10. Having thus shown the origin of the English language, and traced its pedigree down to the period when it may be considered as fully formed, and having displayed, moreover, its ethnological relationship to other languages of the great Indo-European family, it will be important now to consider it as pursuing an independent course, furnished with its own vital organisation, and becoming by degrees, in spite of all adverse influences, the fitting medium for the enunciation to the world of our noble English literature.

II.-STAGES OR PERIODS OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE.

11. It will be convenient to distinguish the successive phases of the English language from each other by dividing its history into five stages or periods, as below :—

1. Original English, or Anglo-Saxon Period of Stability

2. Very early English, or Semi-Saxon

3. Early or Old English

4. Middle English

Period of Disintegration

Period of Stagnation

Period of Revival.

A.D. 600-1100

. A.D. 1100-1250

A.D. 1250-1350

A.D. 1350-1550

5. Modern English.

Period of Re-establishment A.D. 1550-1867

FIRST STAGE.

ORIGINAL ENGLISH OR ANGLO-SAXON. PERIOD OF
STABILITY. (A.D. 600-1100.)

12. The English language, as we have seen, was formed by the fusion of various dialects of kindred origin into one. It is evident from the nature of the case, that no one year, scarcely any one century, can be named as the exact period when this amalgamation took place. The result was of course hastened when what was at first a speech became a language, when, instead of merely passing from mouth to mouth in daily use, it became more or less fixed by written composition. The literary spirit had already been evoked, and had displayed itself in two or three works which have been much celebrated, but the Original English cannot be said to have reached its classical age till the days of Alfred.

13. The language thus displaying in Alfred's days its highest condition of efficiency may be considered as the standard Original

English, or, as it is usually called, Anglo-Saxon. Ever since it had been formed and regarded as the language of the united people it had been called "English," and the land where it was spoken "England." They were "English" boys speaking the English" language, who, as the story goes, excited the compassion of Gregory, when exhibited for sale in the slave-market at Rome in the sixth century; and Bede, writing in the seventh, Alfred in the ninth, and other writers of the times, always represent themselves as writing in the "English" language for the "English" people. This fact should be ever remembered, that we may learn not-as we commonly do-to disconnect ourselves from the people of whom we are in fact, by natural evolution and development, the descendants. Far from thus ignoring our national identity, we should clearly recognise the "fact that an account of the principles upon which the public and political life of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers was based, and of the institutions in which those principles were most clearly manifested," is "the history of the childhood of our own agethe explanation of its manhood."2

14. In the course of its long life of twelve or fourteen hundred years, the English language has undergone many changes. These have been for the most part gradual and peaceful. During the first stage of five hundred years they scarcely affected in any material degree the character of the language. The AngloSaxon stage exhibited two important features which the language afterwards lost—the one affecting its grammatical structure, the other the root-words of which it was composed. The English of Alfred's days, for instance, was a highly inflected language, and its root-words were of native growth-they all belonged to the Gothic stock. Speaking more technically, the language was then synthetic and homogeneous-synthetic in its

(1) The appellation Anglo-Saxon is modern, and quite unauthorised by any use on the part of the people indicated by it. There never was, in truth, either an "Anglo-Saxon " people or an "Anglo-Saxon" language. The name is merely one of convenience; but it is so far misleading that it rather begets the habit of speaking of the Anglo-Saxons as if they were some other nation, whereas, in fact, they are ourselves in the cradle. The epithet Saxon, indeed, as applied to the nation, was never recognised by the English; but while outsiders were calling them Saxons, they were calling themselves English, and nothing else. See further on this subject Craik," English Literature," vol. i. p. 41; and Freeman's "Norman Conquest of England," vol. i., Appendix A.

(2) Preface to Kemble's "Saxons in England."

(3) See, for proof of these assertions, the specimens of Anglo-Saxon in the text, pp. 1-12.

grammar, homogeneous in its vocabulary. A thousand years afterwards, in our own days, we find English analytic and composit -a language of very few inflections, with a very large infusion of words derived from foreign stocks. These great and important changes, which are, as will be seen, the distinctive features of the second and fourth stages, have been aptly characterised by Dr. Craik ("History of English Language and Literature") as THE TWO GREAT REVOLUTIONS in the history of English. Remarkable, however, as these revolutions undoubtedly are in themselves, it is more remarkable still that they failed to subvert and destroy the vital identity of the language. It was essentially English before either of them took place; it is essentially English still.

SECOND STAGE.

VERY EARLY ENGLISH, OR SEMI-SAXON. PERIOD OF DISINTEGRATION. (A.D. 1100-1250).'

15. In the twelfth century, the English language began to lose both those special features which had characterised it for the previous five hundred years; the second, however, in a degree scarcely, as yet, appreciable. As regards the inflectional, or grammatical character of the language, the change was so remarkable as to amount to what we have just seen called a revolution.

These are some of the points which marked the transition :— (1) The artificial distinction of gender and its consequent effect upon declension was superseded by the natural distinction of sex.

(2) The agreement of the adjective with the noun was no longer rigidly preserved.

(3) The separate definite and indefinite forms of the adjective (as in modern German) were confounded.2

(4) The numerous inflections of nouns were reduced to three or four.3

(1) See specimens of Semi-Saxon in the text, pp. 13-18.

(2) In A.S. it was necessary to say án gód nama, a good namne; but se góda nama, the good name; in Semi-Sax. we find án gód name and the gód name

(3) In A.S. various cases ended in an, as; ena, ra, u, or e, according to the declension; in Semi-Sax. these were nearly all represented by es and e; the system of inflections was virtually at an end, though occasional instances remained.

(5) The verbal inflections were reduced in number, and rendered less distinctive.1

(6) Strong verbs were in some cases displaced by weak

ones.

(7) The government of prepositions became irregular and uncertain.2

(8) Prefixes and suffixes were struck off, abbreviated or softened down.3

This process of disintegration occupied about one hundred and fifty years, lasting until about the middle of the thirteenth century, and the language during this stage or phase has been called, for the sake of convenience, Semi-Saxon or Broken English.

16. It is difficult to assign an adequate cause for this remarkable revolution, which, however, had probably been going on in the spoken, long before it displayed itself in the written, language. Some vaguely attribute it altogether to the Norman conquest, others deny that there is any connection between the two events, and maintain that several highly inflected languages on the Continent were about this time undergoing the same change. Considering, however, that much intimacy had already sprung up in the early part of the eleventh century between the courts of Normandy and England, leading of course to frequent contact between the respective languages, and that the Norman conquest must have brought in a flood of foreign words and phrases, which for the time silenced the native tongue, and that this was just the time when the revolutionary change was going on most strongly and rapidly in the English, it is impossible not to believe that the one powerfully influenced the other. Up to this time the language had been not only used as a medium of speech, but cultivated by its employment in literature. Now, under the pressure of circumstances, English literature ceased; the writers lost heart, their productions only excited the derision of their proud conquerors; they wrote no more. The active means taken for the depression and disuse of the national lan

(1) So for A.S. swencton, they harassed, we find in Semi-Sax. swencten; and for A.S. lufodon, they loved, luveden, which next became luvede, then loved. (2) Thus A.S. be thám fótum, by the feet, Semi-Sax. bi the fét; A.S. mid fúlum smeoce, with foul smoke, Semi-Sax. mid fúl smoke.

(3) Thus the A.S. prefix ge of the perf. part. is generally rejected in Semi-Sax., or else softened down into y or i, so that A.S. gemacod or macod, made, becomes maked, and geháten, yhaten, or ihote. For additional examples see the extracts from Semi-Saxon in the text, p. 13.

guage, and the awakening subsequently, but soon after, of a real interest in literature among the Normans themselves, whose romances and ballads soon began to win favour with the "public" of the day, were also among the causes which led to the temporary non-cultivation and consequent disintegration of the English speech.

17. It may be further remarked, that the constant collision of two languages of different character, different parentage, and what may be termed different position in society, could not but tend to the same result. The Norman was not a Teutonic speech, it was not synthetic, it was the language of the conquerors. For all these reasons it would not naturally combine with the English. There would be a hard fight between prefixes and suffixes, with actual inflections a harder fight still, while the haughty voice which ordered that the official intercourse, the pleading in the courts, the teaching in the schools, should all go on in Norman, would have no inconsiderable influence in breaking up the old language.

18. Then the example of simplicity and convenience would also operate. The Norman of the eleventh century was nearly as simple in its grammatical forms and construction as the English of our own day. To take one specimen:-instead of the numerous case-endings and inflections for the formation of the plural according to specified declensions, as in the Anglo-Saxon, the Normans had, strictly speaking, no cases, and only one rule for the plural, namely, that of adding s to the root or theme. It can scarcely be an accident that from this time s (previously only one plural-ending among several) became the distinguishing mark of the English plural. And so with the various case-endings. It was seen that the Normans dispensed with genitive, dative, and ablative endings (they did recognise the accusative), and the English learned to dispense with them too. As Grimm remarks, "the Saxon forms soon dropped away because they did not suit the new roots; and the genius of the language, from having to deal with the newly imported words in a rude state, was induced to neglect the inflections of the native ones.' The result was that, from whatever causes, in the process of assimilation, the synthetic

(1) An eminent authority, Gustave Fallot, says, "La langue Française n'a jamais eu, pour les substantifs des deux genres, qu'un seul mode de flexion: l'addition d'un s final au thème du mot. ("Recherches sur les formes Grammaticales de la langue Française et de ses dialectes au treizième siècle," p. 68.)

(2) As quoted by Trench, in "English Past and Present," p. 23.