Philological Proofs of the Original Unity and Recent Origin of the Human Race

by Arthur James Johnes

“Pork,” answered the swineherd.

“I am very glad every fool knows that too,” said Wamba, “and Pork, I think, is good Norman-French; and so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a Norman, and is called Pork, when she is carried to the Castle-hall to feast among the nobles. What dost thou think of this, friend Gurth, ha?”

“It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy fool's pate!”

“Nay, I can tell you more,” said Wamba, in the same tone. “There is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and bondmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. ‘Mynheer Calf,’ too, becomes ‘Monsieur de Veau,’ in the like manner: he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.”

“By St. Dunstan,” answered Gurth, “thou speakest but sad truths; little is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been reserved with much hesitation, solely for the purpose of enabling us to endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and the fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten distant lands with their bones, leaving few here who have either the will or the power to protect the unfortunate Saxon!”

The effect of the Norman Conquest was simply to introduce among the Saxon population a certain class of new terms, which—though they were eventually embodied in their language—are still readily distinguishable from the Stock on which they were thus engrafted. But the general structure and composition of the language remained unaffected by any [pg 034] Foreign alloy. The most common verbs, nouns, and grammatical inflections and forms—Horne Tooke's “epea pteroenta” of the English language—remained, and have since continued to be, pure, unadulterated Anglo-Saxon!

Such was the character of those modifications in the English Tongue that flowed from the Norman Conquest. Partial and peculiar were those changes in their nature—brief, also, was the interval of which they were the result! A period can be fixed, at which it is certain that the dialect of the Norman had ceased to encroach on that of the Anglo-Saxon people. In the age of Chaucer, for example, the Norman and Saxon races had long become undistinguishable, and the languages they spoke had blended into one. Can the same age be fixed upon as an epoch at which the process of transition in the English language had also been arrested? That considerable changes have since occurred will not be disputed—for it is an historical fact which does neither admit of doubt nor discussion. But had all important changes ceased at that time? Can it be said that—in the time of Chaucer—that progressive revolution which has so widely separated the modern English from the original Anglo-Saxon had gone through all its stages? Can it be said that the innovations which have since occurred are few in number, and trifling in point of character, compared to those which belong to earlier periods of our History?

The answer to these inquiries involves a truth that I believe will be found no less startling to the Philologist than to the general reader, in whose mind the changes which the English language has undergone are associated with the violent shock given by the Norman Conquest to Anglo-Saxon institutions. The truth to which I allude—and it is one for which I apprehend few inquirers will be prepared—is this: that the changes which have occurred in the English language since the age of Chaucer are at least equal in importance to [pg 035] those which took place in the antecedent periods of our history. Novel as this conclusion may appear, the proofs are so simple and so conclusive, as to place its accuracy beyond the possibility of doubt.

The features which distinguish different languages from each other are divisible into two classes—Words and Grammatical inflections. In both these features marked differences have arisen between our modern English and its parent Saxon, and to both these classes we must refer in forming our conclusion as to the relative importance of the alterations which have taken place in our language at two different epochs.

1st. The difference in words between the language of Chaucer and our modern English will be sufficiently obvious, from a cursory glance at the venerable remains of that poet. How many terms are there in the pages of the father of English poetry that require the aid of a glossary to render them intelligible even to an educated Englishman! These terms too, be it observed—and it is a reflection highly deserving of the attention of those who may still cling to the impression that the Norman Conquest has been the sole agent of those phases through which the English Tongue has passed—do not consist exclusively of Anglo-Saxon roots, but comprise also a large number of Norman words which have shared the same fate!