ciated. Nor did the Romans who held dominion over Britain leave many words as contributions to our speech. The multitude of our Latin derivatives, as we shall see, were brought to our language in a later century. A few geographical words in this Brito-Roman period were ineffaceably stamped upon the face of the country. They have survived invasions and revolutions, and stand amid the modern names as venerable monuments of a mysterious age. Thus the termination don is, in some instances, as in "London," the Celtic word "dun," a rock or natural fortress; the termination caster or chester is a memorial of the Roman occupation, indicating the spot of a castrum or fortified camp; and the last syllable of Lincoln indicates a Roman colonia.

The foundations of the laws and language of the peoples who speak the Modern English were laid between the middle of the fifth and the middle of the sixth century. Piratical adventurers, allured across the North Sea from the bleak shores of their native Jutland, Schleswig, Holstein and the coasts of the Baltic, gradually established themselves in those parts of Britain which the Romans had occupied. They also were unable to penetrate the mountainous districts of Wales and Scotland. The level and more easily accessible portion of Scotland was gradually gained by them, and their language was established there as well as in South Britain. Possessing a physical organization less powerful and enduring than that of the Teutonic invaders, and, perhaps, having an inferior moral constitution, the half-Romanized Britons gradually disappeared from the presence of the superior race. The absorption or destruction of this nation. was in accordance with what seems to be an inevitable law regulating the result of the close contact of two unequal nationalities. That law is operating in our own land to-day, as it guides the North American Indians to the certain fate that must come from their contact with the same AngloSaxon race.

The English nation, then, had Teutonic parentage. The language spoken by the Saxon invaders was akin to the modern Dutch; and, like the people who spoke it, was vigorous, practical and imaginative. For a long time the colonization of Britain was carried on by detached Teutonic tribes. After two centuries of struggle they grouped them

selves into several independent governments, collec827,] tively known as the Heptarchy or Seven Kingdoms.

In 827 these were all made subject to Wessex (the country of the West Saxons) and there was at last the prospect of a rapid and vigorous national development. But the union of the Anglo-Saxon tribes was hardly effected before the Danes invaded the country in large numbers, changed the sovereignty over much of the territory, and endeavored to subjugate the Saxons as thoroughly as the Saxons had subjugated the Celts. By the heroism and wisdom of the illustrious Alfred, this threatening catastrophe was averted. The two fierce races, nearly allied in origin, consented to an amalgamation which did not materially change the language or institutions of the country. Still, in certain localities, as in the north and east of England, and along the coast of Scotland where the Danish colonies were established. evident marks of the Scandinavian occupation are found in the idioms of the peasantry, and in the names of families and places.

1066.] Towards the close of the eleventh century, William the Conqueror, by his victory in the battle of Hastings, brought Englishmen under the Norman rule. The most important changes resulting from this conquest were the establishment in England of the feudal principle of the military tenure of land, the introduction of the chivalric spirit and habits, and the separation of society into two great classes, nobles and serfs. English homes were made the property of unfriendly foreigners; the generous old Saxon thane, the friend and companion of his humbler fel

lows, was superseded by the arrogant and oppressing Norman baron.

The Normans who settled in England were of a mixed race. Early in the tenth century piratical Scandinavians made conquests of territory in the north of France, ultimately wrested from the degenerate sons of Charlemagne the whole of the noble province which has since borne the name of Normandy, developed the feudal system in order to hold the conquered people in subjection, and, with slight modification, adopted the French tongue. The gradual blending of these two races produced the Norman nationality. Its language was written in laws, in song, in story. Its culture was expressed in literature, in the delicacy of ornaments, in architecture, in oratory, and was far superior to that of any other European nation in the Middle Ages. Its refinement was equalled by its valor. When this cultivated people invaded and conquered England, they found their subjects. illiterate, without social culture, given to coarse dissipation, and determined to treat the victors with unyielding hatred. That hatred was reciprocated. For two centuries the Norman swayed the tyrant's sceptre, the Saxon yielded unwilling homage. Nor was there any disposition to blend interests and sympathies until the Norman, exiled from Normandy, came to consider himself an Englishman, not a foreigner in possession of English soil.

But it is in the effects of the Norman Conquest upon the English language that we are interested. The speech which the Norman invaders brought to England was one of two closely related dialects of the Romance languages, and was known as the Langue d'Oil in distinction from the other which was called the Langue d'Oc. These names were derived from their differing words for yes. cation between them nearly coincided with the Loire. They were both results of the decomposition of the classical Latin. That ancient language, in the process of its decay, lost nearly

The line of demar

all its inflections. Its substantives and adjectives surrendered the terminations of their cases in the different declensions, and undertook to express the relations of words by the more frequent use of prepositions.

The poetry of each of the French dialects had been read and admired by the few educated people in England before the Norman Conquest. After the Conquest, the Norman trouvères, poets who wrote in the Langue d'Oil, and the poets of the sister dialect, the troubadours, were held in high esteem by the Court in England. They furnished literature for the readers, and so wielded potent influence over English thought and language. They displaced the English Gleeman, crowding him into the society of the humblest people.

The character of a conquest determines its effect upon the language of the conquered. The Norman Conquest was not such as a civilized nation makes of a nation of barbarians. The subjugated people were not exterminated, nor were they diminished by considerable numbers, nor were they driven from their country. They remained upon their native soil. The change which the Conquest brought to them was merely a change in the administration of the government. They were left in possession of traditional customs and speech. With few exceptions their conversation was with each other, almost never with the foreigner who spoke a foreign language. Their Anglo-Saxon tongue remained, modified only by the abandonment of a few individual words, and by the adoption of other individual words from the speech of the conquerors.

The extent and rapidity of such modifications depended upon the numbers and social condition of the immigrants. These immigrants were the royal family, the nobility, the churchmen and the army. There was no mass of common people whose station would compel them to mingle with the despised Saxons. The royal family used the Norman speech, and continued to exert every influence in its

THE FUSION OF THE LANGUAGES.

11

favor until the close of the fourteenth century. There was no attempt on the part of the king or of his household to understand the language of the subjects; the nobles, under the system of feudalism, needed not to talk with those whom they oppressed; the churchmen were satisfied with their ecclesiastical benefices without understanding the confessions of humble worshipers; and the military forces, trained to consider themselves as men placed on guard against the discontented and dangerous Englishmen, did not seek companionship with them. These circumstances were unfavorable to grand changes in the form and structure of the English language. The mutual repulsion of the two races continued for a century; then followed a century of seeming indifference; but in the third century after the Conquest the people were united by their common interest in the foreign wars of England.

In the fourteenth century the languages began to coalesce rapidly, and the English language and the English nationality were evolved from the social confusion which attended the first centuries of the Norman occupation. The language remained Germanic in its grammatical character, but it received such large accessions of French words as to change its sound when spoken, and its appearance on the page. According to Hallam, the change was brought about; 1st, by contracting or otherwise modifying the pronunciation and orthography of words; 2d, by omitting many inflections, especially of the noun, and consequently making more use of articles and auxiliaries; and, 3d, by the introduction of French derivatives.

In the first chapter of Ivanhoe, Walter Scott has given an illustration of the peculiar significance of the names of animals as applied by Saxons and Normans, and has shown that our language, as we speak it to-day, indicates the servitude of the Saxons. He introduces Gurth, a Saxon swineherd, and Wamba, a jester.