Beyond the limits of the British Isles, English is the language of
extensive regions, now or formerly colonies. In all these
countries the presence of numerous new objects and new conditions
of life has led to the supplementing of the vocabulary by
the adoption of words from native languages, and special adaptation
and extension of the sense of English words. The use of a
common literature, however, prevents the overgrowth of these
local peculiarities, and also makes them more or less familiar to
Englishmen at home. It is only in the older states of the
American Union that anything like a local dialect has been
produced; and even there many of the so-called Americanisms
are quite as much archaic English forms which have been lost
or have become dialectal in England as developments of the
American soil.
The steps by which English, from being the language of a few thousand invaders along the eastern and southern seaboard of Britain, has been diffused by conquest and colonization over its present area form a subject too large for the limits of this article. It need only be remarked that within the confines of Britain itself the process is not yet complete. Representatives of earlier languages survive in Wales and the Scottish Highlands, though in neither case can the substitution of English be very remote. In Ireland, where English was introduced by conquest much later, Irish is still spoken in patches all over the country; though English is understood, and probably spoken after a fashion, almost everywhere. At opposite extremities of Britain, the Cornish of Cornwall and the Norse dialects of Orkney and Shetland died out very gradually in the course of the 18th century. The Manx, or Celtic of Man, is even now in the last stage of dissolution; and in the Channel Isles the Norman patois of Jersey and Guernsey have largely yielded to English.
The table on p. 599 (a revision of that brought before the Philological Society in Jan. 1876) graphically presents the chronological and dialectal development of English. Various names have been proposed for the different stages; it seems only necessary to add to those in the table the descriptive names of Dr Abbott, who has proposed (How to Parse, p. 298) to call the Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, the “Synthetical or Inflexional Period”; the Old English Transition (Late Anglo-Saxon of Dr Skeat), the “Period of Confusion”; the Early Middle English, “Analytical Period” (1250–1350); the normal Middle English, “National Period” (1350–1500); the Tudor English, “Period of Licence”; and the Modern English, “Period of Settlement.”
Bibliography.—As the study of English has made immense advances within the last generation, it is only in works recently published that the student will find the subject satisfactorily handled. Among the earlier works treating of the whole subject or parts of it may be mentioned—A History of English Rhythms, by Edwin Guest (London, 1838); the Philological Essays of Richard Garnett (1835–1848), edited by his son (London, 1859); The English Language, by R. G. Latham (5th ed., London, 1862); Origin and History of the English Language, by G. P. Marsh (revised 1885); Lectures on the English Language, by the same (New York and London, 1863); Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache, by C. F. Koch (Weimar, 1863, &c.); Englische Grammatik, by Eduard Mätzner (Berlin, 1860–1865), (an English translation by C. J. Grece, LL.B., London, 1874); The Philology of the English Tongue, by John Earle, M.A. (Oxford, 1866, 5th ed. 1892); Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language, by F. A. March (New York, 1870); Historical Outlines of English Accidence, by the Rev. R. Morris, LL.D. (London, 1873), (new ed. by Kellner); Elementary Lessons in Historical English Grammar, by the same (London, 1874); The Sources of Standard English, by T. L. Kington Oliphant, M.A. (London, 1873); Modern English, by F. Hall (London, 1873); A Shakespearian Grammar, by E. A. Abbott, D.D. (London, 1872); How to Parse, by the same (London, 1875); Early English Pronunciation, &c., by A. J. Ellis (London, 1869); The History of English Sounds, by Henry Sweet (London, 1874, 2nd ed. 1888); as well as many separate papers by various authors in the Transactions of the Philological Society, and the publications of the Early English Text Society.
Among more recent works are: M. Kaluza, Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache (Berlin, 1890); Professor W. W. Skeat, Principles of English Etymology (Oxford, 1887–1891); Johan Storm, Englische Philologie (Leipzig, 1892–1896); L. Kellner, Historical Outlines of English Syntax (London, 1892); O. F. Emerson, History of the English Language (London and New York, 1894); Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, with special reference to English (London, 1894); Lorenz Morsbach, Mittelenglische Grammatik, part i. (Halle, 1896); Paul, “Geschichte der englischen Sprache,” in Grundriss der german. Philologie (Strassburg, 1898); Eduard Sievers, Angelsächsische Grammatik (3rd ed., Halle, 1898); Eng. transl. of same (2nd ed.), by A. S. Cook (Boston, 1887); K. D. Bülbring, Altenglisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1902); Greenough and Kittredge, Words and their Ways in English Speech (London and New York, 1902); Henry Bradley, The Making of English (London, 1904). Numerous contributions to the subject have also been made in Englische Studien (ed. Kölbing, later Hoops; Leipzig, 1877 onward); Anglia (ed. Wülker, Flügel, &c.; Halle, 1878 onward); publications of Mod. Lang. Assoc. of America (J. W. Bright; Baltimore, 1884 onward), and A. M. Elliott, Modern Language Notes (Baltimore, 1886 onward). (J. A. H. M.; H. M. R. M.)
ENGLISH LAW (History). In English jurisprudence “legal memory” is said to extend as far as, but no further than the
coronation of Richard I. (Sept. 3, 1189). This is a technical
doctrine concerning prescriptive rights, but is capable of expressing
an important truth. For the last seven centuries, little more
or less, the English law, which is now overshadowing a large
share of the earth, has had not only an extremely continuous,
but a matchlessly well-attested history, and, moreover, has
been the subject matter of rational exposition. Already in
1194 the daily doings of a tribunal which was controlling and
moulding the whole system were being punctually recorded in
letters yet legible, and from that time onwards it is rather the
enormous bulk than any dearth of available materials that
prevents us from tracing the transformation of every old doctrine
and the emergence and expansion of every new idea. If we are
content to look no further than the text-books—the books written
by lawyers for lawyers—we may read our way backwards to
Blackstone (d. 1780), Hale (d. 1676), Coke (d. 1634), Fitzherbert
(d. 1538), Littleton (d. 1481), Bracton (d. 1268), Glanvill (d.
1190), until we are in the reign of Henry of Anjou, and yet shall
perceive that we are always reading of one and the same body
of law, though the little body has become great, and the ideas
that were few and indefinite have become many and explicit.
Beyond these seven lucid centuries lies a darker period. Nearly six centuries will still divide us from the dooms of Æthelberht (c. 600), and nearly seven from the Lex Salica (c. 500). We may regard the Norman conquest of England as marking the confluence of two streams of law. The one we may call French or Frankish. If we follow it upwards we pass through the capitularies of Carlovingian emperors and Merovingian kings until we see Chlodwig and his triumphant Franks invading Gaul, submitting their Sicambrian necks to the yoke of the imperial religion, and putting their traditional usages into written Latin. The other rivulet we may call Anglo-Saxon. Pursuing it through the code of Canute (d. 1035) and the ordinances of Alfred (c. 900) and his successors, we see Ine publishing laws in the newly converted Wessex (c. 690), and, almost a century earlier, Æthelberht doing the same in the newly converted Kent (c. 600). This he did, says Beda, in accordance with Roman precedents. Perhaps from the Roman missionaries he had heard tidings of what the Roman emperor had lately been doing far off in New Rome. We may at any rate notice with interest that in order of time Justinian’s law-books fall between the Lex Salica and the earliest Kentish dooms; also that the great pope who sent Augustine to England is one of the very few men who between Justinian’s day and the 11th century lived in the Occident and yet can be proved to have known the
