Oh is beginning to change into ou, as nout and inou for noht and inoh.
O replaces a much oftener than before; lore, strong, and nohwer are examples; we find both naþing and noþing (pp. 165 and 181), both na mon and no tunge.
The diphthong œ was losing ground; thus sœ becomes sea, and œgðer becomes eiðer; but the combination ei has never been popular, at least in Teutonic words.
We sometimes find v substituted for f at the beginning of a word, as vette for fette (page 81). It is the influence of the South Western shires that makes us write vixen and vat instead of the old fixen and fœt; it is a wonder that we do not also write vox. G is commonly turned into y, but sometimes into w; thus folegede turns into folewed and laga into law; this is as yet most rare.
France was now dictating much of our pronunciation, and many of the vowels must in this age have been sounded in the same way on either side of the Channel. Ch replaces c in countless instances. Cerran (verti) now becomes cherre; we still say ‘on the jar,’[1] or ajar. We also find chirche, leche, diche, teache, biseche (beseech). The verb seche, which was elsewhere seke, shows whence comes our search; the derivation from chercher, given even in our latest dictionaries, must be wrong, for changer does not become sange in English. Still, the intruding r in search must be due to the French verb. Moreover we see, in
- ↑ Pickwick will keep this alive for ever. Mr. Justice Stareleigh can have been no student of Anglo-Saxon.
