ENGLISH LANGUAGE 395 the conjugation of the present tense of the verb, which in typical specimens was as follows : Southern. Ich singe. We singe);, pou singest. $e singe)). He singe}). Hy singef>. Midland. Ich, T, singe. We singen. pou singest. 30 singen. He singe]?. Hy, thei, singen. Northern. Ic, I, syng(e). We syng(e), We J>at synges. pu syuges. 30 syng(e), 30 foules synges. He synges. Thay syng(e), Men synges. Of these the southern is simply the old West-Saxon, with the vowels levelled to e. The northern second person in -es is older than the southern and West Saxon -est ; but the -es of the third person and plural is derived from an older -eth, the change of -tli into -s being found in progress in the Durham glosses of the 10th century. In the plural, when accompanied by the pronoun subject, the verb had already dropped the inflexions entirely as in Modern English. The origin of the -en plural in the midland dialect, unknown to Old English, has been a matter of conjecture ; most pro bably it is an instance of form-levelling, the inflexion of the present indicative being assimilated to that of the past, and the present and past subjunctive, in all of which -en was the plural termination. In the declension of nouns, adjec tives, and pronouns, the northern dialect had attained before the end of the 13th century to the simplicity of Modern English, while the southern dialect still retained a large number of inflexions, and the midland a considerable number. The dialects differed also in phonology, for while the northern generally retained the hard or guttural values of k, g, sc, these were in the two other dialects palatalized before front vowels into ch, j, and sh. Kyrlc, chirche or church; bryg, bridge; scryJce, shriek, are examples. The original d in stdn, mar, preserved in the northern stane, mare, became o elsewhere, as in stone, more. So that the north presented the general aspect of conservation of old sounds with the most thorough-going dissolution of old in flexions ; the south, a tenacious retention of the inflexions, with an extensive revolution in the sounds. In one import ant respect, however, phonetic decay was far ahead in the north : the final e to which all the old vowels had been levelled during the Transition period, and which is a distinguishing feature of Middle English in the midland and southern dialects, became mute, i.e., disappeared, in the northern dialect before the latter emerged from its three centuries of obscuration, shortly before 1300. So thoroughly modern did its form consequently become that we might almost call it Modern English, and say that the Middle English stage of the northern dialect is lost. For comparison with the other dialects, however, the same nomenclature may be used, and we may class as Middle English the extensive literature which northern England produced during the 14th century. The earliest specimen is probably the Metrical Psalter in the Cotton Library, 1 copied during the reign of Edward II. from an original of the previous century. This is followed by the gigantic versified paraphrase of Scripture history called the Cursor Mundi,- also composed before 1300. The dates of the numerous alliterative romances in this dialect cannot be determined with exactness, as all survive in later copies, but it is probable that many of them are not later than 1300. In the 14th century appeared the theological and devotional works of Richard Rolle the anchorite of 1 Kdited for the Surtees Society, by Rev. J. Stevenson.
- Edited for the Early English Text Society, by Rev. I)r Morris.
Hampole, Dan Jon Gaytrigg, William of Nassington, and other writers whose names are unknown; and towards the close of the century, specimens of the language also appear from Scotland both in public documents and the poetical works of John Harbour, whose language, barring minute points of orthography, is identical with that of the contem porary northern English writers. In the southern dialect, the work of Layamon was suc ceeded at an interval estimated at from 15 to 25 years by the Ancren Elide or "Rule of Nuns," written for a small sisterhood at Tarrant-Kaines, in Dorsetshire, in which we find the Middle English stage fully developed, and also re cognize a dialectal characteristic which had probably long prevailed in the south, though concealed by the spelling, in the use of v for/, as valle, fall, vordonne, fordo, vorto, for to, veder, father, vrom, from. Not till later do we find a recognition of the parallel use of z for s. Among the writings which succeed, The Owl and the Nightingale of Nicholas de Guildford, of Portesham in Dorsetshire, about 1250, the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, 1298, and Trevisa s translation of Higden, 1387, are of chief import ance in illustrating the history of southern English. The earliest form of Langland s Piers Ploughman, 13G2, as pre served in the Yernon MS., appears to be in an intermediate dialect between southern and midland. 3 The Kentish form of southern English seems to have retained specially archaic features; five short sermons in it of the middle of the 13th century have been published by Rev. Dr Morris ; but the great work illustrating it is the Ayenlite of I nicy t (Remorse of Conscience), 1340, 4 of which we are told by its author Dan Michel of Northgate, Kent " pet ]>is boc is y-wjite mid engliss of Kent ; pis boc is y-mad uor lewede men, Yor uader, and uor rnoder, and uor o]>er ken, Ham uor to bei^e uram alle manyere zen, pet ine hare inwytte ne bleue no uoul wen." In its use of v (u) and z for/ and s, and its grammatical inflexions, it presents an extreme type of southern speech, with vowel peculiarities specially Kentish ; and in com parison with contemporary midland English works, it looks like a fossil of two centuries earlier. Turning from the dialectal extremes of the Middle English to the midland speech, which we left at the closing leaves of the Peterborough Chronicle of 1154, we find a rapid development of this dialect, which was before long to become the national literary language. As was natural in a tract of country which stretched from Lancaster to Essex, a very considerable variety is found in the documents which agree in presenting the leading midland features, those of Lancashire and Lincolnshire approaching the northern dialect both in vocabulary, phonetic character, and greater neglect of inflexions. But this diversity diminishes as we advance. The first great work is the Ormulum, or metrical Scripture paraphase of Orm or Ormin, written about 1200, it is generally assumed, in Lincolnshire or Notts, though there is much to be s:iid for the neighbourhood of Ormskirk in Lancashire. Anyhow the dialect has a decided smack of the north, and shows for the first time in English litera ture a large percentage of Scandinavian words, derived from the Danish settlers, who, in adopting English, had preserved a vast number of their ancestral forms of speech, which were in time to pass into the common language, of which they now constitute some of the most familiar words. Blunt, bull, die, dwell, ill, kid, raise, same, thrive, wand, wing? 3 The Vision of William concerning Piers Hie Ploughman exists in three different recensions by the author, all of which have been edited for the Early English Text Society by Rev. W. W. Skeat. 4 Edited by Rev. Dr Morris for Early English Text Society, in 1866. 5 See a list in Mr Kington Oliphant s Sources of Standard English, p. 97, a work in which the history of Middle English is admirably
developed.