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Read Ebook: A Handbook of the English Language by Latham R G Robert Gordon
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Ebook has 807 lines and 135607 words, and 17 pages
THE PRESENT PARTICIPLE.
THE PAST PARTICIPLE.
COMPOSITION.
ON DERIVATION AND INFLECTION.
ADVERBS.
ON CERTAIN ADVERBS OF PLACE.
ON WHEN, THEN, AND THAN.
PREPOSITIONS AND CONJUNCTIONS.
ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE WEAK PRAETERITE.
ON SYNTAX IN GENERAL.
SYNTAX OF SUBSTANTIVES.
SYNTAX OF ADJECTIVES.
SYNTAX OF PRONOUNS.
THE TRUE PERSONAL PRONOUNS.
ON THE SYNTAX OF THE DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS, AND THE PRONOUNS OF THE THIRD PERSON.
ON THE POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS.
THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS.
ON THE INTERROGATIVE PRONOUN.
THE RECIPROCAL PRONOUNS.
THE INDETERMINATE PRONOUNS.
ON THE TENSES.
SYNTAX OF THE PERSONS OF VERBS.
ON THE VOICES OF VERBS.
OF ADVERBS.
ON PREPOSITIONS.
ON CONJUNCTIONS.
THE SYNTAX OF THE NEGATIVE.
ON THE CASE ABSOLUTE.
PROSODY.
DIALECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
NOTES 393
AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE STUDY OF
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
GENERAL ETHNOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
GERMANIC ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.--DATE.
? 2. The next point to be considered is the real origin and the real affinities of the English language.
Respecting the tribes by which they were made, the current opinion was, that they were chiefly, if not exclusively, those of the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles.
The particular chieftains that headed each descent were also supposed to be known, as well as the different localities upon which they descended. These were as follows:--
? 4. It would be satisfactory if these details rested upon contemporary evidence. This, however, is far from being the case.
c. Geoffry of Monmouth relates also, how "Hengist obtained from the Britons as much land as could be enclosed by an ox-hide; then, cutting the hide into thongs, enclosed a much larger space than the granters intended, on which he erected Thong Castle--a tale too familiar to need illustration, and which runs throughout the mythus of many nations. Among the Old Saxons, the tradition is in reality the same, though recorded with a slight variety of detail. In their story, a lapfull of earth is purchased at a dear rate from a Thuringian; the companions of the Saxon jeer him for his imprudent bargain; but he sows the purchased earth upon a large space of ground, which he claims, and, by the aid of his comrades, ultimately wrests it from the Thuringians."--Kemble, "Saxons in England."
b. Alemannic auxiliaries served along with Roman legions under Valentinian.
GERMANIC ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.--THE GERMANIC AREA OF THE PARTICULAR GERMANS WHO INTRODUCED IT.--EXTRACT FROM BEDA.
? 8. The chief authority for the division of the German invaders into the three nations just mentioned is Beda; and the chief text is the following extract from his "Ecclesiastical History." It requires particular attention, and will form the basis of much criticism, and frequently be referred to.
"Advenerunt autem de tribus Germaniae populis fortioribus, id est Saxonibus, Anglis, Jutis. De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuarii, et Victuarii, hoc est ea gens quae Vectam tenet insulam et ea quae usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam. De Saxonibus, id est, ea regione quae nunc Antiquorum Saxonum cognominatur, venere Orientales Saxones, Meridiani Saxones, Occidui Saxones. Porro de Anglis hoc est de illa patria quae Angulus dicitur, et ab illo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur, Orientales Angli, Mediterranei Angli, Merci, tota Northanhymbrorum progenies, id est illarum gentium quae ad Boream Humbri fluminis inhabitant, caeterique Anglorum populi sunt orti"--"Historia Ecclesiastica," i. 15.
? 9. This was written about A.D. 731, 131 years after the introduction of Christianity, and nearly 300 after the supposed landing of Hengist and Horsa in A.D. 449.
It is, also, the passage which all subsequent writers have either translated or adopted. Thus it re-appears in Alfred, and again in the Saxon Chronicle.
"Of Jotum comon Cantware and Wihtware, ?aet is seo maeia? ?e n? earda? on Wiht, and ?aet cynn on West-Sexum ?e man gyt haet I?tnacyun. Of Eald-Seaxum comon E?st-Seaxan, and Su?-Seaxan and West-Seaxan. Of Angle comon E?st-Engle, Middel-Angle, Mearce, and ealle Nor?ymbra."
From the Jutes came the inhabitants of Kent and of Wight, that is, the race that now dwells in Wight, and that tribe amongst the West-Saxons which is yet called the Jute tribe. From the Old-Saxons came the East-Saxons, and South-Saxons, and West-Saxons. From the Angles, land came the East-Angles, Middle-Angles, Mercians, and all the Northumbrians.
? 11. The answer to this will be given after another fact has been considered.
At the time of Beda they must, according to the received traditions, have been nearly 300 years in possession of the Isle of Wight, a locality as favourable for the preservation of their peculiar manners and customs as any in Great Britain, and a locality wherein we have no evidence of their ever having been disturbed. Nevertheless, neither trace nor shadow of a trace, either in early or modern times, has ever been discovered of their separate nationality and language; a fact which stands in remarkable contrast with the very numerous traces which the Danes of the 9th and 10th century left behind them as evidence of their occupancy.
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