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Some of the earliest surviving Old English texts were written in Northumbrian, such Cædmon's Hymn (7th century) and Bede's Death Song (8th century). Other works, including the bulk of Cædmon's poetry, have been lost. Other examples of this dialect are the Runes on the Ruthwell Cross from the Dream of the Rood. Also in Northumbrian are the 9th-century Leiden Riddle[1] and the late 10th century gloss of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Historical linguists recognise four distinct dialects of Old English: Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon.[3][4] The Northumbrian dialect was spoken in the Kingdom of Northumbria from the Humber to the River Mersey (mersey meaning border river) in northern England to the Firth of Forth in the Scottish Lowlands. Today, Modern Scots, Northumbrian, Cumbrian and North/East Riding dialects originate purely from Northumbrian, as well as forming the substrate of the since Mercian-influenced West Riding and Lancashire dialects.[5] It was significantly different from the dialects spoken by other Kingdoms, especially that of West-Saxon (the primary dialect).[6] Modern Standard English, on the other hand, has its origins in the Mercian dialect.[7]
The Angles brought their language (Englisc) to Northumbria in the 6th century AD, where it reached the modern-day Scottish Lowlands.[8] This form of Northumbrian Old English was first recorded in poetry; e.g. Cædmon's Hymn c.658-680), writings of the Venerable Bede (c.700 AD) and the Leiden Riddle.[9] The language is also attested in the Lindisfarne Gospels c.970 AD, in modern Scotland as a carved runic text, the Dream of the Rood, and on the Ruthwell Cross, c.750 AD. Old Northumbria was later conquered by the Danes (867–883 AD) and from this day forth the language became influenced with Old Norse.[10]
The area now in Southern Scotland, which was originally a part of the Kingdom of Northumbria, was invaded by Kenneth III of Scotland and became part of Scots territory. Despite the king being a Scottish Gaelic speaker, he allowed the region to keep its Northumbrian Language. However, the region became divided from Northumbria following the Battle of Carham (with the northern half of the territory under Scottish rule and the southern part under the English);[5] the language north of the divide later became known as Scottis[11] or Scots.[7]
The anonymous author of the Northumbrian Cursor Mundi claimed southern English texts needed to be translated into northern dialects for people to fully understand what they were reading.[10]Ralph Higden in 1364 described Northumbrian as incredibly difficult for southern natives to understand, believing the reason for this to be the "strange men an nations that speaketh stronglie" (i.e. the Scots) the region bordered.[12]John of Trevisa spoke about nearby "strange men an aliens" in discussing northern English's alleged outlandishness, and in c.1440Osbern Bokenam wrote about Scots' influence on northern English in his Mappula Angliae.[5]
By the 14th century, Lowland Scots became the main language of Scotland's Lowlands (excluding Galloway, which still spoke Gaelic).[7] Despite this, Northumbrian began to lose its significance in England by the 16th century. Northumbrian dialectical terms, accents, and manners of speaking were considered incorrect and inelegant to those in power, who were seated in the south of England. As England began to centralise its power in London and the south of England, texts in the midland and southern dialects became the de facto standard. A great number of letters, poems and newspaper articles were written in Northumbrian and Cumbrian dialects throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; however, their use is declining in favour of Standard English.[10] The modern Northumbrian dialect is currently promoted by organisations such as the Northumbrian Language Society and Northumbrian Words Project.[13][14][15] Similarly, the closely related Cumbrian dialect is promoted by the Lakeland Dialect Society.[16][17]
Examples
The following witnesses to the language have added punctuation, diacritics for long vowels and palatalization, and italics representing expanded abbreviations and missing or illegible text. Note that palatalization of [k], [ɡ], [ɣ], [sk] to [tʃ], [dʒ], [j], [ʃ] was late and restricted in comparison to West Saxon, but partical palatalization could be represented in Ruthwell Cross[18].
Fore thēm neidfaerae ‖ naeniġ uuiurthit thoncsnottura, ‖ than him tharf sīe tō ymbhyċġġannae ‖ aer his hiniongae huaet his gāstae ‖ gōdaes aeththa yflaes aefter dēothdaeġe ‖ doemid uueorthae.[20]
The Leiden Riddle
Mec se uēta uong, ‖ uundrum frēoriġ, ob his innaðae ‖ aerest cændæ. Ni uaat iċ mec biuorthæ ‖ uullan flīusum, hērum ðerh hēhcraeft, ‖ hyġiðoncum mīn. Uundnae mē ni bīað ueflæ, ‖ ni iċ uarp hafæ, ni ðerih ðrēatun ġiðraec ‖ ðrēt mē hlimmith, ne mē hrūtendu ‖ hrīsil sċelfath, ni mec ōuana ‖ aam sċeal cnyssa. Uyrmas mec ni āuēfun ‖ uyrdi craeftum, ðā ði ġeolu gōdueb ‖ ġeatum fraetuath. Uil mec huethrae suaeðēh ‖ uīdæ ofaer eorðu hātan mith heliðum ‖ hyhtliċ ġiuǣde; ni anoeġu nō iċ mē aeriġfaerae ‖ eġsan brōgum, ðēh ði numen sīæ ‖ nīudlicae ob cocrum.[21]
Ruthwell Cross inscription
Translation of Ruthwell Cross inscription
Transcription notes: ġ = ᚷ; g = ᚸ; ħ = ᛇ; c = ᚳ; k = ᛣ/ᛤ; e͜a = ᛠ; ŋ = ᛝ. Many aspects of this transcription are subject to debate, due to the highly weathered condition of the original inscription.
Side 1:
Ġeredæ hinæ God almeħttiġ ‖ þā hē walde on galgu ġistiga, modiġ fore... ‖ men bug...
... ic riicnæ kyniŋc, he͜afunæs hlāfard ‖ hælda ic ni darstæ bismæradun uŋket men ba ætgadre ‖ ic wæs miþ blodi bistemid...
Side 2:
Krist wæs on rōdi, hweþræ þēr fūsæ ‖ fe͜arran kwōmu æþþilæ til ānum ‖ ic þæt al biheald. Sār ic wæs miþ sorgum ġidrœ̄fd ‖ hnag...
Miþ strēlum ġiwundad aleġdun hīæ hinæ limwœ̄riġnæ ‖ gistoddun him æt his līcæs heafdum, bihe͜aldun hīæ þēr...
↑ M. B. Parkes, ‘The Manuscript of the Leiden Riddle’, Anglo-Saxon England, 1 (1972), 207–17 (p. 208); DOI: 10.1017/S0263675100000168. Length-marks added to Parkes's transcription on the basis of John R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th rev. edn by Herbet D. Meritt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).
↑ Browne 1908:297 harvcolnb error: no target: CITEREFBrowne1908 (help).
Sweet, H., ed. (1885) The Oldest English Texts: glossaries, the Vespasian Psalter, and other works written before A.D. 900. London: for the Early English Text Society
Sweet, H., ed. (1946) Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader; 10th ed., revised by C. T. Onions. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ("Northumbrian texts"—pp.166–169)
Related Research Articles
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature.
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland.
Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is venerated as a saint, of whom there was a particular cult in the Middle Ages.
Northumbria was an early medieval Anglian kingdom in what is now Northern England and South Scotland
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Cædmon's Hymn is a short Old English poem attributed to Cædmon, a supposedly illiterate and unmusical cow-herder who was, according to the Northumbrian monk Bede, miraculously empowered to sing in honour of God the Creator. The poem is Cædmon's only known composition.
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