Kentish Old English
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Kentish was a southern dialect of
The dialect was spoken in what are now the modern-day Counties of Kent, Surrey, southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by the Germanic settlers, identified by Bede as Jutes.[1] Such a distinct difference in the Anglo-Saxon settlers of the entire Kingdom of Kent is viewed more sceptically by modern historians.[2]
Although by far the most important surviving Kentish manuscripts are the law codes of the Kentish kings, contained in
West Saxon: Ine, 20 | Kentish: Wihtræd, 23 |
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Gif feorcund mon oððe fremde butan wege geond wudu gonge [ond] ne hrieme ne horn blawe, for ðeof he bið to profianne, oððe to sleanne oððe to aliesanne.[5] | [23] Gif feorran[-]cumen man oþþe fræmde buton wege gange, [ond] he þonne nawðer ne hryme ne he horn ne blawe, for ðeof he bið to profianne, oþþe to sleanne oþþe to alysenne.[4] |
If a man who is come from afar or a stranger should go outside the track towards the woods and neither calls out or blows his horn, he is to be regarded as a thief, either to be killed or to be redeemed.[6] | If a man [who is] come from afar or a stranger should go off the track and he then neither calls out nor does he blow his horn, he is to be regarded as a thief, either to be killed or to be redeemed.[4] |
With many words at this point, there is no difference between Kentish and what became the dominant West-Saxon form of English. Other words indicate possible differences in pronunciation (or, at least, of transcribing), such as fremde/ fræmde or gonge/ gange. However, there is little doubt that, even with minor differences in syntax and vocabulary, the two forms were mutually intelligible, at least by this relatively late date in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of southern England.
The principal evidence for Kentish are the Old Kentish Glosses.[7] Henry Sweet included two Kentish charters and a Kentish Psalm (from the Vespasian Psalter) in his Anglo-Saxon Reader; a charter of Oswulf (805-10) and a charter of Abba (835).[8]
Further reading
- Ursula Kalbhen, Kentische Glossen und kentischer Dialekt im Altenglischen, mit einer kommentierten Edition der altenglischen Glossen in der Handschrift London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.vi, Münchener Universitätsschriften (Frankfurt/M.: Lang, 2003), ISBN 978-3-631-38392-6[containing a detailed description of the manuscript and its texts as well as an edition of the Kentish glosses, with commentary and a study of Kentish Old English].
References
- ^ Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, ii, 5
- ^ Simon Keynes, 'England 700-900' in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, II, 19; Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, 'Anglo-Saxon Kent, c. 425–725' in Peter Leach (ed.), Archaeology in Kent to 1500, Council of British Archaeology Report 48 (1982), 74
- ^ Lisi Oliver, The Beginnings of English Law (Toronto Medieval Texts and Translations, 14, Toronto, CO, 2002), 126
- ^ a b c Text from Oliver, Beginnings of English Law, 163, available from http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/texts/wi/
- ^ Text from F.l. Attenborough (ed. & transl.), The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, (Cambridge, 1922), 42
- ^ Text from Oliver, Beginnings of English Law, 179, available from http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/texts/wi/
- ISBN 978-3-631-38392-6.
- ^ Sweet, H., ed. (1946) Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader; 10th ed., revised by C. T. Onions. Oxford: Clarendon Press; pp. 181-84 & 190-95