which long held its own in the Palaces and Law-courts of Scotland, the speech which was embodied in Acts of Parliament down to Queen Anne's time, and which has been handled by world-renowned Makers: may it never die out! It will be found that our classic English owes much to Yorkshire; some of its forms did not make their way to London until 1520. How different would our speech have been, if York had replaced London as our capital!
This Psalter, most likely compiled in Southern Yorkshire,[1] is nearly akin in its spelling to the Lincolnshire Creed in page 139. It has gh for the old h; we find heghest, lagh, sight, fight, neghbur, negh. It substitutes the same gh for g or c; as in sigh, slaghter, sagh. Sometimes the former g gets the sound of y, as in bie (emere); it is thus that we still pronounce the old bycgan, though we spell it with a u in the Southern way. The English word for arcus is written both bough and bow. In Psalm cxxxi. breg is turned into brow; and the consonant is thrown out altogether in slaer (occisor) in Vol. I. page 11; as also in slaine.[2] This last we saw in Essex in 1180. Hég (fœnum) becomes hai, much as it remains. The u and o are often turned into ou, as in the Lincolnshire Creed; we find wound, doun-right, and thought. In Vol. II. page 43, super principes is translated, by our princes; hence our contraction o'er, The English for per is here seen as thrugh, the sound
- ↑ The Midland Present Plural ending in en is sometimes found, as wirken (laborant). Ninety years later, Higden said that this Yorkshire speech was so harsh and rough that it could be hardly understood in the South.
- ↑ It is well known how the Scotch love vowels and get rid of consonants; with them all wool becomes a oo.
