Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/156

Rh the Ancren Riwle. We read of the elephant entrapped; ‘ðanne cumeð ðer on gangande.’ This of old would have been sum ylp; in the present poem, the words tunc unus currit had to be Englished.

One of the most startling changes is that of the Second Person Singular of the Perfect of the Strong verb. What in Old English was þu hehte, is turned at page 6 into tu higtest (pollicitus es). Thus one more of the links between Sanscrit and English was to be broken.

In an East Anglian Creed of this time (Reliquiæ Anti&shy;quæ, i. 234), we find ure onelic loverd, written where Orrmin would have used the old anlepi&#x0293; (unicus) for the second word. Thus a new form drove out an older one.

In the Genesis and Exodus the first thing that strikes us is the poet's sturdy cleaving to the Old English gut&shy;turals g and k. So, in the Bestiary, we find gevenlike, the last appearance of the old uncorrupted prefix. It is East Anglia that has kept these hard letters alive. But for these shires, whose spelling Caxton happily followed, we should be writing to yive (donare), to yet (adipisci), ayain (iterum), and yate (porta). We have unluckily followed Orrmin's corruption in yield, yelp, yearn, and young. These East Anglians talked of a dyke (fossa), when all Southern England spoke of a ditch, Orrmin's druhhþe is now turned into drugte (drought), which we have followed. The most remarkable change is deigen (mori) instead of deye. But even into Suffolk the South&shy;ern w was forcing its way. We find owen as well as ogen (proprius), and folwen as well as folgen (sequi).