Nanny Dubby, Sally Clink,
Long Josias an Raway Pink,
—Girnin Jan,
Creeplin Philip and the upright man.
TWO DISSERTATIONS ON SOME OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PRONOUNS.
BY JAMES JENKINGS.
(From the Graphic Illustrator.)
No. 1.—I, IC, ICH, ICHE, UTCHY, ISE, C', CH', CHE, CH'AM, CH'UD,
CH'LL.
Until recently few writers on the English Language, have devoted much attention to the origin of our first personal pronoun I, concluding perhaps that it would be sufficient to state that it is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ic. No pains seem to have been taken to explain the connexion which ic, ich, and iche have with Ise, c', ch', che', and their combinations in such words as ch'am, ch'ud, ch'ill, &c. Hence we have been led to believe that such contractions are the vulgar corruptions of an ignorant and, consequently, unlettered people. That the great portion of the early Anglo-Saxons were an unlettered people, and that the rural population were particularly unlettered, and hence for the most part ignorant, we may readily admit; and even at the present time, many districts in the west will be found pretty amply besprinkled with that unlettered ignorance for which many of our forefathers were distinguished. But an enquiry into the origin and use of our provincial words will prove, that even our unlettered population have been guided by certain rules in their use of an energetic language. Hence it will be seen on inquiry that many of the words supposed to be vulgarisms, and vulgar and capricious contractions are no more so than many of our own words in daily use; as to the Anglo-Saxon contractions of ch'am, ch'ud, and ch'ill, they will be found equally consistent with our own common contractions of can't, won't, he'll, you'll, &c., &c. in our present polished dialect.
Whether, however, our western dialects will be more dignified by an Anglo-Saxon pedigree I do not know; those who delight in tracing descents through a long line of ancestors up to one primitive original ought to be pleased with the literary genealogist, who demonstrates that many of our provincial words and contractions have an origin more remote, and in their estimation of course, must be more legitimate than a mere slip from the parent stock, as our personal pronoun, I, unquestionably is.
As to the term "barbarous," Mr. Horace Smith, the author of "Walter Colyton," assures me that many of his friends call what he has introduced of the Somerset Dialect in Walter Colyton, "barbarous."—Now, I should like to learn in what its barbarity consists. The plain truth after all is, that those who are unwilling to take the trouble to understand any language, or any dialect of any language, with which they are previously unacquainted, generally consider such new language or such dialect barbarous; and to them it doubtless appears so. What induces our metropolitan literati, those at least who are, or affect to be the arbitri elegantiarum among them, to consider the Scotch dialect in another light? Simply because such able writers, as Allan Ramsay, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and others, have chosen to employ it for the expression of their thoughts. Let similar able writers employ our Western Dialect in a similar way, and I doubt not the result. And why should not our Western dialects be so employed? If novelty and amusement, to say the least for such writings, be advantageous to our literature, surely novelty and amusement might be conveyed in the dialect of the West as well as of the North. Besides these advantages, it cannot be improper to observe that occasional visits to the well-heads of our language, (and many of these will be found in the West of England) will add to the perfection of our polished idiom itself. The West may be considered the last strong hold of the Anglo-Saxon in this country.
I observed, in very early life, that some of my father's servants, who were natives of the Southern parts of the county of Somerset, almost invariably employed the word utchy for I. Subsequent reflection convinced me that this word, utchy, was the Anglo-Saxon iche, used as a dissyllable ichè, as the Westphalians, (descendants of the Anglo- Saxons,) down to this day in their Low German (Westphalian) dialect say, "Ikke" for "ich." How or when this change in the pronunciation of the word, from one to two syllables, took place in in this country it is difficult to determine; but on reference to the works of Chaucer, there is, I think, reason to conclude that iche is used sometimes in that poet's works as a dissyllable.
Having discovered that utchy was the Anglo-Saxon iche, there was no difficulty in appropriating 'che, 'c', and ch' to the same root; hence, as far as concerned iche in its literal sounds, a good deal seemed unravelled; but how could we account for ise, and ees, used so commonly for I in the western parts of Somersetshire, as well as in Devonshire? In the first folio edition of tlie works of Shakspeare the ch is printed, in one instance, with a mark of elision before it thus, 'ch, a proof that the I in iche was sometimes dropped in a common and rapid pronunciation; and a proof too, that, we, the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, have chosen the initial letter only of that pronoun, which initial letter the Anglo-Saxons had in very many instances discarded!