AN INTRODUCTION ΤΟ THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. PART I. CHAPTER I. GERMAN ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.-LATEST AND EARLIEST DATES FOR ITS INTRODUCTION INTO ENGLAND.-DIRECTION AND RATE OF ITS DIFFUSION. -LANGUAGES WITH WHICH IT CAME IN CONTACT. WALES. § 1. Origin and Name.-THE English Language was introduced into England from Germany. It was the Angles, or Engles, who introduced it; and the name by which it was first known was The English Speech (Seo Englisce Spræc). The Latin for this was Lingua, or Sermo, Anglorum. By the native Britons and by the Romans the Angles were called Saxons; so that, in the Latin of the time, the words Angli and Saxones had the same meaning. Hence, Lingua Anglorum was also Lingua Saxonica, Sermo Saxonicus, or Lingua Saxonum; a fact which has given rise to the term Anglo-Saxon, by which the English language in its oldest known form is designated. B Germany. § 2. Date-latest.-The English language came from When? No later than A.D. 597. It was in 597 that St. Augustin first taught Christianity to Æthelbert, king of Kent, Translation from Beda. There lived at that time (A.D. 597) King Ethelbert, in Kent, very powerful, who had extended his kingdom as far as the boundary of the great river Humber, which divides the Northern and Southern divisions of the Angles. sionaries got from the nation of the Franks interpreters. In the original. These mis Erat eo tempore (A.D. 597) rex Edilberct in Cantia potentissimus, qui ad confinium usque Humbræ, fluminis maximi, quo Meridiani et Septentrionales Anglorum populi dirimuntur, fines imperii tetenderat. Acceperant autem-de gente Fran corum interpretes.-Hist. Ecclesiast., lib. i. c. 25. This indicates the necessity of a language which should be neither British nor Roman, but German. Still, the Frank language was not quite the language of the Angles. § 3. Date-earliest.—The English language came from Germany. How much before A.D. 597? The earliest notice of a population likely to have introduced into England the mother-tongue of the present English, is in the Notitia Utriusque Imperii, the date of which lies between A.D. 367 and A.D. 408. This tells us that, as early as the reigns of Gratian and Theodosius, certain populations called Saxon had extended themselves to portions of both Gaul and Britain: in each of which there was a tract called the Saxon Shore. Now, the following extract extends the jurisdiction of the Count of the Saxon Shore in Britain from the Wash to the Southampton Water; there or thereabouts. Translation. UNDER THE ORDERS OF THE RESPECTABLE COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE IN BRITAIN. (Chap. i.) The Captain of the Company of the Fortenses, at Othona. The Captain of the Company of the Turnacenses, at Lympne. SUB DISPOSITIONE VIRI SPECTABILIS COMITIS LIMITIS SAXONICI PER BRITANNIAM. Præpositus Numeri Fortensium, Othonæ. Præpositus Militum Tungricanorum, Dubris. Præpositus Numeri Turnacensium, Lemanis. Præpositus Equitum Dalmatarum, Branodunensis, Branoduno. Præpositus Legionis II. Aug. Rutupis. Præpositus Numeri Abulcorum, Anderida. Præpositus Numeri Exploratorum, Portu Adurni. (Cap. lxxi.) Although the exact import of the names of some of these companies is uncertain, and although there may be differences of opinion as to what is meant by Fortenses, Abulci, and the like, there is no doubt as to the meaning of such a term as Dalmatæ. It implies that the soldiers which bore it were Dalmatians rather than Romans. Such being the case, their language may have been Dalmatian also, whatever that was; a point which must be carefully remembered when we investigate the minute ethnology of Roman Britain. At any rate, it is clear that under the name of Roman there was something that had but little to do with Rome. The doctrine that the Litus Saxonicum in general was German is not only extremely probable in itself, but is confirmed by a short paragraph in the notice of Gaul, where we find, under the Commander of the Belgica Secunda, the Dalmatian Cavalry of the March—March being a German gloss. SUB DISPOSITIONE VIRI SPECTABILIS DUCIS BELGICE SECUNDE. Equites Dalmatæ Marcis in Litore Saxonico. (Chap. xxxvii. § 1.) The date, then, of the earliest notice of a well-known German population with a well-known German name—a population likely to have introduced the mother-tongue of the present English, is the earliest date of the Notitia, viz. A.D. 369. § 4. Earlier than this there are notices of some German populations in Britain; but the fact of their being Angles, Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons, is not conclusive. The most important of these is, perhaps, the following extract from the panegyric of the orator Mamertinus on the Emperor Maximian, a colleague of Diocletian's; which gives us Franks in the parts about London in the reign of Diocletian. Translation. By so thorough a consent of the Immortal Gods, O unconquered Cæsar, has the extermination of all the enemies whom you have attacked, and of the Franks more especially, been decreed, that even those of your soldiers, who having missed their way on a foggy sea, reached the town of London, destroyed promiscuously and throughout the city, the whole remnant of that mercenary multitude of barbarians, which, after escaping the battle, sacking the town, and attempting flight, was still left-a deed whereby your provincials were not only saved, but delighted by the sight of the slaughter. In the original. Enimvero, Cæsar invicte, tanto Deorum immortalium tibi est addicta consensu omnium quidem, quos adortus fueris, hostium, sed præcipue internecio Francorum, ut illi quoque milites vestri, qui per errorem nebulosi, ut paulo ante dixi, maris adjuncti ad oppidum Londinense pervenerant, quicquid ex mercenaria illa multitudine barbarorum prælio superfuerat, cum, direpta civitate, fugam capessere cogitarent, passim totâ urbe confecerint, et non solam provincialibus vestris in cæde hostium dederint salutem, sed etiam in spectaculo voluptatem. This was A.D. 290; but the Franks, though Germans, were not Angles. At the same time, there are good reasons for believing that they had certain Angles for their allies; or, at any rate, that they had certain allies whom they called Saxons. These Franks seem to have been the countrymen, if |