Testamenta Eboracensia, CLIX.
En le noune de Dieu, et de notre Dame Sante Marie, et en noun de teuz le sauntez de Paradyse, Amen. Moi Brian de Stapylton devise m'alme a Dieu et a notre Dame Saunte Marie, et a touz lez Sauntz de Paradyse, et mon chautiff corps d'estre enterre en le Priourie de le Parke decoste ma compaigne, que Dieu l'assoille, et sur mon corps seit un drape de blew saye; et ma volunte ett au l'aide de Dieu d'avoire un herce ov synke tapirs, chescun tapir de synk livers, et tresze hommes vestuz en bluw ov tresze torchez, de queux tresze torchez, si ne saiount degastez, jeo voile que quatre demore a le dit Priorie.
Item jeo devyse que j'ay un homme armes en mes armes et ma hewme ene sa teste, et quy soit bien monte et un homme de bon entaille de qil condicon que y sort.
Item jeo devyse que touz ceaux, qui a moy appendent meignialx en ma maison, soient vestuz en bluw a mes costagez. Et a touz les poores, qils veignent le jour de mon enterment jeo devise et voile que chescun ait un denier en ovre de charrte, et en aide de ma chitiffe alme, et jeo voile que les sires mes compaignons mez aliez et mez voiseignez, qui volliont venir de lour bone gre prier pour moy et pour faire honour a mon chettife corps, qi peue ne vault, jeo oille et chargez mez executour que y soient mesme cel jour bien a eise, et q'il eient a boiere asseth, et a cest ma volunté parfournir jeo devise ci marcæ ove l'estore de maison taunke juiste seit.
[§ 717]. Relations of dialects (so-called) to languages (so-called).—"It is necessary clearly to conceive the nature and character of what we call dialects. The Doric, Æolic, and Ionic for example, in the language of grammarians, are dialects of the Greek: to what does this assertion amount? To this only, that among a people called the Greeks, some being Dorians spoke a language called Doric, some being Æolians spoke another language called Æolic, while a third class, Ionians, spoke a third language called, from them, Ionic. But though all these are termed dialects of the Greek, it does not follow that there was ever a Greek language of which these were variations, and which had any being apart from these. Dialects then are essentially languages: and the name dialect itself is but a convenient grammarian's phrase, invented as part of the machinery by which to carry on reasonings respecting languages. We learn the language which has the best and largest literature extant; and having done so, we treat all very nearly resembling languages as variations from what we have learnt. And that dialects are in truth several languages, will readily appear to any one who perceives the progressive development of the principle of separation in cognate tongues. The language of the Bavarian highlander or High Dutch, the language of the Hanoverian lowlander or Low Dutch, are German dialects: elevate, as it is called, regulate, and purify the one, and it assumes the
name and character of a language—it is German. Transplant the other to England, let nine centuries pass over it, and it becomes a language too, and a language of more importance than any which was ever yet spoken in the world, it has become English. Yet none but practised philologists can acknowledge the fact that the German and English languages are dialects of one Teutonic tongue."
[§ 718]. Relation of dialects to the older stages of the mother-tongue.—This has been noticed in [§ 691]. The following extract from Mr. Kemble's paper just quoted, illustrates what he calls the spontaneity of dialects:—
"Those who imagine language invented by a man or men, originally confined and limited in its powers, and gradually enlarged and enriched by continuous practice and the reflection of wise and learned individuals—unless, indeed, they look upon it as potentially only—in posse though not in esse—as the tree may be said to exist in the seed, though requiring time and culture to flourish in all its majesty—appear to neglect the facts which history proves. There is nothing more certain than this, that the earlier we can trace back any one language, the more full, complete, and consistent are its forms; that the later we find it existing, the more compressed, colloquial, and business-like it has become. Like the trees of our forests, it grows at first wild, luxuriant, rich in foliage, full of light and shadow, and flings abroad in its vast branches the fruits of a vigorous youthful nature: transplanted into the garden of civilization and trained for purposes of commerce, it becomes regulated, trimmed and pruned; nature indeed still gives it life, but art prescribes the direction and extent of its vegetation. Compare the Sanscrit with the Gothic, the Gothic with the Anglo-Saxon, and again the Anglo-Saxon with the English: or what is even better, take two periods of the Anglo-Saxon itself, the eighth and tenth centuries for example. Always we perceive a compression, a gradual loss of fine distinctions, a perishing of forms, terminations and conjugations, in the younger state of the language. The truth is, that in language up to a certain period, there is a real indwelling vitality, a principle acting unconsciously but pervasively in every part: men wield their forms of speech as they do their limbs, spontaneously, knowing nothing of their construction, or the means by which these instruments possess their power. There are flexors and extensors long before the anatomist discovers and names them, and we use our arms without inquiring by what wonderful mechanism they are made obedient to our will. So is it with language long before the grammarian undertakes its investigation. It may even be said, that the commencement of the age of self-consciousness is identical with the close of that of vitality in language; for it is a great error to speak of languages as dead, only when they have ceased to be spoken. They are dead when they have ceased to possess the power of adaptation to the wants of the people, and no longer contain in themselves the means of their own extension. The Anglo-Saxon, in the spirit and analogy of his whole language, could have used words which had never been heard before, and been at once understood: if we would introduce a new name for a new thing, we must take refuge in the courtesy of our neighbours, and borrow from the French, or Greek, or Latin, terms which never cease to betray their foreign origin, by never putting off the forms of the tongue from which they were taken, or assuming those of the tongue into which they are adopted. The English language is a dead one.
"In general it may be said that dialects possess this vitality in a remarkable degree, and that their very existence is the strongest proof of its continuance. This is peculiarly the case when we use the word to denote the popular or provincial forms of speech in a country where, by common consent of the learned and educated classes, one particular form of speech has been elevated to the dignity of the national language. It is then only the strength of the principles which first determined the peculiarities of the dialect that continues to support them, and preserves them from being gradually rounded down, as stones are by friction, and confounded in the course of a wide-spreading centralization. Increased opportunity of intercommunion with other provincials or the metropolis (dependent upon increased facilities of locomotion, the improvement of roads and the spread of mechanical inventions) sweeps away much of these original distinctions, but it never destroys them all. This is a necessary consequence of the fact that they are in some degree connected with the physical features of the country itself, and all those causes which influence the atmosphere. A sort of pseudo-vitality even till late periods bears witness to the indwelling power, and the consciousness of oppression from without: false analogies are the form this life assumes. How often have we not heard it asserted that particular districts were remarkable for the Saxonism of their speech, because they had retained the archaisms, kine, shoon, housen! Well and good! Archaisms they are, but they are false forms nevertheless, based upon an analogy just as erroneous as that which led men in the last century to say crowed, hanged for crew, hung. The Anglo-Saxon language never knew any such forms, and one wonders not to find by their side equally gratuitous Saxonisms, mousen, lousen."—Phil. Soc. No. 35.
The doctrine that languages become dead when they lose a certain power of evolving new forms out of previously existing ones, is incompatible with views to which the present writer has committed himself in the preface. If the views there exhibited be true the test of the vitality of a language, if such metaphors must be used, is the same as the test of vitality in material organisms, i.e., the power of fulfilling certain functions. Whether this is done by the evolution of new forms out of existing materials, or by the amalgamation (the particular power of the English language) of foreign terms is a mere difference of process.
[§ 719]. Effect of common physical conditions.—I again quote the same paper of Mr. Kemble's:—
"Professor Willis of Cambridge, in the course of some most ingenious experiments upon the organization and conditions of the human larynx, came upon the law which regulated the pronunciation of the vowels. He found this to be partly in proportion to the size of the opening in the pipe, partly to the force with which the air was propelled through it, and by the adaptation of a tremulous artificial larynx to the pipe of an organ, he produced the several vowels at will. Now bearing in mind the difference between the living organ and the dead one, the susceptibility of the former to dilatation and compression, from the effects, not only of the human will, but also of cold, of denser or thinner currents of air, and above all the influence which the general state of the body must have upon every part of it, we are furnished at once with the necessary hypothesis; viz. that climate, and the local positions on which climate much depends, are the main agency in producing the original variations of dialect. Once produced, tradition perpetuates them, with subsequent modifications proportionate to the change in the original conditions, the migration to localities of a different character, the congregation into towns, the cutting down of forests, the cultivation of the soil, by which the prevalent degrees of cold and the very direction of the currents of air are in no small degree altered. It is clear that the same influences will apply to all such consonants as can in any way be affected by the greater or less tension of the organs, consequently above all to the gutturals; next to the palatals, which may be defined by the position of the tongue; least of all to the labials, and generally to the liquids also, though these may be more or less strongly pronounced by different peoples. This hint must suffice here, as the pursuit of it is rather a physiological than a philological problem, and it is my business rather to show historically what facts bear upon my present inquiry, than to investigate the philosophical reasons for their existence. Still, for the very honour of human nature, one of whose greatest and most universal privileges is the recognition of and voluntary subjection to the laws of beauty and harmony, it is necessary to state that no developed language exists which does not acknowledge some internal laws of euphony, from which many of its peculiarities arise, and which by these assimilates its whole practice and assumes an artistical consistency. On this faculty, which is rather to be considered as a moral quality of the people than a necessity of their language, depends the facility of employing the language for certain purposes of art, and the form which poetry and rhythm shall assume in the period of their cultivation.
"In reviewing the principal languages of the ancient and modern world, where the migrations of those that spoke them can be traced with certainty, we are struck with the fact that the dwellers in chains of mountains, or on the elevated plains of hilly districts, strongly affect broad vowels and guttural consonants. Compare the German of the Tyrol, Switzerland, or Bavaria, with that of the lowlands of Germany, Westphalia, Hanover, and Mecklenburg: compare the Doric with the Attic, or still more the soft Ionic Greek: follow the Italian of our own day into the mountains of the Abruzzi: pursue the English into the hills of Northumberland; mark the characteristics of the Celtic in the highlands of Wales and Scotland, of the Vascongado, in the hilly ranges of Spain. Everywhere we find the same type; everywhere the same love for broad sounds and guttural forms; everywhere these appear as the peculiarity of mountaineers. The difference of latitude between Holstein and Inspruck is not great; that between Newcastle and Coventry is less; Sparta is more southerly than Athens; Crete more so than either; but this does not explain our problem; its solution is found in the comparative number of feet above the level of the sea, in the hills and the valleys which they enclose."
If true, the bearings of this is important; since, if common physical conditions effect a common physiognomy of language, we may have a certain amount of resemblance without a corresponding amount of ethnological affinity.