Mercian dialect

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Old English
Dialects Kentish Mercian Northumbrian West Saxon
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Mercian was a dialect spoken in the

History

The Mercian dialect was spoken as far east as the border of

. This describes the situation before the unification of Mercia.

The

In later Anglo-Saxon England, the dialect would have remained in use in speech but hardly ever in written documents. Some time after the

area, producing such forms as are (from Mercian arun).

Mercian was used by the writer and

Alphabet

Modern Old English orthography adds additional diacritics above certain letters to show specific phonological features. These distinctions largely were not shown in Old English. Such diacritics include macrons for vowel length and overdots for palatalization. Sound approximations from various European languages have been given, but it is best to learn by the International Phonetic Alphabet transcriptions for more precise pronunciation.

• a for /ɑ/; General American English cot
• ā for /ɑː/; Norwegian ta
• b for /b/; English boy
• c for /k/; English cold
• ċ for /tʃ/; English cheese
• d for /d/; English dead
• e for /e/; Spanish me
• ē for /eː/; German See
• f for /f/; English fun; realised as [v] between voiced sounds (English thrive)
• g for /g/; realised as [ɣ] (Dutch getrouw)
• ġ for /j/; English yes
• ġġ or ċġ for /dʒ/; English wedge
• h for /h/; realised as [h] (English hunt) syllable-initially, as [x] after back vowels (German Nacht), and as [ç] after front vowels (German Sicht); h also represented devoicing before certain voiced consonants
• i for /i/; Spanish mí
• ī for /iː/; English three
• k for /k/; English kind; k was used rarely
• l for /l/; English light
• m for /m/; English mom
• n for /n/; English sin; realized as [ŋ] before c or g (English think)
• o for /o/; Spanish yo
• ō for /oː/; German froh
• p for /p/; English pip
• r for /r/; likely [r] (a "rolled" r), which is present in Scottish English
• s for /s/; English sit; voiced to [z] when between voiced sounds (English wise)
• sċ for /ʃ/; English ship
• t for /t/; English tart
• u for /u/; Spanish tú
• ū for /u/; English through
• x for /ks/; English fox
• y for /y/; equivalent to /i/ with rounded lips; Finnish mykkä
• ȳ for /yː/; equivalent to /iː/ with rounded lips; German früh
• ƿ for /w/; often replaced by modern w; English win
• ð for /θ/, which realised as [θ] (English think) or [ð] (English feather) depending upon position; interchangeable with þ
• þ for /θ/, which realised as [θ] (English think) or [ð] (English feather) depending upon position; interchangeable with ð
• æ for /æ/; English bat
• ǣ for /æː/; Finnish ääni
• œ for /ø/; Hungarian jövő
• œ̄ for /øː/; German schön or Hungarian jövő

Grammar

Mercian grammar has the same structure as other

.

Nouns

Nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and four cases:

forms. They can also be strong or weak.

Examples

• Strong masculine noun stān (stone)
  • nominative (singular, plural): stān, stānes
  • accusative: stān, stānes
  • dative: stāne, stānen
  • genitive: stānes, stāne
• Weak masculine noun name (name)
  • nominative: name, namen
  • accusative: namen/name, namen
  • dative: namen/name, namen
  • genitive: namen/name. namene/namen

Pronouns

Personal pronouns (I/me, you, he, she, we, you (pl.) and they) come in all the above cases and come in three numbers: singular, dual ('you/we two'), plural.

vary in the same way described below for the indefinite article, based on 'ðes' only for this. That and Those are the same as the definite article.

Relative pronouns (who, which, that) are usually 'ðe' and 'ðet.'

Articles

The

was often omitted in Mercian.

Adjectives

Adjectives are always declined, even with some verbs (which means they can double up as

(depending on the strength of the noun), these split again into all four cases, both singular and plural.

(e.g. bigger) always add 're.' Example: Æðelen (noble), æðelenre (nobler).

Verbs

Verbs can be conjugated from the

. Like most inflected languages, Mercian has a few irregular verbs (such as 'to be' bēon and 'have' habben). For basic understanding, the four principal parts must be known for each strong verb: weak verbs are easier and more numerous, they all form the past participle with -ed.

Vocabulary

Mercian vocabulary is largely inherited from

.

Some morphological differences between the Mercian and West Saxon include:

• Change of West Saxon final -c to -h, presumably alluding to its ultimate loss in Modern English.

Ic (I) ↔ Ih

• The preservation of -k in Proto-Germanic in some pronouns, like mec (me).

See also

• AB language (a written Middle English dialect)
• Mercia (disambiguation)
• Wiktionary's coverage of Mercian terms

References

• Biddulph, Joseph (2004) The Mercian Language: Introduction to the English Midlands Dialect of Late Anglo-Saxon and Early Middle English. 56 p. Pontypridd: Joseph Biddulph
  ISBN 1-897999-39-9
  (Text in modern English, with examples in Old and Middle English)

Further reading

• Mitchell, Bruce, and Robinson, Fred C. (2001) A Guide to Old English (6th edition). Oxford: Blackwell
  ISBN 0-631-22636-2
• Sweet, H., ed. (1885) The Oldest English Texts: glossaries, the Vespasian Psalter, and other works written before AD 900. London: for the Early English Text Society
  • The
    Cottonian Library (now British Library). The gloss was prepared around 850. This gloss is in the Mercian
    dialect.