English in Britain |
359 |
Rushworth 1 and the ‘West Mercian’ Vespasian Psalter. We know the scribes who composed the two parts of Rushworth, which is a single manuscript: Rushworth 1 was written by Farman, a priest at ‘Harawuda’ (traditionally equated with Harewood in West Yorkshire) and the scribe of Rushworth 2 was a Northumbrian called Owun. The anonymous Psalter was probably written at Canterbury by a Kentish scribe who faithfully copied a West Mercian original (presumably from Lichfield, one of the major diocesan centres). In addition, in Rushworth 1 Farman uses a number of perhaps stereotyped West Saxon forms, such as eall ‘all’ rather than the Anglian all. As we examine all the evidence, it becomes clear that Rushworth 2, although closely related to the typical Northumbrian Lindisfarne Gospels, has a number of significant variations from the latter. Conversely, despite clear equivalences with the Vespasian Psalter, Rushworth 1 shows important variations from Vespasian. In particular, although the sound change known as Second Fronting (whereby a > æ and æ > e), and which is perhaps the canonical mark of Vespasian, does sometimes appear in Rushworth 1, it is more usually absent.
What we seem to be dealing with is a continuum. At one end there is Lindisfarne, at the other there is Vespasian. Somewhere in between these lie the two versions of Rushworth. In other words, we have a situation which is normal in studies of present-day dialects. There, although there may be gross differences, variation is continuous over the whole range. This is the very first point we made in this chapter and it is worth repeating. For the example we have chosen is not isolated, but is representative of a major issue for Old English dialectology. There are more sophisticated cases than this one, and, in particular, the work of Peter Kitson on Ælfric (see again Kitson, 1993), has allowed us to understand much more of the geography of the period and indeed of the relations between the major linguistic figures of the time; see also Benskin (1994).
Furthermore, thanks to some remarkable detective work by Richard Coates, it now looks most probable that the Rushworth Gospels were glossed, not at Harewood, which has always seemed improbable, but at Lichfield; see Coates (1997a). This implies that both Rushworth 1 and the Vespasian Psalter were written at the same place, and yet they are significantly different in character. This can only be explained by supposing that the two scribes, Farmon and whoever was the scribe of Vespasian, had different dialects; see also Hogg (2004). But with our present state of knowledge, this merely emphasises that our knowledge of Old English dialect variation remains patchy.
7.3Middle English
As Barbara Strang (1970: 224) stated over thirty years ago, ‘ME is, par excellence, the dialectal phase of English, in the sense that while dialects have been spoken at all periods, it was in ME that divergent local usage was
360 R I C H A R D H O G G
normally indicated in writing.’ Even if we need to qualify that comment in certain ways, it remains usefully true. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, both in Old English (albeit only to a limited and rather complex degree) and in later periods, there were clear attempts at producing at least a written national standard language; see Chapter 5. But, as Strang states, this was not true for the Middle English period. Secondly, the relative quantity of text is far greater than for Old English, especially from the fourteenth century on. Thirdly, the variety of types of English had increased, both because of the increase in texts which are varied in type and not overwhelmingly religious and because of the variable influence of French and Scandinavian (Old Danish, Old Norse) on English. And fourthly, partly a combination of the preceding, but also a result of political shifts, we can observe the (partial) emergence of a distinct Scots language (see McClure, 1994).
Some of the difficulties when discussing Middle English dialects are exactly parallel to those found with Old English, but there are some subtle differences. Naturally we are still dealing only with written texts. However, the increase in varieties and the relative absence of standardisation means that texts were, as it were, written as they were spoken. Not exactly, of course, for it would be wrong to imply that spelling practices were simply anarchic: there is clear evidence of some regional standards, as in the so-called AB dialect of the early thirteenthcentury west midlands (the best-known text in this group is the Ancrene Wisse); see Laing & Lass (2003). But the absence of standardisation did allow, at its extreme, Orm, a thirteenth-century monk, to devise a spelling system of his own from which we can derive considerable information.
Also in this period, we start to find comments about dialect variation. These can be indirect comments, such as Chaucer’s use of northern forms for the students in The Reeve’s Tale:
. . . man sal taa of twa thynges Slyk as he fyndes, or taa slyk as he brynges
No doubt the intention was humorous, but it could hardly have worked if Chaucer’s audience had been unable to understand some basic northern forms, just as today a film (leaving aside the book) such as Trainspotting assumes basic comprehension on the part of its audience. But a more direct comment comes from the Cornishman John of Trevisa, writing in 1385, a contemporary of Chaucer. He writes:
Englischmen, þey hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre maner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, . . . noþeles by commyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys aperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting.
. . . fierfore ht ys þat Mercii, þat buþ men of myddel Englelond, as hyt were parteners of þe endes, vnderstondeþ betre þe syde longages, Norþeron and Souþeron, þan Norþeron and Souþeron vnderstondeþ eyþer oþer.
English in Britain |
361 |
Although, from the beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking. southern, northern and, in the middle of the country, midlands speech, . .
. nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with the Danes and afterwards with the Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing.
. . . therefore it is the case that the Mercians, the men of middle England, as it were, the partners of the extremities, understand better the dialects of either side, northern and southern, than the northern and southern dialects understand each other.
Whatever the aesthetic validity of Trevisa’s remarks, they undoubtedly contain a truth about the dialect situation at the time. Perhaps an even more revealing example, this time from the north, is provided by the West Yorkshire author of
Cursor Mundi:
In a writt þis ilk i fand
He-self it wroght ic vnderstand In sotherin englis was it drawn And turnd it haue i till our aun
Langage o northrin lede [‘people’] fiat can nan oiþer englis rede
When discussing Old English dialects, we observed that the standard view presents four fairly distinct dialects. The traditional picture of the Middle English dialect situation has never been seen as quite so stable, but, broadly speaking, there is some sense in talking of five regional mappings: North, East Midlands, West Midlands, Southeast and Southwest. This picture, unfortunately, has the illusory advantage of suggesting that there is continuity between the traditional mapping of Old English and the later history. Thus, Northumbrian maps on to Northern, Mercian maps on to West Midlands, and perhaps East Midlands, West Saxon equates to Southwestern and Kentish to Southeastern.
In order to see why the continuity is illusory, it is not sufficient to repeat our comments about traditional Old English dialectology. Rather, we have to understand the development of Middle English dialectology itself. The earliest studies tended to be concerned with individual, or restricted groups of, texts, often determined primarily on literary grounds – this was equally true for Old English. Early in the twentieth century the systematic study of place-names brought significant advances to our knowledge of dialect variation. However, such material tends to be dominantly of phonological interest, with some additional lexical material, and hence it virtually excludes, by definition, some major features of the language. And it may be worth observing that, in Ekwall’s (1960) assessment of the value of place-name study, he places the value of place-names for linguistic study sixth (out of six!).
Despite the value of the work of such scholars as Ekwall, and in more recent times, Kristensson (1967, 1987), the only large-scale attempts at dialect geography before the 1950s were studies by Oakden (1930) and Moore, Meech & Whitehall
362 R I C H A R D H O G G
(1935). Although both these studies are valuable, it cannot be denied that they have considerable flaws. In particular, both surveys (and Oakden’s is intended only as an introduction to Middle English alliterative verse) have a very limited scope. Nevertheless, it is instructive to examine these works, above all, perhaps, to see how the mapping of dialect features and isoglosses are correlated very closely with traditional conceptions of ME dialect boundaries. This is not surprising, given the linguistic temper of the age, and, of course, it leads to the kind of unity between OE and ME dialects about which we complained in Section 7.2.
A revolution in ME dialectology came with the publication in 1986 of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English by Angus McIntosh, Michael Samuels and Michael Benskin. LALME had been long in coming, having been started by McIntosh (and soon joined by Samuels) in 1952. For important early work on this project, see McIntosh (1956, 1963), Samuels (1963), whilst Benskin (1994) allows us to see how the project has advanced since then both in analysis and theory. The key element in this revolution was the adoption of the methods employed in present-day dialectology, adapted to the historical requirements.
Essentially, LALME attempts to provide as comprehensive a survey as possible of the material between the mid-fourteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries. In particular, LALME includes both non-localised literary texts and texts which had been ‘translated’ from one dialect area to another. This was a difficult and risky speculation, and probably would not have been possible if it had not been for the invention of the ‘fit’ technique. This technique proceeds from the known to the unknown. Assume that some informants (or texts) are localised independently by external methods. Each such text will reveal its forms. These forms can be plotted on maps. Then take a text which is not localised, and plot one of its forms on the maps. Every time this is done, it will be observable that the chosen form can only be placed on some areas of the map and yet remain consistent with already localised material. Then, over and over again, but one by one, forms from the chosen text are plotted on the existing maps. After a number of forms have been plotted, it will become clear that the previously unlocalised text can only come from one or two areas.
The fit technique can only work if it involves constant reiterations of the process. Furthermore, it first has to be used with texts whose provenances, although not independently fully localised, are nevertheless on other grounds thought most probably to relate to a particular area where there are a number of localised texts. It is also necessary to consider other evidence, including, for example, rhymes and alliteration. Particular attention has to be given to composite texts, where more than one scribe has been involved. McIntosh and his co-authors devote particular attention to Mischsprachen, texts which contain a unique combination of variant forms not otherwise found in single texts. The localisation of such texts is a major issue in LALME, for the identification of them is crucial to the attempt to map adequately the geographical space.
Rather than continue this exploration of methodology, it seems preferable to consider some of the consequences of LALME in the wider perspective. In order
English in Britain |
363 |
Figure 7.2 Survey points used for the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval
English (see also Smith, 1996)
to demonstrate the kind of results provided by LALME, consider some of the variant forms of ‘she’. It has long been known that there were three major forms of this pronoun in ME: (1) forms directly derivable from OE heo; (2) a new form sche; (3) a new form scho. It was known for a long time before the publication of LALME that these forms appeared in different parts of the country. Broadly speaking, heo and related forms such as he, hi were found in the south and the west, sche in the south and the east midlands, and scho was essentially northern.
One result of LALME is that a far more detailed picture emerges, a picture which allows us to note local variation and establish clearer limits on the geography of particular variations. In the case of she, the most interesting dialect feature is the question of how she eventually became the usual form almost everywhere (forms derived from heo still survive in the west midlands). An inspection of the LALME maps shows us that the major centres in the north, in particular York and Durham, have ‘she’ forms earlier than elsewhere in the north. We can, in other words, see the spread of the new form from the east midlands to the north along patterns of trade. At a later stage the new prestige form would have spread more locally due to the importance of York and Durham.
364 R I C H A R D H O G G
But the spread of innovating forms was never in a single direction. Indeed, it could be argued that there were more innovations which spread in a north–south direction than vice versa. This was certainly true of, for example, the rise of they (in contrast to he, the most frequent development of Old English plural personal pronoun hi) and also of are, which began to supplant Old English sint. Generally speaking, and in terms of core items in the vocabulary, most of the innovations seem to have sprung from areas of the country where there had been substantial Scandinavian settlement at the time of the Danelaw. And, of course, this meant above all the eastern part of England from Northumberland as far south as, broadly speaking, Lincolnshire.
Outside the core vocabulary the picture is somewhat different, for here French influence was at least as important as any Scandinavian influence. The differences between French influence and Scandinavian influence are important for dialect variation. Yet the issue here is not one of geography. Unlike Scandinavian forms, French forms were quite well spread throughout the country. But they differ in that French loans are distributed differently in terms of variety. Such loans are found significantly more in religious and other high styles of speech.
An interesting demonstration of this is found in Gawain and the Grene Knight. This alliterative poem, contemporary with Chaucer, was written in the far north of Staffordshire. Here is a short extract:
Bot Gawayne on þat giserne glyfte hym bysyde
As hit com glydande adoun on glode hym to schende, And schranke a lytel with þe schulderes for þe scharp yrne. That oþer schalk wyth a schunt þe schene wythhalde ,
And þenne repreued he þe prynce with mony prowde worde : ‘fiou art not Gawayn,’ quod þe gome, ‘þat is so goud halden, þat neuer ar ed for no here, by hylle ne be vale,
And now þou fles for ferde er þou fele harme ! Such cowardise of þat kny t cowþe I neuer here. Nawþer fyked I ne fla e, freke, quen þou myntest, Ne kest no kauelacion, in kynge hous Arthor.
I have italicised the French loanwords and underlined those from Scandinavian. Note how the Gawain poet uses the different languages to enrich the variety of his language, as in ne kest no kauelacion. Compare such variation with these two lines from Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale:
She nolde do that vileynye or synne
To make hir housbonde han so foul a name
Chaucer uses far fewer Scandinavian words – although core vocabulary can be of Scandinavian origin, as is the case here with housbonde. But like the Gawain poet, he uses frequent doublets where French and English words are paired: vileynye or synne.