four-skore. There are new Relative forms which took a long time to find their way to the South, as nane was wha roned; nane es whilke saufe mas; yhe whilk standes (qui statis), fest, God, þat whilke þou wroght. In the Twelfth Century, these Relatives had only been used in oblique cases; the Nominative who was not used commonly in the South till the Reformation.
Another wholly new form is found in this Psalter. We have seen that Orrmin, first of all our writers, used þat, the old Neuter article, to translate ille; and its plural þâ, to translate illi. This þâ is still to be found in Scotland (Scott talks of thae loons): it held its ground in Southern England as þo down to 1530. The old Dative of this, þâm, is still in use among our lower orders; as, ‘look at them lads.’ But in Yorkshire, about 1250, þas, our those, a confusion with the old Plural of þes (hic), began to be used for þâ.[1]
Vol. I. page 243: ‘Superbia eorum qui te oderunt,’ is translated pride of þas þat þe hates; and many such instances could be given. The writer has elsewhere þese, as in the Essex Homilies, to translate the Latin hi. In this Psalter we see the beginning of the corruptions embodied in the phrase those who speak; a phrase which often with us replaces the rightful they that speak, the Old English þâ þe. The whilke set down a little earlier, answering to the Latin qui, gives us the earliest glimpse of the well-known idiom in the first clause of our English Paternoster.[2]
- ↑ Hampole, ninety years later, has the same corruption, þas for þâ.
- ↑ Addison, in his Humble Petition of ‘Who’ and ‘Which,’ makes these Relatives complain of the Jack Sprat That, their supplanter. He is wrong: That is the true Old English Relative, representing þe; the others are Thirteenth Century upstarts. It is curious that Yorkshire had far more influence than Kent upon the language of the capital in 1520. If we wish to be correct, we should translate ‘qui amant’ by they that love: those who love can date no higher than 1250.
