Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/251

222 French way, on the last French syllable; the usage held its ground for four hundred years. Indeed, it still rules us when we pronounce urbane and divine. A new vowel sound now first made itself heard in England; we find in the Ancren Riwle words like joie, noise, and despoil. This French invader was in process of time to drive the old English pronunciation of home-born words out of polite society; our lower classes indeed may sound bŷle (pustula) as our forefathers did, but our upper classes must call it boil, A well-known French name is seen as ‘Willam’ (p. 340), and it is still often pronounced ‘Willum.’ We find alas for the first time: this is said to be a compound of the English eala and the French helás; alack was to come later. The author of the Ancren Riwle foreshadows the inroad that French was to make even into the English Paternoster; in page 26 he translates, ‘dimitte nobis debita nostra,’ by ‘for&#x0293;if us ure dettes, al so ase we vor&shy;&#x0293;iveð to ure detturs.’ He uses the word mesire, where we should say Sir; Salimbene, who was born in Italy about the time that the Ancren Riwle was compiled, tells us that the Pope was always addressed by the Romans as, ‘Tu, Messer;’ and that the Emperor Fre&shy;derick II. received the same title from his Southern Italians. When we find the word cruelte, we see at once that England has often preserved French words in a more uncorrupt shape than France herself has done.