Anglo-Saxon Primer, With Grammar, Notes, and Glossary / Eighth Edition Revised

by Henry Sweet

The spelling has been made rigorously uniform throughout on an early West-Saxon basis. Injurious as normalizing is to the advanced student, it is an absolute necessity for the beginner, who wants to have the definite results of scholarship laid before him, not the confused and fluctuating spellings which he cannot yet interpret intelligently. Even for purely scientific purposes we require a standard of comparison and classification, as in the arrangement of words in a dictionary, where we have to decide, for instance, whether to put the original of hear under ē, īe, ī or ȳ. The spelling I here adopt is, in fact, the one I should recommend for dictionary purposes. From early West-Saxon it is an easy step both to late W. S. and to the Mercian forms from which Modern English is derived. That I give Ælfric in a spelling slightly earlier than his date is no more

unreasonable than it is for a classical scholar to print Ausonius (who doubtless spoke Latin with an almost Italian pronunciation) in the same spelling as Virgil.

It is impossible to go into details, but in doubtful or optional cases I have preferred those forms which seemed most instructive to the student. Thus I have preferred keeping up the distinction between the indic. bundon and the subj. bunden, although the latter is often levelled under the former even in early MS. In the accentuation I have for the present retained the conventional quantities, which are really 'prehistoric' quantities, as I have shown elsewhere (Phil. Soc. Proc. 1880, 1881). It is no use trying to disguise the fact that Old English philology (owing mainly to its neglect in its native land) is still in an unsettled state.

In the Grammar I have cut down the phonology to the narrowest limits, giving only what is necessary to enable the beginner to trace the connection of forms within the language itself. Derivation and syntax have been treated with the same fulness as the inflections. In my opinion, to give inflections without explaining their use is as absurd as it would be to teach the names of the different parts of a machine without explaining their use, and derivation is as much a fundamental element of a language as inflection. The grammar has been based throughout on the texts, from which all words and sentences given as examples have, as far as possible, been taken. This I consider absolutely essential in an elementary book. What is the use of a grammar which gives a number of forms and rules which the learner has no occasion to apply practically in his reading? Simply to cut down an ordinary grammar and prefix it to a selection of elementary texts, without any attempt to adapt them to one another, is a most unjustifiable proceeding.

In the Glossary cognate and root words are given only when they occur in the texts, or else are easily recognizable by the ordinary English reader.

All reference to cognate languages has been avoided. Of course, if the beginner knows German, the labour of learning Old English will be lightened for him by one half, but he does not require to have the analogies pointed out to him. The same applies to the relation between Old and Modern English. To trace the history of the sounds would be quite out of place in this book, and postulates a knowledge of the intermediate stages which the beginner cannot have.

The Notes consist chiefly of references to the Grammar, and are intended mainly for those who study without a teacher. As a general rule, no such references are given where the passage itself is quoted in the Grammar.

On the whole I do not think the book could be made much easier without defeating its object. Thus, instead of simply referring the student from stęnt to standan, and thence to the Grammar, I might have saved him all this trouble by putting 'stęnt, 3 sg. pres. of standan, stand,' but the result would be in many cases that he would not look at the Grammar at all—surely a most undesirable result.

Although I have given everything that I believe to be necessary, every teacher may, of course, at his own discretion add such further illustrations, linguistic, historical, antiquarian, or otherwise, as he thinks likely to instruct or interest his pupils.