Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/12

 PREFACE.

does not pretend to be a history of the English tongue; I attempt nothing more than to trace the way in which one special dialect took the lead in our island; I also try to point out the earliest instances of corruptions in our speech. Hence atten&shy;tion must be given to the North rather than to the South; we must think more of the first appearance of the New in the Northumbrian Versions of the Bible, than of the last traces of the Old in the Ayen&shy;bite of Inwyt and works still more modern. We must look to York rather than to Canterbury. I may mention that, until I began to study English with thoroughness, I had no idea how much of our Standard speech is due to Northern shires; how much influence the Norsemen have had in our land;