Moreover, dialect-speakers are quite capable of devising new forms for themselves. It is sufficient to instance abundation, abundance; ablins, possibly (made from able); argle, argie-bargie, argle-bargle, argufy, all varieties of the verb to argue; and so on.
The most interesting words are those that have survived from Middle English or from Tudor English times. Examples are aigre, sour, tart, which is Shakespeare’s eagre, Hamlet, i, v 69; ambry, aumbry, cupboard, spelt almarie in Piers the Plowman, B xiv 246; arain, a spider, spelt yreyn in Wyclif’s translation of Psalm xc 10, which, after all, is less correct; arles, money paid on striking a bargain, a highly interesting word, spelt erles in the former half of the thirteenth century; arris, the angular edge of a cut block of stone, etc., from the O.F. areste, L. arista, which has been revived by our Swiss mountain-climbers in the form aréte; a-sew, dry, said of cows that give no milk (cf. F. essuyer, to dry); assoilyie, to absolve, acquit, and assith, to compensate, both used by Sir W. Scott; astre, aistre, a hearth, a Norman word found in 1292; aunsel, a steelyard, of which the etymology is given in the E.D.D.; aunter, an adventure, from the A.F. aventure; aver, a beast of burden, horse, used by Burns, from the A.F. aveir, property, cattle; averous, A.F. averous, avaricious, in Wyclif’s translation of 1 Cor. vi 10.
Here is ample proof of the survival of Anglo-French in our dialects. Indeed, their chief philological use consists in the great antiquity of many of the terms, which often preserve Old English and Anglo-French forms with much fidelity. The charge often brought against dialect speakers of using “corrupt” forms is only occasionally and exceptionally true. Much worse “corruptions” have been made by antiquaries, in order to suit their false etymologies.
[CHAPTER X]
LATER HISTORY OF THE DIALECTS
With the ascendancy of East Midland, and its acceptance as the chief literary language, the other dialects practically ceased to be recorded, with the exception (noted above) of the Scottish Northumbrian. Of English Northumbrian, the sixteenth century tells us nothing beyond what we can glean from belated copies of Northern ballads or such traces of a Northern (apparently a Lancashire) dialect as appear in Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar. Fitzherbert’s Boke of Husbandry (1534) was reprinted for the E.D.S. in 1882. It was written, not by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, as I erroneously said in the Preface, but by his brother, John Fitzherbert, as has been subsequently shown. It contains a considerable number of dialectal words. Thomas Tusser (1525-1580), born in Essex, wrote A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie (1557), and Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1573); see the edition by Payne and Herrtage, E.D.S., 1878. He employs many country words, presumably Essex. The dialect assumed by Edgar in Shakespeare’s King Lear is not to be taken as being very accurate; he talks somewhat like a Somersetshire peasant, but I suppose his speech to be in a conventional stage dialect, such as we find also in The London Prodigall, Act ii, Sc. 4, where Olyver, “a Devonshire Clothier,” uses similar expressions, viz. chill for Ich will, I will; and chy vor thee, I warn thee.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the value of dialectal words as helping to explain our English vocabulary began to be recognised. Particular mention may be made of the Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ, by Stephen Skinner, London, 1671; and it should be noted that this is the Dictionary upon which Dr Johnson relied for the etymology of native English words. At the same time, we must not forget to note two Dictionaries of a much earlier date, which are of high value. The former of these is the Promptorium Parvulorum, completed in 1440, published by the Camden Society in 1865; which contains a rather large proportion of East Anglian words. The second is the Catholicon Anglicum, dated 1483, ed. S.J. Herrtage, E.E.T.S., 1881, which is distinctly Northern (possibly of Yorkshire origin).
We find in Skinner occasional mention of Lincolnshire words, with which he was evidently familiar. Examples are: boggle-boe, a spectre; bratt, an apron; buffet-stool, a hassock; bulkar, explained by Peacock as “a wooden hutch in a workshop or a ship.”
The study of modern English Dialects began with the year 1674, when the celebrated John Ray, Fellow of the Royal Society, botanist, zoologist, and collector of local words and proverbs, issued his Collection of English Words not generally used; of which a second edition appeared in 1691. See my reprint of these; E.D.S., 1874. This was the first general collection, and one of the best; and after this date (1674) many dialect words appeared in English Dictionaries, such as those of Elisha Coles (1676, and four subsequent editions); John Kersey (1708, etc.); Nathaniel Bailey (1721, etc.); N. Bailey’s Dictionary, Part ii, a distinct work (1727, etc.). The celebrated Dictionary by Dr Johnson, 2 vols., folio, London, 1755, owed much to Bailey. Later, we may notice the Dictionary by John Ash, London, 1775; and Todd’s edition of Johnson, London, 1818. It is needless to mention later works; see the Complete List of Dictionaries, by H.B. Wheatley, reprinted in the E.D.S. Bibliographical List (1877), pp. 3-11; and the long List of Works which more particularly relate to English Dialects in the same, pp. 11-17. Among the latter may be mentioned A Provincial Glossary, by F. Grose, London, 1787, second edition 1790; Supplement to the same, by the late S. Pegge, F.S.A., London, 1814; and Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words, by the late Rev. J. Boucher, ed. Hunter and Stevenson, 1832-3. The last of these was attempted on a large scale, but never got beyond the word Blade; so that it was practically a failure. The time for producing a real Dialect Dictionary had not yet come; but the valuable Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, by J. Jamieson, published at Edinburgh in 4 vols., 4to, in 1808-25, made an excellent beginning.