Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/120

Rh to use a French word: scœrn (stercus) is the more likely parent of the word. The old wœr (cautus) now becomes warre (page 193), our wary.

We have a collection of King Alfred's saws, dating from about the year 1200. It seems, like the Homilies just discussed, to have been compiled somewhere in the North of Essex; for we find the thorough East Anglian forms, such as gung, sal, wu, arren (young, shall, how, are), and also Norse words, such as plough. On the other hand, we find the Active Participle ending in both the Midland end and the Southern ind, and the prefix i or y in constant use in all parts of the Verb; the Southern o moreover has driven out the older a, as no þing for na þing, swo for swa. But there is a further change in the sound and spelling of vowels. Bóc is turned into booc, and gód into goed. The old sound of o was being replaced by u in many parts of England; about this time Orrmin far away was writing bule (taurus) and funnt instead of boli and font. Moreover, in the poem before us, u is replaced by oo; wood is written for the old wude (silva). The combination ai was in full force; before it the Old English diphthong œ was to vanish. We here find again, fair, maist (potes). This last word is a corruption of þu meaht. Ne leve þu is now turned into leve þe nout (ne crede). Wela be&shy;comes welð; hwilis þat stands for the Latin dum. For soþe (forsooth) is seen for the first time. A new adjec&shy;tive is formed from lang; the poet mentions at the end of his piece þe lonke mon, the lanky man. It is said of