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Essentials of Early English

The third edition of this successful textbook has been fully revised and
updated.
Essentials of Early English is a practical and highly accessible introduction
to the early stages of the English language: Old English, Middle English, and
Early Modern English.
Designed specifically as a handbook for students beginning the study of
Early English language, whether for linguistic or literary purposes, it presumes
little or no prior knowledge of the history of English.
Features of this new edition include:

• Comprehensive updating of the contents to take account of new

developments in the subject
• Newly added sample texts and accompanying notes
• Links to images of many of the illustrative texts
• An updated annotated bibliography.

A contextual introduction of the history of English is provided, which

includes an outline of English in relation to its origins. A deeper analysis is
then given on each of the key stages of Early English, using the language
of King Alfred, Chaucer, and Shakespeare respectively to illustrate points.
Thus, the essential characteristics of each stage of the language are provided
to create the ideal course book for History of English courses and to give the
student a firm foundation of basic linguistic knowledge which can be applied
to further study.

Jeremy J. Smith is Professor Emeritus in English Language and Linguistics,

University of Glasgow, UK. His most recent monograph is Transforming
Early English (2020).
Essentials of Early English
An Introduction to Old, Middle, and
Early Modern English

Third Edition

Jeremy J. Smith
Cover image: Getty Images, claudiodivizia
Third edition published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Jeremy J. Smith
The right of Jeremy J. Smith to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 1999
Second edition published by Routledge 2005
British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​05848-​1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​05845-​0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​19947-​2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/​9781003199472
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
In memoriam John and Kate Smith
Contents

Preface xi

PART I
Description 1

1 Introduction 3
1.1 About this book 3
1.2 English and its origins 4
1.3 External history 6
1.4 Internal history 9
1.5 Introducing English historical linguistics 12
1.6 A preliminary illustration 14

2 Describing language 16
2.1 Introduction 16
2.2 The levels of language 17
2.3 Speech and writing 18
2.4 Phonetics and phonology 19
2.5 Grammar and lexicon 26

3 Old English 42
3.1 Introduction 42
3.2 Spelling and pronunciation 43
3.3 Syntax 46
3.4 Paradigms 60
3.5 Lexicon 76
3.6 Appendix I: From Early to Late West Saxon 78
3.7 Appendix II: On OE dialects 79
viii Contents
4 Middle English 81
4.1 Introduction 81
4.2 Spelling and pronunciation 83
4.3 Syntax 87
4.4 Paradigms 98
4.5 Lexicon 105
4.6 Appendix: On ME dialects 107

5 Early Modern English 110

5.1 Introduction 110
5.2 Spelling and pronunciation 111
5.3 Syntax 116
5.4 Paradigms 126
5.5 Lexicon 132
5.6 Appendix: Evidence for EModE dialects 134

PART II
Illustrative texts 137

Section A Old English texts 139

(1) The Man Who Built His House on Sand 140
(2) Abraham and Isaac 140
(3) Daniel 141
(4) From The Anglo-​Saxon Chronicle 142
(5) From The Dream of the Rood 143
(6) From the Ruthwell Cross inscription 146
(7) Cædmon’s Hymn (Late West Saxon version) 146
(8) Cædmon’s Hymn (Old Northumbrian version) 148
(9) From Ælfric’s Life of King Oswald 148
(10) From Beowulf 150
(11) From Beowulf 154
(12) A riddle from the Exeter Book 154
(13) The Caistor-​by-​Norwich astragalus inscription 155
(14) The Alfred Jewel inscription 156
(15) From The Peterborough Chronicle 157

Section B Middle English texts 160

 rom The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales 161
(1) F
(2) F rom The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
(transcribed from the Ellesmere MS) 162
(3) From The Pardoner’s Tale 163
(4) From The Parson’s Tale 167
(5) From Ancrene Wisse 169
 Contents ix
(6) From Thomas Wimbledon’s Sermon 171
(7) From Sir Orfeo 172
(8) From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 175
(9) From John Lydgate, A Balade in Commendation of Our Lady 177
(10) From The Guildhall Letter-​Book (1418) 178
(11) From Sir Thomas Malory, The Morte Darthur 179
(12) From William Caxton’s Preface to his edition of The Morte
Darthure (1485) 180
(13) From William Caxton’s Preface to the Eneydos (1490) 182
(14) A letter from Margaret Paston 183
(15) The Ashanti (Asante) Ewer inscription 186
(16) From The Land of Cokaygne 187

Section C Early Modern English texts 190

(1) From Loues Labour’s Lost 191
(2) From As You Like It 193
(3) From The Tragedie of King Lear 195
(4) From The Tragedie of Julius Cæsar 197
(5) From The Tragedie of Hamlet 198
(6) From The Tragedie of Richard the Third 199
(7) From The Tragedie of Macbeth 201
(8) From The Book of Common Prayer (1559) 203
(9) From the Authorised Version of the Bible (1611) 204
(10) From A Letter of Syr J. Cheke To his loving frind Mayster
Thomas Hoby (1557) 205
(11) From Sir John Cheke’s translation of the Bible (?1550) 206
(12) From E.K.’s Preface to Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender
(1579) 207
(13) From Richard Mulcaster’s The First Parte of the Elementarie
(1582) 209
(14) From George Puttenham, ‘Of Language’, in The Arte of English
Poesie (1589) 209
(15) From John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) 210
(16) From The Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley (1642) 212
(17) From The Tryall of Ralph Hall and Mary his wife, upon
suspicion of Witchcraft, New York (1665) 213
(18) From John Dryden, All for Love or, the World Well Lost
(1677/​1678) 213

PART III
Bibliography, glossary, and thematic index 217

Annotated bibliography 219

Old English glossary 221
Thematic index 242
Preface

This book is designed as a practical handbook for students beginning the

study of earlier stages of the English language, whose eventual aim is to pro-
ceed to more advanced work on the history of English, or on earlier English
literature, or on both.
Although most courses in English studies offered by major univer-
sities include –​or should include –​a component on the historical study of
English, and on earlier states of the language, it is my impression that there
is a paucity of clear descriptive accounts of the various stages of English
for beginning students, laid out on modern lines and, importantly, clari-
fying the connections between each stage. In other words that there is a
need for what might be called, using a traditional term, a ‘primer’ in Early
English, in which the essential characteristics of each stage of the language
can be identified and the differences and similarities between the stages can
be made explicit.
This book is designed to meet that need. Once a knowledge of the proto-
typical characteristics of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English has been
secured, it is hoped that students can then develop their knowledge of each
stage of the language on a firm foundation. In short, this book may be
regarded as a ‘prequel’ to more advanced books, enabling a swifter and more
effective engagement with the materials there presented. It is for that reason
that I have added an Annotated Bibliography, which may act as a guide to the
next stage in the sequential pattern of learning which this book promotes;
there are also other bibliographical references included in Part I.
It is expected that students and their teachers will use this book in various
ways appropriate to the conditions of the institution where they use it.
However, it is envisaged that the most common approach to using the book
will shift from text to discussion and then back to text again, concentrating on
those passages in the grammars which are marked as of greatest importance.
The trickiest material is obviously that to do with Old English, yet it is in my
opinion essential that this material is not avoided; to discuss the history of
English without reference to Old English, when the essential configuration of
the language was established, seems to me misguided.
xii Preface
Some may object that much of this book is focused on the emerging
standard language and its predecessors. I have considerable sympathy with
such a criticism. Although it so happens that, for various reasons and at
various times, standardised usages of diverse origins have been the only ones
substantially recorded in the written mode, there is nevertheless an immense
amount of evidence for the dialects and sociolects of English from the past,
much of it still needing scholarly investigation. To have engaged with this
material in greater detail would have substantially lengthened the book and
made it less suitable for the purposes for which it is designed. Nevertheless,
I have supplemented the texts in this new edition with further illustrative
texts to indicate dialectal range, and I have tried to increase its linguistic
diversity by means of appendices to the descriptive chapters. Finally, the
Annotated Bibliography offers some directions for further reading, e.g.
on historical sociolinguistics (Millar 2012) and pragmatics (Jucker and
Taavitsainen 2013).
One variety not treated here in any detail, and which deserves greater
attention, is Scots. Scots is, apart from English itself, the longest-​attested
variety derived from Old English. Beginning students may find useful The
Edinburgh Companion to Scots (John Corbett, Jane Stuart-​ Smith and
J. Derrick McClure, eds, 2002), and also my own Older Scots: A Linguistic
Reader (2012).
Finally, I know that some teachers have complained about the normalisa-
tion of some of the Old English material on the basis of Early West Saxon,
which is of course a somewhat (though not entirely) artificial variety. I make
no apology for this decision. Early West Saxon was adopted by Henry Sweet
in his great Anglo-​Saxon Primer of 1882, for excellent reasons to do with the
study of the history of the language: I can think of no better forebear. As for
normalisation itself: it may be noted that Old Icelandic, a cognate language
frequently taught alongside Old English, is generally taught in a normalised
form without any complaint from scholars, and for an excellent reason: it is
easier for beginners if they grasp prototypical usages at the outset of their
study and then become aware of non-​prototypical variations. The same, I pro-
pose, applies for Old English studies. Experience has taught me that students
can easily despair if faced with what are really quite trivial variations at the
very beginning of their studies. Some notes on the major differences between
Early and Late West Saxon have been included as an appendix to Chapter 3,
and in notes on texts which have not been normalised.
Many people have helped in the preparation of this new edition, and in the
earlier versions which have preceded it since the publication of the first edition
in 1999. In particular, I should like to thank Brian Aitken, Jean Anderson,
Catherine Batt, Mary Blockley, Graham Caie, Marilena Cesario, John Corbett,
Manfred Görlach, Richard Hamer, Ian Hamilton, Elaine Higgleton, Simon
Horobin, Carole Hough, Christian Kay, Katie Lowe, Mike MacMahon, Robert
Millar, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, John Smith, Merja Stenroos, and Jane
Stuart-​Smith, all of whom have read and commented on part or on all of the
 Preface xiii
book, or helped with advice or in other ways at one stage or another. I am also
grateful for the comments of anonymous referees. My publishers have been, as
ever, exceptionally encouraging, efficient and courteous, and I should like to
thank in particular Claire Bell, Ruth Berry, Lizzie Cox, Eloise Cresswell, Talitha
Duncan-Todd, Bex Hume, Mary McCormick, Nadia Seemungal Owen and
Eleni Steck. Above all, however, I should like to thank the many colleagues and
students, at Glasgow and elsewhere, who over the years have used, commented
on, and suffered from various versions of parts of this book.
I should of course be very grateful for any further comments on the book,
either from fellow-​teachers or from students. This is the third edition of
Essentials, and, although its organisation has remained much the same, I have
derived much benefit from the various reviews and comments I have received,
notably from Olga Fischer and Malou Van Wijk.
For this third edition, the complete book has been checked through again
and some detailed corrections and clarifications have been introduced. I have
also added to, corrected, and reworked some of the illustrative texts and
updated the Annotated Bibliography. I hesitated (again) on whether to retain
Chapter 2, which some colleagues find useful but which others (including one
reviewer) have found unnecessary; in the event, I have retained it, since it does
contain the ‘metalanguage’ used elsewhere. However, I should like to empha-
sise that it can be skipped if it is not needed.
I also spent some time considering, once more, whether to add some Late
Modern English material, to take account of exciting new developments in
that area. In the event, I decided against such an expansion, on the grounds
that to add a section to include not only Late Modern British English but also
varieties of English beyond the British Isles would considerably increase the
size and cost of the book. In my view a further publication would be needed to
do justice to this material. Any work of this kind would need to take account
of the fact that English is not –​and has never been –​the sole property of a par-
ticular cultural and racial (and indeed male) elite, even if the written record, for
historical reasons, would seem skewed in such directions. However, the short
piece of English from North America does at least indicate the beginnings of
English as a language used beyond the British Isles. Some suggestions for fur-
ther reading in this area have been added to the Annotated Bibliography.
I should have liked also to include a series of facsimiles to illustrate the
book, but they would have added substantially to the cost. I have therefore
posted a list of relevant websites in the annotations to the various texts; the
widespread digitisation of images that libraries have undertaken since 2004,
when the second edition of this book appeared, offers many exciting oppor-
tunities for bringing traditional linguistic study into closer articulation with
cognate disciplines such as book history, as part of a reimagining and revital-
isation of philology.
A few colleagues have commented on how useful it would be to have
exercises or ‘lesson plans’ accompanying the book. Again, including a sens-
ible number of exercises would have greatly increased the book’s size and
newgenprepdf

xiv Preface
cost, and detailed lesson plans could also constrain those colleagues who
wish to follow their own approaches to the subject. However, students and
teachers may be interested to know that a software package of interactive
exercises to accompany the Old English component of this book has been
produced, with a dedicated app. For details, see www.arts.gla.ac.uk/​ste​lla/​
apps/​web/​eoe/​.
Part I

Description
newgenprepdf

1 Introduction

1.1 About this book 3

1.2 English and its origins 4
1.3 External history 6
1.4 Internal history 9
1.5 Introducing English historical linguistics 12
1.6 A preliminary illustration 14

1.1 About this book

This book has been planned as a practical, straightforward introduction for
those students beginning to work on the earlier states of the English lan-
guage, whether for linguistic or for literary purposes. It is divided into three
Parts: Part I, consisting of descriptive material; Part II, consisting of illus-
trative texts with brief accompanying notes; and Part III, consisting of an
Annotated Bibliography, a set of Glossaries, and a Thematic Index. Although
it is designed to be self-​standing, it is best used as an accompaniment to
standard introductory histories of the language, and as a prequel to more
advanced books which currently serve as standard introductory surveys. All
these works are described in the Annotated Bibliography.
This book assumes little or no knowledge of the history of the language, or
even of the descriptive terminology needed to talk meaningfully about it. This
contextualising Introduction, which includes a skeleton outline of the history
of English in relation to its origins, is therefore followed in Chapter 2 by a
short description of the linguistic terminology used elsewhere in the book. If
readers are confident of their understanding of phonetics and phonology, the
terminology of writing-​systems, and grammar and lexicology, they may, of
course, skip that chapter.
The general sketch of linguistic terminology in Chapter 2 is followed by
three descriptive chapters (3, 4, and 5) concerned with three stages in the his-
tory of English: Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. Of
these, Chapter 3 is the longest, since, although Old English is the most dis-
tant from present-​day usage, the essential linguistic configuration of subse-
quent states of the language was established in Old English times. (It is for
DOI: 10.4324/9781003199472-2
4 Description
that reason that any student of the history of English needs at least a basic
understanding of the structure of Old English.) These descriptions make up
the core of Part I of the book.
In Part II a set of illustrative and annotated texts is provided. These texts
are designed simply as illustrations of the points made in Chapters 3,4, 5, and
6; it is expected that readers and teachers will want to supplement them with
materials from other sources.
These descriptions are followed in Part III by suggestions for further
reading and study in an Annotated Bibliography. Although for simplicity’s
sake references in the body of the book have been largely avoided, this
Bibliography has been provided so that students can pursue particular issues
in greater depth than is possible here. Also included in Part III is a Glossary
to the Old English texts in Part II.
It is hoped that students who have worked their way through the book
will have acquired a clear understanding of the structure of the various
stages of Early English. They should then be able to proceed to further
study with a secure foundation of basic linguistic knowledge: essential
whether the focus of their future work is to be philological/​linguistic or
more literary. It is held here that any philological work without such a
foundation of core-​knowledge is largely a waste of time. Moreover, any lit-
erary appreciation of stylistic choices made in earlier states of the language
must surely be based on a sound knowledge of what choices were available
at the time in question.

1.2 English and its origins

English is now used as a first language by about 700 million speakers, and is
a second language for millions more. It appears in many guises, ranging from
the ‘new’ Englishes of Africa and Asia, e.g. Indian or Singaporean English,
through the usages of North America and Australasia to the oldest established
varieties (the English of England, Hiberno-​English in Ireland, and –​regarded
by many as a distinct language –​Scots in Lowland Scotland, and in parts of
present-​day Ulster). English is now the most widespread language in linguistic
function and geographical extent that the world has ever seen.
These modern varieties of English have emerged over the last five or six cen-
turies through contact with other languages and through dynamic interaction
with each other. All, however, derive from one ultimate source: the Germanic
language-​varieties which were brought to southern and eastern Britain from
northern Germany by invaders and settlers –​traditionally referred to as
Angles, Saxons and Jutes –​in the fifth century C E . The peoples who spoke
these varieties supplanted the Romano-​British inhabitants, who gradually
retreated to the northern and western parts of the island. The invaders’ usages
subsequently became a distinct language, English. Until the end of the six-
teenth century, English was restricted geographically to what are usually called
the British Isles, off the north-​west coast of continental Europe, but then the
 Introduction 5
language was taken beyond these islands with the imperial expansions of the
seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
During the centuries after the Germanic invasions the structure of the
English language changed radically. Our evidence for these changes comes,
of course, not from the direct analysis of speech –​for sound-​recordings of
English only began to be made at the end of the nineteenth century –​but from
comparative study of other languages, and through the painstaking analysis
by scholars of the written records which have come down to us continuously
from the seventh century C E onwards.
All Germanic languages derive from a common ancestor known as
Proto-​Germanic, which seems to have emerged during the first millennium
B C E as the language of a group of peoples living in what is now Denmark
and southern Sweden. English is a member of the western branch of the
Germanic languages, so-​called West Germanic, which also includes German,
Dutch, Afrikaans, and (its closest Germanic relative) Frisian, this last being a
language-​variety spoken in what is now part of the Netherlands. The dialects
from which English emerged in England were all members of this West
Germanic grouping. Other branches of Germanic which are traditionally
identified include North Germanic (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Faroese,
Icelandic) and East Germanic (now extinct, and recorded for the most part in
the fourth century C E Gothic Bible translation of Bishop Ulfilas).

NOT E :The boundaries between West and North Germanic are permeable,
and there is evidence that the most northerly West Germanic variety that
contributed to English, viz. Anglian as spoken in what are now southern
Denmark and northern Germany, shared features with its North Germanic
neighbours.

The Germanic languages are themselves part of a much larger language-​

family: the Indo-​European group, which includes such diverse languages as
Bengali and Brythonic, Russian and Romany, Sanskrit and Spanish. This
group stems ultimately from Proto-​Indo-​European, which was probably ori-
ginally spoken in what is now southern Russia many millennia ago. Scholars
date this culture to anywhere between 7000 and 4000 B C E .
English shares a number of characteristics with its Germanic relatives.
Probably the best known of these is the Germanic modification of inherited
consonantal sounds known as Grimm’s Law, so called after the philologist
and folklorist Jacob Grimm (1785–​1863) who first reconstructed the process.
Grimm showed that there was a regular set of consonantal differences between
the Germanic languages and the others of the Indo-​European family, which
dated from the period of divergence of Proto-​Germanic from the other Indo-​
European varieties. The effects of Grimm’s Law in Old English can be seen
through comparing groups of cognates, that is, words in different languages
with a common ancestor (cf. Latin co +​ gnatus ‘born together’). Thus, for
instance, p in other Indo-​European languages corresponds to f/​v in Germanic
6 Description
languages, e.g. FATHER (German Vater, but Latin pater, French père, Italian
padre, Sanskrit pitar-​), FOOT (Dutch voet, but Latin pes, ped-​, French pied,
Sanskrit padám FO OTS TEP ), etc.
The discovery of such shared linguistic features has made it possible to
reconstruct the relationships of the languages which derive from Proto-​Indo-​
European. However, it is worth remembering that, just as children derive
some of their linguistic behaviour from their parents but are also strongly
influenced by their peer group, so language-​varieties ‘borrow’ usages from
those language-​varieties with which they come into contact and transmit
these acquired characteristics to future generations. Indeed, without such
contacts the processes of linguistic change would have been much slower in
operation: such a slow-​moving pattern is observable in languages which have
little contact with others (for instance Icelandic, which has been an isolated
language for much of the last thousand years, has changed little compared
with English during the same period). The history of English is not one of
internal evolution, hermetically sealed from outside influences. Rather, its his-
tory is one of constant and dynamic interaction between inherited usage and
the languages with which it has come into contact.

1.3 External history

It is traditional to distinguish between external history, i.e. the changing
functions of varieties of the vernacular in relation to other languages and to
broader developments in society, and internal history, i.e. the changing forms
of the language. This distinction has been adopted here for the sake of simpli-
city of organisation, although it is worth remembering that linguistic function
and linguistic form are closely related over time and have affected each other
very profoundly. Indeed, although there is scholarly controversy about the
exact processes involved in language change, it seems clear in broad terms that
change is the result of the interaction of external and internal developments.
The earliest forms of English were very different from those in present-​
day use, and the modern configuration has taken many centuries to emerge.
The history of English is traditionally divided into a sequence of epochs
distinguished by certain language-​ external (‘extralinguistic’) events and
language-​internal (‘intralinguistic’) differences.
When the Germanic invaders began to settle in what had been a province
of the Roman Empire, Britannia, they developed there a distinct variety of
Germanic which has become known as English. The following broad periods
are generally recognised, although there is a good deal of scholarly debate
about the precise boundaries between them.
Prehistoric Old English (‘pre-​ Old English’): the period before written
records, roughly 450–​650/​700 C E . During this period English diverged from
the other members of the Germanic group to become a distinct language.
Old English, referred to sometimes as Anglo-​Saxon after the Germanic
tribes (Angles, Saxons) who used it: the period from the appearance of written
 Introduction 7
records in English to the Norman Conquest of 1066. During this period,
English was used nationally for the documentary purposes of contemporary
government. It also had a literary function: the epic poem Beowulf was copied
in a manuscript dating from c. 1000 C E , and the end of the period saw the
emergence of a formidable native prose tradition with the composition of
The Anglo-​Saxon Chronicle and the religious homilies of Ælfric and Wulfstan.
Most Old English which has come down to us is written in the West Saxon
dialect, since the national focus of power for much of the period lay in the
southwestern kingdom of Wessex. However, the Old English written record
provides evidence for at least three other dialect-​groupings: Old Mercian in
the Midlands, Old Northumbrian in northern England and in what later
became Lowland Scotland to the south of the Clyde-​Forth line, and Kentish
in south-​east England.
Towards the end of the Old English period, large numbers of North
Germanic (Norse) peoples settled in northern England. Their language, in
part because (so some scholars have argued) it seems to have been to a degree
mutually intelligible with local varieties of Old English, had a profound effect
on the subsequent history of English beyond the area of primary Norse
settlement. However, Norse left little mark on the written record until after
the Norman Conquest of 1066.

NOT E : The term Anglo-​Saxon has in recent years become controversial,

largely because of its racially inflected connotations in the United States.
As yet, no other expression has found universal acceptance to refer to the
period from the Germanic settlements/​invasions in Britain to the Norman
Conquest; ‘early medieval’ has been suggested, but that phrase presents
some problems of definition, and it occludes the tribal identifications of the
settlers/​invaders, which it is important to distinguish if the linguistic and cul-
tural developments of the period are to be understood. Insofar as is possible,
however, the term ‘Anglo-​Saxon’ is avoided in this book.

Middle English: the period from the Norman Conquest to the arrival of
printing in Britain in 1476. The Conquest saw the large-​scale replacement
of the pre-​ Conquest aristocracy and ecclesiastical establishment with a
French-​speaking and European-​centred elite. Although English remained
in widespread use in speech, it lost in national status in writing; documen-
tary functions were taken over by Latin, which was undergoing a revival in
Western Europe, while many literary functions were taken over by varieties
of French. The French-​speaking elite seems to have shifted quite rapidly and
generally to the use of the vernacular in speech, but French remained in pres-
tigious use until at least the end of the fourteenth century. English, for much
of the Middle Ages, was essentially of local significance, primarily used in its
written form for initial education and for the production of texts with a local
readership; since its cultural currency was local, it was strongly marked by
dialectal variation in writing. This situation changed towards the end of the
period. Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written for an aristocratic and
8 Description
metropolitan audience c. 1390–​1400, reflects one stage in the emergence of
the vernacular as having a national significance, as does the translation of the
Bible into English associated with the reformist Wycliffite movement at the
end of the fourteenth century. Towards the end of the Middle English period,
distinct varieties of the language emerged outside England: Older Scots in
Lowland Scotland, and Hiberno-​English in eastern Ireland.

Early Modern English: the period from 1476 to the early eighteenth century.
Caxton’s introduction of printing to England at the end of the fifteenth century
coincided with the increasing elaboration of English as a vernacular capable of
being used for a much wider set of cultural functions. The role of English was
given impetus by the Protestant Reformation, which placed a religious duty
of literacy on all, and provided national texts for the purpose: the vernacular
Bible and Prayer Book. This national role coincided with the standardisation of
written English and with the emergence during the sixteenth century of a pres-
tigious form of pronunciation. Evolving class-​structures in society, notably the
rise of a powerful London bourgeoisie, provided audiences for sophisticated
vernacular texts, such as the dramas of Elizabethan and Jacobean England,
and the prestige of the vernacular was reinforced by the victories of the rising
middle classes in the mid-​seventeenth-​century Civil War.
The foundation of the modern British state following the Act of Union
between Scotland, and England and Wales (1707) may be taken as an external
marker of the end of the Early Modern period. In Scotland, Older Scots
continued to be used up to this date, although it underwent severe compe-
tition from the forces of Anglicisation, particularly in religious discourse.
During the Early Modern period, new varieties of English/​Scots appeared
in overseas settlements such as the Plantations in Northern Ireland from the
end of the sixteenth century (leading to Ulster Scots), and in the new British
colonies in North America.
The Old, Middle and Early Modern English periods have sometimes been
classed together as ‘Early English’. This book is primarily concerned with this
Early English period.

Late Modern English: the period from the early eighteenth century to the pre-
sent day. Tendencies already prefigured in earlier centuries, such as the devel-
opment of mass literacy and of urban varieties, came to fruition during this
period. It is also the period when full elaboration of the English language was
most clearly achieved, reflected most notably by the appearance of large-​scale
codifications such as Dr Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of 1755, and prescrip-
tive grammars such as Bishop Robert Lowth’s Short Introduction of 1762.
Above all, the defining linguistic characteristic of this period is the spread
of English beyond its place of origin, to the various parts of the old Empire
(including, significantly, to enslaved peoples), and to the postcolonial societies
that succeeded it. Later still, with the cultural hegemony of the United States,
English has become dominant in the new electronic media.
 Introduction 9
After 1707 Older Scots developed into Modern Scots, but became more
restricted in register, to non-​prestigious speech and to specialised usages,
e.g. in the verse of Robert Burns. Subsequent attempts to reinstate Scots as
a national, i.e. Scottish, vernacular rather than as a collection of local var-
ieties have met so far with mixed success. Other varieties within the English-​
language continuum have emerged as elaborated usages in their own right, e.g.
Indian English, where a special variety with its own distinctive grammatical,
lexical, and accentual properties has emerged as a national prestigious usage.
It is interesting that many of these varieties derive not from the prestigious
usages of the British Isles but from ‘non-​standard’ ones.

1.4 Internal history

All the developments in the social function of English described above left
their mark on the internal evolution of the language, at every level: in pronun-
ciation and spelling, in grammar, and in vocabulary. The following is a brief
sketch of material covered in greater detail later in this book; it is offered here
as an outline for reference.

Spelling: Towards the end of the Old English period, West Saxon spelling
became dominant in written records, for reasons already given above; but
during the Middle English period it became usual for dialectal variation to
be manifested in spelling. There are therefore, for instance, no fewer than 500
ways of spelling the simple word THROUGH in Middle English, ranging from
fairly recognisable thurgh, thorough, and þorowe to exotic-​seeming yhurght,
trghug, and trowffe. As long as English was used simply on a local basis, as
it was for much of the Middle English period, this practice was compara-
tively unproblematic, since the writing conventions of each locality could be
accepted comparatively easily within that locality as an appropriate reflec-
tion of pronunciation. However, the inconvenience of not having a national
system became much more apparent when English started to take on national
functions once again. By the beginning of the fifteenth century the usage
developed in London was starting to take on a national role, and London
spelling of this period is in its essentials the basis of the Present-​Day English
pattern. During the sixteenth century, a parallel standardised Scottish system
competed for a while with London spelling in Scotland. A slightly modified
form of the London system appeared in the United States at the end of the
eighteenth century (thus distinctions of the coloured-​colored type), and has
been subsequently sustained there and elsewhere.

the letter ϸ corresponds to Present-​

NOT E : Day English th. See further
Chapter 3 below.

Pronunciation: The reconstruction of pronunciation during the Old and

Middle English periods is based upon a mixture of evidence of greater or
10 Description
lesser value: the interpretation of spellings, the analysis of rhyming practice
in verse, and comparison with other languages and with later states of the
language. The major development in the history of English is a phenomenon
called the Great Vowel Shift, which affected the ‘long vowels’ of later Middle
English. This sound-​change, which probably arose in London as a result of
complex processes of social interaction, may be dated to the period between
1400 and 1600 by the evidence of words coming into the language. Thus doubt
and guile, words derived from French which entered the language before 1400,
were subjected to the diphthongisation processes of the Shift, while soup and
tureen, later adoptions, were not so subjected.
The evidence for a standardised form of pronunciation is uncertain until
the sixteenth century. In 1589 the author of The Arte of English Poesie, prob-
ably George Puttenham, advises the accomplished poet to adopt the accen-
tual usage of the better brought vp sort:

ye shall therfore take the vsuall speach of the Court, and that of London
and the shires lying about London within lx. myles, and not much aboue.

The history of standardised pronunciation is a complex matter, and the evo-

lution of present-​day prestigious accents is a matter of interaction of var-
ieties rather than a simple process of descent. However, broadly speaking,
Puttenham’s description still holds for England at least, although other pres-
tigious accents are found widely throughout the English-​speaking world.
Thus the accent-​component of Scottish Standard English is prestigious in
Scotland, and the accentual variety known as General American is presti-
gious in the United States.

Grammar: In grammar, the major change between Old and Present-​ Day
English is a shift found to a greater or lesser extent in most of the Western
European languages. Whereas the relationships within and between phrases in
Present-​Day English are largely expressed by word-​order, in Old English these
relationships are expressed to a much greater extent by special endings attached
to words. These endings are called inflexions. This shift is often referred to by
scholars as a change from synthesis to analysis in grammatical relationships.
The Old English inflexional system means that Old English word-​order
can be much more flexible than that of its descendant. Thus, in Present-​Day
English

(1) TH E LO R D BI NDS THE S ERVANT

(2) TH E S ERVA NT BI NDS THE LORD

mean very different things. The word-​order indicates the relative functions of
the phrases the lord and the servant. This was not necessarily the case in Old
English. Sentence (1) above can be translated into Old English as
 Introduction 11

(3) Se hlāford bindeϸ ϸone cnapan.

However, it could also be translated as

(4) Ϸone cnapan bindeϸ se hlāford.

(5) Se hlāford ϸone cnapan bindeϸ.

and so on. In sentences (3)–​(5) above, the phrase se hlāford, because it is in the
so-​called nominative case, with a nominative form of the determiner equiva-
lent to Present-​Day English ‘the/​that’ (se), is always the subject of the clause
in whatever position it appears. And, because it is in the so-​called accusa-
tive case, with an accusative form of the determiner (ϸone) and an accusative
inflexion on the accompanying noun (-​an), ϸone cnapan is always the direct
object of the clause. The cases, not the word-​order, here determine the rela-
tionship between the two phrases. There were conventions in Old English that
placed the subject in initial position, but these conventions could easily be
departed from for stylistic effect.

NOT E :Some of the technical terms just used, e.g. ‘determiner’, may be
unfamiliar to some readers. They will be defined further in Chapters 2 and
3 below.

This system did not survive intact into the Middle English period; most
scholars believe that interaction with Norse encouraged the loss of inflexions,
and the conventions of word-​order, whereby subject/​object positioning had
become stylistically formalised, became more fixed to take over the task ori-
ginally performed by inflexions. The Present-​Day English pattern resulted.
However, it is wrong to describe Present-​Day English as wholly uninflected: sev-
eral inflexions remain in the noun and verb, for instance (cf. Tom, Tom’s, pig,
pig’s, pigs; love, loves, loving), and pronouns are strongly marked for case,
number and gender (she/​he, her/​his/​him, it/​its, they/​them/​their).

Lexicon: Perhaps most obviously, there have been changes in the lexicon
between Old and Present-​Day English, and these changes reflect the kinds of
linguistic contacts which the language has undergone. Although much of the
core vocabulary of English is derived from Old English –​e.g. hand, head, wife,
child, stone, name, man, fish, ride, choose, bind, love, etc. –​the lexicon in gen-
eral has been greatly augmented by borrowings from other languages.
Norse has affected some of the most basic features of the language, such
as the pronoun system –​they, them, and their are all, scholars generally agree,
derived from Norse –​and the system of grammatical inflexion, e.g. the -​s
endings on some parts of the verb paradigm in love/​loves. Further, some items
of core vocabulary are Norse in origin, e.g. take, ill, egg, skin. More subtly,
cognate forms in Norse and English have developed distinct meanings, e.g.
12 Description
skirt (from Old Norse) beside shirt (from Old English), and many Norse
words are found only in some varieties, e.g. kirk.
French has had a massive effect on the range of vocabulary available in the
language. To exemplify from the noun alone: words such as action, bucket,
calendar, courtesy, damage, envy, face, grief, honour, joy, labour, marriage,
noise, opinion, people, quality, rage, reason, sound, spirit, task, use, vision,
waste, common in Present-​Day English usage, are all derived from French.
Many French words are found in high-​register contexts, and this character-
istic means that their meanings in English diverge from those in French, e.g.
commence, regard which have high-​register connotations in English not shared
by French commencer, regarder.
Of course, numerous other languages have had an effect on English
vocabulary, reflecting various cultural and social developments. Latin
learning, sometimes mediated through French, has given English words such
as arbiter, pollen, junior, vertigo, and folio. Contact with the world beyond
Western Europe has given most of the European languages such words as
harem (Arabic), steppe (Russian), taboo (Tongan), chocolate (Nahuatl/​Aztec),
and imperial expansion in India gave English such items as thug, pyjama, gym-
khana, and mulligatawny.
The hospitality of English to foreign words has often been commented on;
indeed, borrowing is the characteristic method whereby English expands its
vocabulary, something which marks English off from its near relatives such
as German. Old English, like modern German, created new words through
compounds, e.g. sciprāp (cable: lit. ‘ship-​rope’); cf. German Fernseher (tele-
vision: lit. ‘far-​seer’). However, this practice is no longer a marked feature of
Present-​Day English. One reason for this change must be to do with the gram-
matical structure of the later states of the English language: there is no need
to fit borrowed forms into a complex inflexional system. Another reason is
probably to do with custom: the more English borrowed, the more borrowing
became customary; the more borrowing became customary, the more English
borrowed.

1.5 Introducing English historical linguistics

This book is designed to supply the materials for further historical study rather
than to offer a narrative or an explanatory model. However, it is perhaps
appropriate in an opening chapter to draw attention to some of the methods
involved in the practice of historical linguistics. Historians of English (often
referred to as ‘English historical linguists’) are, like all historians, interested in
such questions as what?, when?, where?, and why?
The first three of these questions are linked, and require careful analysis of the
(largely written) surviving evidence. In the Old and Middle English periods,
the primary sources of evidence are the surviving literary and documentary
manuscripts, supplemented by inscriptions on stone, wood, metal or bone,
and by place-​names; however, complex questions of context and transmission
 Introduction 13
surround all these texts, and their survival, is a matter of historical accident.
In the Early Modern period this material is supplemented not only by printed
books but also from the sixteenth century onwards, by the first serious writers
on the English language: the spelling-​reformers, the early phoneticians and
grammarians, and the early lexicographers. Many of these scholars were
excellent observers of the language of their time; however, contemporary
prescriptive attitudes frequently condition their discussion. It is not possible,
therefore, simply to transfer methods appropriate for the study of present-​
day languages to the study of past states, since the primary records are not
only partial but also have special contexts which condition their contents; it
is thus necessary to look closely at these special contexts in order to make a
judgement about their evidential value.
This material can be supplemented by reconstruction, whereby ancestor-​
states of a language are reconstructed through studying later material. Two
methods of reconstruction are generally used by scholars, usually in com-
bination: comparative and internal. The comparative method entails com-
parison of varieties of the same language, or of related languages, in order
to study their common ancestor; thus, comparison of British, Australian, and
American English pronunciations of atom suggests that the ancestor (proto-​
form) was /​’atǝm/​, which is still the British and Australian form (cf. American
/​’adǝm/​, which sounds the same as the personal name Adam).
Internal reconstruction uses data from one variety for reconstructive
purposes. Once again, an example from American English demonstrates
the point: a comparison of the forms hit, hitter, hitting, and hits suggests
that the medial /​d/​found in American pronunciations of hitter, hitting is
an environmentally conditioned innovation. Both these methods, how-
ever, raise problems of abstraction: a reconstructed form of the language
does not allow for the repertoire of variation characteristic of all natural
languages.
The final question –​why? –​is perhaps the most controversial of all.
Most scholars believe that language change is to do with the interaction of
language-​external (social change) and language-​internal (systemic develop-
ment) processes, but there is considerable debate about how this interaction
takes place; it is inappropriate to confront the issue head-​on in an intro-
ductory textbook. However, it is an observable fact that language change
correlates with social change, and that languages change more slowly when
social change is slower.
Insights into all these questions have been made further possible because
of exciting developments in the analysis of data, notably the rise of corpus
linguistics, and of historical sociolinguistics and pragmatics. Electronic cor-
pora have enabled large-​scale quantitative research of historical data, and
insights from present-​day sociolinguistics and pragmatics, many of which
derive from quantitative approaches, are increasingly being applied to his-
torical materials: the present can be used to explain the past. Moreover,
new developments in qualitative research, especially from interdisciplinary
14 Description
perspectives, have led to a reintegration of historical linguistics and more
traditional text-​focused philology.

NOT E : For discussions of language change, several with special reference to

English, see Winfred Lehmann, Historical Linguistics (London: Routledge,
1992), April McMahon, Understanding Language Change (Cambridge:
University Press, 1994), Jeremy J. Smith, An Historical Study of English
(London: Routledge, 1996), Roger Lass, Historical Linguistics and Language
Change (Cambridge: University Press, 1997), Joan Bybee, Language
Change (Cambridge: University Press, 2015), and William Kretzschmar,
The Emergence and Development of English (Cambridge: University Press,
2018). Theoretically exciting is William Kretzschmar, The Linguistics of
Speech (Cambridge: University Press, 2007). Beginning students will find
helpful Jean Aitchison, Language Change: Progress or Decay? (Cambridge:
University Press, 2001). Recent surveys of sociolinguistic and pragmatic
approaches to historical materials, pointing to exciting new directions in
philological research, include Robert McColl Millar, English Historical
Sociolinguistics (Edinburgh: University Press, 2012), and Andreas Jucker and
Irma Taavitsainen, English Historical Pragmatics (Edinburgh: University
Press, 2013). All these books flag further reading.

1.6 A preliminary illustration

The definitions given in 1.2–​1.4 above are based on external criteria of varying
social/​cultural significance, and on broad linguistic differences. It can reason-
ably be argued that such clear-​cut criteria aligned with definite beginning and
end dates are fundamentally misleading: after all, English folk did not go
to sleep on the day before the Battle of Hastings speaking Old English and
awake the day after speaking Middle English, and indeed many of the most
important manuscripts of (say) Ælfric’s Homilies date from after the Norman
Conquest. In subsequent chapters a more detailed set of language-​internal
criteria will be offered for each of the stages of Early English distinguished
above, accompanied by a preliminary illustrative reader in Early English.
To conclude this introductory section, however, some examples of the
various language-​states described will be given, providing parallel versions
of the same text. For cultural reasons, the text which is most easily found in
parallel versions is The Lord’s Prayer. No detailed analysis of these texts is
offered here; it is enough at this stage to note that (1) the Old English passage
looks to the untutored reader like a foreign language, emphasised by the
appearance of unfamiliar letter-​forms; (2) several later medieval versions are
offered, of varying familiarity to a present-​day reader depending on the dia-
lect represented; and (3) even the Alternative Service Book version offered
as an example of Present-​Day English has certain features which might be
regarded as archaic (e.g. the use of the ‘subjunctive’ mood, for which see p. 54
below, or of the old-​fashioned word hallowed). It is suggested that students
return to these texts when they have completed the rest of the book, and carry
out some analyses of their own.
 Introduction 15

Old English (West Saxon, late ninth century)

Ϸū ūre fæder, ϸe eart on heofonum, sīe ϸīn nama gehālgod. Cume ϸīn rīce. Sīe
ϸīn wylla on eorϸan swā swā on heofonum. Syle ūs tōdæg ūrne dæghwāmlican
hlāf. And forgief ūs ūre gyltas swā swā wē forgiefaϸ ϸǣm ϸe wiϸ ūs āgyltaϸ.
And ne lǣd ϸū nā ūs on costnunge, ac ālīes ūs fram yfele.

Middle English (Kentish, 1340)

Vader oure ϸet art ine heuenes, yhalʒed by ϸin name. Cominde ϸi riche. Yworϸe
ϸi wil ase ine heuene and ine erϸe. Bread oure echedayes yef ous today. And
uorlet ous oure yeldinges ase and we uorleteϸ oure yelderes. And ne ous led
naʒt into uondinge, ac vri ous uram queade.

Middle English (Central Midlands, c. 1380)

Oure fadir, ϸat art in heuenys, halewid be ϸi name, Ϸi kyngdom come to. Be
ϸi wile don ase in heuene and in erϸe. Ʒiue to us ϸis day oure breed ouer
oϸer substaunse. And forʒiue to us oure dettes, as and we forʒiuen to oure
dettouris. And leede us not into temptaciouns, but delyuere us from yuel.

Older Scots (c. 1520)

Our fader, that art in heuenis, hallewit be thi name. Thi kingdom cum to.
Thi wil be done in erde as in heuen. Gefe to vs this day our breid ouer vthir
substaunce. And forgif to vs our dettis, as we forgef to our dettouris. And leid
vs nocht into temptacioun, bot deliuer vs fra euile.

Early Modern English (Book of Common Prayer, 1549)

Oure father whiche art in heauen, hallowed by thy name. Thy kyngdom come.
Thy wyll be done in earth as it is in heauen. Geue vs this daye our dayly bread.
And forgeue vs oure trespasses, as we forgeue them that trespass agaynst vs.
And leade vs not into temptacion. But deliuer vs from euell.

Present-​Day English (Alternative Service Book)

Our Father in heaven, your name be hallowed; your kingdom come, your will
be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our
sins, as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. And do not bring
us to the time of trial, but save us from evil.
newgenprepdf

2 Describing language

2.1 Introduction 16
2.2 The levels of language 17
2.3 Speech and writing 18
2.4 Phonetics and phonology 19
2.5 Grammar and lexicon 26

2.1 Introduction
If we want to describe something, we need special terms to categorise its
various parts. Thus, if we want to talk about, say, motor-​cars or flowers, we
need technical terms: engine, tyre, exhaust, petal, stem, leaf. The same goes
for language and the academic discipline, linguistics, which seeks to under-
stand it. Without a distinct and precise set of descriptive terms, any discus-
sion about language is little more than vague generalisation, liable to produce
misunderstanding.
The ability to describe language (the traditional term is grammar, though
this term is used with a more restricted currency elsewhere in this chapter) can
be regarded as an enabling skill. This point has to be made since for many
folk (and, for many years, for many schoolteachers) ‘grammar’ means a set of
prescriptive rules to be followed to accord with socially defined educational
norms. In this book, grammar means description, not prescription.
The trouble is that many people find the special language generally used for
talking about language rather tricky and, indeed, repellent. One reason may
be that linguistic categorisation can seem unappealingly technical to those
students of humanities who see their subject as opposed to, rather than com-
plementary with, the so-​called ‘hard’ sciences.
Another reason may be because scholars in the field of linguistics have two
habits which can seem annoying. One is the habit of using the terminology of
language description in subtly different ways depending on which particular
school of linguistics the scholar adheres to. Another is the habit of frequently
developing new terminology to deal with the refinements of classification
which linguists seek to make.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003199472-3
 Describing language 17
In this book, an attempt has been made to avoid using only those technical
terms that are in very common agreed use by linguists. Thus those already used
(in Chapter 1 above) will not, it is hoped, have been too much of an obstacle.
However, some terminology cannot be avoided, and this chapter introduces
and defines some of the most important of those terms and notions which
will regularly appear in the chapters that follow. Many, perhaps most, of these
terms will be familiar to readers, and those who feel confident of their grasp
of linguistic terminology are welcome to skip this chapter.
It is important to note that the account given here is only the very briefest
sketch of linguistic categories. If students wish to study the subject fur-
ther, they should consult some of the books referred to in the Annotated
Bibliography in Part III. You should also develop the habit, when puzzled by
a technical term in later chapters, of consulting the Thematic Index in Part
III, whereby (it is hoped) definitions of all terms used can be found easily.

2.2 The levels of language

To understand how language works, a model may be useful. Figure 2.1 is
an attempt to schematise the way in which language is used to communicate
ideas. The deepest level of language, in this diagram, is semantics, i.e. the level
of meaning. Given that language is about the transmission of meaning from
one person to another, it seems perverse to ignore it here. However, there are
philosophical questions as to whether semantics can be deemed properly a
part of the linguistic system, and semantics itself will not be a central part of
the discussion in this book.
Meaning is expressed linguistically through the grammar and lexicon of
a language. The lexicon of a language is its wordstock, whereas grammar is
to do with the way in which words are put together to form sentences. Most

Figure 2.1 The levels of language

18 Description
readers are able to recognise words in English since they are clearly marked
in our writing-​system, i.e. by spaces being left between them; and the same
goes for sentences, which typically begin with a capital letter and end with
a full stop. In turn, the grammar and lexicon of a language are transmitted
to other language-​users through speech or (a comparatively recent develop-
ment in human history) through writing. The remainder of this chapter is
divided into sections in accordance with this categorisation of the levels of
language.

2.3 Speech and writing

The relationship between speech and writing is quite a complex one. Written
English has throughout its history been an alphabetic language, meaning
that is a broad correlation between individual speech segments and written
symbols. The term used for these written symbols, letters, does not need much
definition here; the traditional method of teaching children to read, phonics,
is based on the speech segment/​written-​symbol correlation (e.g. ‘C –​ A –​ T ’
says ‘C AT ’).

NOT E : Languages like English, whose writing-​systems offer a broad mapping

between speech segment and written symbol are known as phonographic
languages, as opposed to logographic languages, such as Chinese, that deploy
symbols to signify notions. Of course, logographs are found in English as
well, e.g. numerals such as ‘8’, which maps onto English eight, French huit,
Finnish kahdeksan, etc. The well-​known emojis are also logographs; the term
emoji is a compound, bringing together Japanese e (‘picture’), mo (‘write’)
and ji (‘character’), clearly aligning with Japan’s writing-​system, the kanji, a
logographic system.

However, this correlation has been at various times greatly obscured

by various conventional usages, and by a temporal lag between writing
and speech. Thus for instance, in Present-​Day English, the letter I has
various realisations in speech depending on its position in relation to other
letters, cf. ship, life, spaghetti. The same goes for special clusters of letters
such as th (cf. thing, this), or ‘silent’ groups such as gh in night, through.
It is for this reason that modern teachers tend to accompany the phonic
method of teaching reading in English with a shape-​based approach called
look-​and-​say.

NOT E : The relationship between speech and writing has long been understood.
Greek and Roman linguists actually devised a special way of categorising
these relationships: the so-​called ‘doctrine of littera’. This doctrine was well
known during the Early English period, and indeed underpins (at a distance,
admittedly) the present-​day ‘phonics’ teaching method. According to this
categorisation, the letter (littera) consisted of a written manifestation (figura)
and a spoken manifestation (potestas): the letter also had a ‘name’ (nomen).
 Describing language 19
Students of writing-​systems are, in addition to spelling, interested also in
such issues as script (i.e. different models of handwriting), font (i.e. different
kinds of typeface), and punctuation. Present-​Day English cursive (i.e. ‘joined-​
up’) script, as taught in schools, emerged from the ‘round hand’ characteristic-
ally used by clerks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which replaced
the earlier ‘secretary hand’. This book is printed in a ‘Roman’ font; Roman
fonts were first devised by the great Venetian printers of the Renaissance, who
wished to transfer to the new medium of print their own conception of scripts
surviving from classical antiquity. Issues to do with script, font and punc-
tuation are increasingly interesting linguists, and will be touched on further
briefly in Part II below; for further reading on these topics, see the Annotated
Bibliography in Part III.

2.4 Phonetics and phonology

With regard to speech, a distinction may be made between the linguistic
sub-​disciplines phonology and phonetics. Phonology is to do with the way in
which sounds are grouped to produce a meaningful utterance; thus we dis-
tinguish the meaning of pat and cat because the replacement of the segment
represented by the letter p with one represented by the letter c changes the
meaning of the word. It is worth noting that phonologies are not necessarily
the same for varieties of the same language. Thus Scots, for instance, makes
a phonological distinction between the sounds represented by w, wh which
Southern English speakers do not (cf. the pronunciation of which, witch in
Scots and Southern English).
The science of phonetics, on the other hand, is to do with the way in which
sounds are made, i.e. the whole process whereby air emitted from the lungs
interacts with the various organs of the vocal tract. (A diagram illustrating the
main part of the vocal tract appears as Figure 2.2.)
To exemplify the concerns of phonetics, we might investigate the realisation
of the sound represented by rr in borrow. Although I lived for over 40 years in
Scotland, I was brought up as a southern Englishman, and my pronunciation
of this sound is what phoneticians call an ‘approximant’: as the air comes up
from my lungs my tongue is curved up to approach the roof of my mouth, but
it does not touch any part of it. However, many Scots realise the sound differ-
ently as ‘taps’ or ‘trills’, whereby the tips of their tongues actually touch the
roofs of their mouths. No meaning-​change occurs –​I can understand Scots
speakers when they say borrow, and they claim to understand me –​but the
realisation of the rr-​sound in the two varieties is very different.
Such distinctions, both in phonology and in phonetic realisation, are
matters of accent. For various reasons it is extremely useful for scholars to have
a set of conventional notations for reflecting pronunciation, supplementing
the traditional letters. The best-​known set of conventions is that developed
by the International Phonetic Association (IPA), whose chart (in simplified
form, omitting symbols not generally used in varieties of English) appears as
20 Description
Figure 2.3; the meaning of the symbols is outlined in 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 below.
When these symbols are being used to express phonological distinctions, it is
conventional to place them in slash brackets, thus: /​…/​, e.g. /​pat, pɪt/​, where
the change from /​a/​to /​ɪ/​changes the meaning of the word, i.e. pat, vs. pit.
Realisations involving a change of meaning are referred to as phonemes. When
a phonetic realisation is attempted, square brackets are used, […]. Thus [pɪt,
pɪt̪] are two different realisations of the word pit where the tongue is slightly
differently placed in the mouth in realising the phoneme /​t/​, but where there
is no resulting change of meaning. Such realisations involving no change of
meaning are referred to as allophones.

Figure 2.2 The vocal tract 

 Describing language 21

Figure 2.3 Phonetic symbols 

2.4.1 Vowels
Sound-​segments may be classified as vowels and consonants. Vowels may be
defined as those sounds where the airstream from the lungs does not give rise
to audible friction, or is not prevented from escaping through the mouth.
All other sound-​segments are consonants. Vowels may be defined as either
monophthongs or diphthongs. The difference between diphthong and mono-
phthong is as follows:

diphthongs are vowel-​clusters with a glide from one vowel to another

without any intervening consonant;
monophthongs are so-​called ‘pure’ vowels without any real change in that
vowel’s quality in its duration.

Comparison of most Present-​Day English pronunciations of doubt (with a

diphthong) and soup (with a monophthong) will demonstrate the difference.
Different vowels are made by a combination of the following
procedures: raising and lowering the tongue; pushing the tongue forward or
22 Description
dragging it back; opening the mouth or making it less open (on the scale open,
mid-​open, mid-​close and close); rounding or unrounding the lips.

It is usual to define a vowel with reference to the positioning of the highest

point of the tongue combined with the presence or absence of lip-​rounding.
Thus for the sound represented by ee in feed, the highest point of the tongue
is at the front of the mouth and the lips are unrounded, whereas for the
sound represented by oo in food (Received Pronunciation (RP) accent) the
highest point of the tongue is at the back of the mouth and the lips are
rounded. Figure 2.4 shows the configuration of the tongue in relation to
the lips when making the vowels in feed, food, and helps account for the
appearance of Figure 2.3. Figure 2.3 is a conventionalised diagram showing
the rough location of each vowel-​sound within the mouth; the positioning
of vowels indicates the height of the highest point of the tongue when that
sound is made.
The following list of phonetic symbols for vowels is derived from the nota-
tion of the IPA. Each symbol is accompanied by a keyword; the underlined
letter in the keyword corresponds broadly to the sound symbolised. The
pronunciations symbolised are for the most part those of a speaker of
Received Pronunciation (in Britain =​RP) or a speaker of so-​called General
American (commonly used in the USA =​GenAm), but some other accents
(and languages) are also referred to.

NOT E :RP and GenAm are what are sometimes referred to as ‘reference
accents’, i.e. accents which are comparatively well described and generally
taught to foreign learners of the language. John Wells, in his still-​authorita-
tive Accents of English (Cambridge: University Press, 1982, 117–​118) defines
the two accents as follows:

Position of vocal organs in feed, food

Figure 2.4 
 Describing language 23
Geographically, RP is associated with England, though not with any par-
ticular locality within England. It is the most general type of educated British
pronunciation (although there are many highly educated English people who
do not use it). Socially, it is characteristic of the upper and middle class,
insofar as members of the latter class, sociologically defined, speak with an
accent not localizable within England. … ‘General American’ is a term that
has been applied to the two-​thirds of the American population who do not
have a recognizably local accent in the sense just mentioned. This is the type
of American English pronunciation taught to learners of English as a for-
eign language … ‘General American’ is by no means a uniform accent; and
this is one of the reasons why the name ‘General American’ is nowadays
looked at somewhat askance … [Nevertheless] it is convenient to use it as a
basis for comparison.

The following are common monophthongs, i.e. ‘pure’ vowels, to be found in

various states of the history of English, accompanied by a definition in terms
of tongue-​and lip-​position, as illustrated by the following keywords (modified
from Wells 1982: xviii–​xix).

* =​as pronounced by an RP-​speaker; +​=​as pronounced by a speaker

of GenAm;
** =​as pronounced by a Scots speaker; +​+​=​French ‘YOU’ (sg.)

ɪ FLEECE*,+​ front, close, unrounded

y TU+​+​ front, close, rounded
e SAY** front, mid-​close, unrounded (cf. French ‘e-​acute’,
é in été ‘summer’)
ɛ DRESS+​ front, mid-​open, unrounded
a TRAP** front, open, unrounded
u GOOSE*, +​ back, close, rounded
o GOAT+​, ** back, mid-​close, rounded
ɔ THOUGHT*, +​ back, mid-​open, rounded
ʌ STRUT*, +​ back, mid-​open, unrounded
ɑ PALM* back, open, unrounded (cf. the stressed vowel in
GenAm Moscow)

The following vowels are more centralised within the vowel-​space:

ɪ KIT*, +​ centralised, mid-​close, unrounded

Ʊ FOOT*, +​ centralised, mid-​close, rounded

The following front, unrounded vowel is variously located by phoneticians,

usually to midway between open and mid-​open:

æ TRAP*, +​
24 Description
The following unrounded vowel is central within the vowel-​space:

ə COMMA*, +​

NOT E :Most native English speakers find [y]‌the hardest vowel to pronounce.
Try saying the vowel in mean, and then round your lips as you say it –​without
moving your tongue.

For the purposes of this book, diphthongs are probably best thought of
as clusters of two monophthongs. The following keywords demonstrate the
range of diphthongs in RP and GenAm:

eɪ FACE*, +​
əʊ GOAT*
aɪ PRICE*, +​
ɔɪ CHOICE*, +​
aʊ MOUTH*, +​
ɪǝ NEAR*
εə SQUARE*
ʊǝ CURE*

2.4.2 Consonants
To help understand this section it may be useful to look again at Figure 2.2.
Different consonants are made by a combination of the following procedures:

bringing one of the organs of the vocal tract (e.g. teeth, lips, tongue) into
contact or very near proximity with another;
varying the nature of the contact between the organs of the vocal tract,
such as allowing a small explosion of air to escape as the organs sep-
arate (plosive, e.g. b in bat) or allowing a small quantity of air to pass
between them, producing a hissing sound (fricative, e.g. s in sat);
or vibrating or opening the vocal folds or (an older term) vocal cords, a pair
of membranes housed in the larynx between which passes the air on
its way from the lungs to the mouth.

NOTE : The larynx is an organ made of cartilage, a substance similar to bone

but less hard. At the front the larynx forms a marked point, and is particularly
prominent in slim male humans; it is thus often referred to as the ‘Adam’s Apple’.

Consonants may be defined therefore in threefold terms, with reference to:

the place of articulation,

the manner of articulation,
and the state of the vocal folds.
 Describing language 25
The most important places of articulation (leaving aside the tongue) are
the lips, the teeth, the alveolar ridge (a prominent ridge of cartilage behind
the top teeth), the hard palate and the soft palate (or velum). We can thus refer
to consonants as being bilabial (made with the lips, e.g. b in bat), labio-dental
(made with upper teeth and lower lip, e.g. f in fat), dental (made with tongue
and teeth, e.g. th in that), alveolar (made with tongue and alveolar ridge, e.g.
d in dog), palatal (made with tongue and hard palate, e.g. y in yet), palato-​
alveolar (made with tongue, hard palate and alveolar ridge, e.g. sh in ship),
velar (made with tongue and velum, e.g. k in kin) and labial-velar (made with
tongue and velum accompanied by lip-​rounding, e.g. w in wit).
Most English consonants are produced as fricatives or plosives, but other
manners of articulation include nasal, where the airstream is diverted to
emerge through the nostrils (e.g. m in mat, n in not), laterals, where a partial
closure is made in the mouth but air allowed to escape around it (e.g. l in lap),
and approximants and trills/​taps. Affricates are a special category, which may
be defined for simplicity as units which begin as plosives and end as fricatives
(e.g. ch in chat, dg in judge).
The state of the vocal folds also affects the nature of consonants. When the
vocal folds are vibrating round the airflow, we refer to sounds as voiced; when
the vocal folds are relaxed we refer to the sounds produced as voiceless. Thus,
in most accents of English, the initial sound in

PAT is a voiceless plosive,

BAT is a voiced plosive,
SAP is a voiceless fricative,
ZAP is a voiced fricative.

As with the vowels, the following list of phonetic symbols for consonants is
derived from the notation of the IPA. The pronunciations symbolised are for
the most part those of a speaker of RP (in Britain) or a speaker of GenAm,
but some other accents (and languages) are also referred to. The following
are common consonant-​ sounds in varieties of English, accompanied by
descriptions in terms of state of the vocal folds, place and manner of articu-
lation. As before, a set of illustrative keywords is used.

b BAT voiced bilabial plosive

p PAT voiceless bilabial plosive
v VAT voiced labio-​dental fricative
f FAT voiceless labio-​dental fricative
θ THIN voiceless dental fricative
ð THAT voiced dental fricative
t TIP voiceless alveolar plosive
d DIP voiced alveolar plosive
s SIP voiceless alveolar fricative
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
vents, — forma le projet de rendre visite à ses protégés afin de voir
de près le bonheur qu’elle leur avait donné et de recevoir leurs
remerciements.
Mais quand elle entra, vers le soir, dans la chambre somptueuse
où le duc et la duchesse venaient de se retirer, elle fut étrangement
surprise ; car, loin de témoigner de la joie et de la remercier, ils se
jetèrent à ses pieds, les yeux pleins de larmes, en sanglotant de
douleur.
— Est-il possible, dit la fée, et qu’est-ce que je vois ! N’êtes-vous
point satisfaits de votre sort ?
— Hélas ! madame, nous sommes tellement malheureux que
nous allons mourir de chagrin si vous ne prenez pitié de nous.
— Quoi ! Vous ne vous trouvez pas assez riches ?
— Nous ne le sommes que trop !
— Serait-ce qu’il vous déplaît de ne voir tomber de vos lèvres
que des pièces d’or toujours, et, par goût du changement, vous
plairait-il que j’en fisse sortir des diamants ou des saphirs gros
comme des œufs de tourterelles ?
— Ah ! gardez-vous-en bien !
— Dites-moi donc ce qui vous afflige, car, pour moi, je ne le
saurais deviner.
— Grande fée, il est très agréable de se chauffer lorsqu’on a
froid, de dormir dans un lit de plume, de manger à sa faim, mais il
est une chose meilleure encore que toutes celles-là. C’est de se
baiser sur les lèvres quand on s’aime ! Or, depuis que vous nous
avez faits riches, nous ne connaissons plus ce bonheur, hélas ! car
chaque fois que nous ouvrons nos bouches pour les unir, il en sort
de détestables sequins ou d’horribles ducats, et c’est de l’or que
nous baisons.
— Ah ! dit la fée, je n’avais point pensé à cet inconvénient. Mais il
n’y a pas de remède à cela, et vous ferez bien d’en prendre votre
parti.
 — Jamais ! Laissez-vous attendrir. Ne pourriez-vous rétracter
l’affreux présent que vous nous avez accordé ?
— Oui bien. Mais sachez que vous perdriez non seulement le
don de répandre de l’or, mais avec lui toutes les richesses acquises.
— Eh ! que nous importe !
— Soit donc fait, dit la fée, selon votre volonté.
Et, touchés de la baguette, il se retrouvèrent, par un froid temps
de bise, dans une grange ouverte à tous les vents ; ce qu’ils furent
naguère, ils l’étaient de nouveau : affamés, demi-nus, tremblants de
froidure comme des oiselets sans plumes et sans nid. Mais ils se
gardaient bien de se plaindre, et se jugeaient trop heureux, ayant les
lèvres sur les lèvres.
 LES ACCORDAILLES

Quand la princesse Othilde vint au monde, on se récria

d’admiration et d’étonnement : d’admiration, parce qu’elle était bien
la plus jolie mignonne qu’on puisse imaginer ; d’étonnement, parce
qu’elle était à peine aussi grande qu’un poing fermé d’enfant.
Couchée dans un berceau pas plus large que la main ni plus long
que le doigt, vous auriez dit d’un oiseau des Iles, encore sans
plumes, dans son nid. Le roi et la reine ne pouvaient se lasser
d’admirer ses jambes, ses pieds roses, qui auraient tenu dans un
bas de poupée, son ventre de souris blanche, son visage qu’un
pétale de marguerite eût suffi à cacher. A vrai dire, ils s’inquiétaient
de la voir si extraordinairement petite, et leur royale grandeur ne
pouvait supporter l’idée d’avoir donné le jour à une naine ; mais ils
espéraient que leur fille grandirait, sans rien perdre de sa
gentillesse. Ils furent bien trompés dans leur attente. En demeurant
gracieuse autant qu’il est possible, elle grandit si peu qu’à cinq ans
elle n’était pas plus haute qu’un brin d’herbe, et qu’en jouant dans
les allées elle était obligée de se dresser sur la pointe des pieds
pour cueillir les violettes. On fit mander des médecins fameux, on
promit de leur donner les plus riches récompenses s’ils parvenaient
à hausser de quelques pouces seulement la taille de la princesse ;
ils se concertèrent avec gravité, les mains croisées sur le ventre,
clignant de l’œil sous le verre de leurs bésicles, inventèrent des
drogues qu’Othilde fut obligée de boire, des onguents infaillibles
dont on la frotta soir et matin. Tout cela ne fit que blanchir ; elle ne
cessait pas d’être une adorable naine ; lorsqu’elle se divertissait en
compagnie de son bichon favori, elle lui passait entre les pattes sans
avoir besoin de baisser la tête. Le roi et la reine eurent recours aux
Fées, avec lesquelles ils avaient toujours eu d’excellents rapports ;
elles ne manquèrent pas de venir, celles-ci, dans des litières de drap
d’or, aux franges de pierreries, que portaient des Africains nus,
celles-là dans des chars de cristal, attelés de quatre unicornes ; il y
en eut qui trouvèrent plus commode d’entrer par la fenêtre ou par la
cheminée, sous forme d’oiseaux de paradis ou de martinets aux
ailes bleues ; mais, dès qu’elles frôlaient le parquet de la salle, elles
devenaient de belles dames habillées de satin. L’une après l’autre,
elles touchèrent Othilde de leurs baguettes, la prirent dans la main,
— elle n’était pas plus lourde qu’une grosse alouette, — la baisèrent,
lui soufflèrent sur les cheveux, firent des signes au-dessus de son
front en murmurant de toutes-puissantes paroles. Les charmes des
Fées n’eurent pas plus d’effet que la médecine des savants
hommes ; à seize ans, la princesse était encore si petite qu’il lui
arriva un matin d’être prise tout entière dans un piège à rossignols
qu’on avait mis dans le parc. Les courtisans, qui ont intérêt à tenir
les souverains en joie parce que la bonne humeur, d’ordinaire, se
montre généreuse, faisaient de leur mieux pour consoler le roi et la
reine ; ils proclamaient que rien n’est plus ridicule qu’une grande
taille, que les statures élevées ne sont, à bien considérer les choses,
que des difformités ; pour ce qui était d’eux, ils auraient bien voulu
n’avoir qu’un demi-pied de haut, — mais c’est aux races royales que
la nature réserve de telles faveurs ! — et quand ils voyaient passer
quelque énorme manant, ils se tordaient de rire en se prenant les
côtes. Les dames d’honneur, — afin que la princesse parût moins
petite à côté d’elles moins grandes — renoncèrent d’un commun
accord à porter des talons hauts, qui étaient une mode de ce temps-
là, et les chambellans prirent l’habitude de ne jamais s’approcher du
trône qu’en marchant sur les genoux. Mais ces ingénieuses flatteries
ne réussissaient pas toujours à dérider le roi ni la reine ; bien des
fois ils eurent envie de pleurer en baisant leur fillette, du bout des
lèvres, de peur de l’avaler ; et ils retenaient leurs larmes, pour ne
pas la mouiller toute. Quant à Othilde, elle ne paraissait point
chagrinée de son malheur ; elle avait même l’air de prendre grand
plaisir à mirer sa jolie petite personne dans un miroir à main, fait d’un
seul diamant un peu gros.

II

Cependant, — comme tous les désespoirs s’usent enfin par

l’accoutumance, — le roi et la reine devenaient moins tristes de jour
en jour ; sans doute ils auraient pris le parti de ne se plus désoler, s’il
ne leur était arrivé une chose bien faite pour renouveler leur douleur.
Sur le rapport qu’on lui faisait de la beauté de la princesse, — car la
renommée, qui flatte volontiers les personnes royales, avait divulgué
en tous lieux la grâce d’Othilde et non sa petitesse, — le jeune
empereur de Sirinagor se rendit amoureux d’elle, et il envoya des
ambassadeurs la demander en mariage. Vous pensez l’embarras
que causa une telle proposition ! Marier cette mignonne poupée,
grande comme une perruche, il n’y fallait pas songer. Quel homme
s’accommoderait d’une épouse qui se perdrait certainement à toute
minute dans le lit nuptial ! « Où donc êtes-vous, ma bien-aimée ? —
Là, tout près de vous, mon ami, dans un pli de l’oreiller. » Et la
demande de l’empereur de Sirinagor était d’autant plus effrayante,
qu’on le disait lui-même d’une taille colossale ; il était plus beau que
tous les princes, mais plus grand que tous les géants. Le jour de sa
naissance, il avait été impossible de trouver un berceau assez vaste
pour cet énorme prince ; on avait dû le coucher sur de longs tapis
dans la salle du trône. A trois ans, il lui fallait se baisser un peu pour
dénicher les oiseaux à la cime des chênes ! Ses parents, comme
ceux d’Othilde, avaient consulté les médecins et les Fées, tout aussi
vainement ; il avait grandi de plus en plus, d’une façon démesurée ;
lorsque ses peuples, en célébration de quelque victoire, lui
érigeaient des arcs de triomphe, il était obligé de descendre de
cheval, pour passer dessous ; et si hauts qu’ils fussent, il ne
manquait pas de heurter aux frontons la tarasque d’argent éployée
sur son casque ! Naturellement, le roi et la reine déclarèrent aux
ambassadeurs que l’union projetée était la chose du monde la plus
impossible. Mais le jeune empereur, fort colère de son tempérament,
ne se tint pas pour satisfait d’une telle réponse ; il ne voulut entendre
à rien ; l’aveu de la petite taille d’Othilde lui parut une allégation
absurde, imaginée dans l’intention de le bafouer ; et il s’écria en
coiffant son casque, dont les ailes d’argent frémirent, qu’il allait tout
mettre à feu et à sang pour venger cette injure.

III

Il fit comme il avait dit. Il y eut de terribles batailles, des villes à

sac et des populations entières passées au fil de l’épée ; tant
qu’enfin le roi et la reine virent bien que c’en serait fait d’eux et de
tout le royaume s’ils n’entraient en accommodement avec le
gigantesque conquérant qui marchait vers la capitale en enjambant
les bourgs et les forêts en flammes. Ils se hâtèrent donc de lui
demander la paix, s’engageant à ne plus lui refuser la main de leur
fille. Ils étaient, du reste, assez tranquilles sur les suites de ce
consentement ; l’empereur, à la vue d’Othilde, ne manquerait pas de
renoncer à son dessein, et s’en retournerait dans son pays avec ses
armées en vain victorieuses.
Jour fut pris pour la première entrevue des deux fiancés ; mais
elle eut lieu dans le parc, non dans le palais, parce que le vainqueur
n’aurait pas pu se tenir debout sous les plafonds des salles.
— Çà, dit-il, je ne vois pas la princesse. Ne viendra-t-elle
bientôt ?
 — Regardez à vos pieds, dit le roi.
Elle était là, en effet, dépassant à peine les plates-bandes de
l’allée ; si menue et si jolie dans sa robe d’or, le front tout reluisant de
pierreries, elle paraissait encore plus petite à côté du jeune et
magnifique empereur, dont se dressait sous le ciel l’armure
ensoleillée.
— Hélas ! dit-il.
Car il se désolait de la voir, là-bas, si charmante, mais si petite.
— Hélas ! dit-elle à son tour.
Car elle était bien marrie de le voir, là-haut, si beau, mais si
grand !
Et ils eurent des larmes, elle dans ses yeux levés, lui dans ses
yeux baissés.
— Sire, dit le roi, — pendant qu’ils se considéraient encore de
loin ! — Sire, vous le voyez, vous ne sauriez épouser ma fille. Forcés
de renoncer à l’honneur de votre alliance…
Mais il n’acheva point sa phrase, et, muet de stupeur, il regardait
la princesse et l’empereur, elle grandissant, lui rapetissant, à cause
de l’amour, plus puissant que les fées, qui les attirait l’un vers
l’autre ! Bientôt ils furent presque de même taille ; leurs lèvres se
touchaient comme les deux roses d’une même branche.
 LE MAUVAIS CONVIVE

Il régnait une grande inquiétude à la cour et dans tout le royaume

parce que le fils du roi, depuis quatre jours, n’avait pris aucune
nourriture. S’il avait eu la fièvre ou quelque autre maladie, on n’eût
pas été surpris de ce jeûne prolongé ; mais les médecins
s’accordaient à dire que le prince, n’eût été la grande faiblesse que
lui causait son abstinence, se serait porté aussi bien que possible.
Pourquoi donc se privait-il ainsi ? Il n’était pas question d’autre
chose parmi les courtisans, et même parmi les gens du commun ; au
lieu de se souhaiter le bonjour, on s’abordait en disant : « A-t-il
mangé, ce matin ? » Et personne n’était aussi anxieux que le roi lui-
même. Ce n’était pas qu’il eût une grande affection pour son fils ; ce
jeune homme lui donnait toutes sortes de mécontentements ; bien
qu’il eût seize ans déjà, il montrait la plus grande aversion pour la
politique et pour le métier des armes ; lorsqu’il assistait au conseil
des ministres, il bâillait pendant les plus beaux discours d’une façon
très malséante, et une fois, chargé d’aller, à la tête d’une petite
armée, châtier un gros de rebelles, il était revenu avant le soir, son
épée enguirlandée de volubilis et ses soldats les mains pleines de
violettes et d’églantines ; donnant pour raison qu’il avait trouvé sur
son chemin une forêt printanière, tout à fait jolie à voir, et qu’il est
beaucoup plus amusant de cueillir des fleurs que de tuer des
hommes. Il aimait à se promener seul sous les arbres du parc royal,
se plaisait à écouter le chant des rossignols quand la lune se lève ;
les rares personnes qu’il laissait entrer dans ses appartements
racontaient qu’on y voyait des livres épars sur les tapis, des
instruments de musique, guzlas, psalterions, mandores ; et, la nuit,
accoudé au balcon, il passait de longues heures à considérer, les
yeux mouillés de larmes, les petites étoiles lointaines du ciel. Si vous
ajoutez à cela qu’il était pâle et frêle comme une jeune fille, et, qu’au
lieu de revêtir les chevaleresques armures, il s’habillait volontiers de
claires étoffes de soie où se mire le jour, vous vous expliquerez que
le roi fût fort penaud d’avoir un tel fils. Mais, comme le jeune prince
était le seul héritier de la couronne, son salut était utile au bien de
l’État. Aussi ne manqua-t-on point de faire, pour le résoudre à ne
pas se laisser mourir de faim, tout ce qu’il fut possible d’imaginer. On
le pria, on le supplia ; il hochait la tête sans répondre. On fit apprêter
par des cuisiniers sans pareils les poissons les plus appétissants,
les plus savoureuses viandes, les primeurs les plus délicates ;
saumons, truites, brochets, cuissots de chevreuil, pattes d’ours,
hures de marcassins nouveau-nés, lièvres, faisans, coqs de bruyère,
cailles, bécasses, râles de rivières, chargeaient sa table à toute
heure servie, et il montait, de vingt assiettes, une bonne odeur de
fraîche verduresse ; le jugeant las des venaisons banales et des
légumes accoutumés, on lui accommoda des filets de bisons, des
râbles de chiens chinois, hachés dans des nids de salanganes, des
brochettes d’oiseaux-mouches, des griblettes de ouistitis, des
brezolles de guenuches, gourmandées de pimprenelles des Andes,
des rejetons d’hacubs cuits dans de la graisse d’antilope, des
marolins de Chandernagor et des sacramarons du Brésil dans une
pimentade aux curcas. Mais le jeune prince faisait signe qu’il n’avait
pas faim, et, après un geste d’ennui, il retombait dans une rêverie.
Les choses en étaient là, et le roi se désolait de plus en plus
lorsque l’enfant, exténué, se soutenant à peine et plus blanc que les
lys, lui parla en ces termes :
— Mon père, si vous ne voulez pas que je meure, donnez-moi
congé de quitter votre royaume, et d’aller où bon me semblera, sans
être éclairé de pas un.
— Eh ! faible comme tu es, tu t’évanouirais avant le troisième
pas, mon fils.
 — C’est pour reprendre des forces que je veux m’éloigner. Avez-
vous lu ce qu’on raconte de Thibaut-le-Rimeur, le trouvère qui fut le
prisonnier des fées ?
— Ce n’est pas ma coutume de lire, dit le roi.
— Sachez donc que, chez les fées, Thibaut mena une vie très
heureuse, et qu’il était surtout content à l’heure des repas parce que
de petits pages, qui étaient des gnomes, lui servaient pour potage
une goutte de rosée sur une feuille d’acacia, pour rôti une aile de
papillon dorée à un rayon de soleil, et, pour dessert, ce qui reste à
un pétale de rose du baiser d’une abeille.
— Un maigre dîner ! dit le roi, qui ne put s’empêcher de rire
malgré les soucis qu’il avait.
— C’est pourtant le seul qui me fasse envie. Je ne saurais me
nourrir, comme les autres hommes, de la chair des bêtes tuées, ni
des légumes nés du limon. Octroyez-moi de m’en aller chez les fées,
et, si elles me convient à leurs repas, je mangerai à ma faim et
reviendrai plein de santé.
Qu’eussiez-vous fait, à la place du roi ? Puisque le jeune prince
était sur le point de mourir, c’était une façon de sagesse que de
consentir à sa folie ; son père le laissa donc partir, n’espérant plus le
revoir.
Comme le royaume était près de la forêt de Brocéliande, l’enfant
n’eut pas beaucoup de chemin à faire pour se rendre chez les fées ;
elles l’accueillirent fort bien, non point parce qu’il était le fils d’un
puissant monarque, mais parce qu’il se plaisait à écouter le chant
des rossignols quand la lune se lève et à regarder, accoudé au
balcon, les lointaines étoiles. On donna une fête en son honneur
dans une vaste salle aux murs de marbre rose, qu’éclairaient des
lustres en diamant ; les plus belles des fées, pour le plaisir de ses
yeux, dansaient en rond, se tenant par la main, laissant traîner des
écharpes. Il éprouvait une joie si grande, malgré de cruels
tiraillements d’estomac, qu’il eût voulu que les danses durassent
toujours. Cependant il devenait de plus en plus faible, et il comprit
qu’il ne tarderait pas à mourir s’il ne prenait point quelque nourriture.
Il avoua à l’une des fées l’état où il se trouvait, osa même lui
demander à quelle heure on souperait. « Eh ! quand il vous plaira ! »
dit-elle. Elle donna un ordre, et voici qu’un page, qui était un gnome,
apporta au prince, pour potage, une goutte de rosée sur une feuille
d’acacia. Ah ! l’excellent potage ! Le convié des fées déclara qu’on
ne saurait rien imaginer de meilleur. On lui offrit ensuite pour rôti une
aile de papillon dorée à un rayon de soleil, — une épine d’aubépine
avait servi de broche, — et il la mangea d’une seule bouchée, avec
délice. Mais ce qui le charma surtout, ce fut le dessert, la trace d’un
baiser d’abeille sur un pétale de rose. « Eh bien, dit la fée, avez-vous
bien soupé, mon enfant ? » Il fit signe que oui, extasié, mais, en
même temps, il pencha la tête et mourut d’inanition. C’est qu’il était
un de ces pauvres êtres, — tels sont les poètes ici-bas, — trop purs
et pas assez, trop divins pour partager les festins des hommes, trop
humains pour souper chez les fées.
 LA TIRE-LIRE

Jocelyne était mendiante sur un chemin où ne passait personne ;

de sorte qu’il ne tombait jamais aucune monnaie dans la frêle main
lasse d’être tendue ; quelquefois, d’une branche secouée par le vent,
une fleur s’effeuillait vers la pauvresse, et l’hirondelle qui vole vite lui
faisait, dans un flouflou d’ailes, l’aumône d’un joli cri ; mais ce sont là
de chimériques offrandes que l’on ne saurait donner en payement
aux personnes avares qui vendent les choses que l’on mange ou les
choses dont on s’habille, et Jocelyne était fort à plaindre ; d’autant
plus que, née elle ne savait quand, d’elle ne savait qui, n’ayant
d’autre souvenir que celui de s’être éveillée, un matin qu’il faisait du
soleil, sous un buisson de la route, elle ne rentrait pas, le soir, dans
une de ces bonnes chaumines, pleines d’une odeur de soupe, où les
autres fillettes, après avoir tendu le front au père et à la mère,
s’endorment dans de la paille tiède, sur le coffre à pain, en face du
feu de sarment, qui s’endort aussi. Elle se résignait à grimper, dès
que montait la nuit, dans un orme ou dans un chêne, et sommeillait,
couchée le long d’une grosse branche, non loin des écureuils qui, la
connaissant bien et ne s’effrayant plus d’elle, lui sautaient sur le
bras, sur l’épaule, sur la tête, jouaient de leurs petites pattes dans
ses cheveux ébouriffés, couleur d’or et si clairs qu’il était difficile de
s’assoupir dans l’arbre, comme dans une chambre où il y a de la
lumière. Lorsque les nuits étaient fraîches, elle se serait volontiers
fourrée dans quelque nid de loriot ou de merle, si elle n’avait été trop
grande. Son habillement était fait d’un vieux sac de toile, trouvé, un
jour de chance, dans le fossé du chemin ; elle le rapiéçait de feuilles
vertes, chaque printemps ; comme elle était jolie et fraîche, avec des
joues fleurissantes, vous auriez pris cet habit pour la feuillaison
d’une rose. Pour ce qui était de sa nourriture, elle n’en connaissait
guère d’autre que les avelines du bois et les sorbes de la venelle ;
son grand régal était de manger des sauterelles grillées à point sur
un petit brasier d’herbes sèches. Vous voyez bien que Jocelyne était
la créature la plus misérable que l’on puisse imaginer, et si son sort
était déjà bien cruel durant la belle saison qui met de la chaleur dans
l’air et des fruits aux arbustes, pensez ce qu’il devait être quand la
bise saccageait les noisetiers stériles et lui gelait la peau à travers
ses loques de feuilles mortes.
Une fois, comme elle s’en revenait de sa cueillette d’avelines,
elle vit une fée, toute habillée de mousseline d’or, sortir d’entre les
verdures d’un épinier ; la fée parla d’une voix plus douce que les
plus douces musiques :
— Jocelyne, parce que tu as le cœur aimable autant que ton
visage est charmant, je veux te faire un don. Tu vois cette tire-lire,
toute petite, qui a la forme et la couleur d’un œillet éclos ? Elle
t’appartient. Ne manque pas d’y mettre tout ce que tu as de plus
précieux ; le jour où tu la casseras, elle te rendra au centuple ce
qu’elle aura reçu.
Là-dessus, la fée s’évanouit comme une flamme éteinte d’un
coup de vent, et Jocelyne, qui avait eu quelque espérance à l’aspect
de la belle dame, se sentit plus triste que jamais. Ce ne devait pas
être une bonne fée, non ! Était-il rien de plus cruel que de donner
une tire-lire à une pauvre fille qui n’avait ni sou ni maille ? Qu’y
pouvait-elle mettre, ne possédant rien ? Les seules économies
qu’elle eût faites, c’était ses souvenirs de jours sans pain, de nuits
sans sommeil dans la bise et la neige. Elle fut tentée de briser contre
les pierres ce présent qui se moquait d’elle ; elle n’osa point, le
trouvant joli ; et, pleine de mélancolie, elle pleurait ; les larmes
tombaient une à une dans la tire-lire pas plus grande qu’une fleur,
pareille à un œillet épanoui.

II

Une autre fois, il lui arriva un bonheur qui la rendit plus

malheureuse encore. Sur le chemin où ne passait personne, le fils
du Roi, au retour de la chasse, vint à passer, l’épervier au poing.
Monté sur un cheval qui secouait sa crinière de neige, vêtu de satin
bleu ramagé d’argent, la face fière et à ce point lumineuse de soleil
que l’on ne s’étonnait pas d’y voir éclore la fleur rouge des lèvres, le
prince était si beau que la mendiante crut voir un archange en habit
de seigneur. Les yeux écarquillés, la bouche ouverte, elle tendait les
bras vers lui, et elle sentait quelque chose, qui devait être son cœur,
sortir d’elle, et le suivre ! Hélas, il s’éloigna, sans même l’avoir vue.
Seule comme devant, — plus seule, d’avoir un instant cessé de
l’être, — elle se laissa tomber sur le revers du fossé, fermant les
yeux, sans doute pour que rien n’y remplaçât l’adorable vision.
Quand elle les rouvrit, mouillés de pleurs, elle aperçut à côté d’elle la
tire-lire qui ressemblait un peu à des lèvres entr’ouvertes. Elle la
saisit et, avec l’acharnement désespéré de son vain amour, —
mettant dans son souffle son âme, — elle la baisa d’un long baiser !
Mais le présent de la fée, sous l’ardente caresse, ne s’émut pas plus
qu’une pierre touchée d’une rose. Et, à partir de ce jour, Jocelyne
connut de telles douleurs que rien de ce qu’elle avait enduré
jusqu’alors ne pouvait leur être comparé ; elle se rappelait, comme
de belles heures, le temps où elle n’avait souffert que de la faim et
du froid ; s’endormir quasi à jeun, frissonner sous les rafales, ce
n’est rien ou c’est peu de chose ; maintenant elle n’ignorait plus les
véritables angoisses.
 Elle songeait que d’autres femmes, à la cour, illustres et parées,
— « moins jolies que toi », lui disait le miroir de la source, —
pouvaient voir presque à toute heure le beau prince au lumineux
visage ; qu’il s’approchait d’elles, qu’il leur parlait, qu’il leur souriait ;
avant peu de temps sans doute, quelque glorieuse jeune fille, venue
de Trébizonde dans une litière portée par un éléphant blanc à la
trompe dorée, épouserait le fils du Roi. Elle, cependant, la
mendiante du chemin sans passants, elle continuerait de vivre, —
puisque c’est vivre que de mourir un peu tous les jours, — dans
cette solitude, dans cette misère, loin de lui qu’elle aimait si
tendrement ; elle ne le reverrait jamais, jamais ! La nuit des royales
noces, elle coucherait dans son arbre, sur une branche, non loin des
écureuils ; et, tandis que les époux s’embrasseraient par amour, elle
mordrait de rage la dure écorce du chêne. De rage ? non. Si
douloureuse, elle n’avait pas de colère ; son plus grand chagrin était
de penser que le fils du Roi, peut-être, ne serait pas aimé par la
princesse de Trébizonde autant qu’il l’était par elle, pauvre fille.

III

Enfin, un jour qu’il neigeait, elle résolut de ne plus souffrir. Elle

n’avait plus la force de supporter tant de tourments : elle se jetterait
dans le lac, au milieu de la forêt ; elle sentirait à peine le froid de
l’eau, étant accoutumée au froid de l’air. Grelottante, elle se mit en
route, marcha aussi vite qu’elle pouvait. C’était par un matin gris,
sous la pesanteur des flocons. Parmi la tristesse du sol blanc, des
arbres dépouillés, des buissons qui se hérissent, des lointains
mornes, rien ne luisait que ses cheveux d’or ; on eût dit d’un peu de
soleil resté là. Elle marchait toujours plus vite. Quand elle fut arrivée
au bord du lac, elle avait sur ses haillons, à cause de la neige, une
robe de mariée.
— Adieu ! dit-elle.
 Adieu ? Oui, à lui seul.
Et elle allait se laisser tomber dans l’eau lorsque la fée, en robe
de mousseline d’or, sortit d’entre les branches d’un épinier.
— Jocelyne, dit-elle, pourquoi veux-tu mourir ?
— Ne savez-vous point, méchante fée, combien je suis
malheureuse ? La plus affreuse mort me sera plus douce que la vie.
La fée eut un bon petit rire.
— Avant de te noyer, reprit-elle, tu devrais au moins casser ta
tire-lire.
— A quoi cela me servirait-il, puisque, étant si pauvre, je n’ai rien
mis dedans ?
— Eh ! casse-la tout de même, dit la fée.
Jocelyne n’osa pas désobéir ; ayant tiré de dessous ses haillons
l’inutile présent, elle le brisa contre une pierre.
Alors, tandis que la forêt d’hiver devenait un magnifique palais de
porphyre aux plafonds d’azur, étoilés d’or, le beau fils de Roi, sorti de
la tire-lire envolée en miettes, prit la mendiante entre ses bras, la
baisa dans les cheveux, sur le front, sur les lèvres, cent fois ! En
même temps, il lui demandait si elle voulait bien l’accepter pour mari.
Et Jocelyne pleurait de joie, pleurait encore. La bonne tire-lire lui
rendait au centuple, comme elle lui avait rendu le baiser, les larmes
de tristesse en larmes de bonheur.
 LA BONNE RÉCOMPENSE

Rien ne pouvait distraire de son chagrin la princesse Modeste, et

vous auriez eu pitié d’elle si vous aviez pu la voir. Non point qu’elle
fût devenue laide à force de pleurer, — jolie comme elle était, on ne
saurait cesser de l’être, — mais elle pâlissait chaque jour
davantage ; et c’était une rose rose, changée en rose blanche.
Vainement ses demoiselles d’honneur faisaient leur possible pour la
tirer de souci ; elle ne daignait sourire ni de leurs chansons ni de
leurs danses ; si on lui offrait, à l’heure du goûter, des confitures de
perles, dont elle était naguère très friande, elle détournait la tête
avec un soupir ; il lui arrivait de repousser du pied son sapajou
favori, qui en était pour ses frais de jolies singeries ; attristée de la
joie des autres, elle avait fait ouvrir la porte de leur cage à ses
perruches familières, dont le jacassement l’importunait. Même elle
ne prenait plus aucun plaisir à se mirer, tandis que ses femmes lui
mettaient dans les cheveux des fleurs de pierreries. Enfin, il serait
impossible d’imaginer une désolation pareille à celle de la princesse
Modeste, et des cœurs de roche s’en fussent attendris. Je vous
laisse à penser quelle devait être l’inquiétude du roi, qui aimait
tendrement sa fille. Il n’avait goût à rien, ne s’intéressait plus aux
affaires de l’État, bâillait aux flatteries de ses courtisans ; c’en était
au point qu’il assista un jour, sans la moindre satisfaction, à la
pendaison de deux ministres, bien que les spectacles de cette
espèce eussent toujours eu le privilège de le mettre en belle humeur.
Ce qui le navrait surtout, c’était que la princesse s’obstinait à ne
point révéler le pourquoi de son chagrin ; il perdait l’espoir de guérir
une douleur dont il ne connaissait point la cause. « Voyons, ma fille,
disait-il, serait-ce qu’il vous manque quelque chose ? — Hi ! hi !
répondit la princesse en pleurs. — Avez-vous envie d’une robe
couleur d’étoiles ou d’aurore ? — Hi ! hi ! — Voulez-vous que je fasse
mander des joueurs de guitare ou des chanteurs de ballades
renommés pour chasser la mélancolie ? — Hi ! hi ! — Vous est-il
venu dans la pensée qu’il vous serait agréable d’être mariée à
quelque beau fils de roi, aperçu dans un carrousel ? — Hi ! hi ! » On
ne pouvait obtenir d’autre réponse. Une fois cependant, à force
d’être suppliée, la princesse finit par avouer que si elle se chagrinait
de la sorte, c’était à cause d’un objet perdu. « Eh ! ma fille, que ne le
disiez-vous plus tôt ! Ce que vous avez perdu, on le retrouvera.
Quelle est, s’il vous plaît, cette précieuse chose ? » Mais, à cette
question, Modeste poussa un cri d’effroi, et se cacha la tête dans les
mains, comme une personne qui a honte. « Jamais, balbutia-t-elle,
jamais je ne nommerai l’objet que je regrette. Sachez seulement que
c’était un présent des fées, en mousseline, qu’il était le plus beau du
monde avec ses broderies et ses dentelles d’or légères et
lumineuses comme une nuée du matin, qu’on me l’a dû dérober un
jour d’été que je me baignais avec mes demoiselles, dans la rivière
sous les saules, et que je mourrai sûrement si on ne le retrouve
pas ! » Là-dessus, toute rougissante, elle s’enfuit dans son
appartement ; et le bon père eut le cœur serré d’entendre des
plaintes à travers la porte, et de petits sanglots, par secousses.
Bien que les renseignements donnés par Modeste n’eussent rien
de précis, et que sa description de la chose égarée ou volée ne fût
pas de nature à éviter les confusions, le roi résolut de mettre en
œuvre le seul moyen dont il disposât pour consoler le désespoir de
sa fille. Des courriers parcoururent toute la ville, furent envoyés dans
les moindres bourgades, dans les plus lointaines campagnes, avec
mission d’annoncer que la princesse, en folâtrant près de la rivière,
sous les saules, avait perdu un très précieux objet, le plus beau du
monde, en mousseline, orné de fines broderies et de dentelles d’or
légères et lumineuses comme une nuée du matin ; et, pour ce qui
était de la récompense à celui qui le rapporterait, le roi faisait savoir
qu’il ne reculerait devant aucun sacrifice, qu’il s’engageait par un
grand serment à ne rien refuser de ce qui lui serait demandé. Il est
inutile de dire que cette proclamation mit en émoi tout le pays. Les
gens qui avaient fait, très loin de la rivière, n’importe quelle
trouvaille, sans dentelle ni broderie, ne laissèrent pas de rêver de
beaux rêves ; et ceux qui n’avaient rien trouvé se mirent en devoir de
chercher. Il y avait une grande foule, du matin au soir, sous les
saules, le long de l’eau ; hommes, femmes, enfants, courbés vers
les herbes, écartant les branches, haletaient d’espérance,
s’imaginaient à chaque instant qu’ils allaient mettre la main sur leur
fortune ; et, pendant toute une semaine, on apporta au palais mille
vaines bagatelles, pièces de monnaie, bribes de rubans, gants
déchirés, qui n’avaient aucun rapport avec la description faite par les
courriers. Chaque fois qu’on lui présentait un nouvel objet, la
princesse détournait la tête, faisant signe que non, et se replongeait
plus profondément dans ses mélancolies.
Or, il arriva une fois qu’un jeune pêcheur, fort bien fait de sa
personne, et très agréable à voir malgré ses haillons de bure, entra
dans la cour du palais, et dit, avec un air d’assurance, qu’il voulait
parler au roi. La première pensée des hallebardiers qui étaient là fut
de jeter ce misérable à la porte ; on ne s’entretient pas avec des
personnes couronnées quand on n’a sur la tête qu’un méchant
bonnet de laine rouge déteint sous la pluie et le vent. Mais dès que
le pêcheur eut affirmé d’une voix haute qu’il avait dans une poche de
sa veste de quoi ramener le sourire sur les lèvres de la princesse,
les gardes prirent un air beaucoup moins rébarbatif, et le jeune
homme fut introduit dans la salle du trône.
En le voyant, le roi haussa l’épaule.
— Évidemment, dit-il, celui-ci ne sera pas plus heureux que les
autres ; ma fille, cette fois encore, n’aura point le contentement
qu’elle espère.
— Sire, dit le pêcheur, Votre Majesté se trompe ; la princesse
Modeste, grâce à moi, va sortir de peine.
 — Est-il possible ?
— Cela est certain.
En même temps, le jeune pêcheur, à qui ne manquait pour être
beau comme un fils d’empereur que d’être habillé de velours ou de
brocart, tira de dessous sa veste quelque chose de léger, de long,
qui était enveloppé d’un papier rose.
— Sous ce papier, reprit-il, se trouve l’objet perdu par la
princesse, et je pense qu’elle en tombera d’accord, si Votre Majesté
veut bien le lui faire remettre.
— J’y consens.
Sur un signe de Sa Majesté, un chambellan, ayant pris le paquet
rose, l’alla porter à la princesse.
A vrai dire, la tranquillité du pêcheur, le ton ferme dont il parlait,
avaient inspiré quelque confiance au père de Modeste. Il se pouvait
que le jeune homme eût trouvé le présent des fées ! Mais non. Vaine
espérance. Chimère. Modeste serait triste aujourd’hui, comme les
autres jours.
Un éclair de rire sonna, vif, clair, joyeux, pareil à un bris de
verroteries, et la princesse, rose de plaisir, courant avec un air de
danser, se précipita dans la salle, sauta au cou de son père. « Ah !
quel bonheur ! je l’ai ! je l’ai ! comme je suis contente ! Ah ! mon bon
père ! Aussi, voyez, je ris comme une folle, moi qui ne cessais de
pleurer ! » Une chose qu’il serait difficile d’exprimer, c’est la
satisfaction du roi en entendant ces paroles. En dépit de l’étiquette, il
se mit à rire lui-même, et, comme les courtisans ne manquèrent pas
de l’imiter, comme les valets des antichambres et les hallebardiers
de la porte, entendant qu’on riait, crurent bon de rire aussi, ce fut
dans tout le palais un si joyeux tumulte d’hilarité que le sapajou de la
princesse, debout sur la queue de la robe, n’y put tenir, et se prit les
côtes, en pouffant !
Cependant le roi se tourna vers celui à qui l’on devait l’heureux
événement :