Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/114

Rh see fugelas turned into fuweles (fowls), sugu into suwa (sow), and elboga into elbowe. An attempt is even made to change our word days into dawes, a corruption that lasted long in the South. The old þurh (per) now be&shy;comes þuruh, pointing to our later thorough and through. In page 7 of this work, we find a Weak Verb turned into a Strong one, which seldom happens in English; þeo bellen rungen, where the last word should be ringoden. The old eahte and feower now become eihte and four. We find bokes, so, dayes, þih, ei&#x0293;e, hei, chiken, neih, heihnesse, instead of the older béc, swa, dagas, þeoh, eáge, hég, cicen, neah, heáhnes. We were beginning to couple together the Southern c and the Northern k, as in crock and þicke. Another budding change may be seen in spindel, which is turned into spindle. The new form ou was beginning to replace the older o, for souhte and inouh are found instead of sohte and genoh: the letter u is not yet changed into ou. Some new phrases appear, such as alto longe, the all being often prefixed, as it was later in our although, albeit, &c. The new Preposition besiden, formed from side, is now first found; also wome (væ mihi), which was long afterwards lengthened into woe is me. Cantwaraburh is now changed into Cantoreburi; and thus the French way of spelling (did they ever yet spell a Teutonic word right?) influenced us. Bæda becomes Beda; and we see the Old and the New in the short sentence, ‘Ælfric abbod þe we Alquin hoteþ.’