Imatges de pàgina
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fluous, æ was not. It had its present power of ks-ricsian, being sometimes written rixian.

The unsteadiness of the two sounds by which we denote the thin thin and the th in thine is a serious charge. So far as the signs were separate from one another, and both single, all was well. There were two sounds, and each of them was a simple one. There were, also, two letters; and each of them was simple also. But there was no steadiness in their import: inasmuch as either sign might be used for the expression of either sound; so that, of the two continuants of t and d, each had two signs. This is the very last inconsistency that we expect; for the origin of is, evidently, the letter d. Yet so it is. Of the two sounds the sonant is, in the present stage of language, the rarer: being, at the beginning of words, nearly limited to the words that, these, those, thy, they, theirs, them, then, there, and the article the. Yet in the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic the spelling is with b, as thou, bar = there. Are we to suppose, then, that the sound has changed? Rask answers in the affirmative; for he remarks that though bat, that, when written at length, is spelt both ways (i.e., bat and dat) the abbreviated form is always p. Upon this he lays more stress than, in my mind, it will bear. That b is always found at the beginning of words, and that both in Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic, is more important: but even this fails to carry us over the whole difficulties of the question. "Some," writes Rask, "have considered one of these letters as superfluous, and Lye, who, however, bows to the opinion of Spelman and Somner, that was the hard (surd), and b the soft (sonant) th, nevertheless considers them as the same letter." Later, indeed within the last two years, Mr Ellis admits the difficulty of the question. "What," he writes, "were the precise meanings of b, d, or rather how the meanings (th, dh) were distributed over them, it does not seem possible to elicit from the confused state of existing manuscripts."

If these views be true the demerits of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet are, so far as the consonants go, not above the average. In the vowels there seem to be some very serious deficiencies, both of omission and commission; and one, probably, as serious as all put together in the matter of mistribution; by which I mean classing two widely different sounds under the same head; or as the (so-called) long and short sounds of one another. This applies to the vowel i. I said probably; because as the case stands it is, by no means, certain. If we only knew how the contemporaries of Alfred sounded such words as tid and win, all would be clear: but he would be a bold man who would answer the question in either one way or another. Individually, I think that the words were sounded as we now sound them; or as tide and wine. So they are sounded in Germany-zeit and wein. But in Scandinavia the pronunciation is teed, and veen; or tid and vin, tid and vin. In the Scandinavian languages the diphthong (ei in German, i phonetically) is rare as an independent sound: though it is common enough as an educt from eg: but this is only a secondary diphthong. We know that it has originated in a combination of a vowel and a consonant; and we know what the consonant is. We have no knowledge of the origin of the i in tid and win: and there are numerous words besides of which we may say the same. Whether, however, the mistribution be Anglo-Saxon or not, it is certain that we have it in the present English-and a very grave one it is.

Then there was a minor sort of confusion between i and y, already noticed; and another, also already noticed, between i and e.

With all three of the broad vowels there was also confusion. Whether the language, or whether the ear of the framers, or upholders of the alphabet was at fault is uncertain: but between either the actual sound of the vowels or the representation of them, there was great indistinctness somewhere. It, probably lay with the language. In respect to a, the Scotch say bane and stane, the English bone and stone. In the Anglo-Saxon the spelling was bán and stán. When the vowel was short, there was the same indistinctness, and hand was, and has long continued to be, written hand and hond. In one of the latest contributions on the pronunciation of the Runes, the late Professor Munch of Christiana has shown that, even in the oldest, there was the same ambiguity. In both the present Danish and the present Swedish the sound of what is meant to be the genuine o is spelt with a-in Danish staae, in Swedish stå, bål. Meanwhile the ordinary o is intermediate to the English o and 00.

A notice of the Latin alphabet as the foundation of either the Anglo-Saxon or the German of the continent would be incomplete without a recognition of certain letters to which influential authorities have assigned a higher antiquity, and a more independent origin, than is here allowed; though, here and elsewhere, considerable importance is attached to them-the German and Scandinavian, or Norse, Runes. The Runes (and it is in Scandinavia where they are best studied) fall into two classes; those which are anterior to the introduction of Christianity, and those which are subsequent to it. The former are sixteen in number. The latter are the same as the older ones so far as they go; but with certain additions to make up the number of the letters of the Latin alphabet which they are coined to represent. They are formed out of the earlier ones by diacritical marks, generally dots; so that the older alphabet consists of the unpointed, the newer of the pointed and unpointed, Runes. As Run means a secret, or something whispered in the ear, it is probable that the art of reading ng them. was, at first, known to but few. The earliest are assigned to the ninth century A.D. The original Runes consist solely of straight lines; as if they were meant for inscriptions and for nothing else.

Of the Runes the most important is the third: ==th; by name Thurs; and also Thorn; for out of this grew the Anglo-Saxon letter the Greek, the English th; as we have already seen. The sign for w is also believed to have a similar origin.

The Ogham characters, which in some degree bear the same relation to the Irish as the Runic does to the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, inasmuch as both are invested with a certain halo of mystery and antiquity, are of a very artificial construction; and are more truly of the nature of cyphers in the way of cryptography, or secret writing, than their German analogues. The Ogham characters, moreover, remind us of musical notation rather than of ordinary alphabetic writing. There is a long straight horizontal line, like those we see in copybooks; and upon, under, or across (i.e., both under and over) this are certain short ones, equally straight, which according to their grouping by ones, or twos, or threes, etc., and by their relation to the base line, take their import as letters. Of those that lie both above and below the line some lie across it at right angles, others obliquely. The two alphabets which have commanded the most attention are (1) the Beith-Luis and (2) the Bobel-Loth; named after the letters with which they, respectively, begin. These letters are twenty-four in number, like the Latin; indeed, in this respect more so than the genuine practical vernacular one. So far, then, as this goes, the old Irish had two alphabets. The names of the letters are extremely fanciful. Reith birch, and Luis= mountain-ash; and as these, so are the rest of the letters-named after trees. The Bobel-Loth, on the other hand, takes its names from the Bible; and Bobel, Loth, Foronn, Davith, Talemon, Qualep, etc. Babel, Lot, Pharaoh, David, Solomon, Caleb, etc., figure as the names of letters.

Add to these the numerous inscriptions, both in Latin and Greek characters, sometimes found on stone monuments, but oftener on coins, (where we also get a date,) and we have a fair view of the condition of the alphabets of Western Europe between the middle of the fourth and the middle of the seventh century.

The little that need be added concerning that part of the Anglo-Saxon orthography which relates to accents I give in the words of Dr Bosworth, than whom no one has paid more attention to the subject. The evil influence of the French system of spelling, introduced by the Norman Conquest is here indicated; and certainly it is not exaggerated.

As the simplicity of the Anglo-Saxon accentuation has frequently been overlooked, or involved in a complicated system, it will tend to remove false impressions and to make the matter clear, by recollecting that the Anglo-Saxons only used one accent, which always indicated the long sound of the vowel over which it is placed. Our complicated system of English vowels arose from the Norman scribes, who first confused the Anglo-Saxon accents, and then attempted to supply their place by a multiplicity of vowels, which we have adopted, as will be seen by the following examples: -Cwén, a cween; fét, feet; gés, geese, etc:---Díc, a dike; líc, like; lím, lime; win, wine; etc:-Bóc, book; for, fore, before; gód, good; gós, a goose; etc:--Dú, thou, hú, how, hús, house; mús, mouse; etc:-Bryd, a bride; fyr, fire; mýs mice. In all the instances the Anglo-Saxon is quite plain and consistent, expressing the same sound by the same accented vowel, while the English employs different vowels for the same purposes as in cween, geese;-good, goose, fore; thou, how,, house and mouse. The greatest complication of vowels is seen in our expression of the long open sound of o, heard in no and bone. We use oe, oa, and o with a silent final e, while the Anglo-Saxons, in all cases, merely accented the o as-Dá, a doe; fó, a foe; tá, a toe.---Bát, a boat, ác, an oak, fám, foam, etc.-Bán, a bone, stán, a stone, etc. The super-abundant employment of English vowels is troublesome to natives and most perplexing to foreigners. On the contrary, the Anglo-Saxon system of accenting the long vowels is plain and definite.

SECTION XLI.

HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-SAXON ALPHABET.

In Dr Bosworth's remark upon the ignorance of the Norman scribes, we shall find nearly the whole of the remainder of the history of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet and orthography. We have indicated the faults in the original construction of it; we have seen how old a system it is ; and we have hinted at the inordinate amount of wear and tear to which it has been exposed. This constitutes its history, as what we call a working alphabet; and, in tracing it, the single event of the Norman Conquest is all in all. It plays much the same part in the history of English spelling as the well-abused letter c does in the construction of the alphabet. I am not so much in love with two great landmarks, and the simplicity with which they invest our examination, as to distribute the whole mass of the orthographical mischief entailed upon the present generation under these two heads exclusively. There are certain faults common to all systems of spelling, and such when they occur in English, cannot, of course, be imputed to either of these causes. But so long as our spelling has nothing worse than these, it is no worse than that of other countries. It is by the inordinate amount of faultiness peculiar to itself, that it especially afflicts our language; and of this, I think that nine-tenths, at least, are due to these two causes. We must understand this. There are other countries in which they use c instead of k; but there are none in which the antagonism of the two letters exists as it exists in England; and the antagonism, be it remembered, is that of two systems, the Latin, and the German. There are other countries too, which have been conquered by an army of foreigners, and have, therefore, had their languages inundated by words of foreign origin; but such a history as that of the British Islands during the two centuries which followed the battle of Hastings, we find nowhere except in England.

There is not much to be said about the influence of the Danes. In the charters of Canute and Edward the Confessor, the use of the k becomes conspicuous. For this there are two reasons. (1) the original Frank influence dating from the beginning of the seventh century, or the introduction of the Christianity of the Frank missionaries as opposed to that of the Irish, or British church; and (2)

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that of Northern Germany upon Denmark, and through Denmark upon Scandinavia in general. Between these two we explain the difference between the orthography of the charters immediately preceding the death of Edward the Confessor and those of Alfred, Athelstan, and Edgar. We are not always sure of the date of the Anglo-Saxon Charts. We may learn, however, by mere inspection, that the derivations from the original spelling are numerous in proportion as they approach the time of the Norman Conquest. must be careful, however, not to overvalue the Danish influence. There is adequate evidence of this in the Codex Ævi Saxonici. But it must be read with the caution that, though Kemble, as a general rule, marks the chartas of doubtful antiquity with an asterisk, he, so far as he is other than wholly unexceptionable, favors antiquity. Then comes the Norman Conquest-our great epoch-and, after that, comes a break. For nearly two centuries there is but little written in either English or French. Latin prevails. The exceptions are well known. There is the continuation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. This comes down to the death of Stephen. This is certainly Anglo-Saxon, as opposed to English in its orthography. But it must be remembered that it is the continuation of an Anglo-Saxon work; wherein the spelling of the earlier parts may have served as a model for that of the later ones. Under Henry I., however, the English was depressed; while the French was rather in a state of formation than formed. The court, however, the nobles, the priests, and the lawyers were French. We must see how, in the reign of Henry II., the English emerges after its period of disgrace and abeyance. It still passes, however, for Anglo-Saxon rather than English; and, though it is doubtful whether the language of the few compositions we have of the twelfth century be that of the common people, it is certain that their spelling is that of the bookmen, who looked backwards, rather than that of the speakers, whose natural tendencies were to take the language as they heard it.

But we may now consider the history of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet from a different point of view. We may ask what it would have been if left to itself. I believe this view to be one that has either not hitherto been taken; or, if taken, not considered historically. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxon orthography into an orthography so unlike its former self as the present English, is not the only continuation of its history. It was what we call a mother alphabet; one out of which others were formed; or, to say the least, one by which others were largely influenced. For the first of these we must look to Westphalia, This is because, in Westphalia, we are in the old Saxon country; in what is called Lower Saxony. The Franks before the time of Charlemagne were Christians. The Saxons, after his time, were Pagans. England, meanwhile, had been Christianised. It was the business of these Christianised Englishmen to send missionaries into the old country-Westphalia, Friesland, and Northern Germany in general. And here their ef

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