of the court, chancery and
bureaucracy — of which Chaucer was a part — remains a more probable influence on the
development of Standard English. Modern English is somewhat distanced from the language
of Chaucer's poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift some time after his death.
This change in the pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of
Chaucer difficult for the modern audience, though it is thought by some that the modern
Scottish accent is closely related to the sound of Middle English.94

The status of the final -e in Chaucer's verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the
period of Chaucer's writing the final -e was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use
was somewhat irregular. Chaucer's versification suggests that the final -e is sometimes to be
vocalised, and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is
disagreement. When it is vocalised, most scholars pronounce it as a schwa /ɘ/. Apart from the

94
Dennis Freeborn, op. cit., pag. 98-101

54
irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is
also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common
English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at
the time but Chaucer, with his ear for common speech, is the earliest manuscript source.
Acceptable, alkali, altercation, amble, angrily, annex, annoyance, approaching, arbitration,
armless, army, arrogant, arsenic, arc, artillery and aspect are just some of the many English
words first attested in Chaucer.

Although Chaucer's language is much closer to modern English than other ME texts it
differs enough that most publications modernize his idiom. Following is a sample from the
prologue of the “Summoner's Tale” that compares Chaucer's text to a modern translation:

ME MnE

This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle, This friar boasts that he knows hell

And God it woot, that it is litel wonder; And God knows that it is little wonder;

Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder. Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.

For, pardee, ye han ofte tyme herd telle For, pardon, you have often times heard tell

How that a frere ravyshed was to helle How a friar was taken to hell

In spirit ones by a visioun; In spirit, once by a vision;

And as an angel ladde hym up and doun And as an angel led him up and down,

To shewen hym the peynes that the were To show him the pains that were there,

In al the place saugh he nat a frere; In the whole place he saw not one friar;

Of oother folk he saugh ynowe in wo. He saw enough of other folk in woe.95

95
www.1066andallthat.com

55
 Chaucer is sometimes considered the source of the English vernacular tradition and the
"father" of modern English literature. His achievement for the language can be seen as part of
a general historical trend towards the creation of a “vernacular literature”, after the example
of Dante, in many parts of Europe.Even so there is a tendency to exaggerate the part played
by Chaucer in the formation of the national language. Thus, G.K Chesterton says in his
Chaucer:“If i were writing this in French, as I should be if Chaucer had not been chosen to
write in English..”But english has already won the victory when Chaucer began to write.96

96
Edith Iarovici, op.cit., pag. 92

56
 Conclusion

The most widespread language in the world is English, which is considered to be the
international language. During many centuries English was exposed to the influence of
different cultures and underwent many changes. That is why it is not surprising that British
English has so many dialects. A dialect is a complete system of verbal communication (oral or
signed but not necessarily written) with its own vocabulary and/or grammar. It is used by
people from a particular geographical area the size of which can be arbitrary. It follows that a
dialect for a larger area can contain plenty of (sub-) dialects, which in turn can contain
dialects of yet smaller areas, etc.

According to the studied materials I can make such conclusions:

 The concept dialect should be distinguished from accent. The term dialect
refers to a specific variety of a language, which differs systematically from
other varieties in terms of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, but which
is still generally comprehensible to speakers of other dialects within that
language. Varieties of dialects can be distinguished not only by their
vocabulary and grammar, but also by differences in phonology. If the
distinctions are limited to phonology, one may use the term accent. Accent
refers simply to different pronunciation patterns and, despite popular belief to
the contrary everybody speaks with an accent.97
 There are two types of dialects: geographical and social. Geographical dialects
are used by people of some particular territory. Social dialects are used in one
and the same social class or educational group.
 In the 5th century AD, when the first Germanic colonists made landfall in
England, there was no Old English. All tribes arriving in the British Isles,
spoke their own dialects, similar to each other but still variable. By the end of
the century, however, when tribes turned into kingdoms, tribal speech became
dialects. Three main ethnic groups which arrived in England spoke three
dialects which got names of the kingdoms which were established by them.
They were West Saxon, Northumbrian, and Kentish.West Saxon also

97
Shuy, W.D. Discovering American Dialects.Illinois: Editura National Council of Teachers of English, 1998.pag .5

57
 includes the Mersian variety which had several slight differences in
morphology and syntax, and more loanwords from Celtic, as Mersia was
situated next to Wales with its Celtic population.
 The Norman Conquest, which took place in 1066 had a greater effect on the
English language than any other event in the course of its history.One of the
striking characteristics of the Middle English was its enormous variety in the
different parts of the country. Five main dialects were established: Northern,
West Midland, East Midland, Southwestern and Southeastern.
 The Phonetics plays a very important role. The way individuals pronounce
certain words is often a good clue to their background.For example one major
difference bewteen OE and ME was the voicing of fricatives : for > vor.
 Grammar refers to the structure of a language or dialect; a grammar describes
the way individual words change their appearance,such as in the West
Mildlands dialects the ending of the indefinite participle was <-ende> later
the- ing form. In the Northern dialects the ending of the present participle was
–and(e) while the past participle was –en.
 The vocabulary of both OE and ME was highly influenced by other
languages. For example OE originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects while
ME borrowed many French words during the Norman conquest.

The size of the British Isles often leads people to assume that the language spoken in
its countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland is somewhat homogeneous and first
time visitors are often surprised to find that they have difficulty in understanding the accents
and dialects of certain regions. Even within the country of England alone there is great
diversity of dialect both regionally and socially. As H.C Wyld puts it, „we get the impression
of dialects which as it were, dovetail one into another and each of which is, so to speak, shot
and diversified by characteristics from others spoken in adjacent areas. The pure <<dialect>>
is hardly found, and even those texts which are regarded as exhibiting such purity frequenly
present apparently incogrulous features while the great majority show a more or less
variegated character and represent in fact border dialects, types of speech belonging, evidently

58
to intermediate areas, lying between others of slightly different linguistic complexion and
partaking the characters of the surrounding dialects.98

98
Edith Iarovici, op. cit., pag.89

59
 Bibliography

Books
1. Freeborn,Dennis. From Old English to Standard English. Londra: Editura Macmillan,
1992.
2. Ginzburg, R.S. Course in Modern English to Standard English. Moscova: Editura
Higer School Publishing House, 1966.
3. Hulban, Horia. Syntheses in English Lexicology and Semantics. Iași: Editura Spanda,
2001.
4. Iarovici, Edith. A History of the English Language. București: Editura Didactică și
Pedagogică, 1973.
5. Levițchi, Leon. Istoria Literaturii Engleze și Americane. Cluj: Editura Dacia, 1985.
6. Parish,W.D. A Dictionary of Kentish Dialect. Maidstone-Kent: Editura Kent
Archaeological Society, 2008.
7. Poruciuc, Adrian. A Concise History of the English Language. Iași: Editura Casa
Editorială Demiurg, 2004.
8. Poruciuc, Adrian. A History of Medieval English. Iași: Editura Casa Editorială
Demiurg, 1999.
9. Shuy, W.D. Discovering American Dialects. Illinois: Editura National Council of
Teachers of English, 1998.

E-Books

1. Bright, James Wilson. Harris, Lancelot Minor. The Gospel of Saint John in West-
Saxon. California: Editura University of California, 1904.
2. Brown, Edward Miles. The Language of the Rushworth Gloss to the Gospel of
Matthew and the Mercian. California: Editura University of California, 1892.
3. Bryan, William Frank. Studies in the dialects of the Kentish Charters of the Old
English Period. Wisconsin:1915.
4. Harris, Mattie Anstice. A Glossary of the West Saxon Gospels: Latin-West Saxon and
West Saxon-Latin. New York: Editura Lamson Wolffe and Company, 1899.

60
5. Kellum, Margaret Dutton. The Language of the Northumbrian Gloss to the Gospel of
St. Luke. New York: Editura H. Holt and Company, 1906.
6. Parish, W. D. Shaw, W. F. A dictionary of the Kentish Dialect and Provincialisms in
use in the County of Ken., London: 1887.
7. Stratmann , Francis Henry. Middle English Dictionary containing words used by
English writers from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century. Oxford: 1891.
8. Wahr, G. Historical outlines of English Sounds and Middle English Grammar, for
courses in Chaucer, Middle English, and the History of the English Language. 1919.
9. Wyatt ,Alfred John. An elementary Old English grammar(early West Saxon).
Cambridge: Editura Cambridge University Press,1897.

Sites

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect
2. http://www.petrichor.net/kenticisms/Early%20Dialect.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentish_dialect
4. http://www.enotes.com/topic/Kentish_dialect#Pronunciation
5. http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-anglo-saxon.html
6. http://ardhendude.blogspot.com/2011/03/main-features-of-old-english-language.html
7. http://www.northumbriana.org.uk/langsoc/about.htm
8. www.google.com
9. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=gael&searchmo
de=none
10. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188048/English-language/74811/Middle-
English
11. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/runic.htm
12. http://www.dreamofrood.co.uk/frame_start.htm
13. http://geordiedictionary.tripod.com/northumbrianlanguagedictionary/id27.html
14. http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm
15. www.archive.org

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16. http://biblescripture.net/John.html
17. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/lookup.html

62
 Contents

Argument........................................................................................................................ 1

Introduction.....................................................................................................................3

Chapter I :The Old English Dialects …………………………………………………. 6

1.1 The Development of the English language ……………………………………….6

1.1.1 Written Old English…………………………………………………….7
1.1.1.2 Runes…………………………………………………………...7
1.1.1.3 The Old English Alphabet……………………………………...9

1.1.2 Early writing……………………………………………………………….10

1.2 Dialects…………………………………………………………………………..12

1.1.2 The Northumbrian Dialect……………………………………………13

1.2.1.1 General characteristics....................................................................14

1.2.1.2 Grammar ………………………………………………………...14

1.2.1.3 Pronunciation………………………………………......................16

1.2.1.4 Vocabulary………………………………………….....................17

1.2.2 The Mercian Dialect……………………………………………………18

1.2.2.1 General characteristics……………………………......................18

1.2.2.2 Grammar…………………………………………………………20

1.2.2.2 Pronunciation……………………………………………………21

1.2.2.3 Vocabulary ……………………………………….......................21

1.2.3 The West Saxon Dialect………………………………………………….22

1.2.3.1 General characteristics…………………………………………….22

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 1.2.3.2 Grammar………………………………………………………...24

1.2.3.3 Pronunciation …………………………………………………...25

1.2.3.4 Vocabulary…………………………………………………..…26

1.2.4 The Kentish Dialect…………………………………………………...27

1.2.4.1 General characteristics………………………………………...27

1.2.4.2 Grammar…………………………………………....................29

1.2.4.3 Pronunciation………………………………………………….30

1.2.4.4 Vocabulary…………………………………………………….31

Chapter II: The Middle English Dialects……………………………………………..32

2.1 The linguistic consequences of the Norman Conquest................................33

2.2 General Characterictics of the ME Dialects………………………………36

2.3 The Northern Dialects.................................................................................38

2.3.1 General Characteristics………………………………………….36

2.3.2 Main features of the Northern Dialects…………………………39

2.4 The Southern and Kentish Dialects……………………………………...42

2.4.1 General Characteristics………………………………………….42

2.4.2 Main features of the Southern Dialects…………………………43

2.4.3 Main features of the Kentish Dialects…………………………..45

2.5 The West Midlands Dialects………………………………………………46

2.5.1 General characteristics…………………………………………..46

2.5.2 Main features of the West Midlands dialects………...................47

2.6 The East Midlands Dialects……………………………………………….50

2.6.1 General characteristics…………………………………………..50

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 2.6.2 Main features of the East Midlands dialects…………………….51

2.7 The London Dialect………………………………………….....................53

2.7.1 The creation of a Standard English...............................................53

2.7.2 Chaucer’s Literary English...........................................................54

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….57

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..60

65