English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day | Page 5

hrinde is correct,
being a contraction of hrindge or hrindige, plural of the adjective hrindig, which is
preserved in our dialects, in the form rindy, to this very day. In direct contradiction of a
common popular error that regards our dialectal forms as being, for the most part,
"corrupt," it will be found by experience that they are remarkably conservative and
antique.
CHAPTER II
DIALECTS IN EARLY TIMES
The history of our dialects in the earliest periods of which we have any record is
necessarily somewhat obscure, owing to the scarcity of the documents that have come
down to us. The earliest of these have been carefully collected and printed in one volume
by Dr Sweet, entitled The Oldest English Texts, edited for the Early English Text Society
in 1885. Here we already find the existence of no less than four dialects, which have been
called by the names of Northumbrian, Mercian, Wessex (or Anglo-Saxon), and Kentish.
These correspond, respectively, though not quite exactly, to what we may roughly call
Northern, Midland, Southern, and Kentish. Whether the limits of these dialects were
always the same from the earliest times, we cannot tell; probably not, when the unsettled
state of the country is considered, in the days when repeated invasions of the Danes and
Norsemen necessitated constant efforts to repel them. It is therefore sufficient to define
the areas covered by these dialects in quite a rough way. We may regard the
Northumbrian or Northern as the dialect or group of dialects spoken to the north of the
river Humber, as the name implies; the Wessex or Southern, as the dialect or group of
dialects spoken to the south of the river Thames; the Kentish as being peculiar to Kent;
and the Mercian as in use in the Midland districts, chiefly to the south of the Humber and
to the north of the Thames. The modern limits are somewhat different, but the above
division of the three chief dialects (excluding Kentish) into Northern, Midland, and
Southern is sufficient for taking a broad general view of the language in the days before
the Norman Conquest.
The investigation of the differences of dialect in our early documents only dates from
1885, owing to the previous impossibility of obtaining access to these oldest texts. Before
that date, it so happened that nearly all the manuscripts that had been printed or examined
were in one and the same dialect, viz. the Southern (or Wessex). The language employed
in these was (somewhat unhappily) named "Anglo-Saxon"; and the very natural mistake
was made of supposing that this "Anglo-Saxon" was the sole language (or dialect) which
served for all the "Angles" and "Saxons" to be found in the "land of the Angles" or
England. This is the reason why it is desirable to give the more general name of "Old
English" to the oldest forms of our language, because this term can be employed

collectively, so as to include Northumbrian, Mercian, "Anglo-Saxon" and Kentish under
one designation. The name "Anglo-Saxon" was certainly rather inappropriate, as the
speakers of it were mostly Saxons and not Angles at all; which leads up to the paradox
that they did not speak "English"; for that, in the extreme literal sense, was the language
of the Angles only! But now that the true relationship of the old dialects is known, it is
not uncommon for scholars to speak of the Wessex dialect as "Saxon," and of the
Northumbrian and Mercian dialects as "Anglian"; for the latter are found to have some
features in common that differ sharply from those found in "Saxon."
Manuscripts in the Southern dialect are fairly abundant, and contain poems, homilies,
land-charters, laws, wills, translations of Latin treatises, glossaries, etc.; so that there is
considerable variety. One of the most precious documents is the history known as the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was continued even after the Conquest till the year 1154,
when the death and burial of King Stephen were duly recorded.
But specimens of the oldest forms of the Northern and Midland dialects are, on the other
hand, very much fewer in number than students of our language desire, and are
consequently deserving of special mention. They are duly enumerated in the chapters
below, which discuss these dialects separately.
Having thus sketched out the broad divisions into which our dialects may be distributed, I
shall proceed to enter upon a particular discussion of each group, beginning with the
Northern or Northumbrian.
CHAPTER III
THE DIALECTS OF NORTHUMBRIA; TILL A.D. 1000
In Professor Earle's excellent manual on Anglo-Saxon Literature, chapter V is entirely
occupied with "the Anglian Period," and begins thus:--"While Canterbury was so
important a seminary of learning, there was, in the Anglian region of Northumbria, a
development of religious and intellectual life which makes it natural to regard the