English Language.

English Language. Periods.—Great as are the changes that separate the oldest English from the English of the present day, these changes are so gradual and so continuous that no definite lines can be drawn. But it is easy to discern three main stages of development: Old English (O.E.), Middle English (M.E.), and Modern English (Mn.E.), each subdivided into an early and a late period. There are besides two marked periods of transition between the main periods. The chronology of these periods is approximately as follows:

OLD ENGLISH.—Dialects.—There were four dialects of O.E.: (1) Northumbrian (North.), extending from the Humber to the Forth; (2) Merian (Merc.), between Thames and Humber; (3) Kentish (Kent.); (4) West Saxon (W.S.). North. and Merc. together constitute the Anglian, W.S. and Kent. the Southern group.

Literature was first cultivated in the North, and the Angles were for a long time the dominant tribe. Hence Englisc ('Anglish') came to be the collective name for the whole group of dialects, and remained so after the supremacy had passed to the West Saxons, and W.S. became the official language of the whole English people.

Vocabulary.—O.E. was, in the main, a homogeneous language, forming new words at will by derivation and composition. Thus 'scribes and Pharisees' were Englished as 'bookers and undersaints' (bōceras and sundorhālgan). But it adopted many Latin words at different periods, some of which, such as strēt, 'street' (via strāta), it brought with it from its continental home on the other side of the German Ocean. Celtic loan-words, such as drȳ, 'sorcerer,' are very rare, because those Celts with whom the English came most in contact were almost completely Romanised.

Spelling and Pronunciation.—On their conversion to Christianity the English adopted the Latin alphabet in its Celtic form—whence ȝ = g, &c.—with the traditional Latin values of the letters as preserved by the Celts. They added to it from their national Runic alphabet the letters p = th and p = w.

The O.E. spelling was as phonetic as its defects would allow. There were no 'silent' letters. Double consonants, as in sunne, 'sun,' were pronounced double, as in Italian; e and o had a close and an open sound—when open we write them æ, ɒ; æ had the sound of our a in man; y had its original sound of French u. In the diphthongs ea, eo, the stress was on the first elements; ie (originally a diphthong) had the open sound of our i in bit; e had a 'back' sound = k, and a 'front' one, which we write é, nearly that of our ch, as in cild, 'child'; e was always front in the combination sc. There was a corresponding distinction between g and ǥ, as in ǥeard, 'court'; ǥeong, ǥung, 'young' (where it is a modification of original j; compare German jung). Double ǥ is written eg, as in eg, 'edge.' In ng the g was pronounced distinctly, as in lang, 'long.' After a vowel, r, or l, g had the open sound of the g in German sagen, ǥ that of our y in young: dagas, 'days'; sorg, 'sorrow'; dæg, 'day.' Non-initial ('strong') h had the sound of Scotch ch in loch, as in dohtor, 'daughter'; f, s, p had the voiced sounds v, z, dh between vowels and elsewhere, as in ofer, 'over.'

Phonology.—Original (Germanic) a appears in O.E. only before an original back vowel, as in dagas, and before nasals, as in nama, 'name'; lang. This latter a becomes ɒ in Angl., as in nǫma. Before r and l consonant, a becomes ea, as in heard, 'hard'; eald, 'old.' Angl. restores a before l, and lengthens it: æld. In other cases a becomes æ, as in dæg; e before r and consonant becomes eo, as in eorþe, 'earth.' There is an ie which is common to all the dialects, as in sæ, 'sea,' and one which is peculiar to W.S., becoming ē in the other dialects, as in dēd, 'deed,' Angl. dēd. In W.S. æ and ē are diphthongised into ea, ēa, as in cæster, 'city'; ǥēar, 'year' = non-W.S. cæster, ǥēr. W.S. ie corresponds to i, e, ē in the other dialects, as in bierhtu, 'brightness'; ǥiefan, 'give'; ieldra, 'elder' = Angl. birhtu, ǥefan, eldra. W.S. ie appears as ē in the other dialects, as in hieran, 'hear' = Angl. hēran. In Late W.S. ie, ie become y, ȳ, as in yldra, hȳran. In Angl. ēa, ēo become ē before e, g, h, as in ēe, 'also'; ǥegan, 'fly'; hēh, 'high' = W.S. ēae, ǥeogan, hēah. In Late Kent. ȳ, ȳ become e, ē, as in senn, 'sin' = Early Kent. and common O.E. synn.

Inflections.—O.E. has all the characteristics of an inflectional language. It has a threefold grammatical gender. Nouns have four cases—nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. The acc. is the same as the nom. in all neuters and all plurals, and in all 'strong' masculines, whose inflections are as follows: nom. dæg, dat. dæge, gen. dægēs; pl. nom. daġas, dat. daġum, gen. daġa. Strong neuters differ from masculines only in taking u in the pl. nom., which is dropped after a long root-syllable, scip-u, 'ships'; hūs, 'houses.' The nom. sing. of strong feminines is the same as the neut. pl., earu, 'care'; synn; the oblique cases taking -e (synne = acc., dat., gen., sing.), and the pl. nom. -a (synna). 'Weak' substantives inflect with n; nama, obl. naman; pl. nom. naman, dat. namum, gen. namena. There are isolated irregularities, such as mann, 'man'; dat. sing. and pl. nom. menn.

Adjectives have a twofold declension, 'strong' and 'weak.' The weak forms appear after the definite article and similar demonstratives, gōd mann, 'a good man'; se gōda mann, 'the good man.' The definite article, which is also used as a demonstrative = 'that,' 'that one,' has nom. masc. se, neut. pæt, fem. sēo. The oblique cases and the plural begin with þ, nom.pl. þā. The corresponding forms of 'this' are þes, þis, þeos, þās.

The verbal forms are much simpler. The endings of a 'strong' verb, such as bindan, 'bind,' are as follows: indic. pres. binde, bindest, bindep; pl. bindap; pret. band, bunde, band; pl. bundon; subj. pres. sing. binde, pl. binden; pret. bunde, pl. bunden; inf. bindan; gerund tō bindenne; partic. pres. bindende, pret. gebunden. 'Weak' verbs, such as lufian, 'love'; pret. lufode; part. pret. gelufod; hieran, hierde, gehiered; þenċan, þohte, geþoht, 'think,' have nearly the same endings as the strong.

Syntax.—In its syntax O.E. has all the characteristics of an inflectional language. In the use of cases, government of prepositions, use of the subjunctive, concord, &c., O.E. grammar is very similar to that of Latin. But the distinctions of tense in the verb are very imperfect. The present does duty for the future, and the preterite for perfect and pluperfect. But we see the beginnings of periphrastic forms, such as wile euman, is eumen, hæfde gebunden, although with very vague meanings. The O.E. word-order closely resembles that of Modern German, the verb being put at the end in dependent sentences: hie gehierdon pæt se cyning ofslægen was, 'they heard that the king was killed.'

MIDDLE ENGLISH.—In the M.E. period the effects of the earlier Scandinavian conquests became visible in the form of numerous loan-words, some confined to the northern dialects, others, such as bōþe, 'both' (Old Icelandic bāþir), extending through all of them.

Soon after the Norman Conquest in 1066, English ceased for some centuries to be the language of literature and the higher purposes of life, and on its revival—English was introduced into the courts of law in 1362—retained only the homelier element of its original vocabulary, which was otherwise made up of French and Latin, the Latin words being generally Frenchified in pronunciation and often in spelling, even when taken directly from literary Latin. The French element itself was of various periods and dialects. Early Norman influence soon gave way to that of other dialects, especially Parisian French.

Dialects.—The M.E. dialects are (1) Northern (= the older Northumbrian), including Lowland Scotch, which still called itself 'English'; (2) Midland (= Mercian), subdivided into East and West Midland; (3) Kentish; (4) Southern. Although Southern answers to W.S. geographically, it is by no means its direct descendant, but shows strong marks of Mercian influence in the substitution of ē from W.S. æ, as in ded, &c., which is universal, and of hēran from hīran, which is very general in Southern. After the seat of government had been removed from Winchester to London, the position of the latter on the borders of the two dialects led to a further mixture of Southern and Midland forms. Midland, being intermediate between the now mutually unintelligible Southern and Northern dialects, came to be the means of communication between them; and the history of the London dialect—which is now the history of standard English—becomes henceforth a record of increasing Midland influence. It must be noted that Northern, and to a less extent, Midland, are ahead of Southern in their development; so much so, indeed, that 14th-century Northern is grammatically on a level with Early Mn.E.

Spelling and Pronunciation.—The most immediate result of the Conquest was the introduction of a French orthographic basis. O.E. y, ȳ, whose sound was preserved in Southern, was expressed by the French u, as in sunne, 'sin'; fur, 'fire' = O.E. symn, fūr; u itself was then expressed by the French o, as in comen, 'come' = O.E. euman. In Late M.E. ū was expressed by the Parisian ou, as in hous = O.E. hūs; y thus came to be the unmeaning variant of i that it now is; æ was discarded in Late M.E., and so ee, e expressed the open as well as the closed vowel, as in see = O.E. sē; p and þ were successively discarded in favour of w, th. Voiced f was written v, as in luvien; e was written k before e and i, as in king; ē was expressed by the French ch = tsh, into whose sound it passed in Late M.E., as in child. Strong h was in Late M.E. written gh, as in doghter. The difference of form between the English ȳ and the French g was utilised by assigning g to the stopped sound, as in gōd, 'good,' gg to the old eg, as in egge, 'edge,' which had nearly the sound of French 'soft' g = dzh, and restricting ȳ to the open sounds of gh, as in daȳes (later daues) = O.E. daġas, and of our consonant y in zung, in Late M.E. expressed by y, as in Mn.E.

Phonology.—The O.E. diphthongs became monophthongs in M.E.: ea was levelled under e, which in Late M.E. became a, so that O.E. pæt, heard became pat, hard; dēad, 'dead,' became dād, written deed, ded in Late M.E.; eorþe, dēop, 'deep,' became erþe, dēp. In Northern and East Midland y, ȳ became i, ī, as in sinne, fīr, Kent. keeping senne, &c. In Late M.E. a, e, o were generally lengthened before single consonants followed by a vowel, as in nāme, being kept short in monosyllables, such as pat; i and u were never lengthened, as in writen, 'written'; sunne, 'son' = O.E. gewriten, sunu; e and o had already been broadened to ē and o; so 'new-long' e and o were levelled under æ, as in even, mete, 'even, meat' = O.E. efen, mēt. O.E. ā was 'rounded' into ȳ in Southern and Kent, and in some Midland dialects, as in ston (Northern stan) = O.E. stān, 'stone'; and new-long o was levelled under it in such words as over = O.E. ofer. O.E. ī, ē, æ, ū, ō were kept unchanged, as in win, kene, læden (leden), hus (hous), none = O.E. wīn, 'wine'; eēne, 'bold'; lædan, 'lead'; hūs; mōna, 'moon.' Diphthongs, whose second elements were written y, w in Late M.E., developed out of the weakening of O.E. w and g. Examples are: daġ from O.E. dæg; wet, 'way,' from weg; ēie, īe, 'eye,' from Engl. ēge; daues through daȳes from daġas; nēwe, 'new,' from Engl. uēowe (W.S. nūwe); dēu, 'dew,' from dēaw; bowe, 'bow,' sb. from boga; flōwen, 'flow,' from flōwan; spūle, 'soul,' from sāwol. Other consonant changes are that of sē into sh, generally written sch, as in fisch = O.E. fisē; Scandinavian sk remaining unchanged, as in skin. Initial ȳ became consonant y, as in ȳard, ȳung. O.E. hr, hl, hn became r, l, n, as in ring = O.E. hring; O.E. hw being generally written wh, as in what = O.E. hwat.

Inflections.—The simplification of the O.E. inflec- tional system in M.E. is mainly the result of phonetic changes, the most important of which are the levelling of all unaccented vowels under e, and of inflectional m under n, by which, for instance, the O.E. -an, -en, -on, -um were all levelled under -en; n itself was then often dropped in the Southern dialects. The striving after clearness and symmetry led to further changes. Already in Early M.E. the masc. pl. ending -es was extended to neuters, as in wordes by the side of word. The -en of weak nouns (namen) was restricted to the pl., the nom. sing. name being extended to the oblique cases of the sing. In the strong feminines the e of care was extended to O.E. synn, &c., making it into sinne, which was now invariable in the sing. like name, by whose analogy it then took -en in the pl. (sinnen). This paved the way for the loss of all inflections except the gen. sing. -es and the pl. endings -es and -en, which last unfortunately has only survived in isolated forms, such as oxen.

The adjective inflections were simplified in the same way, till at last there remained nothing but the distinction between gōd man and the pl. gōde men, definite þe gōde man, þe gōde men. The definite article extended its þ to the nom. sing. masc. and fem., which finally ran together into the indeclinable þe; þat was restricted to its demonstrative meaning, and extended to the masc. and fem. The neuter þis was extended in the same way. Its pl. þūs was identified with the old pl. þā in its demonstrative sense, and so came to be the pl. of þat, a new pl., þise, þese, being formed from þis.

The M.E. verb retained the O.E. structure on the whole, but a large number of strong verbs assumed weak inflections. The chief changes are in the pl. pres. Southern keeps the old -aþ (we bindeþ), but Midland levels it under the -en, -on of the subj. and pret. (we binden), and Northern changes -eþ into -es, which it often drops (bindes, we bind). This last form passed first into Midland, then into Modern English.

Syntax.—The inevitable result of the loss of inflections was the loss of grammatical gender and concord, and the introduction of a strict and logical word-order. Prepositions had to do the work of cases, and the only remaining case, the genitive, was more and more restricted in its use. Altogether M.E. is grammatically on a level with modern Danish, which shows that there is no need to attribute its syntax to French influence.

MODERN ENGLISH.—In the modern period, the predominance of the London dialect is confirmed, having been further strengthened by the introduction of printing in 1477, which by degrees led to the adoption of a fixed orthography.

The main distinction between M.E. and Early Mu.E. is the loss of final e, which made the adjective indeclinable, and broke down the grammatical and metrical system of Chaucer's language, and made a new departure necessary. The Mn.E. vocabulary becomes even more composite than before; not only new French words, but Dutch, Italian, and Spanish, are adopted; Greek as well as Latin words are gradually popularised in vernacular prose, which, in the Early Mn.E. period, is clumsy and unidiomatic.

Spelling.—The dropping of final e, together with the shortening of double consonants—by which the M.E. distinction between sunne, 'sun,' and sune, 'son,' was done away with—led, after much confusion, to the practice of adding a final e to denote a long vowel, as in wine = M.E. wīn, and doubling a consonant to indicate a preceding short vowel, as in penny = M.E. peni. Through the influence of the spelling reformers, i and u were assigned to the vowel-sounds, j and v to the consonant-sounds, instead of being used at random; and ee and oo were restricted to the close M.E. sounds, as in see, moon, the open sounds being expressed by ea, oa, e, o, as in sea, stone.

Phonology.—In Early Mn.E. the M.E. short vowels were kept unchanged, except that in the court pronunciation a, as in man, was fronted to its present sound; ā in name underwent the same change, the resulting ā being afterwards narrowed to the sound of the e in there; ī and ū, as in wine and house, were diphthongised by degrees into something like the present sounds—wāin, hāus. Close ē and ō, as in see and moon, were moved up into the vacant places, becoming ī and ū, the open sounds in sea and stone remaining unchanged. Of the diphthongs, ai, as in day—under which ei, as in they, was often levelled—became æi, and then ā; au, as in saw, was kept, and then became a very broad long o, nearly as in the present pronunciation; ōu and ūu seem to have run together into ou or ūu, as in flow, soul; ēu, as in dew, was kept; ēu, as in new, became ūu with French u, and ū in words of French origin, as in tune, underwent the same change: nūu, tūun = M.E. newe, tun.

Front gh, as in night, was kept in the earliest Mn.E., but was generally dropped with lengthening of the preceding vowel, so that night passed through nīt into nait. Back gh, as in laugh, was rounded into nearly the sound of wh, which towards the end of the Early Mn.E. period passed into f in many words; l developed an u before it in such words as full (written also faull), folk, and was then dropped before another consonant, as in folk; k and w were still pronounced in such words as know and write; r was kept before consonants, as in hard.

In Late Mn.E. æ was lengthened before certain consonants, as in father, glass. Towards the end of the 18th century, this ææ was broadened into its present sound au; u, as in come, was unrounded into nearly its present sound, being afterwards re-rounded into u after lip-consonants, as in pull. The vowels in sea, stone, were narrowed into close ē, ō, the former passing into ī in the 18th century; ūu in new became iu, whence 18th-century jū; kn passed through nh (voiceless n) into n; w was dropped before r, as in write.

The present English sound-system is characterised by its great obscuration of the vowels of unaccented syllables, most of which are reduced to ə, as in national (pronounced næʃənəl, in Early Mn.E. næsʃonæl), or an obscure i, as in carriage (pronounced kærɪdʒh); by its diphthongisation of nearly all long vowels, as in neim, stoun = name, stone; by its broadening of long vowels before r, as in care, their, compared with eame, they, r itself being weakened to ə when not followed by a vowel (keə, kæriŋ), or dropped entirely, as in farther.

The English dialects of Scotland and Ireland are no longer spoken in their purity by the educated. Scotch still preserves the pure close monophthongic vowels in name, stone. Irish keeps up the distinction between sea and see. Both, as also most of the dialects in England, preserve consonantal r in hard, &c. But on the whole, standard English pronunciation is quite as conservative as that of the dialects: compare fall with Scotch faʔ. Most of the dialects in England—as also the vulgar London dialect—drop the h, and its preservation is mainly due to the conservative tendencies of the educated London dialect. American English often sides with the dialects against the present standard English, and is developing many peculiarities of its own. It never drops the h. Australian English has, of course, diverged less, and its vulgar dialect is quite 'Cockney' in character. See DIALECT and AMERICANISMS.

Structure of Living English.—The characteristics of a language should always be sought in its spoken form, for the literary language is nothing but a mixture of living and dead colloquialisms; even the most archaic literary forms, such as thou hast, were once colloquialisms.

Living English is essentially an uninflectional language, having nothing in common with such a language as Latin. It has no conception of an accusative case, of the subjunctive mood, of grammatical gender, or concord. It thus stands in a certain opposition to most of its European contemporaries.

The history of the loss of the older distinctions has been already traced. We now have to consider the processes of re-construction which have made English what it is—an isolating language with incipient agglutination.

The main reconstructive agent in English—besides the extended use of prepositions and auxiliaries, and a rigid word-order which we see in other modern languages—is stress or accent. One result of it is gradation, by which many words in common use appear in two forms, one emphatic, the other (with obscured vowel, or curtailed in some way) unemphatic, often with strong divergencies in meaning and use. Such a word as have has, indeed, three gradations: (1) hæw with strong stress (you will have to do it); (2) hæw with weak stress (to have it done); (3) hæw, æw, as an auxiliary (where have you been?). The unemphatic forms are often run together with the next word, as in ai not, ai shaant = I will not, I shall not. Stress is also used to form attribute-groups, as in a good-natured man with stress on good, compared with he is good-natured with equal stress. So also in employers' liability for injury bill, the strong stress on injury binds it with all the preceding words into one attribute-group. This enables the language to dispense with inflection and concord.

The most archaic part of English grammar is the pronouns. Here we find the last remnants of adjective-inflection and concord in the distinction between that, this and those, these. The distinction between nom. I and acc. me still survives in form, but not in spirit, for me appears as a nom. in it is me, and I is really not much more than a prefix to the verb.

The most elaborate reconstructions are those which have built up the verb with a few auxiliaries—be, have, shall, will, do, go, &c.—aided by gradation and agglutination. The future is fully expressed, with subtle distinctions in the use of will, shall, go, &c. There is a peculiar distinction between 'definite' and 'indefinite' tenses. Thus the definite he is writing a letter implies 'at the present moment,' while he writes a letter excludes this, implying 'every day,' 'now and then,' &c. Every tense makes a distinction between an 'unemphatic' and an 'emphatic' form (I saw, I did see; aiv sijn, ai hæw sijn), and has special forms to express negation (ai sij, ai dount sij), and interrogation (ai sij, dauv ai sij). These distinctions cross one another in various ways (thus there is a negative interrogative emphatic form), giving in all eight 'modes' of the English verb.

The extensive use of the gerund in -ing—which arose from a blending of the old partic. pres. in -ende with the substantive ending -ung, -ing, as in leornung, 'act of learning'—combining, as it does, the syntactical peculiarities of substantive and verb, gives great flexibility and conciseness to the English sentence, as in 'I remember seeing him,' 'he insisted on my staying the night.'

The comparative symmetry and simplicity of English grammar is strongly contrasted by the imperfections of its vocabulary: (1) Allied ideas are expressed by unconnected words, sour milk, lactic acid; (2) distinct ideas are expressed by the same sounds, bear (vb.), bear (animal), bare (adj.); (3) even where there is connection between the words, it is disguised by stress-shifting and sound-change: photograph, photography (fotægref, fotogræfi); (4) the want of the power of creating new words on an English basis. These defects—aggravated by our unphonetic spelling—make the English vocabulary difficult of mastery both to uneducated natives and to foreigners.

SPECIMENS.

1. Old English, from the Chronicle (Early W.S.).

878. Hēr hiene bestæl se hēre on midne winter ofer twelftan niht tō cīppan-hamme; ǣnd ġeridon West-seaxna lǣnd ǣnd ġesæton; ǣnd miæl þæs folces ofer sē ædræfdon, ǣnd þæs ǣpres þone mæstan dæl hie ġeridon ǣnd him tō-ġeċierdon, būton þām cyninge Ælfrede: ǣnd hē lytle werede unieþelice æfter wudum fōr ǣnd on mōr-fæstenum.

Mercian Forms: hine . ġesæton . ġeċerdon . unēþelice. Late W.S. Forms: hyne . and . land . ǣþeres . hý, hī . ġeċyrdon . þām . unýþelice . mōr-fæstenum.

Translation.—Here (at this date) him-self stole the (Danish) army at mid winter after twelfth night to Chippenham; and rode-over West-saxons' land and settled (on it); and much of-the people over (the) sea drove, and of-the rest the greatest part they rode-over and to-themselves to-turned (subjected), except the king Alfred: and he with-little troop uneasily (with hardship) throughout woods went and in moor-fastnesses.

2. Early and Late Middle English (London Dialect).

From the Proclamation of Henry III., 1258.—Wē hoaten alle ūre trēowe in þe trēowþe þæt hēo us ǣren þæt hēo stedefæstliche healden and swerien tō healden and tō werien þō isetnesses þæt bēon imakede and bēon tō makien þurᵹ þan tōforen-iseide iædes-men.

Early W.S.: hātaþ . ealle ūre trēowan . þære trēowþe þe . hie . ǣgon . tō healdenne . þā gesettnessa þe bēop . þām tōforan-gesædum rædes-mōnnum.

Translation.—We bid all our faithful (ones) in the fidelity that they to-us owe that they stedfastly keep and swear to keep and preserve the decrees that are made and are to make (be made) through the before-said councillors.

From a Petition of 1386 (ō = u).—Tō the moᵹst nōble and wōrthiest lōrdes, moᵹst ryghtful and wýsest cōnseille, tō owre lige lōrde the kyng cōmpleynen, if it lyke tō you, the folk of the mercerye of Lōndon as a membre of the same citee of many wrones ydō tō hem.

3. Early Modern English.

(To show the pronunciation; the vowels generally as in Italian: y = French u, ø as in err.)

Mutsh gan dhe praiᵹ dhe triz sō strai(h)t and hai, dhe sailing poin, dhe sēdar praud and taul, dhe vain-prop elm, dhe poplar never drai, dhe bildar ǣk, sōl king ov forests aul, dhe aspin gūᵹ for stävz, dhe sǣpres fýnoral.

4. Living English (London Dialect).

ei wans hœd ən əmjwzwing stōri əv tuw inglishmən, huw keim tu ən in səm æut ə dhe wei pleis, ən stopt dhēar ə fōtnait widhout spijking tō wənənədhə. æt dhi end əv dhæt taim ə frenshmən keim, and in wən dei hij meid frendz widh dhe tuw inglishmən seprætlī, and intrədjuwst dhəm tō wənənədhə.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The following list includes only those books which are directly useful, all that is antiquated and has only an historical interest being excluded. Books specially useful to beginners and those who do not wish to go deep into the subject are marked *. Unfinished dictionaries, &c. are marked †.

General Guides.—J. Storm, Englische Philologie; Anleitung zum wissenschaftlichen Studium der englischen Sprache (Heilbronn, 1881); * W. Vietor, Einführung in das Studium der englischen Philologie mit Rücksicht auf die Anforderungen der Praxis (Heilbronn, 1888).

Periodicals.—† Transactions of the Philological Society, London; † Englische Studien, ed. by E. Kölbing (Heilbronn, since 1876); † Anglia, ed. by R. Wülcker (Halle, since 1877).

Old English.—* H. Sweet, An Anglo-Saxon Primer, with grammar, notes, and glossary (3d ed., Oxford).

1885); H. Sweet, An Anglo-Saxon Reader, in Prose and Verse, with grammar, notes, and glossary (4th ed., Oxford, 1884); H. Sweet, A Second Anglo-Saxon Reader, Archaic and Dialectal (Oxford, 1887); E. Sievers, An Old-English Grammar, translated and edited by A. S. Cook (2d ed., Boston, U.S., 1887); F. A. March, A Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language (Lond. 1870), for syntax; H. Sweet, The Oldest English Texts, with introductions and a glossary (Lond., Early English Text Society, 1885); C. W. M. Grein, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie, texts and glossary (Göttingen, 1857-64), out of print; + T. N. Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, based on Professor Bosworth's collections (Oxford), untrustworthy.

Middle English.—*H. Sweet, First Middle English Primer; extracts from the Ancien Rivule and Ormulum, with grammar and glossary (Oxford, 1884); *H. Sweet, Second Middle English Primer; extracts from Chaucer, with grammar and glossary (Oxford, 1886); Morris and Skeat, Specimens of Early English, with introduction, notes, and glossarial index (Oxford, 1886), Part I. 1150-1300; Part II. 1293-1393; W. Skeat, Specimens of English Literature, 1394-1579, with introduction, notes, and glossarial index (Oxford, 1886); E. Mätzner, Altenglische Sprachproben; vol. i. Sprachproben; + vol. ii. Wörterbuch (the best dictionary of M. E.); *Mayhew and Skeat, A Concise Dictionary of Middle English (Oxford, 1888); F. H. Stratmann, A Dictionary of the Old English Language (3d ed., Krefeld, 1878); Supplement (Krefeld, 1881); B. Ten Brink, Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst (Leip. 1884); E. Einenkel, Streifzüge durch die mittelenglische Syntax unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Sprache Chaucer's (Münster, i. W. 1887); L. Morsbach, Ueber den Ursprung der neuenenglischen Sprache (Heilbronn, 1888).

Early Modern English.—E. A. Abbott, A Shakespearean Grammar (Lond. 1872); A. Schmidt, Shakespeare-Lexicon (Berlin and Lond. 1886).

Living English.—*H. Sweet, Elementarbuch des gesprochenen Englisch (2d ed., Oxford, 1886).

Scandinavian.—*H. Sweet, An Icelandic Primer, with grammar, notes, and glossary (Oxford, 1886); Cleasby and Vigfusson, Icelandic Dictionary (1874).

Old French.—*H. Suchier, Aucassin und Nicolette, mit Paradigmen und Glossar (Paderborn, 1878); Bartsch, Chrestomathie de l'ancien Français (1880).

History of English.—F. Koch, Historische grammatik der englischen Sprache, Kassel (new ed.); E. Mätzner, Englische grammatik (3d ed., Berlin, 1882-85), for quotations and syntax; Eng. trans. 3 vols. 1874; + J. A. H. Murray, A new English Dictionary, founded mainly on materials collected by the Philological Society, Oxford; C. Richardson, A new Dictionary of the English Language (Lond. 1844), for quotations; *Chambers's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (1889); *C. Annandale, A Concise English Dictionary, Literary, Scientific, Etymological, and Pronouncing (1886); W. Skeat, Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (2d ed., Oxford, 1884); *W. Skeat, A Concise Etymological Dictionary (2d ed., Oxford, 1885); + A. J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation (Lond.); *H. Sweet, A History of English Sounds from the Earliest Period, with full word-lists (Oxford, 1888); Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature, a history of British Authors, with specimens of their writings (4th ed. 1885).