46. The system of British dialects in diachrony.

OE Since the very earliest times there were four main dialects in OE (1) Northumbrian, spoken by Angles living north of the Humber, 2) Mercian spoken by Angles between the Humber and the Thames, (3) WestSaxon, the language of the Saxons south of the Thames, (4) Kentish, the language of the Jutes. The rise of Wessex as a political power in the 9th century had its consequences for the West-Saxon dialect: in the course of that century it became the dominating literary language of the epoch. The boundary line between North and Midland was the Humber river, that between Midland and South ran approximately along the Thames.

The dialects differed from each other by essential phonetic and morphological features. These differences corresponded to the terri¬torial position of the dialects discrepancies between the extreme dia¬lects were greater than those between each of the extremes and the Midland. The West Saxon dialect is represented by the works of king Alfred (lived 849—900), both original compositions and translations of Lat¬in texts, also by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (till 891), works of the abbot AEIfric (10th century) and sermons of Wulfstan (early llth century). The Northumbrian dialect: the Runic texts of the Ruthwell Cross and Frank's Casket, translation of the gospels, Caedmon's Hymn and Bedes Dying Song. The Mercian_dialect: translation of the Psalter (9th century) and hymns. The Kentish dialect: Translation of Psalms and old charters.

The superiority of the West-Saxon dialect both in quantity and importance of the documents using it confirms its dominating posi¬tion as the literary language of the period.

Non-West-Saxon dialects have some peculiarities in their vowel system, e.g. in place of West-Saxon AE, A they have an E as in stret 'street'. In all Non-West-Saxon dialects back mutation is much widely spread. Non-West-Saxon dialects differ from West-Saxon in mutation of diphthongs.

It is the Northumbrian dialect that differs most from West-Saxon in morphology. In this dialect, -n in case endings of the weak declension is usually dropped. Feminine o-stem substantives sometimes take in the genitive singular the ending -es on the analogy of masculine a-stem substantives. The infinitive in Northumbrian often loses its final -n and ends in -a: drinca 'drink'. All these and many other phenomena show that in Northumbrian a reduction of inflections was taking place in the OE period already. This was probably partly due to Scandinavian influence.

ME In the period following the Norman conquest the same dia¬lects continue to develop which existed in OE. But according to a tradition now firmly established, they are given new names. The Northumbrian dialect is now called Northern, Mercian is called Midland, and West Saxon and Kentish are united under the name of Southern. The boundary between Northern and Midland runs along the Humber, that between Midland and Southern is close to the Thames. The Midland dialect is subdivided into West Midland and East Midland. The dialect of London combines East Midland and Southern fea¬tures. As a result of the Norman conquest and the transfer of the capital from Winchester to London, the dialect base of the rising national language was shifted, roughly speaking, to the north-east: instead of the West Saxon, that is the South-Western dialect of ME; the base is now East Midland.

RISE OF THE LONDON DIALECT

Its cause was the great shift in social structure in the 14th century. New elements made themselves felt inside the society - the town merchants, which marked_the end of feudal scattered economy and formation of wider economic ties between various parts of the country. New social relations created _the need for a unified national language and they also created the conditions for its realization. The problem of a united national language became urgent Such was the other aspect of linguistic changes in thus epoch. London became the capital with favourable geographic position. Thus, the London dialect, which became the base of the national English language, was a complex formation, reflecting various in¬fluences connected with the social and political life of the period. It contained, alongside East Midland, also South-Eastern (Kentish) and partly South-Western elements.

MODERN ENGLISH (копия 47 вопроса)